Read Online The Stepson by Martin Armstrong - Free Book Online

and Kate saw a stout woman, seated, wearing a bulging, tight-fitting bodice with a long row of buttons descending from the throat to the waist. She wore a huge cameo brooch wedged in under her chin. Her skirt consisted of row under row of flounces. By her side stood a pot-bellied man with a large watch-chain and a face, clean-shavenexcept for the mutton-chop whiskers, which seemed to be a conglomeration of shining bosses like a plateful of apples.
    â€˜He was a tough ‘un, was the old man,’ said Ben. ‘Yes, it was as well to keep on the right side of him. But he was a good farmer; a very good farmer for his times. It was him I got my temper from.’
    Kate raised her head and examined Ben with a smile. ‘Have you got a temper?’ she said.
    â€˜Ask Mrs. Jobson,’ said Ben; ‘ask George; ask anyone about the farm.’
    â€˜Well,’ said Kate, ‘so have I.’
    Their eyes met, half challenging, half humorous, and they laughed. Then they turned their attention once more to the album.
    â€˜That’s me and my first.’ Ben pointed at the next portrait.
    â€˜You, with that moustache? Well, I never.’
    â€˜Yes, I was twenty-seven then. She died getting on for twenty years ago. When you were …?’
    â€˜Nine.’
    â€˜Nine. A little bit of a thing of nine. It seems strange, doesn’t it?’
    Kate stared at the photograph and her brows contracted. ‘And you married again … how soon after?’ she asked.
    Humphrey hesitated. ‘Getting on for a year,’ he said sheepishly. ‘The next one’s picture is over the page.’
    He was going to turn the page when Kate laid her hand on it.
    â€˜Don’t show me her,’ she said with quiet intensity.
    Ben looked at her, surprised. ‘Why not?’
    â€˜Because I ask you not to.’ Her colour had risen suddenly and she spoke coldly and abruptly. Ben, on the point of speaking, checked himself, looking at her face for a moment searchingly.
    Then coldly and abruptly she asked: ‘How long did you say it was since she died?’
    â€˜Rachel? Three years and a bit,’ said Ben. ‘Three years last August.’
    She turned her head and her eyes scanned him. His eyes dropped shamefaced before that calm, searching gaze.
    â€˜And when I go,’ she said, ‘how long will you wait, I wonder?’
    â€˜Wait? What do you mean?’ Ben’s lips had narrowed and he spoke shortly.
    â€˜Wait before marrying a fourth.’
    â€˜You shouldn’t say such things,’ he said. ‘You’re young. You don’t understand. Besides, when you go, I shall have been dead and buried for years.’
    â€˜How do you know?’ she answered. ‘No one can say where any of us will be from one week to another.’
    â€˜Well, it’s natural, at least,’ said Ben quietly, ‘to suppose that I’ll go first. I’m an old man, my girl,If I lived ten years longer it would be a very good age. I’ve no right to expect more.’
    Her eyes were still upon him and her hand on the album, and suddenly a profound compassion for the old man came over her. Her grim mood was gone; her heart melted.
    â€˜Don’t mind what I say, Ben,’ she said to him, smiling. ‘I’m a little queer at times, you know.’
    Ben laid his hand affectionately on hers. ‘Take up your hand,’ he said, ‘and I’ll show you the lad.’
    â€˜What lad?’
    â€˜The boy. David. You’d like to see him, wouldn’t you?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Kate. ‘Yes, show me David’; and Ben turned two pages and laid his finger on the portrait of a very small boy standing as if at attention with one hand on one of those sundials which are to be found only in photographers’ studios.
    â€˜He’d be about seven at that time,’ said Ben.
    A comical little dormouse of a boy he seemed to Kate, much the same as