BARBARA FELL BACK AGAINST THE WALL
MAD BARBARA
BY
WARWICK DEEPING
AUTHOR OF
“BERTRAND OF BRITTANY” “A WOMAN’S WAR”
“THE SLANDERERS” ETC. ETC.
WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY
CHRISTOPHER CLARK, R. I.
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
MCMIX
Copyright, 1908, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
All rights reserved.
Published February, 1909.
MAD BARBARA
I
In the little music-house in his garden overlooking the Park of St.James’s, Sir Lionel Purcell—Knight—lay dead, with his cloak halfthrown across his face and one hand still gripping the hilt of hissword. The door of the music-room stood ajar, giving a glimpse of theautumn garden, the grass silvered with heavy dew, yellow leaves flakingit, like splashes of gold on a green shield. The curtains were drawnacross the windows, so that a few stray shafts of light alone streamedin, giving a sense of some mystery unrevealed as yet, some riddle ofhuman passion waiting to be read.
The silent room seemed all shadows, save where those Rembrandtesquestrands of sunlight slanted upon the floor. And there, as though touchedby light from another world, the dead man’s forehead gleamed out abovethe black folds of his cloak. His sword, a streak of silver, joined himto the surrounding shadows, a last bond between him and the past.
Without—an autumn morning, with the clocks chiming the hour of six, andthe water-fowl calling from the decoy in the park. A golden mistswimming in the east; the grass white with dew; the trees stillsleeping, though the yellow leaves fell slowly, softly from the silentbranches overhead. A virginal gray-eyed wonder in the eyes of the day.Freshness and fragrance everywhere, with the spires of Westminsterstriking upward into pearly haze, and the broad river catching thesunlight that sifted through the ragged vapor.
Dawn may be the egotist’s hour of smug self-congratulation, or thepoet’s moment for praising solitude, even though like Thomson he burieshis head in a nightcap, and wallows in bed till noon. The dead man hadno one as yet to question his quietude, though there was a sense ofstirring everywhere—attic windows opening, milk frothing into jugs atkitchen steps, carts lumbering lazily over the cobbles. The sunasce