She washed. She brushed her teeth. She slipped her clothes from her, reflecting that company law and title deeds had failed her already. Her silenced mind would not accept the strictures she imposed; some part of her insisted that she might as well not exist if she ceased to wonder, she couldn’t pack God and Francis Tyte away. All she completely knew was that the niceness of her world was not entirely without purpose, the white swan in its niche above the hall door, the roses and japonica of the garden, a plain house made the most of. Henrietta and Katherine were beautiful in their summer dresses, in winter it was pleasant to blaze a fire up.
She put her nightdress on and got into bed, gazing for a while into the darkness before she slept. The child should not have been born but the child was there, her chapped face and plastic-rimmed spectacles. She was there in the garden and the house, while time went on and the seasons unfussily changed. Leaves from the tulip tree floated away on the river, in spring there were mornings of sunshine.
About the Author
William Trevor KBE was an Irish novelist, playwright, and short story writer. One of the elder statesmen of the Irish literary world, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary writers of short stories in the English language.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1988 by the Estate of William Trevor
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5812-4
This edition published in 2019 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10038
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WILLIAM TREVOR
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
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