Crusoe's Daughter by Jane Gardam

Author:Jane Gardam [Gardam, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781609458829
Publisher: Europa
Published: 2012-03-30T04:00:00+00:00

Mr Thwaite surprised me at the station—he had driven us himself in the trap, I and the snapping painter who was returning to London—by saying the same thing in his own way.

‘Letter not come amiss,’ he said. ‘No joke alone for a girl.’

‘I’ll write to Lady Celia tonight.’

‘Apart from bread and butter. Collinses. Personal to me. No S.O.S. ignored, directed to Arthur Thwaite.’

I wanted to thank him, to love him—standing there looking high above our heads, his Don Quixote shoulders in the old Norfolk jacket, blue eyes peering about at the station traceries, examining the baskets of geraniums, the little swinging sign, checking the station-clock with his gold watch, thin as a biscuit. ‘Thank you very much for been the most marvellous—’

‘‘Here she comes. Right on time.’

Along the dead-straight track, puffs of smoke preceded the round face of the engine. ‘Here we are now.’

The painter and I got in.

‘Perhaps, let me know?’ said Mr Thwaite. ‘What you hear from India?’

‘Of course.’

‘Deplorable business.’ He touched his temple with the whip of the pony-trap and swung away, and I saw how blank his face had become.

The painter’s train to London did not leave for some time and so, on Darlington station, we sat together on my platform and waited for my train to the marsh.

He looked as mad as ever. He wasn’t snapping so much but he twitched his fingers and pulled at his hair and kept getting up and sitting down again. The day was grey and cold—the wonderful weather of Thwaite seemed already to belong to some sealed-off conservatory somewhere, some hot and distant island. Rain began to patter on the high glass roof of the station and a wind blew down the platform from the direction I was going to take. I shut my eyes.

I didn’t bother to speak to the painter and he didn’t bother to speak to me and I sat with my eyes shut until I heard my train clank in and then I climbed up and put my bags on the rack and let down the window to lean out and shake hands.

But instead of taking my hand he put a piece of paper into it. It was a picture of me sitting on the platform asleep, and it was the most beautiful drawing I had ever seen.

‘A young woman on the threshold of life,’ he said, and snapped the air and twisted his face about; and I laughed, because although the drawing was so lovely the face was also the most miserable face in the world.

‘The doomed traveller,’ said he.

And looking at him I saw what a miserable, smug, selfrighteous lump I was. What a heavy weight I must have been. And yet, for all that, he had missed none of the few good things. Seeing all, he had forgiven all, and had shown that, though I was young and stupid, there was some sort of hope.

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘oh it’s wonderful. It really is very good,’ and he looked at me sharp and sideways—a ‘thank you kindly, Miss No one’.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.