The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

Author:Shirley Jackson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group, USA
Published: 2014-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

8

“‘I had, as I hinted before,’” the nurse read, going slowly in her flat voice, “‘a parcel of money, as well gold as silver, about thirty-six pounds sterling; alas! there the nasty, sorry, useless stuff lay; I had no manner of business for it, and I often thought with myself, that I would have given a handful of it for a gross of tobacco-pipes, or for a hand-mill to grind my corn; nay, I would have given it all for six-penny worth of turnip and carrot seed out of England, or for a handful of pease and beans, and a bottle of ink.’”

Daily Julia and Arabella and Maryjane brought in armfuls of heavy, rich roses for the silver bowls in the drawing room and the dining room. The sundial stood out more whitely against the deep green of the lawn; there were apricots on the breakfast table. Aunt Fanny, in her mother’s diamonds, listened always, and late one night Mrs. Willow, aroused by what she thought was someone after the silver, found Aunt Fanny at the head of the great stairway in her nightgown, rapt and still and smiling; “The time is drawing closer,” she said, when Mrs. Willow roused her.

Although Gloria was most unwilling, Mrs. Willow was not a patient woman, and disliked the vagueness of Aunt Fanny’s appointments; she insisted that Gloria look into the mirror again. “You’re used to it,” Mrs. Willow explained, “you know it by now. We don’t want to keep starting new people at it. Besides, no one but you will do it.”

Reluctantly, Gloria sat again before the mirror where the oil ran and shivered, and leaned her face down to look. “I hope I see something pleasanter this time, that’s all,” she said. “If I see any more of those terrible things you can just get someone else to look, and I don’t care whether they get mixed up or not on the other side.”

“I wonder what nonsense we would be engaged in, if we were not doing this,” Mrs. Halloran remarked.

“We are the gods,” Essex said, “sitting on the front porch of Olympus, regarding the doings of men. It is probably just as well that we have some nonsense to occupy us; think of the harm we could do if we were bored.”

“Well, don’t all keep watching me,” Gloria said. “You make me nervous.”

Mrs. Willow and Aunt Fanny moved back a little, eyeing one another.

“We’ll just wait,” Mrs. Willow said comfortably. “You let us know when you see something.”

“I hate it when it starts to move,” Gloria said. She stirred uneasily in her chair. “It’s like being seasick—everything kind of churns around, and you think you can’t last another minute, because you’re sinking into this horrid moving whirling twirling curling—I see a country. It’s clear. I see a country, a nice country.”

“What country, dear?” Mrs. Willow was making notes, in a notebook she had bought for the purpose and into which she had copied all of her previous records of Aunt Fanny’s statements.

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