Green Darkness Read Online Free PDF

along. Besides,” Lily added, “according to your horoscope you’ll be married soon, when Venus moves into your Sun sign. Anyway, you Aquarians don’t fall easily in love, like Libras.”
    Ten years ago Lily had commissioned Celia’s horoscope from a Persian astrologer, and several, though not all, predictions had come true. Perhaps this might.
    So Celia, though popular and social enough, escaped into the world of books. She read incessantly, she scribbled poetry and tore up the results. Somewhere along the way she developed poise and a sense of irony.
    Then, a year ago last May, Lily had decided to visit England again.
    “Haven’t been there in years, and after all it was our ancestors’ homeland. We might uncover some relations. Your poor dear father, of course—well, there’re so many Taylors we could never trace his line, but
my
grandfather was a Peabody. Should be easier. You wouldn’t mind, would you, dear?”
    Celia did not mind. She liked English history, and there was a strong pull towards England which she remembered, from a childhood visit when her father was alive, as full of bird-song, castles and magic.
    They embarked on the
Queen Mary
—one of the ship’s last eastbound voyages. Lily, who always knew how to manage these things, sat as she had requested, at the Staff Captain’s table. Celia was allotted a nearby table for four. Two of these were a dull couple from London who had been to the States on business; the other was an Englishman called Richard Marsdon.
    And it happened, just like that, Celia thought. The long, startled look they exchanged. The recognition,
and
bizarre overtones of dismay. We fell in love between the vichyssoise and the steak Diane. Though she was then barely conscious of Richard’s handsomeness, except that he was tall and dark, and must be over thirty. She saw only the intense hazel eyes under heavy black brows.
    The first evening after dinner they stayed together, watching the horse races, listening to the orchestra, talking very little, until Richard made one personal remark.
    “Your Christian name is Celia,” he said. “It’s a name which has always attracted me. Not sure why, since I’ve never known any. But I once bought a rather—well, I’m afraid, bawdy—recording of a sixteenth-century song about a Celia.”
    She gave an excited happy laugh. “I’m so glad you like it, but I must confess I wasn’t christened Celia. My parents named me Henrietta, after a grandmother. I always loathed the name, and I guess it didn’t fit, because when I was fourteen our school put on
As
You Like It;
I had Celia’s part and somehow the name stuck with me. I’ve used it ever since.”
    “Strange,” he said slowly. “Many of life’s little quirks are strange.”
    She had never thought much about her name change, it had seemed very natural, and her mother—at the time much interested in numerology—had enthusiastically accepted it, with quotations going back to Pythagoras which proved that the numbers in “Celia” accorded much better than “Henrietta” with her daughter’s birth date. This aspect seemed too silly for mention, and anyway, Richard had given her his warm quick smile, and said, “Would you like to dance, Celia?”
    The rest of the voyage was a delicious haze during which she gradually learned a few facts about Richard’s life, in spite of his reticence.
    Richard Marsdon had been born in a very old house in East Sussex, his family was poor, he had won a scholarship to Oxford’s Balliol College and graduated, “positively without any distinction, I assure you, and no particular aptitude for anything but reading; unless you count judo, which I learned as a hobby to avoid undue introspection.”
    Puzzled, she asked why “undue introspection,” and he shrugged. “I’d a tendency to brood, which I later offset by travel—at least I hope I did.”
    He had accepted the first job that offered, as secretary to a famous and lazy journalist, who made