Rest Harrow: A Comedy of ResolutionHewlett, Maurice
General
Rest Harrow: A Comedy of Resolution
Hewlett, Maurice
Fiction
“I suppose he is like that,” Sanchia said, as if it was a curious case.
“I have never spoken to him. He was about, of course--but Vicky took
him up after--my time.” For a moment emotion, like a wet cloud, drifted
across her eyes. “I should like to see Vicky again. It's eight years.”
Chevenix was anxious. “I do think it could be managed, you know--with
tact. I'd do any mortal thing, Sancie--you know I would, but--” He
despaired. “Tact! Tact! That's what you want.”
Her soft mood chased away. She looked at him full. “I can't use what
you call tact with Vicky. That means that I am to grovel.” She drove him
back to his photographs. He peered into the little print on the wall.
“What have we here? A domestic scene, my hat! You appear to be
bathing--well over the knee, anyhow. High-girt Diana, when no man is by.
Awfully jolly you look. But he _is_ by. Who on earth's this chap?”
He peered. Sanchia from her tea-table watched him, in happy muse. He
shouted his discovery. “I remember the chap! Now, what on earth was he
called? Your casual friend, who lived in a cart and only had three pair
of bags. Nohouse--Senhouse! That was the man.” He looked with interest
at the pair, then at Sanchia. “Mixed bathing--what?”
She laughed. “Yes--we both got wet to the skin. Percy Charnock took it
ages ago--oh, ages! Before I was out, or knew Nevile, or anybody except
you. It was ten years ago. I must have been eighteen. It was when I
was at Gorston with Grace Mauleverer--trying to save water-lilies from
drowning in green scum. He--Mr. Senhouse--came along in his cart, and
saw me, and lent me his bed for a raft--and worked it himself. That was
the first time I ever saw him--” she ended softly in a sigh: “before
anything happened.”
Chevenix listened, nodding at the photograph. “Wish to heaven, my dear,
nothing had ever happened. The less that happens to girls the better for
them, I believe. Not but what _this_ chap would have been all right. If
_he_ had happened, now! He was as mad as a hatter, but a real good sort.
Did I tell you?” He grew suddenly reminiscent. “I saw him a little more
than a year ago--with a pretty woman. Had a talk with him--asked him
to come up and have a look at you. It was when Nevile went off on this
trip. No, no, I liked old Senhouse. He was a nice-minded chap. Not the
kind to eat you up--and take everything you've got as if he had a
right to it. No. That's Nevile's line, that is. You wouldn't see Nevile
lending you his bed, or risking his life after water-lilies.”
Sanchia's eyes were narrow and critical. She peered as if she were
trying to find good somewhere in Nevile Ingram. “He'd risk anything to
get what he thought were his rights. But not upon a bed for a raft.
He'd write to London for the latest thing in coracles. He's very
conventional.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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