Beautiful orange carp swam in the bowl. Orvil caught glimpses of their flashing tails and fins through the perpetual downpour of white rain. He wondered how they bore with this eternal battering. He searched for their gold bodies in the bowl until the noise of falling water began to stupefy him; then he went to lean on the balustrade at the edge of the terrace. Flowers frothed over and dribbled down the stonework in thick masses. The beautiful scene made him excited, nervous and impatient. He strained his eyes to see into the distance across the valley, where the river wound between masses of plump trees.

Still filled with his strained excitement, Orvil ran down the shallow steps of the terrace, turned a corner, and found himself in a little hollow which had been completely hidden from above. Clamped to one of its cliff-like sides was a charming small cottage; beyond it, a mysterious studded door seemed to open into the heart of the rock.

The cottage orné had been built in the early nineteenthcentury. It had delicate lancet windows filled with blood-red, purple and orange saints; a most exquisite little porch of clustered columns and plaster fan-vaulting; and, on the roof, thick purple-blue slates shaped like fishes’ scales. A twisted barley-sugar chimney rose from the centre, giving to the cottage the appearance of a giant’s beautifully decorated ink-pot.

Orvil was so entranced with it, and with the whole dingle, that it gave him acute pain to think that it would never be his to keep and cherish. It would always be open to the loiterers from the hotel; and at any moment its indifferent owners might destroy it.

He went up to the cottage to see if he could get in, but the door was locked and the windows latched. He tried to look into the interior, but the glass was too thick with dirt and rich with colour. He knew that if ever he wanted to explore the cottage he must do it by stealth. Orvil had learnt that if windows fitted badly, latches could be lifted with the blunt edge of a knife. But it must not be a penknife. He had tried once with one of these and the blade had suddenly snapped shut, catching his fingers and cutting them badly. He determined to come back one evening, armed with one of the hotel knives.

Orvil passed on to the miniature cliff wall, where weeds hung down romantically from crags and shelves. He quite expected the heavily studded door to be locked too, but it opened when he turned the squeaking iron ring, and let out a smell of bat’s dung, green slime and earth. There was a tiny bell-like tinkle of water dripping in the darkness. Orvil became so tantalized by not being able to see that he pushed into the blackness almost petulantly; until his outstretched hand touched some slithery pointed object. Then he was overcome with fear; he rushed out, clanging the door behind him. He had a sudden horror of the bats, imagining them as they must have hovered above his head in the dark cave. He thought of their horrible droppings falling into his hair,pressing squashily against his skull. He saw the unspeakable insects teeming on their bodies.

Running to the other side of the dingle, Orvil reached a yet lower level by another flight of shallow stairs. Here trim rows of tiny tombstones under the shade of yew trees confronted him. Orvil’s first notion was that a large family of children had died in infancy and were buried here. He imagined them all with some fatal disease, their stupid heads lolling, saliva dribbling out of their О-shaped mouths. But when he went up to the tombstones, he wondered at the strange names written on them.

Pat-a-Cake, Tansy, Ricochet, Snigger,—What sort of children could these be? Then he knew they were the names of pets, and he read each inscription carefully:

 

“In Memory of Fiddle, a Darling Pug.

March 19th, 1814”

—

“Here lies Puce, my sweet Cat.

Murdered June 5th, 1831”

—

 

Suddenly Orvil looked up from the tombstones and saw that the sun was setting. He knew that he would be late for dinner, that he would not be able to change. The interesting things he had discovered, together with the fear of meeting Charles again, had kept him out in the grounds for over an hour.