Actions and Reactions | Page 8

my nerves at all."
"Want a secretary?"
"No, thanks, old thing! Isn't that quite English?"
"Too English! Go away." But none the less in broad daylight she
returned the kiss. "I'm off to Pardons. I haven't been to the house for
nearly a week."

"How've you decided to furnish Jane Elphick's bedroom?" he laughed,
for it had come to be a permanent Castle in Spain between them.
"Black Chinese furniture and yellow silk brocade," she answered, and
ran downhill. She scattered a few cows at a gap with a flourish of a
ground-ash that Iggulden had cut for her a week ago, and singing as she
passed under the holmoaks, sought the farm-house at the back of Friars
Pardon. The old man was not to be found, and she knocked at his
half-opened door, for she needed him to fill her idle forenoon. A
blue-eyed sheep-dog, a new friend, and Rambler's old enemy, crawled
out and besought her to enter.
Iggulden sat in his chair by the fire, a thistle-spud between his knees,
his head drooped. Though she had never seen death before, her heart,
that missed a beat, told her that he was dead. She did not speak or cry,
but stood outside the door, and the dog licked her hand. When he threw
up his nose, she heard herself saying: "Don't howl! Please don't begin
to howl, Scottie, or I shall run away!"
She held her ground while the shadows in the rickyard moved toward
noon; sat after a while on the steps by the door, her arms round the
dog's neck, waiting till some one should come. She watched the
smokeless chimneys of Friars Pardon slash its roofs with shadow, and
the smoke of Iggulden's last lighted fire gradually thin and cease.
Against her will she fell to wondering how many Moones, Elphicks,
and Torrells had been swung round the turn of the broad Mall stairs.
Then she remembered the old man's talk of being "up-ended like a
milk-can," and buried her face on Scottie's neck. At last a horse's feet
clinked upon flags, rustled in the old grey straw of the rickyard, and she
found herself facing the vicar--a figure she had seen at church
declaiming impossibilities (Sophie was a Unitarian) in an unnatural
voice.
"He's dead," she said, without preface.
"Old Iggulden? I was coming for a talk with him." The vicar passed in
uncovered. "Ah!" she heard him say. "Heart-failure! How long have
you been here?"
"Since a quarter to eleven." She looked at her watch earnestly and saw
that her hand did not shake.
"I'll sit with him now till the doctor comes. D'you think you could tell
him, and--yes, Mrs. Betts in the cottage with the wistaria next the

blacksmith's? I'm afraid this has been rather a shock to you."
Sophie nodded, and fled toward the village. Her body failed her for a
moment; she dropped beneath a hedge, and looked back at the great
house. In some fashion its silence and stolidity steadied her for her
errand.
Mrs. Betts, small, black-eyed, and dark, was almost as unconcerned as
Friars Pardon.
"Yiss, yiss, of course. Dear me! Well, Iggulden he had had his day in
my father's time. Muriel, get me my little blue bag, please. Yiss, ma'am.
They come down like ellum-branches in still weather. No warnin' at all.
Muriel, my bicycle's be'ind the fowlhouse. I'll tell Dr. Dallas, ma'am."
She trundled off on her wheel like a brown bee, while Sophie--heaven
above and earth beneath changed--walked stiffly home, to fall over
George at his letters, in a muddle of laughter and tears.
"It's all quite natural for them," she gasped. "They come down like
ellum-branches in still weather. Yiss, ma'am.' No, there wasn't anything
in the least horrible, only--only--Oh, George, that poor shiny stick of
his between his poor, thin knees! I couldn't have borne it if Scottie had
howled. I didn't know the vicar was so--so sensitive. He said he was
afraid it was ra--rather a shock. Mrs. Betts told me to go home, and I
wanted to collapse on her floor. But I didn't disgrace myself. I--I
couldn't have left him--could I?"
"You're sure you've took no 'arm?" cried Mrs. Cloke, who had heard
the news by farm-telegraphy, which is older but swifter than Marconi's.
"No. I'm perfectly well," Sophie protested.
"You lay down till tea-time." Mrs. Cloke patted her shoulder. "THEY'll
be very pleased, though she 'as 'ad no proper understandin' for twenty
years."
"They" came before twilight--a black-bearded man in moleskins, and a
little palsied old woman, who chirruped like a wren.
"I'm his son," said the man to Sophie, among the lavender bushes. "We
'ad a difference--twenty year back, and didn't speak since. But I'm his
son all the 'same, and we thank you for the watching."