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Beyond the City
BEYOND THE CITY.
CHAPTER I.
THE NEW-COMERS.
"If you please, mum," said the voice of a domestic from somewhere
round the angle of the door, "number three is moving in."
Two little old ladies, who were sitting at either side of a table,
sprang to their feet with ejaculations of interest, and rushed to the
window of the sitting-room.
"Take care, Monica dear," said one, shrouding herself in the lace
curtain; "don't let them see us.
"No, no, Bertha. We must not give them reason to say that their
neighbors are inquisitive. But I think that we are safe if we stand
like this."
The open window looked out upon a sloping lawn, well trimmed and
pleasant, with fuzzy rosebushes and a star-shaped bed of
sweet-william. It was bounded by a low wooden fence, which screened it
off from a broad, modern, new metaled road. At the other side of this
road were three large detached deep-bodied villas with peaky eaves and
small wooden balconies, each standing in its own little square of
grass and of flowers. All three were equally new, but numbers one and
two were curtained and sedate, with a human, sociable look to them;
while number three, with yawning door and unkempt garden, had
apparently only just received its furniture and made itself ready for
its occupants. A four- wheeler had driven up to the gate, and it was
at this that the old ladies, peeping out bird-like from behind their
curtains, directed an eager and questioning gaze.
The cabman had descended, and the passengers within were handing out
the articles which they desired him to carry up to the house. He
stood red- faced and blinking, with his crooked arms outstretched,
while a male hand, protruding from the window, kept piling up upon him
a series of articles the sight of which filled the curious old ladies
with bewilderment.
"My goodness me!" cried Monica, the smaller, the drier, and the more
wizened of the pair. "What do you call that, Bertha? It looks to me
like four batter puddings."
"Those are what young men box each other with," said Bertha, with a
conscious air of superior worldly knowledge.
"And those?"
Two great bottle-shaped pieces of yellow shining wood had been heaped
upon the cabman.
"Oh, I don't know what those are," confessed Bertha. Indian clubs had
never before obtruded themselves upon her peaceful and very feminine
existence.
These mysterious articles were followed, however, by others which were
more within their, range of comprehension--by a pair of dumb-bells, a
purple cricket-bag, a set of golf clubs, and a tennis racket. Finally,
when the cabman, all top-heavy and bristling, had staggered off up the
garden path, there emerged in a very leisurely way from the cab a big,
powerfully built young man, with a bull pup under one arm and a pink
sporting paper in his hand. The paper he crammed into the pocket of
his light yellow dust-coat, and extended his hand as if to assist some
one else from the vehicle. To the surprise of the two old ladies,
however, the only thing which his open palm received was a violent
slap, and a tall lady bounded unassisted out of the cab. With a regal
wave she motioned the young man towards the door, and then with one
hand upon her hip she stood in a careless, lounging attitude by the
gate, kicking her toe against the wall and listlessly awaiting the
return of the driver.
As she turned slowly round, and the sunshine struck upon her face, the
two watchers were amazed to see that this very active and energetic
lady was far from being in her first youth, so far that she had
certainly come of age again since she first passed that landmark in
life's journey. Her finely chiseled, clean-cut face, with something
red Indian about the firm mouth and strongly marked cheek bones,
showed even at that distance traces of the friction of the passing
years. And yet she was very handsome. Her features were as firm in
repose as those of a Greek bust, and her great dark eyes were arched
over by two brows so black, so thick, and so delicately curved, that
the eye turned away from the harsher details of the face to marvel at
their grace and strength. Her figure, too, was straight as a dart, a
little portly, perhaps, but curving into magnificent outlines, which
were half accentuated by the strange costume which she wore. Her
hair, black but plentifully shot with grey, was brushed plainly back
from her high forehead, and was gathered under a small round felt hat,
like that of a man, with one sprig of feather in the band as a
concession to her sex. A double- breasted jacket of some dark
frieze-like material fitted closely to her figure, while her straight
blue skirt, untrimmed and ungathered, was cut so short that the lower
curve of her finely-turned legs was plainly visible beneath it,
terminating in a pair of broad, flat, low-heeled and square-toed
shoes. Such was the lady who lounged at the gate of number three,
under the curious eyes of her two opposite neighbors.
But if her conduct and appearance had already somewhat jarred upon
their limited and precise sense of the fitness of things, what were
they to think of the next little act in this tableau vivant? The
cabman, red and heavy-jowled, had come back from his labors, and held
out his hand for his fare. The lady passed him a coin, there was a
moment of mumbling and gesticulating, and suddenly she had him with
both hands by the red cravat which girt his neck, and was shaking him
as a terrier would a rat. Right across the pavement she thrust him,
and, pushing him up against the wheel, she banged his head three
several times against the side of his own vehicle.
"Can I be of any use to you, aunt?" asked the large youth, framing
himself in the open doorway.
"Not the slightest," panted the enraged lady. "There, you low
blackguard, that will teach you to be impertinent to a lady."
The cabman looked helplessly about him with a bewildered, questioning
gaze, as one to whom alone of all men this unheard-of and
extraordinary thing had happened. Then, rubbing his head, he mounted
slowly on to the box and drove away with an uptossed hand appealing to
the universe. The lady smoothed down her dress, pushed back her hair
under her little felt hat, and strode in through the hall-door, which
was closed behind her. As with a whisk her short skirts vanished into
the darkness, the two spectators--Miss Bertha and Miss Monica
Williams--sat looking at each other in speechless amazement. For
fifty years they had peeped through that little window and across that
trim garden, but never yet had such a sight as this come to confound
them.
"I wish," said Monica at last, "that we had kept the field."
"I am sure I wish we had," answered her sister.
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