turn.
'I'm delighted!' he declared, with an honest sympathy which warmed Dick Markham's heart. 'It couldn't be more suitable! Couldn't! I think so, and so does my wife When's it to be?'
' We haven't quite decided yet,' said Dick.' Sorry to be sc late for the garden-party. But we were...'
'Occupied!' said the major. 'Occupied! I know! Say nothing more about it!'
Though not strictly entitled to be called major, since he had never been a Regular Army man and only gained this rank in the last war, the term so suited Horace Price that he was addressed by no other.
Actually he was a solicitor, and a shrewd one. The village of Six Ashes, to say nothing of half the countryside round, came to snarl itself in litigations at his office in the High Street. But his bearing, his thick-set figure, his cropped sandy moustache, speckled round-jowled face and light blue eye, no less than a knowledge exhaustive and sometimes exhausting about all things military or sporting, made him Major Price even to magistrates.
He stood beaming on them now, teetering back and forth on his heels, and rubbing his hands together.
'We must celebrate this, you know,' he announced. 'Everybody'll want to congratulate you. My wife, and Lady Ashe, and Mrs Middlesworth, and everybody! In the meantime...'
'In the meantime,' suggested Lesley, 'hadn't we better get to shelter?’
Major Price blinked at her.
·Shelter?'
A discarded paper bag, blown on that vast wind, sailed past overhead. The oak-trees round Ashe Hall were distorted, and the flapping of loose canvas now resembled a hurricane of cracking flags.
'The storm's going to break,' said Dick. 'I hope these tents are pegged down securely. They'll be all over the next county if they're not'
'Oh, they'll be all right,' the major assured him. 'And the storm doesn't matter now. This show's nearly over.'
' Has business been good at your stall ?'
'Business,' said the major, 'has been excellent.' Impressed enthusiasm lightened his pale-blue eyes. 'Some of these people, you know, turned out to be devilish good shots. Cynthia Drew, for instance -'
Major Price stopped abruptly. His colour came up abruptly too, as though he had made a diplomatic error. Dick hoped with a sort of weary anger that they weren't going to start throwing Cynthia Drew in his teeth again.
'Lesley,' he said loudly, 'is very anxious to see this famous fortune-teller. That is, if he's still at his post. And, if you'll excuse us, I think we'd better hurry along.'
' Oh, no, you don't!' said the major with decision.
'Don't what?'
Major Price reached out and took Lesley firmly by the wrist.
'See the fortune-teller, by all means. He's still there. But first of all,' grinned the major, 'you're going to patronize my show.'
' Guns ?' cried Lesley.
'Absolutely!' said the major.
' No! Please! I'd rather not!'
Dick turned round. The urgency of Lesley's voice surprised him. But Major Price, with a massive and smothering benevolence, paid no attention.
As a drop of rain stung Dick's forehead, the major impelled both of them towards the miniature shooting- range. This was a narrow shed with wooden walls and a canvas roof, backed by a black-painted sheet of steel. Half a dozen small cardboard targets, run on pulleys so that they could be drawn back to the counter after you fired, were suspended against this back wall.
Ducking under the counter, Major Price touched a switch. A small electric light, on an ingenious arrangement of dry-cell batteries, glowed out over each target. On the counter lay a large collection of light rifles, chiefly .22's, which the major had been borrowing all over Six Ashes.
'You're first, young lady!' he said, and pointed sternly to a well-filled money bowl on the table. 'Six shots for half a crown. I know it's an outrageous price, but this is a charity do. Try it!'
' Honestly,' said Lesley,' I'd rather not!'
'Nonsense!' said the major, picking up a small rifle and running his hand lovingly along the top.' Now here's a neat little model: Winchester 61 hammerless. Very suitable for polishing off your husband after marriage.' He chuckled uproariously.' Try it!'
Dick, who had put half a crown into the money bowl and was turning to urge her as well, stopped short.
Lesley Grant's eyes were shining with an expression he could not quite read: except that there was pleading in it, and fear too. She had removed her picture hat; her rich brown hair, worn in a long bob that curled outwards at the shoulders, was a little more ruffled by the wind. She had never been prettier than at that moment of intensity. She looked about eighteen years old, in contrast to the twenty-eight she admitted.
' I know it's silly,' she said breathlessly. Her slim fingers crushed the .picture hat. 'But I'm frightened of guns. Anything to do with death, or the thought of death...!'
Major Price's sandy eyebrows went up.
'Damme, young woman,' he expostulated, 'we're not really asking you to kill anybody. Just take the rifle and blaze away at one of those targets. Try it!'
' Look here,' said Dick,' if she'd rather not do it...'
Evidently with the idea of being a sport, Lesley fastened her teeth in her lower lip and took the rifle from Major Price. First she tried holding it at arm's length, and saw that this would not do. She looked round, hesitating; then she put her cheek to the stock and fired blindly.
The lash of the rifle-shot, less a report than a spitting noise, was drowned out by thunder. No bullet-pock appeared on the target. And the thunder seemed to complete Lesley's demoralization. She put down the rifle quietly enough on the counter. But Dick saw with sudden consternation that her body was trembling, and that she was almost crying.
' I'm sorry,' she said.' I can't do it.'
'Of all the clumsy oxen in the world,' snapped Dick Markham, ‘I must be the worst, I didn't realize...'
He touched her shoulders. The sense of her nearness was so strong and disturbing that he would have put his arms round her again if it had not been for the presence of Major Price. Lesley was now trying to laugh, and nearly succeeding.
'It's quite all right,' she assured him with sincerity. 'I know I oughtn't to be so foolish. It's just that -!' She made a fierce gesture, finding no words. - Then she took up her picture hat from the counter.
' Of course. I'll go with you.'
'He won't admit more than one at a time,' said Lesley. 'They never will. You stay here and finish the round. But - you won't go away?'
'My going away,' Dick said grimly, 'is just about the unlikeliest thing you can think of.'
They looked at each other for a moment before she left him. How badly Dick Markham had got it may be deduced from the fact that, though she was merely going to a tent some dozen yards away, it had all the effect of a separation. For upsetting Lesley in this matter of the rifle, he now stood and swore at himself with such comprehensiveness that even Major Price, listening in guilty silence, seemed disturbed.
The major cleared his throat
' Women 1' he said, shaking his head with gloomy profundity.
'Yes. But, hang it all, I ought to have known better!'
'Women!' repeated the major. He handed the rifle to Dick, who took it automatically. Then he spoke rather enviously. 'You're a lucky young fellow, my lad.'
' My God, don't I know it?'
'That girl,' observed the major, 'is a kind of witch. She comes here six months ago. She turns the heads of half the males in this vicinity. Money, too. And -' Here he hesitated. 'I say!'
‘Yes, Major Price?'
