Wintry Peacock | Page 7

blue and cold. I hurried away down the hill, musing on Maggie. The road made a loop down the sharp face of the slope. As I went crunching over the laborious snow I became aware of a figure striding awkwardly down the steep scarp to intercept me. It was a man with his hands in front of him, half stuck in his breeches pockets, and his shoulders square--a real knock-about fellow. Alfred, of course. He waited for me by the stone fence.
"Excuse me," he said as I came up.
I came to a halt in front of him and looked into his sullen blue eyes. He had a certain odd haughtiness on his brows. But his blue eyes stared insolently at me.
"Do you know anything about a letter--in French--that my wife opened--a letter of mine?"
"Yes," said I. "She asked me to read it to her."
He looked square at me. He did not know exactly how to feel.
"What was there in it?" he asked.
"Why?" I said. "Don't you know?"
"She makes out she's burnt it," he said.
"Without showing it you?" I asked.
He nodded slightly. He seemed to be meditating as to what line of action he should take. He wanted to know the contents of the letter: he must know: and therefore he must ask me, for evidently his wife had taunted him. At the same time, no doubt, he would like to wreak untold vengeance on my unfortunate person. So he eyed me, and I eyed him, and neither of us spoke. He did not want to repeat his request to me. And yet I only looked at him, and considered.
Suddenly he threw back his head and glanced down the valley. Then he changed his position and he looked at me more confidentially.
"She burnt the blasted thing before I saw it," he said.
"Well," I answered slowly, "she doesn't know herself what was in it."
He continued to watch me narrowly. I grinned to myself.
"I didn't like to read her out what there was in it," I continued.
He suddenly flushed out so that the veins in his neck stood out, and he stirred again uncomfortably.
"The Belgian girl said her baby had been born a week ago, and that they were going to call it Alfred," I told him.
He met my eyes. I was grinning. He began to grin, too.
"Good luck to her," he said.
"Best of luck," said I.
"And what did you tell her?" he asked.
"That the baby belonged to the old mother--that it was brother to your girl, who was writing to you as a friend of the family."
He stood smiling, with the long, subtle malice of a farmer.
"And did she take it in?" he asked.
"As much as she took anything else."
He stood grinning fixedly. Then he broke into a short laugh.
"Good for her!" he exclaimed cryptically.
And then he laughed aloud once more, evidently feeling he had won a big move in his contest with his wife.
"What about the other woman?" I asked.
"Who?"
"Elise."
"Oh"--he shifted uneasily--"she was all right------"
"You'll be getting back to her," I said.
He looked at me. Then he made a grimace with his mouth.
"Not me," he said. "Back your life it's a plant."
"You don't think the cher petit bébé is a little Alfred?"
"It might be," he said.
"Only might?"
"Yes--an' there's lots of mites in a pound of cheese." He laughed boisterously but uneasily.
"What did she say, exactly?" he asked.
I began to repeat, as well as I could, the phrases of the letter:
"Mon cher Alfred,--Figure-toi comme je suis désolée----"
He listened with some confusion. When I had finished all I could remember, he said:
"They know how to pitch you out a letter, those Belgian lasses."
"Practice," said I.
"They get plenty," he said.
There was a pause.
"Oh well," he said. "I've never got that letter, anyhow."
The wind blew fine and keen, in the sunshine, across the snow. I blew my nose and prepared to depart.
"And she doesn't know anything?" he continued, jerking his head up the hill in the direction of Tible.
"She knows nothing but what I've said--that is, if she really burnt the letter."
"I believe she burnt it," he said, "for spite. She's a little devil, she is. But I shall have it out with her." His jaw was stubborn and sullen. Then suddenly he turned to me with a new note.
"Why?" he said. "Why didn't you wring that b---- peacock's neck--that b----Joey?"
"Why?" I said. "What for?"
"I hate the brute," he said. "I let fly at him the night I got back----"
I laughed. He stood and mused.
"Poor little Elise," he murmured.
"Was she small--petite?" I asked. He jerked up his head.
"No," he said. "Rather tall."
"Taller than your wife, I suppose."
Again he looked into my eyes. And then once more he went into a loud burst of laughter that made the still, snow-deserted valley clap again.
"God, it's a knockout!" he said, thoroughly amused. Then he stood at ease, one