Warning Hill by John P. Marquand Read Free Book Online

said Miss Meachey, as she closed the door. “Sherry, dear, can you say the little poem we’ve learned?”
    â€œNo,” said Sherwood.
    â€œI can,” said Marianne. “I can say lots and lots, can’t I, Meachey?”
    â€œMiss Meachey,” said Mr. Jellett. “Now, Sherwood, will you say your poem if I give you a bright new quarter?”
    â€œNo,” said Sherwood, “I can get a quarter any time I ask Mamma!”
    â€œI can say it!” said Marianne. “We all got dressed for it. Miss Meachey got all dressed too. You ought to have seen her getting dressed, Papa!”
    â€œWon’t you sit down, Miss Meachey?” asked Mr. Jellett.
    â€œPapa,” said Marianne, “why do you always ask to have Miss Meachey sit beside you?”
    Dullness descended upon Grafton Jellett in cloudlike beneficence. “Suppose you children run out on the terrace,” he said. “No, Marianne—the poem can wait. Of course I know you can say it. That’s it … run along.”
    Miss Meachey was good to look at, standing by the door. Even her plain black dress with its billowing sleeves was restful to the eyes. It gave an added luster to Miss Meachey’s soft dark hair, and a most alluring whiteness to her hands and throat. She stood by the closed door, tall and mysterious like a figure in a painting, which hinted of turret stairs and of silk and gold gleaming in the dark.
    â€œReally, you should be more careful,” Miss Meachey said.
    â€œCareful, eh?” said Grafton Jellet. Miss Meachey smiled, as some one might who was a good deal older.
    â€œYou’ve never been a nursery governess,” Miss Meachey said. “You underestimate what children understand.”
    Grafton Jellett stood up and thrust his hands into his coat. “Sometimes,” he said, “I get tired of being careful. Why should I be careful? Here, look what I’ve brought you.” He drew a leather case half out of his pocket.
    â€œPut it back!” said Miss Meachey. There was more color in her cheeks. “Please—not now!”
    Grafton Jellett smiled frostily with his eyes on Miss Meachey’s face. “A cold proposition,” he said. “You’re a very cold proposition, Meachey.”
    â€œAm I?” said Miss Meachey. “Well, so are you.”
    â€œOh, the devil!” Mr. Jellett sighed. “At any rate you’re real.”
    â€œYes,” said Miss Meachey. “And so are you. Most men are—now and then.”
    â€œBut not women,” sighed Grafton Jellett, “hardly ever women. You’re the only one I’ve ever seen play her cards like a man. You go after what you want without any sentiment or funny business. Ho, hum … Meachey, I wish I’d known you twelve years ago.”
    Yes, Miss Meachey was good to look at, standing by the door, so young and at the same time ever so old; she seemed to have lived other lives, and miraculously to have kept the knowledge. She was glancing at the copy of “Jane Eyre” as it lay upon the writing table, a tale of another nursery governess and another stranger gentleman.
    â€œDo you know what I’d advise?” Miss Meachey said. “I’d advise you to send me packing while you can.”
    â€œThanks,” said Mr. Jellett, “for the tip. It goes to prove what I said before—you and I are real, the only ones in—in—” he moved his head slowly about and blinked placidly, “in a whole square mile. And, Meachey, you don’t know how refreshing it is when you get where I am, surrounded by clothing dummies and simpering women, and men living on dead men’s money, to see some one who’s real. You and I know what it means to have our backs to the wall.… Ho, hum … Oh, I’ve eaten out of a pail—I’ve run a donkey engine. Now—that’s something to remember. I was hanged if I’d keep on,