The Baker’s Daughter Read Online Free PDF

window was at the end of the house and looked eastward, downstream, and, in the glow of the rising sun, she saw the water leaping and glinting and hurrying away from the mill. At the other side of the river was a steep slope, well wooded with mixed trees. There were still a few brown withered leaves clinging to their branches, waiting for an easterly breeze to blow them away. The river had fallen considerably in the night and passed with a lapping, rippling sound, and the black rocks in its bed were surrounded by tiny frills of foam.
    Sue hurried downstairs. The house was very quiet—too quiet somehow—it gave her a vague feeling of uneasiness and dread. In the kitchen, which faced the gate into the road, she could not even hear the sound of the river—there was no sound at all, save the sounds she was making herself. She stopped once or twice in her preparations for breakfast and listened for movement overhead, but there was nothing to be heard.
    It was difficult to know what to do, for the bacon would get spoiled if she cooked it before they were ready—she had done everything else. I’ll have to waken Ovette , she decided. I’ll just have to.
    There was no answer to her timid knock on Ovette’s door, and when she opened the door and peeped in, the room was empty—it was not only empty of its human occupant, but it was swept bare of all her belongings. There was no brush or comb on the table, no washing materials on the washstand, and the door of the cupboard stood open, showing empty shelves. A breeze swept in at the window and fluttered a torn piece of tissue paper that was lying on the floor.
    Ovette had gone! Sue was absolutely dumbfounded at the discovery. She stood in the middle of the room and looked around her in dismay. Ovette had gone in the night and obviously did not mean to return—so that was why her room had been in such a state of confusion!
    Sue was still standing there (trying to make up her mind whether to wake the Darnays and tell them the news or to wait until they wakened themselves) when she heard the front door slam so violently that it shook the house. She ran downstairs to see who it was, arriving so early in the day, and saw a man in the hall taking off his coat—a big fur-lined coat of heather-mixture tweed—his soft hat lying on the hall table where he had thrown it.
    â€œHallo!” he said, looking up at Sue as she hesitated on the stairs. “Hallo. Where on earth have you come from?”
    Somehow or other Sue was aware that this was Mr. Darnay himself. She did not know how she knew it, and it was all the more odd because, until a moment ago, she had imagined Mr. Darnay lying asleep behind that closed door upon which she had been afraid to knock. He was not at all like her conception of what an artist should be, for he was tall and straight with a lean brown face and piercing gray eyes—he was more like a soldier than an artist, Sue thought—but all the same, she was sure that this man was Mr. Darnay and no other. She stopped on the stair and gazed at him, and he gazed back.
    â€œWell, well,” he said at last. “Who are you, may I ask, and what in heaven’s name are you doing here?”
    â€œI’m the cook,” said Sue.
    â€œThe devil you are!” Mr. Darnay exclaimed. He was silent for a moment, and then he continued, “I’d forgotten all about you—and Elise must have forgotten too. Of course, that fiend, Ovette, took care not to say anything about it.”
    â€œI only came yesterday,” Sue pointed out. “That’s why you haven’t seen me before.”
    Mr. Darnay looked at her in a strange way. “What are you going to do?” he inquired.
    â€œI was just going to fry the bacon.”
    He threw back his head and laughed—it was a curious mirthless laugh.
    â€œUnless you want me to do something else,” Sue added in a bewildered voice.
    â€œDear me, no,”