But if it was true that I was grown a man, it was truer still that she
was grown a woman, and as tall as I. And these recent sufferings had
taken from her something of light and frolic girlhood, and left her with
a manner more staid and sober. She was dressed in black, with longer
skirts, and her hair caught up behind; and perhaps it was the mourning
frock that made her look pale and thin, as Ratsey said. So while I looked
at her, she looked at me, and could not choose but smile to see my
carter's smock; and as for my brown face and hands, thought I had been
hiding in some country underneath the sun, until I told her of the
walnut-juice. Then before we fell to talking, she said it was better we
should sit in the garden, for that a woman might come in to help her with
the house, and anyway it was safer, so that I might get out at the back
in case of need. So she led the way down the corridor and through the
living-part of the house, and we passed several rooms, and one little
parlour lined with shelves and musty books. The blinds were pulled, but
let enough light in to show a high-backed horsehair chair that stood at
the table. In front of it lay an open volume, and a pair of horn-rimmed
spectacles, that I had often seen on Maskew's nose; so I knew it was his
study, and that nothing had been moved since last he sat there. Even now
I trembled to think in whose house I was, and half-expected the old
attorney to step in and hale me off to jail; till I remembered how all my
trouble had come about, and how I last had seen him with his face turned
up against the morning sun.
Thus we came to the garden, where I had never been before. It was a great
square, shut in with a brick wall of twelve or fifteen feet, big enough
to suit a palace, but then ill kept and sorely overgrown. I could spend
long in speaking of that plot; how the flowers, and fruit-trees,
pot-herbs, spice, and simples ran all wild and intermixed. The pink brick
walls caught every ray of sun that fell, and that morning there was a
hushed, close heat in it, and a warm breath rose from the strawberry
beds, for they were then in full bearing. I was glad enough to get out of
the sun when Grace led the way into a walk of medlar-trees and quinces,
where the boughs interlaced and formed an alley to a brick summer-house.
This summer-house stands in the angle of the south wall, and by it two
fig-trees, whose tops you can see from the outside. They are well known
for the biggest and the earliest bearing of all that part, and Grace
showed me how, if danger threatened, I might climb up their boughs and
scale the wall.
We sat in the summer-house, and I told her all that had happened at her
father's death, only concealing that Elzevir had meant to do the deed
himself; because it was no use to tell her that, and besides, for all I
knew, he never did mean to shoot, but only to frighten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account