The House of Spies by Warwick Deeping

Author:Warwick Deeping [Warwick Deeping]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783985314010
Publisher: OTB ebook
Published: 2021-08-25T00:00:00+00:00

XXI

Grimly elated, Jasper rode back to Rush Heath. The day had given him far more than he had dared to desire. He had thrashed his man and made a second conquest of Nance Durrell's confidence. His jealousy had dispersed like a thunder-cloud, leaving a clear and adventurous sky.

At Rush Heath he found Jeremy Winter and Cousin Rose in the thick of a quarrel. Rose had driven over from Beech Hill, ostensibly to sit at Squire Kit's bedside, and treat him to some of her frank and pious opinions.

"Uncle Christopher, you shall listen to good words. It fills me with pity, to hear an old man curse and blaspheme."

Mr. Benham had leaned against his pillows and glared at her with a man's disgust. She had talked on and on, and though he had shut his eyes and pretended to snore, she had not been turned from thrusting her piety upon him. It had ended in Squire Kit hammering the floor with the stick he kept on the bed, and Jeremy had arrived to rescue him.

"Jeremy, I say,—Jeremy——"

Winter had understood things at a glance. He had hooked up her arm, and walked her off by main force, and that was why they were quarrelling in the oak parlour.

"I wonder you don't keep away from here, Mr. Winter. You never do any good to Uncle Christopher and Jasper."

Jeremy was the imperturbable fencer whose laughing eyes and sage, sardonic mouth always filled Rose with anger. Her attacks amused him, and Rose Benham insisted upon being taken very seriously.

"So you think I have debased the whole household; Jasper, too, eh?"

"You have always been an irreligious man. You would have led poor father into all sorts of foolishness if we had not prevented it."

"Poor man!"

"I hate your flippancy."

"What a world it is! I have seen my share of it, and upon my soul there is nothing to touch English piety. And there is no one who knows so much about everything as a good back-country English gentlewoman. I suppose she has it all straight from the Almighty."

Rose sat very straight and stiff in her chair.

"That's right, Mr. Jeremy Winter, be blasphemous. At your age——"

"At my age, Miss Benham, you will be a very old woman. As it is, the women still fall in love with me."

"Oh, you wretched old reprobate."

Jeremy went off into huge yet quiet laughter, and it was in the midst of it that Jasper entered with the steady, gleaming eyes of a man who had desires to satisfy and enemies to grapple.

"Hallo!"

He had one glimpse of Rose's stiff and implacable face.

"What have you been doing, Jerry?"

"I? Nothing, sir, nothing. But Miss Benham will have it that I am a disgusting old reprobate and not fit to be in this house."

His smile exasperated Rose. It was so good-tempered, so sly, so unanswerable.

"You ought to know Jeremy Winter by this time, Rose."

"Thank you. I know a little, and that has always been too much."

"Oh, come now!"

She felt that he was on Winter's side, the man's side, and it angered her.

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