Читать книгу The Brading Collection - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 5

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When Lady Minstrell had gone Stacy went down and borrowed a map of Ledshire. Colonel Albury on the ground floor had all the maps in the world. In the days when he had a car he had driven it at a high rate of speed over most of the roads which were marked upon them. Now that he couldn’t drive any more he spent a good many hours a day going over his maps, calculating things like mileage, and just where you could save petrol by coasting down a slope. Stacy did not want to become entangled in these calculations, so she was glad to catch Mrs. Albury, who gave her the map without asking any questions and was only too anxious to hurry back to the washing, or the cooking, or the cleaning, which she did so badly, and which took up all her time.

Back in her own room, Stacy unfolded the map and laid it out on the piece of furniture which was a sofa by day and a bed by night. She certainly had two rooms, but the one at the back was too small and hot to sleep in.

She spread out the map and kneeled down to look at it. There was Ledlington, with Ledstow seven miles away and a wavy line of coast beyond. Burdon wouldn’t be marked, but the village was Hele, and that was seven miles from Ledlington too. She found it almost at once, on the opposite side from Ledstow, and drew in her breath. That would make it a good fourteen miles from the coast. Warne lay right on the coast. Even if Charles was there, she could go down to Burdon with a light heart. Fourteen miles was quite a long way. Besides, why should Charles be at Warne? He couldn’t possibly afford to live at Saltings.

She stopped for a moment to think about the big grey house standing amongst the old trees which screened it from the Channel winds. She wondered if it was sold, or let, or parcelled out into flats. She wondered whether Charles would mind if it were. If he did he would never show it. He never showed anything. Perhaps that was because there was nothing to show. He kept a smiling face to the world and charmed it at his will, but whether he cared for anything more than that it should be charmed, she had not known and she would never know.

Stacy got up quickly. She bundled the map together and pitched it on to a chair in a manner which would have made Colonel Albury see red. Granted she was a born fool, she wasn’t quite such a fool as to be all maudlin over a map and start thinking back about Charles. It didn’t matter to her what had happened to him or to Saltings. She was going to Burdon to paint old Myra Constantine, and Burdon was fourteen miles from Warne.

She made herself very busy for the rest of the day. There was plenty to do if she was to get off in two days’ time. She did it in a rush of energy which sent her to bed so tired that she fell asleep almost as soon as her head was on the pillow. And then she must needs dream about Saltings.

It was a most extraordinarily vivid dream. She was walking on the cliff path. There really was a cliff path, and she had hated it because the drop went down so steeply to the sea and the way was narrow, but in her dream it was narrower still. The drop was sheer, and on the landward side instead of a bank easy and sometimes no more than head high there towered a long unbroken wall. There was quite a lot of light, but she couldn’t see the sea or the top of the wall. She could hear the waves come crawling up across the sand and go dragging back into the sea, and she could hear a landward wind that buffeted the wall, but she couldn’t see the tide or feel the wind. She had to walk straight on. She didn’t know why she had to—she was compelled, without knowledge or choice. The wall was Colonel Albury’s map standing up on end with all the towns and roads and rivers marked on it. The cliff path was marked on it. Every step her feet were taking was marked. She had passed Saltings, and presently the path would bring her to Warne. The path would stop there, because the cliff dipped to the village. Any minute now it would begin to run downhill and she would see the trees which protected Warne House, and the roofs of the village houses below. Only there was something wrong—the path kept going on and not getting anywhere. A voice called from high overhead, “Where, Stacy—where?” and she said, “To Warne.” The voice said, “Don’t go. I’m warning you—don’t go to Warne.” Then it died away, and she saw Charles coming towards her along the narrow path. They would meet if neither of them turned. They couldn’t turn, because the path had shrunk to less than a foothold, to one of those narrow lines traced upon Colonel Albury’s map. Charles smiled at her as he used to do and she fell down the face of the rustling map and woke.

For a moment she had no sense of where she was. There should have been rocks, and the sea. They were gone, and Charles was gone. All her armour was gone too. She put her face into her pillow and wept.