Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean - Страница 46

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She went out, and Carolan saw her make her stately way past the window. She did not look in though, and Carolan remembered that she was hungry, and sat back to enjoy her bread and cheese. Life was wonderful. Very soon she would be married to Everard, for had she not wished that he would leave everything and come to her, and was not her wish to be granted? And in the meantime she was to enjoy this adventure of getting to her own dear Mamma and the father she would surely love. Would it be possible to hire a carriage to take her to the house? She wondered how much a carriage would cost. She would ask the landlord or one of the ostlers what would be best. And she would go now, for she was eager to see her mother and her father.

She drew on the hood of her cloak and went to the mirror on the sideboard to pat the tendrils of hair at her temple.

Excited like this she was certainly pretty, as pretty as Margaret perhaps, but in a different way. She was staring at her dress, for the pearl and turquoise brooch which the squire had given her on her last birthday was not there. Her fingers flew to her dress in dismay; she could not believe the mirror was telling the truth. The brooch had gone. She began to ask herself if she had put it on that morning. Had she left it in the inn on the other side of Bagshot Heath? But no. Distinctly she remembered she had the brooch pinned in her dress when she came into this parlour.

Well, she had lost it; she must.resign herself to that. Did it matter? Every time she put it on she thought of the squire’s hot fingers fastening it at her neck, as he had done on the day he had given it to her. But though she was young she was no fool. The lady had come very close to her when she had made her wish. She had felt her close while she murmured the wish over and over again to herself. Oh, how wicked she was to think such evil thoughts of one who had been so kind I But, wicked as she was, she was feeling in the pocket of her cloak to make sure that she still had her purse.

The purse had gone … had disappeared as surely as the brooch!

Hot anger burned in Carolan’s cheeks. Not for the loss of her brooch and her purse … oh, no, that was a loss certainly, but there was something that went deeper than that. Oh, the wickedness! To say such things! The deceit! The pretence! The hypocrisy!

I’d have her beaten! Carolan said to herself furiously. I’d have her jailed, sent to Newgate! I’d have her hanged! The wicked old thief!

Carolan ran out into the yard. She was young and fleet, and the woman had been neither. Eagerly Carolan looked about her, but there was no sign of her quarry. Out in the street people glanced curiously at her, noting her flaming face. If I catch her, thought Carolan, oh … if I catch her! She thought she had a glimpse of her, and started to run, but even before she had collided with an old woman selling bunches of lavender, she realized she had been mistaken.

“Look where you are going, lady!” scolded the lavender woman, and then seeing Carolan’s good clothes she held out her wares and chanted: “Sweet blooming lavender, lady. Won’t you buy my sweet blooming lavender…?”

Carolan looked into the seamed face before her, ugly from the pox, and lined with cares.

“I have no money,” she said.

“I have just been robbed of my purse.”

With some, that might have been an excuse not to buy. but one does not sell lavender outside the Oxford Arms day in and day out without learning something of human nature; and here was a young face, a young and lovely face with wonderful green eyes that flashed anger and pity together, and a tremulous mouth that had not yet learned to give the ready lie to a pestering street crier.

“A bad business, lady,” said the woman.

“I hope you’ll not be incommoded…”

“And my brooch,” said Carolan.

“My brooch and my purse … by a creature who said she would tell my fortune and take nothing for it.”

“Why, bless you, lady, it is few there are that gives and take nothing in this world.”

“Indeed, it seems so,” agreed Carolan, and hated the teller of fortunes afresh, for she longed now to give a coin to this poor old woman.

“I am on my way to my parents’ house,” she said, ‘and as I have been staying in the country for a long time. I have never seen the house in which they live. I shall have to walk there. Please, could you tell me the way? It is Grape Street that I wish to go to.” The woman was silent for a moment while she sniffed her lavender. Then her eyes rested on Carolan’s dress and cloak and the good shoes she wore.

“Grape Street, did you say? Grape Street?

“Tis not so very far, but are you sure it was Grape Street?”

“Quite sure,” said Carolan.

“Well, then, you walk straight on till you get to Holborn. Then I think mayhap you would do better to ask again.

“Tis one of the streets that run behind Holborn. Not so far to walk, if you have the feet for walking. And lady, are you new to London?” Carolan, chastened by recent experiences, said humbly that she had never set foot in the city before in her life. There are more rogues to be met in London in one half-hour than in a year in your country towns, lady. Be careful who you should ask the way.”

“Thank you,” said Carolan.

“Thank you.” The woman looked after her. as she went up the street, scratched her pock-marked brow, shrugged her shoulders, giggled a little, and murmured: “Grape Street, eh? Grape Street!” And then, seeing a likely customer, forgot the unusual sight of a well-dressed young girl from the country asking the way to Grape Street, and sang out in a high quavering voice: “Will you buy my sweet blooming lavender …?”

Carolan hurried on, looking about her eagerly. Here was a lively spectacle on which to feast the eyes people everywhere; gay people and sad people, some who talked incessantly, some who were silent, some who shrieked with laughter, some who mumbled to themselves. Everywhere there were people; they thronged the street, jostling one another, so that unless one was young and determined to have a share in it oneself, one was pushed out into the dirty carriage-way. At street corners were whining beggars, their diseased and dirty flesh visible through their rags. Street vendors peered into Carolan’s face as she hurried along. Would she buy a China orange, an apple? Would she buy a ballad, muffins, some branches of lavender? Down narrow side streets she caught glimpses of stalls and even greater crowds of people. She heard the shrill voice of the cheap-jack on the corner; carriages rattled over the cobbles and what haughty, elegant passengers they contained! Never had Carolan seen such clothes, such brilliant colours, such sumptuous cloth. A gentleman, riding by in his carriage, gazed appraisingly at her through his eyeglass; he made as if to stop the carriage, and Carolan hastened on in alarm. But the gentleman was too languid to give chase; when Carolan turned, she saw the tail end of his carriage disappearing in the stream of traffic. Ladies holding nosegays to their faces went by in their carriages; disdainful and very, very elegant were those ladies; some, less elegant, walked the pavement, generally, Carolan noticed, with an escort, lifting their skirts that they might not trail among the dirt, taking care not to touch those who passed by them. Exciting, exhilarating scene! Carolan had never witnessed anything like it Noise all round her; conversation mingling with the vendors’ cries and the sound of carriage.wheels. And thus she came into Holborn. Now she must ask again for Grape Street, and decided to follow the advice of the lavender woman; so with the greatest of care she selected, for her look of honesty, an old woman who was selling papers of pins. Carolan blushed to see how hope leaped into her eyes as she approached her. The woman sang out:

Three rows a penny pins Short whites and middilings.

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