The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [70]
Hearing his voice, Mrs Sorel-Taylour and Mr Young came out of the back office, Mr Cromley trailing after. Mr Keiller held up a picture of a clover head I’d sketched. ‘Look, Mrs. S-T. Did you have any idea your protge was so talented?’
‘He’s summat,’ said Mr Young. He was more used to me now, and always kind, maybe because he understood how it felt to be not so posh as the rest of them. He’d been Mr Keiller’s foreman for years on the digs. ‘Where did you learn to draw so well? That’s almost as good as Miss Chapman could do.’
‘Don’t let her hear you say so,’ said Mr Keiller, flicking back through the pages of my sketchbook. ‘In all fairness, though, you’re right. The portraits are awfully smart. Look at this one: it’s the Brushwood Boy. You’ve really caught a likeness, Heartbreaker. May I have it?’
It was a sketch of Davey. I’d never heard him called the Brushwood Boy; maybe the name came from his mop of wiry hair. Mr Keiller didn’t wait for my nervous nod, and tore the portrait out. He placed it carefully between the pages of his own notebook, and something about the way he did it made me uneasy. Why would he want to keep a picture of Davey? I remembered the two of them on that motorbike, disappearing over the brow of the hill and into the trees.
‘Tell you what,’ he said, his eyes crinkling in a smile. ‘How would you like to help us out on the excavations? What d’you think, Young? Reckon we’ve got room for another artist on the team?’
I couldn’t help it, I was grinning like a mad sheep. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mr Cromley watching me again. He made me uncomfortable too. I never knew how to read his expression.
Mr Keiller had given the village some land for their cricket pitch, outside the circle on the other side of the bank. Evenings, he goes to watch the game. He stands under the limp leaves of the chestnut trees with their white candles poking through the green, watching the men practise. They’ve been home to wash the dirt of the digging off, and put on clean white shirts and trousers, dazzling against the grass. One or two wear grey flannel bags, and the bowler, a brawny farmhand, is in a navy blue singlet, sweat glistening on his hairy shoulders.
Mr K watched the men, but I was watching him. I’d never seen a tiger except in pictures, but I thought that was what he reminded me of, fierce and sometimes angry and always dangerous.
‘Why does he call you the Brushwood Boy?’ I asked Davey, beside me, waiting his turn to bat. He was all in white.
He shrugged. He’d been trying to catch hold of my hand, but I shoved it firmly in my cardigan pocket. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘One of his funny ways. Come with me to the dance at the Red Lion?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We–there’s guests arriving that night, promised I’d help Mam.’
‘Suit yourself,’ he said sulkily, his golden-green eyes like bruises.
A woman was making her way down the path. She was in trousers, something you didn’t often see women wear then. She was tall and they suited her figure; they’d have concertina’d round my ankles like a comic turn. As she came closer, I recognized her.
‘Miss Chapman’s all dressed up,’ said Davey. I’d seen her often enough at the Manor, but never to speak to, not that she’d have noticed someone like me. Her usual outfit wasn’t so smart: skirt and clumpy shoes, with paint under her fingernails. She was a major-general’s daughter, people said, who’d studied art in Paris.
‘Alec,’ she called. Mr Keiller took his eyes off the men at practice, and smiled. It lit up his serious face. At the same time, he saw Davey and me.
‘Doris,’ he said. ‘Someone here you should meet. Heartbreaker!’
I trotted over, little lamb that I was.
‘This is Miss Robinson,’ he said to her. ‘You remember, I showed you her sketches.’
Close up, she was languidly pretty. She had a haughty nose, and wide, knowing eyes, with long lashes and lids that drooped seductively. Those eyes slid over my face. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I remember. Not a trained hand, but she has an eye. You should keep practising, my dear.’
‘I do,’ I said.