This was a bond of sympathy in my
thoughts at least, and, heaven knows, I needed to remember it while I
followed the maid down the narrow stairs and along the wide hall to the
front of the house.
In looking back after a year, I can recall every detail of that first
meeting. Though it was barely four o'clock, the electric lamps were
turned on in the hall, and I can still see the mellow light that shone
over the staircase and lay in pools on the old pink rugs, which were so
soft and fine that I felt as if I were walking on flowers. I remember
the sound of music from a room somewhere on the first floor, and the
scent of lilies and hyacinths that drifted from the conservatory. I
remember it all, every note of music, every whiff of fragrance; but most
vividly I remember Mrs. Vanderbridge as she looked round, when the door
opened, from the wood fire into which she had been gazing. Her eyes
caught me first. They were so wonderful that for a moment I couldn't see
anything else; then I took in slowly the dark red of her hair, the clear
pallor of her skin, and the long, flowing lines of her figure in a
tea-gown of blue silk. There was a white bearskin rug under her feet,
and while she stood there before the wood fire, she looked as if she had
absorbed the beauty and colour of the house as a crystal vase absorbs
the light.
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