"The wood nymph" - читать интересную книгу автора (Balogh Mary)

Chapter 2

“A ladies' man," said the Earl of Claymore.

"A most genteel sort of a man," said the countess, "though his manners are a little stiff."

"Very handsome," sighed Lady Melissa Wade, "with those brown eyes and that dark hair. And so very tall!"

"Toplofty!" said Lady Emily Wade decisively. "The man thinks himself superior just because he has acquired some town bronze."

Helen heard all four opinions of Mr. Mainwaring during dinner that evening. Their new neighbor dominated the conversation, even if the opinion of him was not altogether favorable. She gathered that he had not shown sufficient interest in her father's talk of horses and hunting. It was shocking enough for even a lady to admit to the earl that she had never hunted and, indeed, even disapproved of the sport'. But for a man to do so was clearly a testimony of his basic effeminacy. Mr. Mainwaring had even dared to express sympathy for the fox!

"It is surely not unmanly to hate killing for the sake of killing, is it, Papa?" Helen was unwise enough to ask.

"We all know your strange views, child," he grumbled. "Can't think where you acquired them. Certainly not in this house. I am certainly thankful you did not turn out to be the son I hoped for. I should not be able to hold up my head in the neighborhood. Feeling sorry for the poor fox, indeed! The animal is a nuisance, child, with no right to live. Its only use in life is to provide pleasure to the hunter."

Helen nodded her head to the footman who was offering her wine. She did not this time answer her father. There was no point in doing so. It was always useless to try to discuss any topic with him. He took any disagreement with his opinion as a personal affront. But she did find herself warming unwillingly to the neighbor whose acquaintance she had avoided during the afternoon. The man could not be all bad if he had the courage to oppose blood sports in an age when the willingness to hunt was a badge of manhood.

She soon understood the differing opinions of her sisters. Emily had sung for him, accompanying herself on the pianoforte. She was generally accounted the best musician for miles around. No entertainment was complete without a musical selection from the eldest Lady Wade. But Mr. Mainwaring had not appeared suitably impressed. He had apparently nodded his approval and complimented Emily on the song, but he had kept his seat and he had not smiled. And he had committed the unforgivable sin of expressing interest in Melissa's watercolors when Mama had mentioned them to him. And he had spent all of five minutes with his head bent over the pictures after the younger sister had been sent to fetch them.

But Helen could not escape indefinitely the scold that she had known was coming.

"I did not take kindly to your absenting yourself this afternoon, child," the countess said, fixing Helen with a severe eye. "You knew very well that we were expecting a visitor, and you know that I sent you upstairs for the express purpose of getting ready. You are no longer a schoolgirl. You are expected to do your duty as an adult member of this family, just like the rest of us."

"Maybe if I took a strap to you, you would learn to heed your mama," the earl added. "I can't think where you disappear to half the time, Helen, but you had better not let me ever find out that you have left our land or mixed with any company beneath your station."

Helen lowered her eyes to her plate and ate steadily through the next few minutes while the scold proceeded. She was used to it. She had heard the same complaints and the same threats many times. But she could not feel sorry that she had not stayed for Mr. Mainwaring's visit. She would have been dreadfully bored and she would doubtless have been called upon to show him her embroidery. She would have had to endure the sight of his lip curling in disdain when he saw that dandelion. No one ever understood her vision of life. No one could see beyond prettiness to the true beauty all around them. She did not regret her afternoon spent in an area that most would consider wild and quite worthless.

William Mainwaring spent the next two days getting to know his own property. His estate manager had worked there for years and had clearly done a good job. The land was prosperous, the tenants contented. Although he had never visited the place before, Mainwaring had always meticulously examined every report he received from his various properties. He was satisfied with this man and saw no reason now to begin to interfere. He contented himself, then, with wandering around, sometimes alone, sometimes with the manager, looking and listening. He enjoyed meeting his tenants, most of whom treated him with marked friendliness, having found him to be a generous and a just man, even though he had always been an absentee.

By the afternoon of the second day, there was only one part of the estate that he had not explored. It was the dense wood that ran almost the complete length of the west side of his property. There had used to be a gamekeeper there, the manager had explained, until it became obvious that there was no longer enough game in the area to keep the man busy. The previous owner had once considered clearing the trees away so that the land might be cultivated, but it would have been too huge an undertaking. The trees were large and old. There was a great deal of undergrowth. And even if the task could be accomplished, it was doubtful that it would have proved to be worthwhile. A stream meandered through the woods. Its presence would complicate the matter of cultivating the reclaimed land. The scheme had been abandoned.

Mainwaring was glad. He welcomed a place that was likely to give him some privacy. If his neighbors continued to be as attentive as they had been thus far, he would be thankful to have a private place to which to escape, a place where he could be alone with his own thoughts occasionally. Not that he resented the visits of his neighbors. In fact, he was touched by the friendliness of most of those who called and by the flood of invitations he had already received. It was just that he had not expected it.

He needed solitude on this particular afternoon. He had had a completely unexpected letter that morning from the Marquess of Hetherington. It had been a painful experience breaking the seal, knowing from whom the letter had come. They were in Sussex for the summer awaiting the already overdue birth of their first child. Mainwaring had put down the letter at that point, finding that his hand was shaking. When he took it up again, it was to find that this was by no means the first letter Robert had sent him. Others had gone to Ferndale, to Mainwaring's former address in London, even to White's Club. Both Hetherington and Elizabeth had been puzzled and a little hurt by his silence.

"We keep telling ourselves that perhaps these letters have not reached you," the marquess had written, "and we cling to the hope that this is so, because we do not like to think what your silence might mean otherwise. However, Prosser called on us a few days ago while on a journey west and we have finally discovered from him exactly where you may be found. You can have no idea how elusive you are, my friend.

"Let me repeat yet again what I have written in every letter to you. Both Elizabeth and I grieve over the lapse in our friendship and both of us have a very real sense of our own guilt. Can you forgive me for the way I treated you when we last met? I have long been sensible of the fact-indeed, I knew it even at the time -that your intentions were perfectly honorable and your behavior above reproach. I can excuse myself only with the explanation that I was an extremely jealous husband.

"What I should have explained, of course, is that I loved Elizabeth perhaps more than was good for me at the time. Fortunately, I later discovered that she returned my feelings equally and that the whole of our separation had been caused by a ghastly misunderstanding. We both feel that we owe you this much of an explanation, though the details, of course, are known only to my wife and myself. Elizabeth herself wishes to write to you. She feels, I know, that she treated you with less than complete honor. But she values your friendship as do I, my friend."

The letter went on to explain that they were planning to be in London for the winter, but that it was likely that they would return to Sussex as soon as next spring came, though it would mean missing the Season. Both he and Elizabeth preferred life in the country and they felt it would be better for their child to live there. They wanted William to visit them in London, if he would not find the meeting too painful. They wanted to be given the chance to show him that they still considered him to be their dearest friend.

Mainwaring was badly shaken by the letter. He had accustomed himself to the unhappiness of having lost these two friends. He had always convinced himself that he had been the guilty party, deliberately trying to come between a man and his lawful wife. And he had reconciled himself to the belief that he would never see Elizabeth again, although he would love her all his life.

Now he discovered that in fact Hetherington had been trying to contact him for most of the past year and that they both still valued his friendship. They wanted him to visit them.

He did not know how he felt about it all. The knowledge that they were not still angry with him, that they had not deliberately cut the acquaintance, was remarkably soothing. Yet he was cautious. Elizabeth had been a friend, yes, a very dear friend, one to whom he could talk at his ease. But far more than that, she had been the woman he loved, the woman he still loved. Could he see her again without showing that she still meant a great deal more to him than she should? Could he invite such personal pain? Could he bear to see her with Hetherington, to see the love that they clearly felt for each other? Could he bear to see their child, when once he had dreamed that she would bear his children?

He wandered toward the wood on foot, taking the letter with him. He must reply, and soon. But he did not know exactly what he would say.

Helen had managed to slip away for the afternoon. Mama and the girls were going on a round of visits, mainly to boast of the news that they were to entertain Mr. Mainwaring for dinner, she suspected. It had not been difficult to avoid being made a member of the party. It was becoming an accepted fact that she did not participate with any regularity in the afternoon social rituals of the neighborhood. She rather believed that her own family welcomed her absence. She did not offer much support in the conversations anyway.

She had already shed her riding habit and was dressed in the shabby old cotton dress again. One day soon, she knew, the garment was going to fail to pieces around her and she would have to find something else to wear when she wished to be totally comfortable and free. But she hated to think of its happening. She had worn the dress since she was in the schoolroom, first as a day dress, and later when it became too short for her, as a painting smock to save her good dress from the splatters of paint that were inevitable when she began work.

She intended painting that afternoon. But painting for Helen did not necessarily mean dragging out easel, paper, and paints and setting to work to produce a picture. Sometimes it could mean doing nothing for a whole afternoon but observing. And that was the case on this particular afternoon. She had decided to paint the stream. But having set herself that task, she realized that she had never really seen it at all. It would have been easy ten years before or even more recently than that. Children always took for granted that water was blue. Her brightest blue paint would have been pulled out and in no time at all she would have had a satisfactory blue streak across the paper.

But, Helen realized, standing barefoot on the bank and gazing down at the water which flowed past, it was not blue at all. The realization would not have been so bad perhaps if she could have satisfied herself that it was gray or brown or gold or silver or any other color. The truth was that it was all those colors. And yet it was none of them. When she stooped down and scooped some drops into her palm, she found that they were completely colorless. And the water looked quite different from this close than it had looked a moment ago from the doorway of the hut. She looked up. Would it look different again from the branches of the old oak tree, which she had climbed many times? She hitched her skirts and climbed up to see.

Ten minutes later, Helen was back on the bank of the stream, lying on her stomach, her face propped up on her hands and suspended over the water. Her feet, crossed at the ankles, were waving in the air above bent knees. She was observing with all her senses. When she finally came to paint the scene, she wanted to be able to feel the water from the inside. She wanted to reproduce all the colors and shades, all the movement and life that were engrossing her full attention now. How wonderful nature wasl How could she possibly reproduce any of it with her brush without simplifying it beyond all meaning?

Her legs stopped moving suddenly and her back stiffened. She could feel prickles along her spine. There was something behind her. She had heard nothing, but she felt a presence very strongly. She hardly dared turn her head. Heaven knew what kind of vicious beast might be there just waiting to pounce at her smallest movement. She turned her head and glanced cautiously over one shoulder.

A man was leaning one shoulder against a tree some distance away, arms folded, watching her. She knew at a glance that he was Mr. Mainwaring. This was his land, after all, and one could hardly expect to find another strange and fashionable young man wandering in this particular area, especially when the young man was tall and dark. Yes, and handsome. Melly had been quite right. Helen did not move. She just continued to look.

Helen could feel her face flushing. She felt horribly embarrassed to be caught thus, in this position and in these clothes. She, Lady Helen Wade!

"Is it a wood nymph?" he asked. "Or is it human?"

"Oh," she said, and rolled over onto her knees, "you did startle me. I thought you were a wild boar at the very least." In self-protection, almost without realizing she did so, she used the North Country accent that the servants always used, instead of talking in her own voice.

He raised his eyebrows and moved forward to stand beside her on the bank, looking down into the water. "It is a lovely spot you have chosen," he said. "Do you make it a habit to come into the woods?"

"They are yours, are they not?" she said. "Would you mind if I said that I come here often?" She sat back on her heels the better to look up at him.

He smiled, and the expression completely transformed his rather austere features, she found. He stooped down on his haunches. "Do you like to be alone sometimes too?" he asked. "Or do you have the evil intention of burning my woods to the ground one of these days?"

"I like it here," she said, her cheeks still aflame. "This is my own special place, and if you were to forbid me to come, I should have to disobey you."

He chuckled. "Well, you are honest at least," he said. "And tell me, what is it you have to escape from? What are you supposed to be doing at this moment?"

Helen gazed back into his dark eyes, on a level with her own, her mind fast inventing a story that would sound plausible. But he went on to answer his own question.

"You should be helping at home, is that it?" he asked. "Baking bread, or doing the family wash, or scrubbing the floors, or some other activity that is supposed to keep females happy?"

"Yes," she said vaguely, and she began to feel her heartbeat return to normal. "I slip away whenever I am able."

"And suffer later, I suppose," he said, and smiled again. "Who are you?"

"Nell, sir," she replied with only a moment's hesitation.

"And you have only one name, Nell?" he asked. "But no matter. That is enough. It is a pretty name. It suits you, wood nymph. What were you doing when I came upon you?"

"Learning water," she said earnestly.

"Learning water?"

"Yes," she said. "Tell me if you can, without looking, what color is water?"

He looked amused. "Blue sometimes," he said. "Sometimes green or gray. It depends upon the sky."

"But what if it is not exposed to the sky?" she asked. "What if there are trees?"

"Then perhaps brown or green," he said.

"You are right," she said excitedly. "All your answers are right all of the time. And yet you missed light and shade and movement and all the differing tones of the colors you named."

"Indeed?" he said. "You intrigue me." But he was amused, teasing, Helen could see.

"Look," she said. She became so engrossed in her subject that her embarrassment of a few minutes before and her awareness of the impropriety of her appearance and behavior were forgotten. She rolled Over onto her stomach again and leaned over the water. "Look and tell me what you see."

He followed her example and stretched out beside her. "What do I see?" he asked. "Let me consider a moment. Ah, yes. I see a wood nymph with lots of fair hair and large gray eyes. She looks just like you."

Helen laughed with delight. "You will not believe me, will you?" she said. "It is true, though, as you will see if you but take the time to observe. There is a great deal to learn about water."

"Yes," he said more seriously, "you are quite right, Nell. Many times one thinks that one sees nature and appreciates its beauty. But most of the time our senses but scratch the surface."

"Oh, you do understand!" Helen exclaimed, turning a glowing face to him. "Most people think I have windmills in my head when I talk that way. You like to be alone too, do you not? Is that why you came here? Or did you merely feel that you must explore every part of your property?"

"You know who I am then?" he said. "But I suppose it is common knowledge in the village that I have come at last."

"Oh, yes," she said. "Everyone knows, sir."

William Mainwaring sat up on the bank and looked around him. "That hut must belong to the gamekeeper who used to be employed here," he said. "I wonder if he left anything inside."

"Oh, no, he did not," Helen said quickly, catching at his arm as he made to rise. "There is nothing at all inside, sir, and the door is stuck."

He looked at her and the amusement was there in his eyes again. "Nell," he said, "you are lying to me. Why must I not look inside?"

She blushed. "Please," she said, "I use it sometimes. I do not do any harm. Such a ramshackle building cannot be of any use to you, can it? Please do not go inside."

He relaxed into a sitting position again. "Well, wood nymph," he said, "are you allowed to accept gifts from gentlemen? I hereby make you a present of the gamekeeper's hut and I shall never trespass without a personal invitation. Will that make you happy?"

"You are very kind," she said earnestly.

They looked at each other in silence for several moments, without embarrassment. Each was assessing the other.

William Mainwaring finally got to his feet and brushed grass from his buckskin breeches. "I must be going, wood nymph," he said. "I shall leave you alone to learn water."

"Good-bye, sir," she said, "and thank you for the present. It is one of the most precious I have ever received."

He laughed. "Au revoir, Nell," he said.

William Mainwaring found that he was still smiling as he walked through the woods in the direction of home. The letter from Hetherington lay in his pocket forgotten for the moment. What a delightful little creature! She really did seem more wood nymph than woman. Learning water, indeed! Now, what did she keep in the gamekeeper's hut that was so important? he wondered. It had sounded as if she came often to the place.

She must have indulgent parents if she was allowed to escape the day's chores without punishment. Perhaps, though, she thought the punishment an acceptable exchange for a few hours of freedom. In fact, maybe it was not parents she was escaping. Perhaps it was a husband. He did not think she was as young as he had at first thought her. She did not seem married, though.

Helen was still sitting on the bank of the stream, hugging her knees. She was no longer studying the water. She was gazing across at the trees on the opposite bank. The man was not at all as she had expected. He certainly looked every inch the proper gentleman, and his face in repose was severe. But there was warmth and humor in him, and an understanding of what depths were in nature for those who cared to observe. She liked him. Yes, she thought, her eyes widening in surprise, she liked Mr. Mainwaring. She could never remember liking any man before, and precious few women.

But what a coil! She had deliberately deceived him into thinking she was a village wench. She had talked with that accent all through their conversation and she had not contradicted the suggestions he had made about what she should be doing that afternoon. Her appearance, of course, would have completely deceived him. The dress, her loose, tangled hair, her feet and legs bare to above the ankles-none of them would betray her true status.

What was she to do when he discovered her real identity? What an embarrassment it would be! Would he look at her with amusement as he had done a few times that afternoon? Or would it be with disgust that a lady could have appeared and acted as she had done? Either way, it was going to be hard to face him. That evening! Of course, he was to dine with them that evening. Helen groaned and put her forehead down onto her raised knees. She couldn't. She just couldn't face him, least of all with Mama and Papa and her sisters looking on. Why, oh why, had she not simply revealed her identity immediately?

The afternoon was clearly ruined, she thought, getting to her feet and crossing with lagging footsteps to the old hut. Her hut. Her precious gift! A slow smile lit up her face. She was going to have to think of some course of action, and fast.