Читать книгу Bobbie - Dorothea Conyers - Страница 8

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Bobbie slept soundly through his first night at Knockbui. He woke to a delightful drowsiness. A light wind stirred the heavy curtains of his room, a wind which came across the bog and brought faint scent of wild thyme and peat and tall meadowsweet.

Daylight-saving was still gripping the world. It was light, and birds sang, and Bobbie heaved a sigh of sheer relief. No clang of early trams, no whistle of trains, no rushing down to cook breakfast over a gas stove.

Peace, and a many-voiced stillness.

Tap on the door.

“Yes,” said Bobbie sleepily.

The voice of James. “Your shavin’ water, sir. The master says he’ll be goin’ off in twenty minutes, sir. At half seven. He’ll be ridin’ out with the hounds.”

“Tell him I’m too tired to go out this morning. I’ll ride later.”

“Save us,” remarked old James to the dim passage.

“All the horses do be took out in the mornings, Mister Bobbie,” he said.

“Well, they can leave mine in. I’d like some tea, James, in an hour or so. I’m tired.”

“Save us,” said James once more, and departed to deliver a carefully-doctored message to the big man who was waiting at the front door. The cold morning light picked out faint lines and wrinkles in Robert Bryan’s face, showed the patches of colour on the high cheek-bones, but the old man made a splendid figure, despite his years: upright as a dart, broad-shouldered, long-limbed, his movements those of a young man.

“Mister Bobbie is tirened out, sir, this mornin’, and he’d like to do his ride later on. It took me tin taps to waken him.”

“Tirened out. Huh! The soft young rat,” growled Robert Bryan. “He’ll get no horses here later, James. Wants training, that pup. Give me my whip.”

Stalking out into the chill of the morning, striding along. A man who was in a cold bath every morning at six-thirty; and Bobbie his grandson had betaken his blue-pyjamaed form to the window, and was looking at the yellow hill, a smoke of mist about the crest wreathing it softly.

“Cheerio,” yapped Bobbie at the striding form.

What Robert Bryan remarked was cheery slug, but he said to himself, “Yes, this pup must be hardened up.”

Bobbie drank strong tea in lazy luxury, and loved the yellow cream floating on its surface. But Bobbie did not laze too long; he went to the stables just as the cavalcade of horses were being done up. Rufus’ knee had swollen enormously and the horse was dead lame.

“I’ve messed him about,” said Bobbie repentantly. “You do keep early hours here, Condon.”

“It’s the master’s habit,” said Condon. “I’m agin it meself. It’s too early to be exercisin’, an’ the horses would be all the better to take their aise, an’ go out at eleven. I have terrible trouble with their coats. But ye cannot change him, Mister Bobbie, ye cannot.”

A great gong echoed sonorously. Breakfast was ready in a small room which looked out on a flower-garden. A fire burned in the grate. Silver dishes gleamed, and Yvonne was lifting a huge teapot. One could note the strength of her slender arms as she raised it easily.

“Sorry I was too doggo to ride, sir.” Bobbie caught his grandfather’s glance at the ill-fitting tweed coat. “It was so grand to smell the country and to look out at Knockbui, splendid not to hear trams clanking by.”

“You’ll have to harden up, m’lad. Start with porridge now.”

Bobbie was faced with a plateful of steaming oatmeal, and put it aside calmly.

“Thankee, no, sir. We filled the gaps with Quaker oats when it didn’t run to kippers or bacon. I’ll give it a miss.”

“Eat it, boy. It’ll build you up. I can’t have you all peaky.”

Bobbie took a meagre helping of omelette and a piece of bacon.

“Huh!” exploded his grandfather, who was never at his best in the morning. “Huh! When you couldn’t run to bacon. Couldn’t run to. Damn it, boy, hadn’t you enough to eat?”

“Not always, not enough of what we liked.” Bobbie met the flaming glance of the fierce blue eyes. “I ... we ... we hadn’t got work at times, sir.”

“Huh!” roared Robert, gulping his mess of porridge and burning his throat. “Huh! Costello, if this is sent up too hot for me to swallow again, I shall dismiss Mrs. Dunne. Tell her so.”

“Very good, yer honour,” said Costello placidly.

Yvonne kept silence during her breakfast, which she picked at languidly.

“Such a pair of feeders. Eat those, m’lad.”

Two brown eggs were extracted from the shelter of a china hen, and placed before Bobbie.

“Couldn’t if I tried,” said Bobbie. “I had tea at eight, and such cream and bread and butter, and a lovely pear.”

“Huh! rotten habit, spoiling your breakfast. Costello, tell James no more tea for Mr. Bobbie, remember.”

“But I like it,” said Bobbie, unruffled. “And it’s inside same as if it was part of breakfast. And I’m sorry Rufus’ knee is so big, grandfather. I went out to see him.”

The glare died out of the old man’s eyes.

“Some stuff in you,” he growled more amicably. “The knee’ll be nothing, boy. That grand puppy Ransom,” he burst out, “is sickening for distemper. The best ones always go.”

“I’ll nurse it,” said Bobbie eagerly. “I’m good at distemper. Dad had Alsatians. Brandy he swore by, stimulants.”

“Huh! Jones has her on the sick bench; three of ’em are down.” Robert lighted a black cigar and went out of the room.

“Bobbie, don’t you bear him any ill will?” Yvonne, all in knitted white, got up. “You seem to like the old bear. And he ruined your father.”

“It was a case of Bryan temper on both sides,” said Bobbie thoughtfully. “Yes, I bear malice, but I want Bobbie Bryan to own Knockbui, Yvonne, and ... oh, I oughtn’t to have said that....”

“I don’t mind, I hate this staring English breakfast. Great teapots and hens’ eggs and cold boiled pigs’ legs,” Yvonne grimaced. “He doesn’t know I have my breakfast early and only pretend down here. I’m going out for the day, Bobbie. You’ll be alone.”

“You were brought up in France, then?” said Bobbie.

“Until I was seventeen, then my mother died and I came here. We lived at a dear old château, and my heart’s with France. I shall return there.”

“Not if we marry,” grinned Bobbie.

“Mon ami, I shall marry Anne de Joyeuse,” Yvonne laughed, “but I must wait until I am of age, or our bear can cut off all supplies from me.”

“Who’s Anne?” queried Bobbie.

“Anne Gaston, Marquis de Joyeuse,” said Yvonne dramatically. “His name makes grandfather just mad. A girl’s name, but they are all called by it. Their château was next to ours. See.”

She pulled out a flat gold case suspended by a thin chain, and opened the locket.

Bobbie stared at the portrait of a merry-eyed, dark young fellow with a jutting chin and firm mouth.

“He can ride. He would not fall off. He can shoot, fence, yet grandfather says he is a ninny just because of his name.”

“Complications,” said Bobbie, lighting a cigarette.

“Cave!” Yvonne stuffed the flat case back out of sight and flushed faintly, the faint rose flush which was so like the inside of a delicate shell.

“Cigar, Bobbie?” roared Robert from the door.

Bobbie shook his head earnestly.

“It’d make me sick,” he said. “I like gaspers, sir.”

“So long, au’voir.” Yvonne went out with a lavish display of slim legs.

“Kilts,” growled out Robert, “that’s what girls wear. No reticence in ’em. Legs, bare arms, cropped heads. Tights next, I s’pose.”

“Everything honestly on view.” Bobbie’s eyes twinkled. “Look at it that way, sir, better than making mysteries of God’s fashioning.”

“Damn good thing if some of ’em were mysteries. Bandy legs, an’ pipe stems and things like pillows, all in pink silk or checked wool. Come into the library, boy.”

The library was the most comfortable room in Knockbui. Wide and lofty, the walls lined with books. Deep chairs to snuggle into. French windows opening into the pleasure grounds. A big tidy writing-table stood in one window. A second table carried an orderly litter of hunting-whips and mementoes of the chase. Inkstands fashioned from the hoofs of old hunters. Foxes’ masks and brushes, pictures of favourite hounds.

“There’s Rallywood, the best hound I ever owned.” Robert lifted up a coloured photograph of a fine foxhound.

“Ransom’s his granddaughter. Never told a lie, that hound, and was killed by a kicking brute of a race mare; and that’s old Greylegs’ hoof. Great horse he was. And that’s Cherrylass’s, poor old girl. She broke her neck over wire. It makes one sad, Bobbie, looking back. Somehow the great horses aren’t there nowadays. Hackney blood spoilt a lot of our hunters.”

A photograph stood on the writing-table, that of a tall slender girl with an old-fashioned slim waist and a curly fringe hiding her forehead. A little terrier was tucked under her arm.

“My grandmother, sir?” Bobbie looked hard at the pretty wilful face. “Her dog came into the house, I bet.”

“Yes, Bobbie, he did. He ... was on her bed when she ... left me. And he fretted to death afterwards. She had a bad fall and got crushed. There was wire in the fence.”

The old man looked out of the window.

“Father was like her, sir, wasn’t he?”

“He was not.” A sudden blaze. “He was afraid of me. He was never like her. Vera, Yvonne’s mother, was like her mother.”

“I don’t think father was afraid of anyone,” said Bobbie. “Perhaps he was afraid of not being afraid and of saying too much in consequence. He was a pig-headed Bryan.”

“I am infernally complimented,” murmured Robert Bryan somewhat blankly.

“When can I ride, grandfather, please?”

The old man’s soft mood vanished at this remark. He thundered out that all the horses had been out and that if Bobbie wanted to ride he must do it before breakfast and not lie in bed.

“Well, now,” said Bobbie, quite unruffled as the peroration ended, “there’s a hard court, let’s play tennis. I’ve brought my racquet. Yvonne’s out, and one must do something.”

“Let’s play tennis! I haven’t played for years. I’m sixty-six, boy.”

“You don’t look fifty-six, sir. And I expect you’d beat me. Have a game, do,” coaxed Bobbie.

“Huh!” Robert Bryan made one of his customary rushes from the room, and Bobbie followed him. It was so lovely outside, the air silvered by floating gossamer webs, the trees just turning to their autumnal glory. So good to wander down the row of horse boxes and pat lean, well-bred heads; to look proudly at his own string of hunters, even if they had been exercised.

“I must burn the early dawn,” said Bobbie. He strolled on to the kennels, which were half a mile away. Jones, the kennel huntsman, greeted the heir deferentially. And Bobbie looked with joyous eyes at the hounds. He tried to learn some names. He petted wistful silken-skinned heads, and patted hard muscley bodies.

“An’ the master’s in a state over Ransom,” confided the kennel huntsman. “An awful state. She’s got it bad, and at an unusual time of year, sir.”

Bobbie went to the sick bench. A cold, comfortless spot it seemed to him, unheated, and smelling of disinfectants. Poor Ransom lay there, her coat standing, her breath fast and laboured, some food untouched beside her.

“The master won’t come anigh her. He hates ’em sick. I wish to Gawd we could cure the bitch.”

“I’ll cure her,” said Bobbie. “Pack her into a wheelbarrow, anything—there must be warm spots near the kitchen—and I’ll spoon-feed her.”

Before Jones could protest, the sick puppy had been lifted to a wheelbarrow and packed up in hay, and a stable boy, his eyes wide, wheeled Ransom towards the house.

Mrs. Dunne, plump and good-natured, watched the arrival of the procession.

“A warm house, sir? Save us. I was tweeny maid an’ your father here. A warm place, blankets. I never seen one of the hunting dogs brought around before. Well! Well! Let’s see—the stick house,” advised the cook. “Ye can clear a cosy corner. An’ I’ll get an old blanket, Mr. Bobbie.”

Having laid the inert Ransom down, Bobbie flew to the dining-room. He quested in the old fashioned garde de vin and seized a bottle of brandy.

“It’s the liqueur he said it would bring anything back from the dead,” said Bobbie. Then he ran back, and Mrs. Dunne helped him beat up an egg and raised Ransom’s head while Bobbie poured the liquid down.

“She is anear gone,” decided the cook, “the craythur.” But Ransom swallowed the egg and a few minutes later lapped a little milk and fell into uneasy slumber, breathing quickly and heavily.

Bobbie slashed at an old blanket until a coat had been roughly fashioned and tapes sewn on to it. He slipped it round the sick hound, very deftly. Someone must fly off for a sheep’s liver; a rabbit must be shot.

“Delia,” said Mrs. Dunne, “could belt off to the butcher, but shot-guns she could not be meddlin’ with. Joe, the keeper, is the lad for rabbits; we’ll send a message to him this very minnit.”

Ransom slept and Bobbie watched her, and gave her more brandy, and the bitch ate a mouthful of raw meat and slept again.

“She’ll do,” said Bobbie joyfully, “she’s getting better already. Stimulant, that’s what saves ’em.”

Bobbie sat at the kitchen table waiting for Joe and the rabbit, which he ordered the cook to stew to rags.

“And you remember my father, Mrs. Dunne?” he asked.

“Surely I does.” Mrs. Dunne rolled pastry tenderly. “An’ glad we all are to see ye here, Mr. Bobbie. An’ long may ye stay.”

“Oh, I’ll stay,” said Bobbie. “That’s good pastry.”

“Me hand is as light as an angel’s wing,” boasted Anne Dunne. “Wait till I make ye a soffley, Mr. Bobbie. Like the froth of the say it is.”

Kitchen-maids scuttled in and out with saucepans and vegetables, the odour of boiling bacon came from a big pot on the range. A great jug of cream and a dozen eggs stood ready for some sweets; there was no stint of anything at Knockbui. Riches for a Bryan, for Robert Bryan of Knockbui.

Bobbie coaxed the patient to drink a saucer of milk and soda-water and went up to luncheon alone. His grandfather was out looking for snipe.

Later on Bobbie put on some discoloured flannels and got his tennis racquet. He met his grandfather outside.

“Huh!” snorted Mr. Bryan, looking hard at the flannels.

“Come and have that game, sir. It’s such a lovely day.”

“Far better if you got a gun and tried your luck.”

“I never had the chance of learning to shoot, so I should be dangerous. Joe will teach me later on. Ah, that looks a topping court.”

“I ... haven’t had a bat in my hand for years. I ...”

“But you’ll beat me,” said Bobbie.

Robert Bryan grunted, and with one of his swift rushes dashed into the house. He emerged in ten minutes, beflannelled and carrying a racquet.

“Come on,” he growled. “It’s exercise, anyhow.”

The old man had been a good player, one who relied on his volleying.

He came padding in after his service and Bobbie passed him with a swift sideline return. Bobbie played well, he was quick on his feet and fairly accurate when he came up to the net. But Robert, smashing anything weak, grunted contemptuously.

“Your overhead game’s all wrong,” he growled. “All wrong.” This after Bobbie had won the first set to one, and was four games up in the second. “You’re all back line.”

“Give me a lesson in volleying, then. Do. I don’t use my wrist enough. Is that it?”

Hickman Hume came across the lawn and said “Hello,” in surprised accents. The old man dropped his racquet and swore softly.

“The boy had nothing to do. I just came out, and—eh, beat him? No fear; I haven’t the legs. You take him on now, Hickman.”

Hampered by breeches and gaiters Hume took the racquet. He was a fair player, but he had to run to try to beat Bobbie, and having run could not do it.

But Bobbie’s colour went. He grew hot and suddenly stopped.

“Had enough,” he said easily, sitting down. “I’m melting.”

“Had enough at four two? Play it out, Bobbie, don’t be a coward,” the cool voice mocked lightly.

“Better a coward than a corpse, may-happen. Is there anyone good round here?”

Mr. Hume reddened faintly. He rather fancied himself as a local Borotra. “Impertinence,” said the brown eyes.

“There were some fine players at Redbray,” mused Bobbie, “and I got in a lot of tennis there. I’d have a covered court here. Oh!”—Bobbie hurried off; he had forgotten Ransom.

“Of all the young pups,” muttered Hume irritably, picking up the racquets and balls.

Ransom was easier, her breathing less hurried, and after a third dose of egg and brandy she picked at stewed rabbit.

There was no shirking next morning. Bobbie was ready to go out riding at seven-thirty, but he looked pale and heavy-eyed, and shivered in the raw air.

Condon had saddled Smoke for him. Bobbie had hoped for a canter across the fields, but they jogged behind the hounds, bumping along through grey mists, the horses going listlessly.

“Hold your mare up,” roared Robert as Smoke stumbled.

Jog, jog, bump, along narrow roads, the blackberry vines spangled by countless dew-jewelled gossamer webs, the grass pearled by moisture.

“Take the hounds round by Cullen, Jones. We’ll go back. Come, Bobbie.”

The ride out had seemed a long one, but going back appeared to be longer. The horses, noses towards home, wanted to trot fast, and that bumping quiet jog must be kept to.

“Hold your reins. Bobbie, you’re half asleep.”

“B’lieve I was,” apologised Bobbie.

“I suppose you’d like to gallop ’em,” roared old Bryan; “that’s a boy’s idea, sweat all the flesh off your horses. Pace, pace. Harden up, Bobbie, you look like unbaked pastry. Don’t canter up the lane, get ’em in cool. Don’t doze again.”

“He is tirened out, up all night with that pup,” broke out Condon, as Bobbie slipped off the mare. “None was to tell, but I must. He never left her, an’ she is better this morning.”

“With what pup? With Ransom?” roared the old man.

“I said I’d nurse her; she’s doing fine.” Bobbie slouched off. Condon now poured out the story.

“Took her to the wood shed, did he. He’s never been asleep. And she’s better. Jones said she couldn’t live. So there is stuff in the boy.”

When Bobbie came in to breakfast, he understood the peace-offering of a plate of porridge, three boiled eggs and a pile of ham, all laid ready for him.

“I have to thank you about that bitch.” Robert Bryan studied Bobbie’s face. “Have you ... ever had an illness, boy?”

“I had pneumonia last year. It left me a bit shaky.” Bobbie eyed the eggs unhappily.

Mr. Bryan said “Huh, pneumonia!” and then “Huh, kippers!” and made one of his violent rushes from the room.

“He always does it,” chuckled Yvonne.

“He’s upset because I said we had kippers for breakfast.” Bobbie decapitated the eggs, and hurriedly hid their contents in the porridge; the shells and cups he ranged round him proudly.

“That’s better.” His grandfather swung in again. “Connolly.”

“Yes, sir.”

Connolly appeared to hover near the door.

“Tell Mrs. Dunne if she sends me up cold porridge I’ll dismiss her.”

“Very good, sir,” said Connolly.

“You haven’t eaten yours, Bobbie. P’raps it’s hotter than mine.”

“My God, no, it’s iced,” said Bobbie. “Take it, Connolly, carefully. It’s hatching three eggs,” he whispered.

“Pneumonia. How’d you get it, boy?”

“My waterproof let in the rain,” said Bobbie absently. “It was one of father’s. I walked back from a dance. I was pretty bad that time.”

“Damn kippers and waterproofs,” roared his grandfather, rushing to the door.

Bobbie went to his sick puppy, now rapidly getting stronger, and then he strolled away from the house towards the yellow hill.

Sun had dispersed the mists of the morning. It was warm and still. Bees hummed among the tassels of the ivy, wasps hovered, the air was a-hum with insect life. Here and there the sycamores were yellowing, and a few birch leaves had taken the hue of red rust. Bobbie went by a long path, tidily kept, a riot of old roses struggling with the ivy on a high wall. The path was wide, ominously so, for down it the Bryans were driven to their last rest. Ever without pomp of hearse and plume and black horses, but carried on a cart, and drawn by a powerful work horse.

How many feet had paced sadly by the high wall, how many Bryans had been carried past it?

Bobbie left the path, and struck across the fields, the yellow hill humped close to him, its sides scarred by outcropping slabs of rock; gorse grew there, and the coarse grass which looked so yellow in the distance. At the bottom of the hill, facing west, a triangle of ground had been walled in and a low stone vault crouched in the loneliness. Its sides were smothered by Virginia creeper, flowers bloomed on the graves of the few Bryans who had wished to be laid in the earth.

Bobbie shivered. So, striving and suffering, happy or rich, all came to this. He found a sheltered corner out of sight of the graveyard and cuddled down into it, smoking and dreaming, looking out across the flat green land.

“Hello, Bobbie!” Bobbie started. Hickman Hume, driving a big grey colt in long reins, had come up across the fields.

“Hello Hickman!” returned Bobbie.

Mr. Hume’s cool eyes expressed faint surprise.

“I’m lunging this fellow. Come on, Jim.” A boy with a whip jumped over a bank and hurried up the field.

“He dropped the whip,” said Hume. “Jim’s a rotten fencer. You’re looking peaky, boy.”

“The result of a ten-mile jog in pursuit of hounds.” Bobbie yawned and leant back.

“I’ll put this fellow over the big double here. Like to see it? It’s finikitty work, driving ’im.”

Bobbie said it ought to be quite simple—just hold the reins and shake the whip; and Hume replied, “Try it, young cocksure,” rather drily.

The man’s cool superiority always annoyed Bobbie. The boy got up, his ill-made tweed coat smeared by green moss, and tramped towards the big double fence.

Hume handed him the long reins.

“Keep him straight at it. Straight. Now, Jim; get on, Mist.”

Mist, the big grey, walked up to the bank alertly, decided that it was too big, and turned, plunging. Bobbie found himself immersed in a cocoon composed of rope and horse, which spun round him giddily.

“Not so easy as it looks. Straighten him, Jim. Now hold the reins, boy, put him at it.”

“Get on, you,” roared Bobbie angrily. “Hit him, Jim.”

The lash flicked Mist just over his tail, the horse jumped on to the bank and over, and Bobbie followed.

Not quite according to plan, as the rope tore his hands and he landed short, to slide over the top of the fence flat on his stomach and plop into the ditch as he let the rope reins go.

“The colt will be apt to do himself mischief,” remarked Jim dispassionately. “He is gone wild entirely.”

Bobbie, covered with duck-weed, emerged from his lair.

“Come out, Undine,” snapped Hume. “You were a softy to let go of the ropes.”

“Rude brute,” commented Bobbie damply. “I hope Jim’ll never catch the nasty beast.”

Bobbie went towards home, for Jim cornered the grey against the wall of the graveyard. Bobbie was wet and bruised and cross; the memory of coolly contemptuous eyes was sorer than his smarting hands.

“Sakes alive! Were ye dippin’?” Old Connolly met Bobbie at the front door of Knockbui. “And the master fox-trottin’ since twelve with a glass of the ’98 an’ a biscuit. Let ye run an’ change quick, sir.”

Robert Bryan came out of the library.

“What the hell!” he began. “You’re a waterfall, boy.”

“I fell into a ditch,” explained Bobbie. “Trying to long-rein a grey horse. And it’s time to feed Ransom.” He fled.

“The clothes dripping on him and he off to the sick hound.” Connolly shook his grey head.

“Pneumonia, kippers, huh!” Mr. Bryan went out the hall door and in again in record time. “Get the old brandy, James, and give Mr. Bobbie a glass directly he returns.”

“I cannot, he tuk it for the pup,” said Connolly calmly.

“He ... took the old ... brandy ... for the ...” Robert Bryan went in and out again, beating his own previous record. “That boy will be the death of me, Connolly.”

“He’ll be apt to bring on the appleplexy,” mused Connolly, and aloud: “He is a Bryan to his toes, sir.”

Mr. Bryan went into the library, banged the door and then called to his own man.

“Get Mr. Bobbie into dry clothes at once, James—if he has any. See to him.”

“Very good, sir,” said James. “He is mixin’ up stewed rabbit in the kitchen, sir, and makin’ eggs and brandy for Ransom at the moment, sir.”

“Put the egg and brandy down Mr. Bobbie’s throat. Hang Ransom!” roared the old man.