Read Online The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Goudge
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the moment of knowing, she took the lamp and went first to the dining room. A blast of cold air met her face as she opened the door. It was a small room filled to capacity with the oak table, sideboard and chairs, one of them with a high carved back, that she remembered. A dingy Morris wallpaper was peeling off the wall and the brown linoleum on the floor was full of holes. There was a scurry of mice and the smell of them. Mary shut the door again hastily and went on to the parlor. She stood with her hand on the door handle afraid to go in. She remembered the mossy carpet strewn with roses, the sea-green light shining through the vine leaves and the table with the plush cover. Then she summoned her courage and opened the door.
It was not so changed as the dining room, for the beautiful paneled walls were untarnishable by time, and the carpet must have been well looked after, for though it was faded it was still pretty. As Mrs. Baker had said, a fire was laid in the basket grate. There were a couple of spindly chairs with gilt legs, an escritoire against the wall and the table with the plush cover still standing in the window. But the little things were not there.
2
Mary was awakened at five the next morning by the birds and felt it to be incredible that such small creatures could make such a row. She got out of bed to see what could be singing with such abandon, like one of the beloved music hall stars of the old days, and it was two blackbirds in the lilac opposite her east window. Their wide-open crocus-colored beaks looked like the jaws of crocodiles and from them song poured forth. Leaning out of the window with her dressing gown around her shoulders, she could distinguish the heavenly music of the seraph thrush singing in the copse, and when the blackbirds paused for a moment she could hear the lark singing high overhead and the cuckoos calling in the distant woods. These songs woven together were an almost visible web of music lifting the earth from darkness to light.
She went back to bed and lay watching the movement of shadows on the wall, shadows of the branches, of birds’ wings, of her curtains swaying, and listened to the striking of the church clock, the rustle of trees, and cows lowing in the distant fields. For these things were a part of her room and she must learn them by heart. When she went away she would come back to them as surely as she came back to John’s photo on the mantelpiece and Jane Austen beside her bed, and would find in them a measure of her peace. The light grew stronger and the birds went about their business but she could not sleep again and she stretched out her hand for
Persuasion
. It was one of the loveliest love stories ever written, she thought, quiet and yet exciting. Although she practically knew it by heart yet upon each rereading she recaptured that first deep anxiety lest Captain Wentworth should not come up to scratch. Yet anxiety was not a word one ought to use in connection with Jane, who was so eminently trustworthy. Perhaps it was a measure of her genius that she could arouse it. Would you have found me trustworthy had you married me? she asked the man in the photo opposite. I should have found you so. You had honor and fire with gentleness. I liked you, admired you, wanted to love you more and know you better. Would you have made me love you as I wanted to love you? Was I capable of knowing you? And if not then, am I now? Can you teach me? There was no answer in the great emptiness of death and she got up feeling suddenly cold and weary. She had never known what she believed about death, whether it was the end or whether it wasn’t. She knew there could be no certainty, only faith. Could she find faith? Was there anyone here who could help her?
She washed and dressed, and on her way downstairs looked into the two bedrooms that Mrs. Baker had told her were uninhabitable. They had dry rot in the floorboards, fungus growing in the corners and not a stick of furniture in
It was not so changed as the dining room, for the beautiful paneled walls were untarnishable by time, and the carpet must have been well looked after, for though it was faded it was still pretty. As Mrs. Baker had said, a fire was laid in the basket grate. There were a couple of spindly chairs with gilt legs, an escritoire against the wall and the table with the plush cover still standing in the window. But the little things were not there.
2
Mary was awakened at five the next morning by the birds and felt it to be incredible that such small creatures could make such a row. She got out of bed to see what could be singing with such abandon, like one of the beloved music hall stars of the old days, and it was two blackbirds in the lilac opposite her east window. Their wide-open crocus-colored beaks looked like the jaws of crocodiles and from them song poured forth. Leaning out of the window with her dressing gown around her shoulders, she could distinguish the heavenly music of the seraph thrush singing in the copse, and when the blackbirds paused for a moment she could hear the lark singing high overhead and the cuckoos calling in the distant woods. These songs woven together were an almost visible web of music lifting the earth from darkness to light.
She went back to bed and lay watching the movement of shadows on the wall, shadows of the branches, of birds’ wings, of her curtains swaying, and listened to the striking of the church clock, the rustle of trees, and cows lowing in the distant fields. For these things were a part of her room and she must learn them by heart. When she went away she would come back to them as surely as she came back to John’s photo on the mantelpiece and Jane Austen beside her bed, and would find in them a measure of her peace. The light grew stronger and the birds went about their business but she could not sleep again and she stretched out her hand for
Persuasion
. It was one of the loveliest love stories ever written, she thought, quiet and yet exciting. Although she practically knew it by heart yet upon each rereading she recaptured that first deep anxiety lest Captain Wentworth should not come up to scratch. Yet anxiety was not a word one ought to use in connection with Jane, who was so eminently trustworthy. Perhaps it was a measure of her genius that she could arouse it. Would you have found me trustworthy had you married me? she asked the man in the photo opposite. I should have found you so. You had honor and fire with gentleness. I liked you, admired you, wanted to love you more and know you better. Would you have made me love you as I wanted to love you? Was I capable of knowing you? And if not then, am I now? Can you teach me? There was no answer in the great emptiness of death and she got up feeling suddenly cold and weary. She had never known what she believed about death, whether it was the end or whether it wasn’t. She knew there could be no certainty, only faith. Could she find faith? Was there anyone here who could help her?
She washed and dressed, and on her way downstairs looked into the two bedrooms that Mrs. Baker had told her were uninhabitable. They had dry rot in the floorboards, fungus growing in the corners and not a stick of furniture in
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