Читать книгу Another Day - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 9

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Though he was a full hour before the appointed time and all her attention was apparently centred upon the battered old silver coffee-pot, you may be reasonably sure that she (goddess-like) espied him the very moment he opened the little wicket-gate; and a goodly sight was Dallas for the eyes of any person feminine—his clean-cut hawk face, the lithe vigour of him as he went striding towards that remote and leafy corner of the garden where lay the miry duck-pond.

“I s’pose,” sighed the Small Personage who chanced to sit with her back towards the window, “I ’specks when I’m growder-up you won’t drownd all my coffee with milk.”

“You should say ‘drown’ not ‘drownd,’ dear,” murmured our goddess, glancing down in swift disparagement at the workaday garment that shrouded her loveliness.

“An’ please, Jodear, aren’t you going to give me any sugar this morning?”

“Have patience, child!”

“Oh there you go, Jo!” sighed the Small Person, wearily. “Aunt Mary is always saying it, too!”

“Saying what, pray?”

“Things you knew, like—‘patience Patience,’ and ‘Patience be patient.’ Oh mine’s a nawful name, mine is. I do wish you’d call me ‘Honey’ like he does.”

“Who?”

“Oh you know—Dal does. I think it’s such a nice name and——”

“Lauk, Miss Jo!” exclaimed Sarah bustling in with well-laden tray. “Wotever do you think? Such noos as never was, mam!” And she set down the tray with a jingle. “This mornin’, Miss, when I goes down the lane for the milk, I sees Mary Weldon, an’ she telled me as he give Ben a turble bastin’ las’ night—give Ben wot-for, ’e did, so Mary says, an’ I says to Mary, ‘Mary,’ I says ‘it serves ’im right!’ I says. But next time Ben shows ’is face, wunt I tell ’im a thing or two! To go an’ fight and get beat by any man, let alone one so young an’ quiet-like as ’im, mam!”

“Who?” inquired Josepha again, but this time opening her blue eyes rather wide. “Who, Sarah, who beat Ben?”

“Oo, Miss, why—’im!” answered Sarah, pointing; and following that directing finger Josepha once more beheld a certain shapely figure.

“Why it’s Dal!” cried Patience, clapping her hands.

“Well, eat your breakfast, dear,” said her sister, knitting classic brows, for Dallas, all unwitting the six several eyes that watched him, was standing before the chicken-coop (that lop-sided result of her so determined and painful labours which he had dared mistake for a dog-kennel), and now seemed to be studying it profoundly, its every nail and timber; and remembering the ill-fit of its planking here and there, and how very many nails had gone in bent, Josepha flushed and her level brows knit closer.

“How—how dared he?” she demanded.

“Dared wot, Miss Jo?”

“Eh—oh, beat Ben, of course, Sarah.”

“Why, that’s just it, Miss Jo—’ow did he? But ’e did sure-ly, ’cording to Mary Weldon ’e give Ben a turble wallopin’.”

“Ooh!” cried the Small Personage, bounding ecstatic on her chair. “I’m triffickly glad—please let me go an’ kiss him, Jo.”

“Eat your breakfast, child—do! What did they fight about, Sarah?”

“Well, ’twere on account o’ Mr. Blee, Mary says.”

“Oh yes,” nodded Patience. “Ben said he’d shoot Roger—Jesse’s dog, you know. I think somebody ought to go out and kiss him, don’t you, Jodear?”

“I’ll wear the tweed!” murmured Josepha, glancing down at her print frock again.

“Tweed, Miss—lauk, why?”

“Well this looks so—I must ride over to Lewes, Sarah, this morning.”

“Ah, t’see Mus’ Jessam?”

“Yes, I’ve been intending to ask him for more time and put it off and off—I do hate asking favours especially from him, and yet I must, Sarah, I must. If he’ll only wait another six months——”

“Why not a year, Miss?”

“I think I could just about manage if things only go a little better with us. If only he’ll give me time!”

“’E wunt, Miss Jo! ’E wunt give nobody nothink, no, not Jessam.”

“Well, I can ask him, Sarah—plead if I must.”

“’T’wunt be no good, Miss Jo—not a mite. Jessam ain’t got no ’eart, only a money-bag.”

“But, Sarah, if he forecloses and I have to lose the dear old house after all ... Oh Sarah ...!”

“But, mam, ’tis only a old ruin.”

“It was the house of my people, Sarah, as you know, back and back through the years it has belonged to the Dares, and if Jessam gets it away from me he ... means to pull it down——”

“Old Jessam’s a frightful beast!” sighed the Small Personage.

“Hush, Patience dear, it’s rude to call names.”

“Well, but you called him worse last week, Jo, you said he was a blood——”

“Never mind—it was very wrong of me. I want you to be a little lady, Patience dear, much better than I am, very gentle and sweet and polite to everyone.”

“But I don’t like being p’lite to beasts!”

“Then you’ll never be a true lady.”

“Oh, all right, Jodear. An’ please is my mouth eggy?”

“No—not very.”

“Then please may I be p’lite now?”

“Why, of course—but what do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve had ’nuff breakfast, so now I thought I’d jest walk out very p’litely an’ kiss Dal ‘Good-mornin’, like a lady should.”

“Oh?” murmured Josepha. “But ladies don’t kiss strange gentlemen.”

“Well, I do sometimes, Jodear, if they’re like Dal, an’ he isn’t a bit strange—an’ so does Sarah, I seen her kissing Ben once and——”

“Lorks!” gasped Sarah. “Oh, Miss Jo—that child! The very idea!” and she vanished into her kitchen forthwith.

Thus presently Dallas, bare-armed and busy, hearing a shrill and joyous hail, paused with lifted hammer and turned to see Patience flying to meet him.

“Oh, Dal,” she cried, “I’m so triffickly glad you beat him—no, first I must ’member to be p’lite! Good morning, Dal, how are you?”

“Fine, Honey!” he answered, smiling. “How are you?”

“Well I’m not very well,” she sighed. “You see the sun’s so sunny and ... and the bees so droney an’ buzzy, an’ the birds all so singy this morning—an’ I’ve got to go to my lessons.”

“Hard luck, Hon!”

“Yes, isn’t it? But she makes me do it—Jo, you know! She simply—makes me!”

“But everybody has to do lessons some time, Hon.”

“Well I’m triffickly glad you beat Ben; Sarah says you walloped him awful. An’ now you may kiss me good-morning.”

So Dallas swung her joyously aloft, kissed her rosy lips, and, perching her upon his shoulder, bore her across the sunny garden.

“And how ... how’s your sister, Honey?” he inquired, glancing expectantly towards the cottage.

“Quite well, thank you. Only she says I’ll never be a lady ’cause I called somebody a beast—but last week she called him a ... bloodsucker! Now that’s a frightful bad name isn’t it, Dal?”

“Well, I guess so, but——”

“An’ now she says p’raps I’ll never be a true lady, but I shall a course, and always wear gloves an’ a sun-shade an’ then if you get quite a rich man you shall be my husbant an’ I’ll have heaps of children—mostly girls, only I’ll never send them off to lessons when they’re sad like me. Do you s’pose a lady should sit on a gentleman’s shoulder, Dal?”

“Why sure she should, if it’s my shoulder and the lady happens to be you, Honey.”

“’Fraid my Jo wouldn’t think so.”

“Where is she this morning, Hon?”

“Changing to her tweed tailor-made. You see she’s got to ride her bicycle to Lewes.”

“That’s a goodish ride from here.”

“Oh, but my Jo can ride heaps further ’n that—she’s triffickly strong. She’s going to see a frightful beast!”

“Eh?” inquired Dallas, glancing up into the piquant little face bent over him.

“Yes, Mr. Jessam, he’s the beast, to ask him for some time.”

“Time? What for, Honey?”

“Well, I specks money, it always is you know. And there’s Sarah coming to fetch me—Oh dear!”

Now in this goodly world there are tweeds and tailor-mades innumerable—but, never did one or other or both together shadow forth (as it were) more beauty of line, more symmetry of form than this tailor-made of Josepha, a costume this, begun and perfected by a face of such allure (despite its freckles) and ending gloriously in legs, ankles and feet so exactly what such necessaries should be.... At least thus thought Dallas when, at last, Josepha dawned upon his sight; but then (as hath been said) he already had visioned her as the Goddess of his Destiny, a being remote and sacred, high above his reach or hope of attainment and therefore to be worshipped; in her he saw the stately pride of Juno, the glowing beauty of Venus, the aloof serenity of Minerva; the creature she of his loftiest dreams, clothed in divinity at whose advent the sun brightened in glory and the earth grew wholly radiant.

While, as a matter of fact, a mere, modern young woman habited for exercise more or less violent, stepped out of a somewhat ageworn cottage, smiled, wished him a Good-morning and gave him her hand.

Was it matter for wonder that the poor, dazzled, abject fellow, flushed, stammered, squeezed her fingers too hard, held them too long, dropped them too suddenly?

“Heavens, Mr. Dallas, what a lot you’ve done!” she exclaimed in glad surprise—just as if she had not been watching his powerful hammer-strokes with such singular interest.

“Yes, worse luck!” he sighed, scowling at the long line of newly-driven stakes. “I mean this job will very soon be finished.”

“And,” said Josepha, finger to chin, “I’m wondering how much I ... what remuneration——”

“Now, please,” he suggested, “shall we talk of something else?”

“No!” she answered, serenely resolute. “We must come to some arrangement. Your work must be paid for, of course ... but how much? What do you suggest?”

“Well,” he answered, staring hard at the hammer in his hand, “suppose you just stand around now and then to supervise—I guess that will make us quits.”

“Perfectly ridiculous, Mr. Dallas! Now I pay Tom Merry sixpence an hour, which is little enough these days—though he doesn’t work so—tremendously hard as you do, so——”

“And then,” continued Dallas, gently persuasive, “if you’d please cut out the ‘Mr.’—my front name’s Keith, or you might call me Dal.”

“But you can’t and mustn’t work for nothing, it’s not right—the labourer is worthy of his hire, you know!”

“Sure!” he said, smiling. “And when I’m through with the wiring, I’d like to get busy on the old summer-house yonder, then the toolshed needs repairing, the hedges want trimming and——”

“Oh, for heavens sake—stop!” she cried.

“Why yes,” he nodded, “that’s just what I want—to stop and work for you.”

“I know the place is frightfully neglected,” she sighed, glancing round about distressfully, “but I’m always so busy, and it needs so much hard work!”

“Yes,” he agreed, glancing about also. “It needs a man! And I need a job—work and plenty of it, and ... friendship ... I sure do! So, Miss Josepha, won’t you please call it a deal and let it go at that? Do now.”

“You mean let you come here and slave—for nothing?” she demanded, viewing him with the austere serenity of a Minerva.

“I mean allow me to come here and help you as—as a—friend,” said he, with sudden diffidence.

“A ... friend?” she repeated, dubiously; and now he sensed in her the stately pride of a Juno. “But I don’t make friends easily, Mr. Dallas.”

“No,” he stammered, “no, I ... I guess not.”

“And I know nothing about you—who you are, what you are, where you have been, what you have done, why you are here—I know nothing of all this, do I?”

“Not a thing!” he answered in strange, muffled tone; the heavy hammer thudded to earth and he turned from her with swift, almost shrinking motion. “I see what you mean,” he muttered, “and you ... you are surely right. I guess I’ll be on my way.” So saying, he crossed to where lay his hat and coat, caught them up and had reached the little wicket-gate before Josepha could find voice; then:

“Stop!” she cried.

Without so much as a backward glance, Dallas opened the gate; whereupon she frowned down at the fallen hammer and from this to him, his bowed shoulders, his drooping head; then, acting on swift impulse, she sprang nimbly in pursuit.

Dallas stepped into the lane, took a step and paused—for her hand was upon his bare arm, a hand whose firm, vital grasp checked him instantly though he neither turned nor raised his head.

“Good-bye!” he muttered.

“Wait!” she commanded, and her fingers tightened their clasp. “I didn’t mean to—to be unkind ... hurt you——”

“No,” he mumbled. “No—that’s all right. Only you’d best let me go. Good-bye and—thank you——”

“Won’t you—come back?”

“I ... guess not,” he answered, keeping his bowed head always averted.

“Won’t you finish the wiring?”

“I ... I’d best go.”

“Won’t you please stay and ... help me, Dallas ... Keith?”

Then he turned and looked at her and she, quick to read the pain and haunted misery in his eyes, caught her breath—and in that moment cold Minerva, stately Juno merged and changed to Venus, all tender allure.

“Come!” said she softly, and opened the wicket-gate.

“On ... my own terms?” he demanded.

“Yes,—if you mean——”

“No mention of money between us ever.”

“Not a word!” she murmured with very unwonted humility.

So back strode Dallas forthwith and catching up the hammer, fell to work again right joyously while Josepha, seated near-by, watched him with a new interest.