Читать книгу Henry Is Twenty - Samuel Merwin - Страница 19

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They stood on the threshold.

'This is the shop,' Henry explained, 'where Hump works.'

'How perfectly fascinating!' exclaimed Mrs Henderson. Her quick eyes took in lathes, kites, models of gliders, tools. 'Bring him 'straight down here. I won't stir from this room till he's explained everything.'

'Hump!' called Henry, with austere politeness, up the stairway: 'Would you mind coming down?'

He came—tall, stooping under the low lintel, in spotless white, distant in manner, but courteous, firmly courteous.

Mrs Henderson, prowling about, lifted a wheel in a frame.

'What on earth is this thing?' she asked.

'A gyroscope.'

'What do you do with it?'

Humphrey wound a long twine about the handle and set the wheel spinning like a top.

'Hold it by the handle,' said he. 'Now try to wave it around.'

The apparently simple machine swung itself back to the horizontal with a jerk so violent that Mrs Henderson nearly lost her footing. Humphrey, with evident hesitation, caught her elbow and steadied her. She turned her eyes up to his, laughing, all interest.

'Sit right down in that chair and explain it to me,' she cried. 'How on earth did it do that? It's uncanny.' And she seated herself on a work-bench, with a light little spring.

When Henry showed Corinne up the stairs, Humphrey was talking with an eager interest that had not before been evident in him. And Mrs Henderson was listening, interrupting him where his easy flow of scientific terms and mechanical axioms ran too fast for her.

Henry's pulse beat faster. Suddenly the pleasantly arranged old barn looked, felt different. Charm had entered it. And the exciting possibility of fellowship—a daring fellowship. He was up in the living-room now. Corinne was moving lazily, comfortably about, humming a song by the sensational new Richard Strauss who was upsetting all settled musical tradition just then, and prying into corners and shelves. She wore a light, shimmery, silky dress that gave out a faint odour of violets. It drugged Henry, that odour. He felt for the first time as if he belonged in these rooms himself.

Corinne found the kitchen cupboard', and exclaimed.

'Mildred!' she called down the stairs, in her rich drawling voice, 'come right up here—the cutest thing!'

To which Mildred Henderson coolly replied:—

'Don't bother me with cute things now. Play with Henry and keep quiet.'

And Humphrey's voice droned on down there.

Henry dropped on the piano stool. Corinne was certainly less indifferent. A little.

He struck chords; all he knew. He hummed a phrase of the Colonel's song in Patience.

Corinne drew a chair to the end of the keyboard and settled herself comfortably. 'Sing something,' she said. 'I love your voice.'

'It's no good,' said he, flushing with delight.

Surely her interest was growing. He added:—

'I'd a lot rather hear you.' But then, when she smilingly shook her head, promptly broke into—

'If you want a receipt for that popular mystery

Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon,

Take all the remarkable people of history,

Rattle them off to a popular tune.'

It is the trickiest and most brilliant patter song ever written, I think, not even excepting the Major General's song in The Pirates. Which, by the way, Henry sang next.

'How on earth can you remember all those words!' Corinne murmured. 'And the way you get your tongue around them. I could never do it.'

She tried it, with him; but broke down with laughter.

'I know hundreds of 'em,' he said expansively, and sang on.

It was an opportunity he had not foreseen during this dreadful day. But here it was, and he seized it. The stage was set for his kind of things; all at once, as if by the merest accident. For the first time since the awkward Sunday morning on the beach he was able to turn on full the faucet that controlled his 'charm.' And he turned it on full. He had parlour tricks. Out of amateur opera experience he had picked up a superficial knack at comedy dancing. He did all he knew. He taught an absurd little team song and dance to Corinne, with Mrs Henderson (who had at last come up) improvising at the piano. And Corinne, flushed and pretty, clung to his hand and laughed herself speechless. Once in her desperate confusion over the steps she sank to the floor and sat in a merry heap until Henry lifted her up. Then Henry imitated Frank Daniels singing 'The man with an elephant on his hands,' and H. C. Bamabee singing The Sheriff of Nottingham, and De Wolf Hopper doing Casey at the Bat. All were clever bits; the 'Casey' exceptionally so. They applauded him. Even Humphrey, silent now, leaning on an end of the piano, watching Mrs Henderson's flashing little hands, clapped a little.

Once Humphrey went rather moodily to a window and peered out.

Mrs Henderson followed him; slipped her hand through his arm; asked quietly, 'Who lives across the alley?'

'It's the Presbyterian parsonage,' he replied, slightly grim.

It was after midnight when they set out, whispering, giggling a little in the alley, for Chestnut Avenue.

'These sand-flies are fierce,' said Henry. 'You girls better take our handkerchiefs.'

They circled on lawns to avoid the swirling, crunching, softly suffocating clouds of insects. Nearer the lake it grew worse. At the corner of Chestnut and Simpson they stopped short. Mrs Henderson, pressing the handkerchief to her face, clung in humorous helplessness to Humphrey's arm.

He looked down at her. Suddenly he stooped, gathered her up in his arms as if she were a child, and carried her clear through the plague into the shadows of Chestnut Avenue.

Henry, running with Corinne pressing close on his arm, caught a glimpse of his face. The expression on it added a touch of alarm to the pæan of joy in Henry's brain.

They stepped within the Henderson screen door to say good-night.

'Let's do something to-morrow night—walk or go biking or row on the lake,' said Mrs Henderson. 'You two had better come down for dinner. Any time after six.'

'How about you?' Henry whispered to Corinne. 'Do you want me to come... Will and Fred...'

Corinne's firm long hand slipped for a moment into his. He gripped it. The pressure was returned.

'Don't be silly!' she breathed, close to his ear.