Gillespie and I by Jane Harris Read Free Book Online Page B

this, one doesn’t mind a little wait.’
    I turned to her girls, whom good manners required that I also acknowledge. With their shining cheeks and stiff, short dresses, Sibyl and Rose had the scrubbed, chastened look of children who have been soundly bathed and fastened into their finest clothes. ‘What a pretty dress, Rose! How smart you look, Sibyl!’
    The younger girl grew bashful, and attempted to hide her face, while Sibyl raised a coy shoulder and gave me an affected grin across it, displaying her little fangs. Seconds later, however, the smile vanished, and I found myself, once more, unsettled by her dull-eyed, unflinching gaze: it was not malicious, exactly, yet neither was it pleasant.
    Meanwhile, Mabel had linked arms with Ned and—somewhat impolitely, I felt—steered him off down the path, rather than stopping to say good afternoon. It was of no consequence, but I daresay that I was mildly curious to be reacquainted with the artist. However, Mabel was possessive of her brother to a degree that might almost be regarded as—one hesitates to say unnatural —but all her actions concerning him were coloured by an anomalous proprietary instinct. I noticed that Kenneth caught up with them and appeared to borrow money from his brother before hurrying off, and then Ned and Mabel paused to converse with some acquaintances.
    Our little group, consisting of Elspeth, Annie, the children and myself, began to move in their direction. Unfortunately, Elspeth hampered our progress somewhat by stopping in her tracks, every so often, the better to speak. She began to tell me about a person that an acquaintance of hers had once encountered; somebody whom I was never likely to meet, and whom, moreover, Elspeth herself had never met—but apparently none of these particulars prevented her from expounding at length on the subject of this complete stranger.
    I could have wished for some moral support under this torrent of verbiage, but Annie, exhibiting no fellow feeling, soon wandered off the path to pick up a leaf, and then became lost in contemplation of its form, thereby falling behind. Sibyl and Rose skipped on ahead. As Elspeth continued to chatter, my gaze drifted over to where Ned stood with the others. He had turned away from his companions in order to gaze across the park at the Waterbury Watches balloon, which was just visible above the trees, over by the Machinery Section. His arm was half raised, and he appeared to be fiddling with something at his wrist—a cufflink, perhaps, or a timepiece. I found myself wondering whether or not he would remember our previous encounter in London.
    Just at that moment, he happened to glance in our direction and, almost without thinking, I waved to him, as one might to an old friend. To my surprise, he instantly broke away from Mabel and the others, and hurried towards us, tapping his pipe to dispose of the cinders. I felt sure that he must have recognised me. At the very least, his approach interrupted Elspeth’s monologue.
    â€˜Come and meet Miss Bexter, Ned dear! Herriet, this is Ned, my other son.’
    The artist doffed his hat and then, turning to his mother, said simply: ‘Well?’
    â€˜No sign yet, dear,’ replied Elspeth. ‘But we must wait until we get to the Palace. That’s where we’re most likely to see him.’
    â€˜Aye,’ said Ned, and gazed off towards Annie, who was still standing on the grass, some distance away, examining the leaf that she had found. As he considered his wife, his expression softened, and he smiled.
    Clearly, he had not recognised me—not at all—but why should he have? A professional artist might well be introduced to dozens of strangers during an opening at a gallery like the Grosvenor, and if his work appears in several other shows over the course of a year, the number of new faces that he encounters must mount into the hundreds. I would have been extremely silly to be