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Page 90
She turned the bend of the stairs, and the setting sun, shining
through the west window a moment on her face, turned her to glory.
She disappeared, and the sun went out too, and the stairs were
dark and empty.
He listened till her footsteps were silent, trying to tell from
the sound of the shutting door which room she had gone into, then
wandered aimlessly away through the hall again, and found himself back
in the top garden.
Scrap from her window saw him there. She saw Lotty and Rose
sitting on the end parapet, where she would have liked to have been,
and she saw Mr. Wilkins buttonholing Briggs and evidently telling him
to story of the oleander tree in the middle of the garden.
Briggs was listening with a patience she thought rather nice,
seeing that it was his oleander and his own father's story. She knew
Mr. Wilkins was telling him the story by his gestures. Domenico had
told it her soon after her arrival, and he had also told Mrs. Fisher,
who had told Mr. Wilkins. Mrs. Fisher thought highly of this story,
and often spoke of it. It was about a cherrywood walking-stick.
Briggs's father had thrust this stick into the ground at that spot, and
said to Domenico's father, who was then the gardener, "Here we will
have an oleander." And Briggs's father left the stick in the ground as
a reminder to Domenico's father, and presently--how long afterwards
nobody remembered--the stick began to sprout, and it was an oleander.
There stood poor Mr. Briggs being told all about it, and
listening to the story he must have known from infancy with patience.
Probably he was thinking of something else. She was afraid he
was. How unfortunate, how extremely unfortunate, the determination
that seized people to get hold of and engulf other people. If only
they could be induced to stand more on their own feet. Why couldn't
Mr. Briggs be more like Lotty, who never wanted anything of anybody,
but was complete in herself and respected other people's completeness?
One loved being with Lotty. With her one was free, and yet befriended.
Mr. Briggs looked so really nice, too. She thought she might like him
if only he wouldn't so excessively like her.
Scrap felt melancholy. Here she was shut up in her bedroom,
which was stuffy from the afternoon sun that had been pouring into it,
instead of out in the cool garden, and all because of Mr. Briggs.
Intolerably tyranny, she thought, flaring up. She wouldn't
endure it; she would go out all the same; she would run downstairs
while Mr. Wilkins--really that man was a treasure--held Mr. Briggs down
telling him about the oleander, and get out of the house by the front
door, and take cover in the shadows of the zigzag path. Nobody could
see her there; nobody would think of looking for her there.
She snatched up a wrap, for she did not mean to come back for a
long while, perhaps not even to dinner--it would be all Mr. Briggs's
fault if she went dinnerless and hungry--and with another glance out of
the window to see if she were still safe, she stole out and got away to
the sheltering trees of the zigzag path, and there sat down on one of
the seats placed at each bend to assist the upward journey of those who
were breathless.
Ah, this was lovely, thought Scrap with a sigh of relief. How
cool. How good it smelt. She could see the quiet water of the little
harbour through the pine trunks, and the lights coming out in the
houses on the other side, and all round her the green dusk was splashed
by the rose-pink of the gladioluses in the grass and the white of the
crowding daisies.
Ah, this was lovely. So still. Nothing moving--not a leaf, not
a stalk. The only sound was a dog barking, far away somewhere up on
the hills, or when the door of the little restaurant in the piazza
below was opened and there was a burst of voices, silenced again
immediately by the swinging to of the door.
She drew in a deep breath of pleasure. Ah, this was--
Her deep breath was arrested in the middle. What was that?
She leaned forward listening, her body tense.
Footsteps. On the zigzag path. Briggs. Finding her out.
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