The Witch a la Mode
- ISBN-10
- ISBN-13
- 9798682678945
- Pages
- 33
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2020-09-04
- Author
- David Lawrence
Description
When Bernard Coutts alighted at East Croydon he knew he was tempting Providence."I may just as well," he said to himself, "stay the night here, where I am used to the place, as go to London. I can't get to Connie's forlorn spot to-night, and I'm tired to death, so why shouldn't I do what is easiest?"He gave his luggage to a porter.Again, as he faced the approaching tram-car: "I don't see why I shouldn't go down to Purley. I shall just be in time for tea."Each of these concessions to his desires he made against his conscience. But beneath his sense of shame his spirit exulted.It was an evening of March. In the dark hollow below Crown Hill the buildings accumulated, bearing the black bulk of the church tower up into the rolling and smoking sunset."I know it so well," he thought. "And love it," he confessed secretly in his heart.The car ran on familiarly. The young man listened for the swish, watched for the striking of the blue splash overhead, at the bracket. The sudden fervour of the spark, splashed out of the mere wire, pleased him."Where does it come from?" he asked himself, and a spark struck bright again. He smiled a little, roused.The day was dying out. One by one the arc lamps fluttered or leaped alight, the strand of copper overhead glistened against the dark sky that now was deepening to the colour of monkshood. The tram-car dipped as it ran, seeming to exult. As it came clear of the houses, the young man, looking west, saw the evening star advance, a bright thing approaching from a long way off, as if it had been bathing in the surf of the daylight, and now was walking shorewards to the night. He greeted the naked star with a bow of the head, his heart surging as the car leaped."It seems to be greeting me across the sky--the star," he said, amused by his own vanity.Above the colouring of the afterglow the blade of the new moon hung sharp and keen. Something recoiled in him."It is like a knife to be used at a sacrifice," he said to himself. Then, secretly: "I wonder for whom?"He refused to answer this question, but he had the sense of Constance, his betrothed, waiting for him in the Vicarage in the north. He closed his eyes.Soon the car was running full-tilt from the shadow to the fume of yellow light at the terminus, where shop on shop and lamp beyond lamp heaped golden fire on the floor of the blue night. The car, like an eager dog, ran in home, sniffing with pleasure the fume of lights.Coutts flung away uphill. He had forgotten he was tired. From the distance he could distinguish the house, by the broad white cloth of alyssum flowers that hung down the garden walls. He ran up the steep path to the door, smelling the hyacinths in the dark, watching for the pale fluttering of daffodils and the steadier show of white crocuses on the grassy banks.Mrs. Braithwaite herself opened the door to him."There!" she exclaimed. "I expected you. I had your card saying you would cross from Dieppe to-day. You wouldn't make up your mind to come here, not till the last minute, would you? No--that's what I expected. You know where to put your things; I don't think we've altered anything in the last year."Mrs. Braithwaite chattered on, laughing all the time. She was a young widow, whose husband had been dead two years. Of medium height, sanguine in complexion and temper, there was a rich oily glisten in her skin and in her black hair, suggesting the flesh of a nut. She was dressed for the evening in a long gown of soft, mole-coloured satin.
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