She saw some footprints! Footprints! They came down on the beach and apparently into the water, then out again, and disappeared in the woods on a narrow path which Eepersip had not noticed before.
But she was not interested in where they went to or where they came from. Her only thought was to get away – away. It was then too late to go out in the sea again – that is, far from shore. The sun was about to set. She would spend the night there, and then she would wander again. So she lay down and went to sleep.
The next morning when she woke up she was not alone. A little golden-haired boy with sky-blue eyes was looking at her. They looked at each other for a long time.
‘Who are you?’ he ventured at last.
Here was a puzzler. ‘Eepersip Eigleen,’ she answered. ‘I mean,’ she added doubtfully, ‘I was.’
‘Who are you now, then?’
‘I don’t know exactly.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘I haven’t any name now. I’m just somebody. Have you any name?’
‘Yes – Toby – Toby Carrenda.’
‘Do you live here in the woods?’
‘Yes.’
‘In a house?’
He looked at her curiously a moment; then he said: ‘Yes, of course – don’t you?’
‘NO!’
‘How funny!’
‘Yes, it is.’ With a little reluctance – ‘Will you play with me?’
Strange: here was Eepersip, who detested people, asking a little boy to play with her! It was simply that she, not having seen any children for a long time, was fascinated by this small boy who seemed so unafraid of her and so natural.
They wandered together on the beach and picked up shells. Then Eepersip asked the little boy if he liked to swim.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But do you think I’d better?’
‘Yes – why not?’
‘All right.’
So he took off all his clothes and went in with her, and they splashed each other and had a lovely time. Eepersip wanted to make him a mermaid dress, but there was no seaweed right there and she didn’t want to leave him. So they went into the woods to find some ferns to make him a nymph dress. She found a beautiful ferny glade, and sat down and began to weave ferns together, talking to him at the same time. When it was all done he was delighted.
‘But, please,’ he said, ‘can’t I have a shell, too?’
He touched the shell strung up on her seaweed dress. They looked all over the beach, and at last they found another shell with a hole all the way through. Then he was entirely content.
They went into the woods together and picked flowers, and Eepersip showed him how to make fern dresses and how to weave wreaths of flowers. They went into a grove of unlit white pines and danced there together. Finally the little boy said: ‘I’m hungry, Eeserpip.’
‘It’s Eepersip,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t matter much. I’ll find you something to eat.’ After a while they found some flame-coloured berries, and then Eepersip dug up some white roots of which she was fond.
The boy said: ‘This is jolly, it is. Is this the way you get your food?’
‘Always,’ she said.
They played a while longer, and then someone called.
Eepersip had a strange feeling at that moment. She could not help feeling a certain reluctance when she had first played with him; then she had decided that he could not have anything to do with the civilized people she hated so. He must be separate from them, perhaps even a wild thing like herself. She felt a sensation of horror when this strange voice sounded. Then he was not alone – then he lived in a house with other people!
Startled, she cried: ‘Who’s that?’
‘My mother,’ he answered.
‘Then you don’t live here all by yourself?’ She had a bitter feeling of disappointment.
‘Oh, no.’
‘I wish you did.’ This escaped her before she could think. Strange, that some magic power in this child had already made her say as much as she had said.
‘I must go now,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘But I’ll be out this afternoon – I guess.’
Eepersip fell on her knees in front of him and said entreatingly: ‘Will you do something for me?’
‘I will – maybe.’
‘Don’t tell anybody about me.’
‘Why?’
‘Never mind why, but don’t, will you?’
‘I want to.’
‘Then I won’t play with you any more.’
‘All right, Eepersip. I won’t.’ She looked at him doubtfully. ‘I promise you I won’t. Goodbye. I like you.’
Eepersip was delighted with her little friend. She waited anxiously for him to come out. Presently he came.
‘Eepersip,’ he said, ‘will you swim with me again?’
They went in again, and this time Eepersip showed him how to swim, by holding him up while he kicked with his arms and legs. After a long time he could swim a little bit by himself and then Eepersip took him to some rather high rocks and showed him how to jump in. At first he wouldn’t do it alone; she took his hand and they jumped in together. After that he did it alone, and screamed with laughter when he came up. Then Eepersip showed him how to go in head first, and he had so much faith in her that he tried it right off. Although he went rather flat, he liked it very much. The next time Eepersip bent him ’way over before he went in, and he straightened out and hit the water clean as an arrow. That was much better, he said.
Eepersip asked him what his mother had said about the fern dress, for he had gone in so quickly that he had forgotten his own clothes. He said that she had asked him about it, and he had said that he found it. Eepersip thanked him for not telling about her.
But she was discovered in spite of her caution. One day when they were playing in the woods, Mrs Carrenda came out and found them. Eepersip dashed for the waves immediately, in spite of the fact that Toby’s mother called: ‘Don’t run away, little girl, I won’t hurt you!’
But Toby began to cry bitterly. ‘Why did you send her away, Mother?’
‘I didn’t, Toby. She ran as soon as I came. Who is she?’
That Toby did not answer. There were two instincts equally strong struggling within him – one to obey his mother and the other to do what the strange girl asked him to with the threat of refusing to play with him if he did not.
‘I can’t tell you, Mother,’ he said courageously.
It would have been as true if he had said ‘I don’t know’, for he knew nothing but her name, after all. However, he never stopped to think that knowing her name was not all there was to knowing her.
Mrs Carrenda wisely pursued the matter no further; but she determined to keep watch.
Eepersip was much more cautious after this. She was always on the lookout. Several times Toby asked her why she didn’t want to be seen. But she would not answer him. She was, however, very kind in all other respects. Several times Mrs Carrenda found Toby playing with her, but never spoke or let him know. She saw that Eepersip played nicely with him and that they liked each other much; so she did not interfere. Once, however, she put her hands suddenly on Eepersip’s shoulders from behind and said kindly: ‘Little girl, don’t be afraid of me.’
Eepersip sprang to her feet, stared wildly a moment and then dashed off straight to the sea. But for fear of making Toby very unhappy, Mrs Carrenda never questioned him about her.
She and her husband had many anxious conferences together. Her husband thought that it was exceedingly risky to let Toby play so unwatched with Eepersip, but Toby’s mother did not feel that way at all. Then they talked over the matter of who she was.
One day Eepersip was peeping into the house to see if she could find Toby, for he had not been out to play with her. Looking into the dining room, she saw him there, eating luncheon with Mr and Mrs Carrenda. They were talking anxiously, and she was curious, and listened.
‘I have it,’ said Mr Carrenda suddenly. ‘Don’t you remember those people –
the Eeglines or Eigleens – that came over to the hill near Mount Varcrobis where we lived before we came here? Who wanted to know if we had seen a strange little girl, dressed all in ferns? She is the Eigleens’ lost little girl.’
Mrs Carrenda looked puzzled. ‘They told us, you know, that they had given up all hope of having Ee – ee – serpip’ (Toby started violently) ‘back again –’
‘Oh yes, I remember now.’
‘– When Fleuriss came, and –’
‘Oh yes, it all comes back to me now. They were making a great effort to find her and entice her back home by telling her about her baby sister.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why, Father,’ said Toby, ‘Eepersip –’ He suddenly saw her in his mind, kneeling in front of him, begging him not to tell – and he said no more. Nobody noticed his remark.
A moment Mrs Carrenda gazed at her husband, astounded. Then she said: ‘I believe it is so. Let us send word to them right off.’
‘No,’ said Mr Carrenda, bluntly. ‘Supposing they came all the way down here. Supposing the plan failed. Mrs Eigleen would only be unhappier than ever. We’ll just have to let them alone for a while. Supposing we try it. Supposing it fails. Mrs Eigleen will never know. Supposing it succeeds. They will be much happier, and we shall have made some staunch and grateful friends.’
‘Oh, let’s try it!’ agreed Mrs Carrenda,
‘I bet Eepersip – Ee-serpip, Eeserpip, Eepersip, Eeserpip, Eepersip – funny name! – I bet she’ll go home fast when she finds out.’
‘Perhaps – but she is like a sea nymph now. How strange it is! Well, it’s worth trying, at any rate.’
Eepersip had listened with growing amazement – fascinated, entranced. But when they paused in their conversation, the charm was broken that had held her there. She sped away into the woods. She came to a place that she knew well, a glade surrounded by ferns and a few wild rose bushes now in bloom.
She had a little sister! – it was too much. And that little sister haunted her dreams and her imagination, making everything seem less joyful than before. She felt a strange longing – the longing to see her. She might be several years old now. Eepersip had forgotten what a ‘year’ meant, but she had a vague feeling that Fleuriss had been living some time already. Why had no one told her? She felt a sort of angry resentment, but it cooled immediately when she remembered that her parents had been trying desperately to tell her. Yes, a plan was certainly shaping itself in Eepersip’s mind – but not the plan of letting herself be caught, tamed and carried home. No indeed. She dreamed of some day going home by stealth, seeing Fleuriss and playing with her as she now played with Toby. She wondered silently if she would be anything like the fair-haired little boy. She wondered whether Fleuriss, too, would play with her secretly. If Fleuriss were like Toby, how wonderful it would be!
But the problem of getting back home to see her did not appear so serious to her now while she had Toby to play with.
She continued her beloved explorations, discovering islands, beaches, peninsulas and rocks out of sight of land, which she charted down in her mind, so that she could almost always find them.
One day Toby came to her and told her that they were going off on a tramp, rowing over across the bay to the woods near a little cottage that Mr Carrenda knew about. They had always been interested in the cottage; they wanted to see who was living there. And they had heard about some beautiful hills behind it, which Mr Carrenda wanted very much to see. And if it was pleasant they were going to start the next day. Eepersip was curious. She wondered if it could possibly be her cottage and her hills – the cottage she had discovered and the hills that she had climbed about in. She decided to follow and see where it was that the Carrendas were going.
When the boat started she let it get some way off, then she plunged into the sea and followed it. The waves came up behind, and she gained fast, but when she got dangerously near she stopped for a while, waiting for the boat to get farther off. They landed just where she thought they might – by the little cottage.
Near it they set up their tent, and soon they were exploring the peninsula. They climbed the beautiful hill which Eepersip had climbed. Once they saw her as she darted behind a tree, and wondered how she had got there so quickly. And they fell to talking about her again. She heard them talking over their plan of capturing her, telling her about Fleuriss, and, when she had been smoothed down a bit, letting her go back to the Eigleens to make them happy. If only they could have foreseen!
They tried only once, and never had the chance again. It was a golden day in October. Eepersip was sitting on a rock repairing some tears in her seaweed dress. The waves were high, and every once in a while a little spray would splash up on to the rock where she was sitting. Mr Carrenda discovered her sitting there, and, tiptoeing forward, he caught her by the shoulders. She gnashed her little white teeth at him and struggled to get away, but he held her fast, and was about to pick her up in his arms. She shouted: ‘O waves, help me!’ And, magically, a great wave rushed up, whirled itself into the air and broke in Mr Carrenda’s face. He dropped her, and with a lightning manoeuvre she dived down from the rock into the sea, and was far out before he recovered from the surprise. After this she remained far from the cottage and made her home on a deserted island.
This island was a lovely place. It had a beach of fine sand on one side and was entirely surrounded with rocks on the other sides – rocks and, in places, even high cliffs. There was a grove of yellow pines there, where Eepersip danced when she wished to turn nymph again. There was a spring of fresh water on a small hill behind the grove. The hill was still covered with blueberries and raspberries; also there was a multitude of the plants with the sweet white roots that Eepersip was so fond of. There were asters, too, and Eepersip wove them in with her ferns or seaweed and crowned herself with them. Very happy to find not a single house on the island, she lived there for a long time, glad also to be able to have both the sea and the woods, to which she still instinctively returned occasionally. The period through which she stayed on this uninhabited island was one of the happiest stretches of her life by the sea.
But, now that she was alone again, Eepersip was filled once more with longing to see the little sister – to know her, love her, play with her, teach her to leap and dance and swim; filled with curiosities about what was going on at the home which she had been away from for so long. And these emotions grew and grew until they became a firm resolution. She struggled a while to prevent herself from thinking she had made a mistake in running away, and, thinking it all over, said that she had not, even if she did miss such exciting things as little sisters.
The plan of seeing Fleuriss had become more and more developed, now that she saw little of the boy and had more time to think about it. (It was only once in a while that she swam to the mainland to play with him.) Her idea had changed a great deal: it now was to take Fleuriss away to live with her. She wondered whether she could ever get her over those awful crags, through that shadowy forest, to the sea; whether she could make her comfortable living the wild life. Here was a difficult situation, for Eepersip was sure that so young a child could never endure the hardships of the life she lived – at least, until she was used to it.
This problem troubled her mind for days. Then, suddenly, as she was gazing over the restless, murmuring sea, she had a great inspiration. ‘Oh! Beautiful!’ she exclaimed in her delight. The vision of the little brown cottage in the grove of white pines had come back to her – the whole thing, how she had been borne to it on her raft by those friendly yet terrible waves. And now she had a use for it! It seemed strange, when she hated houses so. But, then, no one need know. She would go at once and make sure whether the Carrendas had gone from their camp, then fix up the cottage and discover all its secrets. Then she could go and take Fleuriss away.
So one cold day she swam – back to the cottage. The Carrendas’ tent was gone; everything was as it had been before. But this time it did not appear hateful. She
opened the door and went into the pleasant little living room with the fireplace. Then she investigated the whole house thoroughly. She found a room with glass cupboards on the walls, filled with a marvellous collection of all kinds of seaweeds, shells and corals (how Fleuriss would enjoy them! she thought); and there was a tiny kitchen. There was one small attic room, with a ladder going up to it through a trapdoor, and in it was a soft little bed with warm blankets, and a fireplace. Above the bed were three casement windows, and Eepersip liked to think how it would delight Fleuriss to see the stars out of these. When she went to the second floor she came to a snug alcove with glass doors opening on to a porch, free to the wind and sun, overlooking the sea; and two sunny bedrooms.
But just as she was preparing to start after Fleuriss, her reason again detained her. Fleuriss of course could not begin her wild life in the winter: she must have a summer of it first, to see what it was like. So Eepersip waited patiently till spring. During the winter she lived in a great pasture on a hill behind the cottage.
The spring came round incredibly soon, and again Eepersip prepared to start.
The night before she went a great black cloud came up from the west, and soon a gale was raging. The waves mounted higher than any Eepersip had ever seen before, topped with flying snow-white spray. They leaped the highest cliffs, thundered on the wet rocks and then retreated, swashing down through the cracks with a strange hollow sound and sweeping the seaweeds wildly up and down. The wind sounded as on a mountaintop, a curious mixture of high-pitched whistling and bass droning. Occasionally it would rise into a terrific scream, making the waves rage with the uncanny storm-green. At the crisis of the storm Eepersip, who had been standing on the beach watching, her curls flying, her ferns fluttering and often tearing loose, flung herself into the storm from a high rock, and was swept about like a tiny insect, disappearing under a wave, bobbing up to take a breath just as the next breaker washed over her. She had a glorious time out in the waves and the spray. The seagulls shrieked; sometimes they struck at a fish and appeared all covered with spray and shaking the drops from their wings – strong narrow wings that beat down the air as the birds rose again, to hover and swoop and plunge. These marvellous birds being blown wildly in the gale reminded Eepersip of the swallows, as they were tossed about by the high pasture winds – the swallows she had loved so when she lived on the meadow.
The House Without Windows Page 7