Complete Short Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

Rachel – but she had gone – heaved himself up, picked the shoes from among the nettles, and after awhile walked slowly up the bank, out of the gate, and down the lane in the unaccustomed glare of the sun.
    When he reached the cobbler’s he sat down heavily. Thecobbler was glad to talk to him. ‘You are looking bad,’ said the cobbler.
    Richard said: ‘Yes, on Monday morning I had a bit of a turn; I am only now recovering from it.’
    ‘Good God,’ burst out the cobbler, ‘if you had a bit of a turn, what did I not have? It was as if someone handled me raw, without my skin. It was as if someone seized my very soul and juggled with it, as you might juggle witha stone, and hurled me away. I shall never forget last Monday morning.’
    A strange notion came to Richard that it was the cobbler’s soul which he had handled in the form of a stone. ‘It may be,’ he thought, ‘that the souls of every man and woman and child in Lampton are lying there.’ But he said nothing about this, asked for a buckle, and went home.
    Rachel was ready with a kiss and a joke; hemight have kept silent, for his silence always made Rachel ashamed. ‘But,’ he thought, ‘why make herashamed? From shame she goes to self-justification and picks a quarrel over something else and it’s ten times worse. I’ll be cheerful and accept the joke.’
    He was unhappy. And Charles was established in the house: gentle-voiced, hard-working, and continually taking Richard’s part against Rachel’sscoffing. This was galling, because Rachel did not resent it.
    (‘The next part of the story,’ said Crossley, ‘is the comic relief, an account of how Richard went again to the sand hills, to the heap of stones, and identified the souls of the doctor and rector – the doctor’s because it was shaped like a whisky bottle and the rector’s because it was as black as original sin – and how he proved tohimself that the notion was not fanciful. But I will skip that and come to the point where Rachel two days later suddenly became affectionate and loved Richard she said, more than ever before.’)
    The reason was that Charles had gone away, nobody knows where, and had relaxed the buckle magic for the time, because he was confident that he could renew it on his return. So in a day or two Richardwas well again and everything was as it had been, until one afternoon the door opened, and there stood Charles.
    He entered without a word of greeting and hung his hat upon a peg. He sat down by the fire and asked: ‘When is supper ready?’
    Richard looked at Rachel, his eyebrows raised, but Rachel seemed fascinated by the man.
    She answered: ‘Eight o’clock,’ in her low voice, and stooping down,drew off Charles’s muddy boots and found him a pair of Richard’s slippers.
    Charles said: ‘Good. It is now seven o’clock. In another hour, supper. At nine o’clock the boy will bring the evening paper. At ten o’clock, Rachel, you and I sleep together.’
    Richard thought that Charles must have gone suddenly mad. But Rachel answered quietly: ‘Why, of course, my dear.’ Then she turned viciously toRichard: ‘And you run away, little man!’ she said, and slapped his cheek with all her strength.
    Richard stood puzzled, nursing his cheek. Since he could not believe that Rachel and Charles had both gone mad together, he must be mad himself. At all events, Rachel knew her mind, and they had a secret compact that if either of them ever wished to break the marriage promise, the other should notstand in the way. They had made this compact because they wished to feel themselves bound by love rather than by ceremony. So he said as calmly as he could: ‘Very well, Rachel. I shall leave you two together.’
    Charles flung a boot at him, saying: ‘If you put your nose inside the door between now and breakfast time, I’ll shout the ears off your head.’
    Richard went out this time not afraid, butcold inside and quite clearheaded. He went through the gate, down