Читать книгу Royal Regiment - Gilbert Frankau - Страница 45

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Diana Bryce-Atkinson answered her husband’s, “Why don’t you walk back with us?” with a mocking, “Walk? Not if I can jolly well help it”. She climbed into the car. Camilla drove off.

“Lunch isn’t till half-past one”, said Bryce-Atkinson then. “How about going back through the village? It isn’t very much farther.”

“Just as you like.”

They set out, walking in step.

“I don’t think I ever heard a better sermon”, said Rockingham after a few paces.

“I rather agree with you. But a chap like that ought to be in the House of Commons. He’s simply wasted down here.”

Ten minutes brought them to the little village.

“What about a glass of beer, Rockingham?”

“All right.”

The saloon bar of the public house was dark, but spotlessly clean. A tall girl brought their drinks to a table under the one window. Rockingham filled and lit his pipe. The brigade major puffed a reflective cigarette.

“Give me London”, he said suddenly. “A bit of hunting and shooting is all very well, but one might just as well be dead as live all the year round in a place like this.”

“I believe I should rather like it.”

“What—as a bachelor?”

The question brought Rockingham up with a sharp turn. He realised that his mind had been straying once more.

“Well, no”, he answered slowly. “I suppose one would have to have a wife.”

“Quite a lot to be said for them”, grinned Bryce-Atkinson. “Provided one finds the right one.” And he added, “The old man’s marriage seems to be turning out all right. Though he did pounce so quickly. She knows how to handle him, don’t you think?”

The question remained unanswered. They finished their beers.

“Another?” suggested Rockingham.

“No. I don’t think so. We don’t want to have to hurry.”

“Right.”

They paid, and made their way out again. One or two of the villagers eyed them incuriously as they passed up the one street and beyond the recreation hall.

“This way”, said Bryce-Atkinson, indicating a narrow lane between man-high hedgerows; and he went on where he had left off, “The old man certainly takes some handling. I admire her tremendously. She must have the devil’s own guts, too, if there’s any truth in that story I heard last week.”

Once more the listener’s curiosity conquered his good taste.

“What story?” he asked.

“Don’t you remember? I was going to tell you last night, just when the Clarkfords came in.”

The gossiper hesitated.

“Of course it may not be true”, he continued. “So don’t take it for gospel. But when I told this bloke who’s just come back from California that her maiden name was Lee-Rickett he said he’d known a family of that name about five years ago in San Francisco, and that they’d had a girl who’d be just about the same age as the Hawk’s missis. These Lee-Ricketts—so he said—were simply rolling in money when he first knew them; and she’d been runner-up in some tennis championship or other. She was engaged, he said.” Again Bryce-Atkinson hesitated. “To some young fellow in the American navy. It appears they were just going to be married when the crash came.”

“Crash?” Rusty Rockingham’s single word was involuntary.

“Pretty bad one, too. Her father was a banker of sorts. Or it may have been a broker. Something to do with finance. Anyway, he found he couldn’t meet his obligations—unless he cashed in on his life insurances. So he cashed in on them—with an automatic pistol. Must say I rather admire him for it. But the shock, and the hullabaloo the newspapers kicked up about the whole thing—this chap says they’re perfectly bloody over there—were too much for his wife. She only lived about a week after he’d done himself in. And as for the lad in the American navy, it was too much for him, too. He just passed out of the picture.

“Sounds rather like a movie to me”, concluded Bryce-Atkinson. “So perhaps it isn’t true. Let’s hope not.”

They were approaching the house by then, with his wife waving to them from the portico.

“Lets me out of saying anything”, thought Rockingham; and for this he felt inordinately glad.