Who Cares [11]
sat knee to knee, the one to pour out her story, the other to listen and hold his breath.
"I was right about Gleave. He was spying. It turns out that he's been watching us for two or three days. When I went back this afternoon, I got a look from Mrs. Nye that told me there was a row in the air. I was later than usual and rushed up to my room to change for dinner. The whole house seemed awfully quiet and ominous, like the air before a thunderstorm. I expected to be sent for at once to stand like a criminal before Grandfather and Grandmother-- but nothing happened. All through dinner, while Gleave tottered about, they sat facing each other at the long table, conducting,-- that's the only word to describe it,--a polite conversation. Neither of them took any notice of me or even once looked my way. Even Gleave put things in front of me as though he didn't see me, and when I caught the watery eyes of the old dogs, they both seemed to make faces and go 'Yah!'"
"It was weird, and would have been frightfully funny if I hadn't known that sooner or later I should have to stand up and take my dose. Phew, it was a ghastly meal. I'm certain I shall dream it all over again every time I eat something that doesn't agree with me! It was a great relief when at last Grandmother turned at the door and looking at my feet as though they were curiosities, said: 'Joan, you will follow us to the drawing-room.' Her voice was cold enough to freeze the sea."
"Then she went out, her stick rapping the floor, Grandfather after her with his shoulders bent and a piece of bread on the back of his dinner jacket. The two dogs followed, and I made up the tail of that queer procession. I hate that stiff, cheerless drawing room anyhow, with all its shiny cases of china and a collection of all the uncomfortable chairs ever designed since Adam. I wanted to laugh and cry, and when I saw myself in the glass, I couldn't believe that I wasn't a little shivering girl with a ribbon in my hair and white socks."
Some one whistled outside. The girl seized the boy's arm in a sudden panic of fright.
"It's all right," he said." It's only the gardener going to his cottage."
Joan laughed, and her grip relaxed. "I'm jumpy," she said. "My nerves are all over the place. Do you wonder?"
"No, tell me the rest."
Joan's voice took on a little deeper note like that of a child who has come to the really creepy bit of his story. "Marty," she went on, "I wish you could have heard the way in which Grandmother let herself go! She held me by the scruff of my neck and hit me right and left with the sort of sarcasm that made me crinkle. According to her, I was on the downward path. I had done something quite hopeless and unforgivable. She didn't know how she could bring herself to report the affair--think of calling it an affair, Marty!--to my poor mother. Mother, who'd never say a word to me, whatever I did! She might have out-of-date views, she said, of how young girls should behave, but they were the right views, and so long as I was under her roof and in her care, she would see that I conformed to them. She went on making a mountain out of our little molehill, till even Grandfather broke in with a word; and then she snapped at him, got into her second wind and went off again. "I didn't listen half the time. I just stood and watched her as you'd watch one of those weird old women in one of Dickens' books come to life. What I remember of it all is that I am deceitful and fast, ungrateful, irresponsible, with no sense of decency, and when at last she pronounced sentence, what do you think it was? Confinement to the house for a week and if after that, I ever meet you again, to be packed off to a finishing- school in Massachusetts. She rapped her stick on the floor by way of a full stop, and waved her hand toward the door. I never said a word, not a single one. What was the use? I gave her a little bow and went. Just as I was going to rush upstairs and think over what I could do, Grandfather came out and told me to go to his room to read something to him. And there, for
"I was right about Gleave. He was spying. It turns out that he's been watching us for two or three days. When I went back this afternoon, I got a look from Mrs. Nye that told me there was a row in the air. I was later than usual and rushed up to my room to change for dinner. The whole house seemed awfully quiet and ominous, like the air before a thunderstorm. I expected to be sent for at once to stand like a criminal before Grandfather and Grandmother-- but nothing happened. All through dinner, while Gleave tottered about, they sat facing each other at the long table, conducting,-- that's the only word to describe it,--a polite conversation. Neither of them took any notice of me or even once looked my way. Even Gleave put things in front of me as though he didn't see me, and when I caught the watery eyes of the old dogs, they both seemed to make faces and go 'Yah!'"
"It was weird, and would have been frightfully funny if I hadn't known that sooner or later I should have to stand up and take my dose. Phew, it was a ghastly meal. I'm certain I shall dream it all over again every time I eat something that doesn't agree with me! It was a great relief when at last Grandmother turned at the door and looking at my feet as though they were curiosities, said: 'Joan, you will follow us to the drawing-room.' Her voice was cold enough to freeze the sea."
"Then she went out, her stick rapping the floor, Grandfather after her with his shoulders bent and a piece of bread on the back of his dinner jacket. The two dogs followed, and I made up the tail of that queer procession. I hate that stiff, cheerless drawing room anyhow, with all its shiny cases of china and a collection of all the uncomfortable chairs ever designed since Adam. I wanted to laugh and cry, and when I saw myself in the glass, I couldn't believe that I wasn't a little shivering girl with a ribbon in my hair and white socks."
Some one whistled outside. The girl seized the boy's arm in a sudden panic of fright.
"It's all right," he said." It's only the gardener going to his cottage."
Joan laughed, and her grip relaxed. "I'm jumpy," she said. "My nerves are all over the place. Do you wonder?"
"No, tell me the rest."
Joan's voice took on a little deeper note like that of a child who has come to the really creepy bit of his story. "Marty," she went on, "I wish you could have heard the way in which Grandmother let herself go! She held me by the scruff of my neck and hit me right and left with the sort of sarcasm that made me crinkle. According to her, I was on the downward path. I had done something quite hopeless and unforgivable. She didn't know how she could bring herself to report the affair--think of calling it an affair, Marty!--to my poor mother. Mother, who'd never say a word to me, whatever I did! She might have out-of-date views, she said, of how young girls should behave, but they were the right views, and so long as I was under her roof and in her care, she would see that I conformed to them. She went on making a mountain out of our little molehill, till even Grandfather broke in with a word; and then she snapped at him, got into her second wind and went off again. "I didn't listen half the time. I just stood and watched her as you'd watch one of those weird old women in one of Dickens' books come to life. What I remember of it all is that I am deceitful and fast, ungrateful, irresponsible, with no sense of decency, and when at last she pronounced sentence, what do you think it was? Confinement to the house for a week and if after that, I ever meet you again, to be packed off to a finishing- school in Massachusetts. She rapped her stick on the floor by way of a full stop, and waved her hand toward the door. I never said a word, not a single one. What was the use? I gave her a little bow and went. Just as I was going to rush upstairs and think over what I could do, Grandfather came out and told me to go to his room to read something to him. And there, for