Читать книгу Mary Wakefield - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 5

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Renny Whiteoak felt brilliantly alive that morning. He came upward, out of a deep pool of sleep, like a bright coloured fish. He wore a light blue night-shirt, his skin was milk and roses, his hair of a bright chestnut that reddened in the shaft of sunlight that fell across the bed. He lay looking about the room that held almost all his belongings—his shelf of books—his toy cupboard full of toys he was outgrowing—his fishing-rod—his wind-up train that had something wrong with its mechanism and would not go—his bank, into which he reluctantly dropped small silver when ordered to, and of which his father kept the key. A large stretch of blue sky, upon which sailed a cloud shaped like a galleon, filled the window-panes, excepting in one place where the topmost branch of a silver birch waved. The air was warm. Suddenly Renny kicked away the clothes and his feet shot into the air with the unpremeditated activity of a fish’s tail. He kicked so high into the sunlight that only the back of his shoulders touched the bed. He did this repeatedly, deepening the hollow that had already formed in the mattress. Then he lay quite still, remembering Meg’s new governess who had arrived the night before and was sleeping in the next room. He thought of her only as Meg’s governess. Next year he would go to boarding-school as his friend, Maurice Vaughan, two years older than himself, now went. There was no day school convenient to their houses.

His mind riveted on the governess, he rolled out of bed onto his feet and went lightly to the door of his sister’s room. He opened it and put in his head. Meg lay curled up in a plump ball, her light-brown pigtail flung across the pillow. Her room was in shadow. She lay in warm feminine seclusion. Renny sat down on the side of the bed and put his face close to hers, breathing noisily. Their breaths mingled, warm and wholesome as the scent of clover in the sun.

Anger at being woken tied Meg into a more determined ball. Her knees drew up to her chin, the white satinlike flesh with which her forehead was padded was drawn in a frown.

“Go ’way!” She kicked at him, her body beneath the sheet convulsed.

“Meggie, listen. Your governess is here. I heard her come last night.”

“She’s not mine.”

“She is.”

“She’s not. She’s just as much yours.”

“She’ll be yours for years and years.”

Up to this point Meg had kept her eyes tight shut. Now she opened them and they were very blue. “Did you see her?” she asked.

“No. But Mrs. Nettleship came up with her. I heard them talking. I’ll tell you what they said.” He drew his feet up on the side of the bed and clasped his knees. Meg had a glimpse of their black soles and hissed:

“Get off my bed!”

“Why?” He was astonished.

“Your horrible feet. Look at them.”

He turned up the sole of his left foot and looked at it unmoved. “Oh, that.”

“You’re not allowed to go to bed dirty. You’re not allowed to run about barefoot. If Papa saw you ...”

“All right, I’ll go. I won’t tell you.”

She caught him by the tail of his night-shirt.

“Come on. Tell me what they said.”

“Old Nettle said we’re a handful and she couldn’t put up with us running in and out of her kitchen, and she was glad the governess had come.”

“My eye!” said Meg.

“The governess,” Renny said, “sounded la-di-da.” He had heard his father use the expression and now brought it out impressively.

“We’ll la-di-da her!” said Meg.

“I’ll tell you what, let’s dress and then fire something at her door and run.”

Those were not the days of shorts and pullovers, of scant dresses and bare legs or abbreviated play-suits. Renny put on an undervest, a shirt, trousers held up by braces of which he was very proud, and a jacket, brown stockings and laced shoes. Meg, still sleepy, got into an undervest, black stockings held up by suspenders from a heavily ribbed garment called a Ferris waist, frilled white drawers, a white starched petticoat that buttoned down the back, a pleated navy blue serge skirt, coming just below the knee, and a white duck blouse with a starched sailor collar. It was to be a hot June day.

By the time Meg was dressed there were little beads of perspiration on her nose. She dipped a corner of a towel in the ewer and scrubbed her face with it, then dried it on the other end of the towel. She hesitated before the abhorrent task of brushing her teeth. She decided against it. After all, this was a special sort of day. She would give her teeth a rest. But she would not neglect her prayers. She knelt down by the side of her bed, folded her hands and murmured: