The Lardners And The Laurelwoods - A Novel

THE LART NERS AND THE LAURELWOODS A NOVEL B Y Sheila Kaye-Smith 3. J HARPER BROTHERS PUBLISHERS New York and London 1947 9-7 THE LARDNERS AND THE LAURELWOODS Copyright, 1947, by Sheila Kaye-Smth Fry Printed in the United States of America All rights in this book are reserved. It may not be used for dramatic, motion-or talking-picture purposes without written authorization from the holder of these rights. Nor may the book or part thereof be reproduced in my manner whatsoever without permission in writing except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper Brothers, 49 East rd Street, New York i6 N. Y. FIRST EDITION GW The Lardners and the Laurelwoods PRELUDE SUCH A RAILWAY, THOUGHT MARTIN, SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO exist in the present stage of our civilization. He had been sitting for nearly an hour on a hard, springless seat, but he had not traveled more than twenty miles and it was impossible to read, because there was no light in the carriage. There had been no light in the old days, he remembered the railway had no tunnels and it had not been thought necessary to provide lamps to dispel merely natural darkness. But surely things might have moved a bit since then. From what he could see of it, this carriage had been in use unchanged for thirty or forty years. He might even have traveled in it on some earlier occasion. They might all have crowded in here, he, Diana, Meg, Father, Mother, Boy and Nanny Wheeler, laughing, chattering, pushing, scuffling, taking up the whole compartment with their parcels and hand luggage. It was a strange thought that in those days the high spot of the journey had been their change from thecomfortable, conventional, punctual South Eastern Railway to the little wooden train with its ridiculous humpbacked engine that jolted and shunted them across the marsh from Flattenden into the Weald. The holiday longed for and planned for throughout so many London weeks seemed really to begin when the guard came swinging along the footboard and in at the carriage door to take their tickets. Five and two halves to Rushmonden, as earlier it had been Four and three halves, and even, he could just remember, three and three halves, in the days when Meg was the baby, before Boy was born. Another high spot had been the first glimpse of Idolsf old. It was visible from the train, he remembered, shortly after Potcommon. You could see it standing high on the ridge above Shirley Moor, with its barns and oasthouses beside it and the trees of Boldshaves Wood behind. There had always been a great fuss about who should see it first I can see Idolsfold, I can see the house, and Mother saying that last time, Martin dear, it would be unselfish to let Boy see it first, as hes too little to look out of the window like you. He had let Boy see it, he remembered, but he could also re member how angry he had felt with Boy, and with Mother too. It hurt him now to think he had been angry with Mother, who had meant well even when she said those silly, unfair things that irri tated him. And Boy, too, poor little wretch, had not been really to blame for thinking his superior quickness and powers of observa tion had revealed the place to him before anyone else. But he could still feel some of the crossness and sullenness with which he had finished that journey. It was queer how places seemed to hold and keep theemotions which had charged them. Even now he could feel the necessity of that view of Idolsfold from the bend beyond Potcommon. They must be near it, for he could see the meadow-hills of the Isle of Oxney and the Isle of Ebony part to allow the tide of marshland to creep between them. That marsh was Shirley Moor a ridiculous name for a marsh, he had always thought. The twilight struck up sharp and silver from the straight sword of the Reading Sewer, and beyond it was the ridge where the roofs of Copstreet stood outlined against a sky like a black pearl...