The Rupa Book of Heartwarming & The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  He could now see that, of whatever nature it might be, it was in form and features, most exactly a young woman. The features, for instance, were regular and fine. He remarks in particular upon the chin. All about its face, narrowing the oval of it, fell dark, glossy curtains of hair, very straight and glistening with wet. Its garment was cut in a plain circle round the neck and shorn off at the shoulders, leaving the arms entirely bare. This garment, shift, smock or gown, as he indifferently calls it, appeared thin, and was found afterwards to be of a grey colour, soft and clinging to the shape. It was made loose, however, and gathered in at the waist. He could not see the creature's legs as they were tucked under her. Her arms, it has been related, were behind her back. The only other things to be remarked upon were the strange stillness of one who was plainly suffering, and might well be alarmed, an appearance of expectancy, a dumb appeal; what he himself calls rather well 'an ignorant sort of impatience, like that of a sick animal'.

  'Come,' Beckwith now said, 'let me help you up. You will get cold if you sit here. Give me your hand, will you?' She neither spoke nor moved; simply continued to search his eyes. Strap, meantime, was still trembling and whining. But now, when he stooped yet lower to take her forcibly by the arms, she shrank back a little way and turned her head, and he saw to his horror that she had a great open wound in the side of her neck—from which, however, no blood was issuing. Yet it was clearly a fresh wound, recently made.

  He was greatly shocked. 'Good God,' he said, 'there's been foul play here,' and whipped out his handkerchief. Kneeling, he wound it several times round her slender throat and knotted it as tightly as he could; then, without more ado, he took her up in his arms, under the knees and round the middle, and carried her down the slope to the road. He describes her as of no weight at all. He says it was 'exactly like carrying an armful of feathers about'. 'I took her down the hill and through the hedge at the bottom as if she had been a pillow.'

  Here it was that he discovered that her wrists were bound together behind her back with a kind of plait of things so intricate that he was quite unable to release them. He felt his pockets for his knife, but could not find it, and then recollected suddenly that he should have a new one with him, the third prize in a whist tournament in which he had taken part that evening. He found it wrapped in paper in his overcoat pocket, with it cut the thongs and set the little creature free. She immediately responded—the first sign of animation which she had displayed—by throwing both her arms about his body and clinging to him in an ecstasy. Holding him so that, as he says, he felt the shuddering go all through her, she suddenly lowered her head and touched his wrist with her cheek. He says that instead of being cold to the touch, 'like a fish', as she had seemed to be when he first took her out of the gorse, she was now 'as warm as toast, like a child'.

  So far he had put her down for 'a foreigner', convenient term for defining something which one does not quite understand. She had none of his language, evidently; she was undersized, some, three feet six inches, by the look of her, and yet perfectly proportioned. She was most curiously dressed in a frock cut to the knee, and actually in nothing else at all. It left her bare-legged and bare-armed, and was made, as he puts it himself, of stuff like cobweb, 'those dusty, drooping kind which you put on your finger to stop bleeding'. He could not recognise the web, but was sure that it was neither linen nor cotton. It seemed to stick to her body wherever it touched a prominent part. 'You could see very well, to say nothing of feeling, that she was well made and well nourished.' She ought, as he judged, to be a child of five years old, 'and a feather-weight at that'; but he felt certain that she must be 'much more like sixteen'. It was that, I gather, which made him suspect her of being something outside experience. So far, then, it was safe to call her a foreigner: but he was not yet at the end of his discoveries.

  Heavy footsteps, coming from the direction of Wilsford, in due time proved to be of Police Constable Gulliver, a neighbour of Beckwith's and guardian of the peace in his own village. He lifted his lantern to flash it into the traveller's eyes, and dropped it again with a pleasant 'good evening'. He added that it was inclined to be showery, which was more than true, as it was, at the moment, raining hard. With that, it seems, he would have passed on.

  But Beckwith, whether smitten by self-consciousness of having been seen with a young woman in his arms at a suspicious hour of the night by the village policeman, or bursting perhaps with the importance of his affair, detained Gulliver. 'Just look at this,' he said boldly. 'Here's a pretty thing to have found on a lonely road. Foul play somewhere, I'm afraid'; he then exhibited his burden to the lantern light.

  To his extreme surprise, however, the constable, after exploring the beam of light and all that it contained for some time in silence, reached out his hand for the knife which Beckwith still held open. He looked at it on both sides, examined the handle and gave it back. 'Foul play, Mr Beckwith?' he said, laughing. 'Bless you, they use bigger tools than that. That's just a toy, the like of that. Cut your hand with it, though, already, I see.' He must have noticed the handkerchief, for as he spoke the light from his lantern shone full upon the face and neck of the child, or creature, in the young man's arms, so clearly that, looking down at it, Beckwith himself could see the clear grey of its intensely watchful eyes, and the very pupils of them, diminished to specks of black. It was now, therefore, plain to him that what he held was a foreigner indeed, since the parish constable was unable to see it. Strap had smelt it, then seen it, and he, Beckwith, had seen it; but it was invisible to Gulliver. 'I felt now,' he says in his narrative, 'that something was wrong. I did not like the idea of taking it into the house; but I intended to make one more trial before I made up my mind about that. I said good night to Gulliver, put her on my bicycle and pushed her home. But first of all I took the handkerchief from her neck and put it in my pocket. There was no blood upon it, that I could see.'

  His wife, as he had expected, was waiting at the gate for him. She exclaimed, as he had expected, upon the lateness of the hour. Beckwith stood for a little in the roadway before the house, explaining that Strap had bolted up the hill and had had to be looked for and fetched back. While speaking he noticed that Mrs Beckwith was as insensible to the creature on the bicycle as Gulliver the constable had been. Indeed, she went much farther to prove herself so than he, for she actually put her hand upon the handle-bar of the machine, and in order to that drove it right through the centre of the girl crouching there. Beckwith saw that done. 'I declare solemnly upon my honour,' he writes, 'that it was as if Mary had drilled a hole clean through the middle of her back. Through gown and skin and bone and all her arm went; and how it went in I don't know. To me it seemed that her hand was on the handle-bar, while her upper arm, to the elbow, was in between the girl's shoulders. There was a gap from the elbow downwards where Mary's arm was inside the body, then from the creature's diaphragm her lower arm, wrist and hand came out. And all the time we were speaking the girl's eyes were on my face. I was now quite determined that I wouldn't have her in the house for a mint of money.'

  He put her, finally, in the dog-kennel. Strap, as a favorite, lived in the house; but he kept a greyhound in the garden, in a kennel surrounded by a sort of run made of iron poles and galvanised wire. It was roofed in with wire also, for the convenience of stretching a tarpaulin in wet weather. Here it was that he bestowed the strange being rescued from the down.

  It was clever, I think, of Beckwith to infer that what Strap had shown respect for would be respected by the greyhound, and certainly bold of him to act upon his inference. However, events proved that he had been perfectly right. Bran, the greyhound, was interested, highly interested, in his guest. The moment he saw his master he saw what he was carrying. 'Quiet, Bran, quiet there,' was a very unnecessary adjuration. Bran stretched up his head and sniffed, but went no farther; and when Beckwith had placed his burden on the straw inside the kennel, Bran lay down, as if on guard, outside the opening and put his muzzle on his forepaws. Again
Beckwith noticed that curious appearance of the eyes which the fox-terrier's had made already. Bran's eyes were turned upwards to show the narrow arcs of white.

  Before he went to bed, he tells us, but not before Mrs Beckwith had gone there, he took out a bowl of bread and milk to his patient. Bran he found to be still stretched out before the entry; the girl was nestled down in the straw, as if asleep or prepared to be so, with her face upon her hand. Upon an afterthought he went back for a clean pocket handkerchief, warm water and a sponge. With these, by the light of a candle, he washed the wound, dipped the rag in hazeline, and applied it. This done, he touched the creature's head, nodded a good night and retired. 'She smiled at me very prettily,' he says. 'That was the first time she did it.'

  There was no blood on the handkerchief which he had removed.

  Early in the morning following upon the adventure Beckwith was out and about. He wished to verify the overnight experiences in the light of refreshed intelligence. On approaching the kennel he saw at once that it had been no dream. There, in fact, was the creature of his discovery playing with Bran the greyhound, circling sedately about him, weaving her arms, pointing her toes, arching her graceful neck, stooping to him, as if inviting him to sport, darting away—'like a fairy,' says Beckwith, 'at her magic, dancing in a ring.' Bran, he observed, made no effort to catch her, but crouched rather than sat, as if ready to spring. He followed her about with his eyes as far as he could; but when the course of her dance took her immediately behind him he did not turn his head, but kept his eye fixed as far backward as he could, against the moment when she should come again into the scope of his vision. 'It seemed as important to him as it had the day before to Strap to keep her always in his eye. It seemed—and always seemed so long as I could study them together—intensely important.' Bran's mouth was stretched to 'a sort of grin'; occasionally he panted. When Beckwith entered the kennel and touched the dog (which took little notice of him) he found him trembling with excitement. His heart was beating at a great rate. He also drank quantities of water.

  Beckwith, whose narrative, hitherto summarised, I may now quote, tells us that the creature was indescribably graceful and lightfooted. 'You couldn't hear the fall of her foot: you never could. Her dancing and circling about the cage seemed to be the most important business of her life; she was always at it, especially in bright weather. I shouldn't have called it restlessness so much as busyness. It really seemed to mean more to her than exercise or irritation at confinement. It was evident also that she was happy when so engaged. She used to sing. She sang also when she was sitting still with Bran; but not with such exhilaration.

  'Her eyes were bright—when she was dancing about—with mischief and devilry. I cannot avoid that word, thought it does not describe what I really mean. She looked wild and outlandish and full of fun, as if she knew that she was teasing the dog, and yet couldn't help herself. When you say of a child that he looks wicked, you don't mean it literally; it is rather a compliment than not. So it was with her and her wickedness. She did look wicked, there's no mistake—able and willing to do wickedness; but I am sure she never meant to hurt Bran. They were always firm friends, though the dog knew very well who was master.

  'When you looked at her you did not think of her height. She was so complete; as well made as a statuette. I could have spanned her waist with my two thumbs and middle fingers, and her neck (very nearly) with one hand. She was pale and inclined to be dusky in complexion, but not so dark as a gypsy; she had grey eyes, and dark brown hair, which she could sit upon if she chose. Her gown you could have sworn was made of cobweb; I don't know how else to describe it. As I had suspected, she wore nothing else, for while I was there that first morning, so soon as the sun came up over the hill she slipped it off her and stood dressed in nothing at all. She was a regular little Venus—that's all I can say. I never could get accustomed to that weakness of hers for slipping off her frock, though no doubt it was very absurd. She had no sort of shame in it, so why on earth should I?

  'The food, I ought to mention, had disappeared: the bowl was empty. But I know now that Bran must have had it. So long as she remained in the kennel or about my place she never ate anything, nor drank either. If she had I must have known it, as I used to clean the run out every morning. I was always particular about that. I used to say that you couldn't keep dogs too clean. But I tried her unsuccessfully, with all sorts of things: flowers, honey, dew—for I had read somewhere that fairies drink dew and suck honey out of flowers. She used to look at the little messes I made for her, and when she knew me better would grimace at them, and look up in my face and laugh at me.

  'I have said that she used to sing sometimes. It was like nothing that I can describe. Perhaps the wind in the telegraph wires comes nearest to it, and yet that is an absurd comparison. I could never catch any words; indeed I did not succeed in learning a single word of her language. I doubt very much whether they have what we call a language—I mean the people who are like her, her own people. They communicate with each other, I fancy, as she did with my dogs, inarticulately, but with perfect communication and understanding on either side. When I began to teach her English I noticed that she had a kind of pity for me, a kind of contempt perhaps is nearer the mark, that I should be compelled to express myself in so clumsy a way. I am no philosopher, but I imagine that our need of putting one word after another may be due to our habit of thinking in sequence. If there is no such thing as Time in the other world it should not be necessary there to frame speech in sentences at all. I am sure that Thumbeline (which was my name for her—I never learned her real name) spoke with Bran and Strap in flashes which revealed her whole thought at once. So also they answered her, there's no doubt. So also she contrived to talk with my little girl, who, although she was four years old and a great chatterbox, never attempted to say a single word of her own language to Thumbeline, yet communicated with her by the hour together. But I did not know anything of this for a month or more, though it must have begun almost at once.

  'I blame myself for it, myself only. I ought, of course, to have remembered that children are more likely to see fairies than grownups; but then—why did Florrie keep it all secret? Why did she not tell her mother, or me, that she had seen a fairy in Bran's kennel? The child was as open as the day, yet she concealed her knowledge from both of us without the least difficulty. She seemed the same careless, laughing child she had always been; one could not have supposed her to have a care in the world; and yet for nearly six months she must have been full of care, having daily secret intercourse with Thumbeline and keeping her eyes open all the time lest her mother or I should find her out. Certainly she could have taught me something in the way of keeping secrets. I know that I kept mine very badly, and blame myself more than enough for keeping it at all. God knows what we might have been spared if, on the night I brought her home, I had told Mary the whole truth! And yet—how could I have convinced her that she was impaling someone with her arm while her hand rested on the bar of the bicycle? Is not that an absurdity on the face of it? Yes, indeed; but the sequel is no absurdity. That's the terrible fact.

  'I kept Thumbeline in the kennel for the whole winter. She seemed happy enough there with the dogs, and, of course, she had had Florrie, too, though I did not find that out until the spring. I don't doubt, now, that if I had kept her in there altogether she would have been perfectly contented.

  'The first time I saw Florrie with her I was amazed. It was a Sunday morning. There was our four-year-old child standing at the wire, pressing herself against it, and Thumbeline close to her. Their faces almost touched; their fingers were interlaced; I am certain that they were speaking to each other in their own fashion, by flashes, without words. I watched them for a bit; I saw Bran come and sit up on his haunches and join them. He looked from one to another, and all about; and then he saw me.

  'Now that is how I know that they were all three in communication, because, the very next moment, Florrie turned round and ran to me, and sa
id in her pretty baby-talk, 'Talking to Bran. Florrie talking to Bran'. If this was willful deceit it was most accomplished. It could not have been better done. 'And who else were you talking to, Florrie?' I said. She fixed her round blue eyes upon me, as if in wonder, then looked away and said shortly, 'No-one else'. And I could not get her to confess or admit, then or at any time afterwards, that she had any cognizance at all of the fairy in Bran's kennel, although their communications were daily, and often lasted for hours at a time. I don't know that it makes things any better, but I have thought sometimes that the child believed me to be as insensible to Thumbeline as her mother was. She can only have believed it at first, of course, but that may have prompted her to a concealment which she did not afterwards care to confess to.

  'Be this as it may, Florrie, in fact, behaved with Thumbeline exactly as the two dogs did. She made no attempt to catch her at her circlings and wheelings about the kennel, nor to follow her wonderful dances, nor (in her presence) to imitate them. But she was (like the dogs) aware of nobody else when under the spell of Thumbeline's personality; and when she had got to know her she seemed to care for nobody else at all. I ought, no doubt, to have foreseen that and guarded against it.

  'Thumbeline was extremely attractive. I never saw such eyes as hers, such mysterious fascination. She was nearly always good-tempered, nearly always happy; but sometimes she had fits of temper and kept herself to herself. Nothing then would get her out of the kennel, where she would lie curled up like an animal with her knees to her chin and one arm thrown over her face. Bran was always wretched at these times, and did all he knew to coax her out. He ceased to care for me or my wife after she came to us, and instead of being wild at the prospect of his Saturday and Sunday runs, it was hard to get him along. I had to take him on a lead until we had turned to go home; then he would set off by himself, in spite of hallooing and scolding, at a long steady gallop, and one would find him waiting crouched at the gate of his run, and Thumbeline on the ground inside it, with her legs crossed like tailor, mocking and teasing him with her wonderful shining eyes. Only once or twice did I see her worse than sick or sorry; then she was transported with rage and another person altogether. She never touched me—and why or how I had offended her I have no notion—but she buzzed and hovered about me like an angry bee. She appeared to have wings, which hummed in their furious movement; she was red in the face; her eyes burned; she grinned at me and ground her little teeth together. A curious shrill noise came from her, like the screaming of a gnat or hover-fly; but no words, never any words. Bran showed me his teeth too, and would not look at me. It was very odd.