“Put the nosebags on!” he commanded.
It was on the evening of that day that the earthquake, faintly hinted at
near the railway station, broke out in another place. The wagonettes had
been fairly well patronised. A few couples, down with the announced
intention of enjoying a good long walk through the forest, changed their
minds and accepted carriage exercise as a substitute. Woods, before
going home, shook hands with the ladies, and pointed out that everything
in this world dried straight if you only gave it time and fair weather.
The motor-driver on his last journey brought, as a peace offering, two
cigars presented by a grateful passenger. One of these Mr. Woods was
smoking near the stables as he waited for his housekeeper’s summons to
the evening meal: she was a good woman, honest and religious, but
apparently had never learned to tell the time by the clock. He was, I
say, smoking; he was also thinking—a frequent conjunction.
When a tremendous clatter and hubbub came, arousing him, and causing him
to say distractedly:
“Whatever fresh is a ’appening of now?”
Out in the roadway a set of a dozen women, including the most notable
female inhabitants of the village, marched, his sister-in-law at the
head, banging as they went on dustpans, old teatrays, saucepans, and
other instruments of music rarely to be discovered in a first-class
orchestra. The aim seemed to be discord, and that end was certainly
being achieved. Some children followed, making a cloud of dust as they
slouched along. The marchers disappeared. Woods, regarding them as they
went, knew the incident to represent a violent outbreak of moral
indignation, and reckoned it a good answer to the complaint made by an
American that day to the effect that English country life appeared dull.
His housekeeper came, announcing, with a severe air of promptitude, the
readiness of a meal that was three-quarters of an hour late, and appeared
willing for conversation; but he told her he had enjoyed enough of talk.
What he desired now was peace and quietness.
Consequently, news only came to him at six in the morning when his men
arrived at the stables. Having gathered the fact that Jane had locked
her daughter out the previous evening, he left them at once and ran
across to his sister-in-law’s cottage: there the dogged, sulky,
half-dressed woman refused to share responsibility for her actions with
any one, and he expressed, not for the first time, an earnest wish that
his brother had been spared. He hurried agitatedly down to the Tea
Gardens, where Mrs. Jarrett was whitening, at this early hour, the steps.
“It’s all right,” she said, rising. “Fancy you catching me like this,
with my hair in curlers! The girl came here last night, and we hadn’t
gone to bed because of the noise.”
“The noise going by?”
She swallowed something. “No, stopping here.”
Woods expressed a desire to engage in the wholesale trade of breaking
necks.
“And I let her come in, and if her mother doesn’t want her back, why, she
can stay here.”
He glanced up at the signboard.
“Clara Jarrett, proprietress,” he said deliberately, “you’re the best
little woman I’ve ever come across as yet, and if you think I shall make
a pretty fair sort of a husband I wish you’d just say the word.”
“It’s a pity, dear, about the motor-omnibuses,” she remarked later.
“Wrote off last night,” said Mr. Woods, with the wink of a business man,
“to buy some shares in the concern!”