Loving - Henry Green [38]
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. 'And what about their afternoons off?' Mr Raunce enquired. 'What I always insist is that if you can't trust your girls,' Miss Burch replied, 'you might as soon give in your notice and go find yourself another place.' She turned to Edith. 'Now you never speak to none of the natives when you get outside?' 'Oh no Miss Burch,' they both replied, mum about Patrick with his fine set of teeth. That's right,' Raunce told them. 'You can't be too careful. There's a war on,' he said. 'Are you in a draught?' Edith asked him tenderly. 'You don't want to take risks.' And Kate looked as though she might start a giggle any minute. 'There is a draught,' Raunce answered grave. There's a draught in every corner of this room which is a danger to sit in.' 'Move over to the other side then,' Miss Burch suggested. 'Thank you,' he said, 'but it's the same whichever side you are. I don't know,' he went on, 'but with them away now I feel responsible.' 'And what about the Jerries?' Kate put in suddenly. 'What if they come over tell me that?' 'Kate Armstrong,' Edith cried, 'why I asked you that selfsame question not so long since and you said they were ordinary working folk same as us so wouldn't offer no incivilities.' 'And I'm not saying they would,' Kate answered, 'not that sort and kind. But it might go hard for a young girl in the first week perhaps.' 'Mercy on us you don't want to talk like that,' Miss Burch said. 'You think of nothing but men, there's the trouble. Though if it did happen it would naturally be the same for the older women. They're famished like a lion out in the desert them fighting men,' she announced. 'For land's sake,' Edith began but Paddy started to mouth something. It was so seldom he spoke at meals that all listened. 'What's he say?' Raunce asked when the lampman was done. 'He reckons the I. R. A. would see to the Jerries,' Kate translated. 'Holy smoke but he'll be getting me annoyed in a minute. First he says there aren't none then 'e pretends they can sort out a panzer division. What with? Bows and arrows?' Paddy muttered a bit. 'He says,' and Kate gave a laugh, 'they got more'n pikes like those Home Guard over at home.' 'If you can snigger at that you would laugh over anything my gel,' Raunce announced with signs of temper. 'Why you've only to go down in Kinalty and see yourself. Every other house burned right out. Once they got started they'd be so occupied fightin' each other they'd never notice Jerry was in the hamlet even.' Paddy gave a great braying laugh. 'Laugh?' Raunce shouted and sprang up. All except for Miss Burch wilted and his lad's jaw dropped. 'You would would you?' he went on but the lampman had returned to wooden silence and Raunce subsided back into his seat again. 'Well,' he went on, 'if it should ever come to it there's guns and ammo in the gunroom.' Edith gave a cry and Kate looked serious. But Miss Burch displayed impatience. 'Whatever's come over you?' she asked. 'You're never thinking you could knock down one of the Mark something tanks as you would a rabbit with one of those shot guns they've got locked up here,' she said. 'What I had in mind was a cartridge each for you ladies,' he replied in a low voice. Utterly serious he was. 'Would you spare one for Mrs Welch?' Miss Burch enquired tart and Kate let out a yell of laughter. Edith