Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  The thought did not make for calmness. She said afterward that the tower must have been haunted by the very spirit of fear, for a panic terror came over her, something deeper and fiercer than anything Schultz could inspire — at any rate, in this century — and a caution and care that such as fear alone can teach. She slid from her hiding-place and down the stair, and as she went she heard above her those other steps, now returning. Nothing in the world seemed so good as the thought of the sunshine and free air into which in another moment she would come out. Round and round the spirals of the stone staircase went her noiseless, flying feet; the sound of the feet that followed came louder and quicker; a light showed at the bottom of the stairs; she rounded the last curve with a catch of the breath that was almost a cry, and in her eyes the vision of the fair, free outside world. She sprang toward green grass and freedom and sunlight, and four dark walls received her. For half-way down that tower the steps divide and she had passed the division and taken the stairs that led down past the level of the earth. And the light that had seemed to come through the doorway of the tower came through the high-set window of a dungeon, and there was no way out save by the stairs on which already she could hear feet descending. The man who followed her had not missed the way.

  To turn back and meet that man on the stairs was impossible. She stood at bay. And she knew what the captive in old days must have felt — what the rabbit feels when it is caught in the trap. She stood rigid, with such an access of blind terror that the sight of the man, when he came down the last three steps, was almost — no, quite — relief. She had not fled from him, but from something more vague and more terrible. And when he spoke fear left her altogether, and she asked herself, “How could I have been so silly?”

  “Miss Basingstoke?” He spoke on what he meant for a note of astonishment and pleasure, but his acting was not so good as hers, and he had to supplement it by adding, “This is, indeed, a delightful surprise.”

  “Oh, Mr. Schultz,” she said, and quite gaily and lightly, too—”how small the world is! Of all unlikely places to meet any one one knows!” and she made to pass him and go up the stairs. But he stood square and firm at the stair-foot.

  “No hurry,” he said, “no hurry — since we have met. It is a wonderful pleasure to me, Miss Basingstoke. Don’t cut it short. And what have you been doing all this long time?”

  “Oh, traveling about,” she answered, watching the stair-foot as the rabbit from beside its burrow might watch the exit at which a terrier is posted. “Just seeing England, you know. We neglect England too much, don’t you think, rushing off to the Riviera and Egypt and India and places like that when all the while there are the most beautiful things at home.”

  “I agree,” he said, “the most beautiful things are in England,” and lest his meaning should escape her, added, with a jerk of a bow, “and the most beautiful people.” And still he stood there, smiling and not moving.

  “Have you your car with you?” she asked, for something to say.

  “No, but I’ll send for it if you like. We could have some pleasant drives — Stratford, Shakespeare’s birthplace—”

  “We’ve been to Stratford,” she put in, and went a step nearer to the stair-foot.

  “Then anywhere you like. Shall I send for the car?”

  “Mr. Basingstoke,” she said, quite untruly, “doesn’t care much about motoring.”

  “Mr. — ? Oh, your brother! Well, we did very well without him before, didn’t we? Do you remember what a jolly drive we had, and a jolly lunch; in point of fact, practically everything was jolly until he turned up. I wished him far enough, I can tell you, and I hope you did. Say you did.”

  “Of course I didn’t,” she had to say.

  “Well, he’d no right to be stuffy if another fellow took care of you when he couldn’t be bothered to.”

  “You know it wasn’t that. You know it was a mistake.”

  “I know a good deal,” he said, “more than you think for.” And he smiled, trying to meet her eyes.

  “It’s cold here,” she found herself saying. “I was just going up. I don’t like dungeons. Do you?”

  “I like this one,” said he. “Anywhere where you are, don’t you know — a palace and all that—”

  “I really must go,” she said. “My brother won’t know where I am.”

  “No,” he said, with meaning, “he won’t.” And he set his two hands to the pillars of the arch under which he stood and swayed to and fro, looking at her.

  “I must really go. Will you let me pass, Mr. Schultz, please.”

  “Not till you tell me to send for my car. I’ve set my heart on those drives with you. Our brother can stay behind if he doesn’t care for motoring. I don’t want him, and I’ll take care you don’t miss him.”

  “Do, please,” she said, “let me pass.”

  “No,” said he. “I’ve got you and I mean to keep you. Your brother—”

  “He’s not my brother,” she said, on a sudden resolution. “We told you that because, because—”

  “Don’t bother to explain,” he said, smiling. That smile, in the days when that dungeon was a dungeon, might have cost him his life if the lady before him had had a knife and the skill to use it. Even now it was to cost him something.

  “He’s not my brother — we’re married,” she said. And at that he laughed.

  “I know, my dear girl,” he said. “I know all about it. But marriages like that don’t last forever, and they don’t prevent another gentleman playing for his own hand. I was there when he wasn’t, and you let me help you.”

  “I wish I hadn’t,” said she. “I wish I’d walked all the way to London first. I didn’t think—”

  “You didn’t think I’d got the sense to put two and two together,” said he; “but I have. Come, look here. I liked your looks from the first. I thought — Never mind about that, though. I was wrong. But even now I like you better than any girl I’ve ever come across. Now, look here—”

  “Don’t say any more,” she urged, almost wildly. “Don’t! I am married. You don’t believe me, but I am. You were kind once; be kind now and let me go—”

  It was like a prisoner imploring a jailer.

  “Let you go?” he echoed. “I know better. Not till you say, ‘Send for the motor,’ and that you’ll go out in it with me. Say that and you’re free as air.”

  And she might have said it, for the terror that lurked in that tower was coming back, in a new dress, but the same terror. But he went on, “Come, say it, and seal the bargain prettily.”

  And then she said, “If you don’t let me pass I swear I’ll—”

  What the threat would have been she hardly knew, and he never knew, for he took a step toward her with his hands outstretched, and words seemed at once to become weak and silly. She clutched her rosy sunshade at about half its length and struck full at his head. The sunshade broke. He put his hands to his temples and held them a moment.

  “Now, by God,” he said, “after that—” and came toward her.

  And even as he moved the feet of the deliverer sounded on the stairs. Hurried feet, spurning the stones, feet swifter than a man’s, lighter than a woman’s — little feet that gave out a thin, quick sound not like the sound of human footsteps. She called aloud on the name of the deliverer and he came, swift as the arrow from the bow of a master-archer.

  “Charles!” she cried. “Charles, seize him! Hold him!”

  And Charles, coming headlong into that dark place like a shaft of live white light, seized him, and held, by the leg.

  Mr. Schultz did his best to defend himself, but he had no stick, and no blows of the human fist confused or troubled that white bullet head, no curses affected it, and against those white teeth no kicks or struggles availed.

  “Hold him! hold him!” she cried, the joy of vicarious battle lighting her eyes.

  “Confound it!” said Schultz. “Call the devil off.”

  “I will,” said she, “from the top of th
e stairs. And I’ll leave you this for comfort: If you behave yourself for the future I won’t tell my husband about this. He’d half kill you.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Schultz, even with Charles’s teeth quietly but persistently boring his leg. “I don’t know so much about that.”

  “I do,” she said, with almost the conviction of the woman in love. “You’d better stay here till we’ve gone away. I’m not ungrateful for what you did for me on that day, and if you never dare to speak to me again I’ll never tell.”

  “I don’t care what you tell,” said Schultz. “Call the devil off, I say.”

  She ran up the stairs, and at the top called out, “Charles, drop it. Come here, sir.”

  And Charles dropped it and came.

  It was then for the first time that she felt that she was Charles’s mistress, even as Edward was Charles’s master.

  The dog and the woman went out together into the sunshine, and there, between blue sky and green grass, embraced with all the emotions proper to deliverer and delivered. When Edward rejoined them, five minutes later, she was able to say, quite calmly:

  “Yes, he found me out. He is clever. He is a darling.”

  “He deserves a jolly good hiding,” said Edward, “and I’ve a jolly good mind to give it to him.”

  “Let him off this time,” she said, “it was so clever of him to find me out. He hadn’t hurt any of the sheep, had he?”

  “No,” said he, “but he might have.”

  “Oh, if we come to might-have-beens,” said she, “I might not be here, he might not be here. We all might not be here. Think of that. No, don’t look at him with that ‘wait-till-I-get-you-home’ expression. Forgive him and be done with it.”

  And when she looked at him like that, as he told himself, what could he do but forgive the dog?

  “Why,” he said, “of course I’ll forgive him!” adding, with one of those diabolical flashes of insight to which our subconscious selves are sometimes liable. “Why, I’d forgive Schultz himself if you asked me like that.”

  “It isn’t Mr. Schultz I want you to forgive,” she said, “it’s Charles — Charles that I love.”

  “Not Schultz whom you like.”

  “I hate Schultz,” said she, so vehemently that he wondered. Because always before she had defended the man and called him kind and helpful. It was, however, so pleasant to him that she should hate Schultz that he put his wonder by to taste that pleasure.

  She had the self-control to wait till they were gliding through the streets of Warwick before she said, “Do you want to stay here any longer?”

  “Not if you don’t,” said he.

  “I should like to go to Chester,” she said, “now — this evening. Would you mind? There’s such lots to see, and something might happen at any moment to stop our—”

  “Our incredible honeymoon?” he said. “But what could?”

  “Oh, Aunt Alice might be ill and want me” — and hated herself for the words. The moment she had uttered them she felt that in using her as a defense she had almost as good as called down the wrath of the gods on Aunt Alice, whom she loved. “Oh, a thousand things might happen,” she added, quickly.

  “My lady’s will is my law,” said Edward, and within an hour or two they were on the way to Chester. Charles did not, this time, make his journey in the dog-box. She smiled on the guard, and Charles traveled in a first-class carriage with his master and his mistress. He sat between them and was happy as only they can be happy who have combined duty and pleasure. He had chased sheep — this was obviously not wrong, since master had not punished him for it. He had bitten a stranger at mistress’s bidding. Mistress was evidently one who sympathized with the natural aspirations of right-minded dogs. Charles knew now how much he loved her. He leaned himself against her, heavily asleep, now and then growling softly as he slept. His mistress felt that in his dreams he was still biting Mr. Schultz. He was.

  XVI. CAERNARVON

  SOMEHOW or other Chester failed to charm. Neither of them could understand why. Perhaps the Stratford Hotel had given them a momentary surfeit of half-timber; perhaps the fact that the skies turned gray and substituted drizzle for sunshine had something to do with it; perhaps it was the extreme badness of the hotel to which ill-luck led them, a hotel that smelt of stale seed-cake and bad coffee and bad mutton-fat, and was furnished almost entirely with bentwood chairs and wicker tables; perhaps it was the added aggravation of seeing a river which might have been to them a second Medway, and seeing it quite impossible and miserably pitted with little rain-spots. Whatever the reason, even next morning’s sunshine and the beauty of the old walls and the old walks failed to dispel the gloom. They bought rain-coats and umbrellas in a shop that had known ruffs and farthingales, paid their hotel bill, which was as large as the hotel was bad, and took the afternoon train to Caernarvon.

  The glimpse of Conway Castle from the train cheered them a little. The sight of the sea did more — but still he felt a cloud between them, and still she felt more and more that he was aware of it. Charles sat between them, as before, and over that stout white back his eyes met hers.

  “What is it?” he asked, suddenly. “Yesterday I thought it was the half-timber and the rain — this morning I thought it was yesterday, but it isn’t. Something’s happened that you haven’t told me.”

  She turned her eyes from his and stroked the flappy white ears of Charles.

  “Hasn’t it?” he urged. “Ah, you will tell me, won’t you? Was it something from the aunts?”

  For there had been letters that morning, sent on from Warwick.

  “No, the letters were all right. Everybody’s furious except Aunt Alice, but she’s the only one that matters.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s almost gone,” she said. “Oh, look at the rocks and the heather on that great hill.”

  “Then there was something,” he said; “something you won’t tell me.”

  “Not won’t,” she said, gently.

  “Can’t? Something that’s happened and you can’t tell me?”

  He remembered how on the last night at Warwick he had held that hand of hers against his face. They had seemed so very near then. And now there was a gulf suddenly opened between them — the impassable gulf of a secret — a secret that was hers and not his.

  “Yes, something did happen and I have promised not to tell you. If ever I can, I will.”

  “Something has come between us and you have promised not to tell me what it is?”

  “Oh no — no!” she said, very earnestly, and her dear eyes looked full in his. “Nothing has come between us — nothing could—”

  He realized, with some impatience, that Charles, at least, was between them. But for Charles he could, quite naturally and ayant l’air de rien have leaned a little toward her as he spoke — so that his shoulder might, perhaps, if she had leaned also, have just touched hers. But across Charles this could not be. And to lean, after the removal of Charles, would bear an air of premeditation not to be contemplated for an instant.

  “If it’s nothing that comes between us—” he said. “But even then, it’s something that’s made you sad, made you different. I suppose, though, it’s unreasonable to expect that there shall be no secrets between any two human beings, no matter how — how friendly they are,” he ended, with conscious lameness.

  “Of course it’s unreasonable,” she said; “it would mean, wouldn’t it, that neither of us could ever be trusted by any one else? Whereas now people can tell you things they wouldn’t want to tell me, and tell me things they wouldn’t care about telling you.”

  “Then this — I’m not worrying you to tell me — but if it is somebody else’s secret—”

  “Well, it is,” she said. “Now, are you satisfied? And if you’ll only let me look at the sea and the mountains and the heather the Chester cloud will go right away. It’s nearly gone now. And I’ve never seen any real mountains before, not mountains like these,
with warm colors and soft shapes — only the Pyrenees and the Maritime Alps, and they look just like white cardboard cut into points and pasted on blue sugar-paper — that’s the sky.”

  “It’s prettier at sunrise, with the mountains like pink and white sugar, and Corsica showing like a little cloud over the sea. We had a villa at Antibes when I was a little chap, before we lost our money. We’ll go there again some day, shall we, and see if the mountains have changed at all? Not this winter, I think. I’ve never had an English winter free from work I didn’t like. I must have just this one. You don’t mind?”

  What he hoped she wouldn’t mind was less the English winter than his calm assumption that there was plenty of time, that they would always be together and might go where they would and when — since all the future was before them — all the future, and each other’s companionship all through it.

  “Why should I mind?” she answered. “I’ve never had a free winter in England, either, or anywhere else, for that matter.”

  “Then that’s settled,” said he, comfortably, “and you can’t think what a comfort it is to me that you don’t hate Charles. You might so easily have hated dogs.”

  “If I’d been that sort of person I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Ah, but Charles might so easily have been the one kind of dog you couldn’t stand. He’s not everybody’s dog, by any means. Are you, Charles? Of course it’s almost incredible that this earth should contain people who don’t like Charles, yet so it is.”

  “The people he’s bitten?”

  “Oh, those!” said Edward, adding, with a fine air of tolerance, “I could almost find excuses for them — they’ve not seen the finer aspects of his character. No, there are actually human beings to whom Charles’s personality does not appeal — persons whom he has borne with patiently, whom he has refrained from biting, or even sniffing at the trousers legs of. Prejudice is a mysterious and terrible thing. Oh, but it’s a good world — all the same.”