Short Stories 1895-1926

by Walter De la Mare

  There was a crevasse a few hundred yards beyond the valley beneath us. The meteor had at its impact split earth’s shallow, brittle crust, and this was the scar. Drop him and his charge into that, down there – well, it would be a final exit for them both.

  Time was flitting by and darkness had come before we rose from where we had seated ourselves at the edge of the track. The thick dust muffled our footsteps; the languid sweetness of the autumnal air was still resonant with the clashing cries of tiny ardent creatures exulting in their brief moment of life. My companion seemed to be in no apprehension of being missed from the house. It was her custom to wander in these solitudes alone in the evening.

  I think of her there in the earlier days when love and marriage, when that tranquil shrine of light and loveliness, and these hills and unravished valleys were still new to her and still seemingly inexhaustible in romance and delight and promise. But now … For twelve solid months, she assured me, but one single stranger, and he only an enterprising hobo, had come their way; and hoboes prefer a different welcome from the one this particular hobo received. Twelve months: to her of waste and weariness; and I – I would all but sell my soul for but one week of it!

  Well, there is no more story left. She asked me, she seemed to expect me, to come again the following evening. And I hadn’t the courage to tell her it would be my last. I half-promised to do so, realizing none the less, I know, that it was only a half-promise and without much genuine intention behind it. What could I do? What purpose would there be? I have asked myself the question a thousand times. I am sick of it.

  You yourself, I am sure, would vouch for my staidness and respectability even to an Income Tax Inspector. But then you are a seasoned sophisticated wretch. You enjoy looking at life steadily, especially when its back is turned. But what, say, of Blanche? What would she have said, do you think, if, like the Good Samaritan, I had brought the lady home in my hold-all? But that, yet again, does not arise. The one and only question that does is this: What kind of me was there for porter? My old jaded mind is utterly incapable of anything that America would recognize as ordinary hospitality. And there is a hospitality of the spirit.

  You will notice I am facing the delicate situation not exactly with sang froid, but with a hideous insensibility. I am not intending that. I am trying not to excuse, not even to explain, but to express my feelings then – the most obvious being that I hadn’t the faintest wish in the world to enter that secret shrine again and to stand beneath that gilded sun. The mere thought of it was distasteful to the last degree. It had been an ‘event’ in my uneventful existence – an initiation, a mystery, if you like; and it was over.

  But apart from that, I see now (though not then, I swear) that other hidden door, ajar: that other shrine and gilded sun; enraying the secrecy of this desolated creature’s mind and heart. Whatever, too, I may have said to the contrary, her company was strangely moving, strangely exciting. And I mean the company not merely of her mind and personality, but of her body. There was something in her face, her talk, her presence, that suggested an infinity of interest and suppressed activity. Some human beings are not merely intensely life-giving; but one realizes that the mystery of them is infinite – their reserves. You never get to the end of them. They may say the same thing a thousand times and it is always different. A Will-o’-the-wisp or a Kindly Light, whichever it may be, leads you on.

  I guessed too, vaguely, the hoard of day-dreams and speculations which she was keeping back, which she could not express or had not the heart to express; which yet, given the opportunity, might have found their ease and happiness. Let me, at risk of banality and worse, be even more explicit. It was as if we two, for the century of a passionate moment, had been in love, and that in that moment I myself had exhausted that strange and terrifying experience. And then so far as I was concerned – then, not now – only ashes, ennui, disillusionment. And yet, I blame it less on myself than on the stone – its dream, its nightmare. And how could I justify that – say, to an English jury? It’s monstrous I should be writing like this; but it must stand.

  ‘You will be going back to England soon?’ she said to me after a long pause, and when we were about to say good-bye. I nodded, listening on and on to the broken syllables of that England; and once more silence edged in between us. Her face was close to mine in the dark. I was conscious of her breathing, that tears were in her eyes; conscious too of that other vision of her during the few minutes that had transcended these as manna transcends unleavened bread. If only the sister-meteorite of that ravished visitor below could at that instant have descended out of the intense inane and blotted me out.

  We parted. I did not go back. There was no opportunity unless I had positively wrenched one out of the preposterous circumstances in which I was placed, and at instant risk of discovery. She would have bitterly resented any suggestion that I should share her confidences, however trustworthy the confidant. That was certain. I could not even send her a word of explanation or of apology. There was no address. What she thought of me during the weeks that followed I can only guess. It does not much matter now, does it?

  As a matter of fact, it was only by chance I ever heard of her again. The day before yesterday there came by post, from Flora, a newspaper already a fortnight old. She had marked in it a column containing the account of a tragedy that had recently taken place ‘not many miles distant from us’. She thought I might be ‘interested’ in it, as the people concerned, though unknown to her personally, were neighbours of hers – as neighbours go, that is, in Virginia. Interested!

  There is no mistaking who these neighbours were. Having paused over its headlines, read the cutting I enclose and tell me what you think of it, and even what you think of me too if you feel inclined and have the patience. I can only assume that the one death was not self-inflicted, assume that – well, as I say, read it.

  To me the worst horror of the account is not so much that my visit may have been the occasion of some fatal quarrel, but that that old, humpbacked, greying negro was all but lynched on account of it, and that he died of the shock. But not, I gather, before he had consigned his master and his miserable talisman to the abyss prepared for them. I see it, shining there through the ages with only those mouldering bones on which to waste its paradisal radiance – that eyeless skull. But there is an eye of the mind, and mine is still awake. Centuries hence, when we and all we stand for may in turn have become ‘prehistoric’, other ‘humans’ may find it there. What will those humans be like, I wonder – mind and body? What will be their reactions to the fire and lustre and communings of the thing?

  But, as I say, I am sick of the whole experience and of its faintest remembrances. It has been an inexpressible relief even to rid memory of it like this, to express it as plainly as I can. At thought of it my mind becomes liked a sucked orange. ‘“Traditore!”’ Do you remember the old gentleman in The Pavilion on the Links? ‘Traditore!’ And yet, Why? What actually did I do or leave undone that sickens me so? What was there in this unintelligible ordeal that still eludes me?

  Three or four evenings ago a friend of mine nearly suffocated me with the strains of a gramophone record. It was Alma Gluck who was singing; accompanied by a male chorus resembling molasses and rum. And the tune was:

  ‘Carry me back to Old Virginny,

  Dat’s where de cotton’ [and the words

  elude me] ‘grow,

  Dat’s where de birds warble sweet in de

  Spring-time …’

  But then, I was never in Virginia in the spring-time …

  UNCOLLECTED STORIES

  Kismet1

  The man in the cart, when he reached the top of the long hill up which the old mare had been steadily plodding, was rejoiced to spy against the whiteness of the road beyond the figure of a man walking. For, although he was of a taciturn disposition, and cared little for company, yet on this night he felt lonely. At times, even, he had peered timorously between the trees that overshadowed the roadway, an
d had started in affright when the ring of the hoofs on the frozen ground had roused some bird from sleep, and the sound of its swift flight could be heard, growing gradually fainter, till hushed in the distance. Uncanny stories had flocked up from forgotten stores of memory, and, with the creeping of his flesh, haunting fancies had come that grim shapes were gathering behind him. With a shudder at the dread thought, he had pulled the collar of his heavy coat about his ears, and so had sat, almost fearful to breathe.

  But now, as he leisurely drove down the steady decline, the sight of the lonely figure in the distance restored his usual stupidity; defiantly he hummed under his breath a song brimming over with blasphemy against all midnight loiterers other than those of the flesh, to which song the mare put back her ears, and hearkened in astonishment.

  As he drew slowly nearer to the traveller, suddenly a great, deep voice came leaping through the cold air, roaring out the swinging chorus of some song of the sea; the man in the cart stopped dead in his crooning, and listened in amazement to the intense happiness that rang in every note. The music in the song seemed to run in his blood – a shudder shook him from head to foot. The song ceased as suddenly as it had begun; the traveller had heard the noise of the approaching cart, and was now waiting at the side of the road till it should come up with him.

  The driver pulled up near at hand, and eyed the stranger with some curiosity; the mare also turned her head to gaze wonderingly at him for a moment, then shook herself, till every scrap of metal on her harness rang again. The stranger startled the man in the cart when he spoke, so intent was his stare.

  ‘How far might it be to Barrowmere?’ inquired the man on foot.

  ‘Nigh on seven mile,’ replied the driver, with wonder in his brain at a man possessing the courage to walk alone at midnight through the still country lanes.

  ‘Thanks,’ said the stranger shortly, in a bluff, hearty voice, then turned as if to continue his tramp.

  The driver watched him a few paces. ‘He’s a seaman,’ he muttered to himself, ‘and I don’t make no doubt but he’s going home,’ after which reflection he was about to gather up the reins to continue his interrupted journey, when his whole face lit up at the brilliant charitable idea that, as he was taking much the same way as the other, he should offer him a lift in the cart. His plump cheeks grew hot with virtuous pride as he shouted, ‘Hi! Was it Barrowmere you said?’

  The man wheeled round smartly. ‘Barrowmere it was!’ he sang out in answer.

  ‘I be going to Barrowmere,’ said the driver. ‘There’s room enough behind if you want a lift.’

  The stranger with the joyous resonant voice strode back, and swung himself into the cart with a muscular jerk.

  ‘P’raps you’ll sit there,’ said the driver, pointing with the butt of his whip to a tarpaulin-covered box at the bottom of the cart.

  There the stranger sat himself down. ‘Thankee,’ he said.

  A peculiar smile sped over the driver’s face as he shook the reins and drove on without another word.

  By degrees he grew morose and sulky. He blamed the traveller for accepting his hospitable offer.

  The stranger, who was muffled to the chin in a thick pea-jacket, made a vain attempt to converse with the driver, but finding him both unwilling and witless, he turned his attention to his more pleasant thoughts. His suntanned face beamed at the thought of the meeting with his wife soon to come about, he chuckled audibly as he imagined her surprised delight, and he rubbed his hands for the twentieth time when the full subtlety of his little joke in not letting her know the day of his return was again forced upon him.

  The full moon flooded the fields with light, making them appear even colder than in reality they were; a very slight fall of snow and a sharp frost had clothed the trees and hedges in a shimmering glory of sparkling white. Not a sound was in the air save the buzz of the cart’s wheels, the steady beat of the hoofs, and an occasional shuddering snort from the mare. The cold was severe, at times compelling both men to beat their arms upon their bodies to restore the running of their blood.

  Maybe it was the intense silence, maybe the lonely hour of the night, that oppressed the spirits; but there slowly crept over the traveller, who until now had been in so genial a humour, a stern sobriety, a vague presage of impending disaster, an unreasonable mistrust of his former jollity, so that he sat dumb and perplexed on his seat in the cart, watching the sharpdrawn shadows of the trees upon the white road flit silently by, eyeing with stealthy suspicion the burly, bowed body of the driver, and the while ardently desiring the eager arms of his wife.

  The traveller got upon his feet in the cart and peered over the driver’s shoulder. He could see, in the hollow ahead, the first outlying cottage of the village, and the blood surged up in his body as one by one the well-remembered landmarks of home came into view.

  His heart yearned for the shelter of his house, for the kiss of the loved woman: he reminded himself of the mate of his little craft, who knew no friend in the world to give him welcome.

  The driver looked back over his shoulder at the stranger, and muttered huskily, ‘That be Barrowmere yonder.’

  The stranger paid him no heed; at the same moment the notion had come into his head that he would get down from the cart and travel the remainder of the journey on foot; he had no mind that his surly companion should witness his meeting with his wife. So he tapped him on the shoulder. The man turned sulkily; he was bidden pull up, and obeyed with sullen tardiness. The seaman leaped out at the back, tossed a coin to the man, who pocketed it with a nod of thanks and drove on again; the peculiar smile reappeared as he muttered to something between the ears of the old mare.

  ‘I do hope, now, he finds it easy.’

  And the man of the sea was trudging slowly along the country lane towards his home; he was rejoiced to be free from his unfriendly companion; his good spirits began to return to him; when, on a sudden, the piteous, wailing howl of a dog struck upon his ears – terror seized upon him for a moment, so that he gasped for breath and trembled as he walked. Bitterly he cursed the land; he vowed he would carry his wife away to the sea and never touch England again.

  With almost unwilling footsteps, he approached the bend in the road where his cottage would come into view; every tiny twig in the hedgerows was its own self in glass, not a cloud obscured the living heavens, only the pitiless, cold stare of the moon upon all and the silence of death. It ate into the heart of the man as he walked; he feared greatly, though he knew not why nor what manner of thing he feared. With bated breath, he turned the corner; there lay his home, peaceful under the white moonlight; but his surprise was great at seeing the cart he had journeyed in at a standstill before the little rustic gate. The man, apparently, had entered the house, for the horse was standing with hanging head, its reins tied to the gate-post, awaiting its driver. He walked quietly towards the house, with that strange misgiving at his heart. When he reached it, he feared to enter. He looked into the cart; the box he had used as a seat had gone. He made a weak attempt to laugh his fears down, but failed miserably.

  The windows facing the roadway were in pitch darkness; no sign was there that life was within. The seaman crept with muffled footsteps to the back of the house, and there rose into the night again the desolate howling of a dog. He leant over the rough wooden rail and called softly. The dog – his dog – whined joyously, straining at its chain to welcome its master.

  He leapt over the low fence; the idea crossed his mind that he was using his own house like a thief in the night. He paused for a moment, perplexed at the sudden beam of light which had dazzled his eyes. He glanced up to discover whence it came; the curtains had been drawn across one of the windows, but had not met, thus leaving a narrow space through which the bright rays of light were streaming out upon the night from within – it was the window of his bedroom.

  With fitful breath he crept over to the dog, and fondled it for a while, but still keeping his eyes fixed upon that lonely beam of light. The dog l
icked its master’s hand in unrestrained joy at his return.

  And there came into the man’s mind a fervent desire to look in through that window. He struggled with himself to restrain the impulse, and to knock boldly at the door, but his wild forebodings and fears of unknown evil conquered him. He looked round for some means by which he might reach the window.

  A large tree grew a few yards from the house, a bough of which jetted out towards the window; he remembered that, when he had lain awake on summer nights gone by, he had heard it tapping against the pane. With reluctant steps, he crawled to the tree, clasped a projecting knot, and began to climb the weather-worn trunk. With much labour he scrambled on till at last he reached the bough that ran out towards the house. His hands were numb with the frost and cold. Slowly he crept on, trembling and panting. One last painful effort, and he lay on the branch, with his face toward the window, the light beaming out into his blue eyes.

  Gradually he grew accustomed to the glare; he saw plainly into the room.

  He saw the bed shrouded in a white sheet; he saw the mother of his wife, kneeling at its head, bend over and gently lift the sheet; he saw the still, pallid face of his dead wife; he saw the driver of the cart pass across the rift between the curtains, carrying the coffin on which he had sat in his joyous ride to his home. A rush of blood blinded his eyes and sang in his ears; he clawed madly at the bough of the tree with his stiff fingers. As he swung in the air, his breath shook him, his teeth chattered and bit into his tongue. He heard with strange distinctness the whispering voices of the night, the stealthy movements in the little room; he saw all things as he stared.