I
It was just two days before the end of Graeme's fourth week in Sark. His spirits were rising to the requirements of his work, and he was looking forward with quite novel enjoyment to a steady spell of writing, when his hostess startled him, as she cleared away his breakfast, by saying—
"It iss the day after to-morrow you will be going?"
"Eh? What? Going? No, I'm not going, Mrs. Carré. What made you think I was going? Why, I've only just come."
His landlady put down the dishes on the table again as a concrete expression of surprise, put her hands on her hips by way of taking grip of herself, and stared at him.
"You are not going? Noh? But it wass just for the month I thought you kem."
"Not at all. I may stop two months, three months,—all my life perhaps. Won't you let me live and die here if I want to?"
"Ach, then! It iss not to die we woult want you. But I thought my man said it wass just for the month you kem, and—my Good!—I haf let your roomss for the day after to-morrow," and her face had lost its usual smile and was full of distress and bewilderment.
"You've let my rooms? Oh, come now!—But now I think of it, I believe I did say something about a month or so, when I spoke to John Philip. Well now, what will you do? Put me out into the road? Or can you find me somewhere else?—though I'm quite sure you'll not be able to find me any place as comfortable as this."
"Whatt will we do?" she said, much disturbed, and gazed at him thoughtfully. Then, with sudden inspiration, "There iss the big house up the garden?" and looked at him hopefully.
"But it's empty."
"Everything iss there, and all ready for them to come any time they want to. It woult only mean making up a bed and you coult come here for your meals."
"That would do first-rate if you can arrange it."
"I will write to Mrs. Lee to-day and ask her to tell me by the telegraph. It will be all right."
"That's all right then. Who's the wretched person who is turning me out of here?"
"It is two leddies. They wrote to the Vicar, and he asked John Philip and he told my man."
"Two ladies! Then I can't possibly have my meals in here. You'd better let me join you in the kitchen,"—a consummation he had been striving after for some time past, in fact ever since his literary instincts had shaken off the thrall and got their heads above the mists,—with a view, of course, of turning a more intimate knowledge of his surroundings to profitable account.
But his hostess was jealous of her kitchen and would not hear of it.
"There iss no need. I will arrange it, and you will tek your meals in here just as usual. Which room woult you like in the big house?"
"I'll go up and have a look round. Does it make any difference to you which I choose? I'd like one with a balcony if it's all the same to you."
"It iss all the sem, and I will get it ready for you as soon ass I hear from Mrs. Lee. You will not be afraid, all alone by yourself up there?"
"Afraid? No. What is there to be afraid of?"
"Och, I do not know. Only—all alone—sometimes one iss afraid—"
"There aren't any ghosts about, are there?"
"Ghosts? Noh!"—with a ghost of a laugh. "I do not believe in ghosts or any such things, though some people does. There are some people"—very scornfully—"will not go by the churchyard at night, and"—lest so sceptical a mind should provoke reprisal—"I do not know that I woult myself. And down by the Coupée—But the house there iss too new to have anything like that." "Well, if I see any I'll try and catch one and bring it down to breakfast."
And so it was arranged that, if the permission of the owner of the Red House could be obtained, he should sleep there and come down to the cottage for his meals, Mrs. Carré undertaking that no inconvenience should thereby be caused to any of those concerned.
He strolled up the garden, with the dogs racing in front, to choose his bedroom, and came across his host unwillingly busy with hoe and spade in the potato patch. His whole aspect betokened such undisguised sufferance that Graeme could not repress a smile.
"Like it?" he asked.
"Noh!"
"Sooner be at the fishing?"
A nod and a brief smile, and Graeme left him to his unwelcome labours, and passed through the gap in the tall hedge to his new abode.
It was a well-built house, gray granite below and red tiles up above, with a wide verandah round the lower storey and white balconies to the upper one; the inside was all polished pitch pine, and the rooms were large and airy and suitably furnished for summer occupancy. It was left in Mrs. Carré's charge, and she and the sun and wind kept it always sweet and clean, and ready for use at an hour's notice.
With the assistance of his two friends, who displayed an active and intelligent interest in the matter, he chose the room with the largest balcony, and said to himself that the coming of the ladies was, after all, a blessing in disguise. He believed he would be even more comfortable there than he had been at the cottage. He would have been quite willing to move in at once if that had been possible.
Next morning, however, the permission duly arrived, and in many trips he gaily carried all his belongings up the garden and installed himself in the balcony room.
It was a very delightful room, with fine wide outlook—over towards the church in its dark embowerment of evergreen oaks, which some of the folk would not pass by night; over the long sweep of the land towards Little Sark; then, over to the left, a glimpse of the sea and a dark blue film on the horizon which he knew was Jersey.
This room and the balcony outside should be his workshop, he decided, and he looked forward, with an eagerness to which he had been stranger for weeks past, to burying himself in his work and finding in it solace and new strength.