LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

sir,’ said Mrs Hall simply. ‘I think he blamed God for taking away what he loved, instead of trusting Him; and no good comes of that. The people here got to hate him – he used to spoil the young people, sir – you know what I mean – and they were afraid of seeing him about their houses. I remember, sir, as if it were yesterday, seeing him in the lane to St Sibby. He was marching along, very upright, with his white hair – it went white early – and he passed old Mr Miles, the churchwarden, who had been a wild young man too, but he found religion with the Wesleyans, and after that was very hard on everyone.

      ‘It was the first time they had met since Mr Miles had become serious; and Mr Heale stopped in his pleasant way, and held out his hand to Mr Miles; who put his hands behind him and said something – I was close to them – which I could not quite catch, but it was about fellowship with the works of darkness; and then Mr Miles turned and went on his way; and Mr Heale stood looking after him with a curious smile on his face – and I have pitied him ever since. Then he turned and saw me; he always took notice of me – I was a girl then; and he said to me, “There, Mary, you see that. I am not good enough, it seems, for Mr Miles. Well, I don’t blame him; but remember, child, that the religion which makes a man turn his back on an old friend is not a good religion”; but I could see he was distressed, though he spoke quietly – and as I went on he gave a sigh which somehow stays in my mind. Perhaps sir, you would like to look at his picture; he was painted at the same time as Mrs Heale in the first year of their marriage.’

      I said I should like to see it, and we turned to the house. She led me to a little room that seemed like a study. There was a big bookcase full of books, mostly of a scientific kind; and there was a large kneehole table much dotted with inkspots. ‘It was here,’ she said, ‘he used to work, hour after hour.’ On the wall hung a pair of pictures – one, that of a young woman, hardly more than a girl, with a delightful expression, both beautiful and good. She was dressed in some white material, and there was a glimpse of sunlit fields beyond.

      Then I turned to the portrait of Mr Heale. It represented a young man in a claret-coloured coat, very slim and upright. It showed a face of great power, a big forehead, clear-cut features, and a determined chin, with extraordinarily bright large eyes; evidently the portrait of a man of great physical and mental force, who would do whatever he took in his hand with all his might. It was very finely painted, with a dark background of woods against a stormy sky.

      I was immensely struck by the picture; and not less by the fact that there was an extraordinary though indefinable likeness to Mrs Hall herself. I felt somehow that she perceived that I had noticed this, for she made as though to leave the room. I could not help the inference that I was compelled to draw. I lingered for a moment looking at the portrait, which was so lifelike as to give an almost painful sense of the presence of a third person in the room. But Mrs Hall went out, and I understood that I was meant to follow her.

      She led the way into their own sitting-room, and then with some agitation she turned to me. ‘I understand that you are an old friend of Mr Netherby’s, sir,’ she said.

      ‘Yes,’ I said; ‘he is my greatest friend.’

      ‘Could you persuade him, sir, to leave this place?’ she went on. ‘You will think it a strange thing to say – and I am glad enough to have a lodger, and I like Mr Netherby – but do you think it is a good thing for a young gentleman to live so much alone?’

      I saw that nothing was to be gained by reticence, so I said, ‘Now, Mrs Hall, I think we had better speak plainly. I am, I confess, anxious about Mr Netherby. I don’t mean that he is not well, for I have never seen him look better; but I think that there is something going on which I don’t wholly understand.’

      She looked at me suddenly with a quick look, and then, as if deciding that I was to be trusted, she said in a low voice, ‘Yes, sir, that is it; this house is not like the other houses. Mr Heale – how shall I say it? – was a very determined gentleman, and he used to say that he would never leave the house – and – you will think it very strange that I should speak thus to a stranger – I don’t think he has left it.’

      We stood for a moment silent, and I knew that she had spoken the truth. While we thus stood, I can only say what I felt – I became aware that we were not alone; the sun was bright on the woods outside, the clock ticked peacefully in a corner, but there was something unseen all about us which lay very heavily on my mind. Mrs Hall put out her hands in a deprecating way, and then said in a low and hurried voice, ‘He would do no harm to me, sir – we are too near for that’ – she looked up at me, and I nodded; ‘but I can’t help it, can I, if he is different with other people? Now, Mr Hall is not like that, sir – he is a plain good man, and would think what I am saying no better than madness; but as sure as there is a God in Heaven, Mr Heale is here – and though he is too fine a gentleman to take advantage of my talk, yet he liked to command other people, and went his own way too much.’

      While she spoke, the sense of oppression which I had felt a moment before drew off all of a sudden; and it seemed again as though we were alone.

      ‘Mrs Hall,’ I said, ‘you are a good woman; these things are very dark to me, and though I have heard of such things in stories, I never expected to meet them in the world. But I will try what I can do to get my friend away, though he is a wilful fellow, and I think he will go his own way too.’ While I spoke I heard Basil’s voice outside calling me, and I took Mrs Hall’s hand in my own. She pressed it, and gave me a very kind, sad look. And so I went out.

      We lunched together, Basil and I, off simple fare; he pointed with an air of satisfaction to the score which he had brought into the room, written out with wonderful precision. ‘Just finished,’ he said, ‘and you shall hear it later on; but now we will go and look round the place. Was there ever such luck as to get a harbourage like this? I have been here two months and feel like staying for ever. The place is in Chancery. Old Heale of Treheale, the last of the stock – a rare old blackguard – died here. They tried to let the house, and failed, and put Farmer Hall in at last. The whole place belongs to a girl ten years old. It is a fine house – we will look at that tomorrow; but today we will walk round outside. By the way, how long can you stay?’

      ‘I must get back on Friday at latest,’ I said. ‘I have a choir practice and a lesson on Saturday.’

      Basil looked at me with a good-natured smile. ‘A pretty poor business, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I would rather pick oakum myself. Here I live in a fine house, for next to nothing, and write, write, write – there’s a life for a man.’

      ‘Don’t you find it lonely?’ said I.

      ‘Lonely?’ said Basil, laughing loud. ‘Not a bit of it. What do I want with a pack of twaddlers all about me? I tread a path among the stars – and I have the best of company, too.’ He stopped and broke off suddenly.

      ‘I should have thought Mrs Hall very enlivening company,’ I said. ‘By the way, what an odd-looking woman! She seems as if she were frightened.’

      At that innocent remark Basil looked at me suddenly with the same expression of indefinable anger that I had seen in his face at our first meeting; but he said nothing for a moment. Then he resumed, ‘No, I want no company but myself and my thoughts. I tell you, Ward, if you had done as I have done, opened a door into the very treasure-house of music, and had only just to step in and carry away as much as one can manage at a time, you wouldn’t want company.’

      I could make no reply to this strange talk; and he presently took me out. I was astonished at the beauty of the place. The ground fell sharply at the back, and there was a terrace with a view over a little valley, with pasture-fields at the bottom, crowned with low woods – beyond, a wide prospect over uplands, which lost themselves in the haze. The day was still and clear; and we could hear the running of the stream below, the cooing of doves and the tinkling of a sheepbell. To the left of the house lay large stables and barns, which were in the possession of the farmer.

      We wandered up and down by paths and lanes, sometimes through the yellowing woods, sometimes on open ground, the most perfect views bursting upon us on every side, everything lying in a rich still

Скачать книгу