At night, when she lay in bed in the strange room, the Essex fields began
to haunt her; the five trees, the little flying trees, low down, low
down; the straight, narrow paths through the corn, where she walked with
Mark, with Jimmy, with Mr. Jourdain; Mr. Jourdain, standing in the path
and saying: "Talk to me. I'm alive. I'm here. I'll listen."
Mark and Mamma planting the sumach tree by the front door; Papa saying it
wouldn't grow. It had grown up to the dining-room window-sill.
Aunt Bella and Uncle Edward; the Proparts and the Farmers and Mr. Batty,
all stiff and disapproving; not nearly so nice to you as they used to be
and making you believe it was your fault.
The old, beautiful drawing-room. The piano by the door.
Dan staggering down the room at Mark's party. Mark holding her there, in
his arms.
Dawn, and Dr. Draper's carriage waiting in the road beside the mangold
fields. And Aunt Charlotte carried out, her feet brushing the flagstones.
She mustn't tell them. Mamma couldn't bear it. Roddy couldn't bear it.
Aunt Charlotte was Papa's sister. He must never know.
The sound of the brushing feet made her heart ache.
She was glad to wake in the small, strange room. It had taken a snip off
Mamma's and Papa's room on one side of the window, and a snip off the
spare room on the other. That made it a funny T shape. She slept in the
tail of the T, in a narrow bed pushed against the wall. When you sat up
you saw the fat trees trying to get up the hill between the washstand and
the chest of drawers.
This room would never be taken from her, because she was the only one who
was small enough to fit the bed.
She would be safe there with her hill.