Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean (читать книги бесплатно полностью без регистрации сокращений .txt) 📗

She nodded.

Brave little girl! Bold and defiant and disobedient. His eyes were filling with mawkish tears. Why was she not his daughter! He would have given anything to know she was.

“You need not have feared that, girl.”

“Oh!”

“And you might have saved yourself a whipping. Carrie, come here, girl. It did not please me to whip you like that. How do you feel?” He looked at his hands.

“They are big and clumsy, eh, Carrie?” He took her hand, and laughed comparing them.

She said: “I did not mind. It is all over now.”

Queer position. Am I asking pardon of Kitty’s bastard? It looked to him as if he were; he did not understand himself. Then,” he said, ‘we will forget last night, Carrie, eh? I was in a foul temper.”

“Of course,” she said.

“I know.” And she smiled, and when she smiled she was the image of Bessie … more Bessie than Kitty.

“And it does not hurt much now. Mrs. West was very kind.”

“Good for West!” he said.

“We will have a ride together tomorrow. Not West and II’ He roared with laughter at the thought, and put out a great hand and pinched Carolan’s cheek.

“These two, Carrie. Squire and his daughter, eh?” There was nothing sullen about her. She was adorable, this child. Kitty had left her; that made her solely his. After that Carolan’s life slipped on smoothly enough. She saw more of the squire; they rode together almost every day. He was eager to make up for that beating, and he tried to do so in lots of ways which on account of their very clumsiness were endearing. He was like a father to her; indulgent, though violent enough when crossed, and afterwards almost pathetically sorry for his violence. She avoided him when she possibly could, but when she could not she tried very hard to be fond of him, and after a time she began to find his companionship tolerable, even amusing.

Often she dreamed of joining her father and mother in London, because she was sure that that was what she was going to do one day. She waited for the promised letter which was to be enclosed in one for Mrs. West, and she was disappointed for weeks, but eventually it came.

She took it to her room and read it through many times. Her mother had given an address in London but she said it would not be possible for them to have Carolan with them just yet. They had their way to make and prospects at the moment were not very rosy; they would prefer their daughter to wait until they had a home to offer her which would be as luxurious as the one she would have to leave to come to them.

As if I care for luxury! thought Carolan, but she did realize that if she went to her parents in London, it would mean leaving Everard, and that most decidedly she did not want to do.

Carolan’s first ball dress was of green brocade trimmed with coffee-coloured lace. Its skirt was full and swept the floor; its bodice was rightly fitting and very dainty, falling from her shoulders, with tiny sleeves caught up with green ribbons. Her eyes matched the colour of her dress; and her hair, parted in the middle, hung in soft curls about her shoulders; it looked very natural and fashionable, unpowdered as it was, for powdering had gone out of fashion some four years before with the coming of the tax.

The squire had given her a dress; he had taken great pleasure in doing so. There was to be a ball, he whispered to her, and it was a great occasion Carolan’s first ball; she was to stop being a child when the old century ended and start her adult life with the new. The disreputable clothes in which she tore about the countryside were unsuitable for a young woman though they might do well enough for a child, so there must be a new dress and new slippers, and as the money for these was to come out of the squire’s purse, he hoped young Carrie was going to be suitably grateful. She was grateful; she gave him a kiss without being asked, which seemed to please him mightily.

Carolan, studying herself in her mirror, thought about the kiss she had given the squire. He still made her uneasy, as he had when she was a child. She could have liked him so much more but for his hearty caresses. He was kind to her. indeed more kind than he was to Margaret or Charles, which amazed her. He liked to ride with her, to take her round the estate, to make the cottagers curtsy to her. Queer man, but kind I Carolan bent her head and kissed her own white shoulder in an excess of excitement over this occasion of her first ball and the delight in herself dressed up in her first ball dress. Everard would be at the ball tonight. He had said: “Now, Carolan, I shall expect you to save plenty of dances for me!”

How beautiful was Everard! With his finely chiselled features and his courteous manners, he was aristocratic and gentle, elegant without being foppish; never really angry except on someone else’s behalf: never unkind. So calm he was, aloof, never excited by her as she was by him; she loved to sit on the wall between the Orlands’ house and the graveyard and listen to Everard’s talk of his future; and how he loved to talk! She twirled round ecstatically to glimpse at the back of her dress; she danced round the room and imagined she was dancing with Everard.

She came to an abrupt stop by falling against the old bureau in the corner; she was laughing at herself. Did everyone get ready too soon for their first ball?

She was so happy she had to dance. Indeed the last year had been the happiest of her life. In the bureau were letters from her mother; there were several which had come via Mrs. West over the last four years. Mamma was very happy in London; soon Carolan must join her and her father, but not yet; they were not quite ready … Ah, thought Carolan, let them enjoy their happiness without an intruder!

And she knew in her heart that she did not really want to join them; she was too happy here. It was true that the rough caresses of the squire sometimes perturbed her, and she understood him as little now as she had done when a child. But that was a small matter in the midst of such contentment, and Everard was the rock on which all this contentment was built. To go to London would mean to lose Everard; therefore she was glad when her mother wrote that they were not quite ready for her.

Life had changed for her. Everywhere it seemed good.

Charles, who was at Oxford now and home only occasionally, no longer tormented her. He scarcely seemed to notice her at all. Jennifer Jay had drunk too much gin one night last year, and had fallen from the top of a flight of stairs to the bottom; that was the end of Jennifer Jay. With Mrs. West and the servants she was a favourite, more so than Margaret, which surprised her, for Margaret was lovely to look at and the squire’s own daughter. But one of the deepest reasons for her contentment was Margaret’s sudden change of feeling towards Everard. Margaret had loved Everard a little while ago; now she was almost indifferent to him. If Carolan talked of him, she was scarcely interested, and that made Carolan very happy, because she knew Everard had never wanted Margaret to care for him so blatantly, and he seemed to like her better now that she was more or less indifferent towards him.

Margaret came into the room, looking delightful in her favourite blue, with her fair hair dressed high on her head.

“You look beautiful!” cried Carolan enthusiastically.

Margaret looked wistful, and said: “You always exaggerate.”

“How do I look?” asked Carolan, her head on one side pleadingly.

“All right.” said Margaret.

Carolan grimaced, and Margaret wondered why a dress, which had been merely pretty hanging in the cupboard, should, when draped about Carolan’s slender person, become provocative, seductive, all that in Margaret’s opinion a dress should not be.

Carolan quickly dismissed the disappointment which Margaret’s cool comment had aroused in her, and said: “Oughtn’t we to go down … since you will have to receive people, or something?”