It was the Polchester View that she chose to-day, but as
they started through the deep lanes down the St. Dreot's hill she
was startled and disturbed by the strange aspect which everything
wore to her. She had not as yet realised the great shock her
father's death had been; she was exhausted, spiritually and
physically, in spite of the deep sleep of the night before. The form
and shape of the world was a little strained and fantastic, the
colours uncertain, now vivid, now vanishing, the familiar trees,
hedges, clouds, screens, as it were, concealing some scene that was
being played behind them. But beyond and above all other sensations
she was conscious of her liberty. She struggled against this; she
should be conscious, before everything, of her father's loss. But
she was not. It meant to her at present not so much the loss of a
familiar figure as the sudden juggling, by an outside future, of all
the regular incidents and scenes of her daily life, as at a
pantomime one sees by a transformation of the scenery, the tables,
the chairs, and pictures the walls dance to an unexpected jig. She
was free, free, free--alone but free.
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