Moonlight Read Free

seen before on the steps of the Embankment. He spoke again, his voice gentle as always, "Please stay a while and listen to what I have to say, and if when I am finished you still want to leave, then you won't get any more harassments from me."
    He let go of her hand. Winnie stood between the chair and the table. She looked down at the stranger before her and felt confused. On one hand he seemed strong and slightly arrogant, but on the other hand, he seemed gentle and a little naive. He implored her once more, his voice barely a whisper.
    "Please trust me. Stay a little longer. You can go at any time. I am true to my word.”
    Those last two words Winnie had heard so many times before in her life, and too often t hey had meant very little. F or reasons she couldn’t quite explain, Winnie found herself taking her seat once more on the opposite side of the table. Somehow, she felt strangely in control of the situation. She sensed a certain desperateness about Thaddeus Blake which he fought to keep hidden beneath his cool exterior.
    "Okay, I'm listening,” she said, “but any funny stuff , and I'm gone, mister.”
    "Please, call me Thaddeus,” he smiled warmly.
    Winnie eyed him cautiously and said, “So what kind of job are you offering?"
    Thaddeus drew a silver flip case from his breast pocket, opened it, and offered a cigarette to Winnie.
    “It’s not a habit I can afford,” she said, waving the case away with her grubby hand.
    Thaddeus put the case away after taking one for himself and lit it. Once settled, he spoke.
    "I’d like you to come and work for me at my home in Cornwall. I n the last year, I have purchased a big home there, which takes a great deal of looking after and care. All I'd ask of you is to keep it clean. Your other duties would be to prepare my meals and do my laundry."
    Winnie watched him blow smoke out of his nostrils as she said, "Ever thought about getting yourself a wife, mister. Or a maid?"
    "I’ve had both. My wife died almost a year ago of cancer, and the maid just didn't work out."
    “A wife?” Winnie asked, unable to mask her surprise. “You must have married young. You can’t be any older than twenty-five.”
    “We met as teenagers,” he said, turning as if to watch the people pass in the street outside. “From the very first time I saw her, I loved her.”
    Winnie watched his pale reflection in the window and said, “I’m sorry that you weren’t together longer. She must have died very young.”
    “The time we spent together was very special - it felt like an eternity,” he whispered, looking back at Winnie.
    Not knowing what to say next, and embarrassed by Thaddeus’s obvious sadness, Winnie said, “So why didn’t the whole maid thing work out?”
    Thaddeus stubbed out his cigarette, which was only half-smoked, and laced his hands over each other on the table. " I have become somewhat of a recluse. I keep myself to myself. I tend to keep strange hours, mostly sleeping during the day and working through the night. It just got too much for my maid. She was old, and fetching my meals during the night and changing my linen became too much, and we parted company."
    "Ever thought about changing your sleeping pattern?” Winnie asked dryly, eyeing him from beneath her matted fringe. “It might work wonders for your social life.”
    “Let’s just say I prefer the moonlight,” he smiled wistfully. “Besides, after my wife's death, I had what you might call a breakdown . I t wasn’t my mind which was broken - it was my heart.  I shied away from people and the daylight, and all that it offered in its bright and harsh clarity. I prefer the nights. They are quieter and full of peace, with everybody away in bed. I can come and go as I please without being disturbed. The world seems mine then , and mine alone. As I have said , I work at night and I find the peace it gives me refreshing . "
    “What's your work?"
    "I'm a writer; a poet in fact,” Thaddeus explained.  “So as