Read Ebook: Tom Sawyers Neue Abenteuer by Twain Mark

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 307 lines and 15656 words, and 7 pages

"Kavanagh, we all know, is a good name."

"If he had accepted that title he would have been as--the same--as your father!" There is defiance in this sentence.

"You can laugh at me if you like, Freddy," says Mrs. Monkton with severity tempered with dignity; "but if you laughed until this day month you couldn't make me forget the things that make me unhappy."

"Don't!" says his wife, so abruptly, and with such an evident determination to give way to mirth, coupled with an equally strong determination to give way to tears, that he at once lays down his arms.

"Go on then," says he, seating himself beside her. She is not in the arm-chair now, but on an ancient and respectable sofa that gives ample room for the accommodation of two; a luxury denied by that old curmudgeon the arm-chair.

"It must have been a bad time," says Monkton slowly. He takes her hand and smoothes it lovingly between both of his.

"She was vulgar. That was not her fault; I forgive her that. What I can't forgive her, is the fact that you should have met me in her house."

"A little unfair, isn't it?"

"Is it? You will always now associate me with her!"

"I shan't indeed. Do you think I have up to this? Nonsense! A more absurd amalgamation I couldn't fancy."

"I have only had one thought about her. That she was good to you in your trouble, and that but for her I should never have met you."

"You have an uncle, then?" with some surprise.

"He is dead then?"

"Yes--I was wrong. I see it now. But I couldn't bear to explain myself. I told you what I could about my father, and that seemed to me sufficient. Your people's determination to regard me as impossible tied my tongue."

"I don't believe it was that," says he laughing. "I believe we were so happy that we didn't care to discuss anything but each other. Delightful subjects full of infinite variety! We have sat so lightly to the world all these years, that if my father's letter had not come this morning I honestly think we should never have thought about him again."

This is scarcely true, but he is bent on giving her mind a happier turn if possible.

"What's the good of talking to me like that, Freddy," says she reproachfully. "You know one never forgets anything of that sort. A slight I mean; and from one's own family. You are always thinking of it; you know you are."

"Well, never mind that. I've got you, and without meaning any gross flattery, I consider you worth a dozen dads. Tell me about your uncle. He died?"

"We don't know. He went abroad fifteen years ago. He must be dead I think, because if he were alive he would certainly have written to us. He was very fond of Joyce and me; but no letter from him has reached us for years. He was charming. I wish you could have known him."

"So do I--if you wish it. But--" coming over and sitting down beside her, "don't you think it is a little absurd, Barbara, after all these years, to think it necessary to tell me that you have good blood in your veins? Is it not a self-evident fact; and--one more word dearest--surely you might do me the credit to understand that I could never have fallen in love with anyone who hadn't an ancestor or two."

"I know; you have told me," begins she quickly, but he interrupts her.

"Oh!" she has sprung to her feet, and is staring at him with horrified eyes. "A marriage! There was someone else! You accuse me of want of candor, and now, you--did you ever mention this before?"

"No. They couldn't make me their heir. The property is strictly entailed ; you need not make yourself miserable imagining you have done me out of anything more than their good-will. George will inherit whatever he has left them to leave."

"It is sad," says she, with downcast eyes.

"Yes. He has been a constant source of annoyance to them ever since he left Eton."

"Where is he now?"

"Abroad, I believe. In Italy, somewhere, or France--not far from a gaming table, you may be sure. But I know nothing very exactly, as he does not correspond with me, and that letter of this morning is the first I have received from my father for four years."

"He must, indeed, hate me," says she, in a low tone. "His elder son such a failure, and you--he considers you a failure, too."

"They were in want of money, and you--you married a girl without a penny."

"I married a girl who was in herself a mine of gold," returns he, laying his hands on her shoulders and giving her a little shake. "Come, never mind that letter, darling; what does it matter when all is said and done?"

"They have wronged you--slighted you--ill-treated you," says he, looking at her.

"It was a lover and his lass With a hey and a ho, and a hey-nonino! That o'er the green cornfield did pass In the Spring-time, the only pretty ring-time, When birds do sing hey-ding-a-ding, Sweet lovers love the Spring."

Joyce is running through the garden, all the sweet wild winds of heaven playing round her. They are a little wild still. It is the end of lovely May, but though languid Summer is almost with us, a suspicion of her more sparkling sister Spring fills all the air.

Miss Kavanagh has caught up the tail of her gown, and is flying as if for dear life. Behind her come the foe, fast and furious. Tommy, indeed, is now dangerously close at her heels, armed with a ferocious-looking garden fork, his face crimson, his eyes glowing with the ardor of the chase; Mabel, much in the background, is making a bad third.

Mr. Dysart lets his disappointed arms fall to his sides, and assumes the aggrieved air of one who has been done out of a good thing.

"You!" says she, when at last she can speak.

And, indeed, death seems imminent. Tommy charging round the rhododendron, finding himself robbed of his expected scalp, grows frantic, and makes desperate passes at Mr. Dysart's legs, which that hero, being determined, as I have said, not to stir under any provocation, circumvents with a considerable display of policy, such as:

"Yes! what brought you?" says Miss Kavanagh, most disgracefully going over to the other side, now that danger is at an end, and Tommy has planted his impromptu tomahawk in a bed close by.

"Do you want to know?" says he quickly.

The fingers have been removed from his shoulders, and he is now at liberty to turn round and look at the charming face beside him.

"No, no!" says she, shaking her head. "I've been rude, I suppose. But it is such a wonderful thing to see you here so soon again."

"Why should I not be here?"

"Of course! That is the one unanswerable question. But you must confess it is puzzling to those who thought of you as being elsewhere."

"Well, I haven't been thinking much," says she, frankly, and with the most delightful if scarcely satisfactory little smile: "I don't believe I was thinking of you at all, until I turned the corner just now, and then, I confess, I was startled, because I believed you at the Antipodes."

"Perhaps your belief was mother to your thought."

"Perhaps so. Where are they?" asks he gloomily. "One hears a good deal about them, but they comprise so many places that now-a-days one is hardly sure where they exactly lie. At all events no one has made them clear to me."

"We'll stop there, I think," says he, with a faint grimace.

"I don't suppose you would stop anywhere with me," says he. "I have occasional glimmerings that I hope mean common sense. No, I have not been so adventurous as to wander towards Margate. I have only been to town and back again."

"What town?"

"No, I don't know," says Miss Kavanagh, a little petulantly. "One would think there was only one town in the world, and that all you English people had the monopoly of it. There are other towns, I suppose. Even we poor Irish insignificants have a town or two. Dublin comes under that head, I suppose?"

"Well, after all, I expect it is a big place in every way," says Miss Kavanagh, so far mollified by his submission as to be able to allow him something.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet