Ivimey was leaning over the balcony, with her chin propped on her hands, as if she were looking out over the moors from the top of a tower.
Ivimey as if someone had focussed the lens of a telescope upon her
“He focussed it,” she said. “He focussed it upon the earth. He focussed it upon a dark mass of wood upon the horizon. He focussed it so that he could see. each tree. each tree separate. and the birds. rising and falling. and a stem of smoke. there. in the midst of the trees. And then. lower. lower. (she lowered her eyes). there was a house. a house among the trees. a farm-house. every brick showed. and the tubs on either side of the door. with flowers in them blue, pink, hydrangeas, perhaps. ” She paused. “And then a girl came out of the house. wearing something blue upon her head. and stood there. feeding birds. pigeons. they came fluttering round her. And then. look. A man. A man! He came round the corner payday loans near me Albany. He seized her in his arms! They kissed. they kissed.”
“It was the first time he had seen a man kiss a woman-in his telescope-miles and miles away across the moors!”
“So he ran down the stairs. He ran through the fields. He ran down lanes, out upon the high road, through woods. He ran for miles and miles, and just when the stars were showing above the trees he reached the house. covered with dust, streaming with sweat. “
“And then, and then. what did he do then? What did he say? And the girl. ” they pressed her.
A shaft of light fell upon Mrs. (It was the air force, looking for enemy air craft.) She had risen. She had something blue on her head. She had raised her hand, as if she stood in a doorway, amazed.
“Oh the girl. She was my-” she hesitated, as if she were about to say “myself.” But she remembered; and corrected herself. “She was my great-grand-mother,” she said.
“That man? Oh, that man,” Mrs. Ivimey murmured, stooping to fumble with her cloak (the searchlight had left the balcony), “he I suppose, vanished.”
The searchlight had passed on. It was now focussed on the plain expanse of Buckingham Palace. And it was time they went on to the play.
The Legacy
“For Sissy Miller.” Gilbert Clandon, taking up the pearl brooch that lay among a litter of rings and brooches on a little table in his wife’s drawing-room, read the inscription: “For Sissy Miller, with my love.”
It was like Angela to have remembered even Sissy Miller, her secretary. Yet how strange it was, Gilbert Clandon thought once more, that she had left everything in such order-a little gift of some sort for every one of her friends. It was as if she had foreseen her death. Yet she had been in perfect health when she left the house that morning, six weeks ago; when she stepped off the kerb in Piccadilly and the car had killed her.
He was waiting for Sissy Miller. He had asked her to come; he owed her, he felt, after all the years she had been with them, this token of consideration. Yes, he went on, as he sat there waiting, it was strange that Angela had left everything in such order. Every friend had been left some little token of her affection. Every ring, every necklace, every little Chinese box-she had a passion for little boxes-had a name on it. And each had some memory for him. This he had given her; this-the enamel dolphin with the ruby eyes-she had pounced upon one day in a back street in Venice. He could remember her little cry of delight. To him, of course, she had left nothing in particular, unless it were her diary. Fifteen little volumes, bound in green leather, stood behind him on her writing table. Ever since they were married, she had kept a diary. Some of their very few-he could not call them quarrels, say tiffs-had been about that diary. When he came in and found her writing, she always shut it or put her hand over it. “No, no, no,” he could hear her say, “After I’m dead-perhaps.” So she had left it him, as her legacy. It was the only thing they had not shared when she was alive. But he had always taken it for granted that she would outlive him. If only she had stopped one moment, and had thought what she was doing, she would be alive now. But she had stepped straight off the kerb, the driver of the car had said at the inquest. She had given him no chance to pull up. Here the sound of voices in the hall interrupted him.