A Species of Revenge
“Maybe it’s the height of the tree – they’ve just been discussing it in the drawing room and someone has estimated it to be nearly a hundred and fifty feet tall, which sounds about right, supposing it to have been planted at the time the house was built, a century and a half ago – maybe it’s this height, juxtaposed with that of the small solemn child, three foot six at most, which holds his attention. He likes the way she’s listened to the conversation and then gone out to see the tree for herself. She stands dwarfed by its immensity, overawed by its size.
He puts down his empty glass, steps over the low windowsill into the heat of the summer-evening garden and, unaware of Hope’s eyes following him, walks across the grass towards the little girl.
She is Allie – properly Alice – he discovers, not Lucy. She wears a cotton frock, bare legs and sandals, and her hair is side-parted and held back with a blue hairslide in the shape of a butterfly.
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