The Quiet Heart Read Free

outbuildings, stable yard, etc., Alison was beginning to wish she had wrapped herself in a warm coat. She was wearing only her slim navy-blue dress with the little white collar, and her appearance was gradually becoming pinched. But still there were numberless bedrooms to be visited, and she steeled herself for the ordeal.
    Behind her, in her little sitting-room, the girls would be drinking hot coffee and devouring ginger biscuits, but she had to remember that the lease of their flat was granted to them in exchange for her services, and the new Sir Charles Leydon looked as if he would demand value right down to the uttermost farthing, and he hadn’t even noticed that she was without a coat.
    They climbed to the roof. There were steep staircases leading upwards through attics, and they emerged amongst a forest of chimney-pots and one solitary television aerial to view the surrounding countryside from that altitude.
    For the first time Leydon’s expression altered. It would be untrue to say that it softened, but it altered. The tension of his mouth relaxed, a suspicion of brightness invaded his eyes. He leaned over a dangerously low parapet and looked out across the leafless trees of what, in summer, would be a truly magnificent park.
    Serried row after serried row they grew ... beech, oak, ash, elm. The elms contained colonies of rooks, the straight trunks of the beeches rose like the pillars of a cathedral to the washed-out blue of the sky. Beyond the extensive parkland, where a species of deer still grazed, the purple heights of the moors could be seen, and beyond the moors was the sea.
    Nearer at hand, almost immediately below them, in fact, were the gardens of the Hall. In summer they were a blaze of colour, and carloads of tourists arrived to be shown over them. Twice a week, in August and September, they paid half-crowns to wander at will amongst the glory of the roses, to admire the ornamental shrubs, the magnificence of the herbaceous borders, the sunken Italian garden, the parterre, the lake with its little island floating in the middle of it, the seemingly endless shrubberies.
    They chattered over the peach houses, the vines, the blue-black grapes, the acres of glass that protected rare plants and forced along horticultural prizes. They lost themselves in green alleys and yew-bordered secret places where the emerald turf was like velvet, and arbours smothered in white roses and jasmine waited at the end of the walk. And afterwards they bought postcards in the great hall where Alison showed them cases of medals and her stepdaughters served them tea on the terrace—if they wanted it.
    But that was in the summer, when the air was at least clement even if the sun didn’t always shine. But now it was drear November and the winter solstice was approaching, and the very thought of having tea on the terrace caused one to shiver ... as Alison was beginning to shiver uncontrollably while the man who was viewing his property for the first time actually discovered something to comment upon in the view that was spread out before his eyes.
    “Now that,” he exclaimed, eyes continuing to kindle, “is something!” He flung out a hand. “The best of England ... the England everyone wants to see! But even that will vanish before long.”
    Mr. Minty ventured to protest.
    “Surely not,” he said, as if he was genuinely shocked.
    Leydon turned from the view and regarded him disdainfully.
    “Have you any idea of the pace of progress nowadays?” he enquired. “It no longer crawls, as if the world can wait and people starve while the few with the right to make changes endeavour to bring their minds to the task. The world nowadays is changing its very shape because the people insist on it and progress is proceeding at an alarming rate.”
    Alison and the solicitor exchanged glances. They were both labouring under the delusion that Charles Leydon was an immensely rich man. Even before he inherited Leydon Hall and its various