God's Good Man - Marie Corelli (i want to read a book .txt) š
- Author: Marie Corelli
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āGood-night, Ambassador Josey!ā
Josey waved his old hat energetically.
āGood-night, my beauty! Good-night to Squireās gel! Good-nightāā
But before he could pile on any more epithets, she was gone, and the butler Primmins stood in her place.
āIāll help give you a lift down to the gates,ā he said, surveying Josey with considerable interest; āYouāre a game old chap for your age!ā
Josey was still waving his hat to the dark embrasure through which Marylliaās white figure had vanished.
āAināt she a beauty? Aināt she jest a real Vancourt pride?ā he demanded excitedly; āLord! We wonāt know ourselves in a month or two! You marrk my wurrds, boys! See if what I say donāt come true! Leach may cheat the gallus, but he wonāt cheat them blue eyes, let him try ever so! Theyāll be the Lordās arrows in his skin! You see if they aināt!ā
Bainton here gave a signal to Spruce, and they hoisted up the improvised carrying-chair between them, Primmins steadying it behind.
āThere aināt goinā to be no layinā low of the Five Sisters!ā Josey continued with increasing shrillness and excitement as he was borne out into the moonlit courtyard; āAnd there aināt goinā to be no devilās work round the old Manor no more! Welcome āome to Squireās gel! Welcome āome!ā
āShut up, Josey!ā said Bainton, though kindly enoughāāYouāll soon part with all the breath youāve got in yer body if ye makes a screech owl of yerself like that in the night air! Youās done enough for once in a way,ākeep easy anā quiet while we carries ye back to the villageāye weighs a hundred pound āeavier if yeāre noisy,āye do reely now!ā
Thus adjured, Josey subsided into silence, and what with the joy he felt at the success of his embassy, the warm still air, and the soothing influence of the moonlight, he soon fell fast asleep, and did not wake till he arrived at his own home in safety. Having deposited him there, and seen to his comfort, Spruce and Bainton left him to his nightās rest, and held a brief colloquy outside his cottage door.
āIām awful āfeard goinā to-morrow marninā up to the Five Sisters with neāer a tool and neāer a man,āLeach āull be that wild!ā said Spruce, his rubicund face paling at the very thoughtāāIf I could but āave āad written instructions, like!ā
āWhy didnāt you ask for āem while you āad the chance?ā demanded Bainton testily; āItās too late now to bother your mind with what ye might haā done if yeād had a bit of gumption. And itās too late for me to be goinā and speakinā to Passon Walden. Thereās nothinā to be done now till the marninā!ā
āNothinā to be done till the marninā,ā echoed Spruce with a sigh, catching these words by happy chance; āAll the same, sheās a fine young lady, and āer orders is to be obeyed. She aināt a bit like what I expected her to be.ā
āNor she aināt what I bet she would be,ā said Bainton, heedless as to whether his companion heard him or not; āIāve lost āarf a crown to my old āooman, for I sez, sez I, āSheās bound to be a āigh anā mighty stuck-up sort oā miss wot wonāt never āave a wurrd for the likes of we,ā anā my old āooman she sez to me: āGo ālong with ye for a great silly gawk as ye are; Iāll bet ye āarf a crown she wonāt be!ā So I sez āDone,āāanā done it is. For sheās just as sweet as clover in the spring, anā seems as gentle as a lamb,āthough I reckon sheās got a will of āer own and a mind to do what she likes, when and āow she likes. Iāll āave a fine bit oā talk with Passon ābout her as soon as iver he gives me the chance.ā
āAy, good-night it is,ā observed Spruce, placidly taking all these remarks as evening adieux,āāYon moonās got āigh, and itās time for bed if so be we rises early. Easy rest ye!ā
Bainton nodded. It was all the response necessary. The two then separated, going their different ways to their different homes, Spruce having to get back to the Manor and a possible curtain- lecture from his wife. All the village was soon asleep,āand eleven oāclock rang from the church-tower over closed cottages in which not a nicker of lamp or candle was to be seen. The moonbeams shed a silver rain upon the outlines of the neatly thatched roofs and barnsāillumining with touches of radiance as from heaven, the beautiful āGodās Houseā which dominated the whole cluster of humble habitations. Everything was very quiet,āthe little hive of humanity had ceased buzzing; and the intense stillness was only broken by the occasional murmur of a ripple breaking from the river against the pebbly shore.
Up at the Manor, however, the lights were not yet extinguished. Maryllia, on the departure of āAmbassador Joseyā as she had called him, and his two convoys, had sent for Mrs. Spruce and had gone very closely with her into certain matters connected with Mr. Oliver Leach. It had been difficult work,āfor Mrs. Spruceās garrulity, combined with her habit of wandering from the immediate point of discussion, and her anxiety to avoid involving herself or her husband in trouble, had created a chaotic confusion in her mind, which somewhat interfered with the lucidity of her statements. Little by little, however, Maryllia extracted a sufficient number of facts from her hesitating and reluctant evidence to gain considerable information on many points respecting the management of her estate, and she began to feel that her return home was providential and had been in a manner pre-ordained. She learned all that Mrs. Spruce could tell her respecting the famous āFive Sistersā; how they were the grandest and most venerable trees in all the country roundāand how they stood all together on a grassy eminence about a mile and a half from the Manor house and on the Manor lands just beyond the more low-lying woods that spread between. Whereupon Maryllia decided that she would take an early ride over her property the next day,āand gave orders that her favourite mare, āCleopatra,ā ready saddled and bridled, should be brought round to the door at five oāclock the next morning. This being settled, and Mrs. Spruce having also humbly stated that all the peacockās feathers she could find had been summarily cast forth from the Manor through the medium of the parcelsā post, Maryllia bade her a kindly good-night.
āTo-morrow,ā she said, āwe will go all over the house together, and you will explain everything to me. But the first thing to be done is to save those old trees.ā
āWell, no one wouldnāt āave saved āem if so be as you āadnāt come āome, Miss,ā declared Mrs. Spruce. āFor Mr. Leach he be a man of his word, and as obsānate as they makes āem, which the Lord Almighty knows men is all made as obsānate as pigsāand heās been master over the place likeāā
āMoreās the pity!ā said Maryllia; āBut he is master here no longer, Spruce; I am now both mistress and master. Remember that, please!ā
Mrs. Spruce curtseyed dutifully and withdrew. The close cross- examination she had undergone respecting Leach had convinced her of two things,āfirstly, that her new mistress, though such a childlike-looking creature, was no fool,āand secondly, that though she was perfectly gentle, kind, and even affectionate in her manner, she evidently had a will of her own, which it seemed likely she would enforce, if necessary, with considerable vigour and imperativeness. And so the worthy old housekeeper decided that on the whole it would be well to be carefulāto mind oneās Pās and Qās as it were,āto pause before rushing pell-mell into a flood of unpremeditated speech, and to pay the strictest possible attention to her regular duties.
āThen māappen weāll stay on in the old place,ā she considered; āBut if we doos those things which we ought not to have done, as they sez in the prayer-book, weāll get the sack in no time, for all that she looks so smilinā and girlie-like.ā
And so profound were her cogitations on this point that she actually forgot to give her husband the sound rating she had prepared for him concerning the part he had taken in bringing Josey Letherbarrow up to the Manor. Returning from the village in some trepidation, that harmless man was allowed to go to bed and sleep in peace, with no more than a reminder shrilled into his ears to be āup with the dawn, as Miss Maryllia would be about early.ā
Maryllia herself, meanwhile, quite unconscious that her small personality had made any marked or tremendous effect upon her domestics, retired to rest in happy mood. She was glad to be in her own home, and still more glad to find herself needed there.
āIāve been an absolutely useless creature up till now,ā she said, shaking down her hair, after the maid Nancy had disrobed her and left her for the night. āThe fact is, there never was a more utterly idle and nonsensical creature in the world than I am! Iāve done nothing but dress and curl my hair, and polish my face, and dance, and flirt and frivol the time away. Now, if I only am able to save five historical old trees, I shall have done something useful;ā something more than half the women I know would ever take the trouble to do. For, of course, I suppose I shall have a row,āor as Aunt Emily would say āwords,āāwith the agent. All the better! I love a fight,āespecially with a man who thinks himself wiser than I am! That is where men are so ridiculous,āthey always think themselves wiser than women, even though some of them canāt earn their own living except through a womanās means. Lots of men will take a womanās money, and sneer at her while spending it! I know them!ā And she nestled into her bed, with a little cosy cuddling movement of her soft white shoulders; āāTake all and give nothing!ā is the motto of modern manhood;āI donāt admire it,āI donāt endorse it; I never shall! The true motto of love and chivalry should be āGive allātake nothingā!ā
Midnight chimed from the courtyard turret. She listened to the mellow clang with a sense of pleased comfort and security.
āMany people would think of ghosts and all sorts of uncanny things in an old, old house like this at midnight;ā she thought; āBut somehow I donāt believe there are any ghosts here. At any rate, not unpleasant ones;āonly dear and loving āhomeā ghosts, who will do me no harm!ā
She soon sank into a restful slumber, and the moonlight poured in through the old latticed windows, forming a delicate tracery of silver across the faded rose silken coverlet of the bed, and showing the fair face, half in light, half in shade, that rested against the pillow, with the unbound hair scattered loosely on either side of it, like a white lily between two leaves of gold. And as the hours wore on, and the silence grew more intense, the slow and somewhat rusty pendulum of the clock in the tower could just be heard faintly ticking its way on towards the figures of the dawn. āGive allātake nothingāGiveāallātakeānoāthing!ā it seemed to say;āthe motto of love and the code of chivalry, according to Maryllia.
X
A thin silver-grey mist floating delicately above the river Rest and dispersing itself in light wreaths across the flowering banks and fields, announced the breaking of the dawn,āand John Walden, who had passed a restless night, threw open his bedroom window widely, with a sense
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