Читать книгу Delight - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 6

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Kirke almost ran downstairs. His stiff, high-shouldered figure in light-grey tweed elbowed a way through the crowd that now thronged the hall and bar. He found Fowler and had a drink with him but he was restless. His eyes were constantly on the doorway. It seemed that Lovering, his friend and room-mate, would never come. Then, at last, his burly figure filled the opening. Their eyes met. Kirke beckoned with a jerk of the chin. Fowler muttered good-night and Lovering took his place, leaning against the counter and strumming on it with his thick fingers. He was a Yorkshireman with curly dark hair and violet eyes. He ordered a glass of beer in a deep rolling voice.

“Charley Bye’s got it in for you,” he said. “He says you tripped him oop in the hall and then complained of him to Bill.”

“Lovering,” said Kirke, “you should see the new geerl. Two came on the ’bus just now. Man, she’s a screaming beauty if ever one screamed. You never saw the like. I’ve just come down from taking her to Mrs. Jessop. Lovering, she’ll mak’ that cairly hair of yours stand on end when you see her.”

Lovering took his face from his glass. “Tha’ art always oop in the air about some lass,” he said skeptically.

“Ay, but never one like this.”

“A fine looker, eh? What is she like?”

“I can’t describe her, except that she’s tall and nobly built, and she’s got a red-hot look in the eyes that mak’s your blood tingle.”

Lovering gave his slow grin. “Tha’ art gone on her already, then.”

Kirke stiffened. “Ye know I look higher than that, Lovering, but I can admire the lass.”

“Listen to what Fergussen’s saying,” interrupted Lovering. “What a fellow he is to talk!”

Fergussen, the fishmonger, was standing with his back to the wall, a smile broadening his blunt-featured face. He had been born in Halifax, of Scotch parents, had gone to England as a child, had shipped aboard a West Indian trader at fifteen, had worked on a sheep farm in Australia, a coffee plantation in Ceylon, had fought in the Boer War, was, as he said, one of the strands that held the Empire together.

He took another sip from his glass, smacked his lips, and said: “To continoo our conversation, what gets me is ’ow some people can be so stoopid. They don’t know nothing. When I sees ’em, I says to myself—‘Fergussen, they’re not made of the same stuff as you are. They have no brain power, no sense. Not as much sense as the ground they stands on.’ For the ground, mind you, ’as a certain amount of sense. It knows enough to grow things. It knows enough to cover up a dead man when he’s laid in it, now isn’t that so? But a lot of the people I meet, their ignorance makes me sick.” He took another drink, set down his glass, and went on—“Perhaps I make them sick, too. Like I did an old cadger once. I was courtin’ his daughter. Not that I was very serious, mind, but I was willin’ to pass a silly hour with ’er, now and again, even if it did cost me a dollar. And she liked a silly hour with me, and she liked the look of my dough.... This night there was a big storm on and we were sittin’ close by the fire and ’er old people was in bed in the next room. Suddenly the old man says to ’is old woman—‘Well, my old dearie, you and me is safe under our own roof, and none but a fool of no account, whatsomever, would be out a night like this!’ Those were his words out of the darkness of his bed, and you can bet it wasn’t long till I was makin’ the way shorter ’ome.”

“Did you ever go back?” shouted a voice from the hall.

Fergussen puffed out his lips. “Do I look like a man who would go sneakin’ back arter a hinsult like that? Do I now?”

“What about the girl?” asked another.

“Ho! You expect me to tell you about the girl, eh? Well, I’ll just say this, that we spent a few more silly hours together in spite of the old folk.” He gave a jolly wink at Bastien.

Three men off a barge and the stoker of a coaling schooner now came in, for Brancepeth was a lake port, as well as the centre of a fruit-growing district.

The bar was now full. Business was at its height. The air quivered with light, with the mingled odours of the men’s bodies and of the trades they worked in, with the grateful smell of wine and spirits. The din of voices crashed against the rows of delicately shining glasses. Flushed, laughing, or argumentative faces were reflected in the long mirrors. Someone on the street outside was playing a Jew’s-harp. Fergussen began to do a hornpipe in his crowded corner, now and again uttering a sharp yell. Edwin Silk, a broken-down remittance man, feebly drunk, tried to pull him off his feet. “Don’t dance, you damned fishmonger,” he ordered, “it makesh me dizhy.” Fergussen knocked him down without ceasing to dance. At a nod from Bastien, Charley Bye helped Silk to his feet and mildly led him outside.

Lovering, with his eternal lazy smile, still strummed with his fingers on the bar. “Now, about this lass, Kirke. Tell me more about her. What is her name?”

Two bright spots burned on Kirke’s high cheek-bones. “Delight,” he returned slowly, as though he savoured the name on his tongue, and he proceeded to give a minute description of her.