Генри Райдер Хаггард - Mary of Marion Isle стр 6.

"What's the matter?" asked Andrew.

"Well, Sir," she said, "I did think something might have gone wrong with those drains again, there was such a smell down that back yard, and now it seems to have come here too."

"Oh! I know," remarked Andrew guiltily. "I found some stuff that had gone bad and threw it away."

"Indeed, then it's a pity, Sir, that you threw it on to your hair first."

After this Andrew fled, leaving Mrs. Josky still sniffing on the doorstep.

Holding his hat in his hand, for he knew the cause of Mrs. Josky's suspicions and wished to air his head, Andrew pursued his way through the devious streets of Whitechapel, till he came to a remote region in the neighbourhood of the river. Here in some bygone generation there had been houses of importance, occupied no doubt by prosperous tradesmen or merchants of the day. One of these, a red brick Georgian mansion of some pretensions, stood among a mass of mean dwellings that, as the value of land increased, had been built on what were once its extensive gardens, whereof nothing remained except a desolate little patch of ground in front of the house, upon which stood the foundation walls of a longdeparted greenhouse. This dwelling, which was still known as Red Hall probably from its colour, was now the abode, private and professional, of Dr. Watson, a very eminent man in his way, but one whose career had been injured by his peculiarities and his open, often illtimed, advocacy of extreme Socialistic views.

Mounting the dirty steps Andrew came to the front door, the massive dignity of which many successive layers of different coloured paints and graining could not conceal. Indeed, a splinter chipped off by the vagrant stone of some mischievous boy, showed that it was made of no humbler wood than old Honduras mahogany, while the tarnished brass knocker of twisted snakes also testified to the former standing of the house within.

As the bell was out of action he applied himself to this knocker for some time without result. At length the door was opened by a dilapidated, snuffcoloured little woman with watery eyes and hair that looked like faded tow, who appeared to be irritated at being summoned from the lower regions.

"Why couldn't you go round by the surgery, Brother West" (everybody at Red Hall called each other Brother or Sister), she asked in a high and squeaky voice which suggested an effort to smother tears. "Here I am with the tea to get ready, to say nothing of the supper to cook, and the kettle boiling over at this very moment into the gas stove, making enough smell to poison one, and you come hammering, hammering at the front door which Sister Rose is too proud to open, till I don't know the teapot from the saucers."

"I'm sorry, Sister Angelica, but I thought the Doctor might be busy in the surgery."

"Busy! Of course he's busy. He's always busy doing work for a pack of ragamuffins who never give him so much as a thankyou. What's more, he's got that Harley Street swell, the famous Somerville Black who looks after the Royalties and has three carriages and pairs, in there with him."

"Somerville Black!" said Andrew with respect. "What's he doing here? It's scarcely his beat."

"Oh! I don't know. Some case the Doctor's got hold of which interests him. A girl who's the daughter of a fishhawker and thinks that she's three girls and acts as such."

"Three girls!"

"Yes, Brother, or rather two girls, one herself and the other a farmer's daughter, and a dead woman, I think it is Mary Queen of Scots, or Lady Jane Grey, or some one. When she's herself she talks fish and swears as might be expected with her bringing up. When she's the farmer's daughter she talks cows and pigs and lectures on agriculture, although she's never been out of Whitechapel or seen one of them alive; and when she's the party that was going to be beheaded she takes on wonderfully, just like Shakespeare, the Doctor says."

At this moment a dull explosion sounded from below.

"Heavens above! there's that gas stove blowing up," exclaimed Sister Angelica, and vanished away like a grey ghost, leaving Andrew to his own devices.

Chapter III

Rose

Andrew, who knew the house, went down the long centre passage to a certain door and opening it, entered a very pleasing Early Georgian room whereof the walls were covered by large pine panels, once painted white no doubt, but now of a faded grey, and remarkable for a beautiful Adam mantelpiece, carved pine cornices, and a moulded ceiling of the period. It was well furnished, too, in its way, for furniture, when he could pick it up cheap, was Dr. Watson's one extravagance. Thus there were some good Queen Anne pieces; also a really fine Elizabethan refectory table, untouched and with the true bulbous legs (Sister Angelica hated that table because it took so much polishing). Lastly, there were a few excellent pictures also picked up by Dr. Watson, and over the whole place brooded a kind of peaceful charm as is sometimes observable in Queen Anne or Georgian rooms.

Noting to his disappointment that the place was empty, Andrew walked up and down casually examining the pictures and wondering whether Miss Rose had told him to come at five, or halfpast. For ten minutes or more he continued to wonder, till at length that young lady appeared. Certainly she was a charming sight as she glided into the room wearing a white dress which, though simple, fitted her tall and rather stately figure well enough. Anywhere Rose Watson would have been reckoned a beautiful woman, one among ten thousand. She had all the points of beauty; an exquisitely tinted face, large blue eyes, a shapely head on which her plentiful golden hair was coiled like a crown, a sweet mouth, a wellcut nose not too sharp, and long, delicate hands and feet. Also her voice was low and gentle and her movements were full of native grace. In short, she was lovely, a perfect type of the Eternal Feminine.

"How do you do, Mr. West?" she said, colouring slightly, perhaps because of the evident admiration that was written in his eyes, or perhaps because it was her weakness, or her gift, so to do when she addressed a man. "Forgive me if I do not call you Brother after our silly fashion here, but really I can't."

"The last thing in the world I wish is that you should call me Brother," he answered in a rather shy way, adding, "About whatever others I may be indefinite, upon that point I am quite clear."

"I am sorry to have kept you waiting," she went on hurriedly, dropping the blue eyes, "but that silly old Angelica has made some frightful mess with the gas stove and nearly blew us all up. I found her covered with blacks and with a lock of her hair on fire."

"I dare say," replied Andrew. "Tow burns easily, doesn't it?"

She laughed a little and remarked goodnaturedly:

"Well, it is rather like tow now you mention it. Then I hear that Dr. Somerville Black is coming into tea and I had to find the best things. I wish he wouldn't."

"So do I," murmured Andrew.

"Oh!" she continued with an outburst of genuine feeling, "how horrible it is to be poor and have only one servant, or rather none at all, for Angelica is a kind of cousin, you know, not a servant."

"I'm not sure," said Andrew. "Poverty has its advantages. You, I understand, would like to be rich."

"Of course I should. I will be quite honest about it. I should like to have carriages and jewels and proper dresses and a fine house with lots of people to wait on me. Then I should be quite happy," and she laughed again in her charming, rather childish fashion.

"Perhaps you wouldn't be happy after all, Miss Watson. I have just come from seeing some people who have all these things in abundance and they are not happyexcept perhaps Clara," he mused aloud.