Sleep of Death

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It was his custom in summer afternoons to sleep outside. He slipped through the back quarters of the house, through its passages and offices, and into the garden. The garden was walled. He could hear occasional cries from Mixen Lane, the distant splashing of the wherries on the river, the boatmen’s shouts. The sun lay evenly across the gravel walks. He made his way towards a door in the far wall and unlocked it. Through the door was an orchard, doubly enclosed from the city beyond the outer wall. Once inside this inner space, he turned and carefully relocked the oak door. He paused and looked around, drawing a deep pleasurable breath. Tongues of leaves wagged at him in the breeze.

He traced a serpentine path through the apple trees and the pears and the plums, thinking of the way that, when autumn arrived, the massed scents and juices of the ripe fruit would be strong enough to overlie the river smells that now vaulted the wall. When he came to the hammock which was slung between two apple trees he paused again and glanced up between the glassy leaves of a nearby pear. From somewhere inside his house there was a shriek — of amusement, of surprise, he couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. No one would disturb him now, when he was secure in his orchard. The servants had the strictest orders. Once he had been in the habit of bringing Alice here. Underneath the trees, lying on mattresses of blossom or on the tussocky grass. The orchard trees were lower then. He could not remember when he and Alice had last visited the garden together. Alice with her oval, decided face, Alice with her hair still untouched by the years.

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