Читать книгу Doomsday - Warwick Deeping - Страница 22

Colonel Sykes never discovered the truth of the matter, for when his April Lady had smothered what he took to be a spasm of coughing, she erected a barrier between herself and that too intimate and sentimental eye-glass. She spread one of the papers he had brought her, and made desultory remarks upon the illustrations, while he had to stand at the back of her chair in order to see what she was talking about.

"Ha," he said to himself, "sensitive—proud, of course. Does not wish to talk about it. Such sweet, silent pride is adorable."

When all the pictures had been looked at twice Punch was put away, and then the brown eyes of Mary Viner rediscovered her lover. Colonel Toby's eye-glass glimmered towards the same quarter, the strip of ground beyond the currant bushes and the apple trees. Dash it, if the fellow had not got his coat off, and possessed himself of a spade, and was hard at it opening a trench for the planting of Captain Viner's sweet peas. And there was old Hesketh with his trugful—of—ahem—tipping it into the bottom of the trench that Furze was digging!

"Capital, capital! So—Mr. Furze comes in and does odd jobs for you?"

She did not appear to catch the remark.

"A useful fellow. Might employ him myself—now and again. By the way—what does he charge by the hour?"

Her brown eyes remained utterly innocent.

"I don't know. Why not ask him?"

He had had his "devoir" given him by his dear lady, and since his sense of direction was limited and his only movements were one of advance or retreat, he marched across to where Furze was digging and old Hesketh was scattering the colour that was to be. Mary could do nothing else but watch. She saw Arnold Furze pause in his digging, and stand with his two hands on his spade. Colonel Sykes was speaking, and Furze was looking into the colonel's face. The man with the spade had dignity, and realizing his dignity she was both afraid and glad.

Colonel Sykes returned to her. He did not see the faces of the two Jamieson children projecting above the fence, each with a penny screwed into an eye, but Mary saw them, and all her sympathy was with the colonel. The Jamieson children always produced in her an angry and self-conscious seriousness. She lost her sense of humour—and she had not too much of it—when those two strawberry-jam faces appeared above the fence. Little beasts! Her elderly Orpheus discovered her a readier listener to his sentimental music.

"The man's too busy. I asked him. Wonder if I put my foot in it, Mary?"

She dared to remind him that Furze was a farmer, and that when a man had a hundred and twenty acres and cattle to look after—Besides, in spite of a surface smile, she had her grievance against the great man. She could not decide how much or how little guile lay behind that eye-glass. Having lived with her father's simplicity for twenty years and marvelled at it, she was on the watch for a like simplicity in other old soldiers. For to her Colonel Sykes was old, though he did not appear to know it.

Very properly he asked after her mother, while she tried not to see those detestable children, each with one blue eye and one copper one. They were beginning to giggle.

"Mother is rather weak—still."

Colonel Sykes had "Capital, capital"—on the tip of his tongue but managed to withdraw the words before they had escaped.

"She must be careful. These spring days—treacherous—you know. Sure—now—that you don't feel chilly, dear lady?"

She assured him that she felt quite warm, and was suddenly and horribly afraid that he was about to do something foolish. She felt it in the air, a quivering of his sandy eyelashes over eyes that were suffused and tender. O, bother the men; he was going to be as troublesome as poor Coode! And then the Jamieson children extracted her from this delicate situation.

Giggles, and the sound of a mouth making a smacking sound on the back of a fat red hand! Colonel Sykes, looking round sharply, saw the two faces and the pennies. He glared. The two heads disappeared, and there were sounds of joy behind the fence.

He lingered a moment, very stiff and proper, keeping that brave circle of crystal glued into his red face.

"Damn those infernal children! That's what comes of selling land to such people."

Mary lay relaxed, eyes half closed, watching Furze and her father.