Short Stories 1927-1956

by Walter De la Mare

  Fortified by his prayer and by his wrath with the friend who it seemed at the last moment had abandoned their enterprise, he was now comparatively at ease. Tortoise-fashion he snuggled down in his great-coat in the corner of the pew, having discovered that by craning his neck a little he could fix his vacant eyes on the brilliant disc of the still-ascending moon.

  She was the Hunter’s moon, and her beams had now begun to silver a clear-glassed square-headed window high up in the south wall of the chancel. He watched her intently, lost in astonishment that at this very moment she should be keeping tryst with him here. But before she had edged far enough above the sill to greet the gilded figure of an angel that surmounted an ornate tomb opposite her peephole, a faint thief-like shuffle from the direction of the vestry door caught his ear. He instantly dropped out of sight into the shelter of his pew. The shuffling ceased, the door creaked. He crouched low; a smile at once apprehensive and malicious creasing his still-childish face. He would give his friend Dick a taste of his own physic.

  In the hush, an anguished Oh, oh, oh, oh! – like the wailing of a lost soul – fountained up from his lips into the dusk of the roof. Oh, oh, oh! Then silence – and silence. And still there came no response. The smile faded out of his face; he had begun to shiver again. He was positively certain that this must be the friend whom he was expecting. And yet – suppose it was not! He leapt up, flashing at the same instant his toy lantern full into the glittering eyes of a dwarfish and motionless shape which were fixed on him through the sockets of a pitch-black battered mask – a relic of the last Fifth of November.

  He had realized what trick was being played on him almost before he had time to be afraid. Nevertheless, for a few moments, his mouth wide-open, he had failed to breathe; and stood shuddering with rage as well as terror. His friend Dick, however, having emerged from his lair in the folds of the curtain, was now plunging about half doubled-up and almost helpless with laughter.

  ‘You silly fool!’ he fumed at him in a whisper, ‘what did you want to do that for? Shut up! Shut up, I tell you! You think it’s funny, I suppose. Well, I don’t. You’re hours late already, and I’m going home. Stop it, do you hear? Can’t you remember you’re in a church?’

  From beneath its mask a small sharp-nosed and utterly sober face now showed itself – all laughter gone. ‘Who began it, then?’ Dick expostulated, dejectedly squeezing his pasteboard mask into his pocket. ‘You tried it first on me, with your Oh-oh-oh-ing. And now just because … You didn’t think of “church” then.’

  ‘Well, I do now. Besides, it’s near the time, and I might have broken my neck for all you cared, getting out of the window. What made you so late?’

  Dick had been eyeing his friend as might a sorrowful mouse a slice of plum cake a few inches out of its reach. ‘I’m sorry, Philip,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean any harm; honest, I didn’t. It was only a lark.’ He turned penitently away, and the next instant, as if all troubles were over and all discord pacified, began peeping about him with the movements and anglings of some little night-creature on unexpectedly finding itself in an utterly strange place.

  ‘I say, Philip,’ he whispered, ‘doesn’t it look creepy, just – the moon shining in? I had a dream, and then I woke. But I couldn’t have come before. My father was downstairs with a lamp, reading. Besides I was waiting for you outside, under the trees. Why did you come in? It’s by the gate you see them. That’s what my mother heard your mother say. Oh, I’m glad I came; aren’t you?’

  The sentences were sprayed out in minute beads of words like the hasty cadenzas of a bird. The neat black head, the small bright eyes, the shallow wall of close-cropped hair, the sloping shoulders – every line, movement and quick darting variation of posture gave him a resemblance to a bird – including the alert, quick, shy yet fearless spirit within that neat skull’s brittle walls.

  Philip, who had been intently watching him meanwhile, had now recovered his equanimity, his pulse had sobered down, but he was still only partially placated, and querulous.

  ‘Of course I came in. What was the good of loafing out there where anybody might see us? It’s cold and mouldy enough in here. You don’t seem to remember I mustn’t go out at night, because of my chest. I’ve been waiting until my feet are like stones. Did you hear that owl just now – or some thing?’

  Dick having at last ventured in from the other end of the pew, had now seated himself beside his friend on the flat crimson cushion.

  ‘Golly!’ he exclaimed, his sharp eyes now fixed on the flint, ‘what’s that for? I shouldn’t care to have a crump over the head with that!’ He peered up winningly into his companion’s fair face. ‘I didn’t really expect you would come, Philip. But,’ he sighed, ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘Didn’t I say I would come?’ retorted Philip in a small condescending voice. ‘That’s nothing.’ He nodded at his stone. ‘I always carry that at night. How was I to know …? Didn’t I?’

  The neat small head nodded violently. ‘M’m.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you expect me to?’

  ‘Oh, well, I didn’t.’ A thin ingratiating little smile passed over Dick’s face and as quickly vanished. ‘It wasn’t so easy for you as it was for me. That’s why.’

  ‘That stone,’ said Philip incisively, ‘keeps any harm from happening to me. It’s got magic in it.’

  ‘Has it, Philip? What did that?’ He was eyeing the patch of dried blood on the hand that clutched the bent wire handle of the lantern.

  ‘Oh, that?’ was the lofty reply. ‘That’s nothing; that was only the rope. It burned like billy-ho, and I fell halfway from my bedroom window-sill on to the lawn. An awful crack. But nobody heard me, even though the other windows were wide open round the corner. You could see them against the sky. My mother always sleeps with her windows open – all the year round. A doctor in London told her it would be good for her. I don’t believe that about your father reading, though. When everybody is in bed and asleep! I didn’t even know your father could read.’

  ‘Well, he was, or I wouldn’t have said so. He was reading the Bible. How could I tell that if he wasn’t reading at all?’

  ‘Anyhow, I bet it wasn’t the Bible. Even my father wouldn’t do that – not after evening prayers. Would he whack you much if he caught you?’

  Dick shook his head. ‘No fear. My mother won’t have him punishing me, whatever happens. He preaches at me no end; and says I’ll never be good for anything. Once,’ he added pensively, as if scarcely able to believe his own ears, ‘once he said I was a little imp of hell. Then my mother flared up. But he wouldn’t beat me; oh no, he wouldn’t beat me. Yesterday my mother came back with a big bundle of old clothes. There was a black silk jacket, and some stockings and hats and feathers and things, an enormous bundle. And this – look!’

  He undid a button of his jacket and pulled out from underneath it a pinch of an old green silk dressing-gown.

  ‘Why, that’s mine!’ said Philip. ‘I’ve had it for ages.’ He stared at it censoriously, as if dubious whether or not to ask for it back. ‘But I don’t think I want it now, because it’s miles too small for me. My grandmother gave it me for a Christmas present donkey’s years ago. She’s so rich she doesn’t mind what things cost – when she gives me anything. That’s real Spitalfields silk, that is; you can’t get it anywhere now. You’ll crumple it up and spoil it if you wear it stuffed in like that.’ He peered closer. ‘What have you got on underneath it? You’re all puffed out like a turkey-cock.’

  Dick promptly edged back from the investigating finger, a sly look of confusion passing swiftly over his face. ‘That’s my other clothes,’ he explained.

  ‘What I say,’ said Philip; still eyeing his companion as if only a constant vigilance could hope to detect what he might not be up to next, ‘what I say is, your mother’s jolly lucky to get expensive things given to her – good things, even if they are left-offs. Most of our old stuff goes to the Jumble Sales. I bet,’ he suddenly broke off, ‘I bet if your
real father found you skulking here, he’d whack you hot and strong.’

  The alert and supple body beside his own had suddenly stiffened, and the dangling spindle legs beneath the pew ceased to swing.

  ‘No, he wouldn’t,’ Dick hardly more than whispered.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘For one thing he just wouldn’t. He knows he’s nothing to do with me; not now; and leaves me alone. For all that, I went out rabbiting with him one night last summer. And nobody knew. It was warm and still and pitch-dark – not like this; and when the moon began to come up over the woods, he sent me home. I know he wouldn’t either. Besides,’ he drew in his chin a little as if the words were refusing to come out of his throat, ‘he’s dead.’

  ‘Dead! Oh, I say! I like that! Oh no, he isn’t; that’s not true. He isn’t dead. Why, I heard them reading out about him in the newspaper only a few weeks ago. That’s what you say. I know what has become of him; and I bet your tongue is burning. What’s more, if your other father hadn’t been Chapel you would never have had any father – not to show, I mean. Your mother would have been just like any other woman, though I don’t suppose she could have gone on living in the village. But as he is Chapel, and, according to what you say, sits up as late as this reading in the Bible, I can’t understand why he lets you sing in our choir. I call that a hypocrite. I’d like to see my father letting me go to Chapel. He must be just a hypocrite, Bible or not.’

  Dick made no attempt whatever to examine this delicate moral question. ‘Oh no, he isn’t,’ he retorted hotly. ‘He’s as good as yours any day. He goes by what my mother says: if you are Chapel, keep Chapel. She’s not a hypocrite. And you’d better not say so, either.’

  ‘I didn’t say it. I didn’t say that your mother was a hypocrite; not a hypocrite. I like your mother. And nobody’s going to prevent me from going with you either, if I want to. Not if I want to. Your mother’s been jolly decent to me – often. Mrs Fuller sneaks: she doesn’t.’

  ‘So is your mother to me – when you aren’t there. At least she talks to me sometimes then. And I’m glad you’re my friend, Philip. The other day she gave me a hunch of cake, and she made me share a sip of wine from my mother’s glass. Because it was her birthday. Some day I’m going to be a sailor, and going to sea. She had been crying, because her eyes were red; and your mother said that crying was no use at all – because I’m growing up more and more like her every day, and shall be a comfort to her when I’m a man. And so I will; you see!’

  ‘“Wine”! Did she just? But that was only because she’s always kind to people – to everybody. She doesn’t mind who it is. That’s why she likes being liked by everybody. But after what my father read out in the newspaper, he said he entreated her to be more careful. She must think of him, my father said. He didn’t want to have the village people talking. He tapped his eyeglasses on the paper and said it was a standing scandal. That’s what he said. He was purple in the face.’ His voice rather suddenly fell silent, as if, like a dog, he had scented indiscretions. ‘But I say: if your real father is just dead, he would be the very person according to you to be coming here tonight. Then you’d look mighty funny, I should think.’

  Dick’s legs, like opposed pendulums, had begun very sluggishly to swing again. ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t, because that’s just what doesn’t happen; and I told you so. It’s the people who are going to die soon – next year – who come: their ghosts. Wouldn’t they look white and awful, Philip, coming in under the yew tree … I expect its roots go down all among the coffins. Shall we go out now and watch? It’s as bright as day; you could see a bird hopping about.’

  ‘“Ghosts”!’ was the derisive reply. ‘I like that! You can. I’m not. How can they be ghosts, silly, if they’re still alive? Besides, even if there are such things, and even if what your mother told you is really true, you said yourself that they would come into the church. So if any should come and we keep here and hide and peep over the edge, they can’t possibly see us – if ghosts do see. And then we shall be near the door in there. They would be surprised to find that one open, I should think. But even if they were, and ghosts don’t mind doors, they wouldn’t come in at a potty little door like that.’

  He paused as if to listen, and continued more boldly. ‘Not, mind you, that I believe a single word of anything you’ve said – all that stuff. Not really. I came …’ he faltered, turning his head away, ‘only just for a game, and because you dared me to. Why you asked me to come really is because you were frightened of being here alone. You wait and see, I’ll dare you in a minute. Besides, how do you know anybody is going to die in the village next year – except old Mrs Harrison? And she’s been dying ever since I can remember. She takes snuff, but she can’t stir a foot out of her bed. I bet she hasn’t any ghost left. She wouldn’t come.’ The sentence suddenly concluded in a prodigious shuddering yawn. It reminded him that he was cold and that the fatal moment was rapidly nearing. ‘Did they say, before, or after, the clock strikes?’

  Dick paused a moment before replying, and then piped up confidently: ‘It’s the very second while the last clump of the bell is sounding. That’s when they get to the church. Because it’s midnight. And all the ghosts begin to walk then. Some come up out of their graves. But’ – he sighed, as if saddened at the poverty of his expectations – ‘only very seldom. The people who go to heaven wouldn’t want to, and the Devil wouldn’t let the others out. At least that’s what I think.’

  ‘What you think! And yet,’ retorted Philip indignantly, ‘you talk all that stuff about ghosts; and believe it too. I’d just like to see your ghost. That’d be a skinny one if you like – like a starved bird. Would you come back?’

  Dick leant his body forward; he was sitting on his hands; and at this his black, close-cropped head nodded far more vigorously than a china Mandarin’s. ‘I don’t know,’ he said; ‘but I like being out at night. I like – oh, everything … If ghosts can smell,’ he began again in small matter-of-fact tones, ‘they’d soon snuff us out. Look at it smoking.’

  The two boys sat mute for a while, watching the tiny slender thread of sooty smoke from the lantern wreathing up in the luminous air; and in the silence – which, after their tongues had ceased chattering, immediately flooded the church fathoms deep – they stayed, listening; their senses avid for the faintest whisper. But the night was windless, and the earth coldly still in the deathly radiance of the moon. And if the Saints in their splendour were themselves assembled in the heavens to celebrate their earthly festival, no sound of their rejoicings reached these small pricked-up human ears.

  ‘If,’ at last Dick exploded, gazing up into the vaporous glooms of the roof above his head, ‘if any more light comes in, the walls will burst. I love the moon; I love the light … I’m going to have a peep.’

  With a galvanic wriggle he had snatched his arm free from Philip’s grasp, had nimbly whipped out of the pew, and vanished behind the curtain that concealed the vestry door.

  Philip shuffled uneasily in his seat, hesitating whether or not to follow him. But from a native indolence and for other motives, and in spite of his incredulity, he decided to stay where he was. It seemed safer than the churchyard. From a few loose jujubes in his great-coat pocket he chose the cleanest, and sat quietly sucking, his eyes fixed on the monument that not only dominated but dwarfed the small but lovely chancel. The figure of its angel was now bathed with the silver of the moon. With long-toed feet at once clasping and spurning the orb beneath them, it stood erect, on high. Chin out-thrust, its steadfast sightless eyes were fixed upon the faded blue and geranium red of the panelled roof. Its braided locks drawn back from a serene and impassive visage, its left hand lay flat upon its breast, and with the right it clasped a tapering, uplifted, bell-mouthed, gilded trumpet, held firmly not against but at a little distance from its lips.

  Unlike Dick, Philip was not a chorister. He was nonetheless his father’s son, and as soon as he had learned to behave himself, to put his penny in the plate
and to refrain from babbling aloud, he had been taken to church every Sunday morning. This had been as natural an accompaniment of the Sabbath as clean underclothes, Etons, and hot sausages for breakfast. Thus he had heard hundreds of his father’s sermons – sermons usually as simple as they were short. If only he had listened to them he might by now have become well founded in dogma, a plain but four-square theologian. Instead of listening, however, he would usually sit ‘thinking’. Side by side with his mother, his cheek all but brushing her silks, with their delicate odours, his fingers – rather clammy fingers when the weather was hot – lightly clasping hers while he counted over and over the sharp-stoned rings on her dainty fingers, he had been wont to follow his fancies.

  Morning service had been the general rule. During the last few years however his mother had become the victim of periodical sick headaches, of lassitude and palpitations, and had been given strict injunctions not to overdo things, to rest. Occasionally too she had worldly minded visitors, including a highly unorthodox sister, whom it would be tactless even to attempt to persuade to spend her Sundays as, usually, she felt dutifully impelled to spend her own. All this she would confide to Philip. She must on no account, she repeatedly admonished him, be alarmed or worried, distressed or disturbed. As for his stout and rubicund father, who was at least ten years her senior, he adored every bone in her body. But though by nature placable and easy-going, he was also subject to outbursts of temper and fits of moroseness as periodical as her attacks of migraine. It was therefore prudent, if only for her sake, to avoid anything in the nature of a scene. ‘So Philip,’ she would cajole him, ‘you will promise me to be a good boy, and you’ll go to church this evening, won’t you – instead of now? And you won’t make any fuss about it? You know your father wishes it.’