A Kind Man Read Online Free PDF

he would play, his repertoire being limited. But they waited for the next tune to come round in its turn and sang or danced to it cheerfully, so that if he had suddenly presented them with something new they would have felt uneasy.
    When he met Eve he had played less and at 6 The Cottages had only taken out his fiddle once or twice,there was so much to do at first and then he got out of the way of it. But on the day of his daughter’s birth he fetched it from the upstairs cupboard and tuned it carefully, before drawing his bow tentatively and softly across the strings. At once, Eve had seen that Jeannie listened intently, and after that, every time he played, sitting outside so as not to startle her, she had seemed barely to breathe. If she was restless or teething or sleepless his playing would always settle her.
    ‘I like to hear the music,’ Mary said, looking over. If Eve had to walk into the town, Mary would have the baby, who seemed to fit into the world of 5 as easily as of 6 The Cottages.
    The day after Jeannie was born, John Bullard had brought Miriam in the car, the boys pouring out of the back of it and straight into the field, like caged birds set free. It was a fine day and Eve sat propped on pillows in the bed, the window open a little, Jeannie asleep in the crib beside her. As her sister came into the room Eve saw the look on her face, of bitterness and weariness, and she put out her hand to her, feeling ashamed for a moment of her own contentment, and of having the daughter she knew Miriam longed for, though she had never spoken a word of it. Miriam glanced into the crib and glanced away.
    Every time she came she seemed older, as if shewere a soft stone that was being worn down, its surface thinning and giving way. Her face was the colour of dirty paper, her hands red and roughened, the nails cracked. But she had put a slide in her hair and a brooch on her frock.
    ‘Jeannie Eliza,’ she said, standing at the window. ‘Where’s that from?’
    ‘Tommy. He named her. It just came to him – because he liked it.’
    ‘You were all over quick.’
    ‘I was. I suppose it’s one way or the other and you have no say in the matter.’
    Miriam said nothing.
    ‘They’ll come to no harm,’ Eve said, thinking she was anxious for the boys romping out. Tommy and John Bullard were both there, and the boys could be heard shouting with laughter.
    Miriam turned to face her, ‘What if they did.’
    ‘Miriam!’
    ‘And you so smug with yourself.’
    Eve bit her lip. Jeannie stirred slightly like a leaf in the breeze, and then was still. Her eyelids were streaked pale violet-blue.
    ‘You wait till you’ve four like me.’
    ‘You’ve only three.’
    But she saw it on Miriam’s face and did not know what to say.
    ‘You try and put a stop to it,’ Miriam said.
    ‘But you were so ill with Arthur George.’
    Her sister shrugged.
    Tommy made tea and bread and butter and jam and there were rock buns brought round warm by Mary. The boys tumbled in and took what they wanted in their hands and went out again. Miriam brought Eve tea and a plate of food. When she came in, Eve had the baby to her breast.
    ‘It wears you down,’ she said.
    Eve could not say that she would have sat like this for the rest of her life, with the baby’s soft mouth gripping round her like a sea anemone and the small hands there too, the fingers splayed out on her flesh.
    ‘I’d give them away.’
    Eve stared at her. She had never liked it when people said such teasing things too easily. ‘Words,’ Tommy would say. But from Miriam’s face she saw that it was not a tease, not something said lightly when she was down.
    ‘That’s terrible. You shouldn’t say any such thing. You love them.’
    Miriam sighed. ‘Oh yes. But how does that change matters?’
    Jeannie Eliza made a tiny sound.
    ‘You cherish her.’
    ‘Miriam, you shouldn’t –’
    ‘Don’t you tell me what I should and should not do,’ she blazed up. ‘You were always