Kitobni o'qish: «The Star-Gazers»

Volume One – Chapter One.
Lodestars

Ben Hayle, keeper, stepped out of his rose-covered cottage in Thoreby Wood; big, black-whiskered, dark-eyed and handsome, with the sun-tanned look of a sturdy Englishman, his brown velveteen coat and vest and tawny leggings setting off his stalwart form.

As he cleared the porch, he half-turned and set down his carefully kept double-barrelled gun against the rough trellis-work; as, at the sound of his foot, there arose from a long, moss-covered, barn-like building, a tremendous barking and yelping.

“Now then: that’ll do!” he shouted, as he walked towards the great double door, which was dotted with the mortal remains of what he termed “varmin” – to wit, the nailed-up bodies of stoats, weasels, hawks, owls, magpies and jays, all set down as being the deadly enemies of the game he reared and preserved for Mrs Rolph at The Warren. But even these were not the most deadly enemies of the pheasants and partridges, Thoreby Wood being haunted by sundry ne’er-do-weels who levied toll there, in spite of all Ben Hayle’s efforts and the stern repression of the County Bench.

“May as well stick you up too,” said Ben, as he took a glossy-skinned polecat from where he had thrown it that morning, after taking it from a trap.

He opened one of the doors, and two Gordon setters and a big black retriever bounded out, to leap up, dance around him, and make efforts, in dog-like fashion, to show their delight and anxiety to be at liberty once more.

“Down, Bess! Down, Juno! Steady, Sandy! Quiet! Good dogs, then,” he cried, as he entered the barn, took a hammer from where it hung, and a nail from a rough shelf, and with the dogs looking on after sniffing at the polecat, as if they took human interest in the proceeding, he nailed the unfortunate, ill-odoured little beast side by side with the last gibbeted offender, a fine old chinchilla-coated grey rat.

“’Most a pity one can’t serve Master Caleb Kent the same. Dunno, though,” he added with a chuckle. “Time was – that was years ago, though, and nobody can’t say I’ve done badly since. But I did hope we’d seen the last of Master Caleb.”

Ben Hayle took off his black felt hat, and gave his dark, grizzled hair a scratch, and his face puckered up as he put away the hammer, to stand thinking.

“No, hang him, he wouldn’t dare!”

Ben walked back to the porch to take up his gun, and a look of pride came to brighten his face, as just then a figure appeared in the porch in the shape of Judith Hayle, a tall, dark-eyed girl of twenty, strikingly like her father, and, as she stood framed in the entrance, she well warranted the keeper’s look of pride.

“Are you going far?”

“’Bout the usual round, my dear. Why, Judy, the place don’t seem to be the same with you back home. But it is dull for you, eh?”

“Dull, father? No,” said the girl laughing.

“Oh, I dunno. After your fine ways up at The Warren with Miss Marjorie and the missus, it must seem a big drop down to be here again.”

“Don’t, father. You know I was never so happy anywhere as here.”

“But you are grown such a lady now; I’m ’most afraid of you.”

“No you are not. I sometimes wish that Mrs Rolph had never had me at the house.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes you talk to me like that.”

“Well, then, I won’t say another word. There, I must be off, but – ”

He hesitated as if in doubt.

“Yes, father.”

“Well, I was only going to say, I see young Caleb has come back to the village, and knowing how he once – ”

“Come back, father!” cried Judith, with a look of alarm.

“Yes, I thought I’d tell you; but I don’t think he’ll come nigh here again.”

“Oh, no, father, I hope not,” said the girl, looking thoughtfully towards the wood, with her brows knitting.

“He’d better not,” said the keeper, picking up and tapping the butt of his gun. “Might get peppered with number six. Good-bye, my dear.”

He kissed her, walked to the edge of the dense fir wood, gave a look back at the figure by the porch, and then plunged in among the bushes and disappeared, closely followed by the eager dogs, while Judith stood frowning at the place where he had disappeared.

“I wish father wouldn’t be so close,” thought the girl. “He must know why I’m sent back home. It wasn’t my fault; I never tried; but he was always after me. Oh, how spiteful Miss Madge did look.”

She went into the cottage to stand by the well-polished grate, her hand resting upon the mantelpiece, whose ornaments were various fittings and articles belonging to the gamekeeper’s craft, above which, resting in well-made iron racks, were a couple of carefully cared-for guns; one an old flint-lock fowling-piece, the other a strong single-barrel, used for heavier work, and in which the keeper took special pride.

“Caleb,” she said with a shudder, “come back! Well, I was so young then.”

As Ben Hayle went thoughtfully along the path, trying to fit into their places certain matters which troubled him, the man of whom they had both been thinking was near at hand, so that, as the gamekeeper was saying to himself, – “Yes: it’s because young squire come home to stay that the missus has sent her back,” – Caleb Kent stood before him in the path, the dogs giving the first notice of his presence by dashing forward, uttering low growls, and slipping round the slight, dark, good-looking, gipsy-like fellow coming in the opposite direction.

“Hallo, you, sir!” said the keeper sharply.

“And hallo, you, sir!” retorted the young man, showing his white teeth as he thrust his hands far down in his cord breeches pockets, and, as he stopped, passing one cord legging over the other.

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking at you, Ben Hayle. Path’s free for me as it is for you. No, I aren’t got a gun in two pieces in my pockets. You needn’t look. You know how that’s done.”

“If I’d been you, I’d ha’ stopped away altogether,” said the keeper, “and not come back here, where nobody wants you.”

“Pity you weren’t me. Six months’ hard would have done you good once more.”

“When I get six months’ imprisonment, it won’t be for night poaching, but for putting a charge of shot in you, you lunging hound. And don’t you let that tongue of yours wag so fast, young man. I’m not ashamed of it. Everyone knows I did a bit of poaching when I was a young fool, and did my bit in quod for that trouble with the keepers. But they know too that, when I came out, and the captain’s father come to me and said, ‘Drop it, my lad, and be an honest man,’ I said I would, and served him faithful; so shut your mouth before I do it with the stock of my gun.”

“All right, mate, don’t be waxey. Look here: – s’pose I turn honest too.”

“You!” said the keeper, scornfully.

“Yes, me; and marry Judy.”

“That’ll do,” cried the keeper sharply.

“No it won’t, we’re old sweethearts – Judy and me.”

“That’ll do, I say. Now, cut.”

“When I like,” said the man, with a sneer. “Better let me marry her; the captain won’t.”

The keeper caught him by the throat.

“Will you keep that cursed tongue still!”

“No, I won’t,” cried the young man fiercely, and with a savage look in his eyes. “I know, even if I have been away. I know all about it. But I’m in that little flutter, Ben Hayle.”

“Curse you! hold your tongue, will you,” roared the keeper; and the dogs began to bark fiercely as he forced the young poacher back against a tree, but only to release him, as a quick sharp voice, called to the dogs, which dashed up to the new-comer, leaping to be caressed.

“Hallo! what’s up? You here again?”

Captain Robert Rolph, of The Warren, and of Her Majesty’s 20th Dragoon Guards, a well-set-up, athletic-looking fellow, scowled at the poacher, and the colour came a little into his cheeks.

“Oh yes, I’m back again, master.”

“Then take my advice, sir; go away again to somewhere at a distance.”

The young man gave him a sidelong glance, and laughed unpleasantly.

“Look here, Caleb Kent: you’re a smart-looking fellow. Go up to Trafalgar Square. You’ll find one of our sergeants there. Take the shilling, and they’ll make a man of you. You’ll be in my regiment, and I’ll stand your friend.”

“Thankye for nothing, captain. ’List so as to be out of your way, eh? Not such a fool.”

“Oh, very well then, only look out, sir. I’ll see that Sir John Day doesn’t let you off so easily next time you’re in trouble.”

“Ketch me first,” said the young man; and giving the pair an ugly, unpleasant look, he walked away.

“Not me,” he muttered. “I haven’t done yet; wait a bit.”

“No good, sir,” said the keeper, looking after the young poacher till he was out of sight. “Bad blood, sir; bad blood.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Morning, Hayle. Er – Miss Hayle quite well?”

“Yes sir, thank you kindly,” said the keeper; and then, as the captain walked away, he trudged on through the woods, talking to himself.

“Miss Hayle,” he said, and he turned a bit red in the face. “Well, she is good enow for him or any man; but no, no, that would never do. Don’t be a fool, Ben, my lad: you don’t want trouble to come. Trouble,” he muttered, as he half cocked his gun, “why, I’d – bah!” he ejaculated, cooling down; “what’s the good o’ thinking things like that? Better pepper young Caleb. Damn him! he set me thinking it. Captain’s right enough. I like a man who’s fond of a bit of sport.”

As it happened, Captain Rolph was thinking, in a somewhat similar vein, of poachers and dark nights, and opportunities for using a gun upon unpleasant people. But these thoughts were pervaded, too, with bright eyes and cheeks, and he said to himself, —

“He’d better; awkward for him if he does.”

Volume One – Chapter Two.
Mars on the Horizon

In the drawing-room at The Warren, Mrs Rolph, a handsome, dignified lady of five-and-forty, was sitting back, with her brows knit, looking frowningly at a young and pretty girl of nineteen, whose eyes were puzzling, for in one light they seemed beautiful, in another shifting. She was a Rosetti-ish style of girl, with too much neck, a tangle of dark red hair, and lips of that peculiar pout seen in the above artist’s pictures, in conjunction with heavily-lidded eyes, and suggesting at one moment infantile retraction from a feeding-bottle, at another parting from the last kiss. There was a want of frankness in her countenance that would have struck a stranger at once, till she spoke, when the soft, winning coo of her voice proved an advocate which made the disingenuous looks and words fade into insignificance.

Her voice sounded very sweet and low now, as she said softly, —

“Are you not judging dear Robert too hardly, aunt?”

“No, Madge, no. It is as plain as can be; he thinks of nothing else when he comes home – he, a man to whom any alliance is open, to be taken in like that by a keeper’s – an ex-poacher’s daughter.”

“Judith is very ladylike and sweet,” said Marjorie softly, as if to herself.

“Madge, do you want to make me angry?” cried Mrs Rolph, indignantly. “Shame upon you! And it is partly your fault. You have been so cold and distant with him, when a few gentle words would have brought him to your side.”

“I am sure you would not have liked me to be different towards him. You would not have had me throw myself at his feet.”

The words were as gentle-sounding as could be, but all the same there was a suggestion of strength behind, if the speaker cared to exert it.

“No, no, it is not your fault, my dear,” cried Mrs Rolph, angrily; “it is mine, I can see it all now. It was a foolish mistake having her here. Educating a girl like that is a great error, and I see it now that it is too late. Oh, Madge, dear, if I could see him happily wedded to you, how different things might be. But I declare that nothing shall ever induce me to consent. If he will go on in utter rebellion to his mother, he must do so.”

“But is it too late, aunt?”

“Unless you rouse yourself up to the position, act like a woman of the world, and drag him from this wretched girl. Oh, it is too disgraceful. If I had only thought to send her away before his regiment was quartered so near.”

“Yes,” said Marjorie, musingly, “but it is too late now.”

“Then you will not try?”

“I did not say so. Here he is.”

There was a step in the hall, the sound of a stick being thrust carelessly into a stand, and, directly after, Rolph tramped into the room.

“Ah, Madge,” he said, in a careless, easy way; and, ignoring the smile of welcome with which she greeted him, he walked across to his mother’s chair.

“Well,” he said, “how is the head?” and he stooped down and kissed her brow.

“Not at all well, my dear,” she said affectionately. “I think I will go up to my room.”

“Have a drive, dear; I’ll order the tandem out.”

“No, no, my dear, I shall be better soon.”

She rose, kissed him, and left the room.

“Dodge to leave Madge and me together,” muttered the young man. “All right. Bring things to a climax.”

“How very little we see of you, Robert,” said Madge softly. “So much training?”

“Health. Shows how wise I have grown. I’m like pepper; a little of me is very nice – too much an abomination.”

Marjorie sighed.

“Hallo! Been reading poetry?”

“No,” said the girl, in a low, pained voice. “I was thinking.”

“Thinking, eh? What about?”

“Of how changed you are from the nice frank boy who used to be so loving and tender.”

“Ah, I was rather a milksop, Madge; wasn’t I?”

“I never thought so; and it pains me to hear you speak so harshly of yourself. What has made you alter so?”

“Ask Dame Nature. I was a boy; now I am a man.”

Marjorie sighed, and gave him a long, sad look.

“Well,” he said, “what is the matter?”

She looked at him again, long and wistfully.

“As if you did not know,” she said.

“Know? How should I know?”

“Then I’ll tell you,” she cried quickly.

“No, no; confide in some lady friend.”

“Robert,” she said, in a low, husky voice, and her whole manner changed, her eyes flashed and the lines about her lips grew hard. “What have I done that you should treat me like this?”

“Done? Nothing.”

“Then why have you turned so cold and hard to me?”

“I am the same to you to-day that I have always been.”

“It is not true,” she whispered, with her voice full of intensity of feeling, “you left no stone unturned to make me believe you cared for me.”

“Nonsense! Why – ”

“Silence! You shall hear me now,” she continued, with her excitement growing. “I resisted all this till you almost forced me to care for you. You even make me now confess it in this shameless way, and, when you feel that you are the master, you play with me – trifle with my best feelings.”

“Gammon! Madge, what is the matter with you? I never dreamed of such a thing.”

“What!”

“Are you going mad?”

“Yes,” she cried passionately, “driven so by you. It is shameful. I could not have believed the man lived who would have treated a woman so basely. But I am not blind. There is a reason for it all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think me a child? I am to be won and then tossed aside for the new love – fancy, the poacher’s daughter, and when – ”

“Don’t be a fool, Madge. You are saying words now that you will repent.”

“I’ll say them,” she cried, half wild with jealous rage, and her words sounding the more intense from their being uttered in a low, harsh whisper, “if I die for it. The gamekeeper’s daughter, the girl taken in here by your mother out of charity.”

“Madge!”

“Who is to be the next favourite, when you are weary of your last conquest – one of the kitchen wenches?”

“Perhaps,” he said coolly.

“Rob! Have you no heart that you treat me as you do?”

“I never thought, never said a word to make you think I meant – er – marriage.”

“Think you meant marriage?” she whispered. “I did love you as dearly as I hate you now for your heartless cruelty to me. But you shall repent it – repent it bitterly.”

“Look here,” he said roughly; “for years past we have lived in this house like brother and sister, and I won’t have you speak like this. Does my mother know?”

“Ask her.”

“Bah!”

“You dare not ask her what she thinks or whether she approves of your choice. Captain Rolph in love with the gamekeeper’s daughter! Is she to be taken to the county ball, and introduced to society? And is she to wear the family diamonds? Judith – Judy – the miserable, low-bred – ”

“Here, hold hard!”

Marjorie Emlin stopped short, startled into silence by the furious look and tone she had evoked. The young man had listened, and from time to time had made deprecating movements to try and turn away the furious woman’s wrath till she had made this last attack, when he glared with a rage so overpowering that she shrank from him.

“You have done well,” he said. “My mother looks upon you as a daughter. I have always been to you as a brother.”

“It is not true,” she said, as she stood quivering with fear and rage before him, trying to meet his eye. Then, with a low cry, full of vindictive passion, she struck at him, and ran out of the room.

“Curse the girl!” growled Rolph. “I wish women wouldn’t be such fools. A kiss and a few warm words, and then, hang ’em! you’re expected to marry ’em. Man can’t marry every pretty girl he kisses. They want a missionary among ’em to tell ’em this isn’t Turkey. If there’s much more of it, I’m off back to Aldershot. No, I’m not,” he added, with a half laugh, “not yet – Hallo, mother! You?”

“Yes, my boy. I saw Madge go out just now, looking wild and excited. Rob, dear, you have been speaking to her?”

“Well, I suppose so,” he said bitterly.

“And you have told her you love her? – asked her to be your wife?”

“Good heavens, mother! are you gone mad too? – Madge – I never dreamed of such a thing.”

“Why?” said Mrs Rolph, with a strange coldness.

“Because – because – ”

“Yes; because you have taken a fancy to another,” said Mrs Rolph sternly. “Robert, my son, it is not I who am mad, but you. Have you thought well over all this?”

“Don’t ask questions,” he said sulkily.

“I am your mother, sir, and I assert my right to question you on such a matter as this, as your poor father would have questioned you. But there is no need. I have done wrong, and yet I cannot blame myself, for how could I, his mother, know that my son would act otherwise than as a gentleman.”

“Well, I never do.”

“It is false. When Mary Hayle died, I bade her go in peace, for I would try to be a mother to the orphaned girl. Heaven knows, I tried to be. I brought her here, and made her the humble companion of your cousin Madge. She shared her lessons; she was taught everything, that she might be able to earn her own livelihood as a governess.”

“Well, I know all that.”

“To be treated with ingratitude. My foolish son, when he comes home, must allow himself to be enmeshed by a cunning and deceitful woman.”

“What bosh, mother!”

“But it is true. You do not dare to tell me you do not love Judith Hayle?”

“There is no dare in question. I like the girl.”

“Unhappy boy! and she has led you on.”

Captain Rolph whistled.

“Any telegram come for me? I sent a man to Brackley.”

“Telegram!”

“Yes. I want to know about the footrace at Lilley Bridge.”

Mrs Rolph gave her foot an impatient stamp.

“Listen to me, sir. This is no time for thinking about low sports.”

“Hallo? Low?”

“Yes, sir; low. I have never interfered when I saw you taking so much interest in these pursuits. My son, I said to our friends, is an officer and a gentleman, and if he likes to encourage athleticism in the country by his presence at these meetings, he has a right to do so; but I have not liked it, though I have been silent. You know I have never interfered about your relaxations.”

“No; you’ve been a splendid mater,” he said laughingly.

“And I have been proud of my manly son; but when I see him stooping to folly – ”

“Misapplied quotation, mater – when lovely woman stoops to folly.”

“Be serious, sir. I will not have you degrade yourself in the eyes of the neighbourhood by such conduct, for it means disgrace. What would the Days say – Sir John and Glynne? If it had been she, I would not have cared.”

“Let the Days be,” he said gruffly.

“I will,” said Mrs Rolph; “but listen, Rob, dear; think of poor Madge.”

“Hang poor Madge! Look here, once for all, mother; I’m not a witch in Macbeth. I don’t want three ounces of a red-haired wench – nor seven stone neither.”

“Rob! Shame!”

“I’m not going to have Madge rammed down my throat. If I’m to marry, she’s not in the running.”

“What? when you know my wishes?”

“Man marries to satisfy his own wishes, not his mother’s. I have other ideas.”

“Then what are they, sir?” said Mrs Rolph scornfully.

“That’s my business,” he said, taking out his cigar-case.

“Then, am I to understand that you intend to form an alliance with the family of our keeper?” said Mrs Rolph sarcastically.

“Bah!” roared her son fiercely; and he strode out of the room and banged the door.

“Gone!” cried Mrs Rolph, wringing her hands and making her rings crackle one against the other. “I was mad to have the wretched girl here. What fools we women are.”

Her son was saying precisely the same as he marched away.

“Does she think me mad?” he growled. “Marry freckle-faced Madge! – form an alliance with Ben Hayle’s Judy! Not quite such a fool. I’ll go and do it, and show the old girl a trick worth two of that. She’s as clean-limbed a girl as ever stepped, and there’s a look of breed in her that I like. Must marry, I suppose. Ck! For the sake of the estate, join the two then – I will – at once. It will stop their mouths at home, and make an end of the Madge business. She’ll be all right, and begin kissing and hugging her and calling her dearest in a week. That’s the way to clear that hedge, so here goes.”

He stopped, took a short run and cleared the hedge at the side of the lane in reality to begin with, before striking off through one of the adjacent fir woods, so as to reach the sandy lanes and wild common on the way to Brackley.