Tales for a Stormy Night Read Online Free Page B

she would have rolled into the ditch contented.
    “I’ve never been better,” she said.
    He leaned close to her to see her, for the moon had just risen. The wind had stung the tears to her eyes, but they were laughing. “By the Horn Spoon,” he said, “you liked it!” He let the horse have his own way into the drive after all. He jumped down from the rig and held his hand up to her. “What a beautiful thing to be hanging in the back of the closet all these years.”
    “If that’s a compliment,” she said, “it’s got a nasty bite.”
    “Aye. But it’s my way of saying you’re a beautiful woman.”
    “Will you come over for a cup of coffee?”
    “I will. I’ll put up the horse and be over.”
    The kettle had just come to the boil when he arrived.
    “Maybe you’d rather have tea, Mr. Joyce?”
    “Coffee or tea, so long as it’s not water. And I’d like you to call me Frank. They christened me Francis but I got free of it early.”
    “And you know mine, I noticed,” she said.
    “It slipped out in the excitement. There isn’t a woman I know who wouldn’t of collapsed in a ride like that.”
    “It was wonderful.” She poured the water into the coffee pot.
    “There’s nothing like getting behind a horse,” he said, “unless it’s getting astride him. I wouldn’t trade Micky for a Mack truck.”
    “I used to ride when I was younger,” she said.
    “How did you pick up the man you got, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    And you the old woman, she thought; where did you get her? “I worked for a publishing house and he brought in some poetry.”
    “Ah, that’s it.” He nodded. “And he thought with a place like this he could pour it out like water from a spout.”
    “Gerald and I were in love,” she said, irked that he should define so bluntly her own thoughts on the matter.
    “Don’t I remember it? In them days you didn’t pull the blinds. It used to put me in a fine state.”
    “Do you take cream in your coffee? I’ve forgotten.”
    “Aye, thank you, and plenty of sugar.”
    “You haven’t missed much,” she said.
    “There’s things you see through a window you’d miss sitting down in the living-room. I’ll wager you’ve wondered about the old lady and me?”
    “A little. She wasn’t so old, was she, Mr. Joyce?” Frank, she thought. Too frank.
    “That one was old in her crib. But she came with a greenhouse. I worked for her father.”
    Sarah poured the coffee. “You’re a cold-blooded old rogue,” she said.
    He grinned. “No. Cool-headed I am, and warm-blooded. When I was young, I made out it was the likes of poetry. She sang like a bird on a convent wall. But when I caged her she turned into an old crow.”
    “That’s a terrible thing to say, Mr. Joyce.”
    The humor left his face for an instant. “It’s a terrible thing to live with. It’d put a man off his nut. You don’t have a bit of cake in the house, Sarah, to go with this?”
    “How about muffins and jam?”
    “That’ll go fine.” He smiled again. “Where does your old fella spend the night in his travels?”
    “In the hotel in whatever town he happens to be in.”
    “That’s a lonesome sort of life for a married man,” he said.
    She pulled a chair to the cupboard and climbed up to get ajar of preserves. He made no move to help her although she still could not reach the jar. She looked down at him. “You could give me a hand.”
    “Try it again. You almost had it that time.” He grinned, almost gleeful at her discomfort.
    She bounced down in one step. “Get it yourself if you want it. I’m satisfied with a cup of coffee.”
    He pounded his fist on the table, getting up. “You’re right, Sarah. Never fetch a man anything he can fetch himself. Which bottle is it?”
    “The strawberry.”
    He hopped up and down, nimble as a goat. “But then maybe he doesn’t travel alone?”
    “What?”
    “I was suggesting your man might have an outside interest. Salesmen have the great temptation, you