The Chinese Shawl Read Online Free

vivid than reality. She was in a place she had never seen before, but she knew that it was a ruined aisle of the old Priory church. There was green grass underneath and a bright blue sky above. There were fallen blocks of masonry amongst the grass, and a lovely springing arch against the sky. She was standing at the bottom of a flight of narrow, curving steps which went up to a door in what looked like a solid wall. The sun was shining, and a great level shaft ran slanting down to Laura’s feet. She was dressed in the black dress she had worn at the Luxe, and she was wearing her jade peach and her Chinese shawl. She could see all the colours in it, as bright and clear as the colours in a stained-glass window. A turquoise butterfly and a grasshopper just the colour of her jade, sprays of blackberries embroidered in peach and primrose, wine-colour and all the lovely Chinese blues. The sun shone, and a bird was singing. And then all of a sudden like a thunderclap it was dark—everything gone, colour, and sight, and sound. It was dreadfully cold. A hand came out of the dark and plucked her shawl away. Her feet were bare on the stone. She went groping up to the door in the wall, and it was locked against her. She beat on it and tried to cry out, but her voice was choked in her throat. She woke up, beating against the headboard of the spare-room bed. It took her a minute or two to realize where she was. Even after she had switched on the light she felt as if part of her had been left behind in that dark ruined place. What a horrid dream.
    She sat on the edge of the bed and looked with dismay at the twisted, dishevelled bedclothes. When she waked she had been kneeling up in bed beating on the walnut headboard. The eiderdown was on the floor, the blanket slipping. No wonder she had been cold in that horrid dream.
    She made the bed, drank some water—nasty stuff, London water—and then lay down again. She went to sleep almost at once, and slept without dreams until the morning.
    chapter 4
    Mr. Metcalfe was a pleasant elderly gentleman with the kind of fatherly manner which hints at authority as well as kindness. By the time Laura had shaken hands with him and emerged from the polite preliminaries she was feeling much less grown-up than she had a right to feel considering she was twenty-one and her own mistress.
    “Well now, Miss Laura, I have quite a lot of business for you, and a very important proposal.”
    “Proposal?” She could have killed herself for it, but she changed colour.
    But Mr. Metcalfe smiled indulgently.
    “Oh, it’s not a proposal of marriage. I hope you’ll not be in too much of a hurry about that—it doesn’t always answer. There are other kinds of proposals, you know, and this is really a very important one.”
    “What is it?”
    “Well, it deserves your very serious consideration. It is a proposal from Miss Agnes Fane—” He paused, scanning Laura’s face. “Before I tell you about it, would you mind telling me just how much you know about the breach which arose out of your father’s marriage?”
    Laura met his look frankly.
    “I know that my father was engaged to Cousin Agnes, and that he ran away with my mother. That was what the quarrel was about, wasn’t it?”
    “Yes—but there was a little more to it than that. I don’t know if you’re quite clear about your relations.”
    “Not very. You see, I’ve never met any of them except Tanis Lyle.”
    “Oh, you know Miss Lyle?”
    “I met her last night. I don’t know any of the others.”
    He took up a slip of paper and handed it to her.
    “Well then, perhaps this will help you to get them straight.”
    Laura looked at the paper with interest. It displayed a neatly typed family tree.
    Mr. Metcalfe began to expound.
    “It begins with your great-grandfather Thomas Fane and your great-grandmother Mary Ferrers. If you look at that paper you will see that they had four children, Walter, William, Barbara, and Ruth. Walter was your