‘My word!’ said he, when he saw the last of their dear backs. ‘They told me they’ve enjoyed ’emselves, but they haven’t done half the things they said they would.’
‘I know they’ve enjoyed themselves – immensely,’ said the mother. ‘You’re a public benefactor, dear.’
‘Now we can be quiet again, can’t we?’
‘Oh, quite. I’ve a very dear friend of mine that I want you to know. She couldn’t come with the house so full, because she’s an invalid, and she was away when you first came. She’s a Mrs Lacy.’
‘Lacy! I don’t remember the name about here.’
‘No; they came after you went to India – from Oxford. Her husband died there, and she lost some money, I believe. Theybought The Firs on the Bassett Road. She’s a very sweet woman, and we’re very fond of them both.’
‘She’s a widow, didn’t you say?’
‘She has a daughter. Surely I said so, dear?’
‘Does she fall into trout-ponds, and gas and giggle, and “Oh, Major Cottar!” and all that?’
‘No, indeed. She’s a very quiet girl, and very musical. She always came over here with her music-books – composing, you know; and she generally works all day, so you won’t—’
‘Talking about Miriam?’ said the pater, coming up. The mother edged toward him within elbow-reach. There was no finesse about Georgie’s father. ‘Oh, Miriam’s a dear girl. Plays beautifully. Rides beautifully, too. She’s a regular pet of the household. Used to call me—’ The elbow went home, and, ignorant but obedient always, the pater shut himself off.
‘What used she to call you, sir?’
‘All sorts of pet names. I’m very fond of Miriam.’
‘Sounds Jewish – Miriam.’
‘Jew! You’ll be calling yourself a Jew next. She’s one of the Herefordshire Lacys. When her aunt dies—’ Again the elbow.
‘Oh, you won’t see anything of her, Georgie, She’s busy with her music or her mother all day. Besides, you’re going up to town tomorrow, aren’t you? I thought you said something about an Institute meeting?’ The mother spoke.
‘Go up to town now! What nonsense!’ Once more the pater was shut off.
‘I had some idea of it, but I’m not quite sure,’ said the son of the house. Why did the mother try to get him away because a musical girl and her invalid parent were expected? He did not approve of unknown females calling his father pet names. He would observe these pushing persons who had been only seven years in the county.
All of which the delighted mother read in his countenance, herself keeping an air of sweet disinterestedness.
‘They’ll be here this evening for dinner. I’m sending the carriage over for them, and they won’t stay more than a week.’
‘Perhaps I shall go up to town. I don’t quite know yet.’ Georgie moved away irresolutely. There was a lecture at theInstitute on the supply of ammunition in the field, and the one man whose theories most irritated Major Cottar would deliver it. A heated discussion was sure to follow, and perhaps he might find himself moved to speak. He took his rod that afternoon and went down to thresh it out among the trout.
‘Good sport, dear!’ said the mother from the terrace.
‘’Fraid it won’t be, mummy. All those men from town, and the girls particularly, have put every trout off his feed for weeks. There isn’t one of ’em that cares for fishin’ – really. Fancy stampin’ and shoutin’ on the bank, and tellin’ every fish for half a mile exactly what you’re goin’ to do, and then chuckin’ a brute of a fly at him! By Jove, it would scare me if I was a trout!’
But things were not as bad as he had expected. The black gnat was on the water, and the water was strictly preserved. A three-quarter-pounder at the second cast set him for the campaign, and he worked downstream, crouching behind the reed and meadow-sweet; creeping between a hornbeam hedge and a foot-wide strip of bank, where he could see the trout, but where they could not distinguish him from the background; lying almost on his stomach to switch the blue-upright (black gnat tail-fly) sidewise through the checkered shadows of a gravelly ripple fenced on three sides by overarching trees; or throat-deep in the rank hemlocks. But he had known every inch of the water since he was four feet high. The aged and astute between the sunk roots of trees, with the large and fat that lay in the frothy scum below some strong rush of water, sucking as lazily as carp, came to trouble in their turn, at the hand that duplicated so delicately the flicker and wimple of an egg-dropping fly. That was so consoling an afternoon that Georgie found himself five miles from home when he ought to have been dressing for dinner. The housekeeper had taken good care that her boy should not go empty, and before he changed to the white moth he sat down to excellent claret with sandwiches of potted egg and things that adoring women make and men never notice. Then back, the pipe between his teeth, to surprise the otter grubbing for fresh-water mussels, the rabbits on the edge of the beechwoods foraging m the clover,and the policeman-like white owl stooping to the little field-mice, till the moon was strong, and he took his rod apart, and went home through well-remembered gaps in the hedges. He fetched a compass round the house, for though he might have broken every law of the establishment every hour, the law of his boyhood was unbreakable: after fishing you went in by the garden back door, cleaned up in the outer scullery, and did not present yourself to your elders and your betters till you had washed and changed.
‘Half-past ten, by Jove! Well, we’ll make the sport an excuse. They wouldn’t want to see me the first evening, at any rate. Gone to bed, probably.’ He skirted by the open French windows of the drawing-room. ‘No, they haven’t. They look very comfy in there.’
He could see his father in his own particular chair, the mother in hers, and the back of a girl at the piano by the big potpourri jar. The gardens looked half divine in the moonlight, and he turned down through the roses to finish out his pipe.
A prelude ended, and there floated out a voice of the kind that in his childhood he used to call ‘creamy’ – a full, true contralto; and this is the song that he heard, every syllable of it:
Over the edge of the purple down,
Where the single lamplight gleams,
Know ye the road to the Merciful Town
That is hard by the Sea of Dreams –
Where the poor may lay their wrongs away,
And the sick may forget to weep?
But we–pity us! Oh, pity us!
We wakeful; ah, pity us! –
We must go back with Policeman Day –
Back from the City of Sleep!
Weary they turn from the scroll and crown,
Fetter and prayer and plough –
They that go up to the Merciful Town,
For her gates are closing now.
It is their right in the baths of Night
Body and soul to steep:
But we–pity us! ah, pity us!
We wakeful; oh, pity us! –
We must go back with Policeman Day –
Back from the City of Sleep!
Over the edge of the purple down,
Ere the tender dreams begin,
Look–we may look–at the Merciful Town,
But we may not enter in.
Outcasts all, from her guarded wall
Back to our watch we creep:
We–pity us! ah, pity us!
We wakeful; oh, pity us! –
We that go back with Policeman Day –
Back from the City of Sleep!
At the last echo he was aware that his mouth was dry and unknown pulses were beating in the roof of it. The housekeeper, who would have it that he must have fallen in and caught a chill, was waiting to catch him on the stairs, and, since he neither saw nor answered her, carried a wild tale abroad that brought his mother knocking at the door.
‘Anything happened, dear? Harper said she thought you weren’t—’
‘No; it’s nothing. I’m all right, mummy. Please don’t bother.’
He did not rec
ognise his own voice, but that was a small matter beside what he was considering. Obviously, most obviously, the whole coincidence was crazy lunacy – ‘blind rot.’ He proved it to the satisfaction of Major George Cottar, who was going up to town tomorrow to hear a lecture on the supply of ammunition in the field; and having so proved it, the soul and brain and heart and body of Georgie cried joyously: ‘That’s the Lily Lock girl – the Lost Continent girl – the Thirty-Mile Ride girl – the Brushwood girl! I know her!’
He waked, stiff and cramped in his chair, to reconsider the situation by sunlight, when it did not appear normal. But aman must eat, and he went to breakfast, his heart between his teeth, holding himself severely in hand.
‘Late, as usual,’ said the mother. ‘This is my son, Miss Lacy.’
A tall girl in black raised her eyes to his, and Georgie’s life training deserted him – just as soon as he realised that she did not know. He stared coolly and critically. There was the abundant black hair, growing in a widow’s peak, turned back from the forehead, with that peculiar ripple over the right ear; there were the grey eyes set a little close together; the short upper lip, resolute chin, and the known poise of the head. There was also the small, well-cut mouth that had kissed him.
‘Georgie – dear!’said the mother, amazedly, for Miriam was flushing under the stare.
‘I – I beg your pardon!’ he gulped. ‘I don’t know whether the mother has told you, but I’m rather an idiot at times, specially before I’ve had my breakfast. It’s – it’s a family failing.’ He turned to explore among the hot-water dishes on the sideboard, rejoicing that she did not know – she did not know.
His conversation for the rest of the meal was mildly insane, though the mother thought she had never seen her boy look half so handsome. How could any girl, least of all one of Miriam’s discernment, forbear to fall down and worship? But deeply Miriam was displeased. She had never been stared at in that fashion before, and promptly retired into her shell when Georgie announced that he had changed his mind about going to town, and would stay to play with Miss Lacy if she had nothing better to do.
‘Oh, but don’t let me throw you out. I’m at work. I’ve things to do all the morning.’
‘What possessed Georgie to behave so oddly?’ the mother sighed to herself. ‘Miriam’s a bundle of feelings – like her mother.’
‘You compose, don’t you? Must be a fine thing to be able to do that. [‘Pig – oh, pig!’ thought Miriam.] I think I heard you singin’ when I came in last night after fishin’. All about a Sea of Dreams, wasn’t it? [Miriam shuddered to the core of the soulthat afflicted her.] Awfully pretty song. How d’you think of such things?’
‘You only composed the music, dear, didn’t you?’
‘The words too. I’m sure of it,’ said Georgie, with a sparkling eye. No; she did not know.
‘Yes; I wrote the words too.’ Miriam spoke slowly, for she knew she lisped when she was nervous or unhappy.
‘Now how could you tell, Georgie?’ said the mother, as delighted as though the youngest major in the army were ten years old, showing off before company.
‘I was sure of it, somehow. Oh, there are heaps of things about me, mummy, that you don’t understand. Looks as if it were goin’ to be a hot day – for England. Would you care for a ride this afternoon, Miss Lacy? We can start out after tea, if you’d like it.’
Miriam could not in decency refuse, but any woman might see she was not filled with delight.
‘That will be very nice, if you take the Bassett Road. It will save me sending Martin down to the village,’ said the mother, filling in gaps.
Like all good managers, the mother had her one weakness – a mania for little strategies that should economise horses and vehicles. Her menfolk complained that she turned them into common carriers, and there was a legend in the family that she had once said to the pater on the morning of a meet, ‘If you should kill near Bassett, dear, and if it isn’t too late, would you mind just popping over and matching me this?’
‘I knew that was coming. You’d never miss a chance, mother. If it’s fish or a trunk, I won’t.’ Georgie laughed.
‘It’s only a duck. They can do it up very neatly at Mallett’s,’ said the mother, simply. ‘You won’t mind, will you? We’ll have a scratch dinner at nine, because it’s so hot.’
The long summer day dragged itself out for centuries; but at last there was tea on the lawn, and Miriam appeared.
She was in the saddle before he could offer to help, with the clean spring of the child who mounted the pony for the Thirty-Mile Ride. The day held mercilessly, though Georgie got down thrice to look for imaginary stones in Rufus’s foot.One cannot say even simple things in broad light, and this that Georgie meditated was not simple. So he spoke seldom, and Miriam was divided between relief and scorn. It annoyed her that the great hulking thing should know she had written the words of the song overnight; for though a maiden may sing her most secret fancies aloud, she does not care to have them trampled over by the male Philistine. They rode into the little red-brick street of Bassett, and Georgie made untold fuss over the disposition of that duck. It must go in just such a package, and be fastened to the saddle in just such a manner, though eight o’clock had struck and they were miles from dinner.
‘We must be quick!’ said Miriam, bored and angry.
‘There’s no great hurry; but we can cut over Dowhead Down, and let ’em out on the grass. That will save us half an hour.’
The horses capered on the short, sweet-smelling turf, and the delaying shadows gathered in the valley as they cantered over the great dun down that overhangs Bassett and the Western coaching-road. Insensibly the pace quickened without thought of mole-hills; Rufus, gentleman that he was, waiting on Miriam’s Dandy till they should have cleared the rise. Then down the two-mile slope they raced together, the wind whistling in their ears, to the steady throb of eight hoofs and the light click-click of the shifting bits.
‘Oh, that was glorious!’ Miriam cried, reining in. ‘Dandy and I are old friends, but I don’t think we’ve ever gone better together.’
‘No; but you’ve gone quicker, once or twice.’
‘Really? When?’
‘Georgie moistened his lips. ‘Don’t you remember the Thirty-Mile Ride – with me – when “They” were after us – on the beach road, with the sea to the left – going toward the lamp-post on the downs?’
The girl gasped. ‘What – what do you mean?’ she said hysterically.
‘The Thirty-Mile Ride, and – and all the rest of it.’
‘You mean—? I didn’t sing anything about the Thirty-Mile Ride. I know I didn’t. I have never told a living soul.’
‘You told about Policeman Day, and the lamp at the top of the downs, and the City of Sleep. It all joins on, you know – it’s the same country – and it was easy enough to see where you had been.’
‘Good God! – It joins on – of course it does; but – I have been – you have been – Oh, let’s walk, please, or I shall fall off!’
Georgie ranged alongside, and laid a hand that shook below her bridle-hand, pulling Dandy into a walk. Miriam was sobbing as he had seen a man sob under the touch of the bullet.
‘It’s all right – it’s all right,’ he whispered feebly. ‘Only – only it’s true, you know.’
‘True! Am I mad?’
‘Not unless I’m mad as well. Do try to think a minute quietly. How could any one conceivably know anything about the Thirty-Mile Ride having anything to do with you, unless he had been there?’
‘But where? But where? Tell me!’
‘There – wherever it may be – in our country, I suppose. Do you remember the first time you rode it – the Thirty-Mile Ride, I mean? You must.’
‘It was all dreams – all dreams!’
‘Yes, but tell, please; because I know.’
‘Let me think. I – we were on no account to make any noise – on no account to make any noise.’ She was staring between Dandy
’s ears, with eyes that did not see, and a suffocating heart.
‘Because “It” was dying in the big house?’ Georgie went on, reining in again.
‘There was a garden with green-and-gilt railings – all hot. Do you remember?’
‘I ought to. I was sitting on the other side of the bed before “It” coughed and “They” came in.’
‘You!’ – the deep voice was unnaturally full and strong, and the girl’s wide-opened eyes burned in the dusk as she stared him through and through. ‘Then you’re the Boy – my Brushwood Boy, and I’ve known you all my life!’
She fell forward on Dandy’s neck. Georgie forced himself out of the weakness that was overmastering his limbs, and slidan arm round her waist. The head dropped on his shoulder, and he found himself with parched lips kissing the low, white forehead and babbling things that up till then he believed existed only in printed works of fiction. Mercifully the horses were quiet. She made no attempt to draw herself away when she recovered, but lay still, whispering, ‘Of course you’re the Boy, and I didn’t know – I didn’t know.’
‘I knew last night; and when I saw you at breakfast—’
‘Oh, that was why! I wondered at the time. You would, of course.’
‘I couldn’t speak before this. Keep your head where it is, dear. It’s all right now – all right now, isn’t it?’
‘But how was it I didn’t know – after all these years and years? I remember – oh, what lots of things I remember!’
‘Tell me some. I’ll look after the horses.’
‘I remember waiting for you when the steamer came in. Do you?’
‘At the Lily Lock, beyond Hong-Kong and Java?’
‘Do you call it that too?’
‘You told me it was when I was lost in the continent. That was you that showed me the way through the mountains?’
The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales Page 45
