The Beautiful Visit by Elizabeth Jane Howard Read Free Book Online Page A

nose.
    ‘Poor you,’ said Lucy. ‘Do you want to go home?’
    ‘Only a bit.’ I didn’t at all, but once you cried you had to sound brave about it.
    ‘Bad luck,’ said Lucy again, very helpless. ‘Would you like to go back to tea?’
    ‘You’d better finish your house first. I’m all right.’
    ‘Will you help us then?’
    ‘You’ll have to show me what to do,’ I said patronizingly.
    ‘I’m never homesick,’ said Elspeth.
    ‘You don’t get the chance to be,’ said Lucy fiercely.
    I got up.
    ‘Promise you won’t tell the others I cried.’
    ‘I promise,’ said Lucy. ‘Go on, Elspeth.’
    ‘Honour bright,’ said Elspeth carelessly, and turned away.
    It was a beautiful house. The walls were about a foot high, with a gap in one wall for a door. There was the intricate job of constructing a flat roof which did not imperil the shaky structure.
We laid slender strips across, then bark and moss on top of them. Elspeth wanted leaves; but they would not lie flat, and snapped and crumbled maliciously weak, so we gave them up, and between the
twigs crammed smoky dry moss in wedges. We scraped the ground flat round the house and Elspeth started to make a fence; but got bored, and found a slug. It was under a bit of loose bark, and was
grey and oily, with a brilliant orange front. ‘If I look at it long I shall be sick.’
    ‘Don’t be silly, Elspeth. Don’t look at it.’
    ‘It’s moving,’ said Elspeth, horrified.
    ‘I can’t think why you mind them if you like caterpillars.’
    ‘Caterpillars are dry.’ She loved watching it really. ‘Anyway, it’s such a slimy shape.’
    ‘Better kill it,’ said Lucy.
    ‘No, don’t kill it. It’s a horrible poor thing.’
    ‘They eat the vegetables.’
    ‘It couldn’t walk as far as the vegetables. Ugh, it doesn’t walk. It crawls. It sort of slimes along. Lucy, there are probably lots of them. I may have sat on one. Have I,
Lucy?’
    ‘Oh, my goodness! An enormous one!’ Lucy examined her skirt in mock horror, then turned her round.
    ‘Don’t cry, baby, of course you haven’t. Can’t you take a joke?’
    ‘Can’t always risk a joke.’
    ‘The house is finished,’ I said. I had been patting and poking the roof. It was beautiful, and it looked so useful and necessary that I wanted to have it and take it away. It was
finished and we stood round it. Even Lucy was touched by its complete sweetness.
    ‘The best we’ve ever made,’ said Elspeth.
    They had done it before. It was so new to me that I couldn’t bear to think of that. I suggested we go, and we left the house to its first night’s adventure.
    We were through the gate again, on the grass, staring at the misty dusk ahead and the little orange sparks glowing from the house down the slope.
    ‘Let’s run,’ said Elspeth.
    We took hands and ran down the slope; past when we were breathless, until our running became almost frightening, although enjoyable because we were together. The ground was uneven, and I watched
it (I was not as used as the others to running on a field). When I looked up, the bony trees were high above us; the river gleamed like a wide snake asleep; the windows were paler gold broken by
their frames; and the black creeper clinging to the house made it seem a wonderful place to receive us for the end of the day. We were panting, Elspeth had not run all the leaves out of her hair,
and the lights shone in our eyes.
    Upstairs, Lucy showed me her room. There were two beds and a coat lay at the end of one.
    ‘Deb’s back,’ said Lucy joyfully.
    I did not see Deb until tea. She was beautiful, and it was obvious that they all adored her. She sat between Gerald and her mother, and I saw him turn the plate round so that the cake with the
large cherry was nearest her. She took it so easily that I knew she had always had the cherries. Elspeth told her about the house; Elspeth’s father about a horse; and she turned from one to
another radiant; recounting her visit