Short Stories for Children

by Walter De la Mare

  ‘There are a few old oak pews in the little church, with heads carved upon them, and one or two have side seats that draw out from beneath into the aisle. On one of these I sat down, so that while I could be intent on my daisy-chain – just to show I had something to do there – I could see out of the corner of my eye the open door by which I had come in. And I hadn’t very long to wait.

  ‘In the midst of the faint singing of the wild birds, out of the light that lay beyond the stone church wall I spied her come stealing. My heart almost stopped beating, nor did I turn my head one inch, so that my eyes soon ached because they were almost a-squint with watching. If you can imagine a figure – even now I cannot tell you how tall she was – that seems to be made of the light of rainbows, and yet with every feature in its flaxen-framed face as clearly marked as a cherub’s cut in stone; and if you can imagine a voice coming to you, close into your ear, without your being able to say exactly where it is coming from – that was what I saw and heard beneath that grey roof down there on that distant morning, seventy-five years ago. The longer I watched her out of the corner of my eye, the more certain I became that she was using every device she knew to attract my attention, even that she was impatient at my stupidity, and yet that she could not or that she dared not cross the threshold. And so I sat and watched her, fumbling on the while with my limpening daisy-stalks. Many strange minutes must have passed like this.

  ‘At last, however, having fancied I heard a footfall, I was surprised out of myself, and suddenly twisted my head. She too had heard, and was standing stiller than a shadow on snow, gazing in at me. I suppose thoughts reveal themselves in the face more swiftly than one imagines. I was partly afraid, partly longing to approach closer. I wished her to realize that I longed for her company, but that danger was near, for I was well aware whose step it was I had heard. And, as I looked at her, there came a sharpness into her face, a cold inhuman look – not of fear, but almost of hatred – and she was gone. More intent than ever, I stooped over my daisies. And in the hush there was a faint sound as of an intensely distant whistle.

  ‘Then a shadow fell across the porch, and there was Miss Jemima. It’s a strange thing, Susan, but Miss Jemima also did not enter the church. She called to me from where she stood, in almost a honeyed voice: “Breakfast is ready, Susan.”’

  ‘I can imagine exactly how she said that, Grannie,’ said the little girl, ‘because my name’s Susan, too.’

  ‘Yes, my dear,’ said the old lady, squeezing her hand. ‘It was passed on to you from me by your dear mother just because it was mine. And I hope you will always be the Susan I have now.’ … From near at hand upon the hill a skylark suddenly took its flight into the evening blue. The old lady listened a moment before going on with her story.

  ‘Well,’ she began again, ‘I gathered up my apron and walked towards Miss Jemima down the aisle. Suddenly there came a slight rumbling noise, which I could not understand. Then instantly there followed a crash. And at Miss Jemima’s very feet, in the sunlight, I saw lying a piece of stone about the size of a small plum pudding. Miss Jemima gave a faint scream. Her cheek, already pale, went white; and she stared from me to the stone and back again, as I approached her.

  ‘“You were talking in there to someone – in God’s church,” she whispered harshly, stooping towards me. “To whom?”

  ‘I shook my head, and stood trembling and gazing at the stone.

  ‘“Look into my face, you wicked child,” she whispered. “Who were you talking to in there?”

  ‘I looked up at last. “It’s empty,” I said.

  ‘“There’s a lying look in your eyes!” cried Miss Jemima. “And you are the child that goes into a sacred place to weave daisy-chains! Turn your face away from me. Do you hear me, miss? Miserable little sorceress that you are!”

  ‘The word seemed to flame up in my mind as if it had been written in fire on smoke; and still I stared at the stone. I felt but did not see Miss Jemima steadily turn her head and look around her.

  ‘“A few inches,” she added in a low voice, “and you would have killed me.”

  ‘“Me!” I cried angrily. “What has it to do with me, Miss Jemima?”

  ‘“Ah!” said she. “We shall know a little more about that when you have told me what company you find here where your poor uncle might hope to be at rest.”

  ‘It’s a dreadful thing to confess, Susan, but up to that moment, though I had again and again cried by myself at memory of him, though tears were always in my heart for him, I hadn’t thought of my uncle that morning.

  ‘“And perhaps,” added Miss Jemima, “bread and water and solitude for a day or two will help to loosen your tongue.”

  ‘I followed her without another word across the fields, and in a few minutes was alone once more in my bedroom with a stale crust and a glass of water to keep me company.

  ‘I should think that if my angry tears had run into the water that morning they would have actually made it taste salt. But I cried so that not even a mouse could have heard me. Every other thought was now out of my mind – for I dared not even talk to myself about the stone – but that of getting away from the house for ever. One thing I could not forget, however. And that was the word “sorceress”. It terrified me far more than I can tell you. I knew in my young mind that Miss Jemima was treating me wickedly, however wicked I had been, and I knew too, in fear and horror, that the stone might not have fallen by accident. I had seen the look on the Fairy’s face and…’ The old lady suddenly broke off her story at this point, and looked about her in alarm. ‘My dear, we must go at once; the dew is beginning to fall, and the air is already colder.’

  ‘Oh, Grannie,’ said the child, ‘how I wish we might stay – a little, little longer!’

  ‘Well, my dear, so do I. For I am old, and I shall never see this place again. It brings many memories back. Who knows what might have happened if——’

  ‘But, Grannie,’ interrupted the child hastily, picking up the umbrella from the grass. ‘Please tell me the rest of the story straight, straight, straight on as we go back.’ It seemed to Susan, so rapt was her grandmother’s face at that moment, and so absent her eyes – that she could not have heard her. Those small aged eyes were once more looking carefully down on the scene below. For an instant they shut as if the old lady had thought so to remember it more completely. And then the two of them began slowly to climb the hill, and the story proceeded.

  ‘No one disturbed me during that long morning,’ continued the quiet voice, ‘but in the afternoon the door was unlocked, and Miss Jemima opened it to show in a clergyman, Mr Wilmot, who conducted the service in the church every other Sunday. I won’t tell you all he said to me. He was a kind and gentle old man, but he didn’t so much as think it possible there was any being or thing in the churchyard but its birds, its tombstones, and now and then a straying animal. He only smiled about all that, nor did he ask me Miss Jemima’s question.

  ‘He took my hand in his great bony one and begged me to be a good little girl. And I see his smiling face as he asked it. “Not only for your mother’s sake,” he said, “but for ‘goodness’ sake.’”

  ‘“I am sure, my dear,” he went on, “Miss Jemima means to be kind, and all that we have to do is to mean to be good.”

  ‘I gulped down the lump in my throat and said, “But don’t you think sorceress is a very wicked word?”

  ‘He stood up, holding both my hands in his. “But my poor little lamb,” he cried, “Miss Jemima is no more a sorceress than I am a Double Dutchman!” And with that he stooped, kissed the top of my head, and went out of the room.

  ‘In a minute or two his footsteps returned. He opened the door an inch and peeped in. “Why, we are better already!” He smiled at me over his spectacles. Then he came in, carrying a plate with a slice of bread-and-jam upon it, and a mug of milk. “There,” he said, “there’s no sorcery in that, is there? And now you will be an obedient and gentle child, and think how happy your mother will be
to see you?”’

  ‘I think,’ said Susan stoutly, ‘that that Mr Wilmot is one of the kindest men I ever knew.’

  Her grandmother looked down on her with a peculiar smile on her face. ‘He was so kind, Susan, that I never mentioned to him that the blackberry-jam on the bread was not a great favourite of mine! A moment after the sound of his footsteps had died away I heard the key once more in the lock. And what did I say to myself when he was gone? I looked forlornly at the plate, then out of the window, and I believe, Susan, that I did what they sometimes describe in the story books – I wrung my hands a little, repeating to myself, “He doesn’t understand. No! No! He doesn’t understand.”

  ‘In an hour or two, Miss Jemima herself opened the door and looked in. She surveyed me where I sat, and then her glance fell on the untouched slice of bread-and-jam.

  ‘“Ah,” said she, “a good man like Mr Wilmot cannot realize the hardness of a stubborn heart. I don’t want to be unkind to you, Susan, but I have a duty to perform to your mother and to your poor dead uncle. You shall not leave this room until you apologize to me for your insolence of this morning, and until you tell me whom you were speaking to in the church.”

  ‘The lie that came into my mind – “But I was not speaking to anyone, Miss Jemima” – faded away on my tongue. And I simply looked at her in silence.

  ‘“You have a brazen face, Susan,” said she, “and if you grow up as you are now, you will be a very wicked woman.”’

  ‘I think,’ said Susan, ‘that was a perfectly dreadful thing to say, Grannie.’

  ‘Times change, my dear,’ said the old lady. ‘And now – well, it is fortunate there is very little more to tell. For this hill has taken nearly all the breath out of my body!’

  The two of them stood now on the crest of the hill. The light was beginning to die away in the sky, and the mists to grow milkier in the hollows of the flat country that lay around and beneath them. Far, far away, facing them across the world, a reddish-coloured moon was rising. From far beneath them a dog barked – it might be from dead Miss Jemima’s farmyard. The little church surrounded by its low wall seemed to have gathered in closer to its scattered stones.

  ‘Yes, Grannie, dear?’ breathed Susan, slipping her hand into the cotton-gloved one that hung near. ‘What then?’

  ‘Then,’ replied her grandmother, ‘the door was locked again. Anger and hatred filled that silly little body sitting in the bedroom, and towards evening I fell asleep. And I must have dreamed a terrifying dream, though when I awoke I could not remember my dream – only its horror. I was terrified at it in that solitude, and I knew by the darkening at the window that it must be at least nine or ten o’clock. Night was coming, then. I could scarcely breathe at the thought. Another mug of milk had been put beside the plate; but I could not even persuade myself to drink any of it.

  ‘Then in a while I heard Miss Jemima’s footsteps pass my room. She made no pause there, and presently after I knew that she had gone to bed, having not even troubled to look in on her wretched little prisoner. The hardness of that decided me.

  ‘I waited until it seemed certain she was asleep. Then I tiptoed over to the door, and with both hands softly twisted the handle. It was still locked. Then I went to the window and discovered, as if the fairy creature herself had magicked it there, that a large hay-wain half full of hay, its shafts high in the air, had been left drawn up within a few feet of my window. It looked dangerous, but it was not actually a very difficult jump even for a child of my age; and I believe I should have attempted it if there had been no cart at all. My one wild thought was to run away. Anywhere – so long as there was no chance of Miss Jemima’s ever finding me again. Could you ever have dreamed of such a little silly, Susan?

  ‘But even in that excited foolish moment I had sense enough left – before I jumped out of the window – to take a warm woollen jacket out of my chest-of-drawers, and to wrap my money-box up in a scarf so that it should not jangle too much. I pulled my letter up from its cranny in the wainscot by its thread, and put it on the pink dressing-table. And at that moment, in the half dark I saw my face in the looking-glass. I should hardly have recognized it. It looked nearly as old, Susan, as I do now.’

  ‘Yes, dear Grannie,’ said Susan.

  ‘Then I jumped – without the slightest harm to myself. I scrambled down into the yard and, keeping close to the house, crept past the kennel, the old sheepdog merely shaking his chain with his thumping tail a little as I passed. And then, as soon as I was beyond the tall stone gateposts, I ran off through the farmyard, past the barns, and along the cart-track as fast as I could.’

  ‘But not,’ cried Susan almost with a shout in the still air, ‘not to the churchyard, Grannie. I think that was the most wonderful thing of all.’

  ‘Not so very wonderful, my dear, if you remember that I was now intensely afraid of the fairy, after seeing that look of evil and hatred in her face when Miss Jemima was approaching the church. Something in me, as you know, had never ceased to counsel me, Don’t be deceived by her. She means you no good. I cannot explain that; but so it was. Yet all the time I had been longing to follow wherever she might lead. Why she should wish to carry off a human child I don’t know, but that she really wanted me I soon discovered for certain.

  ‘If you follow the tip of my umbrella, you will now just be able to see, Susan, that great meadow sloping upwards beyond the farm. But I don’t think even your sharp eyes will detect the circle of old grey stones there. They are called the Dancers, and though I was dreadfully frightened of passing them in the darkness, this was the only way to take. Gradually I approached them, my heart beating beneath my ribs like a drum, until I had come near.

  ‘And there, lovelier than ever, shining in that dark as if with a light of her own, and sitting beneath the largest of the Dancers directly in my path, was She. But this time I knew she was not alone. I cannot describe what passed in my heart. I longed to go on, and yet was in anguish at the thought of it. I didn’t dare to look at her, and all I could think to do was to pretend not to have seen her at all. How I found the courage I cannot think. Perhaps it was the courage that comes when fear and terror are almost beyond bearing.

  ‘I put my money-box on to the grass; the scarf was already wet with dew. Then, very slowly, I put my black jacket on and buttoned it up. And then, with my eyes turned away, I walked slowly on down the path, between the Dancers, towards the one that is called the Fiddler, in their midst. The night air here was cold and still. But as I approached the stone, it seemed as if the air was full of voices and patterings and sounds of wings and instruments. It terrified and bewildered me; I could think of nothing.

  ‘I just kept saying, “Oh, please, God; oh, please, God!” and walked on. And when at last I came to the stone, the whole world suddenly seemed to turn dark and cold and dead. And then! Apart from the ancient stone, jutting up out of the green turf as it had done for centuries, there was not a sign, not a vestige, Susan, of anything or anybody there!’

  ‘I think I can just see the stone, Grannie, but I don’t think I could dare to be alone there in the dark, not for anything – anything in the world … I expect it was what you said made the Fairy go. And then, Grannie?’

  ‘Then, Susan, my heart seemed to go out of me. I ran on, stumbling blindly for a little way, then lost my balance completely over a tussock of grass or a mole-heap and fell flat on my face. Nettles too! Without any words that I can remember, I lay praying in the grass.

  ‘But even that did not turn me back. I got up at last and ran on more slowly, and without looking behind me, across the field. Its gate leads into a by-road. It was padlocked, and as I mounted to the top my eyes could see just above a slight rise in the ground, for the lane lies beneath a little hill there.

  ‘And coming along the road towards me there were shining the lamps of a carriage. I clambered down and crouched in the hedge-side, and in a few moments the lamps reappeared at the top of the incline and the horse came plod-ploddi
ng along down the hill. It was a wonderful summer night, the sky all faint with stars. What would have happened if it had been cold or pouring with rain, I cannot think. But because it was so warm, the air almost like milk, the hood of the carriage was down.

  ‘And as it came wheeling round by the hedge-side, I saw in the filmy starlight who it was who was sitting there. Neither horse nor coachman had seen me. I jumped to my feet and ran after the carriage as fast as my legs could carry me, screaming at the top of my voice, “Mother, Mother!”

  ‘Perhaps the grinding of the wheels in the flinty dust and the thump of the hoofs drowned my calling. But I still held tight to my money-box, and though it was muffled by the scarf in which it was wrapped, at each step it made a dull noise like a bird-scare, and this must at last have attracted my mother’s attention. She turned her head, opened her mouth wide at sight of me – I see her now – then instantly jumped up and tugged at the coachman’s buttoned coat tails. The carriage came to a standstill …

  ‘And that,’ said the old lady, turning away her head for one last glance of the countryside around her, ‘that is all, Susan.’

  Susan gave a last great sigh. ‘I can’t think what you must have felt, Grannie,’ she said, ‘when you were safe in the carriage. And I can’t——’ But at this point she began to laugh very softly to herself, and suddenly stood still. ‘And I can’t think either,’ she went on, ‘what Miss Jemima must have thought when you and Great-Grannie knocked at the door. You did tell me once that she opened her bedroom window at the sound of the knocking, and looked out in her nightdress. I expect she was almost as frightened as you had been, amongst those Dancers.’