The Passionate Year by James Hilton Read Free Book Online Page A

and remembering that
Miss Harrington had told him that she hated men. All the way during that
three-mile ride back to Millstead, with the swishing of the rain and the
occasional thunder and the steady jog-trot of the horse’s hoofs mingling
together in a memorable medley of sound, Speed sat snugly in his corner,
watching and wondering.
    Not much conversation passed between them. When they were nearing
Millstead, Speed said: “The other day as I passed near your drawing-room
window I heard somebody playing the Chopin waltzes. Was it you?”
    “It might have been.”
    He continued after a pause: “I see there’s a Chopin recital advertised in
the town for next Monday week. Zobieski, the Polish pianist, is coming up.
Would you care to come with me to it?”
    It was very daring of him to say that, and he knew it. She coloured to the
roots of her wet-gold hair, and replied, after a silence: “Monday, though,
isn’t it?—I’m afraid I couldn’t manage it. I always see Clare on
Mondays.”
    He answered instantly: “Bring Clare as well then.”
    “I—I don’t think Clare would be interested,” she replied, a little
confused. She added, as if trying to make up for having rejected his offer
rather rudely: “Clare and I don’t get many chances of seeing each other. Only
Mondays and Wednesday afternoons.”
    “But I see you with her almost every day.”
    “Yes, but only for a few minutes. Mondays are the only evenings that we
have wholly to ourselves.”
    He thought, but did not dare to say: And is it absolutely necessary that
you must have those evenings wholly to yourselves?
    He said thoughtfully: “I see.”
    He said nothing further until the cab drew up outside the main gate of
Millstead School. He was going to tell the driver to proceed inside as far as
the porch of the Head’s house, but she said she would prefer to get out there
and walk across the lawns. He smiled and helped her out. As he looked inside
the cab again to see if he had left any papers behind he saw that the
gaudily-coloured novelette had fallen out of her pocket and on to the floor.
He picked it up and handed it to her. “You dropped this,” he said merely. She
stared at him for several seconds and then took it almost sulkily.
    “I suppose I can read what I like, anyway,” she exclaimed, in a sudden hot
torrent of indignation.
    He smiled, completely astonished, yet managed to say, blandly: “I’m sure I
never dreamt of suggesting otherwise.”
    He could see then from her eyes, half-filling with tears of humiliation,
that she realised that she had needlessly made a fool of herself.
    “Please—please—don’t come with me any further,” she said,
awkwardly. “And thanks—thanks—very much—for—for
bringing me back.”
    He smiled again and raised his hat as she darted away across the wet
lawns. Then; after paying the driver, he walked straightway into the school
and down into the prefects’ bathroom, where he turned on the scalding hot
water with jubilant anticipation.
VII
    The immediate result of the incident was an invitation to
dine at the Head’s a few days later. “It was very—um,
yes—thoughtful and considerate of you, Mr. Speed,” said the Head,
mumblingly. “My daughter—a heedless child—just like her to omit
the—um—precaution of taking some—um, yes—protection
against any possible change in the weather.”
    “I was rather in the same boat myself, sir,” said Speed, laughing. “The
thunderstorm was quite unexpected.”
    “Um yes, quite so. Quite so.” The Head paused and added, with
apparent inconsequence: “My daughter is quite a child, Mr. Speed—loves
to gather flowers—um—botany, you know, and—um—so
forth.”
    Speed said: “Yes, I have noticed it.”
    Dinner at the Head’s house was less formal than on the previous occasion.
It was a Monday evening and Clare Harrington was there. Afterwards in the
drawing-room Speed played a few Chopin studies