The Little Girls Read Free Page A

the faint dusk now being given off by the evening earth.
    This had been an orchard. Twisted, old but only too fruitful still, such trees as had not been cleared away were to be seen in the near distance, their boughs weighted. Already an apple or two had begun to drop: it was felt that a week or two more of sun would be needed, however, before the picking. In an abundant year, indecision as to what to do with the apples became a burden. More interesting to greed were the vegetable plots, laid out in squares where trees were no longer. These looked almost professional—trenched where necessary, dotted with bell-glasses, frames, and, where frames gave out, sheets of cracked glass supported on bricks. Frank, at the price of a liberal rake-off from the produce, came over most days from his cottage and worked here: with his own garden he seemed to be less successful. Thanks to his and her industry, together with the prevailing mildness of the climate and excellence of the soil, her table and his were provided for most of the year round, nicely. They arrived, even, at raising Provencal and other exotic vegetables, the “musts” of the better cookery book. Little wonder that Frank, lagging behind Dinah and Mrs. Coral, now and then cast an eye gloomy with worry in the direction of what he was learning to call the potager. To pot it would all be going, before long, if Dinah’s craze for the cave failed to abate.
    Ahead, conversation came to its last lap. “And how are you?” asked Dinah, somewhat belatedly.
    “I don’t know whether you heard, but I lost my Indian.”
    “Oh, what a bother; how?”
    “Took off on his bike one morning, not saying anything, then sent round for his things. Since then, not a word; just a postal order. Took offence, I can only imagine; but what at?”
    “He must be dotty.”
    “He may not have hit it off with my Finn.”
    “What does your Finn think?”
    “I didn’t ask him. Or of course may have found something to suit him better.”
    “Has your Indian a girl, do you think?”
    “I make a point of not hearing anything. Well, there it is: now I have a vacancy.”
    “Oh, but you’ll only have to raise a finger to fill that!”
    “So I’m generally told; in fact that I know. As to that I’m not worried; but I have been worried since it happened. It seems inhuman.”
    Dinah paused, plucked a Caroline Testout rose and silently gave it to Mrs. Coral—who, having looked at it for a moment in some dismay, stuck it into an upper buttonhole of her mackintosh. They walked on. “I have any number of vacancies,” admitted Dinah, looking between the apple trees at her house. “But the inhuman thing is that I prefer them: when I can’t have my grandchildren I’m happy knocking about with nothing but Francis.”
    Mrs. Coral was startled into glancing over her shoulder, with a query-mark. Dinah, putting the matter right, said: “No, Francis is my house-boy with the squint, who as you were saying sometimes opens the door. He’s a Maltese orphan. Major Wilkins’s name is nothing but Frank. He’s got used to knocking about in a vacuum too, I think. He is so very lucky, there in that nice cottage.”
    “Something of a hermit?”
    “Oh, yes. He’s a little upset just now—becoming a grandfather at any minute.”
    “That should brighten him up?”
    “Oh, yes.” Dinah stopped in her tracks, in order to stand on one leg, draw up the other foot, and dismally study the soaking espadrille. “It never occurred to me it would rain. Also perhaps you’re right about that cave; one does get forlorn down there, though without noticing. If Francis hasn’t lit that fire, I shall die! Do you see any smoke?”
    “Not from here, no. … A boy doesn’t always think.”
    “That is a little beast I could sometimes kill; yet in his own way one is fond of him. He does think ; he cerebrates like anything, one can see.” They walked on again.
    “I could get you a fire going, in half a minute.”
    “Not