Читать книгу Delight - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 9

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The red glow of the sunrise flamed into the room at the same moment that Charley Bye knocked on the bedroom door.

“Up, lasses,” he said, in his rich, ponderous tones. “Be you going to lie all day?”

He passed on to the door behind which Annie and Pearl slumbered, and repeated his call.

It was impossible to believe that a whole night had passed. Impossible to believe that they had been sleeping, resting sweetly on that lumpy bed, for hours and hours. A sort of stupor held them in its grip. Dimly they heard stove-lids clanging below. Coals rattling out of the scuttle. The creaking of a pump in the stable-yard beneath their window, the heavy feet of horses on the paving-stones.

All they longed for was to be allowed to sleep for ever. But presently another knock, light but sharp, sounded on the door.

“Say, you girls,” came Annie’s voice, “you’d better get a move on. Mrs. Jessop won’t like it if she’s down before you are. There’s a troupe come on the midnight train, too, so hurry up. Are you all right?”

“Right as rain, my dear,” answered May, springing up with sudden energy. “Down directly.” Annie clattered downstairs.

May bent over Delight. “Do you want a wet wash-rag in the eye, duckie? I’ll just give you till I count ten. One—two—three—four—five—”

Delight was out on the floor, pulling her nightdress over her head. “Oo—May,” she wailed, “I’m so—sleepy. Couldn’t you tell them I’m having a spell of some kind?”

“You aren’t ’ired to ’ave spells, my girl. ’Ere, ’op into yer duds.” She threw an armful of underclothes at her.

As one in a dream, Delight caught them and stood blinking sleepily out of the window. The red sunlight stained the warm whiteness of her body to the blush of an apple-blossom. Her breasts, gently rising and falling, lay like sleeping flowers between her rounded arms. A tangle of yellow curls hung over her drowsy dark eyes. May suddenly beheld her.

“Get back from before that window!” she screamed in a whisper. “Do you want to make a show for the whole town?” She added, solemnly—“Delight, I’m afraid this ain’t no place for you. But then I don’t know what would be a place for you, I really don’t.”

“Silly,” said Delight, pulling on her stockings. “I fit in anywhere.”