Read Ebook: The Ffolliots of Redmarley by Harker L Allen Lizzie Allen

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 215 lines and 13681 words, and 5 pages

e, but Eloquent condoned this weakness in her case, she drank so little. Everyone drank champagne except Sir George, who preferred whisky, and Eloquent himself, who drank Apollinaris.

"Do you suffer from rheumatism?" Mary asked innocently. "Do you think it would hurt you once in a way?"

"I am not in the least rheumatic," Eloquent protested, "but I have never tasted anything intoxicating."

"Then you don't know whether you'd like it or not. Why not try some and see?" Mary suggested hospitably.

Eloquent shook his head. "Better not," he said, "you don't know what effect it might have on me."

He ate whatever was put before him, wholly unaware of its nature, and in spite of Mary's efforts to keep the conversational ball rolling gaily, he was very silent.

The dream had got him again, for he knew this room with the dark oak panelling and great old portraits of departed Ffolliots, some of them with eyes that followed you. He knew the room, but as he knew it, the long narrow table, like the table in a refectory, was bare and polished and empty; or with a little cloth laid just at one end for old Mr Ffolliot.

What did they think of it now, these solemn pictured people?--this long, narrow strip of brilliant light and flowers and sparkling glass and silver, surrounded by well-dressed cheerful persons, all, apparently, laughing and talking at the same time.

They had reached dessert, and he was handing Mary a dish of sweets; she took four. "Do take some," she whispered, "take lots, and what you don't want give to me; you can put them in my bridge-bag under the table, I want them for the children. I promised Ger."

Bewildered, but only too happy to do anything she asked him, Eloquent helped himself largely.

"Now," Mary whispered, holding a little white satin bag open under the table, "and if they come round again, take some more."

"It was my grandfather began it," she explained; "he used always to save sweets for us when we stayed with him, and now it's a rule--if we dine downstairs--if there are any--there aren't always, you know--and Fusby's so stingy, if there are any left he takes them and locks them up in a box till next time. You watch Grantly, he's got some too, but he hasn't got anywhere to put them, like me. I must go round behind him when mother collects eyes, then I'll nip up to Ger, for he'll never go to sleep till I've been . . ."

"You see," she went on confidentially, "they will take them to Willets to-morrow. He loves good sweets and he never gets any unless they take them to him. They'll make a party of it, and Mrs Willets will give them each a weeny glass of ginger-wine. They'll have a lovely time--do you know Willets?"

"Oh, you ought to know him, he's the greatest dear in Redmarley. Everyone who knows us knows Willets, and dukes and people have tried to get him away, he's such a good sportsman, but he won't leave us. We love him so much we couldn't bear it. He couldn't either. He's been keeper here nearly twenty-three years. Before mother came he was here, and now there's all of us he'll never leave."

"Have you got enough? Won't they want some for themselves as well as Willets?"

"Thanks to you, I've got a splendid lot. One can't always ask people, you know, but I thought you wouldn't mind."

"Shall I demand some more in a loud voice? there are some at the end of the table," Eloquent murmured; "I'm very shy, but I can be bold in a good cause."

Eloquent watched her with breathless interest as she "went round the longest way" and received new spoils from Grantly as she passed. How curious they were about their servants these people, where Fusby seemed to control the supplies and the children of the house secretly saved sweets for the keeper.

The men did not sit long over their wine, and it was to the hall they went and not to the white-panelled room that Eloquent unconsciously resented as an anachronism; and in the hall bridge-tables were set out.

This was a complication Eloquent had not foreseen. Among his father's friends cards were regarded as the Devil's Books, and he did not know the ace of spades from the knave of hearts.

Would they force him to play, he wondered. Would he cover himself with shame and ignominy? and what if he said it was against his principles to play for money?

In fact it seemed to him that three tables were arranged with almost indecent haste, cryptic remarks about "cutting in" were bandied about, and in less than five minutes he was sitting on the oak settle by the fire with Mrs Ffolliot, who talked to him so delightfully that the dream came back.

Here on the high-backed settle he found courage to tell her how clearly he remembered that first time he had seen her in his father's shop; and plainly she was touched and interested, and drew him on to speak of his queer lonely childhood and the ultimate goal that had been kept ever before his eyes.

He was very happy, and it seemed but a short time till somebody at one of the tables exclaimed "game and rub," and Mary came over to the settle saying, "Now, mother, you must take my place. I've been awfully lucky, I've won half a crown."

She sat down beside him on the settle asking, "Would you care to watch, or shall we just sit here and talk--which would you rather?"

What Eloquent wanted to do was to stare: to gaze and gaze at the gracious young figure sitting there in gleaming white flecked with splashes of rosy light from the dancing flames, but he could hardly say this.

"I'm afraid it would be of no use for me to watch; I have never played cards, and don't understand them in the least."

"You mean you don't know the suits?"

"What are suits?"

"This must be seen to," said Mary; "you don't smoke, you drink nothing festive, you don't know one card from another; you can't go through life like this. It's not fair. We won't waste another minute, I'll teach you the suits now."

"Surely Mr Gallup is a very absent-minded person," Miss Bax remarked to her aunt when they had deposited Eloquent at his door.

"I expect he's shy," said Lady Campion, who was sleepy and not particularly interested; "but wasn't Mary nice to him?--I do like that girl--she's so natural and unaffected."

"She always strikes me as being a mere child," said Miss Bax, "so very unformed; is she out yet, or is she still in the schoolroom?"

Sir George chuckled. "She's on her way out," he said, "and, I fancy, on her way to an uncommonly good time as well. That girl is a sight to make an old man young."

"She certainly is handsome," said Miss Bax.

Sir George chuckled again. "Unformed," he repeated, "there's some of us likes 'em like that."

Eloquent sat long in his orderly little dining-room where the glass of milk and tray of sandwiches awaited him on the sideboard. His head was in a whirl. She drank champagne. She gambled. She seemed to think it was perfectly natural and right to do these things. It probably was if she thought so. She . . .

Heavens! what an adorable wife she would be for a young Cabinet Minister.

WILLETS

Had Eloquent ever taken the smallest interest in country pursuits he must have come across Willets, for in that part of the Cotswolds Willets was as well known as the Marle itself.

A small thick-set man with a hooky nose, and with bright, long-sighted brown eyes and strong, sensitive hands, wrists tempered and supple as a rapier, and a tongue that talked unceasingly and well.

Sporting people wondered why Willets, with his multifarious knowledge of wood and river craft, should stay at Redmarley: a comparatively small estate, whose owner was known to preserve only because it was a tradition to do so, and not because he cared in the least about the sport provided. Willets was wasted, they said, and it is possible that at one time Willets, himself, agreed with them.

He came originally of Redmarley folk, and his wife from a neighbouring village. He "got on" and became one of the favourite keepers on a ducal estate in the North, much liked both by the noble owner and his sporting friends; a steady, intelligent man with a real genius for the gentle craft. He could charm trout from water where, apparently, no trout existed; he could throw a fly with a skill and precision beautiful to behold, and he was well read in the literature of his pursuits. Much converse with gentlemen had softened the asperities of his Cotswold speech, he expressed himself well, wrote both a good hand and a good letter, and was very popular with those he served. Life looked exceedingly rosy for Willets--for he was happy in his marriage and a devoted father to his three little girls--when the hand of fate fell heavily upon him. There came a terribly severe winter in that part of Scotland, and one after another the little girls got bronchitis and died; the three in five months.

He and his wife could bear the place no longer, and came South. The Duke was really sorry to lose him, and took considerable trouble to find him something to do in the Cotswold country whence he came.

It happened that just then old Mr Ffolliot was looking for a keeper who would see after things in general at the Manor, and the fishing in particular; so Willets accepted the situation merely as a make-shift for a short time, till something worthier of his powers should turn up.

It was pleasant to be in the old county once more. There was help and healing in the kind grey houses and the smiling pastoral country. His wife was pleased to be near her people, and his work was of the lightest. But Willets was not yet forty, he had ambitions, and the wages were much smaller than what he had been getting. It would do, perhaps, for a year or two, and he knew that whenever he liked, his late master would be glad to have him back and would give him a post in the Yorkshire dales.

Old Mr Ffolliot died, and his nephew, Hilary, reigned in his stead. Willets announced to his wife that their time in Redmarley would be short.

The young Squire married and in the bride's train came General Grantly with all the patience and enthusiasm and friendly anecdotal powers of your true angler; and in his train came like-minded brother officers to whom, it must be conceded, Hilary Ffolliot was always ready to offer hospitality.

Things livened up a bit at Redmarley, and Willets decided to stay a little longer.

Margery Ffolliot liked the Willets and was passionately sorry for them about the little girls; but it was the Ffolliot children who wove about Willets an unbreakable charm, binding him to his native village.

One by one, with toddling steps and high, clear voices, they stormed the little house by the bridge and took its owners captive.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet