Read Online The Trouble With Harry by Jack Trevor Story - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jack Trevor Story
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material that might have been curtain or cobweb. The paintwork was worn and cracked by the weather, unwashed and covered by the colourless, dried drippings from leaves on hundreds of past wet days. It was a bungalow that had suffered abominably from bachelors.
The three rooms that comprised the inside ofthis residence were stuffed with untidiness. Every possible hiding place for odds and ends had been thought of and used. Every item of furniture that nobody could ever find a use for had been gathered together in those three rooms. Outside, in the small shed, four tea chests of personal belongings, mostly junk, stood still packed, while the more treasured of these relics took pride of place in all the corners of the rooms, filling the bungalow with riverside memories spread over some thirty years. Relics that ranged from a lifebelt that had saved Albert Wiles’s life, to the suspender belt of a Deptford barmaid who had almost wrecked it. So crammed with stuff was this bungalow that only by habitual movement from room to room could the captain keep a space free for movement.
When at five o’clock on this pleasant summer afternoon Captain Wiles stepped out of this mess and muddle, looking spry and spruce, it was the miracle of the new-laid egg leaving the bowels of a scruffy old hen. For some strange reason he had taken greater pains with his personal appearance than ever before, greater even than on that famous occasion when hehad set out to meet Gertie at Gravesend with the intention of cutting out his old rival, Tiger Wray. It was strange because this Miss Graveley bore no comparison to Gertie of Gravesend, who had been young, supple and red-haired. But then the captain was no longer young and supple and by this time Gertie, who had eventually married Tiger and borne him seven cubs, was even less young and supple.
These thoughts chased each other through the captain’s mind as he came to the hollyhocks of ‘The Haven’. These and other thoughts. He compared this trim little bungalow with his own. The white muslin curtains with the bright embroidery, the shining blue paintwork of the window frames and door, the organised splendour of the garden. And with it all he remembered her nice, grey eyes and her dark hair. And in his memory the old fashioned ‘bun’ vanished and instead he saw bright ribbon amongst gay but dignified curls; her eyes shone brightly and her mouth was a colour that matched the ribbon, while her cheeks were the candy-pink of the hollyhocks.
These thoughts took no ordered or conscious significance in his mind, for all his life he had thoughtof a woman as a woman, a house as a house, and a garden as a home for cabbages. Nothing more or less. He was a man of the world with a broad mind, human impulses and a convenient conscience; he had always found marriage entirely unnecessary. But in some vague and disquieting way the sounds of the woodlands now held a hint of wedding bells, and the captain knew that it was because his memory was lying. He knew it was the ribbon and the bright eyes and the pink cheeks.
He knocked at the door of ‘The Haven’ and then stood back with a smile on his soap-shone face and his shoulders squared, viewing his reflection approvingly in the shiny paintwork. When Miss Graveley answered his knock she did so from behind him, for she had been cutting the roses which she held in her arms.
‘Here you are, then,’ she said.
The captain swung around and his pose was wasted. He felt as if he had been caught pulling faces at himself in the mirror. Then he forgot his embarrassment and lost himself in the picture of the woman as she stood framed by the porch against thegarden. His memory had been perfectly accurate. There were the curls and the ribbon and the pink cheeks and the bright eyes. And there, also, far beyond the buzzing of bees and the bored chirp of a bird, were those bells again.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, removing his cap.
DO YOU WANT TO SELL A RABBIT?
Abie
The three rooms that comprised the inside ofthis residence were stuffed with untidiness. Every possible hiding place for odds and ends had been thought of and used. Every item of furniture that nobody could ever find a use for had been gathered together in those three rooms. Outside, in the small shed, four tea chests of personal belongings, mostly junk, stood still packed, while the more treasured of these relics took pride of place in all the corners of the rooms, filling the bungalow with riverside memories spread over some thirty years. Relics that ranged from a lifebelt that had saved Albert Wiles’s life, to the suspender belt of a Deptford barmaid who had almost wrecked it. So crammed with stuff was this bungalow that only by habitual movement from room to room could the captain keep a space free for movement.
When at five o’clock on this pleasant summer afternoon Captain Wiles stepped out of this mess and muddle, looking spry and spruce, it was the miracle of the new-laid egg leaving the bowels of a scruffy old hen. For some strange reason he had taken greater pains with his personal appearance than ever before, greater even than on that famous occasion when hehad set out to meet Gertie at Gravesend with the intention of cutting out his old rival, Tiger Wray. It was strange because this Miss Graveley bore no comparison to Gertie of Gravesend, who had been young, supple and red-haired. But then the captain was no longer young and supple and by this time Gertie, who had eventually married Tiger and borne him seven cubs, was even less young and supple.
These thoughts chased each other through the captain’s mind as he came to the hollyhocks of ‘The Haven’. These and other thoughts. He compared this trim little bungalow with his own. The white muslin curtains with the bright embroidery, the shining blue paintwork of the window frames and door, the organised splendour of the garden. And with it all he remembered her nice, grey eyes and her dark hair. And in his memory the old fashioned ‘bun’ vanished and instead he saw bright ribbon amongst gay but dignified curls; her eyes shone brightly and her mouth was a colour that matched the ribbon, while her cheeks were the candy-pink of the hollyhocks.
These thoughts took no ordered or conscious significance in his mind, for all his life he had thoughtof a woman as a woman, a house as a house, and a garden as a home for cabbages. Nothing more or less. He was a man of the world with a broad mind, human impulses and a convenient conscience; he had always found marriage entirely unnecessary. But in some vague and disquieting way the sounds of the woodlands now held a hint of wedding bells, and the captain knew that it was because his memory was lying. He knew it was the ribbon and the bright eyes and the pink cheeks.
He knocked at the door of ‘The Haven’ and then stood back with a smile on his soap-shone face and his shoulders squared, viewing his reflection approvingly in the shiny paintwork. When Miss Graveley answered his knock she did so from behind him, for she had been cutting the roses which she held in her arms.
‘Here you are, then,’ she said.
The captain swung around and his pose was wasted. He felt as if he had been caught pulling faces at himself in the mirror. Then he forgot his embarrassment and lost himself in the picture of the woman as she stood framed by the porch against thegarden. His memory had been perfectly accurate. There were the curls and the ribbon and the pink cheeks and the bright eyes. And there, also, far beyond the buzzing of bees and the bored chirp of a bird, were those bells again.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, removing his cap.
DO YOU WANT TO SELL A RABBIT?
Abie
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