Читать книгу The Small Dark Man (Maurice Walsh) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - Maurice Walsh - Страница 18

III

When he again entered the room he carried in both arms a bundle of long grass and heather tops. “Could you be standing on one foot for a minute?” he requested, and without demur she obeyed, leaning on one foot, the other tip-toe, and a steadying hand on the arm of the chair. In that posture—in her cunningly shapeless frock—it would be no easy matter for any man to contemplate her reasonably. Hugh Forbes did not contemplate her at all.

He laid his bundle on the ridged seat of the old chair and shook it up loosely. “Wait now.” He picked his coat off the floor and emptied both pockets on the table. There were two packages. “My luggage,” he explained. Then he threw the coat over the chair so that it covered the seat and the open-back, and with a gesture of the hand that somehow displayed the tensed strength of his arm invited her to be seated.

Without a word of thanks she dropped into the chair, but she smiled softly into the fire, and, anyway, her thoughts were too busy for words. A woman must always discover a man’s soul for herself—or his heart. Even her great brother, Charles, must not be allowed to impress his own impressions on her mind. And Charles was sometimes mistaken—as in the case of Vivian. He did not care for Vivian, and was inclined to be rude. A remote young god! Remote my eye! Only too damn cocksure to be inquisitive. That was her brother’s opinion. Vivian could be mistaken too. He had despised this man here and had treated him as he would treat an impudent tramp. But she was discovering him for herself, outrageous tongue and heart of gold. How sure he had been that her heel needed laving, how closely and kindly he must have considered her to know that the old chair was uncomfortable! Vivian would never have thought things out in that way, and it was a pity that Vivian had made the kindly little man suffer under a strong hand. . . . He would be so very sensitive under his seeming bluntness.

Hugh Forbes did not think that he was being kindly. If he knew her thoughts he might say, “Kindly, hell! I am only trying to do the right thing by Tearlath Grant’s sister.” He kept on doing that. First he remade the fire, and then brought two armfuls of peat sods from the back place and built them up on the hearth. Thereafter he paused to think.

“I am quite comfortable now, thank you,” said Frances Mary. “Don’t let me detain you any longer.”

He did not answer. The great hurry she was in to be rid of him! But he would go when he was ready to go, and not before. He felt a feather of chill air from the outside on the back of his neck, and looked over his shoulder at the open door. “The night air is bad for one,” he remarked and went and shut the door, and then sat aside on the table. He placed his black hat over one of his paper packages. “Are you hungry?” he asked her.

“Don’t mention it, please,” she besought him, an eager eye on the hat.

“Would you like an Abernethy biscuit?”

“Only one thing I would like better.”

“Two—and a skelb of cheese. There, then.” His hands juggled with the hat.

“Oh, you dear man!” Her white teeth bit cleanly, and not a flake fell. “We finished our sandwiches early, and I was ready to cry with hunger,” she told him, her mouth full.

The healthy hungry young body of her! It would transform dry biscuit and dull cheese into warm flesh, and the light in grey eyes—and into soul, for all he knew. Himself was not hungry any more. Never again, on top of God’s world, would he really hunger for anything—food or wine, or even whisky, or—except, maybe, a girl, and she with red hair. And that might only be a pose after all. For a long time now the fear had been growing on him that he was no more than a small collection of poses hiding an emptiness that wanted nothing. “Lose hunger and you lose God,” he said gloomily.

“Eat, then. You have some there.”

“Plenty. I ate my share coming down from the loch. Here are two more for you, and we’ll hold the others as an emergency ration.”

He picked up the kettle and again went out into the moonlight. At the burnside he rinsed the old vessel thoroughly and filled and refilled it under a miniature cascade. When he got back Frances Mary was picking the last few tiny crumbs off her lap, and not wasting any. He laid the kettle by her chair and went into the back place. “Neither a cup nor a saucer, a mug nor a glass,” his voice rolled back; “but the gridiron is still here—you could never drink out of a gridiron. Yes! and a packet of damp salt! Devil the thing else.” He came out empty-handed. “I thought you would be needing a drink of water,” he said.

“I would like one,” she admitted, and smiled confidently. Already she felt that she could dip into this man’s resources and find no lack.

He looked down at the kettle and smiled too. “I mind,” he rumbled musingly, “Hugh Quigley of Glencroidhe—the heart’s own glen—having a motherless half-bred foal, and he used feed her out of the spout of a tea-pot.” He looked at her interrogatively.

“I am ready to taste any drink once,” offered Frances Mary.

“Same as old Jurgen?”

“Oh! You know the American classics?”

“And you should not—the old helion he was.” He picked up the kettle. “Mind you, you’ll have to be careful,” he warned her. “One splutter, and you’ll have a pint of it down your neck.”

Frances Mary flushed a little as her lips touched the spout. For a time she was concentrated on controlling inflow and outflow, and then happened to lift an eye. His face was as grim-set as a hanging judge’s, and his whole being was welded to the job of holding the vessel at the right angle. That serious face was too much for her. She spluttered. And a tiny spurt of water leaped for her bosom before Hugh could tilt away the kettle.

“The devil mend you!” he said hotly, clamping the kettle on the floor. “See what you’re after doing!”

“Wow!” she exclaimed. “That was cold.” She lifted the top of her dress and shook herself like a puppy, and Hugh could not help glimpsing the exquisite white contrast of her breast below the cream of her throat.

“Many a man would be jealous of that drop of water,” he said, calmly brazen, and left Frances Mary unutterably silent.