Loving - Green Henry - Страница 20

'is death he is. Round by the doves at the back I'll lay they are Paddy, billing an' all the rest. What d'you say to that you Irishman? Or they're over by the water. But what've you been at with your glory since I done it for you last? 'Ere,' she said, 'clear the combings off for yourself,' she said handing the comb back to him, 'I never made out I'd free the strakes for you into the bargain.'

Once her hands were disengaged she put these up to reroll her curls but halted before she touched. Then she sniffed at her fingers.

'Christ,' she said, 'what we girls have to put up with.' Then she added, 'You might give us a break and wash it occasionally.'

He said something.

'You got nowhere you mean?' she replied. 'Well I don't wonder they won't let you be free with their sink I must say. You've only to look at you. But what's wrong with a clean bucket? When Charley's little Bert has a mind to 'is boiler the water's O. K.,' she said and took the comb back. This time she began about his right ear. I'll give you a roll just 'ere exactly like the Captain. Oh the Captain,' and she laughed.

Paddy's enormous head began to show signs of order with parts of the tangle, which might have been laid by hail, starting to stand once more wildly on its own on his black beanfield of hair after a ground frost.

'But lord,' she remarked, 'whatever would my mother say to you Tarzan?'

'Look,' she announced, 'I'm fed up. You take hold and finish,' she told him handing back that comb.

'I'm fed up with you,' Mrs Welch said to her Albert at this precise moment as she sat him down at the kitchen table. 'So she wouldn't take you eh? Expect me to believe that eh?' She watched the boy with what appeared to be disfavour.

'That's what she said'm.'

'What did she say then?'

'When she come in the nursery I was like you said. I 'ad my coat zipped up and me 'at in me pocket. "No," she said, "not you Albert my little man, you go down in the kitchen," she says an' she give me a bit of toffee out of a bag.'

'Where is it?'

'I've ate it.'

'Is it in your pocket this minute along with your hat?'

'No'm.'

'Let me see if you're tellin' lies.' And Mrs Welch clambered to her feet, leaned right over that table. She felt in his coat.

'Is this it?' she asked bringing the thing out, a toffee in a screw of paper. She gingerly lowered herself back while she held this sweet out at arm's length, resting her bare arm along the table top. He made no reply.

'You wouldn't lie to me would yer?' she asked. 'No'm.'

Then is this what she give you?' He kept silent.

'You see what I'm goin' to do with this,' she went on, and unwrapped the sweet. Then she spat on it and threw the toffee into a can of ashes by the range. 'Now listen,' she continued, 'if ever I catch you taking what she offers I'll tan the 'ide right off you d'you h'understand?'

'Yes'm.'

'For why? Because she's a nasty little piece that considers we're not good enough for 'er, and very likely a thief into the bargain. With her precious Miss Moira this and little Miss Evelyn that. Never again no more. Right?'

'Yes'm.'

'And what are you goin' to do with yerself this afternoon of springtime that you can't go h'out with the others? I'll tell you. You're goin' to set to work my lad.'

The boy who had been gazing at the floor suddenly stared at her sharp.

'Yes,' she said, 'that comes as a bit of a surprise d'ain't it? Never you mind. You got to start some day. You won't always be runnin' around with gentry and their stuck-up maids. Now you see that saucepan, the one which's last on the left?'

He looked reluctant at three burnished rows hanging on the dresser, on nails through the holes in their steel handles.

That's right,' she went on, 'the last on the left. You'll take that down so help me and you'll make a start scourin'. The young leddy was took faint. Took faint," she repeated giving a short laugh as Kale had done. 'Yes. One time she was out with Mrs Tennant. "It's the pots and pans," Mrs T. says to me after. "You'll oblige me by casting a look on them Madam," I said. "I can't help it Mrs Welch," she says, "I'm certain there was something in that sole or its sauce." Sauce indeed. But she never listened. So now you're going to make a start scourin' them saucepans. Even if you bring all the tin off and they get copper poison. Get on then.'

The boy got up slow.

'And don't you go break that thread I've 'ad put through the handles,' she cried frantic all of a sudden. 'You'll find where it's tied there by the side. I'm gettin' me chains and a padlock,' she explained grim as grim.

Kate had left the comb stuck at an angle in Paddy's head. The lampman sat where he was on a corn bin while she wandered round again. She came up to that glass division and looked through.

'Can a person eat them eggs?' she asked. He answered excitedly.

'That's all right,' she said. 'No need to get worked up. I only asked didn't I?'

He muttered something.

'Oh all right I know you set great store by the birds,' she replied, 'an' if you took one half the trouble over yourself as you do with their layin' why you'd be a different person altogether,' she explained.

He got up, made after her. 'No,' she said, 'no,' but she did not move as he came grinning. He reached round her middle and drank her in a kiss like a man home after a journey. He pressed her back against the glass that fronted that huge cabinet. Through the opening behind could be seen those peacocks getting up with a sort of cluttering as though alarmed. She sank into him as her knees gave way yet both of them stayed decent.

Out in the demesne Raunce said to Edith, 'I got to sit me down.'

'You got to sit down?' she echoed as he looked dull about him.

'I've come over queer,' he said. Indeed his face was now the colour of the pantry boy Albert's.

'Why you're not goin' to faint right off like I did surely,' she exclaimed and clucked with concern. 'Sit yourself on this stone,' she said, 'it's dry for one thing.'

He sat. He put his new terrible face into his hands. They stayed silent. The two children came up, stood and watched him.

'Run along,' she told them gentle. 'Go find Michael.'

When they were alone Raunce spoke. 'It must be the air,' he said.

She stood awkward at his side as though she could not think what to do. Then she said, 'If we were inside I could fetch you a cup of tea.' She talked soft with concern. He groaned.

'It's me dyspepsia,' he said. 'It's coming away in the air 'as done it.'

'But you do go out,' she replied low, 'I saw you when we were by the doves that dinner time.'

'That was only for a minute,' was his answer. 'But this long stretch…' and he ended his sentence with a groan. By and by however he grew better while she stood helpless at his bowed shoulders. After a time he got up. Then they summoned the little girls, tenderly made their way back to the Castle.

'You should take more care,' she kept on repeating.

It was some days later they sat in the servants' hall talking with dread of the I. R. A. They were on their own now, with the lady and her daughter still over in England, and the feeling they had was that they stood in worse danger than ever.

Kate asked the lampman if he had heard any rumours. Paddy gabbled an answer. As he did so he did not meet their eyes in this low room of antlered heads along the walls, his back to the sideboard with red swans.

Raunce's neck was tied up in a white silk scarf of Mr Jack's. He seemed to turn his head with difficulty to ask Kate what the Irishman had said.

'He says not to believe all you're told.'

'I don't,' Raunce put in at once. 'And that they're not so busy by half as what they was,' Kate ended.

Edith anxiously regarded her Charley.

'I should hope not indeed,' Miss Burch informed the company. Though I will say for Mrs Welch she was dead right when she forbade her girls passing the time of day with those tradesmen. Just in case,' she added.