Читать книгу Accident by Design - Edith Caroline Rivett - Страница 19

Table of Contents

The sun had set at last, and the cooling fragrant air was a boon to the haymakers; thrushes and blackbirds sang from the treetops, as though vying with one another in long-drawn-out song; the larks overhead made a background of never ceasing melody, while swallows and martins cut marvellously through the air catching flies for their supper. Standish mopped his brow and rested on his fork.

“Gad, it’s worth sweating. This is about the best hour of the day.”

Barton nodded, “And it’s been a damn’ good day too. The loft in the tithe barn’s packed roof high, and I’ve never seen better hay. Standish, was it you who told Miss Vanstead I wanted to get married?”

“I did—no offence meant. I also told her that house of yours could do with a bit of modernising.”

“Jolly decent of you.”

“Nothing of the kind. As it happens, Miss Vanstead has never been over the house. Old Gray was there for half a lifetime, and when you took over, things were upset because of Sir Charles’s illness, but Miss Vanstead would have a fit at the thought of your bride coming to the house in its present condition. She’s very sound over that sort of thing.” Lighting a cigarette, Standish added: “I told her some little while ago that you hoped to get married, but—well, it just wasn’t possible to do anything then. For all we knew, you might have got notice to quit; but that’s all over, thank God, and you can count on security of tenure and decent conditions.”

Barton’s fair flushed face looked troubled. “I can’t help wishing it hadn’t come the way it did,” he said. “It was a rotten business, poor devil.”

“No use getting morbid over it,” said Standish. “Anyway, better a quick passing than living on as a cripple. In any case, he could never have made anything of life here, and I think he knew it.”

Barton turned quickly and looked at the other man. “What do you mean?”

“Well, in confidence, I couldn’t help wondering if that accident wasn’t intentional. I can trust you to keep your mouth shut, Barton, but he’d been having hell from his wife. She nagged at him, wanting him to turn all this up and take her back to Queensland. Gerald had got some relics of decent feeling, devotion to his father, and loyalty to his inheritance. It seems to me he may have just cracked up. Drank too much, got melancholy mad—and then—that.”

“Good God! How appalling!” exclaimed Barton, but Standish put in quickly:

“It’s only surmise, mark you. I wouldn’t say this to anyone else, and I was thankful to high heaven that the suggestion never cropped up at the Inquest, but I’ve watched Gerald. Admittedly I disliked him, but I couldn’t help realising his nerves were all to hell, and as I say, his wife never gave him any peace. So far as he’s concerned, I daresay he’s better out of it. He could never have coped with the sort of responsibilities involved if he’d inherited. Curiously enough, Sir Charles felt like that over it. Judith had to tell him, and she dreaded it. All he said was: ‘Perhaps it’s for the best. Gerald could never face reality.’ Amazing old man—he still goes straight to the point in any problem.”

Standish ground out the stub of his cigarette under his heel. “Don’t feel hipped about it, Barton. One man’s death is proverbially another man’s opportunity. You’ve got your opportunity to do the thing you care about, to farm under good conditions. Later on, maybe, I may be able to lend you a hand. I’m interested in line breeding. If you set out to build up your own pedigree herd, there’ll be the deuce of a lot of recording and paper work. You can count me in on that—practical genetics.”

“By gad, I’ll hold you to that sometime, Standish. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Right. We might make a start by going to the Royal Show. I’ve always wanted to bid for some top-line stock.”

Barton’s face had lost its melancholy. “The Royal Show? Glory, what a thought ... by heck, Standish, what a thought....”