The Fortress - Parts I. & Ii.

THE FORTRESS - Parts I. & II. - By Hugh Walpole - CONTENTS - PART I The Shadow against the Sky . At TVestaways . Adams World The Summer Fair . The Beginning of the Fortress Judith and Adam in London . Westaways Father and Son . Entry of the Fortress . PART II The Battle . The Chartists . History of Elizabeth . The Governess Family Letters Homecoming in Winter The Wild Goose 1X PART I MADAME -- THE SHADOW AGAINST THE SKY-- ALL is well, Judith said quietly, coming forward and stroking the red apples of the sofa. I shall not leave you, Jennifer. It is better I remain. As her hand mechanically stroked those same rosy apples, so friendly and familiar, she reflected. Yes, this simple sentence declared the crisis of her whole existance. Nothing ever again could matter to her so deelv as this decision. With it she had cut away h8k her life, and perhaps the better half. She was not by nature a dramatic woman moreover, she hadbut lately returned from the funeral of the best friend she had, and she was forty-seven years of age in this month of January I822. So-for women then thought forty-seven a vast age-she should be past drama. Quietly she sat down on the sofa, leaned forward, looking into the fire. Jennifer Herries was speaking with eager excitement, but Judith did not hear her. Tennifer was fifty-two and should also be past drama but, althogh a lazy woman, she liked sensation when it did not put herself to discomfort. Judith at that moment heard and saw nothing but the past, the past that she was irrevocably forsaking. Strange how the same patterns were for ever returning Her father had been a rogue and a vagabond, a rebel against all the order and material discipline of the proper Herries. In his earlv vears he had married Convention and of herhah had a son, late in life he had married a gisv and of herhad had a U1 J daughter in his old age, when he was over seventy. David at one end of his life, Judith at the other. In their histories again the pattern had been reeated. David of his marriage had had two l c7 sons Will the money - maker, Francis the dreamer. Will prospered even now in the City Francis was a failure, dead of his own hand. And with their children again the pattern was repeated. For Wills son wilter was triumphant near by in his house at Westaways, and Francis widow, Jennifer, and Francis children, John and Dorothy, remained, undefended, here at Uldale. It was here that she, Judith, came into the pattern. Daughter of two-vagabonds, mother............