Part 10 (2/2)
She admitted the truth with the first smile he had seen since she entered the cottage. His quick bustling manner, the deference he always paid to her, despite his odd phrases, won upon her good humor and led her to open her heart to him.
”My father is going mad,” she said quietly--his startled ”eh, what” not preventing her; ”we are making our house a home for the dest.i.tute, and the first arrived just three weeks ago. Imagine a flaxen-haired image of righteousness, who draws my portrait on the covers of books and puts feathers in my hat. He is in love with me, w.i.l.l.y, and he is to be my big brother. Yesterday I took him to Ra.n.a.legh and heard a discourse upon the beauties of nature and the wonders of the air and the sky. Oh, my dear man--what a purgatory and what an event. We are going to sell our jewels presently and to live in Whitechapel. My father, I must tell you, seems afraid of this beautiful apparition and implores him every day not to go away. I know that he stops because he is inclined to make love to me.
”Whew--so it's only 'inclined' at present?”
”Absolutely as you say. There appear to be two of us. I have been expecting a pa.s.sionate declaration--but the recollections of a feathered beauty who once lived in a fairy palace, in a wonderland where you dine upon red herrings--she is my hated rival. I am more beautiful, observe--that is conceded, but he cannot understand me. The feathered hat has become my salvation. My great big brother can't get over it--and oh, the simplicity of the child, the youthful verdant confidence, my w.i.l.l.y. Don't you see that the young man thinks I am an angel and is wondering all the time where the wings have gone to.”
”Ha, ha--he'd better ask Paquin. Are you serious, Anna?”
”As serious as the Lord High Executioner himself. My father has adopted a youth--and I have a big brother. He has consented to dwell in our house and to spend our savings because he believes that by so doing he is in some way helping me. I don't in the least want his help, but my father is determined that I shall have it. I am not to bestow my young affections upon him--nor, upon the other hand, am I to offend him. Admit that the situation is delightful. Pity a poor maiden in her distress.”
w.i.l.l.y Forrest did not like the sound of it at all.
”The old chap must have gone dotty,” he remarked presently; ”they're often taken this way when they get to a certain age. You'll have to sit tight and see about it, Anna. He isn't too free with the ready as it is--and if you've a boy hanging about, G.o.d help you. Why don't you be rude to him? You know the way as well as most--eh, what?”
”I'm positively afraid to. Do you know, my dear man, that if this Perfect Angel left us, strange things would happen. My father says so, and I believe he speaks the truth. There is a mystery--and I hate mysteries.”
”Get hold of the feathered lady and hear what she has to say.”
”Impossible but brilliant. She has gone to Germany.”
”Oh, d.a.m.n--then he'll be making love to you. I say, Anna, there's not going to be any billing and cooing or anything of that sort. I'm not very exacting, but the way you look at men is just prussic acid to me.
If this kid should begin--”
She laughed drolly.
”He is my great big brother,” she said--and then jumping up--”let us go and see the horses. You'll be talking nonsense if we don't. And, w.i.l.l.y, I forbid you to talk nonsense.”
She turned and faced him in mock anger, and he, responding instantly, caught her in his arms and kissed her ardently.
”What a pair of cherubs,” he exclaimed, ”what a nest of cooing doves--I say, Anna, I must kill that kid--or shall it be the fatted calf?
There'll be murder done somewhere if he stops at Hampstead.”
”If it were done, then when it were done--O let me go, w.i.l.l.y, your arms are crus.h.i.+ng me.”
He released her instantly and, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a cap, set out with her to the downs where the horses were being stripped for the gallop. The morning of early summer was delightfully fragrant--a cool breeze came up from the sea and every breath invigorated. Old John Farrier, mounted on a st.u.r.dy cob, met them at the foot of a great gra.s.sy slope and complained that it was over late in the day for horses to gallop, but, as he added, ”they'll have to do it at Ascot and they may as well do it here.” A silent man, old John had once accompanied w.i.l.l.y Forrest to a dinner at the Carlton which Anna gave to a little sporting circle. Then he uttered but one remark, seeming to think some observation necessary, and it fell from his lips in the pause of a social discussion. ”I always eat sparrer-gra.s.s with my fingers,” he had said, and wondered at the general hilarity.
Old John was unusually silent upon this morning of the trial, and when he named the weights at which the horses would gallop, his voice sank to a sepulchral whisper. ”The old 'oss is giving six pounds,” he said, ”he should be beat a length. If it's more, go cautious, miss, and save your money for another day. He hasn't been looking all I should like of him for a long time--that's plain truth; and when a horse isn't looking all I should like of him, 'go easy' say I and keep your money under the bed.”
Anna laughed at the kindly advice, and leaving the car she walked to the summit of the hill and there watched the horses--but three pretty specks they appeared--far down in the hollow. The exhilaration of the great open s.p.a.ces, the wide unbroken grandeur of the downs, the sweetness of the air, the freshness of the day, brought blood to her pallid cheeks and a sparkle of life to her eyes. How free it all was, how unrestrained, how suggestive of liberty and of a boundless kingdom! And then upon it all the excitements of the gallop, the thunder of hoofs upon the soft turf, the bent figures of the jockeys, the raking strides of the beautiful horses--Anna no longer wondered why sport could so fascinate its devotees. She felt at such a moment that she would have gladly put her whole fortune upon Whirlwind.
”He wins--he wins--he wins,” she cried as the three drew near, and w.i.l.l.y Forrest, watching her with cunning eyes, said that the trap was closed indeed and the key in his possession. Whirlwind, a magnificent chestnut four-year-old, came striding up the hill as though the last furlong of the mile and a half he had galloped were his chief delight. He was a winner by a short head as they pa.s.sed the post, and old John Farrier could not hide his satisfaction.
”He's the best plucked 'un in England to-day, lady, and you may put your wardrobe on him after that. Be quick about it though, for there'll be no odds to speak of when the touts have written to-day's work in the newspapers. Go and telegraph your commissions now. There isn't a minute to lose.”
w.i.l.l.y Forrest seconded the proposal eagerly.
”I should back him for five thou,” he said as they left the course together, ”what's the good of half measures? You might as well play dominoes in a coffee shop. And I can always break the news to your father if you lose.”
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