Читать книгу The Saint of the Speedway онлайн

23 страница из 87

“Guess he’s right on the way now.” The woman’s eyes were alight, then a shadow crept into them. “He won’t be along for six months from the start. Maybe that’ll be three months an’ more from the coming of this letter.”

“Yes, it would be about that.”

The man’s eyes were serious as he regarded the letter bunched in Rebecca’s hand. Then he looked up and was smiling again.

“I’m just so glad for you, ma’am, I can’t say,” he said cordially. “Jim’s a great boy. He’s got elegant grit, too. He’s out for you an’ Claire all the time, and I’ll be real glad to have him around again for—for all your sakes. How does Claire feel? But there, I guess she’s crazy glad. Where is she?”

He craned, peering into the doorway expectantly. But the mother shook her head.

“She’s not inside,” she declared. “Glad? Why, it don’t say a thing, Ivor. You know her. She and Jim are kind of all in all to themselves. She went sort of white as a corpse when she read that letter. She didn’t say much, but if you’d seen her eyes! My! You can guess wher’ she is now. Ther’s only one place for Claire when Jim’s on the water sailin’ home. It’s right up on the headland back of here,” she jerked her greying head towards the back of the house. “She’s right up there where she can see the sea. An’ I guess she’s dreaming fool dreams of his home-coming.”