Love Lies Dreaming by C S Forester Read Free Book Online Page A

sound of my key in the door there was no untidy head thrust out of the kitchen. Instead she came bustling forth with a smile, a smile that vanished as soon as she saw my face, and her eager questionings grew mute.
    Later she brought in my breakfast, as I sat in torment by the unlighted fire. I did not move toward it; she must have expected me to have no interest in breakfast at that moment. With never a word spoken she poured out a cup of tea and brought it across to me, and as she stood at my side waiting for me to take it her free arm touched my elbow. It may have been my involuntary movement that moved her. However it was, I found myself holding that cup of tea, and sipping from it, too, with my charwoman patting me on the shoulder and murmuring silly little words of comfort. Silly little words, and there was no doubt at all that it was an unheard-of thing for a charwoman to pat her employer on the shoulder, but a lonely and desolate man takes comfort from all sorts of strange things.
    Yet no later than the next morning did I think Mrs. Rundle heartless, despite the fact that “The Laurels” had announced that Constance was much better, and that my last fear might not be realized. Mrs. Rundle came to me and asked for an advance on her wages, not due for another three days. I gave it to her; it was not a matter to argue about at a time like that, but I caught myself wondering whether Constancewould approve, and also feeling a slight irritation that Mrs. Rundle should bother me about that sort of thing at a time when I had other troubles.
    For I had to arrange with a ghoulish man, hard of eye and oily of mouth, about Baby John’s first and last, ride through London streets. Baby John and I, alone in a carriage together, while Constance struggled back to health in that disinfectant-scented room at “The Laurels.” Baby John and I, while the errand boys snatched off their cap as we passed, and the horses reined up to let us through—such of them as had drivers of any courtesy. Baby John and I; and he would never, much as I had looked forward to it, point wonderingly at the horses and the big, red omnibuses, never dribble excitedly at the pageant of the streets, never, never, never. February, and we passed half a dozen trees glorious in almond blossom, mocking the hopes I had built upon so slight a foundation. But with Baby John there rode fresh spring flowers, scented and wonderful. That was why Mrs. Rundle had asked for that advance payment of wages. A drunken husband left her no money at mid-week for flowers for Baby John.
    And the horses’ hoofs drummed out one persistent, half-remembered phrase.
    â€œIf blood be the price of admiralty—
    If blood be the price of admiralty—
    If blood be the price of admiralty—
    Lord God, we have paid for all.”
    Meaningless words, for Constance had paid in blood and agony for much less than admiralty.
    It was a bleak and drear place to which Baby John and I took our only ride together, and there was a bleak wind. Then homeward, by myself, all alone, with the almond blossom nagging at me as I passed it.

Chapter V
    It is a pity that this last day of Mrs. Rundle’s should come on a wet Saturday. Of course I am a coward to wish myself out of the house on this occasion; I will even admit it; I am annoyed and bothered that it is raining too hard and determinedly for me to plead the possibility of its stopping so that I can slip away to the golf club and escape Mrs. Rundle’s quiet acceptance of the inevitable—and the reproach in Constance’s eyes. The three of us are all being obstinately logical and as miserable as the devil. It is a pity, too, that I let myself think about Baby John and Mrs. Rundle yesterday. It makes me all the more miserable. It seems Judas-like to dismiss her after that, and yet if every one allowed the fact that a person was in his service at the time of the death of his only child to influence him in his