Nightfall | Page 3

feather, I wonder? He wasn't keen on women in the old days, but people change a lot in ten years . . . 'Like to come and see us while he's in England . . . run over for the day'--bosh, he knows we should have to put him up for a couple of nights! . . . 'Sorry to hear such a bad account of Bernard'--Very kind of him, does he want a cheque? Hallo! 'Lucian says he is leading you a deuce of a life.' Upon my word!" He lowered the letter and burst out laughing--the first hearty laugh she had heard from him for many a long day. Laura, who had given him the letter in fear and trembling and only because she could not help herself, was exceedingly relieved and joined in merrily. But while she was laughing she had to wink a sudden moisture from her eyelashes: this glimpse of the natural self of the man she had married went to her heart. "Is it true?" he said, still with that friendly twinkle in his eyes. "Do I lead you the deuce of a life, poor old Laura?"
"I don't mind," said Laura, smiling back at him. She could have been more eloquent, but she dared not. Bernard's moods required delicate handling.
"He's a cool hand anyhow to write like that to a woman about her husband. But Lawrence always was a cool hand. I remember the turn-up we had in the Farringay woods when I was twelve and he was fourteen. He nearly murdered me. But I paid him out," said Bernard in a glow of pleasurable reminiscence. "He was too heavy for me. Old Andrew Hyde came and dragged him off. But I marked him: he was banished from his mother's drawingroom for a week--not that he minded that much . . . Aunt Helen was a pretty woman. Gertrude and I never could think why she married Uncle Andrew, but I believe they got on all right, though she was a big handsome woman--a Clowes all over--while old Andrew looked like any little scrub out of Houndsditch. Never can tell why people marry each other, can you?" Bernard was becoming philosophical. I suppose if you go to the bottom it's Nature that takes them by the scruff of the neck and gives them a gentle shove and says 'More babies, please.' She doesn't always bring it off though, witness you and me, my love.-- But I say, Laura, I like the way you handed over that letter! Thought it would do me good, didn't you? Look here, I can't have my character taken away behind my back! You tell him to come and judge for himself."
"You'll get very tired of him, Berns," said Laura doubtfully. "You always say you get sick of people in twenty-four hours: and I can't take him entirely off your hands--you'll have to do your share of entertaining him. He's your cousin, not mine, and it'll be you he comes to see."
"I shan't see any more of him than I want to, my dear, on that you may depend," said Bernard with easy emphasis. "If he invites himself he'll have to put with what he can get. But I can stand a good deal of him. Regimental shop is always amusing, and Lawrence will know heaps of fellows I used to know, and tell me what's become of them all. Besides, I'm sick to death of the local gang and Lawrence will be a change. He's got more brains than Jack Bendish, and from the style of his letter he can't be so much like a curate as Val is." Val Stafford was agent for the Wanhope property. "Oh, by George!"
"What's the matter?"
Bernard threw back his head and grinned broadly with half shut eyes. "Ha, ha! by Gad, that's funny--that's very funny. Why, Val knows him!"
"Knows Lawrence? I never heard Val mention his name."
"No, my love, but one can't get Val to open his lips on that subject. Lawrence and I were in the same battalion. He was there when Val got his ribbon."
"Really? That will be nice for Val, meeting him again."
"Oh rather!" said Bernard Clowes. "On my word it's a shame and I've half a mind . . .. No, let him come: let him come and be damned to the pair of them! Straighten me out, will you?" He was liable like most paralytics to mechanical jerks and convulsions which drove him mad with impatience. Laura drew down the helplessly twitching knee, and ran one firm hand over him from thigh to ankle. Her touch had a mesmeric effect on his nerves when he could endure it, but nine times out of ten he struck it away. He did so now. "Go to the devil! How often