The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge Read Free Book Online

then that she had committed her crime, the sin that had been secretly corroding her ever since, making her thinner than ever, giving her nightmares and sudden unexplainable attacks of sickness, and making her afraid of going to church because of that phrase “descended into hell.” Sometimes she forgot it and was happy, as she had been happy just now sitting by the pond, and she tried hard to forget, and then suddenly she would remember again. Yet she was glad she had done it, and she would have done it again, for when she had next crept up to the window the little things had gone.
    Had they been put back to greet the new lady? She must know, for if they had not been put back then perhaps they had gone forever. She got up and moved toward the house, a wraith in the gathering dusk. Her way led her obliquely under the branches of the willow tree, for she would not have dreamed of crossing the lawn without going through the willow tree. Inside it was another of her special places. She stood for a moment with the gold falling all about her, as though she stood in the secret place under a waterfall, and then she parted the golden water and went on to the conservatory and kneeled down at the window. The table was empty. She felt very desolate and getting up she drifted sadly away through the willow branches, through the copse and over the wall, and the boy was left in sole possession of the garden.
2
    I’m too tired to do any more, thought Valerie. She put down her brush and paintpot and straightened her aching back. Then turning around she leaned her arms on the top of the gate. There was no one to be seen, and nothing to be heard except that thrush singing in the little copse between the Talbots’ garden and the garden of The Laurels. For a moment she thought she saw a gleam of blue in the Talbots’ mulberry tree and thought, Those wretched children, but then it was gone. The silence oppressed her. They might all be dead, she thought, and then with a pang of bitterness, I wish they were. Paul too.
    A few years ago, when such thoughts had trickled into her vacant mind, it had shocked her that she of all people could think such things, she whom everyone admired so much for her selfless devotion to her blind husband. She had pushed them down to wherever they had come from but they had kept coming up again, and now she no longer cared. What did it matter? They were not really her and no one knew, for Paul couldn’t see her face or read her thoughts. So long as she cooked his meals and slaved for two, that was all he cared about. Other blind men did things, earned good wages. With all the wonderful gadgets invented for them the blind could be as useful these days as the sighted. But Paul was idle, content to spend his days tramping through the woods with his dog or drinking with his cronies at the local, and his evenings droning into his tape recorder in the tiny room he called his study, or just mooning, imagining he was working and pleased as Punch if he was paid a small sum for a poem or article once in six months. Meanwhile they were poor, with nothing but his disability pension and the bit of money that Grannie had left her. They hadn’t even been able to afford a child, but for that she was thankful, for Paul would have been a rotten father. She flattered herself no one knew about the poverty. To keep the cottage and its tiny garden pretty as paint, herself smart and up-to-date and Paul as tidy as was possible for a man who had been born untidy, was what she lived for. But unable to afford any help in cottage or garden, she was sure the work was killing her. Let it. She didn’t care. When she was dead Paul might be sorry.
    She glanced across at The Laurels. What was that woman like? She had caught a glimpse of her passing in her car. Old, as they all were. There was no one young here except Joanna and Roger Talbot and they were so wrapped up in each other and their wretched kids that they were no use to anyone. Old, it