Beams, everywhere beams, blackened by age, sloping from roof to floor, from wall to cranny, so that to walk around the room partook of the nature of an obstacle race. Windows set carelessly in various angles overhead, patching the dark raftered ceiling with blue sky and drifting cloud. Outjutting corners and burrowing nooks. A stove rooted firmly in the boarded floor. An insecure table that stood solitary by the one window facing seawards. On the whole, more like a rugged bit of coast scenery than a decent sleeping apartment. But Gareth knew that here his book could be written. Here—where he was to be alone. "Grant the path be clear before you...." Fate had cleared it!
He was terrified that Mrs. Worley should of a sudden recollect that after all she had a double bedroom lying about empty.
When she left him, he picked his way carefully over and among and beneath the beams, to the only window which was not a skylight. The sun had set: and beneath him, in the warm purplish dusk, the tiny harbour lay pricked out in an irregular parallelogram of lights. The tide was low; black clumsy boat-shapes sprawled forlornly on the dead sand. Beyond the entrance channel, one sail, a dark triangle pressed against the citron fading from the west, waited patiently for the lifting wave.... Gareth stood motionless.... Presently little separate sounds uncurled themselves from the indistinguishable murmur, and crept up to him ... slap of water round the props of the wooden pier ... two children whispering in a strange rough dialect ... clank of an uneasy chain ... rattle of the red window-curtains drawn across, in the snug eating-house opposite. By-and-by these sounds and sights would become familiar ... already he longed for familiarity ... longed to move confidently in this dream-world which overhung a harbour under the hill....
"Gareth!"
Enchantment was smashed. It was Kathleen urgently calling him from below. He slid aside the trap-door ... hating her. She was standing at the foot of the ladder, a pile of his belongings in her arms.
"As you didn't think of coming for your things, I've brought them to you."
He made no move to relieve her of the load.
"My—things?" in a dazed fashion.
... Then he grasped it: they shared a trunk. And Kathleen had been unpacking while he dreamt. How just like Kathleen....
"Well——" impatiently; "do you expect me to trudge up the ladder with them?"