Part 4 (1/2)
”There's no little thing you want, as I'm going there, I s'pose?”
suggested Tarrell. ”It's awkward when you go there and say, 'Good morning,' and the girl says, 'Good morning,' and then you don't say any more and she don't say any more. If there was anything you wanted that I could help her look for, it 'ud make talk easier.”
”Well--go for my baccy pouch,” said Mr. Boom, after a minute's thought, ”it'll take you a long time to find that.”
”Why?” inquired the other.
”'Cos I've got it here,” said the unscrupulous Mr. Boom, producing it, and placidly filling his pipe. ”You might spend--ah--the best part of an hour looking for that.”
He turned away with a nod, and Tarrell, after looking about him in a hesitating fas.h.i.+on to make sure that his movements were not attracting the attention his conscience told him they deserved, set off in the hang-dog fas.h.i.+on peculiar to nervous lovers up the road to the cottage.
Kate Boom was sitting at the door as her father had described, and, in apparent unconsciousness of his approach, did not raise her eyes from her book.
”Good morning,” said Tarrell, in a husky voice.
Miss Boom returned the salutation, and, marking the place in her book with her forefinger, looked over the hedge on the other side of the road to the sea beyond.
”Your father has left his pouch behind, and being as I was coming this way, asked me to call for it,” faltered the young man.
Miss Boom turned her head, and, regarding him steadily, noted the rising colour and the shuffling feet.
”Did he say where he had left it?” she inquired.
”No,” said the other.
”Well, my time's too valuable to waste looking for pouches,” said Kate, bending down to her book again, ”but if you like to go in and look for it, you may!”
She moved aside to let him pa.s.s, and sat listening with a slight smile as she heard him moving about the room.
”I can't find it,” he said, after a pretended search.
”Better try the kitchen now then,” said Miss Boom, without looking up, ”and then the scullery. It might be in the woodshed or even down the garden. You haven't half looked.”
She heard the kitchen door close behind him, and then, taking her book with her, went upstairs to her room. The conscientious Tarrell, having duly searched all the above-mentioned places, returned to the parlour and waited. He waited a quarter of an hour, and then going out by the front door stood irresolute.
”I can't find it,” he said at length, addressing himself to the bedroom window.
”No. I was coming down to tell you,” said Miss Boom, glancing sedately at him from over the geraniums. ”I remember seeing father take it out with him this morning.”
Tarrell affected a clumsy surprise. ”It doesn't matter,” he said. ”How nice your geraniums are.”
”Yes, they're all right,” said Miss Boom briefly.
”I can't think how you keep 'em so nice,” said Tarrell.
”Well, don't try,” said Miss Boom kindly. ”You'd better go back and tell father about the pouch. Perhaps he's waiting for a smoke all this time.”
”There's no hurry,” said the young man; ”perhaps he's found it.”
”Well, I can't stop to talk,” said the girl; ”I'm busy reading.”
With these heartless words, she withdrew into the room, and the discomfited swain, only too conscious of the sorry figure he cut, went slowly back to the harbour, to be met by Mr. Boom with a wink of aggravating and portentous dimensions.