“I should think there is, indeed, Tinker,” she exclaimed under her breath, “something most frightfully important—”
“I haven’t noticed anything pertickler on the road this last year or two, Miss,” he put in casually, “but I’ll keep my eyes open now. Any idea what it would look like,” he asked, “in case I see it?”
“Its very name has gone out of my head,” she explained eagerly. “That’s the dreadful part of it. I only know that the Man who Winds the Clocks put me here to find it and allowed me five minutes only—”
“That bloke!” the Tinker remarked with a sniff of contempt.
He fell to ruminating, but Maria could see that the laughter in him was not far away. They were all alike where the Clock Man and her five minutes were concerned; neither one nor the other meant anything much, it was clear, to them.
“You know whom I mean, of course — don’t you, Tinker?” she asked.
After a further short rumination, he glanced up, his brown eyes twinkling.
“Oh, we’ve heard tell of him,” he admitted, “and some of us say they’ve seen him. Now and again, they say, he rushes through with a swish like a bird after an insect, but so fast you can’t see him proper.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
He shook his tangled head. “On the road — in the open air — there ain’t no nonsense of that kind, Miss. Among ‘edges and ‘aystacks we don’t ‘old with that. It’s just a bit of nonsense likely, sort of childhood nonsense, to my way of thinking.” Then, after a little pause, he added with rather a melancholy smile, “Childhood nonsense is just what we know nothing about, because we ain’t never been young. Nor even been married — never seen a wife since you first made us.” He heaved a sigh. “All men, you see, Miss, and not quite young ‘uns at that.”
He gazed up at her with an expression that was not so much critical as searching. For a second she thought he was going to cry. “What does it look like, Miss, really — a wife, I mean, and — and a little ‘un?”
Maria, half choking long before this with mingled shame and pity, felt as if the fountain of speech had dried up in her for ever. His gaze, however, was irresistible. She must say something.
“A wife! Oh — er — like — something like — me, I think,” she stammered in a low voice.
“Oooo!” issued from the tangled lips. “As lovely as you, Miss! No wonder you couldn’t make one when you made us — not eight of ’em anyhow.” He ruminated again for a minute or so. “Never too late to mend, though, perhaps — that’s my cry on the road as I go along between the cattle and the corn, sleeping in haystacks and — Ah, that reminds me,” he interrupted himself, “the Ploughboy’s looking for you, Miss. I passed him as I came along. Standing in the middle of a stubble field, he was, and looking like a scarecrow with the birds nesting in his crooked hat — and always nibbling at the same old turnip—”
“The Ploughboy!” cried Maria. “Oh, I had nearly forgotten him! Where is he? Come, Ploughboy, come and talk to me, please!”
The rattling of tin cans, the drone of a grinding knife, already sounded in the distance, and the Tinker had slipped away so swiftly that she did not even see him go. But nobody took his place at first. Far away she just caught the cry, “Any old knives to mend, to mend, any old knives to mend,” and as she heard it, a familiar phrase flashed into her. It sprang to her lips.
“Before you can say knife!” she called out, and almost instantly the place beside her was occupied, while with it came the smell of cows and hay and the sweetness of moist turned earth.
“I found all the gates left open, so I guessed you was about,” said a slow, country voice. “There was a sky, too, last night I’ve never seen afore. Something ‘stonishing! The birds was making a rare noise when I got up at dawn. I’m right glad to see you.”
“So am I,” replied Maria honestly, staring at the big, clumsy lad, with corduroy trousers tied below the knee. “Are you — all right — the way I made you?” she asked. “Are you tired of ploughing, I mean, and where do you live?” The blunt questions were all she could think of to say.
He scratched his untidy head, and the straw he was chewing jerked round to the other corner of his mouth.
“Never known anything else,” he brought out slowly, gazing at her with a sort of stupefied admiration. “The Pig Stye and the Barn suit me well enough. Oh, I’m all right, thanks.”
It was a relief to find one of them without a grievance. There was a gleam in his eyes that lightened the otherwise stolid face, and he had, she thought, a delicious smell about him.
“I think you’re rather splendid,” she exclaimed, “just like a grand picnic, or something.”
He might have looked cleaner, perhaps, but she omitted that. Brushed up and scrubbed, and with all that stuff scraped off his great boots, she could have gone anywhere with him. Yet he was precisely as she had always pictured him, and probably, after all, he was best unaltered. She felt a tremendous friendliness in him somehow. “The cows and pigs just love you, don’t they, Ploughboy? And the enormous cart-horses you drive and feed? The dobbins and huge, kindly creatures?”
The way he looked at her made her feel unimportant somehow, so that his obvious admiration rather puzzled her. The things she said to him were not at all what she had expected and meant to say, but just sentences that rose into her head from nowhere. It seemed to her he would understand and not feel hurt, and, while not exciting, of course, in any way, he was, she felt, a tremendously steady and reliable friend. He would no more fail her than he would fail one of his cows or horses. The desire to give him a good hug occurred to her.
“I’d like to shake your horny hand,” came abruptly from her lips.
She held out her own, and as he took it hesitatingly, she saw to her amazement a tear balanced in his eye. He only held her small fingers a second; instead of squeezing them so hard that it hurt, causing her pain she had been determined not to let him see, he dropped them at once.
“Oh, God, you’re better even than I’ve always expected,” he said very slowly, finding the words with difficulty, his deep voice not quite under control. “An awful lot better.” The tear overbalanced and trickled down his red cheek, while another that gathered was ready to follow it. “Never seen a heifer that could touch you, Miss.”
“What’s making you cry, Ploughboy?” she asked in a whisper.
He blushed crimson, a rather becoming crimson. “Pleasure,” he mumbled, gazing into her face with a kind of worship. And it seemed the last word he was able to utter. To everything else she said he replied only with a nod, a shake of the head, a gesture of his great awkward body, though she found a sort of grace in all his movements. The sight of her so close and real seemed to have stopped his power of further speech.
“You know, I’ve got to hurry up and look for something,” she told him. “I can’t remember what it is, but you will help me, won’t you? It may be hiding in your great fields and haystacks.”
He nodded, so that the second tear fell after the first, and though he took no notice of them, even to brush them away, a smile crept over his face.
“You’re not in a hurry,” she went on, “you’re never in a hurry, I know; but I’ve only got my five minutes, and that horrid Man who Winds the Clocks is always after me—”
His smile broadened into a grin that showed two rows of nice white teeth.
“ — and I mustn’t dawdle, you see, or I shall — I shall be late — late for ever perhaps,” she finished.
Though his skin puckered up to show that he was puzzled, and the grin seemed ready to break over into audible laughter, no sound left his lips. He merely nodded his great head affirmatively, thrusting both hands into his belt.
“So I think we’d better begin at once,” she added with decision. “And do you mind — if — if — I bring my cat?” For it had suddenly come to her that she had completely forgotten Judas all this time, and what had now reminded her was the feeling of something rubbing against her
feet and ankles.
What happened then took her by surprise, though she had begun to think that nothing could surprise her any more in this strange world. The arrival of Judas did not frighten him; the Ploughboy held his ground; but there were two other figures besides that also held their ground; more than held their ground, indeed, for while the rest of the group had disappeared like smoke, these two were now advancing towards her. And the first, of course, was the Gentleman, bowing and sweeping his hat about, while screwing his monocle tightly into the eye he directed cautiously at the black cat below. That he was nervous about the animal was obvious, but he was determined not to show his fear. He wore a protective air, as of a policeman guiding a perambulator while he holds the traffic up.
“Your Thief,” he remarked, by way of cautious introduction evidently, buttoning up his coat. “He craves an interview.”
“I’ve nothing to lose,” remarked the Ploughboy, finding his voice again but without much body in it.
He took a whetstone from his belt at the same time and held it tightly in his muscular hand. He grew fainter.
Maria turned to examine the approaching figure. “My Thief!” ran across her mind. “Well, I suppose he is, if I made him!”
A faint shiver touched her. Her mental picture of the Thief had always made her shrink a little. The figure she now saw did more than that. She was conscious of a definite sort of shock that ran through her whole being from head to foot, for the figure attracted her tremendously while at the same time repelled her, as though he frightened her a little.
He was of nameless age, neither old nor young, with a dark, clean-shaven face, down at heel rather, and wearing a green frock-coat that had once been black, old grey trousers turned up over a pair of faded blue sand-shoes, and a dirty collar without a tie. The short coat-sleeves made his very thin, delicate wrists noticeable, setting off at the same time the slender hands which, though distinctly dirty, gave the odd impression of being white. They were beautiful hands. The long, sensitive fingers struck Maria particularly.
“If you don’t like me, Miss,” he began in a smooth, pleasant voice that was even refined, “it’s not my fault exactly, is it?” He held out a slender hand, which she took and shook before she quite realized it, wondering again at the tapering fingers. They felt like silk, she thought. The touch had something electrifying.
“I suppose,” she stammered slightly, “there had to be a thief — and — well — there you are.” Instinctively she shrank the slightest bit in the world, unable to control the movement, but yet aware he noticed it. He noticed everything. Judas, to her surprise, was making friendly advances to him, and for some odd reason she was pleased. “You’re an awfully good thief, I expect — aren’t you?” she managed to bring out.
He smiled a delightful smile, his intelligent eyes twinkled.
“I take everything I can,” he replied; “that’s natural. No one minds here, of course.” He stooped down and stroked Judas’s back. “I’d take him, too, if I could, but he’s always too quick for me—”
“Well, you can,” she said impulsively. “Take him, if you like.”
He shook his head.
“You mean, if something’s given, it’s not taking?” she asked.
He nodded. “It’s only taking if the other wants it and if I want it more still,” he explained. He looked at her with his twinkling, penetrating eyes. “You ought to know, Miss,” he added.
And Maria felt that she did know; she felt, indeed, a curious elusive sympathy with the queer fellow, as though they shared some kind of natural understanding. The fact that Judas liked him belonged to this.
“I think it’s a pity I made you, all the same,” she heard herself remark with surprise, yet she was still more surprised to hear his comment:
“You made us all out of yourself, Miss, or I’m an honest man—”
“Which you’re not,” she interrupted quickly, laughing in spite of herself, noticing that his eyes were fixed attentively on a necklace of beads she wore round her neck. “I like you, anyhow,” she added, “whatever you are,” and became aware for the first time that the Gentleman and Ploughboy had left her, and that Judas also had disappeared. Her interest in the Thief had made her forget about them for the moment. She turned her head, but the long corridor was empty and her eyes searched its whole length in vain. Even the whirling group of other Fruit Stoners had melted away, and she could see nothing but the bright pools of sunshine that fell through the series of windows upon the polished wooden floor. And the sight of this lovely sunshine gave her the desire to go out of doors, a desire, however, that merely passed suddenly across her mind without a definite purpose behind it. There was, of course, an out of doors, yet it seemed inaccessible. She could not go there quite. For the realization that she was now alone with the Thief was more prominent than anything else.
She turned her head back again to say something, to ask, in fact, one of numerous questions that sprang crowding up — to find that he, too, was no longer there. The Thief had gone. Her hand went instantly to her neck. The bead necklace was still there, but there was something missing. What was it? Her hand moved to her hair. He had taken — with those marvellous, lightning fingers — the blue silk ribbon. Those electric, slender hands had touched her hair, perhaps her face as well!
She was alone — in the long, deserted corridor.
CHAPTER VII
Was she, however, quite alone? A queer feeling came to her that somebody was close, that she was being watched by observant eyes belonging to someone she could not see, yet who could see her. The deep hush everywhere was like the hush that comes in a thunderstorm. She looked about her, but nothing stirred, there was no sound. It was all so still she could hear her own heart beating, and it was beating a little too rapidly for comfort.
Her mind and thoughts were in a whirl. The way everybody had disappeared made her uneasy. The introductions to the Fruit Stoners, with the scraps of conversation, must have taken a long time surely, yet they seemed to have come and gone in a flash. The series of brief scenes had passed like lightning, leaving behind them little more than a fugitive memory, a memory that in some odd way was not altogether real.
“Of course they are real, quite real,” she told herself indignantly. “I’m just being silly!”
But her mind whirled more than ever. Where had they gone to, the Gentleman, Sailor, Tinker,
Soldier, Ploughboy, Thief? Even Judas had vanished like a shadow. The way she kept forgetting things was dreadful, forgetting and forgetting. There! She had even forgotten why she was here at all. It was her interest in the Fruit Stoners that made her forget. They were so amusing, so astonishing, that they put everything out of her head. It was the Fruit Stoners who made her forget. That was it, she told herself. Did they do it purposely, or was she herself to blame? Her mind whirled on.
“There!” she exclaimed to herself, “if I haven’t completely forgotten again why I came here. I’ve got some tremendous, awful purpose. It’s the object of my life really.” A solemn shudder ran through her. She stared right and left along the great, empty corridor. “Oh! I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” flashed suddenly into her mind. “I’m here to find — to look for something — of course — !
Yet she did not bring back this memory herself, it was a sound that brought it, galvanizing her whole being, a sound, yes, faint and distant: the small, quiet ticking that was so small and quiet it was now like the ticking of a watch.
“Tick tock! Tick tock!” But as though it came this time from a long way off. For a moment, indeed, it sounded on her own person, inside her almost, as from a watch she carried in belt or pocket, almost in her very heart. Much fainter it had grown.
“Tick tock! Tick tock!”
She knew now who was watching her, to whom the observant, hidden eyes belonged, and as the feeling of haste and flurry rushed over her with its horrid panic touch, she turned round and round, trying to look everywhere at once. A movement then quite close caught her eye,
at the window facing her not two yards away, but outside. A figure stood peering at her through the glass, its face pressed against the very pane without quite touching it — the face of the Man who Wound the Clocks.
He was after her again! He was always at her heels!
The very first instant she saw the dreaded face it leaped across her mind that there was someone who could help. There was a name, a powerful and mighty name — that entirely escaped her. A prodigious, glorious name. Memory was too bruised and slow to find it. Oh, what was it? The lips of the face, she saw, were moving, and though she could not catch the actual sound, she could see that they were repeating “Five Minutes! Five minutes!”
A lesser word flashed into her. “Knife! Knife!” she cried out, though her voice was little more than a frightened whisper, and while the face withdrew slightly, the figure did not go. It faded a little, however, and the ticking sound seemed fainter. How the fixed eyes stared at her through the windowpane! How the lips opened and closed as they went on mouthing the phrase that gave her this sense of nervous hurry! “Five Minutes! Five Minutes! — the movement of the mouth and lips was easy to read, the words almost audible.
The hands now rose above the sill, fingering the window fastenings. The shoulders hunched, two arms stretched higher. Horrors! He was trying to come in.
“But I’m searching, I am searching!” cried Maria. “I’ve begun to look. I shall find it — before — before anyone can — say knife!”
The words tore out of her, for she could think of nothing else to say.
“I’m not too late yet! I’ve still got time!
The window-frame made a rattling noise as though about to open, and with it came a curious grinding that was, she felt positive, the sound of a clock being wound. Oh! if only she could remember that other name she had heard the Fruit Stoners use! There was something much more powerful than Knife, if only she could think of it. Was it — was it “Apothecary” perhaps? The word flashed across her bewildered brain, but it did not seem quite right.... Was she going to faint?
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 304