Chapters (20)
Smith found himself wishing that he could ask her to stay the night. That was an outrageous thought, of course. Just expressing it as an idle fancy would probably make her drop him altogether and run from the room. If she wasn’t already scared off by his oddness. Mental note: stop being so odd. At least in front of her. But he was starting to rely on her. And that business about being a soldier or not… he didn’t feel particularly positive about the military, but it was something that happened, and if it did, why get in the way of a fact of life? It was because Joan had lost someone, he decided. She didn’t like to think of any of the boys going the same way. But they were boys, and they dreamed of adventure and glory. Good for them.
And what would he have done if she did stay? A sort of vaguely defined soft thing that she knew more about than he did, and that wasn’t right, was it? He’d had trouble with kissing Verity. But if girls didn’t do this until they were married, and boys did it before, who did the boys do it with? Mental note: ask the boys.
There came a knock on the door. Smith opened it. There stood a schoolboy. ‘Tell me —’ began Smith, and then stopped. ‘No. What?’
‘Please, sir, Mr Rocastle sent me to get you, sir. He’s called a general assembly in half an hour.’
‘Has he? All right. Off you go. We’ll… I’ll be there.’ The boy ran off again. Smith glanced up. The sky was dark with squalls and approaching stormclouds.
Joan wandered into the kitchen and plucked her cardigan from the back of a chair.
‘I heard. The man’s insane. Shall I go first and you follow in a minute?’
‘No.’ Smith removed the apron, opened a cupboard and absent-mindedly dropped an umbrella into the crook of his arm. ‘We’ll go together.’
Joan smiled. ‘All right. I’ll be brave if you are.’ She saw the umbrella and gasped.
‘John! Is that what you were looking for?’
‘Hmm?’ Smith glanced down at the object he was carrying and bounced it off his elbow with his hand. ‘My goodness!’ The umbrella had a garish red handle in the shape of a question mark, currently reversed in Smith’s grip. Smith spun it round the right way and replaced it on his arm. He gazed at Joan. ‘Isn’t it strange what you find when you’re looking for something else?’