The window looked out on to flower beds, a tangle of michaelmas daisies, late dahlias, hanging heavy, and shaggy little asters. Then there came a lawn strewn with yellow leaves with a broad path beyond and a row of gold-fluttering trees. An old gardener, in woollen mitts, was sweeping the path, brushing the leaves into a neat little heap. Now, the broom tucked in his arm, he fumbled in his coat pocket, brought out some matches, and scooping a hole in the leaves he set fire to them.
Such lovely blue smoke came breathing into the air through those dry leaves; there was something so calm and orderly in the way the pile burned that it was a pleasure to watch. The old gardener stumped away and came back with a handful of withered twigs. He flung them on and stood by, and little light flames began to flicker.
“I do think,” said Geraldine, “I do think there is nothing nicer than a real satisfactory fire.”
“Jolly, isn’t it,” he murmured back, and they went to their first breakfast.
Just over a year ago, thirteen months, to be exact, she had been standing before the dining-room window of the little house in Sloane Street. It looked over the railed gardens. Breakfast was over, cleared away and done with ... she had a fat bunch of letters in her hand that she meant to answer, snugly, over the fire. But before settling down, the autumn sun, the freshness had drawn her to the window. Such a perfect morning for the Row. Jimmie had gone riding.
“Goodbye, dear thing.”
“Goodbye, Gerry mine.” And then the morning kiss, quick and firm. He looked so handsome in his riding kit. She imagined him as she stood there ... riding. Geraldine was not very good at imagining things. But there was mist, a thud of hooves and Jimmie’s moustache was damp. From the garden there sounded the creak of a gardener’s barrow. An old man came into sight with a load of leaves and a broom lying across. He stopped; he began to sweep. “What enormous tufts of irises grew in London gardens,” mused Geraldine. “Why?” And now the smoke of a real fire ascended.
“There is nothing nicer,” she thought, “than a really satisfactory fire.”
Just at that moment the telephone bell rang. Geraldine sat down at Jimmie’s desk to answer it. It was Major Hunter.
“Good morning, Major. You’re a very early bird!”