"Where is he?" cried Tim at once, staring impatiently about him. There was rebuke and disappointment in his eyes. "Uncle, you"ve been arguing.
He"s gone!"
Judy was equally quick to seize the position of affairs. "You"ve frightened him away!" she declared with energy. "Quick! We must go out and look!"
"Yes," muttered their uncle a little guiltily, and was about to add something by way of explanation when he felt Judy pull his sleeve.
"Look!" she whispered. "He can"t have gone so _very_ far!"
She pointed to the plate with the sugar, honey, cream, and crumbs upon it; a bird was picking up the crumbs, a wasp was on the lump of sugar, a bee beside it, standing on its head, was drinking at the drop of honey; all were unafraid, and very leisurely about it; there seemed no hurry; there was enough for every one. Then, as the trio of humans stared with delight, they saw another guest arrive and dance up gaily to the feast. A gorgeous b.u.t.terfly sailed in, hovered above the crowded plate a moment, then settled comfortably beside its companions and examined the blob of cream. The others moved a little to make room for it. It was a Purple Emperor, the rarest b.u.t.terfly in all England, whose home was normally high above the trees.
"Of course," Judy whispered to her brother, as she watched the bee make room for its larger neighbour; "they belong to him--"
"He sent them," replied Tim below his breath, "just to let us know--"
"Yes," mumbled Uncle Felix for the second time, a soft amazement stealing over him. "He brought them. And they"re all the same thing really."
There was the perfume of a thousand flowers in the room. A faint breeze floated through the open window and touched his eyes. He heard the world outside singing in the sunshine. "Come along," he said in a low, hushed whisper; "let"s go and look." And he moved eagerly--over the tree-and-peac.o.c.k pattern.
They tiptoed out together, while the bird c.o.c.ked up its head to watch them go; the bee, still drinking, raised its eyes; and all four fluttered their wings as though they laughed. They seemed to say "There is no hurry! We"re all alive together! There"s enough for all; no need to get there first!" _They_ knew. The golden day lay waiting outside with overflowing beauty, and he who had brought them in stood just behind this beauty that hid and covered them. When they had eaten and drunk, they, too, would come and join the search. Exceedingly beautiful they were--the shy grace of the dainty bird, the brilliant wasp in black and gold, the soft brown bee, the magnificent Purple Emperor, fresh from the open s.p.a.ces above the windy forest: all said the same big, joyful thing, "We are alive!... No hurry!..."
The trio flew down the pa.s.sage, took the stairs in leaps and bounds, raced across the hall where the back-door, standing open, framed the lawn and garden in a blaze of sunshine.
And as Uncle Felix followed, half dancing like the other two, he saw a little thing that vaguely reminded him of--another little thing. The memory was vague and far away; there was a curious distance in it, like the distance of a dream recalled in the day-light, no longer what is called quite real. For his eye caught something gleaming on the side-table below the presentation clock, and the odd, ridiculous word that sprang into his mind was "salver." It was the silver salver on which Thompson brought in visitors" cards. But it was a plate as well; and, being a plate, he remembered vaguely something about a collection.
The a.s.sociation of ideas worked itself out in a remote and dreamlike way; he felt in his pocket for a shilling, a sixpence, or a threepenny bit, and wondered for a second where the big, dark building was to which all this belonged. Something was changed, it seemed. His clothes, this dancing sunshine, joy and laughter. The world was new. What did it mean?...
"No bells are ringing," flashed back the flying letters in a spray.
He was on the point of catching something by the tail... when he saw the children waiting for him on the sunny lawn outside. He ran out instantly to join them. They had noticed nothing odd, apparently. It had never even occurred to them. And in himself the memory dived away, its very trail obliterated as though it had not been.
For this was Sunday morning, yet Sunday had not--happened.
HIDE-AND-SEEK
III
The garden clung close and soft about the Old Mill House as a mood clings about the emotion that has summoned it. Uncle Felix, Tim, and Judy were as much a part of it as the lilac, hyacinths, and tulips. Any minute, it seemed, the b.u.t.terflies and bees and birds might settle on them too.
For a bloom of exquisite, fresh wonder lay upon the earth, lay softly and secure as though it need never pa.s.s away. No fading of daylight could dim the glory of all the promises of joy the day contained, no hint of waning anywhere. "There is no hurry," seemed written on the very leaves and blades of gra.s.s. "We"re all alive together! Come and--look!" The garden, lying there so gently in its beauty, hid a secret.
Yet, though all was so calm and peaceful, there was nowhere the dulness of stagnation. Life brimmed the old-world garden with incessant movement that flashed dancing and rhythm even into things called stationary. The joy of existence ran riot everywhere without check or hindrance; there was no time--to pause and die. For the sunlight did not merely lie upon the air--it poured; wind did not blow--it breathed, ambushed one minute among the rose-trees just above the ground, and cantering next through the crests of the busy limes. The elms and horse-chestnuts that ordinarily grew now leaped--leaped upwards to the sun; while all flying things--birds, insects, bees, and b.u.t.terflies--pa.s.sed in and out like darting threads of colour, pinning the beauty into a patterned tapestry for all to see. The entire day was charged with the natural delight of endless, sheer existence. It was visible.
Each detail, moreover, claimed attention, as though never seen properly before; no longer dulled by familiarity, but shaking off its "ordinary"
appearance, proud to be looked at, naked and alive. The rivulet ran on, but did not run away; the gravel paths, soft as rolled brown sugar, led somewhere, but led in both directions, each of them inviting; the blue of the sky did not stay "up there and far away," but dropped down close in myriad flakes, lifting the green carpet of the lawn to meet it. The day seemed like a turning circle that changed every moment to show another aspect of its gorgeous pattern, yet, while changing, only turned, unable to grow older or to pa.s.s away. There was something real at last, something that could be known, enjoyed--something of eternity about it. It was real.
"Wherever has he got to?" exclaimed Judy, trying to pierce the distances of earth and sky with distended eyes. "He can"t be very far away, because--I kissed him."
Tim, sitting beside her on the gra.s.s, felt the exquisite mystery of it too. It was marvellous that any one could vanish in such a way. But he hesitated too. He felt uncertain about something. His thoughts flew off to that strange wood he loved to play in. He remembered the warning: "Beware the centre, if you enter; For once you"re _there_, you disappear!" But this explanation did not appeal to him as likely now.
He stared at Judy and his uncle. Some one _had_ touched him, making him warm and happy. He remembered that distinctly. He had caught a glimpse--though a glimpse too marvellous to be seen for long, even to be remembered properly. "But there"s no good looking unless we know where to look," he remarked. "Is there?"
"He"s just gone out like a candle," whispered Judy.
"Extror"nary," declared her brother, hugging the excitement that thrilled his heart. "But he can"t be really lost. I"m sure of that!"
And a great hush fell upon them all. Some one, it seemed, was listening; some one was watching; some one was waiting for them to move.
"Uncle?" they said in the same breath together, then hung upon his answer.
This authority hesitated a moment, looking about him expectantly as though for help.
"I think," he stated shyly, "I think--he"s--hiding."
Nothing more wonderful ever fell from grown-up lips. They had heard it said before--but only said. Now they realised it.
"Hiding!" They stood up; they could see further that way. But they waited for more detail before showing their last approval.
"Out here," he added.
They were not quite sure. They expected a disclosure more out of the ordinary. It _might_ be true, but--
"Hide-and-seek?" they repeated doubtfully. "But that"s just a game."
They were unsettled in their minds.
"Not _that_ kind," he replied significantly. "I mean the kind the rain plays with the wind and leaves, the stream with the stones and roots along its bank, the rivers with the sea. That"s the kind of hide-and-seek I mean!"
He chose instinctively watery symbols. And his tone conveyed something so splendid and mysterious that it was impossible to doubt or hesitate a moment longer.
"Oh," they exclaimed. "It never ends, you mean?"
"Goes on for ever and ever," he murmured. "The moment the river finds the sea it disappears and the sea begins to look. The wind never really finds the clouds, and the sun and the stars--"
"_We_ know!" they shouted, cutting his explanations short.
"Come on then!" he cried. "We"ve got the hunt of our lives before us."
And he began to run about in a circle like an animal trying to catch its tail.
"But are we to look for him, or he for us?" inquired the boy, after a preliminary canter over the flower-beds.
"We for him." They sprang to attention and clapped their hands.
"It"s an enormous hide," said Tim. "We may get lost ourselves. Better look out!"
And then they waited for instructions. But the odd thing was that their uncle waited too. There was this moment"s hesitation. They looked to him. The old fixed habit a.s.serted itself: a grown-up must surely know more than they did. How could it be otherwise? In this case, however, the grown-up seemed in doubt. He looked at them. It _was_ otherwise.
"It"s so long since I played this kind of hide-and-seek," he murmured.
"I"ve rather forgotten--"