Maggie, his servant, planted firmly on the threshold, jerked her head
over her shoulder to call to him.
"There's a yoong laady wants to see yo, Mr. Greatorex!"
There was no response but a sharp tapping on the hob, as Greatorex
knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
Maggie stood looking at Alice a little mournfully with her deep-set,
blue, pathetic eyes. Maggie had once been pretty in spite of her
drab hair and flat features, but where her high color remained it had
hardened with her thirty-five years.
"Well yo' coom?"
Maggie called again and waited. Courageous in her bright blue Sunday
gown, she waited while her master rose, then, shame-faced as if driven
by some sharp sign from him, she slunk into the scullery.
Jim Greatorex appeared on his threshold.
On his threshold, utterly sober, carrying himself with the assurance
of the master in his own house, he would not have suffered by
comparison with any man. Instead of the black broadcloth that Alice
had expected, he wore a loose brown shooting jacket, drab corduroy
breeches, a drab cloth waistcoat and brown leather leggings, and he
wore them with a distinction that Rowcliffe might have envied. His
face, his whole body, alert and upright, had the charm of some shy,
half-savage animal. When he stood at ease his whole face, with all
its features, sensed you and took you in; the quivering eyebrows were
aware of you; the nose, with its short, high bridge, its fine, wide
nostrils, repeated the sensitive stare of the wide eyes; his mouth,
under its golden brown moustache, was somber with a sort of sullen
apprehension, till in a sudden, childlike confidence it smiled.
Pages:
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115