سال سوم - فصل 13

13

The room went around oddly. The furniture nodded and jiggled. The bed . . . how came she to be in bed? Somebody with a white cap on was just going out of the door. What door? How funny one’s head felt! There were voices somewhere . . . low voices. She could not see who was talking, but somehow she knew it was Miss Shirley and the man.

What were they saying? Elizabeth heard sentences here and there, bobbing out of a confusion of murmuring.

“Are you really . . . ?” Miss Shirley’s voice sounded so excited..

“Yes . . . your letter . . . see for myself . . . before approaching Mrs. Campbell . . . Flying Cloud is the summer home of our General Manager. . . .”

If that room would only stay put! Really, things behaved rather queerly in Tomorrow. If she could only turn her head and see the talkers . . . Elizabeth gave a long sigh.

Then they came over to her bed . . . Miss Shirley and the man. Miss Shirley all tall and white, like a lily, looking as if she had been through some terrible experience but with some inner radiance shining behind it all . . . a radiance that seemed part of the golden sunset light which suddenly flooded the room. The man was smiling down at her. Elizabeth felt that he loved her very much and that there was some secret, tender and dear, between them which she would learn as soon as she had learned the language spoken in Tomorrow.

“Are you feeling better, darling?” said Miss Shirley.

“Have I been sick?”

“You were knocked down by a team of runaway horses on the mainland road,”

said Miss Shirley. “I . . . I wasn’t quick enough. I thought you were killed. I brought you right back here in the flat and your . . . this gentleman telephoned for a doctor and nurse.”

“Will I die?” said little Elizabeth.229

“No, indeed, darling. You were only stunned and you will be all right soon. And, Elizabeth darling, this is your father.”

“Father is in France. Am I in France, too?” Elizabeth would not have been surprised at it. Wasn’t this Tomorrow? Besides, things were still a bit wobbly.

“Father is very much here, my sweet.” He had such a delightful voice . . . you loved him for his voice. He bent and kissed her. “I’ve come for you. We’ll never be separated anymore.”

The woman in the white cap was coming in again. Somehow, Elizabeth knew whatever she had to say must be said before she got quite in.

“Will we live together?”

“Always,” said Father.

“And will Grandmother and the Woman live with us?”

“They will not,” said Father.

The sunset gold was fading and the nurse was looking her disapproval. But Elizabeth didn’t care.

“I’ve found Tomorrow,” she said, as the nurse looked Father and Miss Shirley out.

“I’ve found a treasure I didn’t know I possessed,” said Father, as the nurse shut the door on him. “And I can never thank you enough for that letter, Miss Shirley.”

“And so,” wrote Anne to Gilbert that night, “little Elizabeth’s road of mystery has led on to happiness and the end of her old world.”