The Dean's Watch by Elizabeth Goudge

Author:Elizabeth Goudge [Goudge, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

11. Swithin’s Lane

1.

THERE’S a young person at the back door says she wishes to see you, sir,” said Garland in strangled tones. “I told her it was impossible, of course, sir. She asked me why. I said you were engaged. She said she’d wait. I told her to go away. She smiled at me. I don’t know what to do, sir, I don’t indeed.”

Bella and the cuckoo clock had been on Monday. Today was Saturday morning. The Dean, at work at his writing table, looked up. Garland’s face was pale and his hands trembled slightly. He was obviously much shaken, worsted, the Dean thought, in some encounter which had not only been contrary to routine but foreign to his whole experience. The Dean put his hand behind his ear. “Could you repeat that, Garland?”

Garland repeated it, ending miserably, “I don’t like to trouble you with such a thing, sir. I don’t know how it is that I am standing where I am or she where she is. I am ashamed, I am indeed. But Cook tried too, sir.”

“Don’t distress yourself, Garland,” said the Dean. “Is this young person small and sandy-haired? Quick in her movements? A chin of remarkable determination?”

“That’s her, sir,” said Garland.

“Then pray ask her to step this way.” Garland could not believe that he had heard aright but he took a few weak steps toward the door. “One more thing, Garland.” The Dean hesitated, picked his pen up and put it down again. “I am the Dean of this Cathedral city and I should be accessible to all who want me. I fear that has not always been so in the past. You understand, Garland? Much obliged.”

In a remarkably short space of time Polly, scared but courageous, stood before him. Her face was white inside her bonnet, all the whiter in contrast with the brave crimson ribbons tied beneath her determined chin, and both hands clung rather desperately to the handle of her loaded shopping basket. The Dean was saddened that she, possessed of so much pluck, had found it so hard to come to him. A strong smell of fish emanated from the basket.

“I could not persuade her to leave it at the back door, sir,” said Garland.

“She was quite right,” said the Dean. “We have a kitchen cat, I believe. Sit down, my dear. Garland shall set a chair for you. Thank you, Garland.”

Garland withdrew and Polly sat gingerly on the edge of her chair, still clinging to the basket. “Set it down, my dear,” said the Dean. “It will be quite safe there on the floor.”

Polly put it down beside her. “It’s not my things, sir,” she explained. “It’s Miss Peabody’s. I market for her on a Saturday morning. I’d be blamed, sir, if anything were to be missing.”

“You can’t be too careful,” the Dean agreed. “Are you on your way from the market now? Did anything occur there to distress you?”

“Yes, sir. Job wasn’t at the fish stall. Job’s gone.”

“Gone?” echoed the Dean.

“Run away, sir.

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