And Be Thy Love Read Online Free Page A

little bewildered, as if the passage of events had stunned him a little. He had a goatee beard, and shoulders so bent that he was practically a hunchback, and his eyes were dim with rheumatism as they looked towards Caroline.
    “If you will follow me, mademoiselle, I will show you to your room,” he said.
    And then Robert de Bergerac took him aside and said something to him in such rapid French that the English girl couldn’t possibly follow it, and the old man nodded several times.
    “It shall be as you say, monsieur. If that is as you wish, monsieur, it shall be as you say!”
    But he sounded rather more than surprised, and his rheumy eyes blinked as if he had been taken aback.
    Then Caroline was following him up the magnificent staircase, that uncurled like a fan until it reached a gallery overhanging the well of the hall. Their footsteps echoed on the stone floor; faded tapestries fluttered a little on the walls as they passed—father like banners stirring in a sudden current of air—and giant coffers and chests encroached upon the uncarpeted space over which they trod in order to reach a distant wing of the house. But once they reached it, it was well worth it, for the entire dying light of day was concentrated there, like a golden, last-minute benison.
    Caroline’s room, with a decidedly old-fashioned bathroom adjoining, enchanted her the moment she entered it. It overlooked a pleasance at the back of the house, and although from the window it was a very overgrown pleasance, its unkemptness, she felt sure, would provide a compelling charm in the daytime. She felt sure she would love to wander there whenever the opportunity was hers.
    A smell of white, climbing roses reached her as she stood for a moment beside the open window, and she inhaled deeply. A bat flew past the window, and an owl hooted in some trees close to the house. And as there were so many trees crowding close to the house she had the feeling that there would be many owls hooting.
    But she was not one of those people who found the noise of them mournful, and they emphasised the fact that she was deep in the heart of the country at last. All at once, in spite of Marthe’s accident, the concern she felt for her lying in her narrow hospital bed, the depression that had overtaken her because there was to be no one after all to welcome her after her long journey from England,
    and the peculiarity of her position in this strange house, a little glow of warmth stole round her heart because she was actually here. She was happy because she had arrived.
    Pierre said something about Marthe keeping the boiler so well stoked during the early part of the day that the water would be hot enough for a bath if she wanted one, and she thanked him for the information. He hung about awkwardly, saying he would bring her a tray, as Monsieur de Bergerac had requested; but after that he would have to leave because his sister was nervous of being left alone for long, especially after dark, and her health permitting he would be along in the morning. He was not much of a cook, but he would attend to the breakfast.... An English breakfast if the English mademoiselle insisted upon it....
    Caroline tossed her hat on the bed, and slipped out of her jacket, and suddenly she made up her mind. She no longer felt as if the fumes of brandy were clouding her brain, and she no longer felt that overpowering desire to slide between some sheets. The sheets were there on the well-made bed, and they looked as if they would smell fragrantly of lavender or dried rosemary when at last she tested the comfort of the mattress. But in the meantime she could, and would, bestir herself, and Pierre needn’t bother about a tray for her, but could go home at once to his invalid sister. There was food in the larder, and she could make some coffee, and that slim, dark friend of the Comte de Marsac—who, incidentally, might object to her making free with his house when his housekeeper was no longer