looking down at the ground as though he hoped to find some precious jewel he had

dropped there.'

 

It is something of a revelation that this memory from over thirty years ago

should have remained with Miss Kenton as it has done with me. Indeed, it must

have occurred on just one of those summer evenings she mentions, for I can

recall distinctly climbing to the second landing and seeing before me a series

of orange shafts from the sunset breaking the gloom of the corridor where each

bedroom door stood ajar. And as I made my way past those bedrooms, I had seen

through a doorway Miss Kenton's figure, silhouetted against a window, turn and

call softly: 'Mr Stevens, if you have a moment.' As I entered, Miss Kenton had

turned back to the window. Down below, the shadows of the poplars were falling

across the lawn.

 

To the right of our view, the lawn sloped up a gentle embankment to where the

summerhouse stood, and it was there my father's figure could be seen, pacing

slowly with an air of preoccupation - indeed, as Miss Kenton puts it so well,

'as though he hoped to find some precious jewel he had dropped there'.

 

There are some very pertinent reasons why this memory has remained with me, as I

wish to explain. Moreover, now that I come to think of it, it is perhaps not so

surprising that it should also have made a deep impression on Miss Kenton given

certain aspects of her relationship with my father during her early days at

Darlington Hall.