Part 37 (2/2)

Lissa still stormed, but Georgie, with one of the sudden little gusts of temper to which she had always been liable, swept on to her and bade her be quiet at once and have a little self-control. She seized a child in each hand and whirled them out of the room with instructions to go to Nanny and have their faces washed. Then she came back to Ishmael and perched herself on the arm of his chair. She looked very young at the moment, for her att.i.tude was of the Georgie of old days, and her round face was screwed up in an expression of mock-penitence as she rumpled his hair. She would have looked younger if the fas.h.i.+ons had been kinder, but the beginning of the 'nineties was not a gracious period for women's dress. The sweep of the crinoline, the piquancy of the fluted draperies and deliciously absurd bustle, had alike been lost; in their stead reigned serge and cloth gowns that b.u.t.toned rigidly and had high stiff little collars. Braid meandered over Georgie's chest on either side of the b.u.t.tons, and her pretty round neck was hidden and her cheeks made to seem coa.r.s.e by the stiff collar, while her plump arms looked as though stuck on like those of a doll in their sleeves of black cloth which contrasted with the bodice and skirt of fawn-coloured serge. Her straight fringe that had had the merit of suiting her face was now frizzed, while the rest of her hair was twisted into what was known as a ”tea-pot handle” at the back of her head.

Ishmael let her pull his head against the scratchy curves of braid, but he was preoccupied and kept up a tattoo on the writing-table with a paper-knife. There had been so many of these scenes since Nicky had been growing up; Georgie had changed towards the boy ever since her own children had been born. She was never unfair to him, but she seemed as though always on the watch. He must not come near the babies with his dirty boots on, must stay where he had been before he came near them at all, for fear he had wandered where she considered there might be infection. His dogs had come under the same ban, and one way and another she had gone the right way to sicken Nicky of his little sisters if he had not been both sweet-natured and rather impervious. Ishmael had sometimes resented all this on Nicky's behalf, and then Georgie had accused him of loving his son the most. Of course, she knew the others were ”only girls,” and therefore she supposed of no interest to a farmer.... Scenes such as this would end in penitence on her part and a weary forgiveness on Ishmael's. He loved Georgie and all his children deeply--perhaps his children meant something more to him--but he never could quite do away with the feeling that there was something rather absurd about the father of a family....

”What were you going to say about Nicky when I stopped you?” he asked.

”Where is it he goes? Is it anywhere in particular?”

”I thought you knew,” said Georgie slowly, ”though I might have known you didn't; you never see anything, which may be very beautiful, but, believe me, can be very trying to a poor female! If you really want to know, he goes over to Penzance in his tandem every early-closing day to take out Miss Polly Behenna--from Behenna the draper's in Market Jew Street.”

”Good Lord! ... there's nothing in it, is there?”

”I shouldn't think so; but you know how silly it is in a place like this ... and she's a very pretty girl, and oh, so dreadfully genteel!”

”That'll save him, then! Dairymaids are far more dangerous. But, as you say, it doesn't do.... I think there's something in the Canadian plan,”

he added to himself. He took up the lists of accounts he had been busy on when first interrupted by Nicky and began to examine them. He had to hold them far away from his eyes and even then to pucker up his lids before he could quite make them out. Georgie watched him.

”You know, Ishmael, you want specs,” she said suddenly. ”I'm sure of it!

I've been watching you for ages and you never seem able to take in anything unless it's a mile off. And all your headaches, too....”

Ishmael thought angrily: ”Is there anything women won't say outright?

Can't she see I've been sick with terror about my eyes for months, and that's why I haven't done anything about it?” Aloud he only said gruffly: ”I'm all right!”

”But you aren't!” persisted Georgie. ”What's the good of saying you are when you aren't?”

”Well, if you like I'll go and see an oculist next time I go to Plymouth,” promised Ishmael. ”Will that do you?”

”I like that. It's not for me. I only said,” began Georgie indignantly; but he pulled her head to him and held it there a moment before kissing her.

”Run away, there's a dear!” he said. ”Eyes or no eyes, I've got to get this done, and you know you can't add two and two, so it's no good saying you'll stay and help.”

”I can make two and two make five, which is the whole art of life,”

retorted Georgie, laughing. ”But as there's the dinner to order, and as you could no more do that than I could see to the accounts, I'll go.”

She bent over him, and wickedly parted his hair away from a thin patch that was coming on the crown of his head before kissing him full upon it.

When she was gone Ishmael let the accounts lie untouched before him, and, getting up, he crossed to the window and stood looking out. He heard the sound of wheels and hoofs coming along the lane at the side of the garden wall, and the next moment saw the head of Nicky's leader, apparently protesting violently, come beyond the angle of the wall.

Nicky was evidently trying to turn it in the direction of the main road, but the leader had other views, and gave expression to them by sitting down suddenly on his haunches, with his white-stockinged forelegs struck straight out, his fiddle-head, with the white blaze between his wicked eyes, looking round over his shoulder at the invisible Nicky, whose remarks came floating up to Ishmael on the breeze. Finally the leader was made to see the error of his ways, and the light dog-cart swung round the corner, and with a flourish of the whip and a clatter and a heart-catching swerve round the angle of the hedge Nicky's tandem bore him swiftly down the road towards where the telegraph wires told of the way which led to Miss Polly Behenna.

Ishmael watched as long as the cart was in sight, taking pride and comfort in the fact that his eyes could see the minutest detail as far as the turn on to the high-road; then he came back into the room, and with a smile and a sigh took up the accounts. Some absurd little thing within him made him determine that he would not take to spectacles till Nicky had gone to Canada and could not remark on them.

CHAPTER II

AUTUMN

A few evenings later Ishmael went out alone on to the moors, filled with very different ideas from any that had held him of late. Not the petty friction of domesticity, nor the pervading thought of that queer feeling in his eyes, nor care for Nicky's future, or anything of the present, stirred within him. A letter received by Georgie that day, and the thought and realisation of which Ishmael had carried about with him through all his varied work, now swamped his mind in memories so vivid that the present was only in his mind as a faint bitter flavour hardly to be noticed.

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