Part 61 (2/2)
Her eyes sparkled.
”Really ...? And with news worth having?”
”Mr. Casey might be disposed to think so.”
”Who is Mr. Casey?”
”That's a question n.o.body can answer satisfactorily.”
”But is the intelligence absolutely useless to anybody who doesn't happen to be Mr. Casey?” she insisted.
”Not unless they happened to be deeply interested in Mrs. Casey.”
”There is a Mrs. Casey, then?”
”So says the man who travelled two hundred miles to bring her letters and the message that she is, as Mr. Micawber would put it, _in statu quo_.”
”I understand.” The bright black eyes were compa.s.sionate. ”She has written to her husband--she doesn't know that he has been killed----”
”Nor do we. As far as we can ascertain, the garrison has never included a Casey.”
”Then you think----”
”I think”--he glanced aside as a stentorian bellow of laughter reached them--”that, judging by what I hear, Bingo has got to the soapy story.”
She frowned anxiously.
”Bingo ought to remember that nuns aren't ordinary women. I shall have to go and gag him.” She took a dubious step.
”Why? The Reverend Mother does not seem at all shocked, and Fraithorn is evidently amused.” He added, as Bingo's rapturous enjoyment of his own anecdote reached the stamping and eye-mopping stage: ”And undoubtedly Bingo is happy.”
”He has got out of hand lately. One can't keep a husband in a proper state of subjection who may be brought home to one a corpse at any hour of the day.” Her laugh jangled harshly, and broke in the middle. ”The soil of Gueldersdorp being so uncommonly favourable just now to the production of weeds of the widow's description.”
”It grows other things.” His eyes were very kind. ”Brave, helpful, unselfish women, for instance.”
”There is one!”
She indicated the tall, black-robed figure of the Mother with a quick gesture of her little jewelled hand.
”And here is another.” He touched her sleeve lightly with a finger-tip.
”Brave.... Helpful.” Her voice was choky. ”Do you think I shall ever forget the hindrance I have been to you? Didn't I lose you your Boer spy?”
”Granted you did.” His moustache curved cheerfully at the corners. ”But that's Ancient History, and look what you brought back!”
”A unit of the despised majority who is thoroughly convinced of her own superfluousness. Hannah Wrynche, with the conceit so completely taken out of her that she feels, say, like a deflated balloon; Hannah Wrynche, who believed herself born to be a War Correspondent, and has come down to scribbling gossipy paragraphs for a little siege newspaper printed in a damp cellar.”
He laughed.
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