Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean - Страница 31

“Why, George, how delightful of you to call!”

“I am not alone. I have brought someone with me who has a birthday.”

He winked broadly at Harriet, who tried to smile. She did not believe in pampering children. She looked much the same as she had the day Kitty had come to her; there was perhaps a little more grey in her hair; she had never really recovered from the disappointment the squire had given her, though she tried to tell herself that it was a matter for congratulation. George had not improved with the years; he had coarsened visibly, and he had never been a refined man. Once she had caught him kissing Janet in the hall; Janet was the workhouse girl who shared the work with Emm. Disgusting sight!

“Carolan,” roared George, “come and say how do you do to your Aunt Harriet.”

“My gracious!” said Aunt Harriet.

“Whatever has the child been doing? Look at your hair, girl. Look at your hands! I cannot have you in my drawing-room in such a condition.” The squire put out a hand and rumpled the reddish hair.

“This child,” he said, with what Harriet noticed was a fondness almost touching on imbecility, ‘could never be tidy. She was not made that way!” He began to laugh as though it were a great joke.

“Run along, child,” said Harriet severely.

“Find Janet or Emm, and one of them will give you water to wash your hands, and do please comb your hair!”

The child, she thought, was very like her grandmother the same pertness, the same way of twisting a man like George Haredon round her fingers.

“And,” she called after Carolan, ‘tell Emm to bring two glasses and the cowslip wine.” She turned to George, and she was smiling now.

“I know you always like my cowslip wine better than anyone else’s.”

“Ah!” said George.

“Your cowslip wine, Harry no one can touch it!” The woman almost dimpled. He sat down heavily in one of her chairs.

“I hope,” she said severely, ‘that that child is not in danger of being spoiled.”

“Who, little Carrie?”

Harriet frowned in an exasperation from which she could not keep a certain tenderness. Was it not typical of George to call Carolan Carrie, just as he called her Harry! Even now she thought of George as a big-hearted, blundering and misguided boy. The right woman would have made all the difference in the world to George, and she, Harriet, knew full well who that woman was, though she would never whisper it to a soul.

“Yes,” she said, “Carolan.”

George was serious suddenly.

“I do not think there is much spoiling done in the nursery. Jennifer Jay is not the woman to spoil a child, and Charles, I am sorry to say, can be a brute.”

“She seems to me to be a pert creature in the making.”

“She is going to be a regular little beauty, eh, Harry?”

“I sincerely hope not, George.”

“You mean that?”

“I think a woman is a better woman for not being… a regular little beauty!”

“You would know more about that than I would, Harry,” he said wickedly.

The cowslip wine was brought in and poured out by Emm. Absently, but with interest, the squire’s eyes rested on Emm’s young body beneath the old-fashioned muslin dress which had once been Harriet’s. Harriet noticed his look, and sighed.

“Thank you, Emm!” said the squire, and he took his glass and drank noisily.

“Good stuff, Harry! Good stuff!”

He felt amusement bubbling up inside him; he was in good spirits today. Have a bit of fun with old Harriet! It appealed to him, that, in his new chaste mood. He was a father today: so he would have a bit of fun with old Harry, because in no circumstances could he be tempted.

“Ah!” he murmured.

“A pity you never married. You would have made some man a damned fine wife!”

Her lips quivered slightly.

“Yes,” he said, letting his lids fall over his eyes to hide the twinkle there, ‘a damned fine wife. Cannot think why you never did, Harry.

“Pon my soul, I cannot think why!”

“Well, George, there are other things in life than matrimony. And if a woman remains a spinster, it may not be for the want of asking.”

“He would have been a lucky man, Harry, a lucky man!” He had infused his voice with a wistfulness which almost made him choke.

“Thank you, George,” she said quietly and gently.

“But men,” went on the squire, ‘are fools sometimes, Harry. Damned fools men are!”

She lifted her face, and he saw how brilliant her eyes were. Her skin was pale, but it seemed to glow, and he could see the fluttering of her heart beneath the prim bodice.

“I know,” went on George, ‘because I happen to be one myself!”

Harriet got to her feet and went rather shakily towards the cowslip wine.

“Another glass, George?”

“I could never say no to your cowslip wine, Harry!” Oh, this was the greatest fun, this was! Here she was, standing before him, her eyes downcast, her hands not quite steady. She had taken it in, the sly old puss. Why, she was as ready and willing as any pot-house wench, for all her prudery. Ah! thought the squire, what is virtue? Where is it? There is nothing real in virtue. It is a phantom, and women like Harriet pride themselves in possessing it, because they know no one will ever attack it. Oh, you silly old woman; it would be the greatest joke of a lifetime to take her here and now, with one of those workhouse girls likely to burst in at any moment and catch their mistress eagerly relinquishing a virtue she had cherished for years. Better than that, take her to her still-room and violate her virginity there! Damn it! That would be the greatest joke he could think of. She preserved it as zealously as she preserved her plums, and all because she had known there would be no one to take it! When he got home he would split his sides with laughing. It would have been good fun to tell Kitty all about it, if Kitty had been what he had always wanted her to be. But Kitty and he were far apart as far apart as he and Bess were really. He took the glass from Harriet, and let his fingers touch hers sentimentally. Then Carolan came into the room, her hair combed into some order.

“Come here, child,” said Harriet, ‘and let me see your hands.”

Carolan showed them.

“Not very clean,” said Harriet.

“They do not come quite clean,” said Carolan, smiling disarmingly.

The two of them side by side… What a contrast, he thought! Why, the child was more of a woman even now than Harriet could ever be.

“You are nine years old today,” said Harriet.

“You are leaving childhood behind you; it should not be necessary to tell you to wash your hands.”

Carolan looked up at Harriet, and saw the squire standing just behind her; he winked at Carolan, and Carolan began to laugh.

“Really!” said Harriet.

“Really! Why do you laugh?”

“I do not know,” said Carolan, for she could not say she laughed because the squire had winked at her.

“I just laughed.”

“Indeed, Miss. That was very unseemly. In my young days I should have been beaten for such rudeness. But nowadays there is much licence!” Harriet turned to George.

“You have heard, have you not, that to spare the rod is to spoil the child?”

George laid his great hands on Carolan and lifted her up.

“There shall be no sparing of the rod nor spoiling of the child,” he said, and he tweaked Carolan’s ear to show her that he was making another joke.

“I had a present for you,” said Harriet, as though she were wondering whether Carolan still deserved it.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, Aunt Harriet!”

Harriet sailed over to a little table and unlocked a drawer.

“And I hope, my child, that you will read it every day.”

George stooped down and whispered: “A Bible, I will bet you, young Carrie. A Bible!”

And so it was. Carolan was laughing so much she could scarcely say thank you.

“If everyone,” said Harriet, ‘read their Bibles every day, there would be less trouble in the world.” And she was looking at George as she said this.