Читать книгу Doomsday - Warwick Deeping - Страница 26

Mary Viner was mowing the lawn. She herself called it a grass plot, but to her mother and her father it was the lawn, twenty feet square between the road and the fence and the house. An ash path divided it on Harold Coode's side from the herbaceous border; towards the Jamiesons it was flanked by a privet hedge that did not exclude the red and intrusive faces of the Jamieson children. The lawn held a circular bed in its centre where Captain Viner tried to grow violas, and the slugs saw to it that his success was relative.

The Viner mowing-machine was like most things in Cinder Town, a make-shift, cheaply American, and second hand at that. It gnawed the grass instead of cutting it. It had clenched its teeth upon many rusty nails and small stones, and its soul had grown churlish and embittered. It clanked and rattled and squeaked.

Mary went to and fro with the cross-piece of the handle pressing close to her young bosom. She remained strictly attentive to the business in hand, for poor Coode was hovering like a celestial scout-master eager for a day's good deed. She knew that if she relented ever so little he would come and hang devotedly over the fence. "I say—do you think—you—ought—to do that? After 'flu? Why not let me do it for you?" Also, she had seen Colonel Toby strolling in his garden, smoking a cigar, and that little circle of crystal had flashed frequently in her direction. "Fine young woman. Cutting grass! No false pride. Capital, capital!"

Furze came to the gate a moment after the knives of the machine had jammed, and she was trying to extract a rusty wire-nail from the mower's teeth. Hot, flushed, and a little peeved, she looked up and saw him. He was half inside the gate.

"Trouble?"

His glance had a deep and lingering steadfastness. It disturbed and fluttered her, so that her colour came more quickly. Her brown eyes were elusive. Yes, she was in trouble. This beastly old machine—!

He smiled and bent over the mower.

"Builders scatter their nails—like the bread in the Bible. On grass—though."

His strong brown fingers freed the blades. He tossed the bent nail into the flower bed, and without a "Shall I?" or an "If you please," began to finish the job for her. And she stood and watched him, feeling vividly conscious of him and of herself, and of all the windows and the gardens, and of poor Coode melting away nobly, and of Colonel Sykes' eye-glass fixed upon them like the eye-piece of a telescope.

"It wants sharpening," he said suddenly.

She agreed that most probably it did.

"And oiling."

"Does it?"

"Afraid so."

"I use the oiler belonging to my bicycle, and I've lost it."

"Bad luck for the machine!"

He paused, smiling, and she had an impression of white teeth and very deep blue eyes in a very brown face.

"I use a scythe."

"Isn't that—rather difficult?"

"Not when you have the hang of it and know how to have the blade. Makes a nicer noise, too. Purrs."

A few stridings to and fro and the mowing was finished. He picked up the machine. "Where do you keep it?"

"Oh,—in the tool-shed."

She led the way to the tool-shed, a brown box no bigger than a small chicken-house. It also contained her bicycle, and a barrow with a wobbly wheel, and a few odd tools. She felt apologetic about the tool-shed, as she felt apologetic about nearly everything connected with her existence in Cinder Town. How trivial it all seemed, and she resented its triviality, for she conceived herself cheapened by it.

"I hope you are better?"

He had put the mower away and had shut the door, and she was wondering whether she should ask him into the house. She was ashamed of the house. Also there was the question of supper, and even the sunset and the soft green splendour of this spring evening were effaced by her vision of a small leg of mutton carved to the bone and a few cold potatoes waiting in the larder. Her father was one of those dear and hopeless souls who can never learn to understand a woman's sensitiveness, her hatred of being caught with no cake for tea. "Mary,—Mr. Furze will stay to supper." And how could she produce that scraggy end of mutton? Supper—too! Real people dined.

She said that she was quite well now.

"And your mother?"

"O,—much better, thank you."

He was taking something out of the side pocket of his coat, six brown eggs in a paper bag. He handed them to her.

"Thought your mother might like these."

The nay of her mood gave place to the yea. She was touched. Six brown eggs in a paper bag! She had to ask him into the house after that, and to show the eggs to Mrs. Viner who was a child in these matters. "See what Mr. Furze has brought you." Old Hesketh, who was a sahib, however simple he might be, tried to make Furze take his arm-chair. "Sit down, my dear fellow"; but Furze would not hear of it. He sat on a hard chair in front of the fire, between the two old people, with Mary on a footstool and quite close to him, so close that his dream seemed to be coming down to earth.

They talked, or rather Hesketh and his guest talked, while Mrs. Charlotte knitted and threw at Furze quick bird-like glances. She was considering the man who brought them flowers and eggs, and who wanted to marry her daughter. A farmer, but a farmer who could claim to have that notable word "gentleman" added to him. Yes, Mr. Arnold Furze—gentleman farmer. Mrs. Viner asked of fate to be allowed her gentleman. Captain Furze was not "service," of course, not a pukka captain, but in these topsy-turvy days did it matter? The little old lady's bright-eyed, bird-like mind reflected a more clearly cut image of life than did her daughter's, for she had lived her life, and Mary had not. Even a twittering old lady must be allowed her philosophy, and a wise, thrush-like glance at the responsible man. To Mrs. Viner it was most important that a husband should be kind; strong, too, and capable of using a protective shoulder; also just a little exacting at times. So she knitted and watched and listened, her head on one side like an attentive bird's. She did not want to lose Mary, but if Mary had to be lost, well—"Doomsday" was very near; moreover, Mrs. Charlotte liked Arnold Furze. He was kind; he could sit still and talk quietly and naturally to two old people; she watched his eyes when he looked at her daughter. Yes,—that was the way a man should look at a woman, with human wonder at so human and wonderful a thing.

Like most women—an innocent snob—she could be impressed by frankness—and by the easy carriage of the man who possesses what has been called inward dignity. Furze talked a little about the farm and his work. He was so unashamed of it that Mrs. Viner felt that there was nothing to be ashamed of. He could laugh—too—at some of his struggles and his make-shifts. Not one of your fussy, irritable little men, who must walk on his toes and crow.

"You ought to see the bluebells in Gore Wood."

His eyes seemed to catch the firelight as he spoke of the wild flowers and looked down at Mary.

"You too, sir, if you are fond of flowers."

Cinderella, one hand along the cheek turned to the fire, seemed to muse.

"I should love to."

"Any time you like. Go where you please, you know. The Wilderness too is a picture, all yellow broom and young bracken. It lies above Rushy Pool and Wood."

He was silent for half a minute after offering her free trespass upon his farm, and then suddenly he rose, bent to Mrs. Charlotte, and laid a big and restraining hand on old Hesketh's shoulder. "Please don't get up, sir." Captain Viner produced the inevitable invitation to supper, and there was a moment of feminine suspense quickly relieved by Furze's refusal.

Mary went with him to the door, and since the dusk had fallen and she was grateful to him for going, she went a little farther. He paused at the gate and held it open as though he hoped that she would go with him as far as the main road. He looked at the sky, and at a moon coming up over Beech Ho.

"You know that when I say a thing I mean it, Mary."

It was the first time that he had called her Mary, and he uttered the name as though it was both beautiful and sacred.

"I believe you do. You mean—about the farm?"

"Yes, go when you please, and take what you please. Fruit—flowers—anything."

He moved out into the road, and she felt herself drawn out into the dusk. The spell of his tenderness was upon her, the gentle lure of his strength. And there may have been some curiosity behind her vague emotion, and a little thrill of conscious power.

He was silent for a moment. Her drifting out with him into the dusk was so blessed a happening.

"I'm going to Melhurst to-morrow. There is a big sale on there. I am taking the wagon."

"That sounds as though you were going to spend a great deal of money."

"Just as little as I can for as much as I can get."

"Animals?"

She fancied that he laughed slightly and soundlessly, if laughter can be soundless.

"No—furniture and things."

"O,—furniture."

Very significant—that, and she knew it. The nay in her felt that it was time to turn back.

"You love old things."

"Old things for an old house. I shall be away most of the day. Wish me luck, will you?"

"Of course," she said, pausing by the Engledews' gate, and looking at the moon; "I wish you all sorts of bargains."

They parted there—she going back to that dull little house, and he to the great spaces of his fields and woodlands. He felt that he could throw his hat as high as the tops of the Six Firs, but she had been caught by a sudden panic of seriousness. She was looking beyond him, and through the quivering air of her emotion at the ultimate choice and its finalities.

Doomsday! A farm!