The Eye of Love Read Free Page B

was about five o’clock.
    The child Martha’s only embarrassment now was that of riches. The nice shops in Queen’s Road—the little house endowed by Mr Gibson stood on the confines of Bayswater and Paddington—competed for attention with shops scarcely nice at all in Praed Street, as did Paddington Station, all steam and bustle, with the rural peace of Kensington Gardens; and even so there were a couple of calls Martha meant to pay first. Actually it took her twenty minutes to reach the end of Alcock Road.
    Immediately, there was the grating in the gutter. To anyone who troubled to squat on the curb and use their hands as blinkers, the iron bars of this gradually assumed the appearance of granite columns, ranged like the portico of a temple: a shift of focus advanced the strips of blackness in between, producing a prison-gate. Martha squatted here about ten minutes.
    Directly across the road was a letter-box still bearing the monogram VR. To follow the raised curly letters with one’s finger, covering every inch without jumping, was an exercise not to be resisted; it also, successfully accomplished, brought good luck for the rest of the day.
    Beyond the letter-box beckoned a gate with a brass plate, carelessly cleaned. The smears of metal-polish all round dried white on the green paint in a different pattern each morning. To-day’s was rather simple, just a flight of gulls, but Martha hadn’t seen it. (As a rule she nipped across as soon as the careless maid went in.)
    Three houses from Miss Taylor, chiropodist, if the front door happened to open, one could glimpse within a really remarkable umbrella-stand shaped like an enormous frog; worth hanging about quite a while for.
    Martha’s time of twenty minutes to the corner was in fact very good going, she could easily make Alcock Road last a whole afternoon. Now she was in a hurry.
    Her first object was the Public Library, to which she had no official right of entry. (Children under twelve admitted only in company of an adult.) But her mild and serious contemplation of certain Chinese paintings, bequest of a nineteenth-century missionary, had so endeared her to the Librarian that he never found heart to apply the rules. Martha stumped in with justified confidence and had a good look.
    Here was the real thing.
    Reluctantly, Martha admitted it. Try as she would, she had never fixed, even among the unlimited possibilities offered by nine square feet of lawn, so satisfactory a balance between height, lesser height, and flat. (She didn’t even know that this was what she attempted; she just wanted to get things right.) The bamboo brushed in ink swayed more lightly than the growing bents. The red of the painted azalea was more vivid than the red of the pimpernel—as the tiger on the next scroll was more lifelike than the living cat …
    â€œTell me what they say to you,” prompted the kind, interested Librarian.
    Martha didn’t bother to reply. Having seen what she’d come to see, she turned and stumped out again without wasting energy. It was quite a long walk to Mr Punshon’s.
    Mr Punshon, who mended her own stout shoes and occasionally Dolores’ pumps, was like all cobblers a politician: the walls of his narrow establishment were lined with cartoons from Rowlandson to Spy. Martha walked in and had a good look.
    â€œNo trade to-night?” enquired her friend humorously.
    Martha stood politely on one leg to display a solid heel.
    â€œGood leather,” said Mr Punshon, in self-approval. “Want a dekko at my album?”
    Martha hesitated. Mr Punshon’s album, into which he pasted all the cartoons he hadn’t room for on his walls, was very tempting. (It was bodily an old Burke’s Peerage; Mr Punshon greatly enjoyed grangerising it with rude cartoons about the House of Lords.) But though Martha was tempted, her instinct told her she’d already looked at enough; even the contemplation of Mr