the book as if it were the original Blackfriars prompt copy, with the author’s jottings in the margin, I got to my feet. Sir Julian rose with me, and the white cat, displaced, jumped down and stalked with offended dignity off the terrace and down the steps to the rose garden.
‘I’ll really have to go,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the book, I’ll take great care of it. I – I know I’ve stayed far too long, but I’ve really loved it.’
‘My dear child, you’ve done us both a kindness. I’ve enjoyed your visit enormously, and I hope you’ll come back soon. As you see, there’s a limit to the amount of my conversation that Max and the cat will stand, and it’s pleasant to have a good-mannered and captive audience again. Well, if you must …’
The woods were dark already with the quickly falling twilight. Mr Gale, accompanying me politely to theedge of the rose garden, pointed out the path which led down to the clearing where the pool lay. The beautiful Nitwit was there, dreamily regarding a large moth which hovered near some honeysuckle. Max Gale picked him up, said goodbye to me, and went quickly back. A very few minutes later I heard the sound of the piano. He had lost no time in getting back to work. Then the woods closed in and I was out of hearing.
The woods were always quiet, but now, with the darkness muffling their boughs, they seemed to hold a hushed and heavy stillness that might be the herald of storm. The scent of flowers hung like musk on the air.
As I picked my way carefully down the path I was thinking of the recent interview; not of the ‘theory’ with which Sir Julian had been beguiling his exile, but of Sir Julian himself, and what Phyl and Godfrey had said about him.
That there had been – still was – something badly wrong seemed obvious: not only was there the physical evidence that even I could see, there was also that attitude of watchful tension in the younger man. But against this could be set the recent conversation, not the normal – and even gay – tone of it, but the use of certain phrases that had struck me. Would a man who had recently emerged from a mental home talk so casually and cheerfully about the ‘lunatic fringe’ inhabited by his son? A son had, after all, a big stake in his father’s sanity. And would the son, in his turn, speak of his father’s ‘obsession’, and the need to ‘humour’ him? Perhaps if the need were serious, this was Mr Gale’s way of passing off a potentially trickysituation? Perhaps that edgy, watchful air of his was on my behalf as much as his father’s?
Here I gave up. But as for the idea of Sir Julian’s roaming the countryside with a rifle to the danger of all and sundry, I could believe it no more than formerly. I would as soon suspect Phyllida, or Godfrey Manning himself.
And (I thought) I would suspect Max Gale a darned sight sooner than any.
I could hear the trickle of water now, and ahead of me was the break in the trees where the pool lay. At the same moment I became conscious of a strange noise, new to me, like nothing more nor less than the clucking and chattering of a collection of hens. It seemed to come from the clearing.
Then I realised what it was; the evening chorus at the pool – the croaking of the innumerable frogs who must live there. I had stopped at the edge of the clearing to pick up my towel, and some of them must have seen me, for the croaking stopped, and then I heard the rhythmic plopping of small bodies diving into the water. Intrigued, I drew back behind the bushes, then made a silent way round the outer edge of the clearing towards the far side of the pool, where there was cover. Now I was above the bank. I gently pressed the branches aside, and peered down.
At first, in the dusk I could see nothing but the dark gleam of the water where the sky’s reflection struck it between the upper boughs, and the matt circles of the small lily leaves and some floating weed. Then I saw a frog, a big one,
‘I’ll really have to go,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the book, I’ll take great care of it. I – I know I’ve stayed far too long, but I’ve really loved it.’
‘My dear child, you’ve done us both a kindness. I’ve enjoyed your visit enormously, and I hope you’ll come back soon. As you see, there’s a limit to the amount of my conversation that Max and the cat will stand, and it’s pleasant to have a good-mannered and captive audience again. Well, if you must …’
The woods were dark already with the quickly falling twilight. Mr Gale, accompanying me politely to theedge of the rose garden, pointed out the path which led down to the clearing where the pool lay. The beautiful Nitwit was there, dreamily regarding a large moth which hovered near some honeysuckle. Max Gale picked him up, said goodbye to me, and went quickly back. A very few minutes later I heard the sound of the piano. He had lost no time in getting back to work. Then the woods closed in and I was out of hearing.
The woods were always quiet, but now, with the darkness muffling their boughs, they seemed to hold a hushed and heavy stillness that might be the herald of storm. The scent of flowers hung like musk on the air.
As I picked my way carefully down the path I was thinking of the recent interview; not of the ‘theory’ with which Sir Julian had been beguiling his exile, but of Sir Julian himself, and what Phyl and Godfrey had said about him.
That there had been – still was – something badly wrong seemed obvious: not only was there the physical evidence that even I could see, there was also that attitude of watchful tension in the younger man. But against this could be set the recent conversation, not the normal – and even gay – tone of it, but the use of certain phrases that had struck me. Would a man who had recently emerged from a mental home talk so casually and cheerfully about the ‘lunatic fringe’ inhabited by his son? A son had, after all, a big stake in his father’s sanity. And would the son, in his turn, speak of his father’s ‘obsession’, and the need to ‘humour’ him? Perhaps if the need were serious, this was Mr Gale’s way of passing off a potentially trickysituation? Perhaps that edgy, watchful air of his was on my behalf as much as his father’s?
Here I gave up. But as for the idea of Sir Julian’s roaming the countryside with a rifle to the danger of all and sundry, I could believe it no more than formerly. I would as soon suspect Phyllida, or Godfrey Manning himself.
And (I thought) I would suspect Max Gale a darned sight sooner than any.
I could hear the trickle of water now, and ahead of me was the break in the trees where the pool lay. At the same moment I became conscious of a strange noise, new to me, like nothing more nor less than the clucking and chattering of a collection of hens. It seemed to come from the clearing.
Then I realised what it was; the evening chorus at the pool – the croaking of the innumerable frogs who must live there. I had stopped at the edge of the clearing to pick up my towel, and some of them must have seen me, for the croaking stopped, and then I heard the rhythmic plopping of small bodies diving into the water. Intrigued, I drew back behind the bushes, then made a silent way round the outer edge of the clearing towards the far side of the pool, where there was cover. Now I was above the bank. I gently pressed the branches aside, and peered down.
At first, in the dusk I could see nothing but the dark gleam of the water where the sky’s reflection struck it between the upper boughs, and the matt circles of the small lily leaves and some floating weed. Then I saw a frog, a big one,
Similar Books
