I suppose that even then—or rather, especially then, when our pact is so new, so unproved, its threads still slender and weak—I suppose that even then I might draw back, unloose myself from the tugging of his ambition. I believe I wake thinking I will; for the room—the room in which, in whispers, at the hush of midnight, he took my hand, unfolded his dangerous plan, like a man putting back the rustling ers about a poison—the room reassembles itself in the chill half-hour of dawn into all its rigid familiar lines. I lie and watch it. I know every curve and angle. I know them, too well. I remember weeping, as a girl of eleven, at the strangeness of Briar—at the silehe stillness, the turning passages and cluttered walls. I supposed then that those things would be strao me for ever, I felt their strangeness make me strange— make me a thing of points and hooks, a burr, a splinter in the gullet of the house. But Briar crept on me. Briar absorbed me. Now I feel the simple weight of the woollen cloak with which I have covered
myself and think, / shall never escape! I am not meant to escape! Briar will never let me!
But, I am wrong. Richard Rivers has e into Briar like a spore of yeast into dough, ging it utterly. When I go, at eight oclock, to the library, I am sent away: he is there with my uncle, looking over the prints. They pass three hours together. And when, iernoon, I am summoned downstairs to make my farewells to the gentlemen, it is only Mr Hawtrey and Mr Huss that I must give my hand to. I find them in the hall, fastening their greatcoats, drawing on their gloves, while my uncle leans upon his e and Richard stands, a little way off, his hands in his pockets, looking on. He sees me first. He meets my gaze, but makes ure. Thehers hear my step and lift their heads to watch me. Mr Hawtrey smiles.
Here es fair Galatea, he says.
Mr Huss has put on his hat. Now he takes it off. The nymph, he asks, his eyes on my face, or the statue?
Well, both, Mr Hawtrey says; but I meant the statue. Miss Lilly shoale, dont you think? He takes my hand. How my daughters would envy you! They eat clay, you know, to whiten their plexions? Pure clay He shakes his head. I do think the fashion for pallor a most uhy one. As for you, Miss Lilly, I am struck again—as I always am, when I must leave you!—by the unfairness of your uncle keeping you here in such a miserable, mushroom-like way.
I am quite used to it, I say quietly. Besides, I think the gloom makes me show paler than I am. Does Mr Rivers not go with you?
The gloom is the culprit. Really, Mr Lilly, I barely make out the buttons on my coat. Do you mean o join civilised society, and bring gas to Briar?
Not while I keep books, says my uncle.
Say hen. Rivers, gas poisons books. Did you know?
I did not, says Richard. Theurns to me, and adds, in a lower voio, Miss Lilly, I am not to go up to London just yet. Your uncle has been kind enough to offer me a little work among his prints. We share a passion, it seems, for Morland.
His eye is dark—if a blue eye be dark. Mr Hawtrey says,
Now Mr Lilly, hows this for an idea: What say, while the mounting of the prints is in progress, you let your niece make a visit to Holywell Street? Shouldnt you like a holiday, Miss Lilly, in London? There, I see by your look that you should.
She should not, says my uncle.
Mr Huss draws close. His coat is thid he is sweating. He takes the tips of my