"Wilkie Collins - The New Magdalen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Collins Wilkie)

She might consent, if you would only use your influence. Is it asking too much
to ask you to persuade her? My mother and my sisters have written to her, and
have produced no effect. Do me the greatest of all kindnesses--speak to her
to-day!" He paused, and possessing himself of Lady Janet's hand, pressed it
entreatingly. "You have always been so good to me," he said, softly, and pressed
it again.
The old lady looked at him. It was impossible to dispute that there were
attractions in Horace Holmcroft's face which made it well worth looking at. Many
a woman might have envied him his clear complexion, his bright blue eyes, and
the warm amber tint in his light Saxon hair. Men--especially men skilled in
observing physiognomy--might have noticed in the shape of his forehead and in
the line of his upper lip the signs indicative of a moral nature deficient in
largeness and breadth--of a mind easily accessible to strong prejudices, and
obstinate in maintaining those prejudices in the face of conviction itself.
To the observation of women these remote defects were too far below the surface
to be visible. He charmed the sex in general by his rare personal advantages,
and by the graceful deference of his manner. To Lady Janet he was endeared, not
by his own merits only, but by old associations that were connected with him.
His father had been one of her many admirers in her young days. Circumstances
had parted them. Her marriage to another man had been a childless marriage. In
past times, when the boy Horace had come to her from school, she had cherished a
secret fancy (too absurd to be communicated to any living creature) that he
ought to have been her son, and might have been her son, if she had married his
father! She smiled charmingly, old as she was--she yielded as his mother might
have yielded--when the young man took her hand and entreated her to interest
herself in his marriage. "Must I really speak to Grace?" she asked, with a
gentleness of tone and manner far from characteristic, on ordinary occasions, of
the lady of Mablethorpe House. Horace saw that he had gained his point. He
sprang to his feet; his eyes turned eagerly in the direction of the
conservatory; his handsome face was radiant with hope. Lady Janet (with her mind
full of his father) stole a last look at him, sighed as she thought of the
vanished days, and recovered herself.
"Go to the smoking-room," she said, giving him a push toward the door. "Away
with you, and cultivate the favorite vice of the nineteenth century." Horace
attempted to express his gratitude. "Go and smoke!" was all she said, pushing
him out. "Go and smoke!"
Left by herself, Lady Janet took a turn in the room, and considered a little.
Horace's discontent was not unreasonable. There was really no excuse for the
delay of which he complained. Whether the young lady had a special motive for
hanging back, or whether she was merely fretting because she did not know her
own mind, it was, in either case, necessary to come to a distinct understanding,
sooner or later, on the serious question of the marriage. The difficulty was,
how to approach the subject without giving offense. "I don't understand the
young women of the present generation," thought Lady Janet. "In my time, when we
were fond of a man, we were ready to marry him at a moment's notice. And this is
an age of progress! They ought to be readier still."
Arriving, by her own process of induction, at this inevitable conclusion, she
decided to try what her influence could accomplish, and to trust to the
inspiration of the moment for exerting it in the right way. "Grace!" she called
out, approaching the conservatory door. The tall, lithe figure in its gray dress