A Search For A Secret: A Novel. Vol. 3

by G. A. Henty

We had promised old Andrew that directly we were in a house of our own we would have up his youngest daughter Susan, who had been with us for a year before we left Canterbury, as our servant; and, accordingly, when we had taken the cottage, and the furniture came in, we sent for Susan, who arrived in due course, and was installed as our maid-of-all-work; and an excellent servant she turned out.

On the opposite side of the road to us was a large field, which had as yet escaped the builder's hands, and which was in autumn and winter used as a playground for the children of the neighbourhood, and in spring and summer was shut up, and kept for hay. Before we left, however, a builder had began to erect a line of villas opposite to us, but for the first two years there was nothing to interfere with our view; and even afterwards it did not matter so much, for, as I have said, in summer our lime-trees formed such a leafy screen that we could not see beyond our bright little flower garden.

We liked Putney very much. Polly and I were capital walkers, and there were such pretty walks to be taken round it—up the hill, and across the common to Wimbledon, or on nearly to Kingston, or across Putney heath, through Barnes, to Mortlake and Kew, or—best of all—through the green lanes to Richmond Park, with its groups of splendid trees, its brown fern brakes, and fallow-deer; and sometimes, when it was fine and the water was high, along the towing-path to Hammersmith, to watch the barges drifting lazily on the quiet water, and the steamboats, full of holiday-makers to Kew, cleaving their swift way through it.

I certainly got to like Putney, with its quaint High Street, its noble river, and its pretty walks, very very much—not in the same way that I loved Canterbury. Canterbury, with its quiet, sleepy ways, is far better suited to me as I am now; but as I was then, I thought Putney a delightful place to live in. It was, too, such a convenient distance from town, and once a week Polly and I used to walk across the bridge, get into an omnibus, and go as far as the Circus, and then get out and walk up Regent Street and Oxford Street, and look at the shops.

It was not always that we had shopping to do, although we generally managed to want something, as a sort of excuse for going; but we both enjoyed it much, it was all so new to us; for we had never been in London at all, except at the time when we were at school—and then, of course, we never went up into London itself, and when we were staying respectively with Lady Desborough and Ada, when we were very much too grand to go out shopping on foot. So that the shops, and the gay carriages, and the bustle and confusion were all quite new, and very pleasant to us.

Sometimes of an evening, when Harry got back in good time, he would take us up to the theatre, at which he occasionally had a box given him by a friend in the "Metropolitan." Being in deep mourning, we could not go into any other part of the house; nor, indeed, did we go at all for the first six months of our stay in London.

After we had been in our new home about a fortnight, I wrote to tell Ada where we were. I had not done so before, because I did not wish her to come down to see us till we were quite straight, and had everything very nice: it was a little bit of pride, perhaps, but so it was. I had received a letter from her a week after dear papa's death, condoling with us, and asking Polly and me to go and stay with her for a while, when we felt equal to it, until our future plans were settled; and I had written back, thanking her, and telling her I would let her know when things were arranged. After that, I had not sent my usual monthly letter to her, but, as I had written myself to Percy, that did not matter. The day before I wrote, I had received a letter from her, which was forwarded from Canterbury, asking what had become of me, and this I now answered by giving our present address, and saying how pleased we should be to see her.

By this time it was the end of April; the season happened to be an early one, and our garden was gay with spring flowers, with which we had stocked it from a nursery close by, and the lime-trees in front were just putting out their delicate green leaves.

On the very day after I had written to Ada, an open carriage with a splendid pair of horses stopped in front of our house, and a tall powdered footman got down, opened the gate and came down the little walk, with a rather mystified air, as if wondering what his mistress could possibly want at No. 1, Daisy Villas.

He knocked a prolonged and thundering knock at the door, such as had probably never before been sounded upon it, and which was evidently intended to impress us all with a sense of the extreme importance and urgency of our visitor, and I heard him inquire of Susan, when she opened the door, in a tone of the most dignified condescension, "If Miss Ashleigh were at home?" Finding that she was, he returned, opened the carriage door and let down the steps, and Ada got out and came up to the door, and in another minute she was in my arms.