Gates of Paradise Read Online Free Page B

somethin’ to say about it, you just see if she don’t. I was s’pposed to be home midday to pick the plums.’
    â€˜Never you mind,’ Betsy consoled. ‘She
must
know how sheep go on.’ And she put her hand through the crook of his arm and gave it a squeeze. Actually gave it a squeeze. He might not have found an excuse to kiss her yet, but what a jaunt this was turning out to be.
    In the event Mrs Beke was still in good humour when they finally got back to Turret House and told them they’d done well and that the master would have good time to read the paper before his dinner. ‘Take it straight up to him,’ she said to Johnnie, ‘and then you’d best see to those ol’ plums, or Mr Hosier’ll have somethin’ to say, and we don’t want that. Go down to the kitchen and empty your basket, Betsy, and then you can come to my parlour and we’ll get the new petticoats cut and basted before the roast is done. We’ll just have time enough. Well, hop along then the pair of you.’
    Johnnie went back to his proper work happily enough. It was pleasant out in the garden in the warmth of noonday with daydreams to fill his head and a good meal coming and the plums so ripe they fell into his hand. But only half of them had been picked when Betsy came running out into the garden to tell him he was wanted in the library.
    â€˜Now what?’ Mr Hosier said crossly, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
    â€™If you please, Mr Hosier, sir, he’s wanted to run an errand.’
    â€˜There’s never any peace in this house,’ the gardener complained. ‘There’s no sense in the man. How’s he s’ppose we’re to pick his plums, if we’re to run errands morning, noon and night? The way he go on nothin’ll ever get growed nor picked. ’Twill be no good him complainin’ when there’s no food for the table, which there won’t be if he keep on this way. Well, go then, if you must boy, but look sharp about it.’
    So Johnnie set the laden trug in the shade of the plum tree and followed Betsy back to the house, where he left his boots and apron by the back door, and climbed the stairs to the library.
    His master was sitting beside the window with a letter in his hand and an enraged expression on his face. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘There you are. Good feller. It’s a positive disgrace. Quite, quite insupportable. Something must be done about it.’
    There was no obvious answer but then there rarely was when the master was in the middle of an outburst. ‘Sir?’
    â€˜There’s a letter on the table, d’ye see it?’ Mr Hayley said. ‘All signed, sealed and ready for you to deliver. You are to take it straight down to Mr Blake, the engraver, just moved in to Mr Grinder’s cottage. You know where it is. Good feller. Tell him I must see him at once. At once. On a matter of utmost urgency. It’s quite insupportable. Explain to him that I shall compose a ballad for the poor souland he shall illustrate it for me and we will send her the proceeds in her hour of need. But no matter. ’Tis all in the letter. Post haste if you please. The sooner we begin the better.’
    The day was growing more extraordinary by the minute. First a trip to Chichester, which he hadn’t expected, and now he was to meet the mysterious Mr Blake, whose arrival had been the subject of endless speculation at The Fox. What sport! He strode through Mr Hayley’s forbidding gates with the letter in his pocket and headed south for The Fox and the cottage in a state of happy anticipation.
    There were very few people about, only old Mrs Taylor who was standing by the gate of her white cottage, smoking a pipe and pondering, and Will Smith who was grooming a fine stallion in the stable yard alongside the inn. The Fox itself seemed to be deserted, but there was smoke rising from the