“I’ll sit outside,” said Aaron; “it won’t seem so bad then.”
They changed places, but even then Loveday did not like it.
“Let’s go on,” she said, “up where we can’t see any of it.”
So on they went, and at last reached the green grassy top, and a bit of road which led to the gate of Mr. Winter’s house.
Though Loveday had heard about the closed house and the drawn blinds, it still gave her quite a shock when she saw it. There was such a look of desolation, and sadness, and neglect about the whole place. On the side facing the sea, the flower-beds were overgrown with weeds and flowers which straggled about in a wild tangle, clinging together and choking each other; the drawn blinds were faded, the frames of the fast-shut windows were cracked, and badly in want of some coats of paint. A rose-bush, that at one time must have almost covered the front of the house, had fallen, perhaps during the storms of the past winter, and as it fell so it lay, twisted and broken, and choking the wretched plants which were beneath it.
Loveday felt quite saddened by the sight of it all, and the story of the poor drowned boy and his heart-broken father became terribly real to her—so real that she longed to be able to do something to comfort the poor man. “If only he would open his blinds and windows, and have his garden tidied up, I’m sure he wouldn’t feel so miserable. I think I should cry all day long if I lived here,” she whispered.
The situation of the house itself seemed almost too lonely to be borne. There was no other dwelling-place, or sign of human being, within sight, only a wide, wide space of bare brown fields on two sides; the grassy cliff-tops with the sea in the distance on the third; and on the fourth nothing but the heaving, calling sea; while the wind, always blowing there, swept along unchecked, winter or summer, storm or calm, keeping up an incessant wailing around the house; and the wail of the wind and the call of the gulls alone broke the silence.
It was not to be wondered at that a feeling of awe fell on whomsoever entered that gate. It fell on both the children now, and they walked up softly, almost stealthily, for the sound of their footsteps on the white pebbles seemed to jar in that sad silence. Aaron led the way, and Loveday followed, holding fast to his tunic. She was glad now that she had not worn her smart frock or sash; for even she, young as she was, felt that they would have been out of place there and then.
Aaron led the way to what was presumably the front door, but a door so bare of paint, so neglected looking, that Loveday thought it could never be used. The stones of the steps were green, and the weeds grew up between them. But in answer to Aaron’s knock the door was quickly opened by Mrs. Tucker, the housekeeper. She looked keenly at Loveday, but she did not say anything, and when she had taken the note Aaron had brought, and heard his message, she went in and closed the door again quite sharply. But in the moment or so it had been open Loveday had had time to catch a glimpse of a big stone hall, and a grandfather’s clock, which ticked with the hollow note clocks in empty houses usually have.
Mrs. Tucker looked so glum and unsmiling that the children were quite glad to get away from her, and they hurried out of the garden much more quickly than they entered it.