A red-haired girl with a pigtail was wringing the wrist of a schoolfellow who shrieked with pain and cried: "Mercy! mercy! Ooo!
Christabel!"
"You idiot!" cried Christabel. "You giggling Idiot!"
Two other young ladies made off through the beech trees from this outburst of savagery.
Then the grip of Mr. Polly"s fingers gave, and he hit his chin against the stones and slipped clumsily to the ground again, sc.r.a.ping his cheek against the wall and hurting his shin against the log by which he had reached the top. Just for a moment he crouched against the wall.
He swore, staggered to the pile of logs and sat down.
He remained very still for some time, with his lips pressed together.
"Fool," he said at last; "you Blithering Fool!" and began to rub his shin as though he had just discovered its bruises.
Afterwards he found his face was wet with blood--which was none the less red stuff from the heart because it came from slight abrasions.
Chapter the Sixth
Miriam
I
It is an illogical consequence of one human being"s ill-treatment that we should fly immediately to another, but that is the way with us. It seemed to Mr. Polly that only a human touch could a.s.suage the smart of his humiliation. Moreover it had for some undefined reason to be a feminine touch, and the number of women in his world was limited.
He thought of the Larkins family--the Larkins whom he had not been near now for ten long days. Healing people they seemed to him now--healing, simple people. They had good hearts, and he had neglected them for a mirage. If he rode over to them he would be able to talk nonsense and laugh and forget the whirl of memories and thoughts that was spinning round and round so unendurably in his brain.
"Law!" said Mrs. Larkins, "come in! You"re quite a stranger, Elfrid!"
"Been seeing to business," said the unveracious Polly.
"None of "em ain"t at "ome, but Miriam"s just out to do a bit of shopping. Won"t let me shop, she won"t, because I"m so keerless. She"s a wonderful manager, that girl. Minnie"s got some work at the carpet place. "Ope it won"t make "er ill again. She"s a loving deliket sort, is Minnie.... Come into the front parlour. It"s a bit untidy, but you got to take us as you find us. Wot you been doing to your face?"
"Bit of a scrase with the bicycle," said Mr. Polly.
"Trying to pa.s.s a carriage on the on side, and he drew up and ran me against a wall."
Mrs. Larkins scrutinised it. "You ought to "_ave_ someone look after your scrases," she said. "That"s all red and rough. It ought to be cold-creamed. Bring your bicycle into the pa.s.sage and come in."
She "straightened up a bit," that is to say she increased the dislocation of a number of scattered articles, put a workbasket on the top of several books, swept two or three dogs"-eared numbers of the _Lady"s Own Novelist_ from the table into the broken armchair, and proceeded to sketch together the tea-things with various such interpolations as: "Law, if I ain"t forgot the b.u.t.ter!" All the while she talked of Annie"s good spirits and cleverness with her millinery, and of Minnie"s affection and Miriam"s relative love of order and management. Mr. Polly stood by the window uneasily and thought how good and sincere was the Larkins tone. It was well to be back again.
"You"re a long time finding that shop of yours," said Mrs. Larkins.
"Don"t do to be precipitous," said Mr. Polly.
"No," said Mrs. Larkins, "once you got it you got it. Like choosing a "usband. You better see you got it good. I kept Larkins "esitating two years I did, until I felt sure of him. A "ansom man "e was as you can see by the looks of the girls, but "ansom is as "ansom does. You"d like a bit of jam to your tea, I expect? I "ope they"ll keep _their_ men waiting when the time comes. I tell them if they think of marrying it only shows they don"t know when they"re well off. Here"s Miriam!"
Miriam entered with several parcels in a net, and a peevish expression. "Mother," she said, "you might "_ave_ prevented my going out with the net with the broken handle. I"ve been cutting my fingers with the string all the way "ome." Then she discovered Mr. Polly and her face brightened.
"Ello, Elfrid!" she said. "Where you been all this time?"
"Looking round," said Mr. Polly.
"Found a shop?"
"One or two likely ones. But it takes time."
"You"ve got the wrong cups, Mother."
She went into the kitchen, disposed of her purchases, and returned with the right cups. "What you done to your face, Elfrid?" she asked, and came and scrutinised his scratches. "All rough it is."
He repeated his story of the accident, and she was sympathetic in a pleasant homely way.
"You are quiet to-day," she said as they sat down to tea.
"Meditatious," said Mr. Polly.
Quite by accident he touched her hand on the table, and she answered his touch.
"Why not?" thought Mr. Polly, and looking up, caught Mrs. Larkins" eye and flushed guiltily. But Mrs. Larkins, with unusual restraint, said nothing. She merely made a grimace, enigmatical, but in its essence friendly.
Presently Minnie came in with some vague grievance against the manager of the carpet-making place about his method of estimating piece work.
Her account was redundant, defective and highly technical, but redeemed by a certain earnestness. "I"m never within sixpence of what I reckon to be," she said. "It"s a bit too "ot." Then Mr. Polly, feeling that he was being conspicuously dull, launched into a description of the shop he was looking for and the shops he had seen.
His mind warmed up as he talked.
"Found your tongue again," said Mrs. Larkins. He had. He began to embroider the subject and work upon it. For the first time it a.s.sumed picturesque and desirable qualities in his mind. It stimulated him to see how readily and willingly they accepted his sketches. Bright ideas appeared in his mind from nowhere. He was suddenly enthusiastic.
"When I get this shop of mine I shall have a cat. Must make a home for a cat, you know."
"What, to catch the mice?" said Mrs. Larkins.
"No--sleep in the window. A venerable _signor_ of a cat. Tabby. Cat"s no good if it isn"t tabby. Cat I"m going to have, and a canary! Didn"t think of that before, but a cat and a canary seem to go, you know.
Summer weather I shall sit at breakfast in the little room behind the shop, sun streaming in the window to rights, cat on a chair, canary singing and--Mrs. Polly...."
"Ello!" said Mrs. Larkins.
"Mrs. Polly frying an extra bit of bacon. Bacon singing, cat singing, canary singing. Kettle singing. Mrs. Polly--"
"But who"s Mrs. Polly going to be?" said Mrs. Larkins.
"Figment of the imagination, ma"am," said Mr. Polly. "Put in to fill up picture. No face to figure as yet. Still, that"s how it will be, I can a.s.sure you. I think I must have a bit of garden. Johnson"s the man for a garden of course," he said, going off at a tangent, "but I don"t mean a fierce sort of garden. Earnest industry. Anxious moments.
Fervous digging. Shan"t go in for that sort of garden, ma"am. No! Too much backache for me. My garden will be just a patch of "sturtiums and sweet pea. Red brick yard, clothes" line. Trellis put up in odd time.
Humorous wind vane. Creeper up the back of the house."
"Virginia creeper?" asked Miriam.