"Work, hell!" exclaimed Garry, provoked. "He wants work so he can fill his time thinking up ways to evade it."
CHAPTER VI
IN THE GARRET
Rain came with the dawn. Kenny, waking hours later with a nervous sense of some unknown delight ahead, found the eaves and orchard dripping. The valley the old house faced was lost in mist.
The blossom storm! So Hughie had called the rain he promised. Kenny liked the name. Out there in the orchard gusty cudgels of wind and water were beating the blossoms to earth. It was a fancy rife with poetic melancholy.
The smell of wet lilac sweeping in from a bush beneath his window made him think somehow of Joan. He wondered in a wave of tenderness if she ferried the river too in storm and, glancing at his watch found the hour disturbing. Unfortunately in a wing remote from Hannah's trot and bustle where save for the monotonous music of the rain, the brush of dripping trees or depressing creaks, there was no noise at all, he had as usual slept too long. And one could never tell. Silas's singular notion of a rising hour might prevail here. Best perhaps to go down a little later and combine his breakfast with his lunch. Meantime he would avail himself of Joan's permission to pick a room for himself.
The house was big and old and abandoned for the most part to creaks and dust and cobwebs. Kenny peered into room after room with a fascinated shiver, reading mystery in every shadow. Thank fortune the room he had was linked to the fragrant life of blossoms and lilacs.
A stairway he climbed came out delightfully in a garret musical with rain and the plaintive chirping of wet birds huddled under dripping eaves. Unlike the rooms he had left below it was swept and clean. There were trunks in one corner, a great many, and a cedar chest. There should be a cedar chest. It was as essential to an old garret like this as violets in spring or sweetness in a girl's face. The chest was open. With a low whistle of delight Kenny peered inside and thought of the ferryman in her quaint brocade. The chest was full to the brim of old-time gowns, glints of faded satin and yellowed lace, buckled slippers and old brocade.
"Mr. O'Neill!"