Yet, if uncommunicative, she had always hitherto felt him friendly.
Now, however, as she stood staring up into his pale face, she got the sudden unwelcome impression that somehow he was not perhaps quite so friendly as she had always imagined. She was vaguely conscious that she would be glad to avoid him if she could. To reach her father’s bedroom for the slippers she must go past him. She felt now that she would rather not go past him. Something in her shrank.
Her pause on the stairs, anyhow, was brief, for she was not the sort of child to dawdle over a decision. Making no sign of recognition therefore, she ran straight on, reached the landing a moment later, and turned boldly to the left. It was her intention to go straight past him without even a nod of greeting, since he had never yet returned even her polite “good morning,” but now, as she drew level with him, she saw, to her amazement, that he suddenly straightened up and faced her. He stood bang in front of her. He barred her way. He deliberately stretched an arm and hand across her path.
Maria stopped and stared. She saw the disc of his pale face, bent sideways a little towards her; she saw his striped trousers, one leg higher than the other; she saw his black tail-coat. Through this picture she caught, rather ominously, and louder than usual, the Tick tock! of the big gilt presentation clock on its shelf behind him.
“Good evening,” she said, being too surprised to think of anything else, her breath a little uneven.
He did not answer, but he straddled farther across her path.
Maria felt at a complete loss. A dozen ideas flashed through her. Her first impression — the grotesque idea that this mournful, even sombre figure, wanted to play — she rejected instantly, for though the arm and hand were stretched out, they were quite obviously not stretched out in any sort of invitation. Her second impression — that in the dim light he was possibly making a clumsy, shy effort to move aside — she equally dismissed. Impressions, indeed, were just waste of time. His intention was perfectly plain — he meant deliberately to bar her way.
Before she could make up her mind what to say or do, he spoke.
“Miss Marigold,” he said, in a creaky whisper that, she thought, sounded just like one of the bigger clocks, “Judas expects you.” He pointed in the opposite direction to which she wished to go — towards the unused wing. “Over there.”
Maria stood motionless and speechless.
“Over there,” the man repeated, still pointing towards the green baize door.
Maria’s lips opened, but no sound came forth.
“In the Big House,” he repeated, and the same minute, bowing rapidly so that his coat-tails flapped out like wings, he darted to one side, and whispering “Allow me,” while glancing behind him sharply, he took a step to lead the way.
By this time several seconds had intervened, and Maria had found her voice. She had come to a decision too. For she was not easily put off her purpose, much less frightened. She had come to fetch her father’s slippers; her father’s slippers she meant to fetch. It would take more than the nonsensical behaviour of a servant in the house, above all of a man who merely wound the clocks and did not even belong to the general staff, of a man perhaps a little queer in his mind into the bargain — it would take more than that to stop her.
She drew herself up; unaware probably that her two fists were very tightly clenched. She looked him full in the face.
“Thank you,” she said in her stiffest voice, “but I’m just going in the other direction. I’m going to fetch — to find—”
She got no further. Her voice stammered and died away. From her mind also died away what it was she was going to fetch and find. It vanished from her thoughts completely. She no longer had the faintest notion what it was she had come to fetch and find and look for. Indeed, in her mind at that moment one thing, and one thing only, seemed to echo, and this was the persistent Tick tock! of the gilt presentation clock behind them on the landing. It was going faster, she fancied, than before. It was hurrying. It produced such a sense of confusion in her thoughts, such a sense of a race against time, as it were, that she could think of nothing further to do or say at first.
She made another effort then, a more determined effort.
“I told my father,” she began—” I promised him — that I would go and get his s—”
Into the eyes of the Man who Wound the Clocks there came a sudden curious glare that stopped her.
“S — s — sl—” She made a last desperate attempt, trying to feel indignant, even angry. She got no further than the first two letters. The word itself had disappeared. Her mind was blank of it. Her voice died away into a soft and futile hiss.
“Hush! Hush!” he whispered, putting a finger to his lips. “They might overhear.”
A soft confusion settled like a cloud upon her mind and memory.
“Allow me,” he repeated, his coat-tails making an elaborate flourish as he passed in front of her. “I will lead the way.”
She followed. His authority was overmastering. All volition had apparently left her. There was nothing to do but to obey.
CHAPTER III
Maria has never forgotten the few steps they made along the passage towards the green baize door. She remembers chiefly a curious sense of urgent hurry. Her time was short. Unless she hurried she would be late. Late for what? She did not know. There was a sense of almost nightmare rush. The remorseless Tick tock! of the passing seconds seemed in her very blood.
What she would be late for she could not think. She had not an instant to spare — that was the only thing she knew.
She stepped along briskly behind the Man who Wound the Clocks, staring at his flying coat-tails, and noticing that one striped trouser-leg, as usual, was longer than the other. She remembers trying to count the number of stripes in his trousers, and that after counting four the stripes grew blurred and ran together with a queer yellowish tinge she did not like. They should have been dark grey and black. This tawny colour kept creeping in. It was unpleasing somewhere.
Surprise that she was thus following him at all had apparently left her already at this early stage. Nor did it occur to her as odd that Judas should be waiting for her. Judas had always liked this Man who Wound the Clocks. He would rub, purring, against his striped trousers while the man attended to the timepieces in the various rooms and passages. It was not astonishing that some connection might exist between the two queer beings. Perhaps the Man was right when he said the black cat waited for her with impatience. At any rate, she thought, there was nothing to do but to follow him and see. Once she knew that, she could go about her real errand — go back and get about her real business — go somewhere and find the thing she had come to look for. Only, she had completely forgotten what it was. What was this something she had come to find? It had entirely left her memory. To find it was the immediate and important object of her very existence. For the life of her she could not think what it was. It would, of course, come back to her as soon as she got away from her unpleasant guide. She felt sure of that. The sooner this trip was over, the better. She would remember then.
So she followed the striped trousers along the dark corridor without a word. They reached the green baize door. The Man pushed it open and stood aside for her to enter the Big House — the empty, unoccupied portion of the great mansion, the part where no one lived — and, without a word from either of them, she crossed the threshold and passed inside. The door closed behind her with its little gulps of sound, and she found herself again in the opening of the picture gallery. Only a little while ago she had stood in the very same place, while Judas rushed past her in a panic. She again looked down its gloomy length. The Man stood close beside her, saying nothing. There was no sign of Judas anywhere. It was all silent as the grave.
“This is rather queer,” thought Maria. “It’s very extraordinary somewhere. I don’t — don’t quite understand it...!”
A sudden reaction came over her. It was absurd, she now realized, that she should have followed this m
an so meekly into the unused wing, into the forbidden part of the house. It was utterly ridiculous and impossible that he should know anything about Judas and his ways or wishes. It was outrageous; it was against all her sense of what was right and proper, that he should clothe himself with this assumption of authority. He was nothing, after all, but a paid menial; he was not even a member of the household staff, but a man who came in twice a week from the little town outside; whereas she, Marigold, was the daughter of the house, the daughter of his employer. Moreover... she had been upon some important errand which his mysterious and impudent actions had interrupted. He had interfered — had stopped something vital and urgent she was going to do. She had been on her way to get something, to look for something. She must find this, or miss the whole purpose of her being.
“Tick tock!” came from some empty depths of air beyond, reminding her that time was short and she must hurry. It was an unpleasant reminder. A feeling of discomfort, almost of uneasiness, rose in her heart, making her skin prick and tingle. She looked down the long, deserted corridor. It was not inviting. There was no sign of her friend Judas. Her discomfort increased. Was it a trap, she suddenly asked herself? Had the man used Judas as a decoy?
“I’m going back,” she exclaimed abruptly but very clearly, and took a preliminary step in the direction of the door behind her — only to find the Man’s arm stretched out against her chest like an iron bar. She took a deep breath. “At once,” she added loudly. “This very instant.”
The Man who Wound the Clocks looked at her calmly.
“Your time is short,” he said quietly. His eyes looked stern as he added: “You have five minutes only.”
Maria stiffened, bridled. This was sheer impudence.
“Let me pass at once,” she repeated firmly, her voice loud and strong. “I’ve got to fetch something to begin with, and besides—” Her words somehow died away in her mind.
“I cannot give you the time,” the Man replied, with resolute distinctness.
Her eyes flashed angrily. This impertinence was really too much. She stamped her foot.
“How dare you!” she cried. “What have you got to do with my time anyhow?” She found herself, nevertheless, taking a quick gulp of breath.
Again he gazed down at her calmly.
“You’ve got no time of your own,” he replied coldly. “You’ve got only what I can give you — five minutes.”
Maria felt something shrink within her. Her self-confidence wilted slightly. His words, though she might think them impertinent, were somehow true, she felt — horribly true. Her heart failed her a little. She made, none the less, a great effort to assert herself.
“How — how dare you?” she cried again. “Who are you? You’re only the Man who Winds the Clocks!”
“Exactly,” came the quiet reply. “That’s why.” And she heard a curious long, deep sigh float through the air.
She found herself trembling a little, but if she felt alarm she refused point blank to acknowledge it. Only one thing held steady in her wavering mind — if she could get rid of this impudent man and find her way back into the familiar part of the house, she would recover her authority again, her memory, too. She would recollect her errand. She would remember herself; she would know what it was she had come to find. There was a phrase, besides, a sort of name, she fancied, that could make him obey — only she could not find it.
Her lips may have trembled a little, but her voice was a loud command.
“Let me out!” she ordered in a final effort. “Let me pass. And please open that door for me at once!”
Again that long, deep sigh passed through the air.
“It’s gone, and I, too, must go,” she heard him whisper, and it seemed exactly like the voice of a great, steady clock that was going to strike.
She turned the same instant. To her amazement there was only a solid wall where the door had been, and when she looked back again to face him and ask what it all meant, the man himself had also disappeared. He was no longer there beside her. The Man who Wound the Clocks had vanished. There was no sign of him anywhere. The long picture gallery was empty. Her eyes searched it in vain for a figure, indeed for anything that moved. It lay silent and deserted before her, stretching away to where the staircase began.
One thing, however, struck her as curious — it was not dark. She had just come from a house — though completely forgetting where or what it was — that lay deep in evening shadows. It was dimly lit and dark. But here there was no darkness. The picture gallery that stretched before her was bathed in light as though it were eleven o’clock on a sunny morning. And this she found comforting. Another thing she did not like so much — that down its deserted length she heard, faint but quite distinct, the Tick tock! as of some giant clock.
CHAPTER IV
The first thing she realized clearly, as she stood there alone at the head of the long, empty corridor, was — oddly enough — that there was no immediate hurry. To rush about, to get in a panic, to become excited and flurried, was not only useless, it was quite unnecessary. There was plenty of time, heaps and heaps of it. The five minutes allowed her seemed an eternity. If the door and the Man who Wound the Clocks had disappeared in this strange and sudden way, they might equally reappear in an even more strange and sudden way.
Confused she felt, bewildered, perhaps even a little frightened, yet something told her there was no need to fuss and worry and dash about, much less to scream or cry. The door had vanished, so she could not go back, wherever “back” might be, to look for the thing she had been going to find; the Man had vanished, so she could not ask him questions, scold, stand on her dignity or play the Daughter of the House. And as for Judas, who was urgently expecting her, his black outline was nowhere visible, and if he did not want her urgently enough to make a sign of some sort, and to say at least, “Hi, Maria, come on!” that was his look-out, not hers. It was this Maria felt.
She therefore swallowed the tears that threatened to rise, and with her handkerchief wiped her lips where her teeth had bitten them. She also clasped and unclasped her hands, which had been so tightly clenched that the nails had left marks in the tender flesh, and the muscles were stiff and cramped.
She looked about her. She wanted badly to call out, “Judas! Judas!” but everything was so still that she felt the sound of her voice in this deep silence would be unpleasant rather. So she just stood and looked about her.
How well she knew this picture gallery, with its guest-bedrooms and the big staircase down into the halls below! Only six months before it had thronged with the coming and going of all manner of human beings who arrived for shooting-parties, for dinner and bridge, young people who carried tennis rackets, servants in attendance, maids and footmen, even a stately butler. Mrs. Binks had flustered and bustled up and down its length, her father had stumped along; Maria herself with other children had once or twice played hide and seek all through this wing until it had been closed.
Yet all this flitted across her mind as though half remembered only, faint and fugitive, a dim jumble of scenes that rose from some old picture-book she had looked at ages ago. Pallid, not sharply realized, without significance, the scenes floated past, barely stirring the dust of memories that seemed strangely distant, and of no importance anyhow. They formed merely a sort of shadowy background to what she was now feeling and observing so much more vividly and intensely.
If the long gallery had once echoed to voices, laughter, calls and singing, it lay now, at any rate, silent as the grave, untenanted, deserted.
But was it untenanted, deserted, she asked herself with a new touch of uneasiness? A feeling began to steal over her that it was, after all, not empty perhaps, that she was not quite so alone as she imagined. Somehow it did not feel entirely unoccupied.
Maria moved from one foot to the other, and then back again. She listened intently. Her weight shifted once more from one foot to the other. She took a long, deep breath. Only the Tick tock! that never stopped, it seem
ed, was audible far away at the distant end.
“Anyhow,” she decided suddenly, “there’s no good my standing here like a stuck pig. I think I’ll go and explore!”
And she came to this plucky decision because she knew that if she waited much longer she might not have the courage to move at all. None the less, a considerable interval passed again before she summoned up the actual energy to start.
Along the right side of the gallery were several windows that looked out over the lawn and gardens, and on the other side hung the series of family portraits. Between them were the doors into the guest-bedrooms, and these, she vaguely remembered, bore fancy names. There were six of these at least — the Lavender Room, the Lily Room, the Rhododendron and Daisy Room and so forth, while dividing them in half was a private chamber that was never used because Queen Elizabeth had slept there. Once, perhaps, she had known them all quite accurately, but now the names floated across her mind like half-forgotten memories from some old picture-book.
She found herself moving cautiously towards the nearest window, and, having reached it safely, she leaned heavily against it, clutching the window-sill with both hands. Her light, anxious tread woke echoes that ran off into the distance.
Very cautiously, again she looked about her, hoping chiefly, perhaps, that Judas, her familiar friend, might show himself, for the sight of her beloved black cat would have been a comforting and friendly thing. He had invited her after all; if only now she could hear his call, “Hi, Maria, you!” How gladly, how impetuously she would respond.... But her eyes searched the long gallery in vain, there was no sign of him, nor for that matter of anything that moved. Nothing stirred, no sound was audible, silence and stillness reigned supreme. She waited, wondering what she should do next, wondering what was going to happen, waiting, watching, listening with all her eyes and ears. She took in every single detail. Her heart pumped.
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 300