Short Stories 1895-1926

by Walter De la Mare

  On 15th July my aunt came by herself into the breakfast-room, and immediately rustled to me who was sitting in the window-seat, basking in the sun. The sunlight seemed to caress her frailty, to cling to her old laces, her muslins and her trinkets. ‘I am afraid, dear Edmond, your uncle is not quite the thing today,’ she said affably. ‘He seems a little feverish, I think. He tossed in the night, and this morning he was so impatient with his clothes. He alarmed me, dear.’

  Just then my uncle walked into the room. He walked in jerks, and collided brutally with the table. When the sunlight fell upon him, I noticed a sullen bruise upon his forehead. His arms swung in time to his legs, his left to his left, his right to his right. He lurched directly towards me. I dodged deftly. He sat down upon the corner of the settee, in the place which I had vacated. A fly was buzzing upon the hot windowpane. My aunt stood at my side with her left hand over her mouth. My uncle’s head was wagging slowly to and fro. The sun blazed upon his face and scanty hair.

  ‘Like a sunbeam,’ said he. ‘Like a sunbeam in winter swift and keen. That stone thudded. Another beacon! The city is bloody with flames. No moon tonight. Run, run, run! He’ll be met by those mouldy faces. A twist. By the throat!’ My uncle’s hand clenched upon the blind-cord and relaxed.

  ‘Edmond, Edmond,’ chirruped my aunt.

  The venetian blind crashed down upon my uncle’s skull. He hauled it up without a word, turning fleeting, red, flaming eyes upon us. My aunt knelt down at his feet and set to slapping his hands. I broke the bell-cord, and dashed cold milk into his face, for there was no water.

  ‘The thunder is breaking. The heavens belch their fires; see – like a worm, like a wasp. He’ll escape them; he must, he must. Oh God! in their thousands they leap, they scurry, and flee like dead leaves in my garden. Savage and crazy, and implacable as ice. Ah! the granite griffin! He is under, he is under. See the hag, the lewd hag. The air is pitch and bespattered. The wind shivers. Now growls the thunder, their feet are oats rustling. Oh me! Twist, double, under!’

  The maid entered, carrying a dish of kidneys. She stood in the doorway looking at my uncle. My aunt continued to slap his hands and to call plaintively, ‘John, John!’

  ‘Lo!’ he screamed with gaping mouth. ‘He is caught, he is trampled upon and wounded. I am caught. Oh! where the white men with kindly white faces? Are there no white men? None? The granite towers wriggle in their seats. My boy Edmond, my boy, he has turned his face – poor white dead face. He is hand in hand with death … he is away, he climbs. They are many as swarming bees. See, hurrah! hurrah!’ (His cheer was thin as the song of a wire in the wind.) ‘The white men! My boy, very few. Every thought lives for — We are careless, we are careless. Clutch tight to thy seat, wan mote of a man. Do not heed their savagery. Kiss the cold stone, mote of a man, look to heaven through the lightning-rents. Lucy, your hand, your kind hand. All is ungodly tiny.’

  The maid went away.

  ‘Now they fight – in their thousands they gather. Their growl frightens the night. Wan and lurid, mouldy and green and lascivious. He crouches and shakes and sweats on his perch. The smell of blood is sharp to the tongue. The white men fall. They are trampled down. The sky is shaken. The swift tongues of flames are black, for the sky is open – opens wide. It is the light of day. I heard the sound of many — It is just. Oh, mote of a man!’ My uncle’s tongue clucked in his throat. He grew silent. His whole body shook spasmodically. The fly buzzed in the sun and danced. Presently my uncle rose to his feet. With neck outstretched (as though led by a halter) he walked across the room. Out by the glass doors into the conservatory he went. The hot, heavy scent of his housed flowers rallied behind him and fought with the smell of the kidneys. On my uncle walked between the red pots, and out into the garden where the birds made clamour in the dappled leaves and the earth was alive with insects. He stepped down gingerly upon the gravel and immediately set to running, and as he ran he cried out and flung his arms into the air. The door-frame shut him from me. My aunt and I followed quickly after him. My aunt came first into the garden. When I skipped into the sunlight I saw him again. He was running amuck in the orchard, maddened by blows from the tree trunks and the low-hanging swaying boughs. He frisked hither and thither, to and fro. My aunt hung upon my arm, and with a wee scream greeted every dull blow. I heard the maids sobbing in the kitchen. There was no cloud to hide the sun. Wounded and battered and panting, all sudden in the midst of a blind rush he stopped still and stark. He clasped his hands about his neck. Then with child-steps he laboured patiently toward us. Without doubt or fear he walked over grass and flower-beds until he came to my aunt. He sat down on the low garden seat, saying ‘Lucy, Lucy.’ Then he was silent.

  1 First published in Cornhill Magazine, August 1896, ‘by Walter Ramal’; later published in Eight Tales, ed. Edward Wagenknecht, Sauk City, Wisconsin, 1971.

  The Village of Old Age1

  Far away from the noise and fret of men’s business I had lived, content to find new joys in the passing days, and to welcome, year by year, with unfailing serenity, the placid monotony of fair days and foul, the coming and the flying of the swallows, the springing and the falling of the leaf.

  And it was with the sad farewells of the summer that my mother bade me goodbye. With her falling to sleep the world in some dim fashion was changed to me. Strange and sombre tints sobered the autumn; the birds piped a softer note of melancholy; the dawn came but to prophesy the twilight. In the wish to rid myself in some degree of a growing distaste for my fellows, an ever-increasing moodiness of mien, I set out from my haven of rest into the busy tideways of the world. ‘Surely,’ thought I, ‘friends are many, and welcome will be freely given me. I will die laughing, and die then of over-ripeness.’ But soon I found that men forget and seldom wish to remember; that friends once so charming and so flattering see the world through keener eyes; that tongues once mellifluous taste the bitterness of life, and that ready hands have too great labour to wave greetings to one risen from the silence of the past. Vexed and disappointed, with sore heart and ill at ease, I bethought myself of Basil. Thank God, cross-roads sometimes have the same goal. I was full of hot enthusiasm to meet him face to face. What a medley of wit and philosophy his name recalled to me! One who would choose a path of thistles to flout the gardener of roses. A fellow at whom death winked, of eternal youth and heartiness. ‘I will go to him; he will understand,’ thought I.

  Hopeful as a child I set out to find him. Nor was I greatly disturbed to find his place empty. I made my way to the village whither report was that my friend had fled, and came to a sleepy place of ancient cottages, of silent, deserted streets, and of calm weather. I asked lodging of the grey landlord of the inn. He considered me with filmy eyes. He was a man shrunken and weak-kneed, with open toothless jaws. The days of summer he spent sunning himself in his garden of vegetables, and trembling over the log fire in his brick-floored hall in days of wintry weather.

  ‘Aye, if Janie be within,’ said he. ‘The streets be damp, and, mebbe, a mouldy stench, by God a’ mercy, thou’lt sleep no’ the worse.’

  ‘What of the waking, my friend?’ said I gaily.

  ‘Aye, what of the waking,’ said he, ‘if the slumbering be quiet and easy? Who’ll heed the fret of the day? The graveyard for a’, the graveyard for a’.’

  I eyed him askance – this echo of a man – and rallied him with a loud laugh and in bluff manner.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said I, ‘’tis a place in which to crow, is the graveyard. Pshaw! we are live men. We go one better than the mouldering bones with their scanty record, that is not a moment’s thought. I sit on a tombstone and see a cheerier sun and a blither day for the stuffing of my seat.’

  ‘I would no’ doubt thou’rt a stranger to these parts,’ said the old man with weary lids. ‘Ye canno’ know the place.’

  He rose from his straw cushions and tottered on feeble knees into the shadow of the narrow courtyard of lichen-grown stones which led to the house. And at his goin
g the place seemed wondrous cheerless and quiet. The sky was blue almost to purple, and not any cloud showed in the vast expanse. The trees wore the green of spring in this month of July; but the hum of insects, the twitterings of birds, were not on the air. An empty kennel, from which crawled a rusty chain, stood in the shadow of the high wall, and a crazy dovecot leaned against the red bricks, over which climbed a cherry-tree in rich profusion of leaves. The fragrance of the flowers, the rich scent of the earth, sluggishly intermingled in the faint wind. ‘Surely a sweet place of repose,’ thought I. ‘I will purchase pigeons and a crowing cock, and I will keep bees.’

  Footsteps sounded hollowly on the stones, and the old man, followed by a feeble crone, came out of the cool shadow into the sunlight. I was mistaken. A young girl followed the old man, but pale, and bent, and hollow-cheeked, with fettered limbs and scanty hair. A beldame of ninety was the old man’s niece of sixteen.

  ‘My uncle says, “Get ready a bed,”’ said she in a weak, monotonous voice.

  ‘Yes,’ said I, boisterously, ‘I would like to make a meal, too. Gracious me, lass, my hunger is a savage monster bellowing for meat.’

  The old man was gone back to his chair.

  ‘There be cheese and ale,’ said she.

  ‘And a pretty maid to smile over the froth,’ said I.

  ‘A pretty maid,’ said she, as though it were the refrain of some doleful ballad.

  ‘Have you no meat – a fat leg of mutton or a red sirloin of beef, eh! with brown Yorkshire pudding?’

  ‘There be bread and cheese,’ said she with a quaver. Her head almost rested on her shoulder.

  ‘Then Hunger shall wake Fancy,’ said I. ‘Fetch out for me some bread and cheese – I will eat it here, in this sunny place, with the landlord – and a good tankard of ale. That’s it, my dear.’

  I bent and kissed her cheek, giving her arm a little pinch. I am past the fopperies of youth, and it grieved my heart to see the maid so feeble and woebegone. She simply turned without quip or toss of head, and went back into the house, out of the sunlight over the cobblestones. An old crow came cawing high up in the sky. I watched him with eagerness until my eyes could see him no longer. Then I turned to the old man, thinking to take my seat at his side. But seeing no chair, I went after the maid. The air in the courtyard was cool, and pleasant, and cleanly, breathing the fresh scent of malt and a not unpleasing mustiness as of a wine cellar. Behind an open casement I caught sight of a maid washing dishes. I popped my head in at the window.

  ‘Now, my pretty, would you give me a plump, easy chair?’ said I. ‘I would keep your master company in the sunlight.’

  The pallor and the weariness of her face astonished me. I withdrew my head rather ungraciously, and hastily climbed the steep stone steps, and so into the house. Fearing to pry or to intrude myself upon the secrecy of the place – secrecy! however absurd such an attribute be for a tavern open to wayfarers – I took the first chair that I saw, a chair with stiff wooden arms. With some pother and groaning I carried it back to the old man by the way I had come. I sat down beside him, and lazily set to smoking. Surely the blue smoke of a reverend pipe was no desecration to the placid place. Yet the old man’s slow turn of head and his unobtrusive sick glance of wonderment, and of curiosity, and of entreaty even seemed a plaintive remonstrance; and almost unthinkingly I watched the smoke as it was bandied to and fro and swallowed up by the thin air, and let my pipe grow cold as it hung between my lips. We sat silent in the mellow sunlight. The shadow of the inn crawled over the garden until it encroached even upon us sitting there; until the old man’s hair was half-burnished silver and half-dull lead.

  Eagerly had I come to the inn, full of enthusiasm at my search for my friend Basil being come to an end; now, notwithstanding, I lolled there in my chair without a word of inquiry, without the desire to speak or to know, in lethargy serene, and well content to sit with the old clown in the silence till night should come down and the twinkle of candles in the windows of the inn should call us to rest. Presently, however, came the maid, carrying a tray upon which was spread my meal. She brought to my knees a low three-legged table and set the tray thereon. The sight of the brown bread and the yellow cheese richly enlivened me, and when the maid, having gone again to the house, returned with a pint tankard of old ale I almost laughed aloud. I rose, and, with a pretty bow to the maid and a wink to the landlord, took a long pull at the stuff, gazing over the froth as I did so at the weathercock upon the inn top, all of a glitter in the reddening sun. When I replaced the tankard upon the table the maid had already tottered a few steps towards the house. I called loudly. The sound of my voice seemed as sudden as a clap of thunder in the quiet place.

  ‘No, no, my dear,’ said I, ‘you must give a tired traveller your pretty company and chat with him. There are some few questions I wish to put ye.’

  She turned about with her right hand upon her bosom and her red hair falling in wisps upon her wrinkled forehead. She came very slowly and stood a few paces distant. I slashed at the loaf with excessive zest.

  ‘Poor soul!’ whimpered the old man. ‘A right eno’ lassie was Janie, ruddy as a winter apple; aye, full of trickins and jollity. Dear God! and a wisp, dear God, the graveyard for a’, the graveyard for a’.’

  ‘But, sir,’ said the maid, facing the sun, ‘here it do seem a wearisome long journey to the yard. Most of us be old folks e’en at fifteen, but in the yard not a one under ninety. I do miss me fayther’s farmyard. I look for the jangle of bells and the baa of the sheep. And my fayther had a daw. Here the day is always noon, and the night la! a wearyin’ hour for the spirits to walk.’

  ‘Tut, tut, you want a holiday,’ said I, chewing my bread and cheese, for I was very hungry. The neighbours should wake a clamour in this mossy place, should rummage and drive away the silence. ‘Pon my word, you shall take a walk with me this very sunset.’

  The old man smiled at his apple trees, heavy with young fruit. ‘Thou be’st a stranger for sure – naybours!’

  Then I remembered with new surprise how barren and deserted was the high road, how empty were the fields, and how desolate the gardens.

  ‘The lassie shall take a walk on my arm,’ said I, ‘and see that God made the world.’

  ‘I would no’ think that God might be so cruel,’ said the maid.

  I jumped in my chair. ‘Will you drink with me, sir?’ said I with pomposity to the landlord, but I could not otherwise than stare at the red-haired, meagre girl in the sunlight.

  ‘Nay,’ said the old man, ‘I’ll not drink with thee. Jollity eno’ for the morn, a gaudy dizened jollity, but for what is t’ end of ’t? – a rainbow in sleeping-time. And then the going down of the red sun. Sure we play wi’ our toys, and a lean wisdom clucks i’ the throat and calls ’em bubbles. Mebbe God’s i’ the bubble. Who knows? He drives us all into the pen. The day be late. The dew falls very heavy at times.’

  I was sick of speech, and set to my victuals with poor simulation of relish. When I had finished my joyless meal, I spoke again. Try as I would, my voice was bereft of its ring; weariness was again stealing upon me. ‘I have come a long distance to find a friend. Men have pointed me out this village, have told me that here I shall find him. Pray, sir, do you know my friend, Mr Basil Gray?’

  The old man never turned his palsied head. He peered at me vacantly out of the corners of his feeble eyes. ‘I know none o’ the name,’ said he.

  ‘He lives in the Grey House,’ said the maid; ‘an old man wi’ beautiful silver hair. I know him, sir, in the Grey House, where the owls hoot o’ nights, and ivy bursts in at the windows.’

  ‘Silver hair!’ said I, in dismay. ‘His hair is black, and his voice loud and full. Good people, you live in this remote nook out of the world, and you look at all things through an old man’s spectacles. Silver hair! … Now, my pretty maid, you shall show me the house. I am tired of being alone. Fancy this, I have not a friend alive but Mr Gray. In the midst of a hale, hearty life to be alone! F
ancy it! Now, little maid, come away.’

  I thought the old man smiled faintly at something in my speech. I cannot say. I spoke very tenderly, for a sudden pity and a new sympathy had come into me for the frail child. Perhaps some day I shall need the like, thought I. So I put my arm round her waist, and we went together into the house. When we reached the steep steps I saw upon the topmost a little child. This pleased me greatly. ‘And whom does this mite, this flower-maiden belong to?’ said I. ‘Now, little one, come and play with me. Many years have gone by since I was a little child. Come along. Put on the bonnet, and we will gather pretty posies and weave daisy-chains. Dear me, it seems that my mother taught me but yesterday.’

  I talked like a pantaloon. The little child climbed up and stood in the doorway, its tiny thin finger in its mouth, and its round grey eyes looking into my eyes, and looking out at something far away, something which seemed to catch my breath, to lay an icy finger upon my heart.

  ‘I am tho tired,’ lisped the little creature; ‘and mummy thayth the pothieth ’ll die in my hot hands.’

  I said never a word, but still with my arm round the maid’s waist, for she seemed to have become an unwonted comfort to me, we passed into the house. The maid led me through the tiled passages upon which the red sun shone. The reflected ruddiness of the bricks prettily reddened her cheek. Together we went up the wide and twisted staircase and into a little room, clean and white, which overlooked the old man sitting solitary in the garden. Far away in the soft blue haze were the ruinous tower of the church and the beckoning gravestones.