When it started to rai our hoods up and made our way hurriedly to the shelter of the church. In the porch we did a little jig to drive the raindrops off our coats, and the inside.
We sat in a pew he altar and I stared up at the pale, vaulted ceiling until I made myself dizzy.
『Tell me about when you were found,「 I said. 」What do you know about it?「
『I know what Mrs. Love told me,「 he answered. 」I tell you that. And of course there』s always my iance.「
『You have an iance?「
『Yes. It』s nothing muot eople usually meahey talk about an iance, but all the same… In fact, I could show it to you later.「
『That would be nice.「
『Yes… Because I was thinking, nine is a bit too adjat to breakfast for cake, isn』t it?「 It was said with a relut grimace that turned into a gleam with his words: 」So I thought, Invite Margaret back for elevenses. Cake and coffee, how does that sound? You could do with feeding up. And I』ll show you my ia the same time. What little there is to see.「
I accepted the invitation.
Aurelius took his glasses from his pocket and began to polish them absently with a handkerchief.
『Well now.「 Slowly he took a deep breath. Slowly he exhaled. 」As it was told to me. Mrs. Love, aory.「
His face settled into passive rality, a sign that, in the way of all storytellers, he was disappearing to make way for the voice of the story itself. And then he recited, and from his very first words, at the heart of his voice, it was Mrs. Love I heard, jured from the grave by the memory of her story.
Her story, and Aurelius』s, and also, perhaps, Emmeline』s.
There itch-black sky that night, and a storm was brewing in it. Ireetops the wind was whistling, and it was raining fit to break the windows. I was knitting in this chair by the fire, a gray sock it was, the sed one, and I was just turning the heel. Well, I felt a shiver. Not that I was cold, mind you. I』d a of firewood piled up in the log basket that I』d brought in from the shed that afternoon, and I』d only just put an on. So I wasn』t cold, not at all, but I thought to myself, What a night, I』m glad I』m not some poor soul caught outdoors away from home on a night like this, and it was thinking of that poor soul as made me shiver.
Everything was quiet indoors, only the crack of the fire every so often, and the click-click of the knitting needles, and my sighs. My sighs, you say? Well, yes, my sighs. Because I wasn』t happy. I』d fallen into remembering, and that』s a bad habit for a woman of fifty. I』d got a warm fire, a roof over my head and a cooked dinner inside me, but was I tent? Not I. So there I sat sighing over my gray sock, while the rai ing. After a time I got up to fetch a slice of plum cake from the pantry, nid mature, fed with brandy. Cheered me up no end. But when I came bad picked up my knitting, my heart quite turned over. Do you know why? I』d turhe heel of that sock twice!
Now that bothered me. It really bothered me, because I』m a careful knitter, not slapdash like my sister Kitty used to be, nor half blind like my poor old mother whe he end. I』d only made that mistake twi my life.
The first time I turned a heel too often was when I was a young thing. A sunny afternoon. I was sitting by an open window, enjoying the smell of everything blooming in the garden. It was a blue sock then. For… well, for a young man. My young man. I won』t tell you his here』s no need. Well, I』d been daydreaming. Sill