“Oh! which night?” she said quite eagerly.
“Well, let me see, I think it was a Thursday night—no, I can’t remember—but there was a fair in the town; they danced round the streets. We had been, Maradick and I, and were coming back.”
“Oh! I remember perfectly,” she said, turning round and looking at him. “But, do you know, that’s most curious! I was tremendously excited that night, I don’t quite know why. There was no real reason. But I kept saying to Miss Minns that I knew something would happen, and she laughed at me and said, ‘What could?’ or something, and then I suddenly opened the window and two people were coming up the street. It was quite dark. There was only the lamp!”
She spoke quite dramatically, as though it was something of great importance.
“And fancy, it was you!” she added.
“But, please,” she said, “let’s begin confidences. They’ll be back, and we’ll have to stop.”
“Oh! mine are ordinary enough,” he said, “just like anybody else’s. I was born in the country; one of those old rambling country houses with dark passages and little stairs leading to nowhere, and thick walls with a wonderful old garden. Such a garden, with terraces and enormous old trees, and a fountain, and a sun-dial, and peacocks. But I was quite a kid when we left that and came to town. It is funny, though, the early years seem to remain with one after the other things have gone. It has always been a background for me, that high old house with the cooing of pigeons on a hot summer’s afternoon, and the cold running of some stream at the bottom of the lawn!”
“Oh! how beautiful,” she said. “I have never known anything like that. Father has talked of Italy; a little town, Montiviero, where we once lived, and an old grey tower, and a long, hard white road with trees like pillars. I have often seen it in my dreams. But I myself have never known anything but this. Father has stayed here, partly, I think, because the old grey tower in the market-place here is like the tower at Montiviero. But tell me about London,” she went on. “What is it like? What people are there?”
“London,” he said, “has grown for me as I have grown to know it. We have always lived in the same house. I was six when I first went there, an old dark place with large solemn rooms and high stone fireplaces. It was in a square, and we used to be taken out on to the grass in the morning to play with other children. London was at first only the square—the dark rooms, my nurse, my father and mother, some other children, and the grass that we played upon. Then suddenly one day the streets sprang upon me—the shops, the carriages, some soldiers. Then it grew rapidly; there were the parks, the lake, the Tower, and, most magical of all, the river. When I was quite a small boy the river fascinated me, and I would escape there when I could; and now, if I lived alone in London, I would take some old dark rooms down in Chelsea and watch the river all day.”
“Chelsea!” she said. “I like the sound of that. Is there a very wonderful river, then, where London is?”