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Maud Florence Nellie: or, Don't care!

Год написания книги
2017
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Wyn was so upset, or, as he would have expressed it, “put about,” by the sight of the stranger, the loss of the note, and by Mr Edgar’s rare reproof, that he quite forgot at the moment either to realise to himself or to tell his master that the man could have been no one from the neighbourhood, since he had asked if Mr Edgar was at home, which everyone knew was invariably the case.

Chapter Ten

Florence’s Duty

On the same afternoon that Wyn and his master went to see the water-lily pond, Florrie Whittaker, seized with a fit of impatience, went off without leave for a ramble in the wood.

She didn’t think she could bear it much longer. There was no one to chatter to, there was no one to chatter about. Mrs Lee’s shop was far more lively than Mrs Warren’s parlour, and Carrie and Ada were much more congenial than Grace Elton. Florence, lazy and sociable, had made a strong effort to strike up a friendship with that pretty, pleasant girl, but Grace, as Florence put it, was “that particular,” and so often blushed and said, “Mother wouldn’t like it,” when Florence’s ill-trained tongue went its natural way, that Florence would have been quite disgusted with her but for the thought that “Miss Geraldine” wouldn’t like it either. Florence had once begun to astonish Grace with the history of how she had run after the boys down to the canal, and had then stopped with an odd new feeling that she wouldn’t like Miss Geraldine to know she had done that. Should she write home and say she would be a good girl, and go into any business Father and Aunt Stroud wished, knowing that some sort of fun could be got out of life at Rapley; or should she wait and let Aunt Charlotte “comb her down,” as she vigorously put it, till she thought her fit for a place at Ashcroft or at “The Duke’s?” That implied lilac cotton gowns in the week and a neat bonnet on Sundays; but then she had heard of servants’ dances and parties, and the great household wouldn’t be very dull, surely. Florence strolled on, thinking of one thing and another, swinging her hat in her hand, and now and then snatching at a foxglove or a bit of honeysuckle, till she suddenly became aware that she had lost her way. She stopped and looked round her. Which little green track would take her home? There was a good deal of undergrowth in the part of the wood to which she had wandered, and, so far as she knew, she might be miles from any outlet but the one by which she had come. The great trees arched over her head, the green solemn light was all around her. The tap of a woodpecker, the coo of a wood-pigeon or the whir of its wing, the soft indefinite murmur of the leaves, were all the sounds that broke the stillness of the August wood. If Florence had lost her way in a town she would have asked it of a policeman with perfect composure. No crowd of passengers, no bustle of life, would have impressed her in the least, but this stillness and silence and loneliness struck on her unaccustomed nerves, and an unaccountable fear took possession of her. What was there to be afraid of?

Snakes and water-rats were the only definite objects of terror that occurred to her; and, as she had never seen a specimen of either of these animals, they were not very present to her imagination. She did not know what she was afraid of, but for the first time in her life she knew what fear was. She stood quite still at the turn of the little foot track, suddenly afraid to go to the right or the left; her heart beat, her breath came in gasps, tears filled her eyes, and she burst out crying like a baby – she, who never cried except from bad temper or toothache, cried with fear.

Suddenly a rapid, light step ran down the track, and Geraldine Cunningham, in her blue cotton frock, and a basket in her hand, came into view.

“Why! Florence Whittaker! What’s the matter?”

“I’ve – I’ve lost my way, Miss; I can’t get out!” sobbed Florence, still too much scared to be ashamed of her fright.

“Lost your way! Dear me, you’re standing in the way back to Warren’s lodge. Come, don’t cry, I’ll show you.”

“Oh, thank you, Miss,” said Florence with unwonted meekness, and wiping her eyes. Then, recovering a little, “I’m a great silly, but the trees is so tall, and there ain’t nobody about.”

“Why, that’s the beauty of it,” said Geraldine. “One couldn’t run about in the wood if there was anybody about. But it’s just like the garden, nobody ever comes here.”

As Geraldine said this in her clear, outspoken voice, a tall man came into view along the opposite track: he was dark and slight, and dressed in a rough suit that might have belonged to anyone, gentle or simple, in a country place.

“We’ll go on,” whispered Geraldine, straightening herself up, and taking Florence by the hand.

The man came up to the two girls and looked at them rather keenly; then he touched his hat, and said: “Excuse me, young ladies, can you tell me the way out of the wood?”

“Yes,” said Geraldine, with her straightforward gaze; “if you go straight back and turn to the right, you’ll come into the Raby road.”

The stranger lingered a moment as if he would have liked to say more, but contented himself with saying rather oddly, “Thank you – Miss,” and walking away.

“How very odd!” said Geraldine, “that there should be a stranger in the wood. Who can he be?”

“He was very civil in his speech,” said Florrie. “Yes; but the wood’s private; he oughtn’t to be here. Come along, Florence, we’ll tell Mr Warren we saw him.”

The two girls talked a little as they walked on together, Florence feeling suddenly shy, and as if she had nothing to say for herself. Presently, as they came near the lodge, they met Wyn, looking hot and hurried. “Oh, if you please, Miss Geraldine,” he said, touching his cap, “you haven’t seen anything like a letter lying about in the forest?”

“A letter in the forest? Why, Wyn, how ever could a letter get there?”

“I’ve lost one, ma’am, as a man gave me for Mr Edgar, and I’m going to look for it again.”

“Oh,” said Geraldine, “that must be the man that spoke to us just now, and asked his way. If you run right on, Wyn, you could catch him.”

Wyn rushed off, but presently came back, overtaking the girls again as they came up to the lodge.

“It wasn’t the same man, Miss Geraldine,” he said. “The man I met was a stout party with a red beard, and this one was a deal thinner, and a black-haired chap, too.”

“Then there’s two strange men in the wood,” said Florence.

At this moment the keeper himself appeared, carrying his gun, and saluting his young lady; and all three children began to tell their stones. Warren took them very quietly. “I’ll keep a look-out, ma’am,” he said to Geraldine; “but strangers do pass through the wood. There’s artists about nowadays. They scare the birds dreadful. And, as for you, Wyn, you’d best go and look for that there note first thing in the morning: you’d no business to let it drop.”

“I think the man who spoke to me looked like an artist,” said Geraldine as she went off.

“Florrie,” said Wyn, as his father went into the house, “I don’t think that the man who gave me the letter for Mr Edgar was one of the Raby or Ashwood keepers or gardeners; he hadn’t the cut somehow, and he’d have known Mr Edgar was at the Hall. And he did stare that hard at me.”

“So did the other man at us,” said Florence.

“Was he a bird-catcher down from London, do you think?” said Wyn astutely.

“No,” said Florence, “he looked too much the gentleman.”

“I’m sure he hadn’t a red beard, aren’t you?” said Wyn.

“Red beard? No – d’ye think I haven’t eyes in my head? He’d a pointed sort of black beard – same shape as Mr Cunningham’s – only his is grey; and black eyes, looking right at you, like the squire’s do. But, dear me, I think a fellow creature or two’s a great improvement in that there lonesome wood. I’d sooner meet a man than a snake any day. And I believe I’d sooner meet a snake than nothing among all them trees!”

“The trees don’t set no traps nor springs,” said Wyn, “and snakes aren’t common in our wood, and wriggles off pretty quick if you do meet with one.”

“Do you think your man was a poacher?” said Florence.

“Well, Florrie,” said Wyn, “there’s all sorts of people come after game in these days. I shall keep my eyes open. Hallo! here’s mother calling us in to supper.”

In pursuance of this resolve, Wyn kept his eyes the next day open at their widest, but neither red beard, black eyes, nor letter came into his view, and the only thing he did see when he came disconsolately back again was a great owl’s nest that had apparently been pulled out of an old hollow tree on the Ravenshurst side of the wood and thrown on the ground. Wyn was sorry; he thought the owls would never nest there again, and he would have had a chance next spring of getting a young one for Mr Edgar.

“You’re to take the pony round again this afternoon, Wyn,” said his mother when he got back, “and don’t you be careless and drop any more letters about, anyhow.”

Florence was very much interested in the mysterious strangers in the wood, and in the lost letter. She went for a stroll with Wyn before it was time for him to fetch the pony, and they worked themselves up into a state of excitement, and a general idea that their keen observation of suspicious characters was highly to their credit. In the course of their walk they met two of the under-keepers, and Wyn stopped and asked them if they had seen anybody about. He described his man with the red beard much as if he had been a giant, and Florence chimed in with her suspicions of the dark man who had spoken to Miss Geraldine, till her description of him would have befitted the villain in a melodrama. The boy and girl succeeded in setting the young men on the look-out, and preparing discomfort for the strangers if they were seen. Florence found a chat with the young keepers a pleasant variety in her quiet life, especially when it was so justifiable, and she lingered, talking and joking, till Wyn pulled her skirts, and said Mr Edgar would be ready.

“You see what we’ll bring you, Miss,” said one of the lads as he went off.

“You ain’t men enough to get them there poachers,” said Florence.

“Ain’t we though?” cried the other youth.

“They’d best not come our way in a hurry.”

Florence laughed, and ran off after Wyn, who remarked virtuously:

“We’ve done our duty, I’m sure, in spreading about all we’ve noticed.”

“Your father knows too,” said Florrie.

“Yes,” said Wyn, with a slight suspicion that his father could have warned his own under-keepers for himself; “but father can’t be everywhere at once. They might rob Mr Edgar.”

“Or frighten Miss Geraldine,” said Florence, “so it’s quite our duty to give a warning.”

Chapter Eleven
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