Читать книгу The Counterplot онлайн

26 страница из 75

Well, anyhow, she must go up to the nursery now.

She walked into the house. In the hall, as if in illustration of her views on memory, the light was falling on, and beautifying a medley of objects, incongruous as the contents of one’s dreams: the engraving of Frith’s Margate that had hung in Mr. Lane’s nursery in the old Kensington house where he had been born; a large red and blue india-rubber ball dropt by Anna or Jasper; the old Triana pottery, running in a frieze round the walls, among which an occasional Hispano-Mauresque plate yielded up to the touch of the sun the store of fire hidden in its lustre; a heap of dusty calling-cards in a flat dish on the table; Arnold’s old Rugby blazer, hanging, a brave patch of colour, among the sombre greatcoats.... Through the half-opened door of the drawing-room came a scent of roses; and through the green baize door that led to the kitchen the strange, lewd sounds of servants making merry over their tea. Probably Gladys, the under-housemaid, was reading cups.