Marcella felt at home at once. It was the
simple, transparent welcome of Lashnagar again.
The architecture of Loose End was entirely the invention of John Twist.
It consisted of a chain of eight rooms. As the family grew, another room
was leaned against the last one. One of the boys at Gaynor's had been
heard to express the opinion that Loose End would, some day, reach right
across the Continent.... The middle and largest room had two doors at
opposite sides. It was the living-room. The others, which were either
stores, bedrooms, or fowl-pens, had a window in one wall--glassless,
formed of trellis--and a door in the other. A boarded platform ran right
round the house to a depth of nine feet and the roof of the rooms,
projecting over the platform, kept out rain and heat. There was much
corrugated zinc and rough wood, many kerosene tins and boxes in the
make-up of Loose End, but all the rooms were miraculously watertight.
The room into which Marcella was shown was a sleeping-room and nothing
more. There were three hammocks slung from wall to wall and one camp-bed
still folded up. But while she was apparently talking to Marcella, Mrs.
Twist whisked open a tin trunk, put a white linen cloth on the little
table in the corner and, running out of the room, came back with a
small, cracked mirror she had borrowed from her own room.
Pages:
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425