England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Poets -- Fiction; Sisters -- Fiction
"Oh, he didn't touch the bread," said Miss Peasey. "Trust him for that.
I never knew a large dog so dainty before."
Guy decided to postpone the subject of the bed and try Miss Peasey more
personally.
"Could you spare your chest of drawers?" he asked, at top voice.
Miss Peasey, however, did not answer, and from her complete indifference
to his question Guy knew that she did not like the idea of such a loan.
It looked as if he would be compelled to borrow the furniture from the
Rectory; and then he thought how, after all, it would be a doubly good
plan to do so, inasmuch as it would partially involve his father in the
obligations of a guest. Moreover, it could scarcely fail to be a slight
reproach to him that his son should have to borrow bedroom furniture
from the family of his betrothed.
Pauline was, of course, delighted at the idea of lending the furniture,
and she and Guy had the greatest fun together in amassing enough to
equip what would really be a very charming spare room. Deaf-and-dumb
Graves was called in; and Birdwood helped also, under protest at the
hindrance to his work, but at the same time reveling, if Birdwood could
be said to revel, in the diversion. Mrs. Grey presided over the
arrangement and fell so much in love with the new bedroom that she
pillaged the Rectory much more ruthlessly than Pauline, and in the end
they all decided that Guy's father would have the most attractive
bedroom in Wychford. Guy, with so much preparation on hand, had no time
to worry about the conduct of his father's visit, and after lunch on
Thursday he got into the trap beside Godbold and drove off equably
enough to meet the train at Shipcot.
Mr. Hazlewood was in appearance a dried-up likeness of his son, and Guy
often wondered if he would ever present to the world this desiccated
exterior. Yet, after all, it was not so much his father's features as
his cold eyes that gave this effect of a chilly force; he himself had
his mother's eyes, and, thinking of hers burning darkly from the glooms
of her sick-bed, Guy fancied that he would never wither to quite the
inanimate and discouraging personality on the platform in front of him.
"The train's quite punctual," said Mr. Hazlewood in rather an aggrieved
tone of voice, such as he might have adopted if he had been shown a
correct Latin exercise by a boy whom he was anxious to reprove.
"Yes, this train is usually pretty punctual," Guy answered, and for a
minute or two after a self-conscious hand-shake they talked about
trains, each, as it seemed, trying to throw upon the other the
responsibility of any conversation that might have promoted their ease.
Guy introduced his father to Godbold, who greeted him with a kind of
congratulatory respect and assumed towards Guy a manner that gave the
impression of sharing with Mr. Hazlewood in his paternity.
"Hope you're going to pay us a good long visit," said Godbold,
hospitably, flicking the pony.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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