The Lorimer Line Read Online Free PDF Page B

to move further. So he was sensitive to the manners and the accents of the rich: studying and copying them had become a habit.
    The country customers of Lorimer’s Bank spoke a Somerset dialect, and the accent of the town was lazy as well, although in a different way, softening the consonants which fell in the middle of words until they could hardly be distinguished at all. None of this slovenliness could be heard in the Lorimer voice. The chairman spoke with a sharp gruffness; it could not be copied without producing an immediately recognizable imitation which would give offence. But his daughter was a different matter. Her voice was clear and precise, the vowels pure and the consonants sharp. She had had lessons in elocution, perhaps, but long enough ago for her not to be self-conscious about the effect. Her sentences were phrased in a formal way, very different from the shouted exchanges of the women who lived nearhis lodgings. She had been taught to be polite rather than spontaneous.
    David was not, at this first moment of meeting, greatly interested in pursuing his acquaintance with her, since he was unlikely to meet her again until the next Bank Holiday. But he listened with care to the construction of her sentences and made a mental resolution that from now on he would always say ‘you’ instead of ‘ye.’
    Perhaps the fact that he was listening to the sound rather than the content of her words made his hostess become aware that he had no great interest in plants. She changed the subject as they came to the steps which led down from the upper terrace, and enquired where he had found lodgings.
    It was an unfortunate topic. Knowing nothing about Bristol when he arrived, he had taken rooms in a quarter which, although conveniently near to Corn Street, he now knew to be lower in status than his new employment made proper. But the young foreign woman who was the only other tenant in the house and who supported herself by giving piano lessons was very often, he knew, behind with her rent, and the widow who cleaned and cooked for him had come to depend on his more regular payments. He mentioned the district reluctantly, without giving exact details of his address. At least he could feel that a young lady like Margaret Lorimer was unlikely to be familiar with it.
    He was wrong. Explaining why she often passed through that part of Bristol, Margaret told him also about her visits to sick families in the depressed area to the east of it. Her voice lost the polite formality with which she had greeted him: her face, which until now had expressed only conventional politeness, became animated. It was enough to make her appearance immediately attractive, although there was nothing, he felt, that could be called pretty about her. At first David was amused by the vigour with which sheexpressed her feelings. Then he found himself becoming both flattered by her confidences and impressed to the point of admiration by her sincerity.
    â€˜Your work must give you a deal of satisfaction, Miss Lorimer,’ he said.
    â€˜What I do is second-best.’ She was firmly scornful of her own efforts. ‘The houses round the Froome flood in every rainy winter. To take a warm blanket to a woman whose room is perpetually wet is almost useless. The funds that are raised would be better spent in providing a building with a healthy atmosphere in which such a woman could recover, or by controlling the river so that the cause of the illness is removed.’
    â€˜And can such things not be arranged?’
    â€˜I have no authority even to suggest them,’ she said. ‘And althought the gifts of money we receive are generous, they are not sufficient for more than the day-to-day needs of the families I visit.’
    â€˜Your interest in the sick is unusual,’ he suggested. It was common enough, he knew, for young ladies with time on their hands to make charitable expeditions, descending from a carriage with a bowl of