They fell into step beside me without a word, as though we had arranged to meet.

” Where’s Miss Bective?” I asked.

The twins exchanged glances as though each was waiting for the other to speak.

It was Lowella who answered. ” She’s gone off in the little Morris.

She said we were to pick her six different wild flowers. It’s botany.”

” How many have you found so far? ” ” We haven’t looked yet. My dear Bride, how long do you think it’s going to take us to find six different wild flowers? Becky won’t say much if we don’t find ‘em anyway. She’d never say we were undisciplined, would she, because if she did they’d say we ought to go to school, and if we went to school there wouldn’t be any excuse for Beoky to be at Pendorric.”

” Don’t you think you ought to obey her instructions? After all she is your governess.”

” You oughtn’t to be worrying about us,” said Hyson. Lowella leaped on ahead and ran up the bank to pick a wild rose. She stuck it in her hair and danced before us singing, ” Beware … beware … beware the Ides of March.”

Hyson said: ” Lowella is quite childish sometimes. She goes on repeating things.”

” She seems to like warning people,” I commented. ” I remember Beware the awful avalanche!” ” ” I like Ides better,” called Lowella.

“You can’t have avalanches in Cornwall, but you can have Ides anywhere. Pity they’re in March and this is July.”

” She doesn’t know anything,” put in Hyson scornfully. She went on to quote:

“” March, July, October, May, The Ides fall on the fifteenth day.

Lowella had paused. ” But what are Ides?”

” Just a date, stupid. Instead of saying the fifteenth, the Romans said the Ides.”

” Only a date,” wailed Lowella. ” It sounds marvelous. I thought it was something ‘like witches … or ghosts. Fancy having to beware of a date.”

” If something was going to happen on a certain date, if it were prophesied to happen… that would be more frightening or as frightening as witches or ghosts.”

” Yes,” said Lowella slowly, ” I suppose it would.” We had reached the row of cottages and old Jesse was seated at his door. I went over to him and said: ” Good afternoon. I’m Mrs. Pendorric.”

I noticed that his hands, resting on his knees, started to shake. ” Tis good of ‘ee, ma’am,” he said.

” I’ve brought you some tobacco. I found out from Mrs. Penhalligan what brand you smoke.”

His trembling hands closed over the tin and he smiled.

“Why, ‘twas thoughtful of ‘ee, ma’am. I mind how kind she always were….” Hyson had gone into the cottage and brought out a stool which she set beside the old man’s chair. She nodded to me to sit down while she squatted on the other side of him. Lowella had disappeared. “Your daughter has been baking pasties this morning,” I told him. ” A wonderful cook, my Bessie. Don’t rightly know what I’d do without her. I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Mr. Roc—he’s been good to me.

Is the little ‘un here? “

” Yes, I’m here,” Hyson answered.

He nodded and turned to me. ” I hope you find this place to your liking, ma’am.”

” I’m delighted with it.”

” Tis a long time since we’ve had a new Bride at Pendorric.”

” There was my mother,” said Hyson, ” and before that my Granny Barbarina.”

” A sweet lady, she were. I remember the day she come.”

” Tell us, Jesse,” urged Hyson. ” The new Bride wants to hear about it.”

” Well, we’d seen her many a time. Twasn’t like her coming from nowheres. I remember her as a little ‘un, her and her sister. Used to visit us … and master and mistress used to visit them. Hyson their name was. Such pretty names. Miss Barbarina and Miss Deborah.”

” I was named after them,” put in Hyson.

” So you were pleased when she became Mrs. Pendorric,” I said. ” I reckon I were, Mrs. Pendorric. We didn’t rightly know what would happen. We knew something of how it were, and there was talk of giving up Pendorric. Pendorric as it were in the old days, that be. Us didn’t know what would happen to we like. There was talk of Mr. Petroc marrying that Sellick girl and then …”

” But he didn’t,” Hyson said. ” He married my Granny Barbarina.”

“I remember the wedding. Twas a wonderful summer’s day. It was there in the church. The Reverend Trewin were parson then. Oh, it were a grand wedding. And Miss Barbarina was a picture with Miss Deborah her maid of honour, and Mr. Petroc looking that handsome … and it was so right and proper that it should be.”

” What about the other girl?” I asked.

” Oh, that were reckoned to be done with. She’d gone away … and all was merry….”

” Merry as a marriage bell,” murmured Hyson.

” A wonderful mistress she were. Kind and good … and gentle like.

She used to ride a lot and play the violin. Often I’ve been working on the quadrangle gardens and heard her. “

I was aware of Hyson, looking at me intently. Hyson, I thought, was it you who tried to scare me? And if so, why?

” Then she had a way of singing to herself. I remember once, coming home, I heard her singing in the graveyard. It sounded so queer and yet beautiful and like something not quite natural. I went in and saw her. She’d been putting flowers on the grave of little Ellen Pascoe from the cottages. Little Ellen had died of tile meningitis, and it was her way of saying she was thinking of ‘un. We thought a terrible lot of her here in the cottages.”

” You remember her very well,” I said softly.

” It seems only yesterday she were talking to me, as you be now. I was working then. Right up to the time she died I was working. But she knew I couldn’t go on. I told her what was happening to me and she did comfort me. She said:

‘ Never be feared, Jesse. I’ll see that you be all right. ” And every time she saw me she’d ask after me. And I was getting blind, Mrs. Pendorric. I can’t even see you now. But you remind me of her in a way. You’ve got a kindness which was hers. Then you be happy. I can tell that. So were she . at first. But it changed for her, poor gentle lady. Then she weren’t happy no more. My tongue be running away with me, I fear. Bessie says I be alone so much that when people come to see me I’ve got so much to make up for. “

” I’m glad you want to talk,” I said. ” It’s very interesting.”

” She’s the new Bride, so she naturally wants to hear about the other one,” said Hyson.

” Ay,” went on the old man. ” You’re happy … as she were when she first come. Twas only after, poor body…. I wish you all happiness, Mrs. Pendorric. I wish for you to stay as you be now for evermore.”

I thanked him and asked him about his cottage; he told me that if I cared to look over it, he would be pleased. It was kept clean and tidy by his daughter and granddaughter. He rose, and taking a stick from the side of his chair led the way into the cottage. The door opened straight into the livingroom ; it was certainly clean and tidy.

There was his armchair with his pipe-rack and ashtray on a table beside it with a small transistor radio. There was a framed photograph on the wall, of Jesse standing, his hand resting on the shoulder of a woman sitting, whom I presumed to be his wife; they were both looking into the camera as though they were only engaged in the unpleasant duty for the sake of posterity. There were photographs of Mrs. Penhalligan at her wedding.

Leading from this sitting-room was a kitchen with a door which opened into a garden. This, like the cottage, was trim and well kept, with wallflowers and cabbage roses bordering a small lawn; a water barrel leaned against the wall to catch the ram.

There were two rooms upstairs, he told me; and he managed the stairs well enough. There was nothing wrong with him except his affliction and the fact that his memory was not what it had been. He settled in his armchair and bade me be seated while he told me about his meeting and marriage to Lizzie, and how she had been under-housemaid up at Pendorric in the days when he had worked in the gardens there.

This went on for some time, and during it Hyson, presumably becoming bored, slipped away.

The old man said suddenly: ” The child has gone?”

” Yes,” I told him. ” I expect she’s gone to find her sister. They’re supposed to be collecting flowers for a botany lesson.”

” The little one … she questions and cross-questions …”

” She’s a strange child.”

He nodded.

“She wants to know about it. It’s on her mind. Tain’t good, I reckon. Her’s young. T’as nought to do with her.”

” I think the story has caught her imagination. It’s because it’s a ghost story.”

” Mrs. Pendorric.” He almost whispered my name, and I went closer to him.

” Yes, Jesse?”

“There’s something I don’t talk of no more. I told Mr. Petroc and he said, Don’t talk of it, Jesse. Tis better not.” So I didn’t talk.

But I want to tell you, Mrs. Pendorric. “

” Why do you want to tell me, Jesse?”

” I don’t know … but you be the next bride, see … and there’s something tells me ‘tis right and proper you should know.”

” Tell me, then.”

” My eyes was bad and getting worse. Days was when I couldn’t make out shapes and such-like. I’d think I saw someone and when I come close I’d find it to be a piece of furniture. That bad they’d got to be. But the more bad they got the more I seemed to hear, and sometimes I knew sum mat without seeing or hearing. They say ‘tis the compensation of the blind, Mrs. Pendorric.”

” Yes, Jesse, I am sure there are compensations.”

” That day I come into the hall, Mrs. Pendorric. And she were in the gallery. I knew who ‘twas because I heard her speak. Low like she spoke … and then ‘twas as though there were two shadows up there I don’t rightly know … and ‘tis a long time to look back. But I believe, Mrs. Pendorric, that there were two on ‘em up on that gallery a minute or two afore Mrs. Pendorric fell.”

” And you didn’t make this known before?”

” Mr. Pendorric said for me not to. You see, drfme picture were there the picture of the other bride, and they did say she’d haunted the place for more than a hundred years trying to lure a bride to take her place. There were two on ‘em up there. I swear it, Mrs. Pendorric . but Mr. Petroc he didn’t want it said. I’d always obeyed the master, as my father had and his father afore him, so I said nothing . but I tell you this, Mrs. Pendorric. “

” It’s so long ago. It’s best forgotten, Jesse.”

” So I thought, Mrs. Pendorric. And have thought these twenty-five years. But you being here … and reminding me of her … in a way . and you being so good and friendly to me like, well, I thought I should tell ‘ee. Tis a warning like. And there’s a feeling in here .. ” He tapped his chest. ” There’s a feeling that I shouldn’t keep ‘ee in the dark.”

I couldn’t see why he should feel this, but I thanked him for his concern.

I changed the subject, which wasn’t difficult, for now that he had told me he seemed more relaxed as though he had done his duty. He talked of the cottage and the old days when his Lizzie had been alive; and after a time, I left.

I did not see the twins as I walked back to Pendorric.

The next day Nurse Grey telephoned me.

” Oh, Mrs. Pendorric,” she said, ” Lord Polhorgan has asked me to ring. He was wondering if you could come over this afternoon. He rather particularly wants to see you.”

I hesitated and said that I thought I could manage it, and asked how he was.

” Not quite so well. He had an attack during the night. He’s resting to-day, but he says that he hoped you would be able to come, if not to-day, tomorrow.”

I set out that afternoon, wondering whether to pick some flowers from the garden to take to him; but as he had so many more than we had that seemed rather unnecessary.

When I arrived he was in his usual chair, not dressed, but wearing a Paisley silk dressing-gown and slippers. He seemed delighted to see me.

” Good of you to come so promptly,” he said. ” I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to manage it.”

” I’m sorry you haven’t been so well.”

” It’s all ups and downs, my dear. I’ll get over this little bout as I have others. They’re bringing in the tea. Will you pour as usual?” I did so and noticed that he ate very little and seemed rather more silent than usual, yet in a way expectant.

And as soon as the tea was cleared away he told me what, he said, he had been longing to ever since we had first met.

” Favel …” he began, and it was the first time he had used my Christian name, ” come and sit near me. I’m afraid what I have to say is going to be a great shock to you. I told you when we first met that I was an old curmudgeon, didn’t I?”