Читать книгу Fire in the Thatch - Edith Caroline Rivett - Страница 7

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Anne St Cyres was very much like her father. She was tall and squarely built—too solid for elegance, but built for endurance. Her face was square, too, with a resolute jaw, low forehead and nondescript nose. Her eyes were her best features, wide-set, grey-blue eyes, happy and steady, and her mouth was full-lipped and kindly, but resolute like her chin. Her hair was long, drawn back into a plaited bun, waving prettily over her shapely ears. Anne wore an old heather mixture tweed suit—it was a good suit, but old enough to have lost its lines and become baggy. With her chestnut brown hair, russet cheeks and heather mixture tweed she looked almost part of the landscape, an appropriate sturdy figure, strong and competent. When Colonel St Cyres saw her, he said, “Thank God.” He always did thank God for Anne.

She came straight into the wood-shed and straight to the point. “June been having high strikes? I’m sorry for you, Daddy, but it had to happen. She’s been boiling up her grievances for quite a long time. All the same, don’t let Little Thatch to her friend Gressingham.”

“I’m not going to, Anne. I don’t like the sound of the fellow.”

“You’d like the reality even less. I’ve met him. He was in the Cocktail Bar at the Courtenay Hotel in Exeter when I was there with June the other day.”

Her father cut in: “Cocktail bar? That’s a new port of call for you, Anne.”

“Oh, I know,” she replied. “I ran June in to Exeter when I had to go to see about new tyres, and nothing would please her but cocktails and an expensive lunch. I loathe wasting money like that—but I’m sometimes sorry for June. She’s a fish out of water here. However, I was going to tell you about her friend, Mr. Gressingham. He’s just the type you and I dislike—oozing money, very pleased with himself, and inclined to be familiar on a moment’s acquaintance. Oh, I loathed him. He’s facetious and he called me Anne in the first five minutes—but I shouldn’t have minded that so much—we can’t all like the same people—only I wouldn’t trust him an inch, least of all with June. He’s got a wife, and June’s got a husband—and I just couldn’t bear the way he behaved with her. It made me hot all over.” Anne’s honest face had flushed deep rosy red, and her voice was distressed as she went on: “I hate myself for saying all this, and I shouldn’t have said a word to you about it if it hadn’t been that I know June is set on getting Little Thatch for Mr. Gressingham, so that she can be in and out of the place any time she likes. I just can’t bear the idea of it. You and I were both sorry when Denis married her, but since they are married—well, I don’t want any Gressinghams down here.”

Colonel St Cyres nodded, but he looked very glum.

“You’re quite right, Anne. I feel exactly as you do, and I want to do everything we can for Denis, poor chap—but it’s going to be difficult. If June takes this attitude about hating us all and being miserable we can’t very well keep her here.”

“Don’t take any notice of her. Leave her to me,” replied Anne. “It’s all very well for June to say she’s going away because she can’t stand us any longer—I’ve been hearing that for some time—but June likes her comforts, and comforts are costly these days. Let her simmer down again. Take no notice of what she’s said—you’ll find she’ll think better of it.” Anne laughed, a little bitterly. “I’ve no doubt she’s lying on her bed at the moment, raging furiously. I shall take her up a hot-water bottle and a jug of coffee, sympathise with her over her appalling headache, draw the curtains, murmur something about chicken for lunch, and retire tactfully.”

Colonel St Cyres chuckled, but he quickly sobered down, adding: “All very well to laugh, my dear, but it’s deuced hard on you. You get the brunt of it.”

“Don’t worry about me, Daddy. I’ve got a broad back and I can manage. Provided you and Mother aren’t made miserable in your own home I don’t mind dealing with June. She’s an idiot—according to our ideas—but I’m still sorry for her, partly because she is an idiot. She’s never done an honest hard day’s work in her life: she misses everything that seems worth while to me, and she doesn’t seem to have a friend in the world who values her for herself. I love Michael, you know. He’s a darling, for all that he’s a spoilt little brat, and he is beginning to improve. He doesn’t yowl nearly so much as he did, and he’s healthier. Look!” She opened the door of the shed and motioned to her father.

Michael, aged five, was playing by the pump in the stable yard, throwing bits of ice about, as George, the gardener’s boy, broke the crust of ice on the stone trough. Michael was very fair, with scarlet cheeks and blue eyes; muffled up in an old fair-isle scarf of Anne’s, tied over his head and round his neck, he was a picture of healthy childhood, very different from the white-faced little lad of a year ago.

“That seems to make it worth while, doesn’t it?” said Anne. “Denis will come back one day—I hope—and we’ll show him a son to be proud of. Don’t you bother about June. I’ll cope with her. Now I’m going to Leigh’s to look at those two heifers he wants to sell. They’re good stock, and we’ve lots of winter feed. Bye-bye, Daddy. Don’t worry—and get a good sound hard-working tenant for Little Thatch, and see he gets it into decent cultivation again.”

And with that Anne hurried off, shutting the door of the shed behind her.