What was the secret that had kept it so long vacant, I inquired. Mrs Bowater had never given me any coherent answer to this question. My words dropped into the silence, like a pebble into a vast, black pool of water.
"There was a tale about," he replied indifferently, and yet, as I fancied, not so indifferently as he intended, "that many years ago a woman"--he p.r.o.nounced the word almost as if it had reference to a different species from ourselves--"that a woman had hanged herself in one of its upper rooms."
"Hanged herself!" It was the kind of fable Mrs Ballard used to share with Adam Waggett"s mother over their tea and shrimps. Frowning in horror and curiosity, I scanned his face. Was this the water I could dip for in his well? Alas, how familiar I was to become with the bucket.
He made a movement with his hands; at which I saw the poor creature up there in the darkness, suspended lifeless, poor, poor human, with head awry.
"Why?" I asked him, pondering childishly over this picture.
"It was mere gossip," he replied, "and true or not, such as "they" make up to explain their own silly superst.i.tions. Just thinking long enough and hard enough would soon invite an evil spirit into any old empty house. Human beings are no better than sheep, though they don"t always see the dogs and shepherds that drive them."
"And does it," I faltered, glancing covertly up the walls, and conscious of a novel vein of interest in this strangely inexhaustible world, "does the evil spirit ever look out of the windows?"
He turned his face to me, smiling; and inquired if I had ever heard the phrase, "the eyelids of the dawn." "There"s Night, too," he said.
"But whose spirit? Whose?" I persisted. "When I am here alone in the garden, why, it is just peace. How could that be, if an evil spirit haunted here?"
"Yes," he said, "but a selfish, solitary peace. Dead birds don"t sing.
Don"t come when you can"t get back; or the clouds are down."
"You are trying to frighten me," I said, in a louder voice. "And I have been too much alone for that. Of course things must look after themselves. Don"t _we_? And you said an _evil_ spirit. What is the good of dreaming when you are wide awake?"
"Then," said he, almost coldly, "do you deny that Man is an evil spirit?
He distorts and destroys."
But with that the words of my mother came back to me out of a far-away morning: "He made us of His Power and Love." Yet I could not answer him, could only wait, as if expectant that by mere silence I should be able to share the thoughts he was thinking. And, all the while, my eyes were brooding in some dark chamber of my mind on f.a.n.n.y, and not, as they well might have, on the dark bark of Mr Crimble tossing in jeopardy beneath its fleeting ray of hope.
Truly this stranger was making life very interesting, even if he was only prodding over its dead moles. And truly I was an incorrigibly romantic young lady; for when, with a glance at my grandfather"s watch, I discovered that it was long past noon, and told him I must be gone; without a single moment"s hesitation, I promised to come again to meet him on the very first fine morning that showed. So strong within me was the desire to do so, that a profound dismay chilled my mind when, on turning about at the end of the terrace--for he had shown no inclination to accompany me--I found that he was already out of sight. I formally waved my hand towards where he had vanished in case he should be watching; sighed, and went on.
It was colder under the high, sunless trees. I gathered my cloak closer around me, and at that discovered not only that Miss Austen had been left behind, but that f.a.n.n.y"s letter still lay in undisturbed concealment beneath its stone. It was too late to return for them now, and a vague misgiving that had sprung up in me amid the tree-trunks was quieted by the a.s.surance that for these--rather than for any other reason--I must return to Wanderslore as soon as I could. So, in remarkably gay spirits, I hastened light-heeled on my way in the direction of civilized society, of nefarious Man, and of my never-to-be-blessed-too-much Mrs Bowater.
Chapter Twenty-Three
My landlady was already awaiting me at the place appointed, and we walked off together towards the house. It had been a prudent arrangement, for we met and pa.s.sed at least half a dozen strangers before we arrived there, and one and all by the unfeigned astonishment with which they turned to watch our two figures out of sight (for I stooped once or twice, as if to tie my shoelace, in order to see), clearly proved themselves to belong to that type of humanity to which my new acquaintance had referred frigidly as THEY. Vanity of vanities, when one old loitering gentleman did not so much as lift an eyelid at me--he was so absorbed in own thoughts--I felt a pang of annoyance.
As soon as I was safely installed in my own room again, I confided in Mrs Bowater a full account of my morning"s adventure. Not so much because I wished to keep free of any further deceit, as because I simply couldn"t contain myself, and must talk of my Stranger. She heard me to the end without question, but with an unusual rigidity of features. She compressed her lips even tighter before beginning her catechism.
"What was the young man"s name," she inquired; "and where did he live?"
My hope had been that she herself would be able to supply these little particulars. With a blank face, I shook my head: "We just talked of things in general."
"I see," she said, and glanced at me, as if over her spectacles. Her next question was even less manageable. "Was the young fellow a gentleman?"
Alas! she had fastened on a flaw in my education. This was a problem absolutely new to me. I thought of my father, of Mr Waggett, Dr Grose, Dr Phelps, the old farmer in the railway train, of Sir Walter Pollacke, my bishop, Heathcliff, Mr Bowater, Mr Clodd, even Henry--or rather all these male phantoms went whisking across the back of my mind, calling up every other two-legged creature of the same gender within sight or hearing. Meanwhile, Mrs Bowater stood like Patience on her Brussels carpet, or rather like Thomas de Torquemada, watching these intellectual contortions.
"Well, really, do you know, Mrs Bowater," I was forced to acknowledge at last, with a sigh and a smile, "I simply can"t say. I didn"t think of it. That seems rather on _his_ side, doesn"t it? But to be quite, quite candid, perhaps _not_ a gentleman; not _exactly_, I mean."
"Which is no more than I supposed," was her comment, "and if _not_--and any kind of not, miss--what was he, then? And _if_ not, why, you can never go there again!"
"Indeed, but I must," I said, as if to myself.
"With your small knowledge of the world," she retorted unmovedly, "you must, if you please, be guided by those with more. Who isn"t a gentleman couldn"t be desirable company if chanced on like a stranger in a young lady"s lonely rambles. And _how_ tall did you say? And what"s more," she continued, not pausing for an answer, and gathering momentum on her way, "if he _is_ a gentleman, I"d better come along with you, miss, and see for myself."
A rebellious and horrified glance followed her retreating figure out of the room. So this was the reward for being open and above-board. What a ridiculous figure I should cut, tippeting along behind my landlady. What would my stranger think of me? What would she think of him? _Was_ he a "gentleman"? To decide whether or not the Spirit of Man is an evil spirit had been an easy problem by comparison. _Gentle man_--why, of course, self muttered in shame to self convicted of yet another mean little sn.o.bbery. He had been almost absurdly gentle--had treated me as if I were an angel rather than a young woman.
But the nettlerash produced by Mrs Bowater"s bigotry was not to be so easily allayed as all that. It had invited yet another kind of THEM in.
An old, green, rotting board hung over the wicket gate that led up the stony path into Wanderslore--"Trespa.s.sers will be prosecuted." Why couldn"t one put boards up in the Wanderslore of one"s mind? My landlady had never inquired if Lady Pollacke was a gentlewoman. How mechanical things were in their unexpectedness. That morning I had gone out to free myself from the Crimble tangle, merely to return with a few more knots in the skein.
A dead calm descended on me. I was adrift in the Sarga.s.so Sea--in the Doldrums, and had dropped my s.e.xtant overboard. Even a long stare at the master-mariner on the wall gave me no help. Yet I must confess that these foolish reflections made me happy. I would share them with f.a.n.n.y--perhaps with the "gentleman" himself, some day. I leaned over the side of my small vessel, more deeply interested in the voyage than I had been since Pollie had carried me out of my girlhood into the Waggetts"
wagonette. And as I sat there, simmering over these novelties, a voice, clear as a c.o.c.kcrow, exclaimed in my mind, "If father hadn"t died, I"d have had nothing of all this." My hands clenched damp in my lap at this monstrosity. But I kept my wits and managed to face it. "If father hadn"t died," I answered myself, "you don"t know _what_ would have happened. And if you think that, because I am happy now, anything could make me _not_ wish him back, it"s a lie." But I remained a little less comfortable in mind.
The evening post brought me a letter and a registered parcel. I turned them over and over, examining the unfamiliar handwriting, the bright red seals; but all in vain. In spite of my hard-won knotlore, I was still kneeling over the package and wrestling with string and wax, when Mrs Bowater, folding _her_ letter away in its envelope, announced baldly: "She"s not coming home, it seems, at all these holidays, having been invited by some school friend into the country--Merriden, or some such place. Not that you might expect f.a.n.n.y to write plain, when she doesn"t _mean_ plain."
"Oh, Mrs Bowater! Not at all?"
Cold fogs of disappointment swept in, blotting out my fool"s paradise.
That inward light without which life is dark indeed died in eclipse. The one thought and desire which I now realized I had been feeding on from hour to hour, had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away. To think that they had been nothing but waste. "Oh, f.a.n.n.y," I whispered bitterly to myself, "oh, f.a.n.n.y!" But the face I lifted to her mother showed only defiance.
"Well," I muttered, "who cares? Let"s hope she will enjoy herself better than mooning about in this dingy old place."
Mrs Bowater merely continued to look quietly over the envelope at me.
"Oh, but you know, Mrs Bowater," I quaked miserably, "it"s not dingy to _me_. Surely a promise is a promise, whoever you make it to!"
With that I stooped my face over the stuffy-smelling brown paper, and attacked the last knot with my teeth. With eyes still a little asquint with resentment I smoothed away the wrappings from the shape within.
Then every thought evaporated in a sigh. For there, of a delicate veined fairness against the white paper, lay a minute copy in ivory of none but lovely Hypnos. Half-blindly I stared at it--lost in a serenity beyond all hope of my poor, foolish life--then lifted it with both hands away from my face: "A present--to me! Look!" I cried, "look!"
Mrs Bowater settled her face over the image as if it had been some tropical and noxious insect I was offering for her inspection. But I thrust it into her hand and opened my letter:--
"MY DEAR YOUNG LADY,--I am no poet, and therefore cannot hope to share with you the music of "the flaming drake," but we did share my Hypnos. Only a replica, as I told you, but none the less one of the most beautiful things I possess. Will you, then, give me the pleasure of accepting the contents of the little package I am having posted with this--as a small token of the delight your enthusiasm gave Yours most sincerely,--
"WALTER POLLACKE.
"PS.--Lady Pollacke tells me that we may perhaps again look forward to your company to tea in a few days, please do not think, then, of acknowledging this little message by post."
But I did acknowledge it, not with that guardedness of the feelings which Miss Austen seemed to recommend, but from the very depths of my heart. Next morning came Lady Pollacke"s invitation:--
"DEAR MISS M.,--I hasten to renew my invitation of last Thursday.
Will you give us the pleasure of your company at tea on Friday afternoon? Mrs Monnerie--the younger daughter, as you will remember, of Lord B.--has expressed an exceedingly warm wish to make your acquaintance, and Mr. Pellew, who is giving us a course of sermons at St. Peter"s during Holy Week, will also be with us.
May we, perhaps, share yet another of those _delightful_ recitations?