The Yellow House; Master of Men

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

“I am surprised to hear you talk like that, Kate,” she said, quietly. “Do you think that it is quite good taste?”

“Be off, you little goose!” I called after her as she passed on towards the house with quickened step and rigid head. The little sober figure turned the bend and disappeared without looking around. She was the perfect type of a clergyman’s daughter—studiously conventional, unremittingly proper, inevitably a little priggish. She was the right person in the right place. She had the supreme good fortune to be in accord with her environment. As for me, I was a veritable black sheep. I looked after her and sighed.

I had no desire to go in; on the other hand, there was nothing to stay out for. I hesitated for a moment, and then strolled on to the end of the avenue. A change in the weather seemed imminent. A grey, murky twilight had followed the afternoon of brilliant sunshine, and a low south wind was moaning amongst the Norwegian firs. I leaned over the gate with my face turned towards the great indistinct front of Deville Court. There was nothing to look at. The trees had taken to themselves fantastic shapes, little wreaths of white mist were rising from the hollows of the park. The landscape was grey, colorless, monotonous. My whole life was like that, I thought, with a sudden despondent chill. The lives of most girls must be unless they are domestic. In our little family Alice absorbed the domesticity. There was not one shred of it in my disposition.

I realized with a start that I was becoming morbid, and turned from the gate towards the house. Suddenly I heard an unexpected sound—the sound of voices close at hand. I stopped short and half turned round. A deep voice rang out upon the still, damp air—

“Get over, Madam! Get over, Marvel!”

There was the sound of the cracking of a whip and the soft patter of dogs’ feet as they came along the lane below—a narrow thoroughfare which was bounded on one side by our wall and on the other by the open stretch of park at the head of which stood Deville Court. There must have been quite twenty of them, all of the same breed—beagles—and amongst them two people were walking, a man and a woman. The man was nearest to me, and I could see him more distinctly. He was tall and very broad, with a ragged beard and long hair. He wore no collar, and there was a great rent in his shabby shooting coat. Of his features I could see nothing. He wore knickerbockers, and stockings, and thick shoes. He was by no means an ordinary looking person, but he was certainly not prepossessing. The most favorable thing about him was his carriage, which was upright and easy, but even that was in a measure spoiled by a distinct suggestion of surliness. The woman by his side I could only see very indistinctly. She was slim, and wore some sort of a plain tailor gown, but she did not appear to be young. As they came nearer to me, I slipped from the drive on to the verge of the shrubbery, standing for a moment in the shadow of a tall laurel bush. I was not seen, but I could hear their voices. The woman was speaking.

“A new vicar, or curate-in-charge, here, isn’t there, Bruce? I fancy I heard that one was expected.”

A sullen, impatient growl came from her side.

“Ay, some fellow with a daughter, Morris was telling me. The parson was bound to come, I suppose, but what the mischief does he want with a daughter?”