Language of the Heart by Cadell Elizabeth

Author:Cadell , Elizabeth [Cadell , Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: The Friendly Air Publishing
Published: 2017-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

For the next few weeks, Edmund, who was experiencing unfamiliar sensations of loneliness, set himself to find out what had become of all his old friends. He discovered that they fell into three groups: those who had gone abroad and with whom he had lost touch; those who had married and had been gradually absorbed into family life—and those who, since his meeting with Angela, had been allowed to drift away.

His efforts to re-establish contact were not markedly successful. He paid several week-end visits to the country, played with his godchildren, built brick houses by nursery fires, and held babies while they drank their milk, but always, on his way back to town, came to the conclusion that between bachelors and family men there was a wide and unbridgeable gulf.

His attempts to round up his few bachelor friends in or around London met with an equal lack of success; they had not liked Angela and Angela had not liked them and had made it clear that when she married him she was not going to burden herself with her husband’s boyhood chums.

His Club held no attractions. It was not golfing weather. All that was left was his home, and to it there came one day a very fat, very black, very cheerful couple who introduced themselves as Mr. Welty and Mrs. Euphonia Grand and explained that they had been sent by Miss Nash to work for him, if suitable. Edmund interviewed them, engaged them and found his domestic trials at an end. They sang calypsos as they cooked, but both the singing and the cooking were of a high standard. They owned a small dog called Cha-Cha, but it was well-behaved and had the endearing habit of joining Edmund by the fire of an evening and falling asleep with its paws clasped affectionately round his ankle.

“If only,” Louisa said, when she and Frederica had come up to find out how the new couple were progressing, “if only we’d thought of that solution, Edmund dear. There’s nothing like natives for working willingly and well. In all those years away from England, Freddie and I had no trouble at all. You must go at once and thank Miss Nash for sending them, Edmund dear. Such a nice girl. She—speak up, Freddie dear. Yes, I’m just going to tell him. Mr. Sefton knows her, Edmund. Did you know that he had come in to see us?”

“Yes; he told me in the office that he’d called on you. I’m sorry I didn’t bring him before.”

“Your godfather, and your father’s greatest friend. We found him charming; charming. We told him that he must often drop in, and he said he would. Now, Edmund, don’t lose any time in thanking Miss Nash.”

He was glad of an excuse for going; the more he thought about the things he had said to Fran Nash, the more deeply he regretted them. He remembered that the school holidays were not far away; it would be a relief to wipe out the memory of a crushed piece of paper with an address written on it.

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