Carnival Part 77

Chapter XLIV: _Picking Up Threads_

Castleton arrived at Bochyn under a November sunset, whose lemon glow, barred with indigo banks of cloud, was reflected with added brightness in the flooded meadows and widening stream. Jenny in the firelight was singing and rocking her baby to sleep. She jumped up to open the door to his knock.

"Why, Fuz," she said simply.

He stood enormous against the last gleams of day, and Jenny realized with what small people she had been living so long.

"Jane," he said, "this is a big moment."

He followed her into the room and waited while she lit the lamp and pointed with warning finger to the child asleep in a silence of ticking clocks.

"There's a surprise, or isn't it?"

"Rather," said Castleton. "It looks very well."

"Oh, Fuz. It! You are dreadful. He's called Frank, and fancy, I never knew you were called Frank till you wrote to me last month."

"Another disappointment," sighed Castleton.

"What?"

"Why, of course I thought you altered his name to celebrate my visit."

"You never didn't?" said Jenny, already under slow rustic influences not perfectly sure of a remark's intention. Then suddenly getting back to older and lighter forms of conversation, she laughed.

"Well, how are you, Jenny?" he inquired.

"Oh, I'm feeling grand. Where are you staying?"

"The One and All Inn."

"Comfortable?"

"I fancy very, from a quick glance."

"You'll stay and have tea with us and meet my husband," Jenny invited.

"I shall be proud."

A silence fell on these two friends.

"Well, what about dear old London?" said Jenny at last.

"It's extraordinarily the same. Let me see, had tubes and taxis been invented before you went away?" Castleton asked.

"Don't be silly. Of course," she exclaimed, outraged by such an implication of antediluvian exile.

"Then flatly there is nothing to tell you about London. I was at the Orient the other night. I need not say the ballet was precisely the same as a dozen others I have seen, and you have helped at."

"Any pretty new girls?" Jenny asked.

"I believe there are one or two."

"How's Ronnie Walker?"

"He still lives more for painting than by painting, and has grown a cream-colored beard."

"Oh, he never hasn't. Then he ought to get the bird."

"So that he could say: 'Four owls and a hen, two larks and a wren, have all built their nests in my beard'? It isn't big enough, Jane."

"And Cunningham, how's he?"

"Cunningham is married. I don't know his wife, but I'm told she plays the piano a great deal better than he does. As for myself," said Castleton quickly, "I have chambers in the Temple, but live at home with my people, who have moved to Kensington. There, you see what alarming cataclysms have shaken the society you deserted. Now tell me about yourself."

"Oh, I jog along," said Jenny.

Further reminiscence was interrupted by the entrance of Trewh.e.l.la, who saluted Castleton suspiciously and from shyness somewhat brusquely.

"How do you do sir?" said the guest, conspicuously agreeable.

"I'm very well, thank 'ee. Come far, have 'ee?"

"London."

"That's a poor sort of place. I was there once. But I didn't take much account of it," said Trewh.e.l.la.

"You found it disappointing?"

"Ess, ess, too many c.o.c.kneys for a Cornishman. But I wasn't robbed over-much. I believe I was too sharp for them."

"I'm glad of that," said the representative of cities.

"You do talk a lot of rot about London," said Jenny contemptuously. "As if you could know _any_thing about it!"

"I found all I wanted, my dear," said Trewh.e.l.la winking. He seemed in a mind to impress the foreigner.

"By carrying off Je--Mrs. Trewh.e.l.la, eh?" said Castleton. "Come, after that, I don't think you ought to grumble at London."

Trewh.e.l.la darted a suspicious glance as if to demand by what right this intruder dared to comment on his behavior.

The presence of a stranger at tea threw a munching silence over all the lower end of the table; but Castleton made a great impression on Granfa, who asked him a number of questions and sighed admiration for each new and surprising answer.

"But there's one thing I believe you can't tell me," said Granfa. "Or if you can, you're a marvel."

"And what is that?" inquired Castleton.