Free Summer in February by Jonathan Smith

Bramleys) and over
     lunch with the Colonel the conversation soon took the turn which was now fast becoming the norm in Lamorna.
    ‘What’s all this I hear about the Munnings chappie?’ the Colonel asked. Gilbert took the opportunity of a full mouth to consider
     his reply. What exactly had the Colonel heard about A.J.? Given the wide range of possibilities it was probably best to play
     a straight, defensive bat. Gilbert wiped his mouth on his napkin.
    ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow, Colonel.’
    ‘Got into trouble over in Newlyn, I understand. Quite considerable trouble.’
    ‘Really?’ Mrs P. was now interested. ‘What sort of trouble?’
    ‘That, my dear, is what I’m asking Gilbert.’
    ‘Well, there are always rumours, aren’t there?’ Gilbert said. ‘You know what the village is like.’
    They ate for a while in silence. Then the Colonel asked:
    ‘D’you know him well?’
    ‘Not well, not yet.’
    ‘But you like him?’
    ‘Yes, I like him.’
    ‘So there’s nothing in the rumours? Nothing a bit “off” with the fella?’
    The Colonel looked at his wife and let the sentence hang. With his spoon and fork Gilbert split open his white, puffy Bramley;
     it oozed sultanas and cream, as the Colonel continued:
    ‘Don’t want a cad on my land, d’you see? Not if I can help it. Not a cad, is he?’
    ‘He’s … unusual, I’d say. But not a cad, Colonel, no.’
    ‘Fancies himself as a comic, I’ve heard, but impresses as a buffoon.’
    ‘I think that’s rather harsh, sir.’
    ‘Bit of a painter too, isn’t he?’
    ‘They say he’s a genius.’
    ‘Oh, a genius, is he?’
    And Colonel Paynter’s sniff suggested some considerable reservations over geniuses. Gilbert kept eating, but all that splendid
     lunch, the cold lamb and the Bramleys, nearly came up again five minutes later because a servant girl half ran in to the dining-room,
     apologised and said Flirt, Mrs Paynter’s favourite terrier, had eaten some rat poison and was dying.
    Gilbert hurried over to the stables, while Mrs Paynter and the servants gathered to watch from a distance. Gilbert held the
     dog as it retched all over his shoes.
    The smell!
    He felt his stomach churn and he only just choked back in time. The dog writhed and gasped, its shanks sucking themselves
     in. After a few failed attempts Gilbert managed to spoon some warm milk into Flirt’s mouth, not the easiest of operations
     with the dog grinding her teeth and biting the spoon, but Gilbert kept at it. Butter and mustard followed. Fraction by fraction
     Gilbert somehow slipped some morsels of that down. The dog writhed on, her eyes rolling, her breathing uncertain.
    After an airless and emetic hour, with chubby maids whispering just out of sight, with Flirt’s heart bumping fast in Gilbert’s
     hand, her breathing gradually settled into a more steady beat. It seemed the storm had passed. Gilbert stayed on, then laid
     her, hot and exhausted, in her basket. Exhausted but alive. She looked up at Gilbert with droopy eyes.
    He mopped up.
    ‘So kind of you,’ Mrs Paynter said, ‘so kind.’
    ‘She’ll live, I think,’ Gilbert said. ‘That’s the main thing, isn’t it?’
    White-faced and needing some fresh air, Gilbert bicycled as fast as his legs would take him all the way back to Lamorna swallowing
     and gulping harsh wonderful gulps of air, but the smell of the poison and the sickness seemed to have seeped deep into his
     own skin and clothes; and even though he had thoroughly washed his hands and his shoes he wished he had some eau-de-Cologne.
     The taste was on his tongue, too. He tried to spit it out into the thorny furze and the bramble sprays, but only smeared his
     mouth withsaliva, and when he propped his bicycle against the low wall outside the Carter-Woods’ cottage he felt his nerve nearly fail.
     Next cottage along, he could see Harold Knight’s back bent, still working upstairs in his studio, and he considered going
     instead down the