Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/490

482 deadly sick. Percival Charles is enough to stop a clock. Oh, Cyril, he lives in an eternal Sunday suit, holy broad-cloth and righteous three inches of cuffs! He goes to bed in it. Nay, he wallows in bibles when he goes to bed. I can feel the brass covers of all his family bibles sticking in my ribs as I lie by his side. I could weep with wrath, yet I put on my black hat and trot to chapel with him like a lamb.

“Oh, Cyril, nothing’s happened. Nothing has happened to me all these years. I shall die of it. When I see Percival Charles at dinner, after having asked a blessing, I feel as if I should never touch a bit at his table again. In about an hour I shall hear him hurrying up the entry—prayers always make him hungry—and his first look will be on the table. But I’m not fair to him—he’s really a good fellow—I only wish he wasn’t.

“It’s George Saxton who’s put this in my marital cup of cocoa. Cyril, I must a tale unfold. It is fifteen years since our George married Meg. When I count up, and think of the future, it nearly makes me scream. But my tale, my tale!

“Can you remember his faithful-dog, wounded-stag, gentle-gazelle eyes? Cyril, you can see the whisky, or the brandy combusting in them. He’s got d—t’s, blue-devils—and I’ve seen him, and I’m swarming myself with little red devils after it. I went up to Eberwich on Wednesday afternoon for a pound of fry for Percival Charles’ Thursday dinner. I walked by that little path which you know goes round the back of the ‘Hollies’—it’s as near as any way for me. I thought I heard a row in the paddock at the back of the stables, so I said I might as well see