"Come on," said Nan. "We must hurry."
She left no more pauses, but talked all the time, about Newlyn, about the
artists, about the horrid children, the fishing, the gulls, the weather.
"And how's the book?" he asked.
"Nearly done. I'm waiting for the end to make itself."
He smiled and looking round at him she saw that he was not smiling at
her or her book, but at Gerda, who had stepped off the causeway and was
wading in a rock pool.
He must be obsessed with Gerda; he thought of her, apparently, all the
time he was talking about other things. It was irritating for an aunt to
bear.
They joined Kay and Gerda on the island. Kay was prowling about, looking
for a way by which to enter the forbidden castle. Kay always trespassed
when he could, and was so courteous and gentle when he was caught at it
that he disarmed comment. But this time he could not manage to evade the
polite but firm eye of the fisherman on guard. They crossed over to
Marazion again all together and went to the cafe for supper.
5
It was a merry, rowdy meal they had; ham and eggs and coffee in an upper
room, with the soft sea air blowing in on them through open windows. Nan
and Barry chattered, and Kay took his cheerful part; only Gerda sparse of
word, was quiet and dreamy, with her blue eyes opened wide against sleep,
for she had not slept until late last night.
"High time she had a holiday," Barry said of her. "Four weeks' grind in
August--it's beginning to tell now."
Fussy Barry was about the child. As bad as Frances Carr with Pamela.
Gerda was as strong as a little pony really, though she looked such a
small, white, brittle thing.
They got out maps and schemed out roads and routes over their cigarettes.
Then they strolled about the little town, exploring its alleys and narrow
byways that gave on the sea. The moon had risen now, and Marazion was cut
steeply in shadow and silver light, and all the bay lay in shadow and
silver too, to where the lights of Penzance twinkled like a great lit
church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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