Kitabı oku: «Flower o' the Peach», sayfa 16
"Of course," replied Margaret.
Now it would come, she thought. Van Zyl would spare her no longer. She watched his smooth, tanned face with nervous trepidation.
He frowned slightly at her answer, and leaned forward with the note-book in his hand, his forefinger between the pages to keep the place.
"You do?" he demanded, his voice rising to a sharp note. Ford sat up again, watchful and angry. "You refuse, do you? Now, look here, Miss Harding, we 'll have to make an end of this."
Ford struck in crisply. "Good idea," he said. "I suggest Miss Harding might quit the room for that purpose, and leave you to explain to me what the devil you mean by this."
Van Zyl turned on him quickly. "You look out," he said. "If I 've got to arrest you to shut your mouth, I 'll do it – and quick too."
"Why not?" demanded Ford. "That 'll be as good a way for you to get the lesson you need as any other."
"You'll get a lesson," began Van Zyl, making as though to rise and put his threat into action.
"Oh, please," cried Margaret; "none of this is necessary. Sit down, Mr. Ford; please sit down and listen. Mr. Van Zyl, you have only to speak out and you will be free from further trouble, I 'm sure."
"I 've taken too much trouble as it is," retorted the sub-inspector. "I 'll have no more of it."
He glared with purpose at Ford. Though he had not at any moment doffed his formality of demeanor, the small scene had lit a spark in him and he was newly formidable and forceful. Ford met his look with the narrow smile with which a man of his type masks a rising temper, but so far yielded to Margaret's urgency as to lean back upon one elbow.
"You 'll be sorry for all this presently," Margaret said to him warningly.
"Very soon, in fact," added the sub-inspector, "if he repeats the offense."
He settled himself again on his chair, confronting Margaret.
"Now, Miss Harding," lie resumed briskly. "Out with it? You admit you were there, eh?"
"Oh, no," said Margaret. "You 're asking questions again, Mr. Van Zyl."
"And I 'm going to have an answer, too," he replied zestfully. "You 've got a wrong idea entirely of what 's before you. You can still have this in private, if you like; but here or elsewhere, you 'll speak or out comes the whole thing. Now, which is it going to be – sharp?"
"I 've nothing to tell you," she maintained.
His blond, neat face hardened.
"Haven't you, though. We'll see? You know a Kafir calling himself – " he made a lightning reference to his book – "calling himself Kamis?"
She made no answer.
"You know the man, eh? It was with him you spent the afternoon of the – th, was n't it? Under the wall of the dam down yonder – yes? You 've met him more than once, and always alone?"
She kept a constraint on herself to preserve her faintly-smiling indifference of countenance, but her face felt stiff and cold, and her smile as though it sagged to a blatant grin. She did not glance across to see how Ford had received the news; that had suddenly become impossible.
"You see?" There was a restrained triumph in Van Zyl's voice. "We know more than you think, young lady – and more still. You won't answer questions, won't you? You let a Kafir kiss you under a wall, and then put up this kind of bluff."
There was an explosion from Ford as he leaped to his feet, with the hectic brilliant on each cheek.
"You liar," he cried. "You filthy Dutch liar."
Van Zyl did not even turn his head. A hard smile parted his squarely-cut lips as he watched Margaret. At his word, she had made a small involuntary movement as though to put a hand on her bosom, but had let it fall again.
"You may decide to answer that, perhaps," suggested the sub-inspector. "Do you deny that he kissed you?"
There was a pause, while Ford stood waiting and the sound of his breathing filled the interval. The fingers of Margaret's left hand bent and unbent the flap of the envelope destined for the legal uncle, but her mind was far from it and its contents. "You liar," Ford had cried, and it had had a fine sound; even now she had but to rise as though insulted and walk from the room, and his loyalty would endure, unspotted, unquestioning, touchy and quick. She might have done well to choose the line that would have made that loyalty valid, and she felt herself full of regrets, of pain and loss, that it must find itself betrayed. The vehemence of the cry was testimony to the faith that gave it utterance.
And then, for the first time in the interview, she dwelt upon the figure that stood at the back of all this disordered trouble – that of Kamis, remote from their agitated circle, companioning in his solitude with griefs of his own. He came into her mind by way of comparison with the directness and vivid anger of Ford, standing tense and agonized for her reply, with all his honest soul in his thin dark face. His flimsy silk clothes made apparent the lean youth of his body. The other went to and fro in the night and the silence in shabby tweeds, and his face denied an index to the strong spirit that drove him. He suffered behind blubber lips and a comical nose; he was humble and grateful. The two had nothing in common if it were not that faith in her, to which she must now do the peculiar justice that the situation required.
"Let 's have it," urged the sub-inspector. "He kissed you, this nigger did, and you let him? Speak up."
Boy Bailey had said, imaginatively: "She held out both her arms to him – wide; and he took hold of her an' hugged her, kissin' her till I couldn't stand the sight any longer. 'You shameless woman!' I shouted" – at that point he had been kicked by a scandalized corporal, and had screamed. "I wish I may die if he did n't kiss her," was the form that kicking finally reduced it to, but they could not kick that out of him. He stood for one kiss while bruises multiplied upon him.
"Well, did he kiss you or didn't he?"
Margaret sighed. "I will tell you that," she said wearily. "Yes, he did – he kissed my hand."
Sub-inspector Van Zyl sat up briskly. "I thought we 'd get something before we were done," he said, and smiled with a kind of malice at Ford. "You 'd like to apologize, I expect?"
Ford did not answer him; he was staring in mere amazement at Margaret's immovable profile.
"Is that true?" he demanded.
Margaret forced herself to look round and meet the wonder of his face.
"Oh, quite," she answered. "Quite true."
His eyes wavered before hers as though he were ashamed and abashed. He put an uncertain hand to his lips.
"I see," he said, very thoughtfully, and sat again upon the couch.
"Well, after that, what 's the sense of keeping anything back?" Van Zyl went on confidently. "You see what comes of standing out against the police? Now, what are your arrangements for meeting this Kafir? Where do you send to let him know he 's to come and see you?"
"No," said Margaret. "It 's no use; I won't tell you any more."
"Oh, yes, you will." Van Zyl felt quite sure of it. He eyed her acutely and decided to venture a shot in the dark. "You 'll tell me all I ask, – d'you hear? I have n't done with you yet. You 've seen him at night, too, when you were supposed to be in bed. You can't deceive me. I 've seen your kind before, plenty of them, and I know the way to deal with them."
His shot in the dark found its mark. So he knew of that night when Dr. Jakes had fallen in the road. Mrs. Jakes must have told him, and her protests had been uneasy lies. Margaret carefully avoided looking at her; in this hour, all were to receive mercy save herself.
Van Zyl went on, rasping at her in tones quite unlike the thickish staccato voice which he kept for his unofficial moments. That voice she would never hear again; impossible for her ever to regain the status of a person in whom the police have no concern.
"You 'll save yourself trouble by speaking up and wasting no time about it," he urged, with the kind of harsh good nature a policeman may use to the offender who provides him with employment. "You 've got to do it, you know. How do you get hold of your nigger-friend when you want him?"
She shook her head without speaking.
"Answer!" he roared suddenly, so that she started in her chair. "What 's the arrangement you 've got with him? None of your airs with me, my girl. Out with it, now – what 's the trick?"
She looked at him affrightedly; he seemed about to spring upon her from his chair and dash at her to wring an answer out of her by force. But from the sofa, where Ford sat, with his head in his hands, came no sign. Only Mrs. Jakes, frozen where she sat, uttered a vague moan.
"Wha – what 's this?"
The door opened noiselessly and Dr. Jakes showed his face of a fallen cherub in the opening, with sleepy eyes mildly questioning. Margaret saw him with quick relief; the intolerable situation must change in some manner by his arrival.
"I heard – I heard – was it you shouting, Van Zyl?" he inquired, stammeringly, as he came in.
"Yes," replied the sub-inspector, shortly.
"Oh!" Jakes felt uncertainly for his straggling mustache. "Whom were you shouting at?" he inquired, after a moment of hesitation.
"I was speaking to her," replied the other impatiently.
The doctor followed the movement of his hand and the light of his spectacles focused on Margaret stupidly.
"Well." He seemed baffled. "Miss Harding, you mean, eh?"
The sub-inspector nodded. "You 're interrupting an inquiry, Dr. Jakes."
"Oh." Again the doctor seemed to wrestle with thoughts. "Am I?"
"Yes. You 'll excuse us, but – "
"No," said Jakes, with an appearance of grave thought. "No; certainly not. You – you mustn't shout here."
"Look here," began Van Zyl.
The doctor turned his back on him and came over to Margaret, treading lumberingly across the worn carpet.
"Can't allow shouting," he said. "It means – temperature. I – I think you 'd better – yes, you 'd better go and lie down for a while, Miss Harding."
He was as vague as a cloud, a mere mist of benevolence.
As unexpectedly and almost as startlingly as Van Zyl's sudden loudness, Mrs. Jakes spoke from her chair.
"You must take the doctor's advice, Miss Harding," she said.
Margaret rose, obediently, her letters in her hand. Van Zyl rose too.
"Once and for all," he said loudly, "I won't allow any – "
"I 'll report you, Van Zyl," said the little doctor, huskily. "You 're – you 're endangering life – way you 're behaving. Go with Mrs. Jakes, Miss Harding."
"You 'll report me," exclaimed Van Zyl.
"Ye-es," said Jakes, foggily. "I – I call Mr. Ford to witness – "
He turned quaveringly towards the couch and stopped abruptly.
"What 's this?" he cried, in stronger tones, and walked quickly toward the bent figure of the young man. "Van Zyl I – I hold you responsible. You 've done this – with your shouting."
Margaret was in the door; she turned to see the doctor raise Ford's head and lift it back against the cushions. Van Zyl went striding towards them and aided to place him on his back on the couch. As the doctor stood up and stepped back, she saw the thin face with the high spot of red on each cheek and the blood that ran down the chin from the wry and painful mouth.
"Hester," Dr. Jakes spoke briskly. "The ergotin – and the things. In the study; you know."
"I know." And Mrs. Jakes – so her name was Hester – ran pattering off.
They shut Margaret out of the room, and she sat on the bottom step of the stairs, waiting for the news Mrs. Jakes had promised, between breaths, to bring out to her. Van Zyl, ordered out unceremoniously – the doctor had had a fine peremptory moment – and allowing a certain perturbation to be visible on the regulated equanimity of his features, stood in the hall and gave her side glances that betrayed a disturbed mind.
"Miss Harding," he said presently, after long thought; "I hope you don't think it 's any pleasure to me to do all this?"
Margaret shook her head. "You can do what you like," she said. "I shan't complain."
"It is n't that," he answered irritably, but she interrupted him.
"I don't care what it is," she said. "I don't care; I don't care about anything. Stand there, if you like, or come and sit here; but don't talk any more till we know what 's happened in there."
Sub-inspector Van Zyl coughed, but after certain hesitation, he made up his mind. When Mrs. Jakes came forth, tiptoe and pale but whisperingly exultant, she found them sitting side by side on the stairs in the attitude of amity, listening in strained silence for sounds that filtered through the door of the room. She was pressed and eager, with no faculty to spare for surprise.
"Splendid," she whispered. "Everything 's all right – thank God. But if it hadn't been for the doctor, well! I'm going to fetch the boys with the stretcher to carry him up to his room."
"I 'm awfully glad," said Van Zyl as she hurried away.
"So am I," said Margaret. "But I ought to have seen before the doctor did. I ought to have known – and I did know, really – that he would have taken you by the throat before then, if something hadn't happened to him."
She had risen, to go up the stairs to her room and now stood above him, looking down serenely upon him.
"Me by the throat," exclaimed Van Zyl, slightly shocked.
Margaret nodded.
"As Kamis would," she said slowly. "And choke you, and choke you, and choke you."
She went up then without looking back, leaving him standing in the hall, baffled and outraged.
CHAPTER XV
Not the stubbornness of a race too prone to enthusiasms, any more than increasing years and the memento mori in his chest, could withhold Mr. Samson from the zest with which he initiated each new day. Bathed, razored and tailored, he came out to the stoep for his early constitutional, his hands joined behind his back, his soft hat cocked a little forward on his head, and tasted the air with puffs and snorts of appetite, walking to and fro with a eupeptic briskness in which only the closest observer might have detected a delicate care not to over do it. Nothing troubled him at this hour of the morning; it belonged to a duty which engrossed it to the exclusion of all else, and not till it was done was Mr. Samson accessible to the claims of time and place.
He looked straight before him as he strode; his manner of walking did not allow him to bestow a glance upon the Karoo as he went. Head well up, chest open – what there was of it – and neck swelling over the purity of his collar: that was Mr. Samson. It was only when Mrs. Jakes came to the breakfast-room door and set the gong booming melodiously, that he relaxed and came back to a mild interest in the immediate earth, as though the gong were a permission to stand at ease and dismiss. He halted by the steps to wipe his monocle in his white abundant handkerchief, and surveyed, perfunctorily at first and then with a narrowing interest, the great extent of brown and gray-green that stretched away from the foot of the steps to a silvery and indeterminate distance.
A single figure was visible upon it, silhouetted strongly against the low sky, and Mr. Samson worked his monocle into his eye and grasped it with a pliant eyebrow to see the clearer. It was a man on a horse, moving at a walk, minutely clear in that crystal air in spite of the distance. The rider was far from the road, apparently aimless and at large upon the veld; but there was something in his attitude as he rode that held Mr. Samson gazing, a certain erectness and ease, something conventional, the name of which dodged evasively at the tip of his tongue. He knew somebody who sat on a horse exactly like that; dash it, who was it, now? It wasn't that Dutchman, Du Preez, nor his long-legged youngster; they rode like Dutchmen. This man was more like – more like – ah! Mr. Samson had got it. The only folk who had that look in the saddle were troopers; this must be a man of the Mounted Police.
A tinge of annoyance colored his thoughts, for the far view of the trooper, slowly quartering the land, brought back to his mind a matter of which it had been purged by the ritual morning march along the stoep, and he found it returning again as distasteful as ever. He had been made a party to its details by Mrs. Jakes, when he inquired regarding Ford's breakdown. The communication had taken place at the foot of the stairs, when he was preparing to ascend to bed, on the evening of Van Zyl's visit. At dinner he had noted no more than that Ford was absent and that Margaret was uneasy; he kept his question till her skirt vanished at the bend of the stairs.
"I say; what 's up?" he asked then.
Mrs. Jakes, standing by to give good night, as her wont was, fluttered. She gave a little start that shook her clothes exactly like the movement of an agitated bird in a cage, and stared up at him, rather breathlessly, while he leaned against the balustrade and awaited her answer.
"I don't know what you mean." It was a formula that always gave her time to collect her thoughts.
"Oh, yes, you do," insisted Mr. Samson, with severe geniality. "Ford laid up and Miss Harding making bread pills, and all that. What 's the row?"
Mrs. Jakes regarded him with an eye as hard and as wary as a fowl's, and then looked round to see that the study door was securely shut.
"I 'm afraid, Mr. Samson," she said, in the low tones of confidential intercourse – "I 'm afraid we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding."
"Eh? What 's that?"
Old Mr. Samson would speak as though he were addressing a numerous company, and Mrs. Jakes' nervousness returned at his loud exclamation. She made hushing noises.
"Yes, but what's all this nonsense?" demanded Mr. Samson. "Somebody 's been pullin' your leg, Mrs. Jakes."
"No, indeed, Mr. Samson," Mrs. Jakes assured him hastily, as though urgent to clear herself of an imputation. "There is n't any doubt about it, – I 'm sorry to gay. You see, Mr. Van Zyl came here this afternoon and wanted to see Miss Harding in the study. Well, she would n't go to him."
"Why the deuce should she?" inquired Mr. Samson warmly. "Who 's Van Zyl to send for people like this?"
"It was about a Kafir," said Mrs. Jakes. "The police are looking for the Kafir and Miss Harding refused to help them. So – "
Mr. Samson's lips moved soundlessly, and he changed his position with a movement of lively impatience.
"Let 's have it from the beginning, please, Mrs. Jakes," he said, with restraint. "Can't make head or tail of it – way you 're telling it. Now, why did this ass Van Zyl come here?"
It was the right way to get the tale told forthright. His indignation and his scorn fanned the spark of spite in the core of Mrs. Jakes, who perceived in Mr. Samson another victim to Margaret's duplicity. She was galled by the constant supply of champions of the girl's cause who had to be laid low one after the other. She addressed herself to the incredulity and anger in the sharp old face before her, and spoke volubly and low, telling the whole thing as she knew it and perhaps a little more than the whole. As she went on, she became consumed with eagerness to convince Mr. Samson. Her small disfigured hands moved jerkily in incomplete gestures, and she rose on tiptoe as though to approach nearer to the seat of his intelligence. He did not again interrupt her, but listened with intentness, watching her as the swift words tumbled on one another's heels from her trembling lips. His immobility and silence were agonizing to her.
"So that's why I say that we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding," she concluded at last. "You wouldn't have thought it of her, would you, Mr. Samson? And it is a shocking thing to come across here, in the house, isn't it?"
Mr. Samson withdrew a hand from his pocket, looked thoughtfully at three coins in the palm of it, and returned them to the pocket again.
"You 're quite certain," he asked, "that she admitted the kissin'? There 's no doubt about that?"
"If I never speak another word," declared Mrs. Jakes, with fervor. "If I die here where I stand. If I never move from this spot – those were her exact words. It was then that poor Mr. Ford had his attack – he was so horrified."
"Well," said Mr. Samson, with a sigh, after another inspection of his funds, "so that 's the trouble, is it?"
"The doctor and I are much disturbed," continued Mrs. Jakes. "Naturally disturbed. Such a thing has never happened here before."
Mr. Samson heaved himself upright and put one foot on the bottom stair.
"It's only ignorance, of course," he said. "The poor little devil don't know what she 's letting herself in for. If she 'd only taken a bad turn after a month or so and – and gone out, Mrs. Jakes, we 'd have remembered her pleasantly enough then. Now, of course, she 'll have this story to live with. Van Zyl 'll put it about; trust him. Poor little bally fool."
"I 'm sorry for her, too, of course," replied Mrs. Jakes, putting out her hand to shake his. "Only of course I 'm – I 'm disgusted as well. Any woman would be."
"Yes," said Mr. Samson thoughtfully, commencing the ascent; "yes, she 'll be sure to get lots of that, now."
It was a vexation that abode with him that night and through the next day; it kept him from the sincere repose which is the right of straightforward and uncompromising minds, whose cleanly-finished effects have no loose ends of afterthought dangling from them to goad a man into revising his conclusions. Lying in the dark, wide awake and regretful, he had a vision of her in her room, welcoming its solitude and its freedom from reproachful eyes, glad now not of fellows and their companionship but of this refuge. It gave him vague pain. He experienced a sense of resentment against the arrangement and complexity of affairs that had laid open this gulf at Margaret's feet, and made its edges slippery to trap her. A touch of a more personal anger entered his thoughts as he dwelt on the figure of the girl, the fine, dexterous, civilized creature that she had been. She had known how to hold him with a pleasant humor, a light and stimulating irreverence, and to soften it to the point at which she bade him close his eyes and kissed him. But – and Mr. Samson flushed to the heat at which men swear – the Kafir, the roaming criminal nigger, had had that much out of her. Mrs. Jakes had not been faithful to detail on that head. "Kiss," she had said, not "kissed her hand." Mr. Samson might have seen a difference where Van Zyl, lacking his pretty discrimination of degrees in the administration and reception of kisses, had seen none.
The morning had brought no counsel; the day had delivered itself of nothing that enlightened or consoled him. Margaret had managed somehow, after a manner of her own, to withdraw herself from his immediate outlook, and there were neither collisions nor explanations. It was not so much that she preserved a distance as avoided contact, so that meals and meetings in the drawing-room or about the house suffered from no evidences of a change in their regard for each other. The adroitness with which it was contrived moved him to new regrets; she might, he thought, have done so well for herself, whereas now she was wasted.
This was the second morning since he had invaded Mrs. Jakes' confidences at the foot of the stairs and extracted her story from her. The gong at the breakfast-room door made soft blurred music at his back while he stood watching the remote figure of the trooper, sliding slowly across the skyline. It finished with a last note of added emphasis, a frank whack at the middle of the instrument, and he turned deliberately from his staring to obey it.
Mrs. Jakes, engine-driving the urn, was alone in the room when he entered, and gave him good morning with the smile which she had not varied for years.
"A beautiful day, is n't it?" she said.
"Oh, perfect," agreed Mr. Samson, receiving a cup of coffee from her. "I say. You haven't seen any signs of Van Zyl to-day, have you?"
"To-day? No," replied Mrs. Jakes, surprised. "Were you expecting – did he say – ?"
Mr. Samson shook his head. "No; I don't know anything about him," he told her. "It 's just that matter of Miss Harding, you know. From the stoep, just now, I was watching a mounted man riding slowly about on the veld, and it looks as if they were arranging a search. Eh?"
"Oh, dear," exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, "I do hope they won't come here again. I 've never had any trouble with the police before. And Mr. Van Zyl, generally so gentlemanly – when I saw how he treated Miss Harding, I was really sorry for her."
Mr. Samson sniffed. "Man must be a cad," he said. "Anyhow, I don't see what right he 's got to put his foot inside these doors. It was simply a bluff, I fancy. Next time he comes, I hope you 'll let me know, Mrs. Jakes. Can't have him treatin' that poor little fool like that, don't y' know."
"But they 've got a right to search, surely?" protested Mrs. Jakes. "And it never does to have the police against you, Mr. Samson. I had a cousin once – at least, he wasn't exactly a cousin – but he took a policeman's number for refusing to arrest a man who had been rude to him, and the policeman at once took him in custody and swore the most dreadful oaths before the magistrate that he was drunk and disorderly. And my cousin – I always used to call him a cousin – was next door to a teetotaller."
"Perhaps the teetotaller bribed the policeman," suggested Mr. Samson, seriously. "Still – what about Miss Harding? She has n't said anything to you about goin' back home, has she?"
"No," said Mrs. Jakes. She let the teetotaller pass for the time being as the new topic opened before her. "But I wanted to speak to you about that, Mr. Samson."
"Best thing she can do," he said positively. "There 's a lot of people at Home who don't mind niggers a bit. Probably would n't hurt her for a month and her doctors can spot some other continent for her to do a cure in."
"Now I 'm very glad to hear you say so, Mr. Samson," declared Mrs. Jakes. "You see, what to do with her is a good deal on our minds – the doctor's and mine. My view is – she ought to go before the story gets about."
"Quite right," agreed Mr. Samson.
"But Eustace – he 's so considerate, you know. He thinks of her feelings. He 's dreadfully afraid that she 'll fancy we 're turning her out and be hurt. He really doesn't quite see the real state of affairs; he has an idea it 'll all blow over and be forgotten."
Mr. Samson shook his head. "Not out here," he said. "That sort of story don't die; it lives and grows. Might get into the papers, even."
"Well, now," Mrs. Jakes' voice was soft and persuasive; "do you mind my telling the doctor how you look at it? He doesn't pay any attention to what I say, but coming from you, it 's bound to strike him. It would be better than you talking to him about it, because he would n't care to discuss one of his patients with another; but if I were just to mention, as an argument, you know – "
"Oh, certainly," acquiesced Mr. Samson, "certainly. Those are my views; anybody can know 'em. Tell Jakes by all means."
"Thank you," said Mrs. Jakes, with feeling. "It does relieve me to know that you agree with me. And it is such a responsibility."
Margaret's entrance shortly afterwards brought their conference to a close, and Mr. Samson was able to return to his food with undivided attention.
Margaret's demeanor since the exposure was a phenomenon Mrs. Jakes did not profess to understand. The tall girl came into the room with a high serenity that stultified in advance the wan little woman's efforts to meet her with a remote dignity; it suggested that Mrs. Jakes and her opinions were things already so remote from her interest that they could not recede further without becoming invisible. What she lacked, in Mrs. Jakes' view, was visible scars, tokens of punishment and suffering; she could conceive no other attitude in a person who stood so much in need of the mercy of her fellows. To a humility commensurate with her disapproval, she would have offered a forbearance barbed with condescension, peppered balm of her own brand, the distillation of her narrow and purposeful soul. As it was, she not only resented the girl's manner – she cowered.
"Good morning," said Margaret, smiling with intention.
"Good morning, Miss – ah – Miss Harding," was the best Mrs. Jakes could do.
"Morning," responded Mr. Samson, lifting his white head jerkily, hoping to convey preoccupation and casual absence of mind. "Morning, Miss Harding. Jolly day, what?"
"Oh, no end jolly," agreed Margaret, dropping into her place. "Yes, coffee, please, Mrs. Jakes."
"Certainly, Miss Harding," replied Mrs. Jakes, who had made offer of none, and fumbled inexpertly with the ingenious urn whose chauffeur and minister she was.
"How is Mr. Ford?" inquired Margaret next.
"Oh, yes," chimed in Mr. Samson, anxious to prevent too short a reply; "how 's he this morning, Mrs. Jakes. Nicely, thank you, and all that – eh?"
Mrs. Jakes was swift to seize the opportunity to reply in Mr. Samson's direction exclusively.
"He 's not to get up to-day," she explained. "But he 's doing very well, thank you. When I asked him what he 'd like for breakfast, he said: 'Oh, everything there is, please.' But, of course, he 's had a shock."
"Er – yes," said Mr. Samson hurriedly. "I 'll look him up before lunch, if I may."
"Certainly," said Mrs. Jakes graciously.
"Good idea," said Margaret. "So will I."
Mrs. Jakes shot a pale and desperate glance at her and then looked for support to Mr. Samson. But that leaning tower of strength was eating devotedly and would not meet her eye.
She envisaged with inward consternation a future punctuated by such meals, with every meal partaking of the nature of a hostile encounter and every encounter closing with a defeat. Her respectability, her sad virtue, her record clean of stain, did not command heavy enough metal to breach the gleaming panoply of assurance with which Margaret opposed all her attacks, and she felt the grievance common to those who are ineffectually in the right. The one bright spot in the affair was the possibility that she might now bend Jakes to her purpose, and be deputed to give the girl notice that she must leave the Sanatorium. She felt she could quote Mr. Samson with great effect to the doctor.
