Читать книгу Sackcloth into Silk - Warwick Deeping - Страница 10
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ОглавлениеJust a week later Rebecca was sewing by the fire when she heard some sound in the house that made her lay her work aside and climb the stairs in her slippers. It was nine o’clock. She had put Karl to bed, and George was supposed to be in bed. Augustus had come in half an hour ago and, after drinking a cup of cocoa and eating some bread and cheese, had gone upstairs.
Rebecca climbed noiselessly. The treads creaked occasionally under her weight, but that was all. Her eyes, coming level with the landing, saw a line of light under the door of her dead husband’s room.
She opened the door suddenly and saw a candle on the chest of drawers, and Augustus with his hands in one of the drawers. A pile of old note-books lay beside the candle, and Augustus had selected two or three from the collection and laid them aside.
“What are you doing?”
Augustus looked white,—but he played the man of the world.
“Found one or two—he hadn’t scribbled in.—Besides,—I want to read——”
His mother strode into the room. She would never be fooled by Augustus. She put the note-books back into the drawer and closed it.
“Sneaking—ideas—or paper,—I don’t care which, but I think I know. Can’t you afford to buy a note-book for yourself.”
Even at the age of seventeen Augustus could be pompous.
“I thought it a pity to waste them.”
“O, you did!—If I catch you in this room again—I’ll put you out into lodgings. That will cost you more than five bob a week, my lad.”
Augustus blinked his eyes.
“Haven’t I got a right to read what my father wrote?”
Rebecca pointed to the candle.
“Take that and get out. Everything in here belongs to me.”
She locked the door after her, and put the key in her pocket.
