Читать книгу Old Wine and New - Warwick Deeping - Страница 11

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But the door remained for a moment like a half-closed barrier between them, while Scarsdale stood and wondered. He wondered at her silence and at her unfriendliness, and at the way she had uttered that scathing, whip-like word. He was puzzled too by her hesitation. But was it hesitation? The dimly defined figure of her youth had a deliberate solidity, and he remembered the face of the photograph, broad and open, with its squareness of chin and forehead. She could not be much more than twenty. And she was keeping him upon the doorstep as though she mistrusted life, and was in no hurry to compromise or to surrender.

“I’m sorry.”

Her voice was sudden, and it was different. It retained its frank abruptness, while discarding its hostility. Its effect upon Scarsdale was curious. It was as though he stood on the threshold of a new age and heard the voice of youth speaking, while the face of youth was veiled. She was strange, and he was three and forty, and feeling himself mute in the face of her young strangeness.

She stood aside.

“You have something for me.”

“Yes. A packet of letters. Your father asked me—”

“Please come in. You won’t mind if I close the door. They are so fussy about lights.”

He found himself with her in the darkness of the passage.

“I think all the fuss is nearly over.”

She slid past him and opened a door, and he saw her profile against the light. Her hair was bobbed, and it stood out rebelliously in a vigorous cloud, nor did it soften the squareness of chin and forehead. She wore black, with nothing to relieve it. Her strong throat had a defiant austerity.

“Come in.”

Scarsdale followed her into the front room of No. 53 Spellthorn Terrace. It was like thousands of other rooms in thousands of other back streets. The furniture, imitation mahogany, chairs and sofa covered with a fabric that suggested a reddish plush, was the obvious cheap suite bought at some suburban shop. The sofa looked as though it had never been sat upon, and would have resented any such familiarity. A chiffonier and a cheap, glass-fronted bookcase confronted each other. The grate had vivid orange tiles. A plant stand in the form of a tall tripod supported a brass pot. On the mantelpiece a marble clock separated two gaudy purple and gold vases.

“Please sit down.”

Scarsdale sat down on the severe sofa. There was no fire, and the room felt chilly. He held his cap by the peak. The girl had closed the door, and as she closed it the brass rod supporting a purple plush portiere uttered a melancholy squeak. She stood a moment looking at Scarsdale, and he, meeting her eyes for a moment, realized her as a dark and handsome young creature, but somehow strangely cold.

She too sat down, deliberately, with her eyes still on him. She had chosen to sit on one of the hard and ugly chairs that were so firmly and obviously stuffed with some alien substance, for they had no resiliency, neither youth nor age. She sat very upright, with a dignity in her square shoulders and strong young throat. Her very deep-blue eyes had a stillness; they looked black.

Scarsdale did not feel at ease under the stare of her eyes. She disturbed him, for like the war she was somehow strange and unexpected and a little terrifying, and unbuttoning the flap of a pocket he produced a small packet done up in brown paper. He rose and handed it to her.

“I was with your father when he died.”

She took the parcel and proceeded to open it, and Scarsdale sat down again as though effacing himself. He wondered whether she would shed tears over those letters, for Marwood had been dead less than six weeks. But she did not show any emotion. Having opened the parcel, and turned over one or two of the letters, she replaced them in the brown paper, and looked again at Scarsdale. Her apparent lack of emotion puzzled him.

“You were with father?”

He made a movement with his cap.

“Yes, at the Clearing Station. I’m an orderly there. He asked me to bring these letters home. He said there was one particular letter, a letter to you.”

“The one on the top that hasn’t been opened?”

“Probably. He had written it just before he was hit.”

She sat for a moment staring at a mark on the carpet, and then suddenly she rose and stood by the door. Her eyes seemed less dark, and Scarsdale’s impression was that she was suppressing inward emotion, and that she wanted to be alone. He got up. He felt that he ought to say something sympathetic.

“I’ll be going now. Probably, you—”

She looked him straight in the face and gave him her hand.

“Thank you so much. It has been very good of you. I suppose you are going back again?”

“Yes, next week.”

Her bright young pallor offered him no illusions, and then quite suddenly her face changed. Someone had opened the street door, and had opened it exuberantly, and was making vigorous use of the doormat. A voice hailed the whole house.

“Ju, I say—Ju.”

“Hallo.”

“I trod in an awful squdge in the dark. Where are you?”

“Here.”

He came in to them with a cheerful troubling of the purple portiere, a boy with brown eyes and a little eager face. He looked at his sister, and then at Scarsdale, and his glance at Scarsdale was sudden and questioning and almost hostile.

“O, sorry—”

The girl’s eyes were different when she looked at him. Her face lost its squareness, it’s air of reserve.

“This is Harry. Harry, Mr. Scarsdale brought me some letters. Your supper’s waiting in the kitchen.”

Scarsdale liked the boy’s delicate little face. He smiled down at it, and a sudden smile came back to him. They had nothing to say to each other; the smile was sufficient. But the boy had left the door open, and Scarsdale had a feeling that Julia Marwood was willing him to pass through it and out into the street.

He went. She accompanied him to the door, even opened it for him, and gave him her hand.

“Thanks—ever so much. Perhaps we shall see you again some day.”

“Perhaps.”

He realized that he was a mere messenger, a stranger appearing out of the night and returning to it. He had fulfilled a function. She wanted to be alone with those letters and her brother.