FullReads

‘Got anywhere to go?’ asked Sutton of his nephew.

‘I was going to see one or two people.’

‘Come an’ have a bit o’ dinner with us,’ said the other.

Berry knew that his uncle wanted to be distracted, so that he should not think nor realize. The big man was running hard away from the horror of realization.

‘All right,’ Berry agreed.

The car went quickly through the town. It ran up a long street nearly into the country again. Then it pulled up at a house that stood alone, below the road.

‘I s’ll be back in ten minutes,’ said the uncle.

The car went on to the garage. Berry stood curiously at the top of the stone stairs that led from the highroad down to the level of the house, an old stone place. The garden was dilapidated. Broken fruit-trees leaned at a sharp angle down the steep bank. Right across the dim grey atmosphere, in a kind of valley on the edge of the town, new suburb-patches showed pinkish on the dark earth. It was a kind of unresolved borderland.

Berry went down the steps. Through the broken black fence of the orchard, long grass showed yellow. The place seemed deserted. He knocked, then knocked again. An elderly woman appeared. She looked like a housekeeper. At first she said suspiciously that Mr. Sutton was not in.

‘My uncle just put me down. He’ll be in in ten minutes,’ replied the visitor.

‘Oh, are you the Mr. Berry who is related to him?’ exclaimed the elderly woman. ‘Come in–come in.’

She was at once kindly and a little bit servile. The young man entered. It was an old house, rather dark, and sparsely furnished. The elderly woman sat nervously on the edge of one of the chairs in a drawing-room that looked as if it were furnished from dismal relics of dismal homes, and there was a little straggling attempt at conversation. Mrs. Greenwell was evidently a working class woman unused to service or to any formality.

Presently she gathered up courage to invite her visitor into the dining-room. There from the table under the window rose a tall, slim girl with a cat in her arms. She was evidently a little more lady-like than was habitual to her, but she had a gentle, delicate, small nature. Her brown hair almost covered her ears, her dark lashes came down in shy awkwardness over her beautiful blue eyes. She shook hands in a frank way, yet she was shrinking. Evidently she was not sure how her position would affect her visitor. And yet she was assured in herself, shrinking and timid as she was.

‘She must be a good deal in love with him,’ thought Berry.

Both women glanced shamefacedly at the roughly laid table. Evidently they ate in a rather rough and ready fashion.

Elaine–she had this poetic name–fingered her cat timidly, not knowing what to say or to do, unable even to ask her visitor to sit down. He noticed how her skirt hung almost flat on her hips. She was young, scarce developed, a long, slender thing. Her colouring was warm and exquisite.

The elder woman bustled out to the kitchen. Berry fondled the terrier dogs that had come curiously to his heels, and glanced out of the window at the wet, deserted orchard.

This room, too, was not well furnished, and rather dark. But there was a big red fire.

‘He always has fox terriers,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she answered, showing her teeth in a smile.

‘Do you like them, too?’

‘Yes’–she glanced down at the dogs. ‘I like Tam better than Sally–‘

Her speech always tailed off into an awkward silence.

‘We’ve been to see Aunt Maud,’ said the nephew.

Her eyes, blue and scared and shrinking, met his.

‘Dan had a letter,’ he explained. ‘She’s very bad.’

‘Isn’t it horrible!’ she exclaimed, her face crumbling up with fear.

The old woman, evidently a hard-used, rather down-trodden workman’s wife, came in with two soup-plates. She glanced anxiously to see how her daughter was progressing with the visitor.