Strange Stories Read Online Free

properly .’ With her it was practicable to be lightly profane.
    ‘Father says that all politicians are evil. I don’t know anything about it.’
    ‘Civil servants are not politicians, Nell. But perhaps this is not the best moment to go into it all.’ He said that partly because he suspected she had no wish to learn.
    There was a pause.
    ‘Do you like walking?’ she asked.
    ‘Very much. I could easily walk all day. Would you come with me?’
    ‘I do walk all day, or most of it. Of course I have to sleep at night. I lie in front of the fire.’
    ‘But it’s too warm for a fire at this time of year.’ He said it to keep the conversation going, but, in fact, he was far from certain. He himself was not particularly warm at that very moment. He had no doubt cooled off after speeding up the ascent, but the two of them were, none the less, walking reasonably fast, and still he felt chilly, perhaps perilously so.
    ‘Father always likes a fire,’ said the girl. ‘He’s a cold mortal.’
    They had reached the decayed milestone or waymark at which Stephen had turned on the previous day. The girl had stopped and was fingering the lichens with which it was spattered. She knelt against the stone with her left arm round the back of it.
    ‘Can you put a name to them? ’ asked Stephen.
    ‘Yes, to some of them.’
    ‘I am sure your father has one of my brother’s books on his shelf.’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ said the girl. ‘We have no shelves. Father can’t read.’
    She straightened up and glanced at Stephen.
    ‘Oh, but surely—’
    For example, and among other things, the girl herself was perfectly well spoken. As a matter of fact, hers was a noticeably beautiful voice. Stephen had noticed it, and even thrilled to it, when first he had heard it, floating up from the bottom of the so-called clough. He had thrilled to it ever since, despite the curious things the girl sometimes said.
    They resumed their way.
    ‘Father has no eyes,’ said the girl.
    ‘That is terrible,’ said Stephen. ‘I hadn’t realized.’
    The girl said nothing.
    Stephen felt his first real qualm, as distinct from mere habitual self-doubt. ‘Am I taking you away from him? Should you go back to him? ’
    ‘I’m never with him by day,’ said the girl. ‘He finds his way about.’
    ‘I know that does happen,’ said Stephen guardedly. ‘All the same—’
    ‘Father doesn’t need a civil service to run him,’ said the girl. The way she spoke convinced Stephen that she had known all along what the civil service was and did. He had from the first supposed that to be so. Everyone knew.
    ‘You said your dead wife was a wonderful woman,’ said the girl.
    ‘Yes, she was.’
    ‘My father is a wonderful man.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Stephen. ‘I am only sorry about his affliction.’
    ‘It’s not an affliction,’ said the girl.
    Stephen did not know what to say to that. The last thing to be desired was an argument of any kind whatever, other perhaps than a fun argument.
    ‘Father doesn’t need to get things out of books,’ said the girl.
    ‘There are certainly other ways of learning,’ said Stephen. ‘I expect that was one of the things you yourself learned at school.’
    He suspected she would say she had never been to school. His had been a half-fishing remark.
    But all she replied was, ‘Yes’:
    Stephen looked around him for a moment. Already, he had gone considerably further along the track than ever before. ‘It really is beautiful up here.’ It seemed a complete wilderness. The track had wound among the wide folds of the hill, so that nothing but wilderness was visible in any direction.
    ‘I should like to live here,’ said Stephen. ‘I should like it now.’ He knew that he partly meant ‘now that Elizabeth was dead’.
    ‘There are empty houses everywhere,’ said the girl. ‘You can just move into one. It’s what Father and I did, and now it’s our home.’
    Stephen supposed that that at least explained