DOI article:
D'Arcy, Ella: Two stories
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26393#0287
By Ella D’Arcy 283
seized hold of me : an overwhelming pity, succeeded by an over-
whelming fear. I had had a momentary intention to point the
lace out to the others, but a glance at Laurent froze the words on
my lips. Never in my life have I experienced such a paralysing
fear. I was filled with an intense desire to get away from the
man and from the Villa.
But Madame de M-looking from the window, had noticed
a pavilion standing isolated in the garden. She inquired if it were
to be let with the house. Then she supposed we could visit it.
No, said the man, that was impossible. But she insisted it was
only right that tenants should see the whole of the premises
for which they would have to pay, but he refused this time with
such rudeness, his little brutish eyes narrowed with such malig-
nancy, that the panic which I had just experienced now seized the
others, and it was a sauve-qul-peut.
We gathered up Renee, nurse, and Medor in our hasty passage
through the garden, and found our way unguided to the gate upon
the upper road.
And once at large beneath the serene evening sky, winding
slowly westward down the olive bordered ways : “ What an odious
old ruffian ! ” said one ; “ What an eerie, uncanny place ! ” said
another. We compared notes. We found that each of us had
been conscious of the same immense, the same inexplicable sense
of fear.
Cecile, the least nervous of women, had felt it the first. It had
laid hold of her when going up the steps to the door, and it had
been so real a terror, she explained to us, that if we had not joined
her she would have turned back. Nothing could have induced
her to enter the Villa alone.
Madame de M-’s account was that her mind had been
more or less troubled from the first moment of entering the
garden,
seized hold of me : an overwhelming pity, succeeded by an over-
whelming fear. I had had a momentary intention to point the
lace out to the others, but a glance at Laurent froze the words on
my lips. Never in my life have I experienced such a paralysing
fear. I was filled with an intense desire to get away from the
man and from the Villa.
But Madame de M-looking from the window, had noticed
a pavilion standing isolated in the garden. She inquired if it were
to be let with the house. Then she supposed we could visit it.
No, said the man, that was impossible. But she insisted it was
only right that tenants should see the whole of the premises
for which they would have to pay, but he refused this time with
such rudeness, his little brutish eyes narrowed with such malig-
nancy, that the panic which I had just experienced now seized the
others, and it was a sauve-qul-peut.
We gathered up Renee, nurse, and Medor in our hasty passage
through the garden, and found our way unguided to the gate upon
the upper road.
And once at large beneath the serene evening sky, winding
slowly westward down the olive bordered ways : “ What an odious
old ruffian ! ” said one ; “ What an eerie, uncanny place ! ” said
another. We compared notes. We found that each of us had
been conscious of the same immense, the same inexplicable sense
of fear.
Cecile, the least nervous of women, had felt it the first. It had
laid hold of her when going up the steps to the door, and it had
been so real a terror, she explained to us, that if we had not joined
her she would have turned back. Nothing could have induced
her to enter the Villa alone.
Madame de M-’s account was that her mind had been
more or less troubled from the first moment of entering the
garden,