The master of St. Benedict's, Vol. 1 (of 2)St. Aubyn, Alan
General
The master of St. Benedict's, Vol. 1 (of 2)
St. Aubyn, Alan
Cambridge (England) -- Fiction; School principals -- Fiction; Students -- Fiction
'I think we must have this place rebuilt,' he said, thinking aloud.
'You would like a greenhouse. We must get some ferns and palms and
foliage plants. Do you like foliage plants?'
'Not much,' Lucy said. She could not think what he meant by appealing
to her. 'I like flowers best. I don't care for leaves. I'm afraid my
taste is very vulgar. I like geraniums, and mignonette, and camellias;
I am very fond of camellias. We used to have some in our greenhouse at
home.'
'You can keep as many as you like here,' he said. 'We will get all the
varieties there are, and you can have geraniums in flower all the year
round.'
He shut the door, and they walked down the path together, while Lucy
wondered what he could mean. It would be scarcely worth while to do up
the old greenhouse and fill it with flowers when it was not likely she
would be there another spring to see it.
In the long path they met Cousin Mary coming towards them. She looked
rather pale and worn in the sunshine, and she had on a most unbecoming
garden-hat. It had been hanging up in the hall all the winter; it might
have been hanging there for years, and it was battered out of all
shape. There was not a bed-maker in the college that would have worn it.
The Tutor had never noticed before how gray her hair had grown, and
that there were crow's-feet round her eyes, and that her cheeks were
faded. She had not changed lately. She had looked like this for years,
getting a little grayer every year, and adding a line or two beneath
her eyes, but he had never noticed it before. He was very fond of her
still; he had the highest opinion of Mary Rae, but he was very glad
that Lucy had come in time--just in time--to save him from throwing
himself away.
'Mr. Colville is going to have the old greenhouse done up, Mary,' Lucy
shouted to her when she was quite a dozen paces away. 'He's going to
have camellias and geraniums all the year round; but perhaps you don't
like camellias.'
The Senior Tutor for once in his life blushed. It was not for Mary he
was going to have those geraniums in perennial bloom.
'I don't think it's worth it,' said Mary bluntly--'at least, not for
us. We shall soon be going away.' And she looked in the direction of
the walnut-tree beneath which the old Master and his wife were still
sitting.
'That should make no change,' the Tutor said awkwardly; 'the lodge
would be still your home.'
He grew ridiculously red, and he did not dare to look Mary in the face.
'We need not talk about that yet,' she said with a smile; 'the dear
Master is still with us. I came to ask you to help him in; he has sat
there long enough. He is not so strong to-day; I can't manage him
alone.'
'I should think not!' said the Tutor, and he hurried off across the
grass and took the old Master back to the lodge.
Lucy did not go in; she slipped through the garden-door into the court,
and hurried back to Newnham. She had promised to drink tea in a girl's
room, and she was already half an hour late.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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