Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

its existence, he wondered if Sylvia had invented the name, so that he might never find her and Lily again. It was an uneasy thought, for without a number and without a name⁠—but just as he was planning an elaborate way to discover the real name of the street, he saw in front of him Tinderbox Lane enameled in the ordinary characters of municipal direction. Here were the two posts: here was the narrow entrance. The rumble of the traffic grew fainter. On one side was a high blank wall; on the other a row of two-storied houses. They were naturally dwellings of the poorer classes, but at intervals a painter had acquired one, and had painted it white or affixed green shutters with heart-shaped openings. The width of the pavement varied continually, but generally at the beginning it was very narrow. Later on, however, it became wide enough to allow trees to be planted down the middle. Beyond this part was a block of new flats round which Tinderbox Lane narrowed again to a mere alley looking now rather dank and gloomy in the rain. Michael could not remember from last night in the fog either the trees or the flats. The door of Lily’s lodging had been set in a wall: here on one side was certainly a wall, but never a door to relieve the grimy blankness. He began to feel discouraged, and he walked round into the narrow alley behind the flats. Here were doors in the wall at last, and Michael examined each of them in turn. Two were dark blue: one was green: one was brown. 74: 75: 76: 77. He chose 77 because it was farthest away from the flats. After a very long wait, an old woman holding over herself a very large umbrella opened it.

“Mrs. Gainsborough⁠ ⁠… ?” Michael began.

But the old woman had slammed the door before he could finish his inquiry.

Michael rang the bell of 76, and again he waited a long time. At last the door was opened, and to his relief he saw Mrs. Gainsborough herself under a green and much larger umbrella than the old woman’s next door.

“I’ve come to take the girls out to lunch.”

“That’s a good boy,” she wheezed. “The dearies will be glad to get out and enjoy themselves a bit. Here’s a day. This would have suited Noah, wouldn’t it?”

She was leading the way up the gravel path, and Michael saw that in the garden-beds there were actually Christmas roses in bloom. The house itself was covered with a mat of Virginia creeper and jasmine, and the astonishing rusticity of it was not at all diminished by the pretentious gray houses of the next road which towered above it behind, nor even in front by the flats with their eruption of windows. These houses with doors in their garden-walls probably all belonged to individuals, and for that reason they had escaped being overwhelmed by the development of the neighborhood twenty years ago. Their four long gardens in a row must be a bower of greenery in summer, and it was sad to think that the flats opposite were no doubt due to the death of someone who had owned a similar house and garden.

Michael remembered the balcony in front with steps on either side. Underneath this he now saw that there was another entrance, evidently to the kitchen. Two fairly large trees were planted in the grass that ran up to the house on either side of the balcony.

“Those are my mulberries,” said Mrs. Gainsborough. “This is called Mulberry Cottage. I’ve been meaning to have the name painted on the outside door for nearly forty years, but I always forget. There’s a character to give myself. Ah, dear me! The Captain loved his mulberries. But you ought to see this in the springtime. Well, my flowers are really remarkable. But there, it’s not to be wondered at. M’ father was a nursery gardener.”

She looked round at Michael and winked broadly. He could not think why. Possibly it was a comic association in her mind with the behavior of the Captain in carrying her off from such a home.

“The Duke of Fulham to see you, girls,” she wheezed at the door of the sitting-room, and, giving Michael a push, retreated with volleys of bronchial laughter. The girls were sitting in front of the fire. Lily was pretending to trim a hat: Sylvia was reading, but she flung her book down as Michael entered. He had the curiosity to look at the title, and found it was the Contes Drôlatiques of Balzac. An unusual girl, he thought: but his eyes were all for Lily, and because he could not kiss her, he felt shy and stupid. However, the shoes, which he now restored, supplied an immediate topic, and he was soon perfectly at ease again. Presently the girls left him to get ready to go out, and he sat thinking of Lily, while the canary chirped in the brass cage. The silence here was very like the country. London was a thousand miles away, and he could hear Lily and Sylvia moving about overhead. Less and less did he think there could be anything wrong with Mulberry Cottage. Yet the apparent security was going to make it rather difficult to take Lily away. Certainly he could ask her to marry him at once; but she might not want to marry him at once. The discovery of her in this pleasant house with a jolly friend was spoiling the grand swoop of rescue which he had planned. She would not presumably be escaping from a situation she abhorred. It was difficult to approach Lily here. Was it Sylvia who was making it difficult? He must talk to Sylvia and explain that he had no predatory intentions. She would surely be glad that he wanted to marry Lily. Or would she not? Michael jumped up and tinkled the lusters on the mantelshelf. “Sweet,” said the canary in the brass cage: