The Watcher in the Garden by Joan Phipson

enough until tonight,” she said, and was surprised that she had confessed as much.
    â€œI had hoped you would be. And what was it that brought you tonight?”
    â€œI had to tell you—” She stopped, searching for words. All she had seen was a man standing on a rock in the garden. It was not what she had seen, but what she had felt—what the whole garden seemed to know: that the man standing there had filled the garden with menace and fear. How could she say that? As she sat in the warm, safe room it scarcely seemed worth saying.
    â€œYes?” he said, and she was obliged to go on.
    â€œIt was for you. I thought you should know. Now I’m here there’s so little to tell. I saw a man on that little patch of rocks up near the road. He was just standing there.”
    The old man had gone very still. The dog had moved over to his knee and sat down beside him looking up at her.
    â€œIt was nothing, really. He didn’t do anything, and then when the sun went he just—disappeared. I wouldn’t have bothered, but there was a funny feeling. The garden—” She stopped again and then burst out, “I was frightened. Everything was frightened. It was horrible. We thought—that is, I thought something dreadful was going to happen. I thought I ought to tell you. But now it seems so silly.”
    For a time the old man did not say anything. His dog continued to gaze at her, still sitting upright. At last he said, “It wasn’t silly at all. It was perceptive of you, and you did right to come and tell me. I’m grateful to you, Catherine.”
    â€œBut then you see, could I have imagined it?”
    â€œNo. You didn’t imagine anything. He was there all right. I know quite well who he is and it is true that he does mean me harm.” He stopped talking and in the silence that followed she felt a chill creep through her. He was a long time thinking of his next words, but she had no wish to hurry him on. What he had to say next might be something she had no wish to hear. He seemed not to know where to start and the silence had thickened and become heavy in the small, sheltering room before he spoke again.
    â€œHis name is Terry.” It astonished her that what she had seen on the rock should have a name at all, let alone such a commonplace one. “He is a youth probably a couple of years older than you are, and his nature is unusually violent. He has also been blessed, or cursed, with more intelligence than people give him credit for, and with a peculiarly strong personality so that perceptive people, and people like myself, whose senses have been developed through lack of sight, can feel his presence very strongly whenever he is near. You are a perceptive person, you see. And I suspect you can sense not only his presence, but his mood. I’ve known for a long time that he comes into my garden. And I’ve known that he has a grudge against me. Sooner or later he will turn to violence. It is fire in summer I fear most. It’s so easy to set a match to a few dry pine needles. Even the house would burn given the right conditions.”
    â€œWhy don’t you keep him out?” The words burst from her.
    He smiled. “I couldn’t keep you out, could I?”
    â€œBut I wasn’t—” She stopped, suddenly awkward.
    â€œYou were near violence that first night, weren’t you? Perhaps not with me, but violence of some kind.”
    He could not see her head droop suddenly, the long hair hiding her face as she studied the pattern on the carpet. But when she spoke it was all in the sound of her voice. “I didn’t know then that you—”
    â€œNeither does he know. Oh, he knows an idle, selfish old man lives in this house and owns a larger piece of ground than he has any right to, but he doesn’t know—” Something stopped him and the next words failed to come.
    â€œHe doesn’t know you’re