The Complete Short Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

and plodded on.
    ‘D or S, Donald?’
    ‘So-so. Come in.’
    ‘Johnnie Ferreira wants
to bring a charge against Old Tuys,’ she said, ‘for his attempt on me the other
day.’
    ‘I know,’ he said, ‘Johnnie’s
boys have been here.’
    ‘What did you say?’
    ‘I told them to try
elsewhere.’
    There were few white men
in the Colony who rode bicycles, and only one in the district. Bicycles were
used mostly by natives and a few schoolboys. All the children were away at
school. Daphne’s unknown protector was therefore either a passing native or
Donald doing his rounds. Moreover, there was the question of the gun. Few
natives, if they owned firearms, would be likely to risk betraying this illicit
fact. And few natives, however gallant, would risk the penalty for shooting a
white man.
    ‘Why not let them put
Old Tuys on charge?’ said Daphne.
    ‘I don’t prevent them,’
he said. ‘They can go ahead.’
    ‘They need a witness,’
she said. ‘Otherwise it’s his word against mine. Old Tuys would probably be
acquitted on appeal.’
    ‘Nothing doing,’ he
said. ‘I don’t like the law-courts.’
    ‘Well, it was very
nice of you, Donald,’ she said. ‘I’m grateful.’
    ‘Then don’t talk to me
about law cases.’
    ‘All right, I won’t.’
    ‘You see,’ he said, ‘how
it is. Chakata wouldn’t like the scandal. All the past might come out. You
never know what might come out if they start questioning Old Tuys in the
courts. Old Chakata wouldn’t like it.’
    ‘I think he knows what
you did, Donald. He’s very grateful.’
    ‘He’d be more grateful
if Old Tuys had been killed.’
    ‘Did you catch Old Tuys
on purpose or did you just happen to be there when Old Tuys came after me?’ she
inquired.
    ‘Don’t know what you
mean. I was putting up the Foot and Mouth notices that day. I was busy. I’ve
got more to do than keep Old Tuys in sight.’
    ‘I’m going away next
week,’ she said, ‘for about two years.’
    ‘So I hear. You have no
conception of the greenness of the fields. It rains quite often … Go to see
the Tower … Don’t return.
     
     
    2
     
    Linda Patterson, aged twenty-eight, was
highly discontented. Daphne could not see why. She herself adored Uncle
Pooh-bah with his rheumatism and long woollen combies. Only his constant
threats to sell the damp old house and go to live in some hotel alarmed Daphne
at the same time as the idea gave hope to her cousin Linda. Linda’s husband had
been killed in a motor accident. She longed to be free to take a job in London.
    ‘How could you leave
that lovely climate and come to this dismal place?’ Linda would say.
    ‘But,’ Daphne said
happily, ‘this at least is England.’
    Not long after she
arrived Aunt Sarah, who was eighty-two, said to Daphne, ‘My dear, it isn’t done.’
    ‘What isn’t done?’
    Aunt Sarah sighed, ‘You
know very well what I mean. My nightdresses, dear, the rayon ones. There were
three in my drawer, a green, a peach, and a pink. I only discovered this
morning that they were gone. Now there is no one else in this house who could
have taken them but you. Clara is above reproach, and besides, she can’t climb
the stars, how could she? Linda has lots of nighties left over from her
trousseau, poor gel —’
    ‘What are you saying?’
said Daphne. ‘What are you saying?’
    Aunt Sarah took a pin
out of her needle-box and pricked Daphne on the arm. ‘That’s for stealing my
nighties,’ she said.
    ‘She’ll have to go to a
home,’ said Linda. ‘We can’t keep a daily woman for more than a week because of
Aunt Sarah’s accusing them of stealing.’
    Pooh-bah said, ‘D’you
know, apart from that one thing she’s quite normal, really. Wonderful
for her age. If we could only somehow get her to realize how utterly foolish
she is over that one thing —’
    ‘She’ll have to go to a
home.’
    Pooh-bah went out to
look at the barometer and did not return.
    ‘I don’t mind, really,’
said