“Are we there already?”
“We are.”
“Well, I never! In years ago it seemed so far away.”
Smiling, but somehow disillusioned, she jumped out, and her impetus carried her to the front-door. She was about to open it, when Henry said: “That’s no good; it’s locked. Who’s got the key?”
As he had himself forgotten to call for the key at the farm, no one replied. He also wanted to know who had left the front gate open, since a cow had strayed in from the road, and was spoiling the croquet lawn. Then he said rather crossly: “Margaret, you wait in the dry. I’ll go down for the key. It isn’t a hundred yards.
“Mayn’t I come too?”
“No; I shall be back before I’m gone.”
Then the car turned away, and it was as if a curtain had risen. For the second time that day she saw the appearance of the earth.
There were the greengage-trees that Helen had once described, there the tennis lawn, there the hedge that would be glorious with dog-roses in June, but the vision now was of black and palest green. Down by the dell-hole more vivid colours were awakening, and Lent Lilies stood sentinel on its margin, or advanced in battalions over the grass. Tulips were a tray of jewels. She could not see the wych-elm tree, but a branch of the celebrated vine, studded with velvet knobs, had covered the porch. She was struck by the fertility of the soil; she had seldom been in a garden where the flowers looked so well, and even the weeds she was idly plucking out of the porch were intensely green. Why had poor Mr. Bryce fled from all this beauty? For she had already decided that the place was beautiful.
“Naughty cow! Go away!” cried Margaret to the cow, but without indignation.