Читать книгу Time and the Hour - Howard Spring - Страница 16

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Mrs. Wayland was all solicitude when she went to the door and found Dick Hudson standing there. She apologised for the snow as though she had been personally responsible for allowing it to fall, and took Dick and Chris into the back room, which was the dining-room. By Dick’s standards, there wasn’t much in it: a table lit by four candles which made all the light there was, the chairs, a sideboard, and some low bookshelves filled with yellow-covered books. The walls were the colour of faded parchment, and there was only one picture, from which he hastily turned his eyes. It was over the mantelpiece: a reproduction of Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’Herbe. Accustomed as he was to the stuffy and shabby fullness of theatrical digs, it seemed to Dick rather bleak, but the fire was bright on the hearth, and a small girl who had been standing before it came forward and made him a curtsey. “Lottie,” Mrs. Wayland said, “this is Mr. Richard Hudson, and this is his son Christopher.”

The child said: “Good evening, sir,” to Dick, and gave Chris one of her attractive curtseys.

Dick said: “You’re a bonny lass,” and Lottie smiled at him and drew out a chair for him. With Dick, it was love at first sight. She was a child, but her manners were grown-up and without embarrassment. He found the combination irresistible. He looked at Chris, and his heart ached. The boy was as dumb as a stone, and as unforthcoming.

“Shake hands with Mrs. Wayland, Chris,” he said, and Chris did so cumbrously, without a word.

The cold collation was already on the table. There were lamb cutlets with frills of pink paper on them, and a gay dish of salad. There was a salad cream that Mrs. Wayland had made, and Dick thought it better than the stuff he had been accustomed to pour lavishly from bottles. There was wine for him and Mrs. Wayland and water for Chris and Lottie, and the wine and water alike were in crystal. After this there was cheese of a sort Dick had never known. It was, in fact, Brie. And then there was coffee, served from a percolator on the table. The meal couldn’t have been simpler, and Dick enjoyed it, but at the same time he was embarrassed by it, and he was annoyed that this should be so. Chris had not liked the cheese and was now saying ungraciously that he didn’t want coffee. Well, that was all right. If you didn’t like a thing you were entitled to say so, and if you didn’t want a thing you could say that, too; but there were ways of doing it, and Chris hadn’t got them. Lottie wasn’t drinking coffee, either. Mrs. Wayland had asked: “Du café, Lottie?” and the child had said “Merci, maman,” whatever all that might mean; but obviously the child didn’t want coffee and had said so politely.

Mrs. Wayland said: “Lottie, will you entertain Master Chris in the parlour for a moment?”

Chris gave his father a look of agonised enquiry. Dick replied with a brief stern nod. When the strains of In the Shadows came from the next room, Mrs. Wayland said: “Now, Mr. Hudson.”

She was an intelligent woman. Like a statesman who, if he knows his business, goes to a conference with his conditions decided beforehand, she kept to the point and kept Dick to it. For a fait accompli to work from, she soon had Dick’s consent that Chris should remain in the house that very night. They inspected Chris’s bedroom, and Dick agreed that it would do. They discussed the charges for tuition and board and lodging. Dick agreed to these, too. Mrs. Wayland had them all written down, and they put their signatures to the bond.

“The lad’s a bit nesh,” Dick said. “Don’t work him too hard.”

“He’ll be working from the time he gets up till the time he goes to bed,” Mrs. Wayland answered. “But he won’t know it. I shall bring him up as I have brought up my own child.”

Dick recalled the pleasing image of Lottie, and hoped that Mrs. Wayland was speaking the truth.

When these main points were settled, Mrs. Wayland said: “May I enquire what your profession is, Mr. Hudson?”

Dick told her, and said: “A job like that means that I’m not in Bradford more than once in a blue moon. I’m thinking it’ll be a bit daft to keep my house going here now that Chris is living with you. In other towns I make do well enough with digs.”

Mrs. Wayland looked at him thoughtfully. “I shouldn’t like Marlborough House ever to be called digs,” she said. “But if you would care to come into residence here when your work brings you to Bradford, don’t you think that would be a useful arrangement? Of course,” she said, throwing away all her cards with generous diplomacy, “now that you are at the head of your profession, both you and Chris can live where you please. It might be to his advantage to go out of the provinces altogether and grow up in the capital, as Lottie did. You could find some pedagogue in Town who would gladly take charge of him, and a man in your position may well consider London rather than Bradford to be his headquarters.”

Dick hastily brushed all this aside. “Oh, no,” he said. “I were brought up in Bradford and feel at home here, and so does Chris. Coming to you will be a big enough change for him to begin with. Don’t let’s overdo things.”

“I think you’re wise to take that view, Mr. Hudson. But I felt obliged to put the option before you. If you still feel you want to give up your house, you can come here. You and Chris could have the parlour to yourselves. We have three bedrooms. Lottie and I share one, and that leaves one each for you and the boy. Think it over, and let me know some time how you feel about it.”

“Nay,” said Dick, “there’s no need for shilly-shally. Let’s call it a do.”

“Very well. Now I think the children should go to bed. I believe in early hours for the young. Have you brought Christopher’s pyjamas?”

“He sleeps in a nightshirt, and I haven’t brought that. He can keep on the shirt he’s wearing for once. It won’t hurt him. When I were a lad I slept in nowt else. I’ll bring his stuff in t’morning.”

“Come then,” said Mrs. Wayland, rather regally, and Dick found himself holding the door open for her. “Ay,” he thought. “These are the little tricks t’lad’ll have to learn.”

The piano-playing had stopped some time before, and Lottie was trying to interest Chris in the first steps in draughts, not, it seemed, with much success.

“Quelle heure est-il, mamam?” the child asked.

“Dix heures juste. Faut se coucher. Dis la bonne nuit à Monsieur Hudson.”

She came up to Dick, smiled at him out of her dark eyes, and gave him one of her curtseys. “Bonne nuit, Monsieur Hudson,” she said. “Enchantée de faire votre connaissance.” She turned to Chris. “Bonne nuit Christophe. Dormez bien.”

Chris gave her a deadly scowl. She blew him a kiss, and went.

Mrs. Wayland said: “Will you take Christopher up, Mr. Hudson? Christopher, we talk a lot of French. You will quickly learn what it means. To-night I shall wish you good night. To-morrow I shall wish you bonne nuit. It is easy, is it not? Good night.”

Dick saw the boy into bed. “Now, Chris,” he said, “you’re going to have a chance in a million, lad. You’ll be better off here than with Mrs. Wyke, and I think learning with Mrs. Wayland and that nice little lass will be better than a school class. There’s a lot of rough corners on your Dad, Chris, because he never had much chance to rub ’em off, but things are going to be different for you. That’s the only reason why I care tuppence about all this money I’m earning now, because it’ll make things different for you. See? So learn all you can from Mrs. Wayland, and in a few years’ time you’ll be off to one of these public schools. And then you’ll have to think about what you want to do with yourself, and I’ll be there to help you. Always remember that, won’t you, Chris? I don’t want anything from you at all, except to let me help you. That’s not much to ask of a lad, is it now? Well, no more jaw from the old man to-night. See you in the morning.”

The snow had stopped, but it was a cold and slushy walk home. He felt very lonely somehow, not a bit like a dashing and devil-may-care Regency buck. He hoped he was doing the right thing, but it was hard for a chap like him to know.