Archibald Cronin - The Spanish gardener

"You do agree, don't you?" Nicholas was saying, in that same tone, persuasive, yet tempered by a new stringency. "You promise to make arrangements?"

Another pause. The Consul, still with bent head, striving to stiffen his will, made a blurred murmur which might have passed for either refusal or assent.

A long silence followed. Then, straightening, freeing himself from the phantoms of his meditation, swallowing down his pain, Brande laid his damp hand, entreatingly, on his son's arm.

"Nicholas," he said, with some return of his lofty manner. "Many things have come between us in these past months. Although, God knows, my conscience is clear, if I have been in any way to blame I am sorry. But don't let mere mischance … or unmeant mistakes … destroy our feeling for one another. We still have the future. If we try I am sure one day we can recapture … those intimacies of heart and mind … which I prize above all else …"

Again, at the end of that sad monologue, there was a lengthy silence, during which, against the dark backdrop of the uncurtained window, the lights of the aurora flashed and flickered—a flight of souls across the inscrutable sky. The Consul sighed heavily, rose to his feet in a half-hearted fashion, and was moving in resignation towards the door when, at a thought, he stopped short, turned wishfully, though not with hope, towards the bed.

"You wouldn't …" As he spoke, in a low voice, he continued to watch his son with that sidelong anxious glance. "You wouldn't care for me … to read to you tonight?"

The boy withdrew his eyes. He was about to refuse, brusquely—the hard words had already formed on his lips. Then something overcame him. Abruptly he turned his head away.

"All right," he muttered. "If you wish."

A smile of gratification, so strangely pathetic it was almost foolish, spread over the Consul's distraught and haggard face. Clumsily, with undue haste, he went into the other room, rummaged in his valise, returned with the familiar red leather-bound volume. He cleared his throat.

"Let us take the chapter that deals with the characteristics of some of the larger Audubon birds—it's really most interesting … and instructive. Oh, it's so long since we had this little treat together!"

Seating himself on the bed, he adjusted his spectacles, and in a suffused voice began to read:

The turkey, a large domestic fowl, with a plumage which vies in splendour with the peacock, was in the first instance a native of the American continent but has since been transported to many other lands. It is by nature a peculiar bird—assertive and self-sufficient—yet because of this inordinate vanity, liable to grave discomfitures …

All at once he broke off.

Nicholas, turned sideways on the pillow, gazing with eager eyes at the woman's photograph upon his bedside table—this strange yet sweet-faced woman who was his mother, who would soon take his head between her hands and press it to her breast—was not paying the least attention. He wasn't listening … no, not listening to him at all.