The Last September (34 page)

But Mrs. Trent could not; she was a punctilious person and wore a wrist-watch. She had not even sent round her dog-cart to the back; a man was walking the cob up and down the avenue. “A flying visit,” said Lady Naylor mournfully, having prolonged the conversation by half an hour. Then Mrs. Trent climbed briskly into the dog-cart and gathered the reins up; they sighed at each other their resignation at parting.

“Then we see you on Tuesday. Be sure and come early, before the Hartigans.” To the domestic landscape, Mrs. Trent nodded an approving farewell. “Every autumn, it strikes me this place looks really its best.”

“To tell you the truth, I really believe it does. There is something in autumn,” said Lady Naylor. She remained on the steps looking after the trap, her hands restlessly, lightly folded. Some leaves spun down from the gate with a home-coming air.

The two did not, however, again see Danielstown at such a moment, such a particular happy point of decline in the short curve of the day, the long curve of the season. Here, there were no more autumns, except for the trees. By next year light had possessed itself of the vacancy, still with surprise. Next year, the chestnuts and acorns pattered unheard on the avenues, that, filmed over with green already, should have been dull to the footsteps—but there were no footsteps. Leaves, fluttering down the slope with the wind’s 
hesitation, banked formless, frightened, against the too clear form of the ruin.

For in February, before those leaves had visibly budded, the death—the execution, rather—of the three houses, Danielstown, Castle Trent, Mount Isabel, occurred in the same night. A fearful scarlet ate up the hard spring darkness; indeed, it seemed that an extra day, unreckoned, had come to abortive birth that these things might happen. It seemed, looking from east to west at the sky tall with scarlet, that the country itself was burning; while to the north the neck of mountain before Mount Isabel was frightfully outlined. The roads in unnatural dusk ran dark with movement, secretive or terrified; not a tree, brushed pale by wind from the flames, not a cabin pressed in despair to the bosom of night, not a gate too starkly visible but had its place in the design of order and panic. At Danielstown, half way up the avenue under the beeches, the thin iron gate twanged (missed its latch, remained swinging aghast) as the last unlit car slid out with the executioners bland from accomplished duty. The sound of the last car widened, gave itself to the open and empty country and was demolished. Then the first wave of a silence that was to be ultimate flowed back confidently to the steps. The door stood open hospitably upon a furnace.

Sir Richard and Lady Naylor, not saying anything, did not look at each other, for in the light from the sky they saw too distinctly.