Read Online The Crocodile Bird by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ruth Rendell
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rather bitterly, “It’s a lot for us, love,” and then, “Hopefully it’d buy a little portable telly but I don’t know about color.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Does it come in color? Does it really?”
When they went outside to the car they saw that the other van, the camper, wasn’t unoccupied as they had at first thought. A light was on inside it and the blind was raised in the window nearest to the roadway. They had to pass it to get out. Inside, a fiercer, bluer glow than the overhead lamp indicated the presence of a television screen, and as they passed within a few feet Liza saw the little rectangle filled with dazzling color, emerald-green grass, yellow-spotted leaves, and an orange-and-black tiger prowling.
“What a lot I’ve got to catch up with,” she said.
Life at the gatehouse had been of the simplest. Much of it would seem dull to Sean, incredible. There was a good deal she wouldn’t tell him but keep locked in her memory. For instance, how, because Eve wouldn’t leave her alone in the cottage anymore even with the doors locked, couldn’t bring herself to do that when she screamed so piteously, she had been obliged to take Liza with her.
And that was how she came to enter Shrove House for the first time. The palace, the house of pictures and secrets, dolls and keys, books and shadows. Sean would never see it quite like that, no one would but herself and Eve. Most of all Eve.
FIVE
T HEY walked up the drive between the trees, the hornbeams that were nearly round in shape and the larches that were pointed, the silver birches whose leaves trembled in the breeze and the swamp cypresses that came from Louisiana but grew happily here because it was damp by the river. There were giant cedars and even taller Douglas firs and Wellingtonias taller than that, black trees you saw as dark green only when you were close up underneath them. The trees parted and she saw the house for the first time and to her then it was no more than a big house with an enormous lot of windows.
A man was mowing the grass, sitting up in a high chair on wheels. She had seen him once or twice before and was often to see him again. His name was Mr. Frost, he wasn’t a young man, but had wrinkles and white hair, and he came on his bicycle from the village on the other side of the river. White hair was only another kind of fair hair and his confirmed Liza’s belief. He raised one hand to Mother and Mother nodded but they didn’t speak.
Steps went up one side to the front door of Shrove and then there was a kind of platform before the stairs ran down the other side. The stairs had railings like theirs at the gatehouse but the rails here were made of stone with a broad stone shelf running along the tops of them. On the shelf were stone vases from which ivy hung and between the vases stone people stood looking toward the trees.
Liza and Mother went up the flight on the left and Liza held on to the stone railings. Everything was very large and this made her feel smaller than usual. She looked up, as Mother told her, to see the coat of arms, the sword, the shield, the lions. The house towered, its windows shiny sheets, its roof lost in the sky. Mother unlocked the front door and they went in.
“You will not rush about, Liza,” Mother said, “and you will not climb on the furniture. Do you understand? Let me see your hands.”
Liza held them out. They were very clean because Mother had made her wash them before they came out and she had held Mother’s hand all the way.
“All right. You can’t get them dirty in here. Now, remember, walk, don’t run.”
The carpets were soft and thick underfoot and the ceilings were very high. None of the ceilings was white but done in gold and black squares or painted like a blue sky with white clouds and people with wings flying across it, trailing scarves and ribbons and bunches of flowers. The lamps were like raindrops when it is raining very hard and some of the walls had things like
Her eyes grew wide. “Does it come in color? Does it really?”
When they went outside to the car they saw that the other van, the camper, wasn’t unoccupied as they had at first thought. A light was on inside it and the blind was raised in the window nearest to the roadway. They had to pass it to get out. Inside, a fiercer, bluer glow than the overhead lamp indicated the presence of a television screen, and as they passed within a few feet Liza saw the little rectangle filled with dazzling color, emerald-green grass, yellow-spotted leaves, and an orange-and-black tiger prowling.
“What a lot I’ve got to catch up with,” she said.
Life at the gatehouse had been of the simplest. Much of it would seem dull to Sean, incredible. There was a good deal she wouldn’t tell him but keep locked in her memory. For instance, how, because Eve wouldn’t leave her alone in the cottage anymore even with the doors locked, couldn’t bring herself to do that when she screamed so piteously, she had been obliged to take Liza with her.
And that was how she came to enter Shrove House for the first time. The palace, the house of pictures and secrets, dolls and keys, books and shadows. Sean would never see it quite like that, no one would but herself and Eve. Most of all Eve.
FIVE
T HEY walked up the drive between the trees, the hornbeams that were nearly round in shape and the larches that were pointed, the silver birches whose leaves trembled in the breeze and the swamp cypresses that came from Louisiana but grew happily here because it was damp by the river. There were giant cedars and even taller Douglas firs and Wellingtonias taller than that, black trees you saw as dark green only when you were close up underneath them. The trees parted and she saw the house for the first time and to her then it was no more than a big house with an enormous lot of windows.
A man was mowing the grass, sitting up in a high chair on wheels. She had seen him once or twice before and was often to see him again. His name was Mr. Frost, he wasn’t a young man, but had wrinkles and white hair, and he came on his bicycle from the village on the other side of the river. White hair was only another kind of fair hair and his confirmed Liza’s belief. He raised one hand to Mother and Mother nodded but they didn’t speak.
Steps went up one side to the front door of Shrove and then there was a kind of platform before the stairs ran down the other side. The stairs had railings like theirs at the gatehouse but the rails here were made of stone with a broad stone shelf running along the tops of them. On the shelf were stone vases from which ivy hung and between the vases stone people stood looking toward the trees.
Liza and Mother went up the flight on the left and Liza held on to the stone railings. Everything was very large and this made her feel smaller than usual. She looked up, as Mother told her, to see the coat of arms, the sword, the shield, the lions. The house towered, its windows shiny sheets, its roof lost in the sky. Mother unlocked the front door and they went in.
“You will not rush about, Liza,” Mother said, “and you will not climb on the furniture. Do you understand? Let me see your hands.”
Liza held them out. They were very clean because Mother had made her wash them before they came out and she had held Mother’s hand all the way.
“All right. You can’t get them dirty in here. Now, remember, walk, don’t run.”
The carpets were soft and thick underfoot and the ceilings were very high. None of the ceilings was white but done in gold and black squares or painted like a blue sky with white clouds and people with wings flying across it, trailing scarves and ribbons and bunches of flowers. The lamps were like raindrops when it is raining very hard and some of the walls had things like
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