A curious feeling stole over her, a slight sensation of uneasiness, for though Judas was certainly in the unused wing with her, he might, by this time, be lost among distant rooms and passages, even down in the vast banqueting hall; so far as a friendly presence was concerned, she was alone. Her heart sank a little. The faint distress she experienced was partly due, doubtless, to the fact that she was trespassing, partly also to the effect of the darkness and silence that enveloped her. Thus she explained it to herself, at any rate, while perfectly aware that it was not the entire truth, and that there was another ingredient in her uneasiness that she recognized yet could not properly account for. A faint shiver ran down her back.
Maria was not the child to be afraid of the dark, no bogey-thoughts had ever troubled her robust imagination: the faint touch of dread that came to her now was of quite another kind. Very faint it might be, but its advent — a movement of cooler air across her cheek, the flutter of a feather across her heart — was beyond all question.
“It’s just stuff and nonsense,” she told herself a trifle defiantly, asserting her independence even while she shivered. “Of course it’s just nothing at all!”
Yet even while thus assuring herself, she stood unusually still, listening, waiting, peering into the blackness in what was certainly an expectant attitude. She kept moving from one foot to the other. Then, suddenly and without apparent reason — she sniffed. Automatically, without knowing why, Maria gave this long and audible sniff. She found herself sniffing the musty, rather chilly air of the long closed corridor, wondering at the same time, perhaps, if there was not something besides the frowsiness that made her do it, something that included a remote hint of warning, of self-protection almost. But the notion was too faint and fugitive to leave an impression; it vanished as soon as born. Afterwards, however, she remembered this curious, sudden, automatic sniff.
For several minutes she stood motionless in this expectant way, and then, since nothing happened, and Judas did not reappear, her thoughts, which had been arrested rather, resumed their normal flow. If there was a tiny shudder of excitement and anticipation in her, it was certainly not due to fear. She was not afraid, she kept telling herself. She listened intently. Nothing stirred. The empty, untenanted wing, itself as large as many a country house, yawned before her in deep blackness. She stood at the beginning of a long corridor which was a sort of picture gallery, yet with several bedrooms, she remembered, sandwiched in between the portraits, and she knew that down its vacant length her ancestors gleamed bleakly out of their heavy gilt frames. Beyond them, at its farther end, the gallery led to a great staircase that curved down into a drawing-room. A vast banqueting hall opened out of this. The whole place was familiar enough to her in the daylight, but now, with the night shrouding it, these great rooms and corridors seemed less familiar, less attractive.
Thoughts poured through her while she waited, listening, yet her chief thought, naturally, was still about Judas and his wonderful invitation. She had accepted it, yet he had instantly made off and vanished. Something, of course, was wrong... and she realized suddenly that she had made a bad mistake, and that this was the explanation of his abrupt disappearance. The mistake, she decided, lay in her manner of acceptance. Her acceptance was at fault — she had shown obvious pleasure, when she should have shown complete indifference. She had been too precipitate altogether. Instead of walking in the opposite direction, as though she had far more important things to attend to, she had followed him with a beaming face, and even in the dark he had seen this beaming face and had despised her for it.
“Judas, where are you?” she whispered nevertheless. “Judas, my strange black beauty! And the whisper, low though it was, travelled away down the long, empty gallery, past staring ancestors and heavy sofas and arm-chairs, all draped in dust sheets, and died into silence far beyond where the staircases wound down into impenetrable depths of gloom.
Of course no answer came. Judas, she knew, hid somewhere in those dark, silent depths, his velvet paws, his marvellous eyes, guiding him faultlessly upon some business of his own. There was no false step in his going. This was his kingdom. In here he was at home.
Maria waited, none the less. She would rather have welcomed a sound perhaps, a sound of some sort or other, even the distant cry of Mrs. Binks from the Little House behind her. But nothing came. Even the wind against the outside walls was silent. She heard nothing but the droning hum of the blood inside her ears and the beating of her heart.
Moving from one foot to the other, she decided at length that the time had come for her to act. It was impossible to stand for ever waiting, listening. Time was passing, moreover; that horrid Tick tock! was beating away the precious minutes.
And her clear young brain recognized at once the two possible alternatives — she must go forward or go back.
There was none to give her counsel; her mind must be made up without assistance; but, as a young child with no one to shape her adventure or her play, this was no new position. Unfearful of that yawning darkness in front of her, she was eager to go forward, eager to explore the gloomy, empty rooms, with the chance possibility of surprising Judas in some strange night-fantasia of his own. This was her strongest urge — to creep along the corridor, steal down the great staircase, and peer into all the dim corners of the banqueting hall below, Already, she had one foot stretched out, feeling its way, her blood pulsing with the new tremor of exciting dread — when the other and opposite alternative stepped in and made her hesitate.
Having already made one bad mistake with regard to Judas, she did not want to make a second, perhaps a graver, one. If she went to look for him he might disown her more deliberately than ever. She might sink so low in his estimation that he would never, never invite her again. On the other hand, if she pretended to go back, he might — who could say? — rush suddenly up and claim her. Moreover, she was out of bounds after all. Her father... Mrs. Binks...
Her hesitation became more marked. She slowly withdrew the outstretched foot, when suddenly something happened that made her catch her breath sharply. Her movement stopped.
“Hi! I Maria, child! Where are you?” sounded shrill and faintly from the distant region of the Little House behind her.
While, at the same instant, rose another sound that startled her far more. And this came from the Big House, the unused wing, in front of her.
So faint and distant, it rose from the depths of the banqueting hall below, but drawing quickly nearer. It came with great velocity. It tore rushing down the long dark gallery towards her. It made a curious, scattering noise, its origin invisible, but a moment later, not intangible. A movement of the air came with it, a brushing against her legs as it swept past, and then, abruptly, a sound of violent scrabbling and clawing against the closed baize door behind her that was too familiar not to be recognized at once.
Acting instinctively, Maria pushed the door wide open, and Judas — but Judas frightened, terror-stricken — dashed through helter-skelter, and vanished like a streak of black lightning along the passage and down towards the dimly lighted hall of the inhabited Little House.
Maria stood gasping with amazement. She was too astonished to think or feel clearly. The first thing in her mind was, why was Judas frightened, terrified even? The second was her deep-rooted disappointment that she had not penetrated into the unused wing to explore. This unfulfilled wish, this frustrated desire, was poignant and even rather bitter. It took first place in her thoughts and feelings, which, though scattered, were extremely strong. She had missed an amazing and exceptional chance she might never get again. That she felt a little frightened added to the intensity of her loss. To see Judas terrified was, of course, a shock, but to have lost the opportunity of exploration of the unused wing, possibly also to have discovered why Judas was terrified, this was a disaster she could never, never forget.
Slowly, reluctantly, ready for tears almost, she turned and followed him. There was again a tremor down her spine. The green baize do
or swung to behind her with a series of little diminishing thuds and gulps.
Sick at heart, intense regret gnawing at her, she made her way slowly back along the landing. How feeble! How unenterprising! was her chief thought. Just because the unused wing was out of bounds, just because Mrs. Binks had screamed her name, just because — well, because, to tell the truth, she was a wee bit frightened, she had missed a chance of adventure that might never come again. Judas might never give her another invitation. Had she crept down into the banqueting hall, she might even have discovered what frightened him....
“Bah!” she exclaimed under her breath.
“What’s the good of being good? It only means you miss things that may never come again!” There was no sign, no sound either, of Mrs. Binks, as she stole back down the staircase. No sound of any kind except the gilt presentation clock on the landing that went “Tick tock! Tick tock!” It was a horrible sound. It reminded her that sharp at six she must go to her room. And it must be close on six already.
She hurried, making her way straight to the library, where she burst in upon her father, still behind his newspaper.
As she pushed the door open her mind held one thought only — the burning, intense regret that she had lost a great adventure; and, on entering the room, the first thing she noticed was that her father had finished all his prunes, and that the stones stood invitingly in a ring round the rim of the white plate. Also she saw at once that Judas was not there.
Her father uttered simultaneously with her. Both voices spoke together.
“Oh, Father, have you seen Judas?”
“Oh, Maria, Mrs. Binks has been yel — I mean, calling for you!”
They stared at one another.
Their voices again spoke simultaneously, each answering the other’s question:
“Oh, has she, Father?”
“No, Judas isn’t here — thank goodness!”
In the first second of Maria’s reappearance this happened. The same second almost he glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. The child’s eyes followed. It was exactly six minutes to six.
He still wore his heavy shooting boots, Maria noticed next.
“Oh, Father,” she exclaimed, “I’ll run and get your slippers.”
“Oh, thank you, Marigold, dear.” He turned to relight his pipe. “And — er — perhaps you’d better just run and see what Mrs. Binks wants,” he added, carelessly enough, it seemed. “I think I heard her calling.” The voice sounded to Maria nervous.
He puffed away, looking at her inquiringly over the burning match, his brown face draped oddly with clouds of blue smoke. Below him she caught the great gleaming, glass eyes of the tiger. They glared at her. In her mind rose again the bitter, keen regret that she had missed a great adventure — poignant, unsatisfied. It gnawed behind all she saw and thought and felt. A queer acrid smell rose to her nostrils.
“Father, what a funny st — smell, I mean!”
“Damp,” he said gruffly. “The weather’s changing. Better hurry up,” he added, glancing at the clock. “You’ve only got five minutes, you know.”
“Yes, Father,” she agreed obediently, “but after the slippers. Do you think she really wants me?”
“Better just see, Maria — dear. She’s been calling a bit.”
It dawned upon her more clearly than ever — he was a little afraid of Mrs. Binks. She came even before his slippers.
“Yes, Father, but I’ll get your slippers first, I think.”
“Umph!” he said. “Thanks, Marigold. But I’m afraid my room’s in an awful mess. You’ll never find them.”
“Oh, Tinker and Sailor will help me look. Perhaps the Gentleman, too.”
She longed to count the prune stones first, but there wasn’t time, of course. She gave them one yearning look.
“I’ll be back before five minutes is up,” as she rushed to the door. “Before you can say knife, Father.”
“Jack Robinson, you mean,” he called after her. “He’s quickest of all, you know. Quicker than time itself!”
She darted back, kissed the top of his head again, swallowed a gulp of smoke, and was out of the room — with five minutes in hand — to fetch his slippers.
“Jack Robinson, remember...!” she heard, as she closed the door behind her and ran helter-skelter on her errand. She had exactly five minutes for its fulfilment. “Tick tock! Tick tock!” the sound beat after her as she ran.
CHAPTER II
Maria possessed an active, even an intense, imagination, and it is not to be wondered at that many years later her gift produced an original and distinctive harvest. In those early days, however, she lived her dreams, and hence knew nothing of the torture that demands production. Her outlet, being natural and instinctive, had no need of artificial construction. No question of form cropped up to worry her. She was happily ignorant, too, of the troubles of accumulated repression. Her intake was expressed adequately by her output. The law of compensation was thus satisfied automatically.
Having no regular playmates, the natural instinct of the young animal found the next best satisfaction — she played with herself, or with what was at hand. All she demanded was some reasonable measure of response. Cows and horses were obviously too big, lambs and kids too shy, worms too inert, birds too unapproachable. Insects, again, were too wriggley — they tickled, and some were dangerous — while dogs, though she loved them, were too simple, honest and unromantic. They played willingly enough, but they suggested nothing beyond a romp. They had, besides, a tendency towards blood-thirstiness that quenched any ardour she might otherwise have felt.
There remained, then, nothing but a cat, and a cat, in the form of Judas, having survived a drowned litter in the gardener’s cottage, was installed in the role of principal playmate.
As she ran now across the hall from the library her thoughts were chiefly on the slippers, but partly also on Judas and his recent odd behaviour, for his undignified terror of a few minutes before disturbed her rather. The question of time was in her mind as well. She had only five minutes. She must be quick. Even as she crossed the hall she heard the “Tick tock!” of the great clock in the corner knocking off the seconds. She hurried. The staircase yawned like an open mouth in front of her.
Her father’s bedroom lay on the side of the Little House away from the green baize door; to reach it, find the slippers, and return, should take five minutes at the very most — provided she found them at once. But since his man had gone the room was dreadfully untidy, a veritable pig-stye, and the search might take her longer than she expected. Once on the landing, she would have to go all round the gallery that overlooked the hall, and now, as she raced up three steps at a time, it came suddenly back to her that a few minutes before, when she was racing down from the unused wing, she had noticed out of the corner of her eye — no more than that — a figure leaning over the balustrade and looking down. She had been too excited, too upset, by the unusual spectacle of Judas in a panic, to pay any attention to this person. The light was of the dimmest, the outline alone discernible. She had only registered that, since it was not Mrs. Binks, it did not matter much who else it was. One of the maids possibly, but at any rate no one who was of any account.
The detail, indeed, had wholly left her mind, but now, as she took the stairs in the reverse sense, bounding up at full speed to her father’s room, she became aware that the figure was still there, standing in its original position, leaning over the balustrade and looking down into the well of the hall, looking, she then realized with an uncomfortable start — straight at herself.
Maria paused an instant in her breathless ascent and returned the look. She looked hard, she stared. Who could it be? Who was it? The figure did not move. She saw the white face peering down at her, returning her gaze steadily. The shoulders were hunched forward a little, the hands clasped together in the air over the railing. It was, she then saw, a man, a man, moreover, she recognized. It was the Man who Wound the Clocks.
She was more t
han surprised, she was startled, for it was extraordinary that he should be in the house at all, above all that he should be here at this late evening hour. And she at once asked herself, a trifle nervously, what he could be doing there.
The Man who Wound the Clocks was, of course, no stranger — in the sense that he came regularly once a week from the neighbouring town to attend to the numerous timepieces of variegated sort that her father found necessary in the big house. It was his business to adjust these clocks, and wind them properly, and see that they all kept the same time. He was a recognized figure in the old house once a week — but invariably in the morning hours.
Maria was very familiar with this individual. But she had never spoken with him, for the very good reason that he himself never uttered a word. Even to her “good morning” he merely bowed in silence. She might watch him at his work with the bigger clocks for several minutes at a stretch, but he never spoke, he never smiled, his face betrayed no expression, he made no attempt even to pass the time of day; he just ignored her.
It was quite natural, therefore, that her active imagination should have busied itself with this enigmatic workman, attributing to him mysterious qualities his strange silence earned. He moved oddly, she had thus noticed, for he always went on tiptoe, his long thin legs striding from clock to clock quietly and swiftly; he wore striped trousers, one leg considerably shorter than the other, with a black tail-coat that gave him, she decided, the appearance of a tall, weedy bird, his feathers rather draggled. He might have been an ancient stork or crane. His silence, his pale, expressionless face, his flapping coattails and long stride, one trouser-leg hitched always higher than the other, provided material for almost any imaginative picture she cared to make. And the fact that while some of the clocks apparently liked him, welcoming his touch, others obviously feared him, as was shown by the grinding creak and rattle they made even before he reached them, increased the sense of importance that she attributed to him.
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 299