The Halo | Page 3

might take the form of an order to open his mouth, told the truth. He had three teeth only.
"And look here, Fledge, why do William's toes turn out at such a fearful angle?"
Pledge's heart was in the plate-closet at that moment, but his patience was monumental.
"I don't know, my lord--unless it's because 'e's only just left off being knife-boy--they get used to standing at the sink a-washing up, my lord, and William's feet is large, so I dessay he turned 'is toes out in order to get near and not splash."
This elucidation appeared plausible as well as interesting to Kingsmead, and he felt that in learning something of the habits of the genus knife-boy he had added to his stock of human information, which he undoubtedly had.
Then at lunch there had been the little matter of Bicky's dressmaker's bill. The mater had been her crossest, and Bicky her silentest, and the bill, discussed in French, a disgusting and superfluous language, the acquirement of which Kingsmead had used much skill in evading, lay on the table. It lay there, forgotten, after the two ladies had left the room, but Kingsmead was a gentleman. So, later he had sought out his sister and coaxed her into telling him the hair-raising sum to which amounted the "two or three frocks" she had had that summer.
He had also learned that Mr. Yelverton, the Carrons, the Newlyns, and Théo Joyselle were coming that afternoon, and what the real reason was that had made the Frenshaws wire they could not come. It had not at all surprised him to hear that the reason given in the wire was utterly false, for, like other people, Kingsmead was bound by his horizon.
On the whole, his day had been a busy one, and the valuable acquisitions of knowledge that I have mentioned, together with a few scraps of information on stable and garage matters, had brought him quite comfortably up to four o'clock, when, as he idled across the lawn, that rum old carp had caught, and held, his eye.
It was a very warm day in October, a day most unusual in its mellow beauty; soft sunshine lay on the lawn and lent splendour to the not very large Tudor house off to the left.
The air of gentle, self-satisfied decrepitude worn by the old place was for the moment lost, and it looked new, clean-cut and almost gaudy, as it must have done in the distant days when it was young. It was a becoming day for the ancient building, as candle-light is becoming to an old beauty and brings back a fleeting and pathetic air of youth to her still lovely features.
Above, the sky was very blue, and the ruminating silence was broken only by the honk-honk of a distant motor. The carp, impeded in his lethargic progress by the thick stem of a water-lily, had stood still (if a fish can be said to stand) for a century--nearly five minutes--his silly old nose pointing stubbornly at the obstacle.
"It won't move, so you'll have to," observed Kingsmead, wriggling a little nearer, "Oh, I say do buck up, or you'll never get there----"
And the carp, quite as if he understood, did buck up, and slid away into the shadow of the rhododendrons.
Kingsmead rose slowly and picked up his cap. What should he do next? The puppies weren't bad, nor the new under-gardener who swore so awfully at his inferior, nor----
"Hello, Tommy."
"Hello, Bicky."
Brigit Mead wore a short blue skirt, brown shoes, a pink wash-silk blouse made like a man's shirt, and a green felt hat that obviously belonged to someone else. She was dressed like thousands of English girls, and she looked as though the blood in her might be any in the world but English. Hers was an enigmatic, narrow, high-bred face, crowned by masses of dry black hair, and distinguished from any other face most people had ever seen by the curved line of her little nose and the colourless darkness of her very long, half-closed, heavily lashed eyes. She looked sulky, disagreeable, and secretive, but she was strangely and undeniably beautiful. Her long, thin-lipped mouth was too close shut, but it was of an exquisite satin texture, scarlet in colour, and when she said "Hello, Tommy," it melted into the most enchanting and indescribable curves, showing just a glimpse of pointed white teeth.
Kingsmead studied her gravely for a moment.
"Been crying?"
"Yes."
"That bill?"
"Yes, that bill, you horrid little boy. There's a long worm in your hair."
Kingsmead removed the worm.
"Mater been nasty?"
"Beastly."
"_H'm_. I say, Bick, I saw Ponty yesterday."
Brigit, who had turned and was gazing across the lawn, looked at him without moving her head, a trick which is not at all English.
"Did you, now?"
"I did. He is dining here, he says. He is also sending you some flowers. I