Читать книгу The Woman at the Door - Warwick Deeping - Страница 17

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About six o’clock it ceased to rain, but there was no clearing of the sky. The cloudy canopy seemed to press even closer to the earth. The effect was the effect of twilight, one of those green-grey dusks after heavy rain, suffused with a damp melancholy and a silence that is sinister.

It was so dark in the kitchen that she had lit a candle. She was getting supper ready. The dog lay on a mat behind the door watching her as she moved over the brick floor, a floor that was always damp, and in winter seemed to chill you to the knees. She had a tin to open, something she had bought at the village shop, and perhaps because her thoughts were elsewhere, she bungled the business and cut her finger on the jagged edge.

A little petulance was born in her over this misadventure. She held her bleeding finger under the tap. It gushed for a few seconds, and then, with foolish gurglings, became mute and dry. So, the water in the storage tank had fallen below the level of the service pipe, which meant that no one had been active at the wheel pump on this wet day. Life in a solitary farmhouse could be full of such small vexations. She tied up her finger with a piece of old linen from a drawer, and so unskilfully that it looked like a small rag doll. He—might be in any minute, and there was the table to be laid, and perhaps, if she had the time she would go out into the well-house, and give the wheel a hundred turns. Though it was no affair of hers to work at the pump, she was just strong enough to swing the wheel, and when a man was tired and short-tempered emergencies had to be met.

The dog followed her into the sitting-room, and sat on the sofa while she was laying the table. She had nearly completed her task when she heard the back door open. He—was there. She heard the familiar sound of mucky boots being scraped on the old shovel that had been fixed edge upwards beside the door.

“Rachel.”

His voice sent a shiver through her.

“Yes, Tod.”

“Got any hot water?”

“No. But—I can——.”

“Hell,—what a house!”

She heard him kicking off his boots. He had been greasing the reaper and his hands were foul and slimy. She saw the dog slip down from the sofa and make for the dark corner behind the cupboard. He too was wise as to a man’s moods, and with a surreptitious swiftness she took Peter by the collar and led him to the foot of the stairs. They were old-fashioned stairs shut off by a door, and she opened the door, spoke softly to the dog, and giving him a gentle push, closed the door on him.

She heard her husband’s voice in the scullery.

“Damn it—no water.”

“I’m sorry, Tod, the boy must have forgotten.”

“God! The useless little swine! As if I hadn’t enough to do.”

These rages of his! She seemed to spend her life in trying to appease them, though life was sufficiently hard for both of them without the eternal horror of his almost insane anger.

“I’ll get you some, Tod.”

She rushed out with a basin to a water-butt in the yard, and returning, placed it in the sink for him.

“I’m sorry, Tod.”

But why should she be sorry? Why should the self-abasement always be hers? She was aware of his foul and greasy hands.

“I’ll get you some soda.”

He reached for a cake of yellow soap and plunged it and his hands into the basin.

“You’d better have some soda.”

“O, shut up. What, cut your finger?”

“Yes, on a tin.”

“You would!”