Читать книгу Любовник леди Чаттерлей / Lady Chatterley's Lover онлайн | страница 55

Sobs, snuffles, a fist taken from a blubbered face, and a black shrewd eye cast for a second on the sixpence. Then more sobs, but subduing. “There, tell me what’s the matter, tell me!” said Connie, putting the coin into the child’s chubby hand, which closed over it.

“It’s the… it’s the… pussy!”

Shudders of subsiding sobs.

“What pussy, dear?”

After a silence the shy fist, clenching on sixpence, pointed into the bramble brake.

“There!”

Connie looked, and there, sure enough, was a big black cat, stretched out grimly, with a bit of blood on it.

“Oh!” she said in repulsion.

“A poacher, your Ladyship,” said the man satirically.

She glanced at him angrily. “No wonder the child cried,” she said, “if you shot it when she was there. No wonder she cried!”

He looked into Connie’s eyes, laconic, contemptuous, not hiding his feelings. And again Connie flushed; she felt she had been making a scene, the man did not respect her.

“What is your name?” she said playfully to the child. “Won’t you tell me your name?”

Sniffs; then very affectedly in a piping voice: “Connie Mellors!”

“Connie Mellors! Well, that’s a nice name! And did you come out with your Daddy, and he shot a pussy? But it was a bad pussy!”

The child looked at her, with bold, dark eyes of scrutiny, sizing her up, and her condolence.

“I wanted to stop with my Gran,” said the little girl.

“Did you? But where is your Gran?”

The child lifted an arm, pointing down the drive. “At th’ cottidge.”

“At the cottage! And would you like to go back to her?”

Sudden, shuddering quivers of reminiscent sobs. “Yes!”

“Come then, shall I take you? Shall I take you to your Gran? Then your Daddy can do what he has to do.” She turned to the man. “It is your little girl, isn’t it?”

He saluted, and made a slight movement of the head in affirmation.

“I suppose I can take her to the cottage?” asked Connie.

“If your Ladyship wishes.”

Again he looked into her eyes, with that calm, searching detached glance. A man very much alone, and on his own.

“Would you like to come with me to the cottage, to your Gran, dear?”