In the Time of Greenbloom Read Online Free Page A

breathed.
    â€œI knew you’d like it.”
    â€œOh I do! It’s so small—I never thought it would be like this, I imagined it much bigger; but this is like a lake in a story or a peep-show, you almost feel you can hold it between your hands as though it were really yours. Almost,” she went on, “as though it were enchanted; as though at any moment a hand with Arthur’s sword in it might rise out of that blue centre and point at the sky.”
    â€œYes. Come on! Let’s go and sit on the boat-house platform; you can wash your fingers there and we might be able to see some fish.”
    They walked round the path and climbed carefully on to the lichen-covered planks of the small platform. The swans watched them placidly until they sat down, and then quietly drew away to the farther bank.
    â€œThere!” he said. “Now you lie down and dabble your fingers in the water while I hold your ankles.”
    Obediently, her hair drooping round her white face, she lay down and lowered her hands into the water. She sat up suddenly.
    â€œThat settles it!” she said. “I’m going to.”
    â€œGoing to what?”
    â€œI’m going to bathe of course. It’s irresistible: feel it.” She patted his cheeks with her dripping fingers. “It’s fresh and cool and clean, there must be a stream somewhere. It will be heavenly. Come on! Let’s bathe together.”
    â€œBut can you swim? It’s quite deep you know.”
    â€œOf course I can—I passed the test last term. Why, can’t you?”
    â€œYes, but—”
    â€œBut what?” She was undoing her shoes and peeling off her thin cotton socks.
    â€œWell,” he said. “Do you think we ought to—I mean suppose somebody came and saw us?”
    â€œOh don’t be a prude,” she said. “You’ve got a sister, haven’t you?”
    â€œTwo.”
    â€œWell then—”
    â€œBut someone might come down from the tennis-party looking for us.”
    â€œThat’s just what they will do if you don’t hurry up. But if we’re quick, we can be in and out in no time and no one will ever know—except us and the swans.”
    â€œAll right,” he said uneasily, “but only on one condition.”
    â€œWhat,” her question was muffled, coming to him from behind the dress which she was pulling over her head.
    â€œThat you undress in there.” His hands on her shoulders he swivelled her round away from him. “In the boat-house.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t know; but please!”
    Her head emerged from the dress again. “You
are
funny!” she said. “You’ll see me when I come out so what’s the difference?”
    She left him then and disappeared inside, and the moment she was gone he stripped off his flannels, shirt, socks and shoes and tiptoeing to the edge of the platform sat with his feet dipping into the cool water.
    A moment later he heard the swift pad of her feet behind him and in a sudden flush of fear pushed himself off into the lake.
    Down and down he went, the bubbles of his descent frothing up past his ears as he sank swiftly into the ever colder layers of the water. Although his eyes were open he could see nothing but the clouded green-brownness which surrounded him.
    All at once he remembered that other moment when they had stood silent and voluntarily blind beneath the green shade of the wood. He had intended then, by opening his eyes to see her unobserved, to steal something from her. In another moment the opportunity would be his once again; the round eye of the lake had closed over him shutting her from his sight; but when he rose, when the green eye opened for him again as it must, he would be able to see and steal even morefrom her than he had at first intended. This time it would not be his fault; it would be nobody’s fault.
    Then, lunging for the surface, he trod the