The Tree Drops a Leaf by Ruby M. Ayres

Author:Ruby M. Ayres
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

They went in the Colonel’s car. Gipsy insisted, because at the back of her mind was a queer, nervous dread lest, by some mischance, Robillard might see and recognise her own car before they reached the garage.

“You’re very quiet this morning,” the old man said, when they had covered several miles in complete silence, and Gipsy woke with a guilty start to the realisation that she had been many miles away from him, with only her thoughts for company.

“It’s a sign that I’m happy,” she said. “Don’t they say it’s a sign that you’re with someone you really like, when there’s no need to keep on talking?”

“Do they? I expect you’re right,” he admitted. “But I know very little about what ‘they’ say, whoever they may mean.”

“I should think you know a lot about everything,” Gipsy answered.

Colonel Lufton laughed. “Perhaps I used to —once upon a time—or imagined I did, but I’ve lost touch in the last few years—you do when you’re retired and vegetating in the country.”

“I like the country.”

“Do you? I’m not sure that it’s good for young people—at any rate, all the time. They ought to see life—travel—mix with people. We’re a long time dead, you know …” he submitted whimsically.

“I wonder if we are!” Gipsy said with a little feeling of depression.

“Why wonder?” he objected. “It’s on the lap of the gods and we can’t alter it either way. I’m not a religious chap—not in the general way —but I’ve got my own philosophy.”

“I’m sure it’s the right philosophy,” she said affectionately.

“It’s simple, anyway,” he told her. “All summed up in two lines:

‘We all go hence, we know not where,

All right here—all right there! ’”

“I like it,” Gipsy said.

“It’s common sense, anyway,” he agreed soberly, and then with a return to his old cheeriness: “You’re driving very fast—sure it’s the right way?”

“Yes—you see——” She hesitated. “I think I ought to tell you that my people live quite close to—where we are going,” she added nervously.

“The deuce they do!” … He looked at her quickly. “Then perhaps you know my nephew?”

She kept her eyes steadily on the road.

“I think I know where the garage is,” she admitted. “It’s—it’s in the village—about half a mile from our house.”

“You never told me before,” he said suspiciously.

Gipsy laughed faintly. “Well—I didn’t think you’d ever be coming this way—I didn’t think you were friends with him.”

“This is a business visit,” he answered severely.

He was silent for a moment before he went on:

“If your people live close by, why not go and lunch with them? You don’t want to wait about for me.…”

She said with an effort: “What about your lunch?”

“Oh, I’ll get a bite somewhere with John— I expect there’s a pub somewhere about—no need to worry about me, anyway.”

She asked presently: “And—then shall I call for you?”

“If you will—about three—then we can get back in daylight.”

“Yes.”

“Another blow!” she thought resignedly, and wondered why she had been so happily sure that they would all three lunch together.

“You know,” the Colonel said suddenly, “John ought to marry.

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