Jill Read Online Free PDF Page B

the fire. His bread-knife, his sugar basin.
    “God, I thought he’d never notice,” gurgled Eddy Makepeace, drying his bulging eyes. “How damned funny.”
    Elizabeth Dowling burst into another peal of laughter. “And the exquisite way.…” She gulped, to strangle her laughter. “He brought the subject up so politely.… Oh dear, oh dear!”
    John sipped his tea, which was hot and burnt his mouth. He was acutely conscious of being referred to in the third person, but it expressed his mood. While being trapped in their laughter, he only wanted to drag himself stiffly away and hide.
    “I say, you don’t mind, old man, do you?” asked Christopher Warner, with an anxious tone that seemed flattering.
    “Oh, no—no——”
    “Hell, there’s nothing to mind about,” said Patrick Dowling sneeringly. “It’s only that it was so damned funny. He must have thought he was seeing things.”
    “Haven’t you really got anything , Chris? You are awful. I spent days in Harrod’s making up my mind about patterns and colours and shapes and things. If anyone dares to break them, oo, I’ll—I’ll——”
    Christopher, laughing loudly, kicked the fire into a blaze and straddled the hearthrug.
    “Well, I only brought glasses, so we can share and share alike.”
    “Trust you, Chris,” said Eddy Makepeace knowingly.
    “Well, I mean to say. That list they send you’s enough to make a cat laugh. Breakfast china and tea china—do they think you’re made of money? Anyway, it’ll only get pinched or broken. No, I just picked up some beer mugs and sherry glasses from home—and God help the bastard that breaks any of them, too. Well well, I expect Kemp’ll be using my glasses soon enough.”
    John muttered something, too embarrassed at being the centre of the situation and at hearing the word “bastard” used in front of a girl to consult the feelings that raged inside him. When he did, he found them a turmoil of anger and bitter humiliation and self-pity. While the light conversation moved around the subject and eventually away from it, he found himself staring at the coffee-strainer that had been used to strain tea, and feeling sorry for it, as if they had suffered in the same way. His impulse to run away was neutralized by the fact there was nowhere to run to. This was home for him, now.
    “What’s on at the flicks?” demanded Eddy Makepeace loudly, dropping ash into his cup. John stared with growing dismay at the bulging eyes and spotty face, feeling he had wandered into a place where he had absolutely no counterpart. Putting down his cup, he continued to remain silent.
    It seemed too much to hope that they should ever go, but just before six they all got up and at last departed. Christopher saw them to the gate. Evening had more than begun to fall, and John heard them go laughing round the cloisters. Left alone, he sat dejectedly down on the sofa, among the litter of dirty china, feeling that if he were left alone for long he would begin crying. But this feeling changed to alarm as he heard Christopher Warner coming back, for the idea of living with a stranger made him shrink. Would they have to share the same bedroom? He had never done that before, and was intensely shy. Further, he felt nothing but dislike for Christopher Warner so far.
    “Now,” said Christopher briskly, slamming the door. “Most of this mess is mine, I think.… I say, bung a bit of coal on the fire, would you?”
    John obeyed. Christopher Warner began carrying armfuls of clothes into the bedroom, not paying much attention to John, who knelt down awkwardly beside his ridiculous semi-trunk and undid it.
    “I’ve taken the farther bed—I suppose that’s all right?” said Christopher, as they passed in the doorway. The farther bed was away from the door, and was nearest the small lamp.
    “Oh, yes.”
    John put his three shirts into the corner of one drawer, hearing the sound of Christopher screwing up wrapping-paper, and looked about