Tom Tiddler's Island, стр. 7
“H’m!” said Colin, reflectively. “Got the same impression from Dinnet’s manner myself. Funny! Something’s set both their backs up, one’d think. Wonder what it was. And what about the Northfleet bloke, or cove, as the case may be?”
“Mrs. Dinnet seems to like him,” Jean assured him. “He’s well known to Mr. Craigmore, and that naturally gives him a pull here. Like a recommendation from Providence. ‘He’s very nice, ma’am. . . . Not shy, but reserved, rather.’ One or two other things she said about him sounded well, but I can’t remember them. Anyhow, he and the girl seem good sorts. So if we get bored with each other’s company, we can ask the two of them over to dinner, or for bridge, or for tennis. We don’t need to have them unless we want them. I’d rather like to get to know the girl, unless the Dinnets are exaggerating.”
“Bound to come across ’em both in our walks abroad,” Colin pointed out. “We can look ’em over and ask ’em here later on, if we take to ’em: I’m not going to give ’em the run of the house, though, unless they happen to take my fancy. Not inhospitable, of course, but one doesn’t want people bursting in on our tête-à-tête at all hours of the day, just at present. So keep your gregarious instincts in check at first, or we may find ourselves saddled with a couple of bores.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll be all right,” said Jean, who was an optimist by nature. “And perhaps this will turn out to be the Northfleet you used to know. Did you know him well, Colin?”
Colin shook his head.
“Sat next to him in a Maths. class one year at U.C.L. Met him in the Union now and again. He was Science and I was Arts, so we didn’t Bee much of each other.”
“What sort of a person was he?” Jean persisted.
“Oh, clever devil, but no side, I remember. Quite affable if he wanted to be. Could keep his thumb on anything that it didn’t suit him to talk about, though.”
“‘Not shy—reserved rather.’ That was what Mrs. Dinnet said. It must be the same man, surely.”
Colin rubbed his nose thoughtfully.
“It’s this interest in birds that makes me think it’s hardly likely. My Northfleet hadn’t the faintest interest in Zoology. Maths., Chemistry and Physics were his subjects. Must be another fellow of the same name, I think.”
“Well, probably we’ll come across him tomorrow—we can’t miss him on an island the size of Ruffa if he walks about after his birds—so it’s no good wondering any more about him now.”
Colin seemed to be considering some puzzling point, but when he spoke it was clear that he had put Northfleet’s identity out of his mind.
“Seen any dogs about the place, dear? Haven’t set eyes on one myself. And yet they must have one at least for the sheep, one’d think.”
“Quite correct, old Sherlock Holmes. They had one, Mrs. Dinnet told me, but it took collywobbles or something just the other day and died of them. Dinnet’s hunting for a successor, but he hasn’t found one to his liking yet.”
Jean yawned delicately behind her hand.
“Just one turn more round the garden, Colin, and then I’m going up to bed. I’ve still got some unpacking to do. Mrs. Dinnet offered to look after it for me, but I told her I’d do it myself. It seems to me the Dinnets have enough on their hands already, in the way of work.”
She rose and moved out of the arbour. Colin joined her and took her arm.
“Better stick to the paths,” he suggested. “Dew’s fallen, and the lawns would soak your slippers, darling.”
They strolled down one path and then up another, which brought them out on a tiny terrace overlooking the bay.
“listen! What’s that, Colin?”
Faint through the flower-perfumed dusk came the distant tinkle of a guitar, and then soft notes of a girl’s voice singing.
“Somebody out yonder in a boat,” said Colin, peering into the dim seascape. “Sound carries well over water.”
“It must be that girl,” Jean whispered, “there’s nobody else it could be. What a nice voice she has, Colin. Listen!”
As I went down to Shrewsbury Town,
I came by luck on a silver crown:
“And what shall I buy with that,” said I,
“What shall I buy in Shrewsbury Town?”
sang the fresh young voice; and at the end of the verse the guitar continued alone as though it crooned to itself in the night.
“I like her choice in songs, anyhow,” Jean declared when the music fell silent. “That isn’t hackneyed stuff. And now, Colin, I’m positively going to bed. It must be the sea-air, or something, for I’m half-asleep already. Come up later on; and please don’t wake me. I’m sure I’d turn peevish or fractious or something, and most likely I’d bite in my sleep if I were disturbed. You can amuse yourself for a while, can’t you?”
“Oh, I expect I’ll find something to fill in with. I can turn on the wireless. Won’t worry you, will it, darling?”
“Not if you put it to my ear, I’m so sleepy. That unpacking will just have to stand over till to-morrow, and things can get crushed for all I care.”
Colin accompanied her back to the house.
“Mrs. Dinnet was quite right,” Jean said as she kissed her husband good night at the foot of the stairs. “She said this air made you sleep like a log. She and the ‘fac-to-tum’ wouldn’t wake from their slumbers to take notice of an earthquake, by her way of it. So you needn’t worry about your wireless disturbing them, especially