The Wooden Shepherdess Read Online Free PDF

she wouldn’t be difficult? Surely it stood out a mile: in the boy’s own interests something had got to be done?
5
    The godparents’ shoes were unsuited to grass: so Trivett trundled them round by road in the Daimler, while Gilbert and Mary walked home alone through the park. Gilbert, his tall silk hat enhancing the set of his jaw while tending to hide the uneasy look in his eyes as he nerved himself to his task: Mary, her flowery hat in her hand and her red-gold curls exposed to the sun—and a stubborn set to her lips.
    â€œThat brother of yours,” said Gilbert at last (it was rather unnerving how like at times she looked to that brother): “I think I’ll get the F.O. to contact our Embassy, quietly.”
    â€œDo be careful!” said Mary, alarmed.
    â€œEsme Howard’s our new man in Washington: Howard’s the soul ...”
    â€œSuppose you start something? You’d better look out.”
    â€œI very much fear lest the boy’s in some serious scrape: more so perhaps than he knows. Your brother —I’d never forgive myself,” countered her husband with simple sincerity.
    â€œHe’s twenty-four now: he isn’t a child.”
    Gilbert shrugged. “I’d go over in person to help him, if only ...”
    â€œBut why not let him alone, as he obviously wants?”
    In the heavy summer shade of a huge oak Polly’s small piebald pony (the one that Augustine had given her) stood on three legs and swished at flies with his tail. He nickered as they approached, and Mary stopped to examine him. Mean-while Gilbert resumed: “I’d go over myself like a shot, but I can’t be possibly spared at this crucial moment; you see that, dear, don’t you? And Jeremy’s too—far too lightweight, too inexperienced.” (Jeremy having been unsuccessfully sent to look for his friend when Augustine vanished in France.) “So what I propose ...”
    â€œJust look at his feet!” interrupted Mary indignantly: “Really you’ll have to get rid of that blacksmith, he’s hopeless!”
    In park turf otherwise perfect stood one errant thistle; and no one was looking when Gilbert took a quick run—spats and all—and neatly kicked off its head.
    After that they talked of indifferent matters (but both on their guard), till they reached the cool and the dark of the Yew Walk where even the scent of the blazing roses outside hardly penetrated. There Gilbert tried a new tack. Augustine’s letter said nothing about coming home: what about his estates? His agent in Wales seemed decent enough, but was old; and wasn’t this just how estates got into a mess? “But Augustine shouldn’t be too hard to trace, with that postmark to go on. The ferry he spoke of must cross to New London: that means he’ll have gone to Bar Harbor, or Newport—or possibly Marblehead: this time of year there aren’t many places that anyone goes. And that sort of upper-ten summer resort will be stiff just now with Embassy chaps....” For surely Mary must see for the boy’s own sake the Embassy’d better get their hooks in him pretty damn quick?
    But this time Mary said nothing. “Gilbert’s on tenterhooks,” Mary thought, “over his post in the next Liberal Ministry—deadly afraid lest his brother-in-law does something embarrassing....” Mary had guessed a lot more clearly than Gilbert himself what lay behind his sudden solicitude: for Gilbert never allowed unworthy motives to rise to the surface of even a private mind “so schooled” as the unkind Jeremy said of it once, “only to see the best in everyone, starting of course with himself!”
    Thus husband and wife arrived at the house feeling sadly at odds (“Mary is being difficult ...” “Gilbert is being absurd ...”). But the garden door was overhung by Mellton’s famous late-flowering yellowish-white