No Highway Read Online Free PDF Page A

holidays?”
    He said, “There’s a clergyman who runs a holiday home for children down at Bournemouth, and she goes there sometimes, but it’s rather expensive. And he’s started to take mental defectives now—very backward children, you know—so it’s not quite so suitable as it used to be. But really, Elspeth’s so good at playing by herself that I don’t know that she isn’t just as happy at home.”
    The thought of his little girl of twelve spending her holidays alone all day in the villa in Copse Road was not an attractive one. “It’s very difficult,” I said.
    “It’s a great deal easier in term time,” he remarked. “Elspeth likes being at school, and she’s very fond of Mrs. Scott. She talks about her a great deal.”
    I was not surprised to hear that Elspeth liked being at school if her holidays were spent alone in a deserted house. “You’ve met my wife, have you, Honey?” I asked. “Miss Mansfield, who used to be a tracer in the Aerodynamics? A girl with fair, sort of auburn hair?”
    He did not think that he remembered her.
    At the flat we found Shirley and Elspeth sitting over tea in the sitting-room listening to the wireless; we went inquietly, not to disturb them. I made a fresh pot of tea for Honey and myself, and we sat listening to the symphony with them till it was finished. It was the first time I had seen Elspeth Honey, and this pause gave me an opportunity to study her. As Shirley had said, she was an ugly child, but this ugliness seemed to me to be more associated with her unbecoming clothes and the way her hair was cut than with the child herself. She had rather sharp, pale features; she was thin; and she looked intelligent. She did not look to be a very happy child. She had fine, well-shaped hands, and when she moved she did not seem to be clumsy. If she had had a mother, I reflected, she might have been very different.
    The symphony came to an end, and Shirley reached over and switched off the set. She turned to the child. “Like it?” she asked.
    The little girl nodded vigorously with closed lips. “Mm.”
    My wife got up and began to gather up the plates and put them on the trolley. “I thought you would. They’re going to do one every week. Would you like to come again?”
    Honey said nervously, “You mustn’t let her be a nuisance, Mrs. Scott.”
    “I won’t,” said Shirley. “I like listening to symphonies.”
    Elspeth said, “I’d like that ever so. May I do the washing up?”
    Shirley said, “Of course not. I was only going to pile these things together and take them out.”
    “They’ve got to be washed up sometime, Mrs. Scott. I can do it—honestly, I can.”
    Her father said, “Do let her help you, please. She’s very good at washing up.”
    “I can do it,” the child repeated. “Daddy drops things, so I always do it at home.”
    My wife said, “All right, we’ll do it together.”
    They took the trolley out with them, and I sat talking with Honey as we smoked. I had only half my mind on our conversation and I forget what it was about to start with. I was furtively studying the man that I was talking to and trying to sum him up, the man who said the Reindeer tail would come to bits in 1,440 hours. The man who believed that, and who also believed in the Great Pyramid and in the descent of Our Lord to earth at Glastonbury or Farnborough in the very near future. The man who lived alone, and seemed quite unconscious that by doing so he was denying most of thesimple joys of childhood to his little girl. The man who took umbrage in the office at small slights; the man who lived in an unreal, scientific dream. The man who walked in some queer semi-religious procession in Woking, and got had up by the police for some brawl that arose from it. The man who said the Reindeer tail would come to bits in 1,440 hours. The man whose judgment we had to accept or to discard.
    And presently he added something to the picture I was building up. He was looking at the