DOI article:
Crackanthorpe, Hubert: The Haseltons
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21806#0144
The Haseltons
140
One Sunday afternoon—it was summer-time—as she was Cross-
ing the park to pay a call in Gloucester Square, she came across
him sauntering alone in Kensington Gardens. She stopped and
spoke to him : he seemed much startled to meet her. Three-
quarters of an hour later, when she returned, he was sitting on a
public bench beside her path ; and immediately, from his manner,
she half-guessed that he had been waiting for her. It was a
fortnight after Claude’s christening : he started to speak to her
of the child, and so, talking together gravely, they turned on to
the turf, mounted the slope, and sat down on two chairs beneath
the trees.
Touched by his waiting for her, she was anxious to make
friends with him ; because he was the baby’s godfather ;
because he seemed alone in the world ; because she trusted in
his goodness. So she led him, directly and indirectly, to talk of
himself. At first, in moody embarrassment, he prodded the turf
with his stick ; and presently responded, unwillingly breaking
down his troubled reserve, and alluding to his loneliness con-
fidingly, as if sure of her sympathy.
Unconsciously he made her feel privileged thus to obtain an
insight into the inner workings of his heart, and gave her a
womanly, sentimental interest in him.
Comely cloud-billows were overhead, and there was not a
breath of breeze.
They paused in their talk, and he spoke to her of Kensington
Gardens, lovingly, as of a spot which had signified much to him
in the past—Kensington Gardens, massively decorous ; cere-
moniously quiet ; pompous, courtly as a king’s leisure park ; the
slow, opulent contours of portly foliage, sober-green, immobile
and indolent ; spacious groupings of tree-trunks ; a low ceiling of
leaves ; broad shadows mottling the grass. The Long Water,
smooth
140
One Sunday afternoon—it was summer-time—as she was Cross-
ing the park to pay a call in Gloucester Square, she came across
him sauntering alone in Kensington Gardens. She stopped and
spoke to him : he seemed much startled to meet her. Three-
quarters of an hour later, when she returned, he was sitting on a
public bench beside her path ; and immediately, from his manner,
she half-guessed that he had been waiting for her. It was a
fortnight after Claude’s christening : he started to speak to her
of the child, and so, talking together gravely, they turned on to
the turf, mounted the slope, and sat down on two chairs beneath
the trees.
Touched by his waiting for her, she was anxious to make
friends with him ; because he was the baby’s godfather ;
because he seemed alone in the world ; because she trusted in
his goodness. So she led him, directly and indirectly, to talk of
himself. At first, in moody embarrassment, he prodded the turf
with his stick ; and presently responded, unwillingly breaking
down his troubled reserve, and alluding to his loneliness con-
fidingly, as if sure of her sympathy.
Unconsciously he made her feel privileged thus to obtain an
insight into the inner workings of his heart, and gave her a
womanly, sentimental interest in him.
Comely cloud-billows were overhead, and there was not a
breath of breeze.
They paused in their talk, and he spoke to her of Kensington
Gardens, lovingly, as of a spot which had signified much to him
in the past—Kensington Gardens, massively decorous ; cere-
moniously quiet ; pompous, courtly as a king’s leisure park ; the
slow, opulent contours of portly foliage, sober-green, immobile
and indolent ; spacious groupings of tree-trunks ; a low ceiling of
leaves ; broad shadows mottling the grass. The Long Water,
smooth