The Jervaise Comedy

Оглавление

John Davys Beresford. The Jervaise Comedy

I. The First Hour

II. Anne

III. Frank Jervaise

IV. In the Hall

V. Daybreak

VI. Morning

VII. Notes and Queries

VIII. The Outcast

IX. Banks

X. The Home Farm

XI. The Story

XII. Conversion

XIII. Farmer Banks

XIV. Mrs. Banks

XV. Remembrance

Postscript. The True Story

Отрывок из книги

The moon must have been nearly at the full, but I could not guess its position behind the even murk of cloud that muffled the whole face of the sky. Yet, it was not very dark. The broad masses of the garden through which Jervaise led me, were visible as a greater blackness superimposed on a fainter background. I believed that we were passing through some kind of formal pleasance. I could smell the pseudo-aromatic, slightly dirty odour of box, and made out here and there the clipped artificialities of a yew hedge. There were standard roses, too. One rose started up suddenly before my face, touching me as I passed with a limp, cool caress, like the careless, indifferent encouragement of a preoccupied courtesan.

At the end of the pleasance we came to a high wall, and as Jervaise fumbled with the fastening of a, to me, invisible door, I was expecting that now we should come out into the open, into a paddock, perhaps, or a grass road through the Park. But beyond the wall was a kitchen garden. It was lighter there, and I could see dimly that we were passing down an aisle of old espaliers that stretched sturdy, rigid arms, locked finger to finger with each other in their solemn grotesque guardianship of the enciente they enclosed. No doubt in front of them was some kind of herbaceous border. I caught sight of the occasional spire of a hollyhock, and smelt the acid insurgence of marigolds.

.....

Her voice was low and clear as the reed of a flute, but all sounds had the quality of music at that instant of release.

I was nonplussed for the moment. I ought to have taken up the key of high romance. She deserved it. Instead of that I dropped to the awful commonplaces of a man in evening dress and a light overcoat standing in the rain talking to a stranger.

.....