God Is an Englishman by R. F. Delderfield Read Free Book Online Page A

treated him as though he was a casual acquaintance, or even a servant, and now that he thought about it she had always had some approximation of this attitude towards him, as though he was a useful piece of furni ture, or a carriage horse awaiting her pleasure. It disconcerted him, but deep down he admired her for at least it argued that she had in herited his independence and was unlikely to become anyone’s fool. His mind returned again to Makepeace Goldthorpe, and he thought “By God, if anything does come of it there’s no doubt who’ll wear the britches!” and said, by way of a preamble, “Matt Goldthorpe and his son are supping here this evening.”
    “Mrs. Worrell told me. She said I was to help out with them.”
    “Aye, that’s so.” Her acceptance of the rarely demanded duty of hostess pleased him. She was, he decided, more like a man in her ability to grasp essentials without a lot of tiresome explanation and suddenly he wanned towards her, watching her movements in the mirror with an almost affectionate contempt.
    “Eh, lass, let me lend a hand with that damned contraption. The neck of that birdcage needs stretching. It were made for a lass wi’ nowt to tak’ hold of.” He lifted the wire over her head as she let fall the voluminous green folds, revealing her frilled pantalettes that he thought of as women’s reach-me-downs and a corset that was laced so tightly that her chubby behind jutted beyond its rim like a ledge and pushed her rounded breasts half out of her camisole. He addressed himself to bending the master wire outward, giving the cage an over all extension of over an inch in circumference while she walked unconcernedly to the wardrobe and shrugged herself into a flannel gown.
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    Fugitive in a Crinoline 2 5
    The room, he noticed, was in disarray. Garments, packing paper, and ribbons were strewn about, and all the rugs were scuffed. Beyond the open door of the wardrobe he could see an array of dresses, cloaks, and boots, and a compartment at the top full of hats. It occurred to him that he must have paid for all that clutter and also that Mrs. Worrell’s niece was probably making a damned good thing out of Henrietta’s patronage, but he didn’t resent it . She was his prop erty and there was no reason why he should object to reinvesting a little of his profits in one of his assets. He had not come here with the idea of sounding her out, but now it seemed advisable to know where they stood in relation to Matt Goldthorpe’s suggestion. Never having acquired the least finesse in the matter of striking bargains he went straight to the point.
    “That son of Goldthorpe’s, Makepeace, the eldest one. He’s sweet on you, lass.” Her head came up sharply, trapping a ray of the afternoon sun in a cluster of copper ringlets. Before today, before he had begun to think about her as a mar-riageable woman, it would have taxed him to state the colour of her hair, but now he saw it as one of her selling points. The new dress, and the carefully arranged clusters of ring lets worn over each ear, suggested that she was as interested in her personal appearance as all young women growing up out of reach of the looms, and it struck him that she might find a certain amount of satisfaction in what she saw in that long mirror. There was a word almost everybody about here used for a woman like her, but moment arily it escaped him. Then it came to him, a word from over the Pennines. Gradely. Her sharp reaction to his mention of the Goldthorpes, however, had put him on guard so that he was not surprised when she said, “That Goldthorpe boy? The one with the droopy moustache who spits when he opens his mouth?”
    He chuckled. “Nay, lass, his stammer’s nowt to worry about. He’ll get over that the minute he walks into Matt Goldthorpe’s pile, and he’ll get pretty near all of it.
    The Goldthorpes think of themselves as gentry, and gentry don’t divide the