Read The Flowering Thorn for Free Online Page A

was made of flannel.
    â€˜ Flannel! ’ thought Lesley impatiently. ‘His mother ought to have had more sense.’ If flannel caught alight it simply went up like celluloid; and now she came to think about it, there was celluloid there too—that absurd floating swan brought in by Mrs. Lee! It lived by Pat’s bed, looking very much out of place, Lesley remembered, on a steel book-table.… Flannel and celluloid!
    â€œHaving no hearts, partner?”
    She looked: she had. The game progressed while Pat charred to a cinder. She tried violently to concentrate, but it was no good; and with a growing disgust, Lesley felt herself to be experiencing the traditional emotions of the absent hen. Her nest was bare, her chick unguarded: for in such nauseating similes did her predicament naturally express itself. Intellectually, she could conceive no possible cause for alarm: and it was therefore all the more unfortunate that what she had now to deal with was a matter not of intellectual conviction but of female physiology. She was discovering, in fact, that it is almost a physical impossibility for any normal woman to leave a small child alone from seven at night till three in the morning; and her bridge suffered accordingly.
    â€œGame and rub,” said Elissa, reaching for the score-card. “What is it, darling, drink or the digestion?”
    â€œOne on top of the other, darling,” replied Lesley, with a suitable langour. “So much so, in fact, that I think I’m going to cut the matinée.”
    â€œBut my dear ”—Elissa’s hair-thick eyebrows went up and up—“you aren’t as bad as all that, are you?” She looked really quite anxious—it was so unlike Lesley to break up a bridge party, and a nuisance into the bargain. A damnable nuisance, for what the hell were they to do until it was time to go? Aloud she said,
    â€œHave a brandy, darling, and don’t give way. There’s nothing like bridge for taking the mind off it.”
    For the first time within memory, however, that perfect social conscience was no longer in command. Apologetically, indeed, but with no sign of relenting, Lesley rose to her feet: she was sorry for Elissa, but she was in an agony for Pat; and steadily refusing both cars and cordials, Miss Frewen slipped into her cloak and almost ran downstairs.
    3
    From the windows of the Yellow House not a flame issued. Lesley let herself in, ran quickly upstairs, and there found Patrick peacefully asleep and no matches in the room.
    For a moment she stood gazing, though without æsthetic appreciation, at his pink cheek on the white pillow; then turned back on to the landing and swore from the heart.
    Her return to form being as sudden as complete, she could not now for the life of her conceive what had happened. There had been something—God knew what—that drove her from Elissa’s bridge-table; that caused her to lie, feign sickness, and let down her hostess; and which now, having done its worst, had abruptly departed. It was all utterly inexplicable.
    â€˜Of course he was all right!’ thought Lesley, looking back over her shoulder. Through the open doorway she could just see Pat’s bed, low and pale and with a mound in the middle. The mound was Patrick, and it never stirred. Probably it had never stirred in all the time she was away; would doubtless continue unstirring should she go away again. The thought was tempting: the night was young: and as though to add its persuasion, a clock downstairs chose that moment to chime.
    â€˜My God!’ thought Lesley. ‘It’s only half-past ten!’
    She stood and listened: the whole house urged her out. It was charming, intimate, a pleasure to the eye: but it did not expect to be inhabited at half-past ten at night. By a whole crowd of people, yes: by two people, perhaps: but not by just one person.…
    With sudden resolution Lesley picked up her white moiré