Читать книгу Delight - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 14

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Delight was sitting before the chest of drawers, with her Granny’s apple-green tea-set spread out before her, when May entered. She turned towards her, a happy smile curving her lips.

“What do you s’pose, May?” she said. “Not a blessed cup or saucer’s been chipped. Even the tea-pot spout never got a nick.... Oh, for goodness sake! What’s up?”

May stood before her, glassy-eyed, with a terrible twist to her mouth. “I’ve seen ’im,” she answered, in a queer coughing way.

“Oh, Albert, eh? Wasn’t he nice to you, May?”

“Nice to me! Listen to the girl! Ow, yes, ’e was nice to me! Very nice to me, ’e was! Loverly to me, I’d s’y, if the queen came around in ’er carriage and ast me.”

“May, are you crazy?”

“Small wonder if I was. Wot do you s’pose that ’e’s done but get married! To a Canidian girl out ’ere. Married and livin’ with ’er this six months. Ader, ’er nime is. Red-’aired.”

Delight flew to her and would have folded her in her arms but May backed from her till she stood against the bedroom door. She stretched her arms upon it and broke into hysterical laughter. “Ow, ’e’s made a proper wreck of me, ’e ’as!” she laughed, “ain’t it a joke?”

“Hang on to yourself,” said Delight, “or you’ll have the others in. Shall I throw cold water on you now?”

Quick steps were coming from the next room. Mrs. Bye pushed the door open, and looked round it at May. At the sight of her May laughed louder than ever. “Married, ain’t yer?” she cried. “Are you sure you’re married?”

Mrs. Bye shut the door and took her by the arm. “May, May,” she said. “You’ll have Mrs. Jessop in. Do quieten yourself.”

“I tell her the others’ll all be getting oop,” said Delight. “I was just going to empty a mug of water on her.”

May was calmed by the sight of Mrs. Bye. She sat down on the side of the bed and pressed back the damp hair from her forehead. “It’s just a touch of hystrikes,” she said. “I’ve ’ad them before, ’aven’t I, Delight?”

Mrs. Bye brought her a mug of water and patted her back as she drank it. The motherly touch had a softening effect. May laid her head against Mrs. Bye and sobbed like a little child.

“If it’s anything to do with a man, don’t waste your tears now,” said the cook. “Save them till you’re married. You’ll need them worse, then.” She nodded her head wisely, looking almost like a girl with her ugly kitchen dress exchanged for a long blue wrapper over her nightgown and a little pigtail down her back.

Charley had come up to bed, and, hearing his wife’s voice in the girls’ bedroom, he gave the door a thump and said:

“Come along to bed, missus. D’ye want me to be losing my rest when you well know how early I must rise?”

“In a moment,” answered Mrs. Bye.

“Is it some fellow that had promised her in the Old Land?” she asked of Delight. “Don’t tell me if May had rather not. I don’t want to pry, dear knows.”

“Well, they were all but promised,” answered Delight cautiously. “But now she’s coom over, he is trying to back out.”

May sobbed. “He’s my cousin.”

“Well, then, be glad you’re shut of him,” said Mrs. Bye. “I don’t approve of cousins marryin’. Nature never intended that we should overdo relations that way, and if we do, likely as not, the children’ll come underdone.”

“You’d think marriage was a pie to hear you talk,” said Delight.

“It’s a pie you’d better keep your finger out of, till you’re a bit more sensible.”

“Me?” cried Delight. “I’m as sensible as can be. It’d take more than a jilting to upset me.”

Charley thumped on the wall. “Missus! Missus!” he called. “Be you going to gadabout all night?”

“Please don’t tell the other girls anything of this,” implored May. “I couldn’t bear it.”

“Never a breath,” said Mrs. Bye. “And you put your cousin out of your mind. There’s other nice young fellers here that ’ud like nothing better than to walk out with a smart-looking girl like you.” She whisked out with her long stride to her own room, exactly as though it were an oven and Charley a cake burning.

“I wonder what relation they were,” mused Delight.

“Who?”

“Why, cook and Charley. Look at Queenie. She’s a bit queer. No roof to her mouth, I mean, and all.”

“Oh, you silly! I’ve got a brother whose toes are all webbed jus’ like a duck’s and my parents was no more relation than ’Enery the Eighth and the Queen of Sheba.”

Delight persisted. “Well, anyway, May, since Albert is your cousin—”

“E’s not my cousin, but I’ve promised ’im to s’y ’e is for the time being.”

“Where’s the use?”

“Oh, well, we’ll be able to meet and talk things over. Folk won’t be suspicious if they think we’re cousins.”

Delight was scornful. “You promised him to keep quiet, eh? After what he’s done to you!”

May threw herself back on her pillow, her face swollen from crying, her eyes bloodshot. “You just wait, my beauty, till you’re in a fix like this with a man some d’y. You don’t know what you’d do. You don’t know anythink.”

Delight hung over the foot of the bed looking down at her. “I know I’d never, never promise—”

“Oh, shut up! I’d ha’ promised ’im anything down in that dark cubby ’ole.”

“Well, o’ course, if you’re going to let him get around you.”

“You’d have done the sime, Delight. ’E reely is charmin’. ’E just ’ung on to me and cried like a little child. ’E says ’e’s that debilertated wiv the climate and all that ’e’s scared of ’is own shadder, pore lad.”

Between pity for him and pity for her own plight May’s tears fell like rain on the pillow. Delight helped her to undress and put her into bed, then thoughtfully set away her Granny’s tea-set. The house was quiet, save for Charley’s sonorous snore in the next room, and the occasional stamp of a horse in the stable. She sat with her chin on her hand, staring at her reflection in the spotted looking-glass. She smiled sleepily at herself, glad that she was still her very own, that no man had the power to make her promise unnatural things in a stuffy little cubby hole, and then cry herself to sleep.