Читать книгу The Woman at the Door - Warwick Deeping - Страница 14

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His ultimate decision was a strange one, though he did not reflect that the solution had caused him far more conscious effort than had Professor Jolland. He was in possession of two milk-jugs, a white and a brown, and the brown one belonged to Beech Farm. It would have to be returned. He had removed the paper cap, and instead of throwing the thing away, he smoothed out its creases and slipped it between the pages of “The Quantum Theory.” The milk was transferred from the brown jug to the white one. He put on a collar, collected a hat, and set out to return that jug. It could be done without his meeting her.

On this windless day the woods were very still. Sounds travelled far, and the air was full of bird notes. A humble-bee boomed past him, mimicking the sound of a distant train. A yaffle went winging and laughing over the young bracken to disappear behind a group of thorns. Peaceful sounds these, and good for the ear, but as he struck the lane and followed its windings he became aware of other sounds, voices that were as discordant as the voices of a couple of scolding jays. He saw a tumbril standing in the lane close to a hedge, its shafts cocked in the air, and in passing he noticed the name painted on it. T. Ballard. Beech Farm.

But his immediate concern was with the voices. They appeared to come from the farm. Already he could see the spread of the great beech tree by the gate, but a high hedge on his left hid the paddock and buildings. The two voices were coming nearer, and happening upon a thin place in the hedge he straddled the ditch and looked through. He could see the two quarrelling men. They were in the paddock half-way between the house and the big beech tree, and not more than fifty yards from where he stood. He recognized the man who was facing the gate as the fellow whom he had found standing at the foot of the tower stairs on the day when he had first explored his new hermitage.

Moreover, he could hear what was passing between these two. The man with his back to the gate was obviously a farm hand, a tall, round-shouldered fellow whose jacket looked too small for him. So, the other man must be Ballard, and Ballard’s mouth was an ugly slit in a face of bleached fury.

“See here, you bloody swine, you’ll fetch that cart in——”

“Not me. You be careful, Mr. Ballard.”

“I’ll be careful with you,—you slinking brute. You’re not worth the dirty boots you loaf in.”

But the venom in the voice was more wicked than the words it uttered. Nice person this! Luce’s eyes were fixed for the moment on the round-shouldered figure of the carter. The man stood quite still, but in his stillness there was the tension of a restraint that had reached breaking point. His right fist was pressed against his thigh, the arm straight and rigid.

“Shut your foul mouth,” was all he said, “I’ve finished here.”

And then Ballard made a rush at him. The man stepped quickly aside and the blow went over his shoulder, but Luce saw that rigid arm double itself and shoot out. His fist caught Ballard full in the face, and the smack of the blow was audible to Luce in the hedgerow.

It sufficed. Ballard was on his back, a man who could be counted out, and the carter turning his head to spit, swung round and walked with a deliberate and characteristic slouch towards the gate. He had reached it and had flung it open when Ballard sat up and getting on his feet staggered like a drunken man across the grass.

He screamed.

“Come back, you swine, and I’ll kill you.”

The carter pulled the gate to with a crash, and unconcerned, like a man who had finished his day’s work, walked off down the lane.

Luce, standing there in the green hollow of the hedge, decided that this was no moment for the returning of milk-jugs. Moreover, Ballard, with blood on his face, had rushed to the gate and was shouting after the man who had floored him. “If I catch you round here, Lovel, I’ll blow your bloody head off.” Yes, this screaming little bully was best left to recover his temper. Luce came out of the hedge, and keeping to the grass, made his way back up the lane towards the woodland.

So, that hard-faced, venomous little blackguard was the woman’s husband, and his impression of her as a woman who lived under the shadow of some perpetual fear was understandable. Probably, it was just as well that he had not happened to introduce himself to Ballard with that empty milk-jug as his visiting card. Such a fellow might be prone to misconstructions. But was that the reason why she had left him his milk on her way to West Brandon? O, very possibly. She was afraid of this violent little beast. And suddenly he paused and stood still as though to listen to the cooing of a wood-pigeon in a beech tree on the rising ground above him. Was it in her mind to call for the empty jug on her way back to the farm?

Luce gave a shrug of his big shoulders and went on towards the sandpit and the track that led up out of the lane. His blue eyes seemed to be confronting some inward issue. Surely, no human involvement was possible over the selling of a jug of milk? How very ridiculous! It was no desire of his to insert his peaceful and rather otiose self into some rustic tragedy. But why use the word tragedy? Possibly he had misconstrued the whole situation, and most certainly it was no affair of his. He would give Beech Farm a wide berth in future, and manage with tinned milk. Tinned milk was preferable to spilt milk, especially when the spilling of it was in the hands of other people. Luce was not a very social creature; he had withdrawn into this solitude to dream and think and scribble, and since his wife’s death he had become more and more separative and sensitively aloof from the most obvious of life’s discords. He did not want to be bothered with people, and most certainly not with people who were living in a state of untidy, primitive emotion.

He came to the place where the path skirted the Brandon woods. Here were banks of rhododendrons twelve feet high, and in places the path ran like a secret passage through the undergrowth. The track branched in a little, open, sunny space, a narrow path continuing towards the tower, the main way turning sharply to the right into the sudden shadows of trees and rhododendrons. These banks and mounds of dark foliage were brilliant with blossom.

Luce was within three steps of the point where the track forked when the woman whom he was proposing to avoid appeared in that green entry. Luce had the sun behind him, and the figure that confronted him was bosom high in shadow, but her face was lit by the sun, and the startled pallor of it had the effect of a flash of light.

Both of them stood still, staring at each other. Then Luce pulled off his hat.

“I’m sorry. Afraid I startled you.”

The breath seemed to escape from her with a little sighing sound. Her eyes had been large and blurred and black. Now, they caught the light.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

Was he sorry, or were the words mere symbols? But the interplay was too swift and subtle for self-analysis. Something in him had been touched by her frightened face. There was a streak of anger in his compassion, for he had begun to understand her fear. She had a very live devil, and no skeleton, in her cupboard.

“These paths make one’s feet like ghost’s feet.”

He smiled at her. She had discovered the empty jug in his hand. The frightened look had returned. Was it that she had cause to dread even the casual appearance of a stranger? And quickly he was inspired to tell her a white lie.

“O, yes, the jug. Thank you for the milk. I was taking this back, and then I remembered that I had forgotten the money.”

Her look of relief was instant and unconcealed.

“O, you needn’t bother. I’ll take it.”

She had a largish basket with her, and she took the jug from him and slipped it into the basket so that it was hidden. He remarked the concealment.

“How much do I owe you, Mrs. Ballard?”

His use of her name seemed to startle her.

“O, please don’t bother now. Leave it until the end of the week.”

It was his turn to be startled. So, she was assuming that this milk business would be permanent. Well, between two reasonable people why shouldn’t it be? But this husband of hers could not be described as a reasonable person, and Luce felt bothered.

“You would rather I left it?”

“Yes.”

“I was wondering whether it might not be rather a nuisance to you. I mean—my——”

His voice died away. She had been looking at him with wide, clear eyes, and suddenly their expression changed. She appeared confused, conscious of some secret shame, and of his being wise as to it. Her lips trembled, but no sound came. Luce’s gaze had dropped. He was looking at her basket and the hand that held it. He seemed to be sharing her silence and her distress, and absorbing from it an emotion that was both hers and his.

But this silence had to be broken.

“Shall I go down and see your husband—about this?”

She looked up at him quickly, momentarily, almost like a woman glancing round the edge of a curtain.

“My husband does not like strangers. I mean, we used to have the Tower for our men, and when Mr. Temperley took it away——.”

“I see. I’m an interloper,” and he made himself smile; “that’s quite understandable. And I’m rather like your husband in not being sociable. I dare say I can manage on tinned milk.”

“O, no, why should you?”

“It won’t kill me.”

“But it’s such a little thing, so silly.”

“Isn’t life made up of silly little things?”

He drew a smile from her.

“Yes. Do you know the old sandpit, Mr. Luce?”

“I do.”

“I could leave you a jug there.”

He stared at her. Probably she did not appreciate the implications such a piece of deception might involve.

“Could you?”

“Yes.”

After all, what a harmless subterfuge was this, and why all this pother about his daily supply of milk? He would not meet her there. It was like leaving a letter for some obliging person to post.

He laughed.

“But why should you trouble? Are you sure?”

She nodded at him.

“I take my dog out nearly every afternoon. Good-bye, Mr. Luce. I ought to be home.”

Home! As he stood and watched her disappear into one of those green tunnels he realized that she was going back to that mad dog of a fellow. A moment later he had reached that other more significant conclusion. Assuredly, it had been Ballard’s wife whom he had heard weeping in the sandpit on that April day.