Читать книгу Sackcloth into Silk - Warwick Deeping - Страница 26

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An April day, one of those rare and golden days. An ancient taxi-driver, disgracefully bribed, drove them down the Portsmouth Road, through West Clandon village, and up to the great grey hills.

Rebecca was no walker, but England lay at her feet. They sent the taxi-man down to Guildford to park himself and eat, and Karl loaded himself up with a hamper, a couple of cushions, a rug, and his mother’s mackintosh.

“I’ll take something, Karl.”

His eyes were for that gracious landscape.

“No need.—I’ve done twenty miles in full marching order.”

Her Karl was strong, not with the strength of that oaf, George, but like the eternal Prince, youth in the spring of the year, straight and clean. That great grass track—the Drove Road offered itself, and they set out along it like two little pilgrims until Karl found a kind of little glade sloping down between two old yews and some thorns. The thorns were stippled with young green, and behind them three great beech trees stood, the sunlight shining on their grey trunks and their long, bronze leaf-buds. Karl spread his mother’s mackintosh and the rugs, and stood looking out over the deep valley.

His mother sat down and unfastened the hamper. Rationing had not yet arrived, and she had prepared her feast, a white cloth, plates, glasses, a bottle of white wine bought at the grocer’s. Her big hands were busy, while her beloved stood there—lost in looking.

“Hungry, Karl?”

He smiled down at her suddenly.

“Yes.—I was just thinking.—The war hasn’t come over here.”

“It never will,” said she, preparing to cut into a small steak and kidney pie.

Afterwards, Karl smoked a cigarette, and then lay down with his head in his mother’s lap. It was like that day in Epping over again, and he was still the child. She slipped one of the cushions under his head. He lay and looked at the sky, and she—at his face. Being gazed at by her eyes did not worry him, for his mother could sit still and refrain from asking silly questions. One of her fat hands lay close to his cheek, with the wedding ring imbedded upon a stout finger. She touched him, and her touch was delicate, like her understanding of his nature, for Karl was different from his brothers, and to him his mother was different.

He fell asleep.

Rebecca sat as though she had a baby in her lap. She could have sat there for hours, solidly still, transcending stiffness and cramp. His service cap lay on the grass. She saw the polished buttons of his tunic rising and falling so gently. His face had a young serenity. She contemplated the texture of his hair and skin, for her love-child had a fineness that was foreign to her other sons. His ears and lips were beautifully modelled, his lashes almost like a girl’s.

And suddenly, Rebecca began to weep, noiselessly and secretly. Her tears ran down her cheeks, but they did not touch that sleeping face. It was the dew of her great compassion, her grieving over youth that was to suffer.

“Poor lamb,—poor darling.”

She made no sound. She could not get at her handkerchief. Her tears just dried on her face and dress, and the storm of her emotion passed. The sun shone on her face, and upon the face of the sleeping Karl.

He slept for nearly an hour, and when his eyes opened like the eyes of a child—his mother was smiling. He never suspected that she had been shedding tears.