These Delights (13 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

T
here
was no more rain, and on Monday Luke started cutting the hay. Hester and Corky were kept busy making pasties and cutting sandwiches for the men, and Vicky and Pauline carried out great jugs of
ci
der and beer to the fields, where the sound of the tractor fell incessantly on the drowsy air.

The girls worked with the men, pitchin
g the hay, and calling out: “Com
in’ up, m’dear!
”
“Proper weather, Tom
!”
“I be mazed with heat!” but Lou liked to sit in a nest of hay
,
nursing Bibi and begging surreptitious sips of
ci
der from anyone who would oblige him.

Diana came over to lend a hand, as she had promised, and watching her shake and pitch the hay with strong, well-muscled arms, Vicky saw that in this, as in other things, she worked with the tireless single-mindedness that was her characteristic.

“But she doesn’t have fun,” she said to Pauline, discovering what all along had worried her about Diana. “Look at her now, working so hard, so seriously. She doesn’t notice Ned Smale’s funny trousers, or the way the swathes look like waves lying so straight from the reaper, or joke with the men, or even flirt with Luke. She doesn’t stop for anything.”

“She is very proper,” observed Pauline. “She would not flirt with Luke in public.”

“That one,” said Vicky, narrowing her eyes in merriment, “would not flirt with anyone. Look at Lou! He’s got more
ci
der
—”

“
I like it,” said Lou simply, and dipped a finger in his mug and offered it to Bibi.

“Well, you are not to. Luke will be angry,” scolded Vicky, taking away the mug and draining it herself.

“Ned Smale will get me some more,
”
said Lou smugly.
“
He thinks I’m a proper little toad and no mistake.”

“Toad?” repeated Pauline doubtfully. “Isn’t that rather rude?”

“It’s Devon,” said Vicky. “You’m a proper little twoad, P
auline,
and your dress be torn and like to fall abroad sure enough.”

P
auline
, the neat one, immediately went into the house to stitch her torn frock, and Vicky flung herself down on a pile of hay and stared up at a lark soaring higher and higher into the untroubled sky.

“You’re very lazy, Vicky,” Diana observed, not pausing in her deft
tu
rning
of the swathes. “I’ve pitched twice as much as you and Pauline combined in the last hour.”

“I’m watching a lark,” said Vicky. “They are so lovely the way they go straight up and flutter, singing all the time.”

“Watchi
n
g larks won’t get the hay in,” replied Diana severely. “You’d better go and do it somewhere else, you’re only in the way here.”

Vicky rolled over in the hay and stretched luxuriously.

“I don’t think I’m in the way,” she said. “Luke likes to have us around. He said so.”

Diana paused for a moment to give a tolerant smile.

“Luke is very good-natured,” she said. “He wants you to enjoy yourselves, but you mustn’t trade on it
.
”

Vicky looked up at her, puzzled.

“What do you mean?”

Diana did not really know what she meant. It could not, strictly speaking, be said that the
Jordan
s were troublesome guests, but there was something about Vicky which made Diana want to carp and snub. She was honest enough to acknowledge this trait in herself, but she could not find the reason, and, for Diana, not to know the reason for her actions was a constant irritant
.

“
You must think it out for yourself,” she said evasively. “Here’s Luke, come to see why we’re both idling, I expect.”

But Luke stuck his pitch-fork in the ground and flung himself down beside Vicky.

“
Ten minutes stand-easy, I think,” he said. “Listen to that lark!”

“I’
ve been watching it,” Vicky said. “It soars and soars and sings and sings, but Diana says if we watch larks the hay won’t be got in.”

“Diana’s a fiend for work,” he said lazily, and held out his hand. “Come and rest, darling, and watch Vicky’s larks for a bit.”

Diana sat down reluctantly in the hay. She did not want to listen to Luke and Vicky babbling about larks or watch his careless fingers picking hay out of the girl’s tumbled hair.

“You look like Ophelia with straws in your hair,” he was saying. “I do believe it’s bleached even fairer with this sun. You look like a
little
silver guinea, if there is such a thing.
”

“Oh!” cried Vicky delighted. “Have I not a charming cousin, Diana? A silver guinea! But that is a very pretty compliment. I shall kiss you for that.” She sat up and flung her arms round him, kissing him fondly on the end of his nose. “And now, for Diana, what will you say? That she is like a dark swan, so proud and assured.”

“Not a bad simile,” laughed Luke. “You will always put us to shame for your neatness and elegance, Diana, even in a hayfield.”

But she replied rather coldly:

“I
think
you’re both very silly, and it’s hotter sitting here
than
it is working, so I’ll get on with it.”

Luke
watched her for a moment, a little frown between his eyes, then he got up and went over to speak to Tom Bowden. Vicky took her pitchfork and joined Diana.

“Diana, you are not annoyed—about the swan, I mean,” she said. “It was meant as a compliment. Swans—especially black swans, are very beautiful.”

“Of course I’m not annoyed,” said Diana curdy, “but I wish you wouldn’t talk for effect, Vicky. Luke doesn’t seem to notice, but I confess it irritates me.”

Vicky began turning the hay.

“I didn’t know I did,” she said humbly. “I don’t mean to, and I’m sorry if I irritate you, Diana. I want you to like me because you are going to marry our cousin.

Diana’s strong white arms, which never seemed to tan, performed their activities without a pause.

“My dear child, I don’t dislike you,” she said impatiently. “You’re so—so extravagant about everything, and I must own
I
could wish you didn’t have to
maul Luke
about in public so much.
”

“Maul?” repeated Vicky with distaste. “You mean I should not kiss him? But he is my cousin.
”

Diana gave her a look of acute dislike.

“He may be your cousin,
”
she said tartly, “but no man likes to be made a fool of in public. You’re too old to hang round his neck like a schoolgirl, Vicky.”

Vicky looked at her, and, for perhaps the first
time,
realized that Diana disliked her.

“I’ll try to remember,” she said quietly, and, throwing down her pitchfork, walked slowly away across the field.

The sun was hot on her arms and neck, and the short stubble scratched her ankles with little prides of irritation as she kicked thistles aside. She no longer heard the la
rk
singing, or even Luke’s voice
hailing h
er as she passed him.

“Hi, Vicky! Where are you off to?”

She st
o
pped then, looking in his direction
.
“I don’t know,
”
she said vaguely.

“You haven’t got a touch of the sun, have you?” he asked.
“
You look very flushed.”

“No—no, I’m all right
.
I think perhaps
I’ll
go in.”

“Yes, I should. Stay in the cool for a bit.”

She suddenly sprang away from his detaining hand and
r
an swiftly
back
to the house.

The next day it was cooler. Tom, looking at the sky, observed that he thought they would just be in time with the crop if they finished by evening, and Will Coker, whose turn it was next for the tractor, would be unlucky with the weather. Dianna came over again to help, bringing her spaniel with her, and by evening the
r
ick was neatly finished
.

It was as they were starting the thatching that disaster overtook the day. Snipe, who had been nosing excitedly in the stubble for rabbits, suddenly streaked across the field in full cry after something, and at the same instant there was a despairing shriek, and Lou appeared, running wildly from some hideout he had discovered earlier in the day.

“It’s Bibi!” he screamed. “He’s chasing Bibi! He’ll kill him, he’ll kill him!”

E
veryone started to run and shout, but Snipe, deaf to all but the chase, paid no heed, and they coul
d
see his black body and flying ears twisting this way and that through the stubble. Suddenly he pounced, there was a small squeak, and then he was trotting back across the field to lay his trophy at Diana’s feet “Good dog,” she said automatically, and stopped to pat him.

There was a moment’s horrified silence, then Vicky cried:

“How dare you praise him! He has killed Bibi—you should thrash him!”

“You can’t,” said Diana, reasonable even in that crisis, “thrash a dog for doing his job. How is he to know one rabbit from another?”

She ordered the dog to heel while Luke knelt down to examine the little body.

“Is he—is he dead?” asked Pauline.

“I’m afraid so,” Luke said gently, and Lou began to scream.

“Devil dog! Devil dog!” he sobbed. “He has killed my Bibi, and
she
says it was right. She is a devil, too!” A flood of disjointed French followed, and Vicky put her arms round him and held him to her.

Diana flushed.

“Well, really! I’m very sorry this has happened, but I can’t see
any
need to be rude.”

“One is not concerned with the politeness when one is in grief,” said Vicky with a dignity which did not sound absurd.

Luke
put an a
r
m round Lou and drew him away from Vicky.

“Lou, my child, you’ll make yourself ill,” he said in worried tones. “Poor Bibi! It’s a great tragedy, but he didn’t feel anything. Come and look at him, he is so peaceful, and just as you always knew
him.”

But Lou broke away.

“I don’t want to look at him,” he cried. “He’s dead, and I hate dead things.”

“He’ll cry himself into hysterics if someone doesn’t do something,” said Diana coldly. “Such a fuss about a rabbit
.
For heaven’s sake! I’ll buy the boy another tomorrow.”

Vicky looked at her gravely. She, like both the others, was weeping.

“That would not be at all the same,” she said gently. “Bibi was a French rabbit
.
”

Diana shrugged.

“Well, I’m very sorry,” she said again, then turned irritably to Luke. “Oh, for goodness sake, can’t someone take the child into the house? The rick will never be finished with all this pandemonium going on.”

But it was Corky who comforted Lou. He hurried across the field in his white coat, his little monkey face anxious and concerned. No one ever discovered how he knew something was wrong, but he led Lou away, talking to him in his jaunty Cockney voice until his tears stopped, and Pauline followed them.

Vicky picked up Bibi’s limp b
o
dy and gently stroked his long ears.

“To cross the Channel all the way from France to be killed by an English gun-dog,” she said sadly, and looked up at Luke watching her with compassion. “He was the only pet we ever had.”

“I know. Come with me, Vicky, and we’ll find a nice quiet place to bury him.”

She walked beside him, carrying the rabbit, and when Luke had made a little grave in Hester’s violet bed, she laid him tenderly down.

They knelt one each side of the small mound, and Luke said a little humbly:

“Diana didn’t mean to be unfeeling. She doesn’t understand.”

“No,” said Vicky, the tears drying on her face in the sun, “
she
doesn’t understand.”

The rick was finished by supper-time, and Diana said she would go home.

“I won’t stay to supper tonight,” she told Luke. “I’m not proof against three pairs of accusing eyes across the table.” He said nothing, and they walked together to her car, Snipe trotting contentedly at heel. She laid a tentative hand on his arm “Luke—you’re not angry with me, are you? I didn’t mean to sound callous, but really, you know, the whole thing was the child’s own fault. I’ve told him several times to keep his rabbit away from Snipe.”

“It was Lou’s fault, yes,” he said quie
tl
y, “but you might have shown a
little
more sympathy.”

She turned away from him, and her cheeks were pink. “I’m getting rather tired of continually being put in the wrong where your cousins are concerned,” she said, her face averted. “Vicky—all of them can behave as they like, but I’m the one whose made to feel censorious.”

“That’s absurd,” he replied. “No one puts you in the wrong unless you do so yourself, and as for feeling censorious—well, you are a little, aren’t you?”

“No more than any normal person would be in the circumstances. I can’t say I find many of their remarks amusing and it’s time Vicky at any rate learnt a
little
restraint.”

“I find Vicky’s lack of restraint rather refreshing after a surfeit of the other thing,” he said quite quie
tl
y.

“
Well
!”
She gave a hard
little
laugh.
“
You’ll be telling me next that you’re becoming infatuated with the child.”