Читать книгу Doomsday (Historical Novel) - Warwick Deeping - Страница 23

Under her rug lay a bunch of primroses. He had brought them wrapped up and hidden in a clean handkerchief. "We have lots of these. I thought you might like a few." He had stood holding them with an air of grave shyness until she had put out a hand and taken them, and thanked him, not looking at his face but at the flowers. She had heard his voice going on. "They came out of Gore Wood. Masses of them there since I had some oaks felled and the underwood cut over. Same with other flowers. Bluebells later, like a bit of blue sky fallen down on the ground. And then—foxgloves. I hope you are better?"

A bunch of primroses, that was Colonel Sykes' imaginary bill, concealed from the conquering eye-glass, lying snugly somewhere near her bosom. She lay and watched the two over yonder, the strong man with the spade, and poor old Hesketh with his egg-shaped head looking too heavy for his thin neck, and his long legs flopping about as though neither quite knew what the other was doing. She heard Furze speaking to her father, and his voice had a gentleness.

She felt warmed, and yet curiously alert and afraid. He disturbed her. He appeared to her as deliberate as the seasons, a vernal equinox of a man, part of the inevitable purpose of the soil. And he was no fool. Cinder Town was full of fools, nice and otherwise, and there were times when she grasped the implication of their foolish ineffectualness. That was why Cinder Town was. His chousing of Colonel Toby had impressed her. So wisely done, and yet so naturally! To go off with her father and get a spade and to start digging! She had known at once that his spade would outlast and out-talk Colonel Sykes' tongue. Doomsday! No, assuredly he was not to be hustled out of his opportunity, having made it and seized it, or—perhaps planted it.

She knew that presently he would come back to her and stand beside her chair. She was both afraid and excited. His eyes looked at you as though you were a piece of land that he wanted and meant to have, not arrogantly, but with profound conviction. She neither accepted her liking of him nor repelled it. He was just there, to be looked at and wondered about, something new and strange, an open doorway in her dull life.

The work was over. He had put on his coat. He came towards her with her father, still carrying the spade. He stood beside her with a kind of glowing silence, looking at her figure, for an impulse that was feminine had made her slip the rug back so that the bunch of primroses showed. She did not mean all that he thought she meant.

"I am so glad you are better."

He glanced at old Hesketh.

"It was good of you, sir, to let me—Yes, I must be getting back now. Work is never done on a farm."

He raised his hat, and the glow of him seemed to envelop her.

"You have saved my back," said her father. "Mary, Mr. Furze ought to have had tea with us."

She found her voice.

"Oh—another day—perhaps."