The Happy Warrior Part 32

III

That was Percival's view of her. She had put up her hair, he noticed, since last he saw her. It was dressed low on the nape of her neck; evening's last gleam delighted in its glossy blackness against her olive skin. Beneath the arm across her face he saw the long lashes of her eyelids almost on her cheeks, as she stood looking downwards. Her mouth was long, the lips, blending in a dark red with her brown colouring, lying pleasantly together in the expression that partners the level eye and the comfortable mind. She was full as tall as Percival--very slim in the build and long in the waist that was moulded naturally from her hips to spread and cup her bosom, and therefore taller to the eye. She wore a blouse of dark red cloth; her skirt was of blue, hung short of her ankles, and pressing her thighs disclosed how alert and braced she stood. She wore no shoes nor stockings, and her feet, slender and long, appeared no more than to rest upon the short gra.s.s that framed them softly.

"What of Ima?"

"Ima?--Ima has grown, though," Percival said. "Why, she's simply sprung up!"

"Ay, grown," j.a.phra agreed. "Grown fair," he added, watching her.

Percival said, "Yes, she is pretty." The vision of Dora's high fairness came to his mind, challenged and rebuked his favour of another of her s.e.x, and returned him swiftly to the stress that had brought him down here for comfort and that the first reencounter with j.a.phra had caused to be overshadowed. His eyes lost their brightness. He remained looking dully at Ima, not seeing her; and presently started and flushed to realise that he was hearing a repeated question from j.a.phra.

"What ails, master?"

"Ails? I heard you the first time, j.a.phra. I was thinking. I'm troubled--sick. That's what ails."

His face flushed with the same cloudy redness that the beat of rising tears drives into the faces of children. On the Ridge he had put against his trouble the stiffness that was of the bone of Burdon character. Down here was sympathy--and he was very young; it sapped the stubbornness.

"That's what I'm here for," he said thickly. "To tell you, j.a.phra."

j.a.phra had a keen look to meet the misty countenance that was turned to him.

"Food first, then," he said, and gave a twinkle and a sniff at the savour from Ima's cooking that made Percival smile in response.

"Naught like a meal to take the edge off trouble. There'd be few quarrels in the world if we all had full bellies always."

"Well, food first, then," Percival agreed, making an effort; and he raised his voice: "What's Ima got for us?"

She turned at the sound of her name and smiled towards him, and the smile caused beauty to alight upon her face as a dove with a flashing of soft wings comes to a bough. He saw it. Her beauty abode in her mild mouth and in her seemly eyes. Her parted lips discovered it to step upon her face; her raised eyes released it, starry as the stars that star the forest pool, to star her countenance.

CHAPTER IV

IMA'S LESSONS

She had odd ways, Percival found--oddly attractive; sometimes oddly disconcerting. She did not at first contribute to the conversation while they ate. She was very quiet; and that, and the way in which, as he noticed, she kept her eyes upon him, was in itself odd. Dusk was veiling the camp as they took the stew she had prepared. They had the meal on the gra.s.s near the van, and Percival, not eating with great ease in the squatting pose, noticed how erect she sat, as though her back were invisibly supported--her plate on her lap, the soles of her bare feet together.

He deferred his trouble, as j.a.phra had proposed, till the meal should be done. He was interested to know where the van had been all these months; and when he questioned j.a.phra, "We have had the solitary desires, Ima and I," j.a.phra told him. "The solitary desires, master, whiles thou hast been growing. A sudden wearying of Maddox's and all the noisy ones. North to Yorkshire, we have been; west to Bristol's border; deeper west to Cornwall. The road has had the spell on us--calling from every bend and ever keeping a bend ahead, as the road will to those who are of it. Summers we have pa.s.sed the circus on its tour and laid a night with old Stingo and then away, urgent to move quicker and lonelier. Trouble has worsened in the circus crowd."

"What, between Stingo's men and Boss Maddox's?"

"Ay," said j.a.phra. "Boss Maddox is the biggest showman in the west these days. He rents the pitches at all the fairs before the season begins; and the Stingo crowd, who must take what he gives, he puts in the worst places. His hand is heavy against them. One fine day the sticks will come out and there'll be heads broken, as happened on the road back in '60. I was in that and carry the mark of it on my pate to this hour. Pray I'll be there when this one falls."

"I'd like to be with you, j.a.phra."

j.a.phra showed his tight-lipped smile: "Well, a camp fight with the sticks out and the heads cracking is a proper game for a man, master.

Thou'dst be a handy one at it, I warrant me."

Ima broke in with her first contribution to their talk. She said quickly: "Shame, Father. Not for such as he--fights and the rough ways."

But she was silent again and without reply when Percival sought to rally her for this opinion of him; and j.a.phra twinkled at him and said: "There's one would like to meet thee, though--sticks or fists"; and went on, when Percival inquired who: "Thy friend Pinsent. Thy name of Foxy for him has stuck to him and he has not forgiven thee. A fine fighter he has grown--boxed in some cla.s.s rings for good purses in the winter months, and in the summer is a great attraction at the fairs.

Boss Maddox is fond of him. Boss Maddox has fitted him with a booth of his own and he gets the crowds--deserves 'em, too. But 'Foxy' has stuck to him--and suits him. He hates it; and's not forgotten where he owes it."

Percival laughed. "Well, if he's done so well, I ought to be proud to have given him something to remember me by. He could wallop me to death, of course."

"There's few of his weight he could not hand the goods to," j.a.phra agreed. He looked estimatingly at Percival and added: "One that could keep the straight left in his face a dozen rounds'd serve it up to him, though. Foxy has no bowels for punishment. I have watched him."

And again Ima broke in. "Ah, why dost talk so?" she addressed her father. "He is nothing for such ways--fights and the fighting sort."

This time Percival would not let her opinion of him escape without challenge. "Why, Ima!" he turned to her, "that's the second time you've said that. Seems to me you think I ought to be wrapped in cotton-wool."

His voice was bantering, but had a note of impatience. The events of the day had not made him in humour to take lightly any estimate of himself that seemed to reflect on his manliness.

She noticed it. Her voice when she answered him had a caressing sound as though she realised she had vexed him and would beg excuse. "Nay, only that thou art not for the rough ways--such as thou," she said; and, mollified, he laughed and told her: "Well, you never used to think so, anyway. You've changed, you know, Ima, changed a lot since I last saw you."

"And should have changed," j.a.phra announced. "Scholar with lesson books, she has been these winter months."

Percival thought that very quaint. "Scholar, Ima; have you?" he asked her, and saw the blood run up beneath her dusky skin. "I can't imagine you at lessons!"

"Nor those who taught me," she replied; and paused and added very gravely, speaking in her gentle voice, "Yet have I learnt--and still shall learn."

Percival asked: "Learnt what?"

Odd her ways--oddly attractive, oddly disconcerting; speaking steadily and more as if it were to herself and not to listeners that she spoke.

"Learnt to sit on a chair," she told him, "and to sit at a table nicely; to wear shoes on my feet, and stockings; to go to church and sing to G.o.d in heaven; to talk properly as house folk talk; to sleep in a bed; to wear a hat and stiff clothes; to abide within doors when the rain falls and when the stars alight in the sky--these have I learnt."

Percival was tempted to laugh, but her gravity forbade him. "How terrible it sounds--for you! But why, Ima, why?"

She did not answer the question. She smiled gently at him and went on with the same air of speaking to herself: "Lessons from books, also.

Figures and the making of sums; geography--as capes and bays and what men make and where; of a new fashion of how to hold the pen stiffly in writing; of nice ways in speaking--chiefly that I should say 'you' when I would say 'thou'--that is hardest to me; but I shall learn."

Something almost pleading was in her voice as she repeated, "I shall learn;" and Percival turned for relief of his puzzlement to j.a.phra: "Why, whatever's it all for, j.a.phra?"

j.a.phra gave his tight-lipped smile. "Woman's reasons--who shall discover such?" But Ima made a motion of protest, and he went on: "Nay, the chance fell, and truly I was glad she should have woman's company--and gentle company. In Norfolk where we pitched the winter gone by was a doctor I had known when we were young--he and I. He shipped twice aboard a cattle boat with me, having the restlessness on him in those days. Now I found him stout and proper, but not forgetful of an indifferent matter between us. He brought his lady to the van, and she conceived a fancy for Ima, holding her a fair, wild thing that should be tamed. Therefore took Ima to her house and to her board, and taught her as she hath instructed thee. Thus was the manner of it; as to the wherefore--why, woman's reasons, as I have said," and he smiled again.

Ima got abruptly to her feet. The meal was ended, and she began to collect the plates. Her action plainly rebuked the further questions with which Percival was playfully turning to her. He offered instead to help her with her washing of the dishes, but she told him: "Nay, maid's work this. Abide thou with father, and talk men's talk." In the action of moving away she turned to j.a.phra and added her earlier plea: "So it is not of boxing and the rough ways."

CHAPTER V

j.a.pHRA'S LESSONS

I

j.a.phra took up Ima's words when she had left them. "Nay, but the boxing is my business," j.a.phra said, filling his pipe. "I'm for the boxing again this summer. Money's short and old Pilgrim yonder has full earned his rest and must have another take up his shafts. Another horse is to be bought, wherefore a sparring booth again for me."