The Fox in the Attic Read Online Free Page B

his conscience pricked him; for the annual Banquet was tonight and he had not even remembered to answer. His two old uncles, of course, had attended the High Steward’s Banquet yearly to the last; but wild horses could not drag Augustine to any function of that kind and surely the sooner people ceased even inviting him, the better! Bucolic banquets, flower-shows, the magistrate’s bench, audit-days, hunt balls—the young squire of Newton was absolutely determined not to get “involved”; and surely the neighborhood ought to be only too thankful—nobody wants a Heavy Squire these days! In 1923 it’s quite out of date. At the very least he wouldn’t be missed: there are plenty of noisome little creatures who like doing that sort of thing. Thus he could feel his lip curl a little in derision—though quite involuntarily—as he turned himself in the dusk to contemplate once more that low fixed star which was all the lights of distant ... of gregarious, festive Flemton.
    For the moment he had clean forgotten what had just happened on the Marsh; and yet in his face that look of yesterday’s footmarks had still persisted even while he laughed.
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    Flemton, the object of Augustine’s mild involuntary derision ...
    That long line of dunes dividing the seven-mile stretch of sea-marsh from the sea ended in a single precipitous peninsular outcrop of rock, and this was washed by the mouth of a small smelly tidal river which served as creek still for a few coasting smacks (though the trade was already dying). The tiny, unique self-governing township of Flemton was crowded right on top of this rock, the peeling yellow stucco of its Regency houses bulging out over its mediaeval walls like ice-cream from a cornet.
    This was Flemton’s great night—the night of the banquet—and now the rain had stopped. Princes Street was decorated: Chinese lanterns hung in the pollarded limes: signal-flags and other bunting, colored tablecloths, tanned sails, even gay petticoats and Sunday trousers streamed from some of the poorer windows. The roadway milled with happy citizenry hoping for a fight presently but not yet: little Jimmy-the-pistol was bicycling up and down among them letting off rockets from his handlebars, the pocket of his jacket on fire.
    Moreover the aged, famous Dr. Brinley had driven himself over early from Penrys Cross along the sands in his pony-trap. Dr. Brinley knew Flemton of old: each elegant, rotting, fungusy house and the men, women and children who swarmed in them. He saw all these people as he tended to see the whole world—and indeed, as the world too saw him—with a heightening, Hogarthian eye; but he loved them and needed them none the less. The scene tonight was meat and drink to Dr. Brinley and he paused to enjoy it.
    A group of women in the middle of Princes Street had their heads together: “Can’t think where that Dai of mine has got to,” Mrs. Dai Roberts was saying.
    She seemed to speak with difficulty. “That woman has mislaid her false teeth and the ones she has borrowed are a poor fit,” thought Dr. Brinley in the shadows, chuckling.
    â€œDown on the Marsh, shooting with Mr. Augustine he was very usual,” said a yellow-haired young man with a hare-lip: “Happen they’ve stopped on for the evening flight.”
    â€œMy Dai’ll never give the Banquet a miss, I know that!” said Mrs. Roberts.
    â€œWill Mr. Augustine be attending this year, Mrs. Roberts, do you know?” a woman asked her diffidently.
    Mrs. Roberts spat like a man and returned no other answer; but the quivering of her goiter made her look like an angry turkey and the others took their cue:
    â€œIt’s a crying shame,” said someone.
    â€œShut away in that great house all alone—it’s not natural,” said another.
    â€œClean mental, to my way of thinking,” said someone else. Then she lowered her voice a little: