Читать книгу Mary Wakefield - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 6

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Having completed her devotions Meg rose, unplaited her hair and gave it six strokes of the brush. Her hair sprang to life, caught the sunshine and lay thick about her shoulders in a light brown mantle. She was ready for the day. There was silence in Renny’s room. Tiptoeing in she found him dressed but lying across the bed holding his fox terrier in his arms. The little dog was systematically licking Renny’s ear.

“Don’t speak,” he said. “I’m counting the licks. A hundred and eight—a hundred and nine—a hundred—”

“All right,” said Meg, “you may stay here but I’m going. I want my breakfast before she comes down.”

Renny leapt up. In one hand he held a hard rubber ball. As they passed Mary’s door he threw it sharply against a panel, then snatching Meg’s hand, he dragged her at top speed down the stairs. In this second flight of stairs the steps were steep and rather narrow. It was not long since they had descended them with care, a step at a time. Now they fairly flung themselves down, then stood listening in the passage below. There was silence everywhere. The door of their father’s room was shut. The other bedrooms were closed too but they were empty, with drawn blinds and beds smooth beneath white counterpanes. Meg placed her ear to the keyhole of her father’s room.

“He’s breathing,” she whispered. “Not quite snoring.”

“Let’s hear.” In his turn Renny listened.

Though the door was shut between, their father was as near as though he stood before them. He was the tremendous reality of their lives. His breathing was more important than other men’s shouting. When their grandmother was at home she became a great figure but, when the far distant sea or Ireland or England absorbed her, she became like impressive scenery, a mountain, a cliff, that you could put out of your head, when you are distant from it. The visits of their uncles and aunt were a mixture of pleasurable excitement, for they always brought presents and humiliation, for they were critical, telling you not to stand like this or hold your fork like that or making you repeat what you had said, slowly and with a proper accent. Much more of this criticism came Renny’s way than Meg’s. His uncles would look at his father in astonishment and say, “Upon my word, Philip, this boy is becoming a little ruffian.”

“He is so snoring,” declared Renny.

“He is not. If you call that snoring you ought to hear old Nettle.” (Their name for Mrs. Nettleship.)

“When did you hear her?”

“Having her afternoon nap. It was like this.” Meg gave a raucous imitation. This startled the fox terrier, who set up a frantic barking. The children, followed by him, still barking, flew down the main stairway, ran down the hall and clattered down the uncarpeted stairs to the basement. At a small table Mrs. Nettleship and Eliza were eating their breakfast. There was an immaculate air about them as about the room. The morning sunlight seeking every corner, lying across the scrubbed wood of the long table, shining on the polished coal range and rows of utensils, could discover no dirt or dust. The air was filled by the pleasant smell of bacon and toast. The little dog ran at once to the side of the table and sat up.

On an ordinary occasion Mrs. Nettleship would have sent the children flying, but this morning she felt a mournful pity for them which she expressed by shaking her head every time she looked at them.

“Poor little things,” she muttered to Eliza. “No mother and another one of them governesses.”

“Dear, oh dear,” mourned Eliza, surreptitiously putting a rind of bacon into the terrier’s mouth.

The children stood together at the foot of the stairs.

“What is she like?” Renny demanded.

“Wait till you see her,” replied Mrs. Nettleship with a sneer. “Dolled up in a flagrant way, like no teacher I’ve ever been used to.”

“What’s flagrant?”

“Scandalous, that’s what flagrant is.”

“Oh. Was her face painted?”

“I’d not be surprised. She’d fancy clothes.”

“She sounds nice,” said Meg. “Better than the other two.”

“Don’t you be deceived. She’s the designing sort. Nice to your face and tattle behind your back.”

“Do you mean tell tales to Papa?” asked Meg.

Renny went to Mrs. Nettleship. He was conscious of her weakness for him. He smiled ingratiatingly. “I want strawberry jam on my toast this morning and bacon and a fried egg. No porridge.” Her arms went round him. He saw her blue-lipped puckered mouth reaching toward his face and bent his wiry body backward to avoid the contact. With deliberate fingers he tickled the back of her neck. “Come on, Nettle,” he urged. “Strawberry jam. A fried egg. Two fried eggs. And no porridge.”

She closed her eyes, succumbing. Meg looked on dispassionately. Then the housekeeper asked:

“Did you wash last night? Your feet and legs was all sandy, you remember.”

“Yes,” he answered, meaning yes he remembered.

“Good boy.” She looked across at Eliza, her look saying, “See how he loves me.”

There was something in that look which made Eliza uncomfortable. She got up and began to clear the table. Mrs. Nettleship had come from a town sixty miles away. No one knew anything of her past, whether her husband were living or dead. Before she came to Jalna she had been housekeeper for eight years to an invalid, an old lady who had at last died. Now, for six years, she had unflinchingly fought dirt and disorder in Philip Whiteoak’s house, and also trained Eliza to her ways. As he often said, a man could scarcely have two better servants but, he would add with a shrug, “They’re not what you’d call comfortable women.”

“Would you like your breakfast in the kitchen?” she asked Renny, ignoring Meg. “It’ll likely be your last chance for a long while.”

For answer he drew a chair up to the table, rattling it over the floor. Meg at once drew up a chair for herself. Mrs. Nettleship said to Eliza:

“You go on with your beds. I’ll look after him.”

Placing his palms against the edge of the table to steady himself, Renny tilted back his chair and watched preparations for his breakfast with an appraising eye.

“It’ll be far worse for you having that Englishwoman here than it will for your sister.”

“I shall be going to school.”

“Not for over a year!” she scoffed. “She can do a lot to you in that time.”

“I’d like to see her try.”

There was silence while Mrs. Nettleship concentrated her attention on the frying-pan. She set his plate sizzling before him.

“Ladies should be served first,” said Meg.

Renny at once pushed the plate towards her. “Take this then,” he said.

Mrs. Nettleship angrily grasped his wrist. “None of that,” she said. “I don’t like being interfered with.”

“If he says I can have it I can,” said Meg stubbornly.

“Not in this kitchen. If you don’t do what I want you’ll have breakfast upstairs—with her.”

She looked on approvingly while Renny attacked his bacon. She passed a hand over his hair. “Sakes alive, what hair! I guess you never put a brush on it this morning.” She placed Meg’s plate in front of her with what seemed almost calculated indifference. When she brought out the pot of strawberry jam it was set convenient to his hand.

“Now,” she said, when they had finished, “I’m going to get a brush and tidy your hair, mister. Use your napkins, both of you.” She disappeared into the passage which led to the maids’ bedrooms.

In an instant the children were silently scrambling up the stairs. The fox terrier, in his eagerness, nipped first one of their legs, then another, as they ascended. At the top all three cast restraint away and scampered through the hall, laughing and barking. The front door stood open. The outdoors, piercingly green in its freshness, invited them. They tore through the porch.

“I’ll beat you to the gate!” shouted Renny.