Faster! Faster! by E. M. Delafield Read Free Book Online Page B

down, please, darling.”
    Her mother sounded calm — almost absent-minded, as though she had already dismissed the whole topic of Taffy’s frock from her mind.
    Nevertheless Taffy knew that something was still vibrating in the atmosphere between them, born of that tiny scene.
    Only she didn’t know what it was.
(5)
    Moved by a belated impulse of hospitality, Copper Winsloe emerged from the workshop, his dog Betsy at his heels, with the idea of finding a drink for Quarrendon.
    The chap, although extraordinary to look at, seemed to be not a bad sort. He talked less than did most of Claudia’s friends, and, although probably clever—“a brain” Cooper mentally termed him—had so far shown no offensive signs of it.
    Quarrendon was nowhere to be seen. He must have gone upstairs to dress. Copper wondered doubtfully whether the chap proposed to get into evening clothes. Still—Oxford.
    He ought to be all right.
    Betsy, who was young and light-hearted, made a frivolous attempt to pounce at Taffy’s cat, stalking morosely across the hall.
    Copper indulgently called Betsy to order.
    He was much kinder and more lenient towards animals than towards human beings.
    Betsy adored him.
    Everyone was upstairs.
    Copper, first disposing of a drink on his own account and then of one on behalf of the absent Quarrendon, went up to his dressing-room.
    As he took the loose change from his trouserpocket and placed it on the table, he reflected in a detached way that this — three shillings and eightpence—was literally all the money he had in the world.
    He had never had any savings—his war gratuity had been spent long ago, and his share of the money his parents had left, divided between himself and two sisters, both of whom had married poor men, had gone, bit by bit, to his creditors.
    With bitterness Copper remembered that before the war he had been quite well off, and had enjoyed life, on a tea plantation in Ceylon. The climate had never troubled him, and he had had sport, and cheap polo, and the kind of society that he enjoyed. His idiotic war marriage had stopped all that. One couldn’t take a girl like Claudia to live in the Far East. She’d have been miserable, out of her element altogether. After the war was over, she had said that of course she’d go—if Copper really wanted it. Probably she’d meant it too. But there seemed to be a doubt about her health—Mrs Peel making a fuss, and insisting on getting an opinion from some old woman of a doctor. And of course the doctor, probably seeing what was required ofhim, had said that Claudia wasn’t any too strong. So they had stayed in England.
    Claudia not strong!
    Copper’s mouth twisted into a smile at the thought. As he had told Sal Oliver, he scarcely knew how he and Claudia had reached the stage at which they now found themselves—and that didn’t apply only to the continual financial pressure against which Claudia struggled gamely, and to which Copper himself had long since surrendered without resistance.
    In the early years after the war he had tried hard to get a job, and had failed again and again.
    Then Claudia’s father died, and she had inherited some money. They had lived on it—and much beyond it—for years. Claudia had decided to start a business that had gradually succeeded, and developed into London Universal Services. Then she had bought Arling. It would, she said, be better for the children to live in the country.
    It would give Copper something to do.
    It would prove cheaper in the long run.
    Copper believed in none of these reasons. Claudia wanted to live in her old home, that was all.
    He didn’t even understand why. It wasn’t like her, surely, to be sentimental.
    Arling was well enough, but the purchase mortgage remained unpaid, bills were always coming in, and to-morrow’s money was never quite enough to meet yesterday’s demands.
    Copper savagely