Post of Honour by R. F. Delderfield
Author:R. F. Delderfield
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-06-25T16:00:00+00:00
II
John Rudd was buried on one of those left-over days from late summer when the broad, steep street leading down to the church glowed in pale sunlight that suggested rather than provided warmth for the mourners. After the committal, when he was heading for the lych-gate to rejoin Claire (no women had attended at the graveside although many had been present in the church), Paul found himself noting any number of odd, inconsequential things that John might have remarked upon had he been in a tranquil mood—a squadron of rooks circling the church elms, the drunkard’s flight of a bumble bee who had evidently lost his calendar, the curious, crab-like progress of old Aaron Stokes, the reed-gatherer, who must, by Paul’s reckoning, have attended two hundred funerals during his eighty-odd years in the village but his reflections were cut short by confrontation with young Mark Codsall, yet another godchild, at the fork in the church path and Mark’s apologetic—‘Could I have a word with ’ee, Squire? Worn taake but a moment; tiz about Mother!’
He turned aside, wondering if this meant fresh trouble but Mark seemed no more than bashful and said, as they drew aside from the stream of mourners, ‘She’s thinkin’ on gettin’ married again, Squire! Tiz true! I baint jokin’! But it’ll mean her leaving Periwinkle an’ she abben the nerve to tell ’ee! Anyway, tiz all happened zo zudden I’m praper mazed meself, that I be!’
Paul said, ‘I’m absolutely delighted to hear it, Mark, and so, I’m sure, would your father have been. She needs to make a new life for herself and that’s been her main trouble but I hadn’t the faintest notion she . . . ’ and he stopped, noticing that Mark was now flushed with embarrassment.
‘Nor had I, nor our Floss, nor any of us,’ Mark added, ‘but on’y me’s in favour of it! Them others, they don’t understand, havin’ gone off an’ lived away so long, but I remember the bloke well enough. Reckon I ought to—he saved my life when I was a tacker.’
‘Who did?’ asked Paul, more mystified than ever and the young man blurted out that the German prisoner who had been loaned to the farmer twelve years before had reappeared on the doorstep a fortnight ago and informed his mother that he was not only a widower but a prosperous one, having inherited an extensive market-garden from an uncle in some unpronounceable German province like ‘Shinivwig’.
‘Schleswig? Schleswig-Holstein?’ suggested Paul and Mark said yes, that was it, and Elinor had asked him in for a meal and afterwards they had driven off to Paxtonbury in his hired Essex saloon and that his mother had ‘shown up that night in a praper old tizzy, laughin’ an’ cryin’,’ and that since then the German, who was called Willi Meyer, had called every day and had finally taken Mark aside and asked him his views on the prospect of having a German stepfather.
‘Good God!’ said Paul laughing and then, recalling where he was, straightened his face.
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