Читать книгу The Meadows of the Moon - James Hilton - Страница 13

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There was no doubt about it; Michael was at fault. He had, so she could judge from the story he poured out to her in a stream of eager words, woefully lost his temper, and thereby the breach, which John had tried to bridge, had been made wider. “He’s so damned calm about it—that’s what I can’t stand,” Michael exclaimed. “To listen to him talking, you’d think he was the most reasonable man on earth.”

“Perhaps he is,” said Fran quietly, yet it was only one part of her speaking; the other was full to bursting with a stormy sympathy for Michael. It was not in the least calm or reasoned, but something keenly personal that welled up spontaneously and would have broken its barriers if she had tried to impede it. It was not in the least like (for example) the sympathy she felt for the child-workers of the early factory system, or the revolting labourers of 1830.

The worst of it was, as Michael said, that John was so calm about it. There was none of that heroic bluster that would have put Michael instantly at his ease. At meals, which they were forced to take together, John’s attitude to Michael was no more than a shade cool; there was no open estrangement. It was obvious, too, that John had told Nan nothing at all, either of the quarrel or its origins.

Fran hardly saw John except at dinner; he caught the 7.05 from Patchley every morning in order to be at the works by the time the men arrived. But there was something ominous in the atmosphere, something that presaged a convulsion.