Even if——
XVIII
JERROLD AND ANNE
i
The Barrow Farm house, long, low and grey, stood back behind the tall elms and turned its blank north gable end to the road and the Manor Farm. Its nine mullioned windows looked down the field to the river. And the great barns were piled behind it, long roof-trees, steep, mouse-coloured slopes and peaks above grey walls.
Anne didn't move into the Barrow Farm house all at once. She had to wait while Jerrold had the place made beautiful for her.
This was the only thing that roused him to any interest. Through all his misery he could still find pleasure in the work of throwing small rooms into one to make more space for Anne, and putting windows into the south gable to give her the sun.
Anne's garden absorbed him more than his own seven hundred acres. Maisie and he planned it together, walking round the rank flower-beds, and bald wastes scratched up by the hens.
There was to be a flagged court on one side and a grass plot on the other, with a flower garden between. Here, Maisie said, there should be great clumps of larkspurs and there a lavender hedge. They said how nice it would be for Anne to watch the garden grow.
"He's going to make it so beautiful that you'll want to stay in it forever," she said.