Читать книгу Uncle Stephen - Forrest Reid - Страница 6

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‘It’s all very well,’ said Jane, ‘but I don’t see how you can go away without clothes. You can’t expect Uncle Stephen to lend you things, and anyway, unless he happens to be a dwarf, they wouldn’t be much use if he did.’

Tom regarded her disconsolately—a not infrequent sequel to their conversations. He was sure she could help him if she wanted to, but this morning she was in one of her least tractable moods.

‘It’s not as if he had invited you,’ Jane went on. ‘Very likely he detests boys. Most people do.’

‘Couldn’t you send some of my things after me?’ he suggested humbly. ‘A small bag would do. And you could address it to the railway station, to be called for.’

‘If the bag is to be so small why don’t you take it yourself?’

‘I might be seen.’

‘So might I.’

‘But you could wait till some time when your mother was out.’

‘And I’m to hang about the house—perhaps for two or three days—till she goes out? That will be very pleasant.’

Tom sighed. ‘I can take my pyjamas and what is absolutely necessary in a parcel. If you help me I can hide it in the yard, and then I’ll slip out by the back door after dinner. I must catch the three-twenty-five. The next train would be too late. I don’t know where the house is and I may have a long walk.’

‘How much money have you?’

Tom hesitated. Jane once more had gone straight to the point, and it was this time a point he himself had been alternately approaching and avoiding. She knew it too; he could see that from the stony gaze she had fixed on him. ‘Not very much,’ he admitted.

‘How much?’ asked Jane.

‘Three-and-eightpence.’

Jane’s expression grew more stony still. ‘You’re evidently going to walk most of the way,’ she said unfeelingly. ‘Three-and-eightpence won’t take you far, and you’ve two journeys to make.’

‘I can get a through ticket of course.’

‘For three-and-eightpence?’

Tom waited a moment, but so did Jane. ‘You got a pound from Uncle Horace on your birthday,’ he said, ‘and you can’t have spent much of it.’

‘Oh,’ said Jane. ‘Now I see why I was taken into the secret!’

‘Of course if you like to be a beast about it,’ muttered Tom.

‘Calling names won’t do any good.’

‘Well, why do you say such rotten things then?’

‘They’re perfectly true things. You mayn’t like them, but that’s because you’re ashamed.’

Tom flared up. ‘I’m not ashamed.... You know very well that wasn’t the reason why I told you.’

‘And even if I lent you the money,’ Jane pursued coldly, ‘it wouldn’t get over the difficulty of your clothes.’

‘I tell you I’m going to make up a parcel. I’ll do it now if you’ll stand outside my bedroom door and keep nix.’

‘It would be better if I packed and you kept nix.’

‘No. Somebody might come along and want to know what you were doing in my room. We’d enough of that last night.’

Jane, for a wonder, yielded to the argument, and he hastened to take advantage of this compliance. But when five minutes later he rejoined her on the landing she cast a sceptical glance at the parcel. ‘You don’t seem to be taking much!’

‘I can’t. It has to look like an ordinary parcel.’

‘Why—if you’re taking it out by the back way?’

‘I may be seen from the kitchen window.’

Jane gave the parcel another glance. She had assumed her most patronizing manner. ‘Did you put in your toothbrush?’ she asked. ‘Or was that not one of the necessaries?’

Tom controlled his feelings. ‘I have it in my pocket.’

‘Handkerchiefs?’ asked Jane.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, they weren’t necessary: Uncle Stephen probably uses them.’

Tom repressed a retort: he knew she was only trying to annoy him. ‘Promise you won’t say anything before the others.’

‘About what?’ Jane inquired.

‘I mean make allusions—with double meanings.’

‘You don’t mind if they’ve only a single meaning, then?’

Still he was determined not to squabble. ‘You know well enough it’s the kind of thing you do do,’ he muttered.

‘I think you’re perfectly horrid,’ Jane broke out unexpectedly. ‘I don’t want you to go to Uncle Stephen a bit, though I’m helping you in every possible way, and all the gratitude you show is to call me a sneak, and——’

The sentence ended in an ominous sniff. Now he had made her cry! He felt guilty and uncomfortable, and yet what he had said really was quite justifiable. But the weeping Jane had clasped herself to his bosom, her wet cheek was pressed against his, and he could only mumble apologies and tell her he was sorry. He continued to do so, calling himself various unflattering names, until with a disconcerting shock he discovered that her grief had changed to amusement.

‘I’m not laughing,’ she immediately told him. ‘At least, if I am, it’s hysterical. But, Tom, you are a funny boy. No, no—you’re a darling. Only I wish you did—even just a little bit—feel sorry.’

‘Sorry! But haven’t I been saying how——’

‘Oh, I don’t mean that kind of sorry. That doesn’t matter. You didn’t say anything I didn’t deserve. I mean sorry about going away. No, I don’t mean that either, because of course you’re bound to be glad. I don’t know what I mean——’

‘But I am sorry to leave you, Jane. I like you very much. I——’

‘Yes;—you needn’t strain your imagination. Tell me what I’m to do with your parcel.’

Tom breathed the faintest sigh of relief. ‘As soon as you hear me whistle (I’m going down to the yard now), I want you to chuck it out of the bathroom window. I’ll hide it somewhere, and it ought to be easy enough to slip out through the yard after dinner.’

‘And when I can I’ll lock and bolt the back door so that nobody will know.’

At this so unexpected and reasonable an attitude Tom had a flash of compunction. ‘You’re being awfully decent, Jane. I’m leaving all the worst part of it to you, and you get nothing out of it. But I don’t want you to think you’ve got to tell lies. If you’re asked directly, you know, you must tell the truth.’

‘I can say you talked about running away to sea.’

Tom stared. ‘But I didn’t.’

‘Yes you did; we’ve talked about it now.’

Tom was speechless for a minute. ‘Oh, well,’ he said at last, ‘I think you can look after yourself.’

But Jane still held him. ‘There’s something I want to ask you to do,’ she murmured.

‘What?’ He had hesitated a moment, though only for a moment, because he really wanted to do anything he could.

‘You’ll think it silly. I think it silly myself.’

He waited; and then, ‘I’ll come back when I’ve hidden the parcel,’ he suggested, since she seemed loth to proceed further.

‘I want you to let me cut off some of your hair,’ Jane said abruptly, half defiantly.

‘My hair?’ He looked at her in astonishment. At first he thought she was trying to be funny.

‘I can do it so that it won’t be noticed,’ Jane went on.

‘But what——’

‘Oh, take your parcel,’ she cried impatiently, ‘and come back. I’m going to cut your hair,’ she added, as he moved towards the staircase. ‘If you don’t let me I won’t help you or lend you any money, so you can make up your mind which it is to be.’

‘All right; you needn’t get excited about it.’

‘It’s because you’re so stupid: everything surprises you: the least little thing.’

‘Nothing that comes from you does,’ Tom retorted. ‘I didn’t know what you meant at first; I thought you wanted to cut my hair all over. It’s the way you said it.’

‘A scrubby little schoolboy with freckles. I bet nobody else will ever make such a suggestion. What’s more I only made it out of kindness. Everything I’ve ever done for you has been done out of compassion, so you’d better get that into your head.’

‘It hasn’t,’ Tom replied, now completely enlightened. ‘And I do understand; I’ve felt that way myself.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ returned Jane loftily. ‘If you want your wretched parcel you’d better hurry down to the yard, because I’m going to throw it out of the window now—at once.’

‘All right; I won’t be a jiff. And I am sorry for being stupid. I think it was because it was about me that made me not understand. At any rate all I was going to tell you——’

‘I know what you were going to tell me. You needn’t repeat it. Was it Eric’s hair you wanted?’

Tom blushed scarlet. ‘I didn’t want anybody’s hair,’ he muttered gruffly. ‘I wouldn’t be such a fool.’

‘Well, you’d better run downstairs, because I’m not going to wait much longer.’

‘I’m going. But don’t throw it till I whistle: there may be somebody there. And I’ll come back when I’ve finished, and let you——’

‘You needn’t bother: I’ve changed my mind,’ said Jane.

‘Well, I’ll come back anyhow.’