“Was that why you was—why I found you there?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve nothing now, you see. There’s none to care.”
For some time neither spoke.
“Mary,” said Williams at last, his face still turned to the white images in the hollow, “will ye take me for a friend? God knows I bean’t no manner o’ use.”
[CHAPTER XIV
THE USES OF A CAST SHOE]
MISS ISOLINE RIDGEWAY was standing before an object which usually took up a good deal of her time and attention, namely, the looking-glass. As it was placed at right angles to her bedroom window, there could be seen beyond her left shoulder as she arranged her hair, the great yew in the churchyard and a piece of the church-path framed in by the sash. Behind it was a background of sky turning into a frosty gold.
Crishowell Vicarage was a small, old, whitewashed house which had once been a farm-house, with gabled windows looking westward; between it and the lane dividing it from the churchyard was a duck-pond that, in wet seasons, overflowed into the Digedi brook, which ran round the Vicar’s orchard at the back.
Isoline had just come in, and her hat and walking-things lay upon the bed where she had thrown them. As the room was low, and the early winter sunset hardly penetrated into the house by reason of the rising ground opposite on which the church stood, she had lit a candle, whose spot of feeble light only served to accentuate the dark around her; a rat was scraping in the wainscot, and she shuddered as she looked towards the place from which the noise came. She yawned, and wondered what she could do to amuse herself until supper-time, for it was only half-past four, and the Vicar kept old-fashioned hours—breakfast at nine, a substantial dinner at three, supper at eight, prayers at eight-thirty, and bed at ten o’clock. Since she had arrived at Crishowell the days seemed to have lengthened into weeks and the weeks into months. The old man was all kindness, but there was no one of her own age with whom she could associate, and the few visits she had made at his suggestion to the poor folks living round them had resulted in boredom to herself and constraint to them. She had a true, though rather thin voice, and she would gladly have practised her singing had there been some instrument on which to accompany herself, but unfortunately there was nothing of the sort in the house. Time hung heavy on her hands, for Mr. Lewis’s library was mainly theological, and contained nothing which could amuse a girl. It was dull indeed.
A knock at the door drew her attention from the glass. “Who is there?” she called, as she laid down the comb.