Florence and Giles and the Turn of the Screw by John Harding

Author:John Harding [John Harding]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007444816
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

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My first difficulty was to downstairs without disturbing Theo. His dying on me like this had not been part of my plan, but now that it had happened I recognised it had necessaried all along; for his straightforward nature would never have been equal to the task of maintaining my secret. I overed to him and put my ear to his side. There was no sound from those poor tired-out lungs. It mercifulled that after so much misery they were now at rest. I lifted his head a little and pressed my lips to his and gentled him the kiss he had always craved but never properly received. It took but a moment; I had no more time to lose. I slipped the spray bottle into the pocket of his jacket and went up a few steps. I overed the banisters. I could not use them to get down to the ground because Theo was in the way. I did not want to push his body off the banister because already a plan was forming in my mind which necessitated him remaining where he was. I was here some ten feet from the ground and there was nothing for it but to jump. I deep-breathed, closed my eyes and let go. I landed hard and my right ankle, the one that had been injured before, so sored I thought I had broke it, so that for a moment I anxioused putting my weight on it, in which case I would be trapped and have some mighty difficult explaining to do. I got myself up and slowly let my weight onto my right foot and was relieved that although it pained me some, it did not prevent me walking.

It was now dark, but it fortuned the sky had all but cleared, with only a few rags of cloud remaining and the full moon gave me good light. I went to the barn and found John’s wheelbarrow. I wheeled it in through the back door and along the corridor to the bottom of the tower. I set it down beside the staircase directly below Theo. Then I hauled myself up the bottom two banisters and tugged him off. He fell like a sack of potatoes straight into the barrow. I clambered back down and took the handles of the wheelbarrow, silentpraying that I would be able to lift them, for I did not know if I could manage Theo’s weight.

I deep-breathed again and lifted and surprised me; he seemed to weigh no more than a sparrow, and as I pushed him back along the corridor and out the back door I thought how weak and frail his illness had made him. He was long but he was not broad, and that was my good luck. I took him into the barn and wheeled the barrow up the loading ramp that John used for horse and chicken feed and the like. It was a hard push, light as Theo was, up the incline, but I just put my head down and ran right at it and was up it in no more than a few seconds.

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