The Alien by Josephine Bell Read Free Book Online

tonight. I stop you too soon.’’
    Boris gave her his warm smile but his eyes were withdrawn, wary.
    â€œ Je regrette infiniment . Not tonight, mon amour . Tonight I have business, very important business.’’
    She could not argue with the finality of this statement. She pouted and shrugged and let him go. Soon, she told herself. He will not always keep me out. Then, remembering that she was supposed to be going to her language class, though it was now far too late to do so, she crept out of the front door, closing it loudly, but without locking it, and then, opening it again without noise, made it fast and tiptoed into Colin’s study, the room on the other side of the front door, to wait.
    Boris put aside the curtain, unfastened the window and stepped out on to the iron balcony. He stood there for a few seconds, marvelling that the scent of roses was able to reach him through the petrol-laden air. The narrow strip of garden was bright with flowers, the lawn green where the sprinkler had refreshed it, though it was never able in term-time quite to recover from the scuffing feet of the Brentwood boy and girl. The surrounding houses gleamed white and grey beyond the gardens and the mews, veiled by occasional trees such as those beneath which he knew he would find Margaret.
    As he went down the steps and reached the bare patch at the edge of the grass he looked back. The curtain hung discreetly straight at the drawing-room window. There were no faces at the glass below. He turned from the grass to follow the paved path beside the flower-border. From here, as he came to the wattle fence with its burden of roses, he bent to smell them, looking up sideways at the houses flanking the one he had left.
    The old woman was there, of course, as always. She did not seem to move but he knew her eyes had followed him from the moment he had first come into her field of vision. He straightened up and went round the corner of the fence.
    This part of the little garden had charmed him from the first moment he saw it, in the early spring, with snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils under the trees in delightful succession, while the buds slowly swelled into leaf on their bare branches. Piled in one corner against the wall was the original Victorian rockery, now given over to ferns and in the spring, following the daffodils, a carpet of lilies of the valley, those hardy fragrancies that thrive so well in the London air. The flowers were over now but the leaves, smooth, broad, dark green, made a quiet background to the ferns and the old soot-rotted stones. In front of this stood the sycamore that provided most of the shade. Nearby was the white double cherry, still a glory of blossom, though the silver was beginning to tarnish and the coarse grass under the trees was sprinkled with fallen petals. In the corner of the wall opposite the rockery the small green-painted door into the mews was doubly fastened on the inside with a lock and a chain and padlock. The wall above was set with vicious glass spikes and an outward curving reinforcement of barbed wire.
    Boris glanced quickly round that green seclusion with his usual approval. Then he went up close to the striped day-bed where Margaret lay still with closed eyes. He judged correctly that she was not asleep and had heard his approach.
    â€œ La belle au bois dormant ,’’ he said, gently.
    Margaret instantly opened her eyes to meet his smile with her own.
    â€œAre you the prince?’’ she asked, lightly, not moving. “After a hundred years?’’
    It was a pretty obvious cue, if he had wanted to take it. He did not take it. He laughed, looking about for somewhere to sit. Margaret swung her feet down and moved along a little.
    â€œThere’s the other end of this thing,’’ she said. “But your weight may tip it up if you sit too near the end. Or there are deck-chairs under the balcony steps.’’
    With a sharp pang of