Loving - Henry Green [37]
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