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Nightfall By: Anthony Pryde |
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NIGHTFALL by ANTHONY PRYDE CHAPTER I
"Tea is ready, Bernard," said Laura Clowes, coming in from the
garden. It was five o'clock on a June afternoon, but the hall was so dark
that she had to grope her way. Wanhope was a large, old fashioned
manor house, a plain brick front unbroken except in the middle, where
its corniced roof was carried down by steps to an immense gateway of
weathered stone, carved with the escutcheon of the family and their
Motto: FORTIS ET FIDELIS. Wistarias rambled over both sides,
wreathing the stone window frames in their grape like clusters of
lilac bloom, and flagstones running from end to end, shallow, and so
worn that a delicate growth of stonecrop fringed them, shelved down
to a lawn. Indoors in the great hall it was dark because floor and staircase
and wall and ceiling were all lined with Spanish chestnut wood,
while the windows were full of Flemish glass in purple and sepia
and blue. There was nothing to reflect a glint of light except a
collection of weapons of all ages which occupied the wall behind
a bare stone hearth; suits of inlaid armour, coats of chainmail
as flexible as silk, assegais and blowpipes, Bornean parangs and
Gurkha kukris, Abyssinian shotels with their double blades,
Mexican knives in chert and chalcedony, damascened swords and
automatic pistols, a Chinese bronze drum, a Persian mace of the
date of Rustum, and an Austrian cavalry helmet marked with a
bullet hole and a stain. Gradually, as her eyes grew used to the gloom Laura found her way
to her husband's couch. She would have liked to kiss him, but
dared not: the narrow mocking smile, habitual on his lips, showed
no disposition to respond to advances. Dressed in an ordinary
suit of Irish tweed, Bernard Clowes lay at full length in an easy
attitude, his hands in his pockets and his legs decently extended
as Barry, his male nurse, had left them twenty minutes ago: a
big, powerful man, well over six feet in height, permanently
bronze and darkly handsome, his immense shoulders still held back
so flat that his coat fitted without a wrinkle but a cripple
since the war. Laura Clowes too was tall and slightly sunburnt, but thin for
her height, and rather plain except for her sweet eyes, her silky
brown hair, and rarer gift! the vague elegance which was a
prerogative of Selincourt women. She rarely wore expensive
clothes, her maid Catherine made most of her indoor dresses,
and yet she could still hold her own, as in old days, among
women who shopped in the Rue de la Paix. This afternoon, in her
silk muslin of the same shade as the trail of wistaria tucked
in where the frills crossed over her breast, she might have gone
astray out of the seventeenth century. "Tea is in the parlour," said Mrs. Clowes. "Shall I wheel you
round through the garden? It's a lovely day and the roses are
in their perfection, I counted eighty blooms on the old Frau
Karl. I should like you to see her." "I shouldn't. But you can drag me into the parlour if you like,"
said Bernard Clowes a grudging concession: more often than not
he ate his food in the hall. His wife pushed his couch, which
ran on cycle wheels and so lightly that a child could propel it,
into her sitting room and as near as she dared to the French
windows that opened without step or ledge on the terrace
flagstones and the verdure of the lawn. Out of doors, for some
obscure reason, he refused to go, though the garden was sweet
with the scent of clover and the gold sunlight was screened by
the milky branches of a great acacia. Still he was in the fresh
air, and Laura hastily busied herself with her flowered Dresden
teacups, pretending unconsciousness because if she had shown the
slightest satisfaction he would probably have demanded to be
taken back. Her mild duplicity was of course mere make believe:
the two understood each other only too well: but it was wiser to
keep a veil drawn in case Bernard Clowes should suddenly return
to his senses... Continue reading book >>
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