"Andre Norton - The Opal-Eyed Fan Lp Ebook Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Wreckers—like that brute aboard the Arrow.

Persis felt distaste and a touch of fear. Though Uncle Augustin had said that the wreckers of the Keys saved lives and goods, she remembered talk in New York of their greediness, tales of conspiracy between some captains and the Key men to lose ships on marked reefs. They were certainly not very far removed from the pirates who had earlier made these same waters their own and had had hiding places hereabouts.

But what had happened to Uncle Augustin?

Now that there was more light, Persis saw a wrapper lying across a chair by the bureau. As she snatched that up, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the wall. It was a very ornate mirror, perhaps better suited for a formal parlor, deeply framed in gilt which was a little dimmed. But the dimming had not extended to the glass.

What a miserable sight she was!

No neat braided knot to top off her coiffure, no carefully disciplined bunches of side curls, just a mass of tangled brown hair sticky and matted, as she discovered when she poked and pulled at it. She looked like one of those noisome hags illustrating one of Mrs. Radcliffe's weird stories. Persis was no beauty, but she had never allowed herself to be untidy. Now her reflection appalled her. She was startled by a tap at the door and whirled about to call:

"Come!" Then she added, "Molly!" with deep relief, running to throw her arms about the woman who entered, a liberty Molly would never have allowed normally. For she was as set in her idea of the perfect lady's maid as Persis was schooled to be the lady in charge of Uncle Augustin's household.

"Miss Persis, you'll catch your death!" Molly freed herself and shook out a light cloak from the bundle she carried, putting it around the girl's shoulders. "It's a mercy we ain't all at the bottom of that there sea, so it is!"

"Where's Uncle Augustin?"

"Now you have no call to fret, Miss Persis. He's as snug set as a baby in a hearth cradle. Shubal has took him some soup and he swallowed near all of it. That the good Lord brought us safe to land is a mighty mercy—"

"But where are we?"

"This is Lost Lady Key, leastways that is what they call it. And you've been sleeping right in Captain Leverett's own bed. This is his house."

"Who is Captain Leverett?" Persis' head ached. If Uncle Augustin had his faithful Shubal in attendance, she need not worry about him for the moment. Molly's calm had its effect, for she was acting as if it were the most natural thing in the world for Persis Rooke, a most respectable lady, to wake up in the bed of an unknown captain in a house she did not even remember entering.

"Why he's the one who rescued us. It was he as got you into the boat so his men could bring us ashore. Don't you remember that, Miss Persis?"

The pirate—oh, she remembered all right! Persis set her teeth. It was not likely she'd ever forget being thrown about. Molly could talk of being saved, but surely one did not have to be treated like that!

"It was a bad reef the Arrow got hooked on," Molly continued. "Though Captain Leverett thinks they might be able to pull the ship off once she's lightened of cargo. They've been bringing in stuff out of the hold since last night."

"Wreckers!" Persis sniffed.

"We was right glad to see them, Miss Persis. It's these wreckers as save ships, lives, too. And Captain Leverett, he's a proper gentleman. Gave orders to get the doctor for Mr. Augustin. There's a real doctor living here, though he don't do much doctoring anymore. Seems he's more interested in planting things to watch 'em grow, or so Mrs. Pryor says. But he ain't forgot his doctoring when there's a need for it. He said as how Mr. Augustin has had a bad shock, and the wetting didn't do him no good neither. He looked at you, too, Miss Persis. Seems like when you fell into the boat you got a knock on the head. But he said that was no great matter—just to let you sleep it off."

"I—" Persis pushed impatiently at her tangled hair. The past few days had been a bad dream. First the awful seasickness which had kept her captive in her cabin in spite of all her will to conquer it—then the terror of being tossed about in the storm—the final shuddering crash—

"You'll be all right, Miss Persis. And Miss Lydia, the Captain's own sister, is lending you some clothes. I'll go and get 'em. That there dress you had on is ruined. But first—" Molly went out to get a tray on which was a mug, with a saucer set on top of it, and alongside a respectable silver spoon.

"They've a real good cook here," the maid announced. There was satisfaction in her praise, for Molly and Uncle Augustin's cook were old enemies, enjoying a feud Persis sometimes suspected was highly satisfactory to both. "This broth has real body to it. You get that inside you, Miss Persis, and you'll feel a lot better. You look washed out."

Persis averted her eyes from the mirror. Washed out was a very mild term for what she saw there now.

"I look worse than that," she agreed with dismal frankness as she picked up the spoon. The liquid in the mug did smell good and, for the first time in days, she felt hungry instead of squeamish.

"My trunk is down there—" she gestured to the window. "Can you get them to bring it up? I'd rather wear my own things."

She had fretted so over those dresses since Uncle Augustin had suddenly decided to make this trip to the Bahamas where it was supposed to be so very much warmer, that the heavy silks and woolens one needed in New York would not be proper. She had had such a difficulty shopping for muslins, a light silk or two at the beginning of the fall season. The whole contents of that trunk were the result of much time and effort. And she had had to be very careful in the cost of her selections because Uncle Augustin's affairs were in such a muddle after the disastrous fire last year when half of the city had gone up in flames.