Читать книгу The Small Dark Man (Maurice Walsh) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - Maurice Walsh - Страница 12

III

Hugh Forbes for the time did not hear another word. He had a trick of concentrating on his own thoughts or problems and breaking contact with the outside. He did that now. Her brother Charles! So this was Tearlath’s sister. Frances Mary! That darling name! He had heard this big lad call her Fred; silly ass to shorten a name like that. But of course she must be Frances Mary—Tearlath’s only sister. How often had he heard Tearlath speak of her, his fine kid-sister! There was that heart-opening bad day when they were trapped on the wrong side of the Jordan and the Turkish snipers hitting close. Over the Jordan but not into camp-ground—not by a long shot—not by a long shot. Four hours among the hot stones till night came—and half the company gone. And Tearlath and himself talking so as not to think too much—picking their words slowly. “It would be no harm to say, Tearlath boy, that if that fellow lowers his front sight, the valley of Glounagrianaan will be needing another schoolmaster.” And Tearlath, his great body flattened out and his cheek to the stones, smiling at him! “Never mind, Aodh, you’ve the soul of a teacher; and little wee imps in hell will learn things from you.” Ay, the hot stones beyond the Jordan and the angry sun, and he minding the green valley of Glounagrianaan below the heather, and the kindly sun on the amber river where the trout lay! And then Tearlath spoke of his very wonderful mother who was nearly blind. “Ah well! she has Frances Mary, and as long as she has Frances Mary no harm can come to her.” A darn queer thing race! Scot and Irishman with the same turn of speech and the same twist of mind. And this was Frances Mary! Somehow he had pictured her as little and red-haired, with live blue eyes and a skin liable to freckles. And instead she was a long-limbed, tow-headed—no, not that word—female. Good-looking in a way, with nicely curved lips, and the cheek-bones of the Scot, and those grey wide-set eyes that could never hide any feeling—love or dislike or——

“Answer the lady, fellow!” rasped a cold voice above him.

Hugh Forbes, whose eyes had never left the fire, woke up. “Excuse me,” he said, turning to her. “A bad habit I have. What did you want me to tell—your brother?”

Frances Mary Grant had been observing the small man curiously, and now she smiled to him. “That I am here in the bothy at Aunbeg, with a blistered heel, and that he is to send up a pony. You can see we are all right, but that a pony will be necessary, sometime to-night—no hurry.”

And still Hugh Forbes looked at her, and still he did not reply.

“Are you deaf, fool?” barked Vivian Stark exasperatedly.

The small man turned his head up with remarkable suddenness, and the shock of his dark eyes met the shock of the blue ones, solid as a bar. And there was a hard note in his deep-toned voice. “Blast you! Wouldn’t you give me time to think?” He turned and again looked amongst the coals, and Stark, strangely startled by that shock of eye and tongue, took time to think too.

Hugh Forbes told himself that he did not like this tall fellow. Somehow he did not like him one damn bit. He never did care for big blonde men who had no vision but one, who would ignore the gifts of the gods—till they were ready to accept, and be not nice in their manner of acceptance. Autocratic bounders, stupidly unable to get the other fellow’s viewpoint! And, moreover, he did not care for long blonde women who could not hide strong feeling below the deeps of their eyes. But then, this one was Frances Mary who could keep all harm away from a nearly blind and wonderful mother. Tearlath Grant’s sister! Tearlath Grant!—the finest man on top of the world. The most comradely of men! In the press of war, in stress of peace, drunk or sober, a hell of a good man to rely on! A reliable man and yet not a stupid man! A man you could put your finger on and say, “Tearlath may say this, and think thus, and curse hither and yon, but this is what he will do.” The great big quiet boy—and not always that blame quiet either! Yes, and Tearlath had somehow put trust in a small devil of an Irishman from Glounagrianaan, who looked like an Israelite and had the reserve of an irate jackdaw. Therefore he had to do the right thing by Tearlath’s sister—now, this minute. And what in thundering blazes was the right thing to do? Go on down to Innismore and send up a pony? That was the obvious thing, but was it the right thing? Was it, now? Why could not this big lad go? Probably he had been going. If so, Hugh Forbes coming in on them out of the night had made them change their plans. Was he to be the deus ex machina in some small game set by fate? He would see! He would see!

And all this consideration on Hugh Forbes’s part was probably no more than an excuse to hide the fact that, instinctively disliking Vivian Stark, he hated like poison to act deputy for him. His next question seemed to prove that. He looked sideways at Frances Mary, and the half-humorous half-cynical quirk came and went at a mouth corner. “Tell me, now; what were ye going to do?”

Where another might have bridled, she answered frankly and at once. “Vivian—Mr Stark was going.”

And that was that. The obvious thing for Hugh Forbes to do now was to go canny, to be no interloper—to let things go the gait they were going, and all good luck to them. He looked up at Vivian Stark and grinned. “Time you were off, Vivian—Mr Stark.”

“What?” The word snapped. Stark’s temper had been growing warm, and now it grew no cooler.

“The sooner you start the sooner you’ll be back, and a sair bad blister is a sair blister to-night or in the morning.”

There was a silence that seemed to wait, and then came the tall man’s voice, quiet like frost and as cold. “And what do you propose to do?”

“What the devil is that to you?” That voice sounded like tuck of drum.

“I’ll show you,” said Vivian Stark grimly, and his hand came down and gripped. No one can blame him. He had been provoked needlessly, and, worse, his sense of superiority had been outraged. The old burberry bunched under his fingers, but the force of his grip went deep to jacket, shirt, and skin, and Hugh Forbes was jerked to his feet as if he had been a mischievous urchin; jerked and held with a ruthless force not to be resisted. The black velour hat fell off and came to the floor with a soft whuff.

Frances Mary stirred restlessly, and the old chair creaked, but she remained silent. She could not help admiring the force of Vivian Stark, and the face of him. The beauty of that forward-thrown head thrilled her. It was not the face of a hawk now, but the face of a great eagle, the brows in a straight bar, the half-hooded eyes gleaming in the firelight, the strong arch of the nose curving over the line of the mouth. And yet, at the same time, she felt sorry for the little trampish man who had been at once impudent and intriguing. There was some texture in him, thought and speech, that appealed to her, something that she could dimly follow, something sib. And now he looked so helpless in the grip of this young giant. His back was turned to her, the gripped shoulder was lifted to his ear, the other drooped helplessly, his unclenched hands hung limply at his sides, and his feet were ridiculously intoed below slightly bowed knees—altogether like an urchin in the grip of an irate senior, deserving and expecting a lesson. But not to be grievously hurt—surely not to be treated with abasing indignity. That was why she stirred restlessly.

But Vivian Stark, having achieved mastery, had his sense of contemptuous superiority thick upon him. He would do no more than was necessary. He looked at her over the small man’s head and smiled reassuringly, and his voice, when he spoke, had its usual reserved drawl. “It will be all right, Fred. I shall go on to Innismore and take the little tramp along.” He referred to the little tramp as if he were at the end of a mile-long arm.

Frances Mary Grant nodded her fair head. She could not think of anything to say, and Vivian Stark would take his own strong line, anyway. He always did, and his appeal suffered nothing thereby.

Stark, having decided, did not hesitate. “Come on,” he ordered shortly, and gave the small man an admonitory shake, an unmistakable intimation that in all things he must obey.

Hugh Forbes felt that forceful grip painful on his shoulder, but he did not wince. “Shake hard,” he said in a startlingly unperturbed voice. “It will make it all the easier.”

As they reached the door he turned his face over the ungripped shoulder and grinned at Frances Mary. And that grinning face surprised her, because it was not the face of an about-to-be-whipped urchin. It certainly was not the face of an urchin: black brows, wide-winged nose, broad chin, and that queer sardonic quirk at mouth corner—a whole man’s face; and though it grinned at her, there was below the grin some magnetic force of hardihood held in leash.

And then they were gone, and in the oblong of the doorway was nothing but the pale, bluish, wan glimmer of night lit with moon.