Читать книгу The Small Dark Man (Maurice Walsh) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - Maurice Walsh - Страница 19

IV

Hugh Forbes sat on the table, leaning forward on his hands and his legs swinging. There was no more to be done and he would like to be doing something. He might be going on down the glen if he wanted to, and he told himself he wanted to, but he could no longer leave Tearlath Grant’s sister—she was only that—alone in the aware wilderness. The wilderness was never dead—only sleeping, and once to-night it had turned over in its sleep. This young woman might not be afraid, but there was worse than fear. There was possession, and possession was hell.

“You tempt me grievously,” said Frances Mary out of the silence.

Hugh looked at her puzzledly.

“What I have needed you have supplied,” she explained, “and we are never happy till we get to the end of a man’s resources.”

“And ye wouldn’t be happy then either.”

“Probably not; but how much unhappier the man would be. What do you propose to do now?”

“I am going to have a smoke to myself.” He took an old bent Peterson pipe from one pocket and an old leather pouch from another.

“You might have asked——”

“I might, then. With your permission——”

“Tut! I didn’t mean that. You might have asked me to have a cigarette.”

“Oh! is that it? Wait, now. I’m not beyond having a whiff sometimes.” He thrust his hand into his breast-pocket and brought forth a battered but massive silver case. “Catch!—and there are the matches.”

As Frances Mary lit her cigarette her downcast eyes caught a glimpse of a monogram engraved on the convex of the case lying in her lap. Without appearing to look, she examined it closely before the match burned down, and, though it was scrolled intricately, to her it was plain as print: “F. M. to C.” Frances Mary to Charles! A girl of twelve, she had presented that case to her brother Charles when he went to war in 1914. She gave no sign. For a time she sat very still, gazing into the fire and a finger smoothing over the dinted surface of the case. And then she smiled to herself. Let this small dark man be as secretive as he liked—and really he was simple—she would discover him for herself, and all that was in him. Why, she had probed him already and knew his capacity and his limitations. Charles might regard him as invincible but she had seen him under Vivian’s hand. She knew that he could suffer. Vivian was so terribly strong! . . . Could they ever become friendly after what had happened? Vivian must be always a little contemptuous and this man a little shamefaced. . . . She must try and change that.

“I will not ask any more,” said Frances Mary. “I should be afraid.”

“There was never a woman yet,” he rumbled, “who was ever afraid of asking, one way or another—tongue or eye.”

“Yes,” said Frances Mary agreeably.

“Yes so,” he affirmed. He pivoted his legs on to the oblong of the table and lay on his back, his new hat crushed comfortably under his poll. The length of him fitted the board, and his chest stood up above his flat stomach.

“First you stood on it——”

“Or that long lad of yours——”

“Then you used it as a kettle-holder, and now you make a pillow of it—your fine velour hat.”

“The man I bought it from said I could do what I liked with it and it would still remain a hat.”

Her low chuckle was very pleasant. “You are due to prove him wrong—given time.”

“Time! ’Tis all I have. It stands still all round me.” He twisted the bowl of his pipe on the stem so that it hung at one side of his chin, and smoke drifted steadily to the black rafters. “Twisting it that way,” he explained, “you don’t get the ashes in your eye.”

Frances Mary knew that. Charles had the same trick, learnt or taught.

For a time silence settled down between them. The fire burned without a sound, as peat fires do, and grotesque shadows danced solemnly on the lime-washed walls. In that soft dusky glow the room was cosy and satisfyingly mysterious, a small safe ark in the emptiness of the mountains, a haven where one could relax and snuggle down and dream as Frances Mary was dreaming now, her shoulders resting on Hugh Forbes’s old coat, and her cigarette reddening and dulling lazily. She felt very safe and even a little happy: a sort of surprised happiness that had in it the faintest thrill of expectancy. She had always felt safe, of course, in her own hills, but of late happiness had stood off from her, and was only to be contemplated with a sudden, blinding sensation that was exquisite but painful.

Hugh Forbes, one knee drawn up, was thinking, too, in his own whimsical way. He was thinking of Tearlath Grant and the holiday they had contemplated—the two of them together on mountain, loch, and river. Ay! the two of them together! And here was himself, true to form, already complicating things. He never could help complicating things—no more than could a red-setter pup in a chicken-run. Tearlath Grant would be always Tearlath Grant, the friend of his heart; but now there was this girl here, Frances Mary of the darling name! Lying there on the table, his mind running back over the evening, he had to admit that this girl was not so very poisonous. Quiet she was, and what she had said had been quiet too, and had quality in it. As she sat there in the old chair, her long slim figure leaning back, and her head poised forward so that the line from crown to shoulder was graceful and alluring, there was a quiet dignity about her. No hoyden this. Was it she that gave a sense of comfort to the room? . . . This girl could not be easily ignored in the household of Innismore. . . . And then there was this fellow Stark, Vivian Stark. He would have to be considered, too, as a man who would have a very natural prejudice against being stood on his ear and rolled down a brae. “Damn!” said Hugh Forbes.

“Whom?” inquired Frances Mary.

“Myself, and Mr Vivian Stark, and you too, a small little bit. Would you mind telling me who this Mr Stark is?”

“My cousin. Charles William Vivian Stark. We call him Vivian so as not to confuse him with my brother Charles.”

The devil himself could not do that wrong. “Your cousin? Is he ever called Bill?”

Frances Mary chuckled. She could not imagine the aloof Vivian called the devil-may-care Bill. “No.”

“No. No one would ever call him Bill.”

“It might be unwise. Vivian can be very autocratic.” She did not add the “as you know” that was on the tip of her tongue.

Autocratic? Autos, self, and kratos, power. A man who holds all power in his own hands. Power over men? Well, now! Women? It could be. He had the build and the face and the intolerant blue eye. And her cousin, too! Cousins are naturally intolerant and unchivalrous, and that is perhaps why he trotted away down the glen. Surely he could hardly be so stupid as not to notice the warmth in a limpid grey eye? Whether or no, it was no business of Hugh Forbes; whose only business at present was to do the adequate minimum and keep a check on his disparaging tongue, if he could. Queer, all the same, that a fellow should run away from a good-looking young woman—not bad looking, anyway, in spite of her colouring. . . .