Читать книгу Smith - Warwick Deeping - Страница 9

Table of Contents

Now, it happened in June that a patch of tiles came adrift on Mr. Lugard’s house of Darvels and betrayed to Mr. Samson’s bricklayer and tiler the rottenness of things within. Parsons, the bricklayer, and his mate had put their ladders up, but when Parsons examined the scar on the Darvels roof, the battening crumbled in his hand. Parsons was a red-haired man whose language was apt to be as colourful as his hair. He put a big hand into the hole, got hold of something, and gave it a twist, and part of a rafter came away in his fingers.

“Well—I’m blowed!”

The piece of timber was peppered and tunnelled with worm holes. Portions of it looked like yellow parchment, and when Parsons tapped it on the ladder, fragments broke away and powder flew. Parsons tossed the thing down to his mate.

“Look at that, Bill.—worm.”

He put his hands again into the cavity, groped, and, finding more rotten timber, tore it out.

“Gosh, she’s eaten to bits.”

The business was too serious for patching. Mr. Samson was sent for, and when Mr. Samson had been up the ladder and had investigated, he knew that Mr. Lugard would have to find much money.

“It’s the big worm, Jim. Old Scotch fir, and not squared up properly. Here’s a bit with the bark on it.”

Mr. Lugard was at home, and he and Mr. Samson and the bricklayer ascended to the attics. The roof of the particular wing was sealed in with lath and plaster, but there was a wooden panel in one attic that gave access to the eaves. Mr. Samson, bent double and carrying a torch, went in to explore. He came out looking rather dusty and with cobwebs adhering to his hair.

“Absolutely eaten to pieces, sir.”

Mr. Lugard looked glum.

“That means a new roof. Good Lord! Wait a bit, I happen to know that this wing was re-roofed forty years or so ago.”

Mr. Samson showed him a piece of timber.

“Perhaps it was, sir. And I guess I know who did it. Oh, yes, they’re with the worms too—now. Look at that. Green Scotch fir with the bark on it.”

Mr. Lugard examined the crumbling yellow fragment.

“The damned scoundrels!”

So it became evident that the roof of that particular wing would have to be stripped. The job would take at least a month even if Mr. Samson put every available man on to it. The old tiles would have to be taken down carefully and stacked. Luckily the trouble was confined to this one wing.

“It’s a most infernal nuisance, Samson. What will it cost me?”

“Roughly—three hundred pounds, sir. I’ll measure up and get out an estimate.”

“We had better clear out. Dust and noise.”

“Yes, you wouldn’t like it much, sir. But it’s the right time for the job. You were lucky not to have the roof in on you last time it snowed.”

So Mr. Lugard and his wife packed themselves into two cars and drove off to Scotland. They left the maids in the house, and the firm of Samson & Hoad took possession of Darvels.

Darvels was Queen Anne. It stood about a mile from Kingham Bridge, and its garden was protected by the river and an old red brick hipped wall. The house itself had the beautiful proportions of its period and reminded Keir of some of the old houses that he had seen in the Close of Salisbury during one of his bicycling holidays. The garden was famous for its trees, especially two very old cedars, a tulip tree, and a catalpa, and Mr. Lugard, being a man of understanding, had swept away certain Victorian adornments that had spoilt the completeness of the place, and had restored all the sweeping turf and the stately separativeness of the trees. The garden of Darvels was an eighteenth-century garden, save that Mr. Lugard and his wife allowed themselves masses of colour. As at Hampton, the red brick walls were covered with every sort of creeper, and the walls themselves seemed to rise from the flowery foam of the great borders.

Keir understood that Mr. Lugard resented being exiled from this garden just when it was coming into summer flower. Mr. Samson had put all his carpenters on the job, the two out-door men and the four who worked in the shop. Old Tower was in charge, but he was growing too old for roof work, and much of the laying out and supervising fell to Keir. Moreover, the restoration had been complicated by the discovery that the joists of the attic floors were badly worm-eaten and that the floors and ceilings of the rooms below would have to be replaced.

Keir, up in the roof, had the Darvels garden spread below him, and the garden had a life of its own. Mr. Lugard’s two gardeners, and especially the elder man, regarded the activities of Messrs. Samson & Hoad with no friendly eyes. The house had a broad, paved walk surrounding it, and on the west—under the library windows—a bed of polyantha roses was coming into flower. Mr. Samson’s men had instructions to shoot all the rotten old timber into the yard at the back of the house.

Keir had young Scudder working with him up above, he of the irresponsible blue eyes and the playful broom, and on the second morning Mr. Sydney Scudder allowed a length of rotten rafter to crash on the bed of dwarf roses. Cant, the head gardener, was mowing grass. He saw the thing crash, and there was trouble.

He stood below, a broad, brown, angry man, and shouted.

“Hi, you blasted fools up there!”

Young Scudder leaned over the wall and cheeked him.

“ ’Allo, Whiskers, what’s wrong?”

“Who dropped that bit of timber on my roses?”

Scudder grinned.

“I did. It just slipped out of my hands.”

Mr. Cant was not accepting sauce.

“You —— young fool! Hi, Mr. Foreman.”

Old Tower happened to be away in the timber store, and the business fell to Keir. He walked across the ends of the old joists and looked down at Mr. Cant and the smashed roses.

He was in complete agreement with Mr. Cant.

“Sorry. Shouldn’t have happened. It won’t happen again.”

He turned on Scudder.

“What did you do a damned silly thing like that for?”

Young Scudder flared.

“And what the —— is it to do with you? You ain’t the —— boss.”

“I’m in charge when Tom’s away.”

“Well, you’re not coming it over me.”

“Supposing we put it to the boss?”

“Yes, you —— sneak.”

Keir had a temper, and Scudder’s red face was a rag to him.

“Look here—you cut that out, or I’ll have you stood off.”

Young Scudder did cut it out, but sullenly so, and there was to be another clash between him and Keir, but that was not yet.

The Darvels garden had something else to display to the men working on the roof. Each morning a girl would come out and play with Mr. Lugard’s dog—an Aberdeen—on one of the lawns. Apparently, she had been made responsible for the dog and his recreation, and she would throw a ball for him and run races. She was the under-housemaid, one Sybil Kelsey, a slim, dark creature with long legs and very white skin. Her movements suggested the fluttering of a bird, a certain happy breathlessness, and it seemed to Keir that she played with the dog without any thought of showing off. He noticed that she looked but rarely at the men up above. She seemed shy of them.

She was a graceful thing and her almost childish movements intrigued him. He found himself waiting for her to appear, and watching her when she came. She was so light on her feet, so irresponsible without being hoydenish. Sometimes the ball would vanish under the spreading branches of one of the cedars, and she and the dog would dive for it together. Sometimes she retrieved it; sometimes the dog was too quick for her.

Nor was she always in movement. She had her moments of stillness, of absorbed staring. He gathered that she loved flowers. He would see her go to one of the borders and stand there and look. Sometimes she touched, or put her face down to smell. Her touch had the deliberate tenderness of a caress.

He heard one of the other maids come out and call to her.

“Sybil—Syb, cocoa’s on.”

The Sybil remained with him. He repressed the Syb and the cocoa.