Читать книгу Time and the Hour - Howard Spring - Страница 23

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The window of the room faced east, and Anthony was awakened by pale sunlight looking in out of a pale blue sky. The surprise of finding himself there soon passed. He remembered. He gently stretched his left leg down to its full length, then raised the knee. There was no pain. Now he began to enjoy what had happened to him; it had been a great and wonderful adventure. The lady who had told him that a boy need not always obey his aunt came back to his mind, tantalising it. He knew her, and he was sure he was wrong in supposing that he knew her. In any case, she was something pleasant to think of: furry as a rabbit—hat, coat, boots, gloves—and smelling like violets. It had been like smelling violets in a snowdrift. He hoped he would see her again. Perhaps she would bring in his breakfast. Or perhaps he should dress and go and find out whether he was to have breakfast or just clear out now that he was all right?

The question was answered by the opening of the door and the coming of a maid carrying a tray. Coffee, eggs, bacon, toast, marmalade. Anthony began to feel very well indeed. This was not the young dimpled maid who had brought in the soup. She was older, tall and thin, and she didn’t look as though she approved of bringing breakfast-in-bed to a boy who was well enough to be out and about. She thumped the tray on to his knees and said: “When that lot’s inside you, you can dress and go.”

Anthony asked timidly: “Should I thank Mr. and Mrs. Frei—Frei——” He couldn’t get the name.

She said: “Mr. Freilinghausen is out and Mrs. Freilinghausen isn’t up yet. It’s well to be some people.”

“Should I send them a note of thanks?”

“Please yourself. But if anybody gets a note of thanks it ought to be me. Breakfast in bed!”

“Only one,” Anthony said reasonably.

“I said two. I told you she’s having hers up there.”

Anthony was argumentative. A drink of coffee had fortified him. “Surely it’s usual for Mrs. Freilinghausen to have breakfast in bed? So that’s only one extra.” It seemed to him natural to expect that such a lady, living in such a place as Ackroyd Park, where men-servants opened doors, should have breakfast in bed every day of her life.

“Don’t you believe it,” the grim one said. “Up with the lark she is, normal. Taking her exercises. Skipping, bending—you never saw the likes of it. As if she was ten years old. I’d exercise her! Well, I’m not standing here arguing with you.”

“That’s just what you are doing,” Anthony said with a grin.

“That’ll do. Cheek won’t get you anywhere in this world. Not that I expect you’ll get anywhere, with it or without it. Breakfast in bed! That’s a nice start in life!”

Anthony thought it a very nice start for a day, anyhow, but he did not share this thought with her. She had gone, shutting the door noisily behind her.

Anthony finished his breakfast and dressed. He found sixpence in his pocket and left it on the tray for the grim one. It seemed to him a lot of money, a noble largesse, and he shyly made his way to the front door. A young man-servant, wearing a green baize apron, was polishing the brass. He winked at Anthony. “I heard,” he said.

“Heard what?”

“Fish-faced Annie telling you off.”

“I’ve done nothing to upset her.”

“Oh, yes, you have.” He coughed on the brass and rubbed. “You’ve upset the missus.”

“How do you know?”

“Know?” He inspected his image in the door-knob, making faces at himself. “I know all right. Everyone knows when the missus is upset. That’s what’s the matter with old Fish-face, see? Worships the missus, she do, and when the missus is upset she flies off the handle at everybody, the missus included.”

“I left her sixpence on my tray,” Anthony said rather grandly. “That ought to cheer her up.”

The youth looked at him, awestruck. “Sixpence!”

“Yes.”

“Blimey—that’s torn it!”

Incredulously, Anthony asked: “Isn’t it enough?”

Green Baize slowly returned tins of polish, brushes and dusters to a vast pocket on his apron. “Sixpence,” he said sadly, as though so unfortunate a coin were about to unloose untold terrors on the household. “Sixpence for Fish-face!”

Where there had been satisfaction at having done the right thing, shame and humiliation flowed in. “Had I better go and get it back?”

“I don’t recommend it. You better clear out. Tell you what. I’ll shift it myself.”

“Would you? Oh, thanks so much.”

“Don’t mention it. Now bunk.”

Relieved to find such generosity in the world, Anthony went through the short garden, up the steep climb of Ackroyd Park, now a welter of thawed slush, and into Manningham Lane. Here was something to tell Aunt Jessie! he thought exultantly.