"David——"
"But I told him who you were—about your friends and relatives in
Nan—here…. I assure you, he believes we have never set foot out of
New England."
There was a sweet seasoning in the house; decades of flowers and winds, spare living, gentle voices and infallible cleanliness—that perfumed texture which years of fineness alone can bring to a life or to a house.
"See, the table is set for two!" Vina whispered, "as if the sisters were to be back for dinner. Everything is just as they left it."
They moved about the front rooms, filled with trophies from the deep, a
Nantucketer's treasures—bits of pottery from China, weavings from the
Indies, lacquers from Japan—over all, spicy reminders of far
archipelagoes, and the clean fragrance of cedar.
On the mantel in the parlor stood a full-rigged ship, a whaling-ship, with her trying-house and small-boats—a full ship, homeward bound….
The gardener had left them to their own ways.
"That's because he knows your folks," Cairns said softly. "Shall we look upstairs?"
"Oh, do you think we'd better?"
"Don't you want to?"