Free This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart Page B

realise the terrace was quite so near. I wouldn’t have dreamed of coming so far up, but I was rescuing a bird from Butch there.’
    ‘From whom?’
    ‘The cat. Is he yours? I suppose he’s called something terribly aristocratic, like Florizel, or Cosimo dei Fiori?’
    ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Julian Gale, ‘I call him Nit. I’m sorry, but it’s short for Nitwit, and when you get to know him, you’ll see why. He’s a gentleman, but he has very little brain. Now you’re here, won’t you come up?’
    ‘Oh, no!’ I spoke hastily, backing a little. ‘Thanks all the same, but I’ve got to get back.’
    ‘I can’t believe there’s all that hurry. Won’t you please take pity on me and break the deadly Sabbath peace up a little? Ah!’ He leaned further over. ‘Not only trespass, I see, but theft as well! You’ve been stealing my roses!’
    This statement, uttered in the voice whose least whisper was clearly audible in the back row of the gallery, had all the force of an accusation made before the High Praesidium. I started guiltily, glanced down at the forgotten blooms in my hands, and stammered:
    ‘Well, yes, I – I have. Oh, murder … I never thought … I mean, I took it they were sort of wild. You know, planted ages ago and just left…’ My voicefaltered, as I looked round me and saw what I hadn’t noticed before, that the bushes, in spite of their riotous appearance, were well shaped, and that the edges of the mossed paths were tidily clipped. ‘I – I suppose this is your garden now, or something? I’m most terribly sorry!’
    ‘“Or something?” By heaven, she picks an armful of my beloved Gallicas, and then thinks they come out of my garden “or something”! That settles it, young woman! By all the rules you have to pay a forfeit. If Beauty strays into the Beast’s garden, literally loaded with his roses, she’s asking for trouble, isn’t she? Come along, now, and no arguments! There are the steps. Nit’ll bring you up. Nitwit! Show the lady the way!’
    The white cat rose, blinked at me, then swarmed in an elaborately careless manner up the wistaria, straight into Julian Gale’s arms. The latter straightened, smiling.
    ‘Did I say he hadn’t much brain? I traduced him. Do you think you could manage something similar?’
    His charm, the charm that had made Phyllida fall for him ‘like a ton of bricks’, was having its effect. I believe I had completely forgotten what else she had told me about him.
    I laughed. ‘In my own plodding way, I might.’
    ‘Then come along.’
    The way up was a flight of shallow steps, half hidden by a bush of York and Lancaster. It curved round the base of some moss-green statue, and brought me out between two enormous cypresses, on to the terrace.
    Julian Gale had set the cat down, and now advanced on me.
    ‘Come in, Miss Lucy Waring. You see, I’ve heard all about you. And here’s my son. But of course, you’ve already met …’

5
    You do look, my son, in a mov’d sort,
As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir
.
    IV . 1.
    M AX G ALE was sitting there under the stone pine, at a big table covered with papers. As he got to his feet, I stopped in my tracks.
    ‘But I thought you weren’t here!’ I hadn’t thought I could have blurted out anything quite so naïve. I finished the performance by blushing furiously and adding, in confusion: ‘Adoni said … I thought … I’m sure he said you’d be out!’
    ‘I was, but only till teatime. How do you do?’ His eyes, indifferent rather than hostile, touched mine briefly, and dropped to the roses in my hands. It was possibly only to fill the sizzling pause of embarrassment that he asked: ‘Was Adoni down in the garden?’
    I saw Sir Julian’s glance flick from one to the other of us. ‘He was not, or he might have stopped her pillaging the place! She’s made a good selection, hasn’t she? I thought she should be made to pay a forfeit,
à la
Beauty and the Beast. We’ll let her off