of them were thirty years old or more. They worked on their farms in the morning and went to school in the afternoon. And it was not long before the people began to say that the white man's medicine was quick in working. Mr. Brown's school produced quick results. A few months in it were enough to make one a court messenger or even a court clerk. Those who stayed longer became teachers,- and from Umuofia labourers went forth into the Lord's vineyard. New churches were established in the surrounding villages and a few schools with them. From the very beginning religion and education went hand in hand. Mr. Brown's mission grew from strength to strength, and because of its link with the new administration it earned a new social prestige. But Mr. Brown himself was breaking down in health. At first he ignored the warning signs. But in the end he had to leave his flock, sad and broken. It was in the first rainy season after Okonkwo's return to Umuofia that Mr. Brown left for home. As soon as he had learned of Okonkwo's return five months earlier, the missionary had immediately paid him a visit. He had just sent Okonkwo's son, Nwoye, who was now called Isaac, to the new training college for teachers in Umuru. And he had hoped that Okonkwo would be happy to hear of it. But Okonkwo had driven him away with the threat that if he came into his compound again, he would be carried out of it. Okonkwo's return to his native land was not as memorable as he had wished. It was true his two beautiful daughters aroused great interest among suitors and marriage negotiations were soon in progress, but, beyond that, Umuofia did not appear to have taken any special notice of the warrior's return. The clan had undergone such profound change during his exile that it was barely recognisable. The new religion and government and the trading stores were very much in the people's eyes and minds. There were still many who saw these new institutions as evil, but even they talked and thought about little else, and certainly not about Okonkwo's return. And it was the wrong year too. If Okonkwo had immediately initiated his two sons into the ozo society as he had planned he would have caused a stir. But the initiation rite was performed once in three years in Umuofia, and he had to wait for nearly two years for the next round of ceremonies. Okonkwo was deeply grieved. And it was not just a personal grief. He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Mr. Brown's successor was the Reverend James Smith, and he was a different kind of man. He condemned openly Mr. Brown's policy of compromise and accommodation. He saw things as black and white. And black was evil. He saw the world as a battlefield in which the


strip of horizon. “When we were little, I just remember that being the happiest you ever were,” she continues, and I get a flash of memory. Noemie was always my first reader, and I loved printing out a chapter, running across the street to show her. She’d never edit me, never critique—she’d just tell me she wanted more. “I love seeing you out here, and I know you’re going to write a fantastic book. I just wonder if sometimes you hold yourself back from things you know you want. That’s all.” I’m not sure why everyone in my life is intent on bringing up my past. I’ve moved on from it—Noemie should be able to do the same. Maybe ghostwriting isn’t the dream job, but it’s much less scary than trying to pivot to something I have no clue whether I can be successful at. Still, I allow myself to imagine what it might look like, that career for a different version of myself. Just for a moment. Hours spent brainstorming plot points and building character arcs. Getting lost in my own mystery. A cover. A book signing. Holding those pages in my hands and finally feeling proud of something I’ve created. How hard it would be to just take that risk, close my eyes, and leap. “I get it,” I say, even if I’m saying it through slightly gritted teeth. “I’m glad you’re here. Love you.” She throws her arm around my shoulders. “Love you even more now that I know your deep, dark secret.” As we pack our bags and head back to the hotel, I can’t stop thinking about how Noemie’s right: my collaboration with Finn has an expiration date, and the painful truth is that I have absolutely no idea what to do when I get there. This project was supposed to help me figure it out. If that’s true, then I’m not sure why I feel further away from an answer than ever before. THE CATCH ARCHIVES, 2017 5 COZY MYSTERIES TO READ THIS SEASON by Chandler Cohen I love a cozy mystery. A regular person gets to solve a crime, be a badass, and maybe fall in love by the end. The best part is that you can feel like you’re unraveling the mystery right alongside the main character, which leads to a supremely satisfying ending for both of you. Whether you’re new to the genre or a seasoned reader, here are five of my faves—perfect to curl up with this winter! Knit One, Kill Two by C.B. Marquez The first in the Briar Beach Knitting Club mystery series finds one of the shop’s most valued customers strangled by a skein of yarn. Schmeared to Death by Rose Rubin In a small New England town, a cook is poisoned when someone tampers with his world-famous cream cheese. Bagel puns abound. Overdue and Underground by Toya LeGrand A librarian finds a dead body in her library basement, a nearby open book containing clues to the murder, which she solves with the help of a charming patron. Berried


mistaken if you expect to influence me by such a paltry attack as this. I see nothing in it but your own wilful ignorance and the malice of Mr. Darcy.'' She then sought her eldest sister, who had undertaken to make inquiries on the same subject of Bingley. Jane met her with a smile of such sweet complacency, a glow of such happy expression, as sufficiently marked how well she was satisfied with the occurrences of the evening. -- Elizabeth instantly read her feelings, and at that moment solicitude for Wickham, resentment against his enemies and every thing else gave way before the hope of Jane's being in the fairest way for happiness. ``I want to know,'' said she, with a countenance no less smiling than her sister's, ``what you have learnt about Mr. Wickham. But perhaps you have been too pleasantly engaged to think of any third person, in which case you may be sure of my pardon.'' ``No,'' replied Jane, ``I have not forgotten him; but I have nothing satisfactory to tell you. Mr. Bingley does not know the whole of his history, and is quite ignorant of the circumstances which have principally offended Mr. Darcy; but he will vouch for the good conduct, the probity and honour of his friend, and is perfectly convinced that Mr. Wickham has deserved much less attention from Mr. Darcy than he has received; and I am sorry to say that by his account as well as his sister's, Mr. Wickham is by no means a respectable young man. I am afraid he has been very imprudent, and has deserved to lose Mr. Darcy's regard.'' ``Mr. Bingley does not know Mr. Wickham himself?'' ``No; he never saw him till the other morning at Meryton.'' ``This account then is what he has received from Mr. Darcy. I am perfectly satisfied. But what does he say of the living?'' ``He does not exactly recollect the circumstances, though he has heard them from Mr. Darcy more than once, but he believes that it was left to him _conditionally_ only.'' ``I have not a doubt of Mr. Bingley's sincerity,'' said Elizabeth warmly; ``but you must excuse my not being convinced by assurances only. Mr. Bingley's defence of his friend was a very able one I dare say, but since he is unacquainted with several parts of the story, and has learnt the rest from that friend himself, I shall venture still to think of both gentlemen as I did before.'' She then changed the discourse to one more gratifying to each, and on which there could be no difference of sentiment. Elizabeth listened with delight to the happy, though modest hopes which Jane entertained of Bingley's regard, and said all in her power to heighten her confidence in it. On their being joined by Mr. Bingley himself, Elizabeth withdrew to Miss Lucas; to whose inquiry after the pleasantness of her last partner she had scarcely replied, before Mr. Collins came up to them and told her with great exultation that he had just been so fortunate as to


seemed to know, whereabouts he was in the windowless building. Possibly there were slight differences in the air pressure. The cells where the guards had beaten him were below ground level. The room where he had been interrogated by O'Brien was high up near the roof. This place was many metres underground, as deep down as it was possible to go. It was bigger than most of the cells he had been in. But he hardly noticed his surroundings. All he noticed was that there were two small tables straight in front of him, each covered with green baize. One was only a metre or two from him, the other was further away, near the door. He was strapped upright in a chair, so tightly that he could move nothing, not even his head. A sort of pad gripped his head from behind, forcing him to look straight in front of him. For a moment he was alone, then the door opened and O'Brien came in. 'You asked me once,' said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.' The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He set it down on the further table. Because of the position in which O'Brien was standing. Winston could not see what the thing was. 'The worst thing in the world,' said O'Brien, 'varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.' He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it was three or four metres away from him, he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature in each. They were rats. 'In your case,' said O'Brien, 'the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.' A sort of premonitory tremor, a fear of he was not certain what, had passed through Winston as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the cage. But at this moment the meaning of the mask-like attachment in front of it file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (155 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:52 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt suddenly sank into him. His bowels seemed to turn to water. 'You can't do that!' he cried out in a high cracked voice. 'You couldn't, you couldn't! It's impossible.' 'Do you remember,' said O'Brien, 'the moment of panic that used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you, and a roaring sound in your ears. There was


up. Few would leave their stores or stalls to spend hours standing in the sun. Some might send apprentices or assistants, and those whose stalls lined the walls of Ojúde Ọwá could probably overhear the rally. Erelú, Holy Michael and a select group of boys would go from shop to stall in the market after the rally was done. They would spend the rest of the day handing out rice and vegetable oil. Later in the evening, Honourable would meet with heads of market associations in their homes. Sàámú had explained all this earlier in the week. He had been there the last time Honourable ran a campaign and he could remember how plans unfolded in the early days. For now, Honourable went on about the difference his constituency projects—a borehole Ẹniọlá knew had stopped working months ago, an uncompleted classroom block, the freshly tarred stretch of road that led to Honourable’s house—had made in the lives of those who were listening to him. People chatted amongst themselves while first Honourable and then Erelú thanked them for the votes that sent him to Abuja as a representative. Only a few people seemed to be paying attention when Honourable complained about the limits on what he could accomplish as a legislator. When someone from the party took over the microphone to ask the crowd if they thought Honourable could serve them better as state governor, only the women in the campaign ankara screamed yes. No one else seemed all that interested in what Erelú or the other party representatives had to say. People kept glancing at the corner where the bags of rice and oil had been piled on top of each other. Holy Michael came to the platform just as the last speaker, a man who slurred his words and swayed as if he was drunk, rounded off his story about how Honourable was fighting for a university to be established in the town. The point of his story seemed to be that Honourable was good at getting federal allocations into the town. Ẹniọlá wondered if the man would collapse in a drunken heap before he finished speaking. The policemen led Honourable and Erelú off the platform, clearing a path for them as they made their way to the pile of items that would be distributed. Holy Michael beckoned Ẹniọlá and Rashidi to himself. “Sunday. Not this one o, the one after this,” Holy Michael said. “We have a special assignment that night, direct order from Honourable. Rashidi, you remember that foolish professor? The one that wants to be governor?” “Yes now. We went to that his friend’s wife’s birthday party to see him.” “That’s why I like Rashidi. His brain cells are complete. He remembers things like this.” Holy Michael snapped a finger in Ẹniọlá’s face. “The professor and that his Ọ̀túnba friend, ehn? Honourable wants the two of them to know that the lion is the cat’s senior father.” “I’ve wanted to ask you since,” Rashidi said. “Nobody should be talking to Honourable the way they were talking that day,


dead, overhearing: (n) silent listening. then, then thence so, how comes it, born, abandoned. sowing: (v) plowing, tilling; (n) how happens it. 90 The Scarlet Letter elapse, during which Pearl's gaze might never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter; but then, again, it would come at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile and odd expression of the eyes.% Once this freakish, elvish cast came into the child's eyes while Hester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fond of doing; and suddenly for women in solitude, and with troubled hearts, are pestered with unaccountable delusions she fancied that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another face in the small black mirror of Pearl's eye. It was a face, fiend-like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she had known full well, though seldom with a smile, and never with malice in them. It was as if an evil spirit possessed the child, and had just then peeped forth in mockery. Many a time afterwards had Hester been tortured, though less vividly, by the same illusion. In the afternoon of a certain summer's day, after Pearl grew big enough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfuls of wild flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother's bosom; dancing up and down like a little elf whenever she hit the scarlet letter. Hester's first motion had been to cover her bosom with her clasped hands. But whether from pride or resignation, or a feeling that her penance might best be wrought out by this unutterable pain, she resisted the impulse, and sat erect, pale as death, looking sadly into little Pearl's wild eyes. Still came the battery of flowers, almost invariably hitting the mark, and covering the mother's breast with hurts for which she could find no balm in this world, nor knew how to seek it in another. At last, her shot being all expended, the child stood still and gazed at Hester, with that little laughing image of a fiend peeping out--or, whether it peeped or no, her mother so imagined it--from the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes. "Child, what art thou?" cried the mother. "Oh, I am your little Pearl!" answered the child. But while she said it, Pearl laughed, and began to dance up and down with the humoursome gesticulation of a little imp, whose next freak might be to fly up the chimney. Thesaurus delusions: (n) delusion, mental illness. bow, flourish, bowing, beck, wave, unknowable, unnatural. elapse: (v) go by, lapse, proceed, flow, movement, act, agency. ANTONYMS: (adj) accountable, roll, expire, pass by, slip by, fly, die, peeping: (n) cheeping, tweeting, explainable, responsible, explicable. depart. chirping; (adj) inquisitive. unsearchable: (adj) incomprehensible, elvish: (adj) elfin, playful, impish, pestered: (adj) harassed, harried, mysterious, investigable, admitting elflike, elvan, kittenish. vexed, peeved, nettled, irritated, research, obscure. freakish: (adj, n) fantastic, fanciful, much disputed, miffed. unutterable: (adj) indescribable, whimsical, crotchety; (adj) eccentric, unaccountable: (adj) unspeakable, inexpressible, bizarre, outlandish, abnormal, incomprehensible, inexplicable,


negative; then they shook hands, and he jumped into his carriage while she mounted the steps. When she entered the room she showed no surprise at seeing Archer there; surprise seemed the emotion that she was least addicted to. "How do you like my funny house?" she asked. "To me it's like heaven." As she spoke she untied her little velvet bonnet and tossing it away with her long cloak stood looking at him with meditative eyes. "You've arranged it delightfully," he rejoined, alive to the flatness of the words, but imprisoned in the conventional by his consuming desire to be simple and striking. "Oh, it's a poor little place. My relations despise it. But at any rate it's less gloomy than the van der Luydens'." The words gave him an electric shock, for few were the rebellious spirits who would have dared to call the stately home of the van der Luydens gloomy. Those privileged to enter it shivered there, and spoke of it as "handsome." But suddenly he was glad that she had given voice to the general shiver. "It's delicious--what you've done here," he repeated. "I like the little house," she admitted; "but I suppose what I like is the blessedness of its being here, in my own country and my own town; and then, of being alone in it." She spoke so low that he hardly heard the last phrase; but in his awkwardness he took it up. "You like so much to be alone?" "Yes; as long as my friends keep me from feeling lonely." She sat down near the fire, said: "Nastasia will bring the tea presently," and signed to him to return to his armchair, adding: "I see you've already chosen your corner." Leaning back, she folded her arms behind her head, and looked at the fire under drooping lids. "This is the hour I like best--don't you?" A proper sense of his dignity caused him to answer: "I was afraid you'd forgotten the hour. Beaufort must have been very engrossing." She looked amused. "Why--have you waited long? Mr. Beaufort took me to see a number of houses-- since it seems I'm not to be allowed to stay in this one." She appeared to dismiss both Beaufort and himself from her mind, and went on: "I've never been in a city where there seems to be such a feeling against living in des quartiers excentriques. What does it matter where one lives? I'm told this street is respectable." "It's not fashionable." "Fashionable! Do you all think so much of that? Why not make one's own fashions? But I suppose I've lived too independently; at any rate, I want to do what you all do--I want to feel cared for and safe." He was touched, as he had been the evening before when she spoke of her need of guidance. "That's what your friends want you to feel. New York's an awfully safe place," he added with a flash of sarcasm. "Yes, isn't it? One feels that," she cried, missing the mockery. "Being here is like--like--being


to where her sister Sansa sat among the other girls. Sansa's needlework was exquisite. Everyone said so. "Sansa's work is as pretty as she is," Septa Mordane told their lady mother once. "She has such fine, delicate hands." When Lady Catelyn had asked about Arya, the septa had sniffed. "Arya has the hands of a blacksmith." Arya glanced furtively across the room, worried that Septa Mordane might have read her thoughts, but the septa was paying her no attention today. She was sitting with the Princess Myrcella, all smiles and admiration. It was not often that the septa was privileged to instruct a royal princess in the womanly arts, as she had said when the queen brought Myrcella to join them. Arya thought that Myrcella's stitches looked a little crooked too, but you would never know it from the way Septa Mordane was cooing. She studied her own work again, looking for some way to salvage it, then sighed and put down the needle. She looked glumly at her sister. Sansa was chatting away happily as she worked. Beth Cassel, Ser Rodrik's little girl, was sitting by her feet, listening to every word she said, and Jeyne Poole was leaning over to whisper something in her ear. "What are you talking about?" Arya asked suddenly. A GAME OF THRONES 61 Jeyne gave her a startled look, then giggled. Sansa looked abashed. Beth blushed. No one answered. "Tell me," Arya said. Jeyne glanced over to make certain that Septa Mordane was not listening. Myrcella said something then, and the septa laughed along with the rest of the ladies. "We were talking about the prince," Sansa said, her voice soft as a kiss. Arya knew which prince she meant: Jofftey, of course. The tall, handsome one. Sansa got to sit with him at the feast. Arya had to sit with the little fat one. Naturally. "Joffrey likes your sister," Jeyne whispered, proud as if she had something to do with it. She was the daughter of Winterfell's steward and Sansa's dearest friend. "He told her she was very beautiful." "He's going to marry her," little Beth said dreamily, hugging herself. "Then Sansa will be queen of all the realm." Sansa had the grace to blush. She blushed prettily. She did everything prettily, Arya thought with dull resentment. "Beth, you shouldn't make up stories," Sansa corrected the younger girl, gently stroking her hair to take the harshness out of her words. She looked at Arya. "What did you think of Prince Joff, sister? He's very gallant, don't you think?" "Jon says he looks like a girl," Arya said. Sansa sighed as she stitched. "Poor Jon," she said. "He gets jealous because he's a bastard." "He's our brother," Arya said, much too loudly. Her voice cut through the afternoon quiet of the tower room. Septa Mordane raised her eyes. She had a bony face, sharp eyes, and a thin lipless mouth made for frowning. It was frowning now. "What are you talking about, children?" "Our half brother," Sansa corrected, soft and precise. She smiled for the


to annihilate it, and to do that she would have to get away. Was once lost always lost really true of chastity? she would ask herself. She might prove it false if she could veil bygones. The recuperative power which pervaded organic nature was surely not denied to maidenhood alone. She waited a long time without finding opportunity for a new departure. A particularly fine spring came round, and the stir of germination was almost audible in the buds; it moved her, as it moved the wild animals, and made her passionate to go. At last, one day in early May, a letter reached her from a former friend of her mother's, to whom she had addressed inquiries long before--a person whom she had never seen--that a skilful milkmaid was required at a dairy-house many miles to the southward, and that the dairyman would be glad to have her for the summer months. It was not quite so far off as could have been wished; but it was probably far enough, her radius of movement and repute having been so small. To persons of limited spheres, miles are as geographical degrees, parishes as counties, counties as provinces and kingdoms. On one point she was resolved: there should be no more d'Urberville air-castles in the dreams and deeds of her new life. She would be the dairymaid Tess, and nothing more. Her mother knew Tess's feeling on this point so well, though no words had passed between them on the subject, that she never alluded to the knightly ancestry now. Yet such is human inconsistency that one of the interests of the new place to her was the accidental virtues of its lying near her forefathers' country (for they were not Blakemore men, though her mother was Blakemore to the bone). The dairy called Talbothays, for which she was bound, stood not remotely from some of the former estates of the d'Urbervilles, near the great family vaults of her granddames and their powerful husbands. She would be able to look at them, and think not only that d'Urberville, like Babylon, had fallen, but that the individual innocence of a humble descendant could lapse as silently. All the while she wondered if any strange good thing might come of her being in her ancestral land; and some spirit within her rose automatically as the sap in the twigs. It was unexpected youth, surging up anew after its temporary check, and bringing with it hope, and the invincible instinct towards self-delight. END OF PHASE THE SECOND Phase the Third: The Rally XVI On a thyme-scented, bird-hatching morning in May, between two and three years after the return from Trantridge--silent reconstructive years for Tess Durbeyfield--she left her home for the second time. Having packed up her luggage so that it could be sent to her later, she started in a hired trap for the little town of Stourcastle, through which it was necessary to pass on her journey, now in a direction almost opposite to that of her first adventuring. On the curve of the nearest


hear it. And then there came, mingling with his half-formed dreams, a most melancholy caterwauling. The raising of a neighboring window disturbed him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!" and the crash of an empty bottle against the back of his aunt's woodshed brought him wide awake, and a single minute later he was dressed and out of the window and creeping along the roof of the "ell" on all fours. He "meow'd" with caution once or twice, as he went; then jumped to the roof of the woodshed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn was there, with his dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the gloom. At the end of half an hour they were wading through the tall grass of the graveyard. It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a hill, about a mile and a half from the village. It had a crazy board fence around it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest of the time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over the whole cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a tombstone on the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over the graves, leaning for support and finding none. "Sacred to the memory of" So- --------------------------------------------------------- -101- and-So had been painted on them once, but it could no longer have been read, on the most of them, now, even if there had been light. A faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the spirits of the dead, complaining at being disturbed. The boys talked little, and only under their breath, for the time and the place and the pervading solemnity and silence oppressed their spirits. They found the sharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced themselves within the protection of three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet of the grave. Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting of a distant owl was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness. Tom's reflections grew oppressive. He must force some talk. So he said in a whisper: "Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?" Huckleberry whispered: "I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like, ain't it?" "I bet it is." There was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter inwardly. Then Tom whispered: "Say, Hucky -- do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?" "O' course he does. Least his sperrit does." Tom, after a pause: --------------------------------------------------------- -102- "I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm. Everybody calls him Hoss." "A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk 'bout these-yer dead people, Tom." This was a damper, and conversation died again. Presently Tom seized his comrade's arm and said: "Sh!" "What is it, Tom?" And the two clung together with beating hearts. "Sh! There 'tis again! Didn't you hear it?" "I -- " "There! Now you hear it." "Lord, Tom,


." began Amy, gesticulating with unseemly energy, but she got no further, for Jo quenched her by slamming down the window. Beth hurried on in a flutter of suspense. At the door her sisters seized and bore her to the parlor in a triumphal procession, all pointing and all saying at once, "Look there! Look there!" Beth did look, and turned pale with delight and surprise, for there stood a little cabinet piano, with a letter lying on the glossy lid, directed like a sign board to "Miss Elizabeth March." "For me?" gasped Beth, holding onto Jo and feeling as if she should tumble down, it was such an overwhelming thing altogether. "Yes, all for you, my precious! Isn't it splendid of him? Don't you think he's the dearest old man in the world? Here's the key in the letter. We didn't open it, but we are dying to know what he says," cried Jo, hugging her sister and offering the note. "You read it! I can't, I feel so queer! Oh, it is too lovely!" and Beth hid her face in Jo's apron, quite upset by her present. Jo opened the paper and began to laugh, for the first worked she saw were . . . "Miss March: "Dear Madam -- mdash; " "How nice it sounds! I wish someone would write to me so!" said Amy, who thought the old-fashioned address very elegant. "`I have had many pairs of slippers in my life, but I never had any that suited me so well as yours,'" continues Jo. "`Heartsease is my favorite flower, and these will always remind me of the gentle giver. I like to pay my debts, so I know you will allow `the old gentleman' to send you something which once belonged to the little grand daughter he lost. With hearty thanks and best wishes, I remain "`Your grateful friend and humble servant, "`JAMES LAURENCE' "There, Beth, that's an honor to be proud of, I'm sure! Laurie told me how fond Mr.Laurence used to be of the child who died, and how he kept all her little things carefully. Just think, he's given you her piano. That comes of having big blue eyes and loving music," said Jo, trying to soothe Beth, who trembled and looked more excited than she had ever been before. "See the cunning brackets to hold candles, and the nice green silk, puckered up, with a gold rose in the middle, and the pretty rack and stool, all complete," added Meg, opening the instrument and displaying its beauties. "`Your humble servant, James Laurence'. Only think of his writing that to you. I'll tell the girls. They'll think it's splendid," said Amy, much impressed by the note. "Try it, honey. Let's hear the sound of the baby pianny," said Hannah, who always took a share in the family joys and sorrows. So Beth tried it, and everyone pronounced it the most remarkable piano ever heard. It had evidently been newly tuned and put in applepie order, but, perfect as it was, I think the real


area, he leaped up and down on the sparse grass. “So how is he with cats and kids?” she asked Heather, the handler, as he took another turn around the yard. He was running full speed, kicking up dust with his big paws. All sleek muscle and shiny gold coat, he looped past them, doing five full laps before settling down and sitting, tail sweeping the yard as he gazed up expectantly, practically begging her to scratch him behind those bat-wing ears. “Oh, I don’t think you have to worry,” Heather said. She was a woman of about sixty. Compact and taut, with tattooed vines of ivy crawling up her sinewy arms and her silvery hair shaved on one side, she beamed at the dog. “He was introduced to Albert, our resident cat, weren’t you, honey.” Patting his thick neck, she added, “Barely noticed that Albert was nearby. And he’s good with kids. A couple came in with a toddler yesterday to meet him, and he was a perfect gentleman, but the two-year-old freaked and they decided on a smaller dog—a beagle, but it wasn’t Dave’s fault. He was gentle as could be.” She gave the dog’s broad head a scratch, then grabbed a leash hanging from a hook on the fence. “Great.” That was good news. “So not much of a guard dog?” “Oh, God, no.” Heather laughed, showing off a slight gap in her front teeth. “He’s big, so his size could be intimidating, of course, but just meet this big fella once and you know he’s a sweetheart. He’ll roll on his back and want a belly rub from just about anyone.” Her forehead wrinkled slightly. “Is that a problem?” She was snapping the leash onto his collar. “No, no, it won’t be,” Kristi said. Better a dog who appeared intimidating rather than one who was actually ferocious. “When can I pick him up?” “Tomorrow morning? He’s been all cleared by the vet, his shots updated, and since he was already neutered, he’s almost good to go. After we got your application, I did a drive-by of your place and saw that it was fenced, so”—she shrugged—“all that’s left is the paperwork and the adoption fee and he’s yours. We can be ready as early as ten.” “I’ll be here.” “Fantastic.” Heather smiled. “He’s a great dog.” And soon he’ll be mine, Kristi thought, leaving the exercise area and walking through the squat building to the small parking area. Dave might not scare off any intruders, but he would be company and maybe help fill that huge hole in her heart that had been with her for weeks. She unlocked her Subaru remotely and slid into the warm interior. The dog wouldn’t replace Jay, she knew that—no pet could, no man could—but maybe Dave would help, at least a little. Retrieving a pair of sunglasses from the console, she said, “So what do you think?” and slid the Ray-Bans onto the bridge of her nose. For the first time in almost three weeks, Jay didn’t answer. * * *


shouting, Liv screaming, Cass telling me they’d go get help. Tiny fragments that I couldn’t stitch together into a whole, no matter how hard I tried. I’d never gone back. Occasionally, people had suggested it—a documentary crew, Mitch (he also wanted to film it), a therapist who’d lasted four sessions. I’d always rejected the idea. I took another swig. It spilled down my chin, spattering my clothes and the seat. I swore and reached over to fumble for the napkins I kept conveniently strewn on the passenger seat, along with whatever else I happened to be holding when I got in the car. The mail I’d grabbed from my dad’s house skittered away from my flailing hands. I snagged a napkin and blotted at my shirt, which only left little maggoty shreds of napkin clinging to the fabric. Everything reeked of bourbon now. I contorted myself to pick up the mail. The hand-addressed letter was on top of the stack. I frowned at it. Almost certainly fan mail. I should just throw it away. I slid my thumb under the flap. The envelope tore. I fumbled the letter out. It was a single lined page, folded into thirds, the handwriting sloppy. Ms. Shaw or Cunningham or whatever your name is now— I have thought a lot about what I would say to you if I got the chance, but now that I’m actually doing it I have trouble finding the words. You turned my whole reality upside down. I lost all my friends, my house, my life. My dad. The man I thought he was turned out not to be real at all. He wasn’t my loving father, he was a monster. But the thing is, you lied. My father didn’t attack you. You lied on the stand and sent the wrong man to jail. What I want to know is: Why? Were you protecting someone? Are they still out there? Have they hurt other little girls because you covered for them? I am trying to understand. I have been trying for years to put together the pieces of my childhood in a way that makes them make sense, to comprehend what happened to the father I loved. I can’t comprehend your part in it. If you’re ready to tell the truth, I’d like to hear it. —AJ I could barely read the words, my hands were trembling so much. AJ. Alan Stahl, Jr. I’d almost forgotten that Stahl had a son. He’d never been in court. The only image I could summon up was a snapshot, a gangly kid in a striped shirt with Stahl’s arm around him. I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it. He knows. A wave of nausea rolled over me. I threw the letter aside, wrenched open the door, and staggered out onto the road. A cold wind sliced past me. Alan Michael Stahl was an evil man. Liv and Cass had seen him. It was him. Or had they seen someone who looked enough like him that the police could push traumatized children into identifying the


as well steer in a general way towards the interior of the country, where we can hide for a time, and are less likely to be looked for than anywhere near the coast," Clare remarked. "Later on, when they have forgotten us, we can make for some port." She made no reply to this beyond that of grasping him more tightly, and straight inland they went. Though the season was an English May the weather was serenely bright, and during the afternoon it was quite warm. Through the latter miles of their walk their footpath had taken them into the depths of the New Forest, and towards evening, turning the corner of a lane, they perceived behind a brook and bridge a large board on which was painted in white letters, "This desirable Mansion to be Let Furnished"; particulars following, with directions to apply to some London agents. Passing through the gate they could see the house, an old brick building of regular design and large accommodation. "I know it," said Clare. "It is Bramshurst Court. You can see that it is shut up, and grass is growing on the drive." "Some of the windows are open," said Tess. "Just to air the rooms, I suppose." "All these rooms empty, and we without a roof to our heads!" "You are getting tired, my Tess!" he said. "We'll stop soon." And kissing her sad mouth he again led her onwards. He was growing weary likewise, for they had wandered a dozen or fifteen miles, and it became necessary to consider what they should do for rest. They looked from afar at isolated cottages and little inns, and were inclined to approach one of the latter, when their hearts failed them, and they sheered off. At length their gait dragged, and they stood still. "Could we sleep under the trees?" she asked. He thought the season insufficiently advanced. "I have been thinking of that empty mansion we passed," he said. "Let us go back towards it again." They retraced their steps, but it was half an hour before they stood without the entrance-gate as earlier. He then requested her to stay where she was, whilst he went to see who was within. She sat down among the bushes within the gate, and Clare crept towards the house. His absence lasted some considerable time, and when he returned Tess was wildly anxious, not for herself, but for him. He had found out from a boy that there was only an old woman in charge as caretaker, and she only came there on fine days, from the hamlet near, to open and shut the windows. She would come to shut them at sunset. "Now, we can get in through one of the lower windows, and rest there," said he. Under his escort she went tardily forward to the main front, whose shuttered windows, like sightless eyeballs, excluded the possibility of watchers. The door was reached a few steps further, and one of the windows beside it was open. Clare clambered in, and pulled Tess in after


was quite late when all were in the village, and the dance of death commenced to circle around the doomed officer. Half fainting from pain and exhaustion, D'Arnot watched from beneath half-closed lids what seemed but the vagary of delirium, or some horrid nightmare from which he must soon awake. The bestial faces, daubed with color--the huge mouths and flabby hanging lips--the yellow teeth, sharp filed--the rolling, demon eyes--the shining naked bodies--the cruel spears. Surely no such creatures really existed upon earth--he must indeed be dreaming. The savage, whirling bodies circled nearer. Now a spear sprang forth and touched his arm. The sharp pain and the feel of hot, trickling blood assured him of the awful reality of his hopeless position. Another spear and then another touched him. He closed his eyes and held his teeth firm set--he would not cry out. He was a soldier of France, and he would teach these beasts how an officer and a gentleman died. Tarzan of the Apes needed no interpreter to translate the story of those distant shots. With Jane Porter's kisses still warm upon his lips he was swinging with incredible rapidity through the forest trees straight toward the village of Mbonga. He was not interested in the location of the encounter, for he judged that that would soon be over. Those who were killed he could not aid, those who escaped would not need his assistance. It was to those who had neither been killed or escaped that he hastened. And he knew that he would find them by the great post in the center of Mbonga village. Many times had Tarzan seen Mbonga's black raiding parties return from the northward with prisoners, and always were the same scenes enacted about that grim stake, beneath the flaring light of many fires. He knew, too, that they seldom lost much time before consummating the fiendish purpose of their captures. He doubted that he would arrive in time to do more than avenge. On he sped. Night had fallen and he traveled high along the upper terrace where the gorgeous tropic moon lighted the dizzy pathway through the gently undulating branches of the tree tops. Presently he caught the reflection of a distant blaze. It lay to the right of his path. It must be the light from the camp fire the two men had built before they were attacked--Tarzan knew nothing of the presence of the sailors. So sure was Tarzan of his jungle knowledge that he did not turn from his course, but passed the glare at a distance of a half mile. It was the camp fire of the Frenchmen. Chapter 21 119 In a few minutes more Tarzan swung into the trees above Mbonga's village. Ah, he was not quite too late! Or, was he? He could not tell. The figure at the stake was very still, yet the black warriors were but pricking it. Tarzan knew their customs. The death blow had not been struck. He could tell almost to a minute how far the dance had gone. In


his father in Chapter 9. How has he changed?) He talks vaguely about how Eppie ought to be well taken care of--"she doesn't look like a strapping girl come of working parents," he hints. At this point, Silas seems aware of what Godfrey's driving at, but Eppie still has no idea. Godfrey finally states it clearly: he and his wife want to adopt Eppie. Eliot says Godfrey is tactless--what words in his speech do you think she's referring to? Eppie instinctively cradles Silas' head in her arm. Remember in Chapter 13 when baby Eppie turned away from Godfrey to touch Silas' face? This is a replay of that scene. Again, Eppie doesn't recognize her biological father. She doesn't feel affected by Godfrey's offer, but she's concerned about Silas, "her father," as she feels him trembling. What do you think Silas is feeling here? Like Nancy in the previous chapter, he answers Godfrey in a surprising way. Unselfishly, he tells Eppie that she may make her own choice. Her choice is a humble, simple, polite "No." She says she feels too attached to her "father" and her familiar social circle. Godfrey likes to get his own way, and he's annoyed at being turned down. Underneath his noble, beneficent air lie selfish motives. Caught off guard, he blurts out the truth about his relation to Eppie--his "claim" on her. (Remember Silas in Chapter 13 talking about his "right" to Eppie?) Eppie reacts with shock. Silas, however, bolstered by Eppie's refusal, now acts like a protective parent. He chastises Godfrey for abandoning Eppie (and, to his credit, Godfrey feels guilty). Silas rushes on, talking about how sixteen years of daily life together has created feelings between him and Eppie that can't be changed. This gives him a real "right" to Eppie. But Godfrey has never known that kind of intimacy, and he can't understand what Silas is talking about. Patronizingly, he scolds Silas for standing in Eppie's way. Eppie, listening, is repelled by Godfrey's sanctimonious attitude. Silas, however, takes it to heart and, struggling against his own desires, gives Eppie her choice again. Even Nancy at this point feels sorry for Silas. But she agrees with Godfrey--her code sets blood and class above feeling. Godfrey speaks gently to Eppie, and Nancy echoes his hopeful plea. What do you feel for Godfrey at this moment? for Nancy? Eppie, however, drops her polite manner. They've passed beyond class roles and face each other as human beings. Clutching Silas' hand, she refuses again in colder tones. She says she simply can't stand to desert Silas, knowing how much he loves her. Silas questions her, making sure she won't regret losing a rich social position. Then Nancy questions her, reminding her of her family duty. But Eppie firmly replies to both that she couldn't live any other life but what she's been brought up to. Godfrey, agitated, leaves. Nancy tries to cover for his rudeness, then hurries after him. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 20 At the beginning of the previous chapter, maybe you felt sorry for Silas. At the


of one that had fallen beside him; but Beleg stumbling up seized back the sword and thrust it at the Dwarf, and Mm in terror fled wailing from the hill-top. And Beleg cried after him: 'The vengeance of the house of Hador will find you yet!' Now Beleg was sorely wounded, but he was mighty among the Elves of Middle-earth, and he was moreover a master of healing. Therefore he did not die, and slowly his strength returned; and he sought in vain among the dead for Trin, to bury him. But he found him not; and then he knew that Hrin's son was yet alive, and taken to Angband. With little hope Beleg departed from Amon Rdh and set out northward, towards the Crossings of Teiglin, following in the track of the Orcs; and he crossed over the Brithiach and journeyed through Dimbar towards the Pass of Anach. And now he was not far behind them, for he went without sleeping, whereas they had tarried on their road, hunting in the lands and fearing no pursuit as they came northward; and not even in the dreadful woods of Taur-nu-Fuin did he swerve from the trail, for the skill of Beleg was greater than any that have been in Middle-earth. But as he passed by night through that evil land he came upon one lying asleep at the foot of a great dead tree; and Beleg staying his steps beside the sleeper saw that it was an Elf. Then he spoke to him, and gave him lembas, and asked him what fate had brought him to that terrible place; and he named himself Gwindor, son of Guilin. Grieving Beleg looked upon him; for Gwindor was now but a bent and fearful shadow of his former shape and mood, when in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad that lord of Nargothrond rode with rash courage to the very doors of Angband, and there was taken. For few of the Noldor whom Morgoth captured were put to death, because of their skill in forging and in mining for metals and gems; and Gwindor was not slain, but put to labour in the mines of the North. By secret tunnels known only to themselves the mining Elves might sometimes escape; and thus it came to pass that Beleg found him, spent and bewildered in the mazes of Taur-nu-Fuin.' And Gwindor told him that as he lay and lurked among the trees he saw a great company of Orcs passing northwards, and wolves went with them; and among them was a Man, whose hands were chained, and they drove him onward with whips. 'Very tall he was', said Gwindor, 'as tall as are the Men from the misty hills of Hithlum.' Then Beleg told him of his own errand in Taur-nu-Fuin; and Gwindor sought to dissuade him from his quest, saying that he would but join Trin in the anguish that awaited him. But Beleg would not abandon Trin, and despairing himself he aroused hope again in Gwindor's heart; and together they went on, following the Orcs until they


at the dog school can see me having a panic attack, then I park the car near the karate dojo that isn’t open yet to watch men go in and out of BJ Benjim’s Big and Tall—“Big Buys for Big Guys”—for an hour until I feel less nuts. I drive past the fancy coffee place where last week the dude at the window said, “A cranberry orange scone again?! You must really like those!” and drive five miles out of the way to go to Dunkin’, where the rotating cast of disaffected teens who man the intercom could not give a shit what the fuck I order there. I leave the drive-thru with my iced oat milk latte feeling like Ben Affleck. I think about how to waste some time before I go back home to waste some more time, and I decide to drive out to Ric & Stan’s, my favorite car wash because they have a hippie dog wearing cool shades in their logo, and also they use pink soap during breast-cancer-awareness month. They do not serve food there. Thursday, February 10 First thing in the morning (ten o’clock, come on now), I’m supposed to have a work meeting with a person I’ve never met before, and I decide to go to my temporary office so this lady won’t have to see all my cats swarming in the background while she talks to me about Very Important Television Show Business. Just kidding, nothing I do is important, but you can’t tell that to Hollywood people or it literally short-circuits their brains. Every meeting I’ve ever had involves my agent’s assistant emailing me something to the effect of: Hi Sam, available times for Dirk Dirkwood at [a network I’ve never heard of] or [a production company that sounds fake] who would love a meeting: Monday June 37th from 6:00–6:07 p.m. PST [9:00 p.m. my time] Wednesday March 116th 11:37–11:52 p.m. PST [2:37 a.m. my time] Thursday September −41st 7:02–7:07 a.m. PST and that’s a hard out for him he will literally die if he has to talk to you for more than five minutes Let me know your avails and I will set it up. Thanks! I usually read these emails three or four times, racking my brain to remember if I’ve met Dirk Dirkwood before or if I’d previously agreed to meet with him and am therefore contractually obligated to follow through, trying to read between the words to figure out what this proposed meeting could possibly be about. When nothing turns up in my brain I write back: hey what is this for The response is instantaneous: Hi Sam, it’s just a general! They’re huge fans over at [imaginary network full of people who are absolutely not “fans”]! So can I schedule this for Tuesday July 93rd at 13:54? (please learn military time, lol) Does that work for you? Then I say: am i selling them something are they giving me a job i don’t have any ideas please don’t make me do this And finally, I receive: Relax!


prisoners to number three airlock and throw them out!" "What?" shouted Ford. A huge young Vogon guard stepped forward and yanked them out of their straps with his huge blubbery arms. "You can't throw us into space," yelled Ford, "we're trying to write a book." "Resistance is useless!" shouted the Vogon guard back at him. It was the first phrase he'd learnt when he joined the Vogon Guard Corps. The captain watched with detached amusement and then turned away. Arthur stared round him wildly. "I don't want to die now!" he yelled. "I've still got a headache! I don't want to go to heaven with a headache, I'd be all cross and wouldn't enjoy it!" The guard grasped them both firmly round the neck, and bowing deferentially towards his captain's back, hoiked them both protesting out of the bridge. A steel door closed and the captain was on his own again. He hummed quietly and mused to himself, lightly fingering his notebook of verses. "Hmmmm," he said, "counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor ..." He considered this for a moment, and then closed the book with a grim smile. "Death's too good for them," he said. The long steel-lined corridor echoed to the feeble struggles of the two humanoids clamped firmly under rubbery Vogon armpits. "This is great," spluttered Arthur, "this is really terrific. Let go of me you brute!" The Vogon guard dragged them on. "Don't you worry," said Ford, "I'll think of something." He didn't sound hopeful. "Resistance is useless!" bellowed the guard. "Just don't say things like that," stammered Ford. "How can anyone maintain a positive mental attitude if you're saying things like that?" "My God," complained Arthur, "you're talking about a positive mental attitude and you haven't even had your planet demolished today. I woke up this morning and thought I'd have a nice relaxed day, do a bit of reading, brush the dog ... It's now just after four in the afternoon and I'm already thrown out of an alien spaceship six light years from the smoking remains of the Earth!" He spluttered and gurgled as the Vogon tightened his grip. "Alright," said Ford, "just stop panicking." "Who said anything about panicking?" snapped Arthur. "This is still just the culture shock. You wait till I've settled down into the situation and found my bearings. Then I'll start panicking." "Arthur you're getting hysterical. Shut up!" Ford tried desperately to think, but was interrupted by the guard shouting again. "Resistance is useless!" "And you can shut up as well!" snapped Ford. "Resistance is useless!" "Oh give it a rest," said Ford. He twisted his head till he was looking straight up into his captor's face. A thought struck him. "Do you really enjoy this sort of thing?" he asked suddenly. The Vogon stopped dead and a look of immense stupidity seeped slowly over his face. "Enjoy?" he boomed. "What do you mean?" "What I mean," said Ford, "is does it give you a full satisfying life? Stomping around, shouting, pushing people out of spaceships ..." The Vogon stared


they are loyal and faithful to their last day. Then you will have a city and an army at your will. Echemus always told me that some men are destined for greatness and others aren’t. He believed the gods decided that and we had no power in the matter. That is probably why he did nothing to earn his kingdom or the love of his people and also why he will die and wither into obscurity. Agamemnon, Calchas, and Odysseus, on the other hand, know that one doesn’t grow powerful thanks to the gods: they take matters into their own hands and fight to have their names written into eternity. It is no wonder they have survived for so long: they are cruel and cunning. Although they are very different from one another, they have something in common—they believe they are special because no one but them sees the horrible things that need to be done. They believe others shy away from the brutal nature of life but that they are clever enough to see and act upon it. This is also what they tell everyone else: we have no choice, the gods demand it, war is a brutal affair, and we can’t win unless we too are brutal. These are all lies. They had a choice. The gods didn’t need Iphigenia to die for a whiff of wind. You don’t win wars by sacrificing little girls. You do it by killing your opponents. You taught me that. Your sister Timandra My dear Clytemnestra, I am writing these words, which you will never read, sitting by a window in Troy, looking at the battlefield. It is a wasteland of broken wheels, circling crows, and putrefying bodies. Sometimes a severed arm is lying on the muddy ground, detached from everything else, as if it doesn’t remember where it belongs. I can see the battle from here every day, but I can’t hear it. It is strange to look at the fighting and dying men. Their mouths are open, but it is as if no sound comes out. Sometimes I think this is how the unburied must feel, wandering around the world, destined not to hear and not to be heard. What a wretched state. Heroes come and go on the plain, but I haven’t seen Castor and Polydeuces. I used to look for their heads among the spears and horses, but I don’t do that now. I just pray that they aren’t dead. I am writing and weaving, weaving and writing. I have been doing it for a while now. It keeps me sane. And drinking. Will I end up like Leda, struggling to sit straight at dinner after the endless jugs? There is no one to answer that question. Once, it was you or our brothers who kept me calm. I would come to you with my gnawing doubts and believed everything that came out of your mouths. Now I answer my own questions, but I don’t really believe in myself. Everyone hates me here. Remember how the Spartan women used to


of strange lands populated with strange creatures. Most of the people back home would believe him no matter what fanciful stories he told, listening with hushed reverence, but his father would know since he’d never been able to lie to his father. It would mean that this magnificent vessel, carved from the oldest tree on the island, had brought back only dishonour and deceit. His father’s heart would break with shame. Better not to return, better to die, than to lie. Sitting on deck, he lowered his hand to the water, pressing his palm against the surface. Reading waves was a gift many considered a kind of magic, possessed only by those touched with the spirit of the sea. Deep ocean waves had a powerful voice, a backwards and forwards motion unlike waves reflected from land, which spoke in a softer, upward-downward movement, a voice that became inaudible the further they travelled from the shore. His body shivering with the cold, he implored the ocean to speak to him and guide him. To his relief, this time the ocean answered – whispering that land was near. Ui scampered across the bamboo lattice, rooting through the supplies where he found a timber cage containing a frigatebird, her chest puffed out in distress at her confinement. This breed of bird wouldn’t land on water since her feathers easily became waterlogged and she’d lose her ability to fly. By necessity she’d return to the vessel unless she found dry land. He fed her some scraps of dried fish skin and set her free. After so many days of being trapped, she didn’t understand her freedom, remaining motionless until he nudged her, and she flew into the sky. He stood at the bow, studying her direction of flight. She slowly circled the boat and then set off. She must have seen land. She must have seen Iraro. After many hours following the bird he entered a strange ocean consisting of countless small islands, smooth and white as the clouds. The air was so cold his breath turned to mist. He dropped the sail and, using the steering paddle, brought himself to the nearest island. There were no plants or trees, no creatures of any kind. Scraping the surface with the edge of his paddle produced a fine white dust which turned to water between his fingers. Ui dabbed the dust on his tongue. It wasn’t salty ocean water; it was fresh like rain, as though these islands were clouds that had crashed into the sea. Perhaps this was the place where clouds crashed after they’d finished flying, or perhaps this was where clouds were born and if he stayed here long enough, he’d see these islands puff up and rise into the sky. Ui climbed the mast and perched at the top, perfectly balanced, assessing the view. Far away he saw white cliffs, high and smooth, stretching from one side of the horizon to the other. He wondered how they’d come to be this way. Perhaps set back from the white cliffs, there were white volcanoes,


about where to look for leverage. “Shlomo watches your house for so long, but only your mama comes and goes. Never you. Where are you, Alex?” “Right now?” Alex looked around the parlor, at the dusty rugs, the summer light turned soft by the rain-spattered windowpanes. She heard the ice maker rumble from the fridge in the kitchen. Later she’d go make a sandwich with the bread and lunch meat Dawes had ordered when she discovered how much of Alex’s diet consisted of chicken fingers, and that arrived every week as if by magic. “Crashing with friends in Topanga Canyon. I’ll come this weekend.” “Not Saturday. Come tomorrow. Friday before five.” Eitan kept kosher and kept the Sabbath holy. Killing and extortion were for the other six days of the week. “I’ve got work,” she said. “I can come Sunday.” “Good girl.” She hung up and clutched the phone to her chest, staring up at the coffered ceiling. The lights flickered, and she knew the house was picking up her fear. She reached down and pressed her palm against the polished floorboards. The night Alex had almost bled to death in the hallway above, Il Bastone had been wounded too, one of its lovely windows smashed, its carpets ruined with blood. Alex had helped to clean it all up. She’d hovered beside the man Dawes had hired to restore the window. She’d steamed and scrubbed the blood from the floors and the carpets in the hallway. Her blood, Dean Sandow’s, Blake Keely’s. Both of them dead but not Alex. Alex had survived, and so had Il Bastone. She couldn’t tell if the vibration through the floor was real or imagined, but she felt calmer for it. This had been her safe place as the campus emptied —warded, dark, and cool. She ventured out only occasionally, went for walks up the hill and out to the covered bridge by the Eli Whitney Museum, its red barn spanning the river like something out of a painting Mercy would laugh at. She took her new bike down to Edgerton Park, rode through the flower beds and looked at the old gatehouse, and every other morning, she rode all the way to Black Elm, fed Cosmo, wandered the overgrown hedge maze. But always she returned to the house on Orange, to Il Bastone. She’d thought she would feel lonely here, without Dawes or Darlington, but instead she’d sipped sodas straight from the old-fashioned icebox, napped in the fancy bedroom with its moon-and-sun stained glass, snooped around the armory. The house always had something new to show her. Alex didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to go back to her mother’s miserable apartment in Van Nuys. And she didn’t want to talk to Eitan. Did he have unfinished business with Len that had been put on hold for a year? Or did he somehow know what Alex had done? Had he connected her to his cousin’s death? It didn’t much matter. She had to go. She toggled through the numbers on her phone and found Michael


Chandos and the allotments. Then they saw the ambulance with its doors open not far from Odile’s café. Lin panted. ‘It wouldn’t be Odile? She’s as fit as a fiddle – oh, I hope she hasn’t hurt herself…’ ‘No, they are parked on the other side, next to the garage…’ Josie gasped. ‘Look, there’s Neil outside, standing by the ambulance.’ Lin pointed, her face anxious. ‘I thought he was in The Sun.’ Lin and Josie reached the garage where Neil loitered nervously in dirty overalls, his hands covered in oil. He turned to Lin. ‘There’s been an accident…’ His eyes were wide and his breathing was shallow. ‘I saw it happen but I couldn’t do much to help.’ Two paramedics emerged wheeling a trolley. Dangerous Dave was lying on it, his face contorted in agony. He was wearing an oxygen mask, groaning loudly, and one of his legs was covered in blood, the knee of his overalls torn and the blue material blotchy and dark as if it was soaked in beetroot juice. Lin grasped Neil’s arm. ‘What happened?’ ‘I popped in to see Dangerous… he needed a helping hand.’ Neil gestured towards his overalls. ‘He was moving a heavy gearbox from a Peugeot. He put it on a stand, but he hadn’t got hold of it properly. He was chatting to me, talking about Florence and the baby, what names she might choose, and he slipped on some oil and the gearbox fell and crushed his knee.’ He took Lin’s hand. ‘He was in agony, blood everywhere – a hell of a mess, so I called the ambulance as quickly as I could.’ A paramedic had appeared, an efficient woman with a ponytail. She spoke to Neil. ‘We’re taking him to the General in Tadderly.’ ‘He has a daughter,’ Josie said quickly. ‘Shall we arrange for her to come in to be with him?’ ‘Of course.’ The paramedic was calm, as if it was just routine. ‘Best to ring the hospital ahead to find out where he is.’ ‘Will he be all right?’ Neil asked. The paramedic gave a half smile. ‘He’ll be seen quickly once he arrives.’ She turned to go. ‘You should get yourself a cup of sweet tea,’ she suggested. ‘You had quite a shock.’ ‘It was horrible…’ Neil shuddered. He forced himself to think straight. ‘I’ll make sure the garage is locked up – Dave’s keys are inside, and his wallet, and I’ll take them all down to Florence.’ ‘You get off home,’ Josie offered. ‘Lin will make you a cuppa. I’ll go and see Florence.’ ‘Right. Wait there.’ Neil disappeared inside the garage and rushed out with a set of keys and Dangerous Dave’s jacket. Josie and Lin watched as he locked the doors and handed the keys and Dave’s belongings to Josie. ‘Thanks. Poor Florence.’ He was concerned. ‘It’ll worry her…’ ‘Leave it with me, Neil,’ Josie said soothingly. ‘You need to go home and sit down.’ She turned to Lin, still clutching Dangerous Dave’s jacket. ‘Text me later – we’ll work out the best


Sloane notices his hair is starting to gray at the temples. He looks at Brody’s body lying beside her, before his eyes rest on hers. “What happened? Why did you let him in?” “He knocked on the door, and I couldn’t tell who it was. I asked, you know, who’s there?, before opening the door, and he said he was your partner, Jonah. As soon as I unlocked the door, he came rushing in with a gun.” She motions toward the pistol now sitting on the coffee table. Ethan’s eyes trail hers. “He started waving it around, saying crazy things,” she continues. “Just like he did in the garage yesterday. Demanding to know if I’d told you about our affair and why I hadn’t done something to end the investigation. As if I could do anything. I told him to leave, immediately, and then he took a wild shot at me.” She waves her hand in the air for emphasis. “That’s when I yelled for you.” Outside, the wail of sirens grows closer as the emergency responders turn onto their street. Ethan looks toward the flames flickering through the shattered glass panel of their fireplace. Sloane follows his gaze. “He said he’d kill me for not helping him look innocent.” The sirens fill their quiet street, no doubt drawing the attention of all their neighbors, before coming to a stop in front of their house. Red lights flicker outside their front window as Sloane presses the heel of her hand on Brody’s sternum. “We’ll stick to what we were going to tell your partner tomorrow. That you just found out about my affair with Brody tonight.” Ethan nods as he backs toward the door to let them in. The doorbell rings as Sloane starts compressions. She stares into Brody’s lifeless hazel eyes and the growing puddle of blood mixed with a splatter of brain matter beneath his head. Ethan leads two medics, one pushing a stretcher, into their living room. They are followed by four EMT firefighters. “My wife’s an ER doctor,” she hears Ethan say. She continues to compress Brody’s chest when the two medics reach her side. “He was shot once in the head,” Sloane tells them. “He immediately collapsed and went pulseless. I’ve been doing CPR for five minutes.” After allowing the emergency responders to take over the resuscitation efforts, Sloane moves away from Brody’s side. She can feel Ethan’s eyes on hers as she watches the medics attempt to revive Brody. She turns toward her husband of nearly a decade, and a look passes between them. She searches his blue eyes, unsure if he believes her story. She offers him a faint smile, but he doesn’t smile back. But she is sure there won’t be anyone alive to dispute it. The front door opens, and a patrol officer steps inside. Ethan leaves Sloane’s side to go speak to her. Sloane looks back at the medics who are attempting to intubate Brody, knowing their efforts are futile. “I can help if you need me to,” Sloane says. They continue


the roof. “Sorry,” she said. “I should have stuck with the battleship.” “Ella’s so hot and cold these days. She gives me whiplash.” “She has a lot going on,” Gabriel said. He put his hand on her arm. “We have a lot going on too.” His finger touched the crook of her elbow, a shock to her skin. “I know,” she said. Gabriel appeared to have more to tell her, but he simply said, “See you later.” He walked into the rain, head down to keep it off his face. Maud watched until he reached the cottage, wishing she could follow, then she went inside to talk to Ella. Midafternoon, she took the girls to the conservatory to see the passionflower vine, which had opened the previous day on its iron trellis. Lemon and orange and palm trees stood by the door, ready to be potted. The air had turned fruity and steamy. Water pattered on the glass ceiling, slipping from drop to smear. The passionflowers spun their violet-and-white petals, decked with green stamens like spider legs. “This is officially my favorite flower,” Louise said. “Cool,” Ella said. Earlier, when Maud had knocked on her door and asked if she wanted to talk, Ella said no. Still thrown by that moment on the porch with Gabriel, Maud took the pass. Ella seemed fine now. Sometimes, Maud thought, it was better to not talk things out. In the formal garden, the flowerbeds gulped the rain, rivulets boating pieces of gravel along the path. As they walked to the pond, they came upon Chris and Frazer, who were pulling leaves out of a drainage pipe. Once again, Ella shied away from Chris. “We’re going to find a turtle in the pond,” Louise said. “Gabriel thinks he saw one last time we were there.” “Bring a boat,” Frazer said. The pond had overflowed, taking down the pussy willows. “It might all get washed away,” Chris said, and Maud didn’t know if he meant the pond, the mansion, the grounds of the estate, or the world. “It has to stop eventually,” she said. As she walked behind the girls, she could feel that place on her arm that Gabriel had touched like a newly discovered valley of her body. When she picked Ella up at noon the next Monday, the counselor told her that she was learning to trot her horse. “She got over the fear,” the woman said brightly. “I didn’t know you were afraid,” Maud told Ella in the car as they drove to Montgomery Place. It hurt her feelings that Ella had told this stranger instead of her. “Not super-scared, but yeah, at first. Horses are huge.” “How did you get over it?” “Concentrated on getting my foot in the stirrup and holding on to the horn and then getting the reins right. I didn’t look at the horse.” Their phones dinged simultaneously. “Hey!” Ella said, looking at hers. “Dad says he’s coming to visit a week early.” Maud clenched the steering wheel. “What a wonderful surprise.” She texted Peter the minute she


said that Dad knew he was dying,” I say to him, shivering without a coat under my mother’s carport. “You said he’d made his peace with it. How can you be so sure?” “Your father and I talked, often, in his final months,” he says. “He didn’t want to die, to leave you or your mother. But he prepared himself. He forgave everyone, and he knew that he was forgiven. If he had known the exact day he would die, I don’t think he would have done anything differently.” The thought is more comforting than it once was. What he describes is what I want for my mother—the kind of peace my father knew, if there is no way for her to have the long life she deserves. I want her to be able to prepare herself in whatever ways she can. I know how important her faith is to her, how much solace she stands to gain from it. I nod, hear myself thanking him. When I go inside, I can see that the priest’s brief visit has left my mother calmer, steadier. She’s had enough of heavy business for the day and tells my daughter to fetch her jewelry boxes from her room. One by one, she shows her several pairs of earrings, lifting them out and holding them up to the light. “Do you like these ones? They’re amethysts, your birthstone,” she says. “They’re pretty,” my daughter, who has much simpler taste and avoids colors like purple and pink, says politely. “Look, these are pearls. Your great-grandma gave them to me for Christmas one year.” I almost tell my mom that it’s too soon to be giving us her things. But she’s smiling, so happy to see my daughter try on a pair of small pearl studs. “These are all things I don’t really wear anymore,” she says, “so if you like them, you should take them now.” For me, she has a ring that her mother gave her: a large black oval of onyx inset with a small diamond. It’s not a ring I ever asked to try on when I was a little girl; it wouldn’t have drawn my eye then—it’s not a sparkly or colorful jewel that a child would be drawn to, but a statement piece, dramatic and elegant. It is a ring, I think, that you have to grow into. I slide it onto my right forefinger, the only one it fits, and think about the last time she gave me one of her family rings: a vintage ring she’d inherited from her aunt Mary, originally set with a row of three garnets and stacks of tiny pearls. It was a lovely thing, with delicate filigree scrollwork along the band, and as a child I thrilled to see it gleaming like a small crown on my finger. Mom would let me wear it for a few moments, never for long. “It’s an heirloom,” she said. “You’ll get it when I’m gone.” But on my twenty-fifth birthday, I received a package containing a photo album


from Sir Charles, though he pressed it upon him." "And this man of simple tastes would be the heir to Sir Charles's thousands." "He would be the heir to the estate because that is entailed. He would also be the heir to the money unless it were willed otherwise by the present owner, who can, of course, do what he likes with it." "And have you made your will, Sir Henry?" "No, Mr. Holmes, I have not. I've had no time, for it was only yesterday that I learned how matters stood. But in any case I feel that the money should go with the title and estate. That was my poor uncle's idea. How is the owner going to restore the glories of the Baskervilles if he has not money enough to keep up the property? House, land, and dollars must go together." "Quite so. Well, Sir Henry, I am of one mind with you as to the advisability of your going down to Devonshire without delay. There is only one provision which I must make. You certainly must not go alone." "Dr. Mortimer returns with me." "But Dr. Mortimer has his practice to attend to, and his house is miles away from yours. With all the good will in the world he may be unable to help you. No, Sir Henry, you must take with you someone, a trusty man, who will be always by your side." "Is it possible that you could come yourself, Mr. Holmes?" "If matters came to a crisis I should endeavour to be present in person; but you can understand that, with my extensive con- sulting practice and with the constant appeals which reach me from many quarters, it is impossible for me to be absent from London for an indefinite time. At the present instant one of the most revered names in England is being besmirched by a black- mailer, and only I can stop a disastrous scandal. You will see how impossible it is for me to go to Dartmoor." "Whom would you recommend, then?" Holmes laid his hand upon my arm. "If my friend would undertake it there is no man who is better worth having at your side when you are in a tight place. No one can say so more confidently than I." The proposition took me completely by surprise, but before I had time to answer, Baskerville seized me by the hand and wrung it heartily. "Well, now, that is real kind of you, Dr. Watson," said he. "You see how it is with me, and you know just as much about the matter as I do. If you will come down to Baskerville Hall and see me through I'll never forget it." The promise of adventure had always a fascination for me, and I was complimented by the words of Holmes and by the eagerness with which the baronet hailed me as a companion. "I will come, with pleasure," said I. "I do not know how I could employ my time better." "And you will report very carefully


the thick curtain, drew up the Holland blind, let in all the daylight he could, and I was surprised and cheered to see how far dawn was advanced; what rosy streaks were already beginning to brighten the east. Then he approached Mason, whom the surgeon was carefully handling.     "Now, my good fellow, how are you?" he asked.     "She's done for me, I fear," was the faint reply.     "Not a whit! courage! This day fortnight you'll hardly be a pin the worse of it; you've lost a little blood, that's all. Carter, assure him there's no danger."     "I can do that conscientiously," said Carter, who had now undone the bandages; "only I wish I could have got here sooner. He would not have bled so much but how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well as cut. This wound was not done with a knife; there have been teeth here!"     "She bit me," he murmured. "She worried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the knife from her."     "You should not have yielded; you should have grappled with her at once," said Mr. Rochester.     "But under the circumstances, what could one do?" returned Mason. "Oh, it was frightful!" he added, shuddering. "And I did not expect it; she looked so quiet at first."     "I warned you," was his friend's answer; "I said be on your guard when you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-morrow, and had me with you; it was mere folly to attempt the interview to-night, and alone."     "I thought I could have done some good."     "You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear you; but, however, yon have suffered, and are likely to suffer enough for not taking my advice; so I'll say no more. Carter hurry! hurry! The sun will soon rise, and I must have him off."     "Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to this other wound in the arm; she has had her teeth here too, I think."     "She sucked the blood; she said she'd drain my heart," said Mason.     I saw Mr. Rochester shudder; a singularly marked expression of disgust, horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to distortion; but he only said: "Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish; don't repeat it."     "I wish I could forget it," was the answer.     "You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to Spanish Town you may think of her as dead and buried or rather, you need not think of her at all."     "Impossible to forget this night!"     "It is not impossible; have some energy, man. You thought


then there was consideration--and consideration was sweet. Oh, it was a trap--not designed, but deep--to my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps to my vanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable. The best way to picture it all is to say that I was off my guard. They gave me so little trouble-- they were of a gentleness so extraordinary. I used to speculate-- but even this with a dim disconnectedness--as to how the rough future (for all futures are rough!) would handle them and might bruise them. They had the bloom of health and happiness; and yet, as if I had been in charge of a pair of little grandees, of princes of the blood, for whom everything, to be right, would have to be enclosed and protected, the only form that, in my fancy, the afteryears could take for them was that of a romantic, a really royal extension of the garden and the park. It may be, of course, above all, that what suddenly broke into this gives the previous time a charm of stillness-- that hush in which something gathers or crouches. The change was actually like the spring of a beast. In the first weeks the days were long; they often, at their finest, gave me what I used to call my own hour, the hour when, for my pupils, teatime and bedtime having come and gone, I had, before my final retirement, a small interval alone. Much as I liked my companions, this hour was the thing in the day I liked most; and I liked it best of all when, as the light faded--or rather, I should say, the day lingered and the last calls of the last birds sounded, in a flushed sky, from the old trees-- I could take a turn into the grounds and enjoy, almost with a sense of property that amused and flattered me, the beauty and dignity of the place. It was a pleasure at these moments to feel myself tranquil and justified; doubtless, perhaps, also to reflect that by my discretion, my quiet good sense and general high propriety, I was giving pleasure-- if he ever thought of it!--to the person to whose pressure I had responded. What I was doing was what he had earnestly hoped and directly asked of me, and that I COULD, after all, do it proved even a greater joy than I had expected. I daresay I fancied myself, in short, a remarkable young woman and took comfort in the faith that this would more publicly appear. Well, I needed to be remarkable to offer a front to the remarkable things that presently gave their first sign. It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour: the children were tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll. One of the thoughts that, as I don't in the least shrink now from noting, used to be with me in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story suddenly to meet someone. Someone would appear


explosive confrontation with the legislative branch. He was playing nice. But a week later, Trump butted heads with Congress and sparked the longest government shutdown in history—forcing almost a million federal employees to go home or work without pay—just in time for Christmas. THE NEXT TRUMP WILL BEND CONGRESS TO THE MAGA MOVEMENT’S WILL THROUGH OBSTRUCTION, INSTRUCTION, AND DESTRUCTION. Article One of the U.S. Constitution comes first in the document for a reason. The section outlines the role of the legislative branch, which the Founders considered to be the most closely connected to the people. They also saw it as a counterweight to a power-hungry chief executive. The legislature can restrain the president on almost every aspect of his or her job by making laws, controlling government funds, approving presidential appointments, and monitoring executive agencies. It should be the toughest guardrail against a wayward president. That’s why the Next Trump will work hard to bypass Congress. “Article One is pretty well undone,” former Republican congressman Reid Ribble told me. In a second MAGA term, he said, “it will be undone entirely.” Ribble doesn’t believe it will happen in a sweeping constitutional clash but quietly and gradually. Members of the GOP will grow accustomed to another Trump-like president governing by executive order. “They will allow [the Next Trump] to become a soft dictator by complying with his legislative circumvention because it’s in the service of implementing policies of which they approve,” he said. “It slowly normalizes legislative nullification.” “Obstruction” will be used to thwart congressional oversight. After the 2018 midterms, the White House called a meeting of the chiefs of staff at top agencies. We gathered around an elongated wooden table in the Secretary of War Suite, a connected series of stately rooms that once served as the inner sanctum of American defense. Historic military offensives were planned at the table and profound decisions were made about war and peace. That particular day, the decision was war. Trump’s liaison to the cabinet, Bill McGinley, opened the session. “Listen up, folks.” His deep voice struck the room like a judge’s gavel quieting the court. “The Democrats are taking control of the House again soon. We’re expecting investigations, subpoenas, the works. Today we’ll talk about how to handle it.” The plan—in a nutshell—was obstruction. Though McGinley didn’t use the word, the end result was clear. The White House wanted agencies to prepare for battle with Congress and to forcefully reject requests to testify, rebuff demands for internal documents, and defy legislative orders—whatever was needed to protect the president’s administration from prying eyes. The White House promised legal support to every agency represented in the meeting. They were working on a confidential plan to stitch together an administration-wide contingent of attorneys who’d take up legal arms against the blitz of congressional probes. Democrats were expected to launch investigations into everything from Trump’s business practices to the politicization of the intelligence community. “Game on,” McGinley asserted. The president didn’t keep the plan secret for very long. “We’re fighting all the subpoenas,” he told reporters after the House


(45 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:51 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth's centre. With the feeling that he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote: Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. Chapter 8 From somewhere at the bottom of a passage the smell of roasting coffee--real coffee, not Victory Coffee--came floating out into the street. Winston paused involuntarily. For perhaps two seconds he was back in the half-forgotten world of his childhood. Then a door banged, seeming to cut off the smell as abruptly as though it had been a sound. He had walked several kilometres over pavements, and his varicose ulcer was throbbing. This was the second time in three weeks that he had missed an evening at the Community Centre: a rash act, since you could be certain that the number of your attendances at the Centre was carefully checked. In principle a Party member had no spare time, and was never alone except in bed. It was assumed that when he was not working, eating, or sleeping he would be taking part in some kind of communal recreation: to do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. There was a word for it in Newspeak: OWNLIFE, it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity. But this evening as he came out of the Ministry the balminess of the April air had tempted him. The sky was a warmer blue than he had seen it that year, and suddenly the long, noisy evening at the Centre, the boring, exhausting games, the lectures, the creaking camaraderie oiled by gin, had seemed intolerable. On impulse he had turned away from the bus-stop and wandered off into the labyrinth of London, first south, then east, then north again, losing himself among unknown streets and hardly bothering in which direction he was going. 'If there is hope,' he had written in the diary, 'it lies in the proles.' The words kept coming back to him, statement of a mystical truth and a palpable absurdity. He was somewhere in the vague, brown-coloured slums to the north and east of what had once been Saint Pancras Station. He was walking up a cobbled street of little two-storey houses with battered doorways which gave straight on


to think his heart's in a bad way." "I'm not satisfied with his heart," hazarded the doctor, "I think he should be careful, very careful." On the tip of Philip's tongue was the question: how much longer can he live? He was afraid it would shock. In these matters a periphrase was demanded by the decorum of life, but, as he asked another question instead, it flashed through him that the doctor must be accustomed to the impatience of a sick man's relatives. He must see through their sympathetic expressions. Philip, with a faint smile at his own hypocrisy, cast down his eyes. "I suppose he's in no immediate danger?" This was the kind of question the doctor hated. If you said a patient couldn't live another month the family prepared itself for a bereavement, and if then the patient lived on they visited the medical attendant with the resentment they felt at having tormented themselves before it was necessary. On the other hand, if you said the patient might live a year and he died in a week the family said you did not know your business. They thought of all the affection they would have lavished on the defunct if they had known the end was so near. Dr. Wigram made the gesture of washing his hands. "I don't think there's any grave risk so long as he--remains as he is," he ventured at last. "But on the other hand, we mustn't forget that he's no longer a young man, and well, the machine is wearing out. If he gets over the hot weather I don't see why he shouldn't get on very comfortably till the winter, and then if the winter does not bother him too much, well, I don't see why anything should happen." Philip went back to the dining-room where his uncle was sitting. With his skull-cap and a crochet shawl over his shoulders he looked grotesque. His eyes had been fixed on the door, and they rested on Philip's face as he entered. Philip saw that his uncle had been waiting anxiously for his return. "Well, what did he say about me?" Philip understood suddenly that the old man was frightened of dying. It made Philip a little ashamed, so that he looked away involuntarily. He was always embarrassed by the weakness of human nature. "He says he thinks you're much better," said Philip. A gleam of delight came into his uncle's eyes. "I've got a wonderful constitution," he said. "What else did he say?" he added suspiciously. Philip smiled. "He said that if you take care of yourself there's no reason why you shouldn't live to be a hundred." "I don't know that I can expect to do that, but I don't see why I shouldn't see eighty. My mother lived till she was eighty-four." There was a little table by the side of Mr. Carey's chair, and on it were a Bible and the large volume of the Common Prayer from which for so many years he had been accustomed to read to his


want of harmony between your present mood of self-sacrifice and your past mood of self-preservation." These were the first words of antagonism. To fling elaborate sarcasms at Tess, however, was much like flinging them at a dog or cat. The charms of their subtlety passed by her unappreciated, and she only received them as inimical sounds which meant that anger ruled. She remained mute, not knowing that he was smothering his affection for her. She hardly observed that a tear descended slowly upon his cheek, a tear so large that it magnified the pores of the skin over which it rolled, like the object lens of a microscope. Meanwhile reillumination as to the terrible and total change that her confession had wrought in his life, in his universe, returned to him, and he tried desperately to advance among the new conditions in which he stood. Some consequent action was necessary; yet what? "Tess," he said, as gently as he could speak, "I cannot stay--in this room--just now. I will walk out a little way." He quietly left the room, and the two glasses of wine that he had poured out for their supper--one for her, one for him--remained on the table untasted. This was what their AGAPE had come to. At tea, two or three hours earlier, they had, in the freakishness of affection, drunk from one cup. The closing of the door behind him, gently as it had been pulled to, roused Tess from her stupor. He was gone; she could not stay. Hastily flinging her cloak around her she opened the door and followed, putting out the candles as if she were never coming back. The rain was over and the night was now clear. She was soon close at his heels, for Clare walked slowly and without purpose. His form beside her light gray figure looked black, sinister, and forbidding, and she felt as sarcasm the touch of the jewels of which she had been momentarily so proud. Clare turned at hearing her footsteps, but his recognition of her presence seemed to make no difference to him, and he went on over the five yawning arches of the great bridge in front of the house. The cow and horse tracks in the road were full of water, and rain having been enough to charge them, but not enough to wash them away. Across these minute pools the reflected stars flitted in a quick transit as she passed; she would not have known they were shining overhead if she had not seen them there--the vastest things of the universe imaged in objects so mean. The place to which they had travelled today was in the same valley as Talbothays, but some miles lower down the river; and the surroundings being open she kept easily in sight of him. Away from the house the road wound through the meads, and along these she followed Clare without any attempt to come up with him or to attract him, but with dumb and vacant fidelity. At last, however, her listless walk brought her


lonely and how they coped. Florence rested her hand on her stomach and felt a flutter, just like a rising gas bubble, and she smiled. Lin and Josie linked arms and snuggled closer, and Minnie reached for the pink lemonade and poured herself a glass, then another for Cecily. Cecily read on, her voice soothing as an embrace, a hug from a book. It rose and fell with each emotion: Toad stealing a car, Toad in prison, Toad escaping dressed as a washerwoman. The past flooded back, the children leaning forward, their faces shining, small gasps of excitement as Cecily read the thrilling parts. Then she closed the book with a thud. ‘There we are.’ She raised her face and her eyes shone. ‘Did you enjoy that, class?’ ‘We did,’ came the chorus and Minnie shouted, ‘Don’t forget what Miss Hamilton wrote in our notebooks. A good friend is like a four-leaf clover; hard to find and lucky to have.’ ‘That’s what friends are for,’ Lin agreed with a glance at Josie. ‘Another song, everyone?’ Jack began to play ‘Jailhouse Rock’. The group wrapped arms around each other and sang along, rocking from side to side, then he launched into ‘Rock Around the Clock’ followed by ‘Blueberry Hill’. Cecily clapped her hands, her face a picture of joy. A small group emerged from the bushes led by Andrew Cooper, the vicar. The Turvey sisters were there in matching anoraks, one tall and slim in shorts, one slight in jogging bottoms. Behind them were Darryl and Charlotte Featherstone in expensive hiking gear, smart boots and backpacks. Andrew took a step forward. ‘Well, what a jolly pleasant way to spend a Sunday.’ Cecily clasped her hands. ‘Vicar, good to see you. There’s plenty of spare food. Come and join us…’ ‘Oh, I don’t mind if I do.’ Andrew gazed at the food on the picnic rug and patted his stomach. ‘Those sausage rolls look moreish.’ He turned to the group. ‘Do we have time for a quick bite?’ ‘The lemonade might be refreshing,’ Rosemary Turvey said. ‘And the cake,’ her sister Jill added. They sat down precariously next to Jack, legs sticking out. Florence lifted a bottle and gazed around the group. ‘Lemonade all around, then?’ ‘Not for us, I’m afraid, although we’d love to join you all.’ Darryl Featherstone didn’t move, but his smile was charming. ‘Charlotte and I need to get home. We have to prepare for work tomorrow. We’ll go on ahead, shall we?’ Charlotte looked disappointed. ‘I suppose we’d better…’ ‘Thanks for this afternoon, Andrew,’ Darryl offered politely. ‘We had a lovely time exploring Old Scratch’s woods. Charlotte and I are getting our bearings around the village now.’ ‘We are,’ Charlotte agreed. ‘So – thanks for the invitation.’ Darryl’s eyes rested on Josie, then Cecily. ‘I look forward to seeing you all again.’ ‘Yes, another time,’ Charlotte said. The group watched as they walked away into the sunlight. Andrew the vicar said, ‘What a delightful couple.’ ‘Especially Darryl,’ Rosemary Turvey agreed, clearly impressed by his good looks. ‘Charlotte is a