Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 15, 2025
Somehow the sight of the key, and of the poison-spreading flame inside the locked door, seemed to have prepared him for the spectacle of Gafferson close at hand. He moved forward slowly toward the head-gardener, and luminous plans rose in his mind, ready-made at each step.
And he and his wife had actually been talking of old Kervick at the moment! It was their disagreement over him which had prevented her explaining about the new head-gardener. There was an effect of the uncanny in all this. And what did Gafferson want? How much did he know?
"Gafferson," Thorpe repeated, very slowly, and with almost an effect of listlessness. He was conscious of no surprise; it was as if he had divined all along the sinister shadows of Lord Plowden and Lord Plowden's gardener, lurking in the obscurity behind this egregious old ass of a Tavender. "He's a tremendous horticultural sharp," said the other. "Probably you've heard tell of him.
"The chrysanthemums are not up to much this year," Edith observed, as they drew near to the door of this house. "Collins did them very badly as he did most other things. But next year it will be very different. Gafferson is the best chrysanthemum man in England. That is he in there now, I think."
"But he's a wonderful gardener," said Lady Cressage. "He's a magician; he can do what he likes with plants. It's rather a hobby of mine or used to be and I never saw his equal." Thorpe told them about Gafferson, in that forlorn environment on the Belize road, and his success in making them laugh drew him on to other pictures of the droll side of life among the misfits of adventure.
There was no longer a place for him in life; he would never be seen again by mortal eye....There remained only the good Thorpe, the pleasant, well-intentioned opulent gentleman; the excellent citizen; the beneficent master, to whom, even Gafferson like the others, touched a respectful forelock.
The idea that perhaps old Kervick had found him out, and patched up with him a scheme of blackmail, occurred to him, and in the unreal atmosphere of his mood, became a thing of substance. With blackmail, however, one could always deal; it was almost a relief to see the complication assume that guise. But if Gafferson was intent upon revenge and exposure instead?
You send Gafferson and he goes off to see a flower-show Mother of Moses! think of it! a FLOWER-show! and your Tavender aud I are left to take a stroll together, and talk over old times and arrange about new times, and so on, to our hearts' content. Really, it's too easy! You make me tired!" The nobleman offered a wan, appealing shadow of a smile.
The coming of Gafferson took on a kind of supernatural aspect, when Thorpe recalled its circumstances. His own curious mental ferment, which had made this present week a period apart in his life, had begun in the very hour of this man's approach to the house.
At all events, he had clearly mentioned that he had a commission to report upon the Rubber Consols property, and had said enough else to create the impression that there were criminal secrets connected with its sale to the London Company. The rest was easy. Gafferson, knowing Lord Plowden's relation to the Company, had shown him Tavender's letter.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking