The Jade God by Alan Sullivan (snow like ashes series txt) 📕

puzzled about you, and the influence the place seemed to be getting over you, upsetting your work. I’ve got over that now, and Perkins has turned out a regular trump. I’m beginning to see what’s behind that manner of hers.”

“I wish I could.”

“Jack, it’s only that of a brokenhearted woman, her way of expressing it, and nothing else. Yet in spite of that she’s a household treasure. Things do themselves; there’s no lost energy and no lost time. If Perkins could be duplicated in sufficient quantities she’d revolutionize domestic life in England.”

“It’s a pity she’s never married and started a new breed.”

Edith decapitated a surviving thistle. “That kind doesn’t marry very often. They’re born into the world without any desire for marriage, and perhaps it’s just as well in this case. She’d be working for her husband and not for us. Marriage,” she added quizzically, “isn’t the solution for everything.”

“But why do you say she’s brokenhearted?”

“Because of a queer thing that happened last night. I wasn’t going to say anything about it, but you’re so unusually sensible today that it doesn’t matter. I was lying half awake last night, and seemed to hear someone talking at a little distance with no attempt at concealment, and quite loud, so I wasn’t nervous. It was a woman’s voice. I got up and prowled about and found it came from Perkins’s room. She was talking in her sleep in a queer, flat tone, talking very fast, apparently arguing with someone, greatly excited and rather desperate.”

“What was she saying?” put in Derrick sharply.

“That’s the strange part of it; I couldn’t understand a word. It was all in some strange liquid sort of language, ending in ‘ong’ and ‘yang’ and ‘ing,’ and sounds like that. Three or four times she said, ‘Master, master.’ That must have meant Mr. Millicent, to whom she was so devoted. All of a sudden it stopped, as though her brain had come back from its travels, and I heard nothing more. This morning I looked at her very closely, but not a line of her face had changed, and her eyes were just the same as ever. She had evidently been dreaming about Mr. Millicent’s death, and, Jack, that’s the biggest thing in her life now. She was dour and silent before; Mrs. Millicent said so today; and one can imagine what a tragedy like that must mean to a queer locked-up nature like hers.”

“Can’t you remember any of the foreign words she used?” he asked casually.

She frowned a little, thinking hard. “There were two that came quite often, more than any others, one something like rumah, sambayüng, and the other like santari. That’s as near as I can get to it. Why do you ask?”

“No particular reason, except that I’d like to identify the language.”

“You’re not going to speak to Perkins herself, are you?”

“No,” he smiled. “Far be it from me to put my finger into the wheels of domestic comfort. Anything more about her?”

“Nothing except that I’m going to try and cheer her up, and coax out a smile or two. As it is she smiles about once a week. Then there’s Martin.”

“And what of him?”

“I don’t quite know. I’ve been watching him at work and talking to him occasionally, and what strikes me is that here at Beech Lodge are two of the loneliest souls imaginable. I’ve got it now!” she added suddenly. “Why shouldn’t they marry?”

“Oh!” said Derrick, startled.

“Well, just think a minute. It might work splendidly for all concerned,” continued Edith, warming to the idea. “Martin, in spite of his appearance, is as faithful as a dog, and he absolutely loves flowers. This place is going to be a picture next summer. He’s had some sort of a blow, too, and his eyes are often more sad than I can describe, and not a bit shifty or furtive. And he’s beginning to like you just as he used to like Mr. Millicent from all accounts. Jack, why shouldn’t they marry? Don’t you suppose it’s possible that that’s what brought him back, looking for Perkins?”

Derrick did not answer at once. The idea was too fantastic. It was not Perkins that Martin sought when he returned, nor was she the type of woman to bring a suspected man round the world to a place which for every reason he should avoid. They shared something; he was sure of that; but whatever it was it had dug a gulf between them, and to discover a bridge to span that gulf was Derrick’s aim.

“If I were you I’d put that idea out of my head,” he said quietly.

Edith was a little disappointed. “Why? Stranger things have happened before this.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that stranger things would probably happen, but he only laughed.

“We know nothing of their past⁠—that is, before they came to Beech Lodge⁠—and their future is their own. It’s too delicate a business. Perkins doesn’t like Martin, though she was bound to recommend him as an excellent gardener, and it would be stretching the point a good deal to imagine that she is anything to him. She hardly speaks to him as it is. Didn’t you say just now that she was not the marrying kind?”

“Yes, I did; but since there’s no probability of my arranging my own wedding, I rather like to potter about with other people’s. That may be useful to you, Jack, later on. As to Perkins, I dare say you’re right, and after all, if they did ultimately come together, it couldn’t be utterly festive, could it?”

“No,” he laughed, “it couldn’t. What else is there in the mind of the thoughtful Martha?”

“Nothing except that I’d like to make those two lives a bit more cheery, if I could; and naturally one’s mind pitches ahead.”

“It does,” he admitted. “Do you feel prophetic at the moment?”

She sent him a keen glance, at which he colored in spite of himself.

“I don’t believe, old boy, you’re quite ready for me