The Catherine Wheel Read Online Free PDF

slightly he could command his whole audience from John Taylor to Jane Heron. Sitting like that with the cold afternoon light striking in and chilling everything, he really bore an astonishing resemblance to an organ-grinder’s monkey. His legs dangled, a shoulder hunched, the bright malicious eyes went from one to another. They made Mildred Taverner fidget with the cotton thread which stuck out an inch from the torn fingertip of her glove, too long not to be noticeable, too short to break off. They made Al Miller mop his brow again. Jane Heron said afterwards that they made her feel as if she was something in a cage being poked at.
    It was the affair of a moment. When he had finished looking Jacob said,
    “Well, here we all are, and I don’t mind betting it’s a case of a lot of minds with but a single thought, as the poetry book says. And if you’re wondering where I ever read poetry, I’ll tell you. Everybody gets top marks for thinking it’s not my line. But I once broke a leg on a coral reef. There was a trader took me in, the only white man on the island, and the only mortal book there was in his hut was a thing that called itself Beeton’s Great Book of Poetry. Don’t ask me where he got it, or why he kept it—he never looked inside it himself. But before I was through I pretty well knew it by heart. I even made some up myself, so you see what I was up against. And to come back to the bit I said just now, what you’re all thinking at this moment is, ‘What has he got us here for?’ and, ‘Why doesn’t he come to the point?’ ”
    Marian Thorpe-Ennington fixed her beautiful eyes upon him and said,
    “But you’re going to now, aren’t you? Because of course we’re simply dying to know why you advertised. You’re not going to let us down, are you? I mean of course you didn’t say that we were going to hear of something to our advantage, but naturally one hoped—and when Freddy said it would all turn out to be a do, I told him he was the most utterly unbelieving person, and what was the good of always expecting the worst? I mean, it’s too sordid, isn’t it? But then of course he’s feeling terribly jaundiced, poor lamb. Because of the pickle factory, you know— too completely on the rocks. And what we are to live on, I can’t imagine! Freddy says there won’t be enough to buy bread, let alone butter—but then of course he does worry so, poor sweet. I don’t, because what’s the use?”
    By the time she had finished there was a general feeling that everyone had received a personal confidence. A kind of glow was diffused. Even Al Miller got his share of the warm glance and throbbing voice.
    Jacob Taverner waited for her to talk herself out. He was, in fact, enjoying himself. When the last note died upon a fascinated silence he observed drily,
    “I’m afraid I can’t substitute for the pickle factory. But—” He made quite an impressive pause, let a swift mocking glance travel over them all, and went on, “Well, we’ll come to that in a minute.”
    Mildred Taverner, picking at her glove, had broken the cotton off short, with the disastrous result that another inch of the seam had come undone. She made a small vexed sound and slipped her left hand in the torn black glove under her right in the navy blue which was what she had meant to put on, because the black pair were really not fit to be seen, though she could of course cobble them up and make them do for the household shopping. A glove never looked the same after it had been mended.
    Her brother Geoffrey gave her a cold, quelling look.
    Jacob Taverner went on.
    “I have asked you all to come here because I want to make your acquaintance. All your fathers and mothers were my first cousins—the nephews and nieces of my father, Jeremiah Taverner the second. I want to make your acquaintance. When my grandfather, old Jeremiah Taverner, died there was a first-class family row because he left every blessed thing to my father. Any of you