The Simpkins Plot Part 10

"Is that the one the Major stood for?" said Doyle. "He was talking to me about her. A fine child she is by all accounts."

"She was a fine child," said Meldon, "until she got the whooping-cough.

Since then she's been wakeful at night.--By the way, doctor, what do you think is the proper way to feed a child that has the whooping-cough? At the present time she's living chiefly on a kind of yellow drink made up out of a powdery stuff out of a tin which tastes like biscuits when it's dry. Would you say now that was a good food for her?"

"You can rear a child," said the doctor, "whether it has the whooping-cough or not, on pretty near anything, so long as you give it enough of whatever it is you do give it."

"I'm glad to bear you say that," said Meldon; "for my wife has a notion that food ought to be weighed out by ounces, so that the child wouldn't get too much at a time."

"Did she get that out of a book?"

"She did--a little book with a pink cover on it. Do you know it?"

"I do not; but if I were you I'd burn it."

"I did," said Meldon. "I burned it before it was a week in the house.

If I hadn't been a good-tempered man, I'd have burned the baby along with it. She spent the whole of four nights crying, and that was before she got the whooping-cough, so there was no excuse for her."

"It was hunger ailed her then," said the doctor.

"It was," said Meldon. "I found that out afterwards, for she stopped crying as soon as ever she got enough to eat. If I'd allowed her to be brought up on the principles laid down in that book her temper would have been ruined for life, and she'd have been a nuisance to every one she came across."

"I wouldn't wonder," said Doyle, "but it might be according to that book that Simpkins was reared. It would be hard to account for the kind of man he is any other way."

"It might be that," said the doctor; "but I'd say myself it's more likely to be the want of beating when he was young that's the matter with him."

"Will you stay and have a bit of dinner now you're here, Mr. Meldon?"

said Doyle. "I wouldn't like your temper would be destroyed for the want of what I'd be glad to give you."

Meldon looked at his watch.

"Thank you," he said, "I will. It's one o'clock, and Sabina ought to have the bacon ready by now if she started cooking it the time I told her."

CHAPTER VII.

Ballymoy House, save for the occasional presence of a fis.h.i.+ng tenant, has been unoccupied for years. Two men are employed to keep the grounds tidy, and Mr. Simpkins does his best to see that the work is done. But in spite of his exertions the place is in a condition of disorder. There is long gra.s.s where there ought to be trim lawns; wild growths of brambles in nooks originally dedicated to rose gardening; and a general air of exuberance about the trees and shrubs. Miss King found all this very charming. She took a walk round the pleasure grounds on the evening of her arrival, and felt that she had happened upon the Irish demesne of her dreams--a region of s.p.a.cious dilapidation, exquisite natural beauty, romantic possibilities, and an inexhaustible supply of local colour; a place very different indeed from the trim Thames-side villas in which she generally spent her summer holidays. Her maid unpacked a large box of requisites for the country life supplied by the Stores, and came, at the bottom of it, upon a very gay hammock made of green and scarlet strings. Miss King was delighted with its appearance, and the promise it gave of luxurious rest. After breakfast next morning she summoned the two gardeners to her presence, and gave orders that the hammock should be securely hung in a shady place. The men were unaccustomed to hammocks, but with the help of some advice from the maid, they tied it to two trees in a corner of what had once been a tennis court. They were so pleased with it that they stood looking at it with great appreciation until Miss King came out at about twelve o'clock. She brought with her a bundle of ma.n.u.script and a fountain pen, intending to work into her new novel a description of Ballymoy House and the demesne.

The men watched her settle herself, and then came forward cautiously and asked if there was anything they could do for her. Miss King suggested that they should go away and do their work. They went obediently, but returned in a few minutes with two scythes.

"If it's pleasing to your ladys.h.i.+p," said the elder of the two, "I was thinking of cutting the gra.s.s beyond, while the weather's fine, and we'd have a chance of getting the hay saved without rain."

Miss King was not very well pleased. She would have preferred to be left alone, in order that she might enjoy thoroughly the picturesque dilapidation she wished to describe. But she did not see her way to forbid the cutting of the gra.s.s. The two men sharpened their scythes noisily and mowed down several swathes of long gra.s.s. Miss King watched them, mildly interested. At the end of five minutes they stopped mowing and whetted their scythes again. Then they sat down, lit their pipes, and looked at Miss King. She busied herself with her papers, and made some corrections with the fountain pen. When their pipes were about half smoked, the men rose, whetted their scythes for the third time, and mowed again. Miss King stopped writing and watched them. The day grew hotter, and the spells of mowing became shorter.

Miss King gave up the attempt to write, and lay dreamily gazing at the men, roused to active consciousness now and then by the rasp of the hones against the scythe blades. At one o'clock the men, guessing it to be dinnertime, stopped pretending to work and went away. A few minutes later Miss King, feeling the need of luncheon, disentangled herself from the hammock, bundled her papers together, and went into the house.

At two o'clock the men, carrying their scythes, returned to the tennis court, which was nearly half mowed. At half-past two Miss King joined them, and climbed as gracefully as she could into the hammock. She brought a book with her this time instead of her ma.n.u.script. The afternoon was hotter than the morning had been, and there was a very soothing sound of bees among the branches of the trees. Miss King, who had eaten her luncheon with a good appet.i.te, went to sleep. The two gardeners, after a short consultation, sat down under a tree and smoked. At half-past three Meldon arrived.

"You seem," he said to the men, "to be taking things pretty easy. Are you supposed to be mowing that lawn, or is Mr. Simpkins paying you to cut the legs off any tiger or other wild beast that comes up with the idea of devouring Miss King in her sleep?"

The men grinned pleasantly, and put their pipes in their pockets.

"It's how we didn't like to be disturbing the young lady," said the elder of the two men, "and her lying there quiet and innocent, maybe tired out, the creature, with the way she's been travelling to and fro."

"Isn't it Callaghan your name is?" said Meldon.

"It is. Glory be to G.o.d! but it's wonderful the way you'd know me, Mr.

Meldon, and you out of the place these three years."

"Send that other man away," said Meldon, "and listen to me while I speak to you."

"Mickey," said Callaghan to his fellow-labourer, "let you be off with you and get the potatoes earthed up beyond in the garden. It's wonderful, so it is, the way you'd take a delight in sitting there all day and not doing a hand's turn."

Mickey went off, still grinning. He had no intention of earthing up the potatoes. Digging is hard work, not to be lightly undertaken on a hot afternoon. Meldon watched him out of sight, and then turned to Callaghan.

"I'm speaking confidentially to you," he said, "and I hope that nothing I say will--"

"Take care," said Callaghan, "that you wouldn't wake herself, talking so loud and all."

Meldon looked at Miss King.

"She seems pretty sound," he said, speaking more softly.

"It's tired she is, the creature,", said Callaghan. "It would be a shame to wake her, though I wouldn't care myself for the notion of sleeping in one of them new-fas.h.i.+oned beds."

"What I want to say to you is this," said Meldon. "You know Mr.

Simpkins, of course?"

"I do."

"Is he a particular friend of yours?"

"He is not," said Callaghan. "The Lord forgive me for saying the like!

but I hate him worse than I do the devil."

"I thought you probably would," said Meldon, "and I don't wonder at it.

Any man who works the sort of way you were working when I arrived would be pretty sure to hate Simpkins."

"Since ever he come to the place," said Callaghan, "there's been neither peace nor quiet in it. There doesn't a day pa.s.s but he's up here asking why this isn't done, and what's the matter with the other thing, and whether I couldn't manage to settle up some contraption or other. Many's the time I've said to myself it would be better for me to starve out on the bog beyond than to have the life plagued out of me listening to the way he does be talking."

"I expect," said Meldon, "that he's simply trying to make you do your work, and a hard job he has of it."

"Any way, it's what I'm not accustomed to; and what's more, won't stand."

"You'll have to stand it for a while more, any way. That's what I want to impress on your mind. I can't have a word said against Mr.

Simpkins, in the presence of Miss King."

"The young lady there?"