by Forrest Reid
Tom drew nearer still. “Puss, puss,” he whispered, but received no response: the eyes watching him never even blinked. He had a sense of unreality, a feeling that he had strayed inadvertently into an unknown and fantastic world—a world not human, but feline and necromantic. He wasn’t alarmed, wasn’t even momentarily startled. He realized this and was pleased, though directly afterwards felt a little ashamed of his pleasure, for what was there to be alarmed at? The hint of sorcery in the air was not malevolent, only strange, dreamy, and rather lovely. He passed along the line of cats—cats of all sizes and ages—grey cats, striped cats, orange cats, and black cats—pausing a minute or two in front of each, until he reached the seventh. . . . The seventh cat was Henry.
And Henry knew him; Henry’s mouth opened to emit the faintest sound of recognition. And then a stranger thing than any yet happened. For it seemed to Tom that a struggle was taking place in Henry, that he was on the point of jumping down, that he wanted to be stroked and petted, but something was preventing him, an alien influence which had at that very moment entered into him and was fighting for possession. The battle was soon over. There was no palpable difference in Henry; the only difference was in the light shining in his eyes. Tom had seen precisely that light in them when they had been watching a bird.
Presently, while he stood there looking into Henry’s eyes, he felt a drop of rain splash on to his hand, and then another and another. Glancing up, he saw that the clouds had gathered threateningly overhead; and there was no shelter here unless he crept in between those furze bushes and the broken, overhanging wall. After a brief hesitation he did so, and snuggling well in, curled himself up in the hollow beneath the wall, where he could wait till the rain was over. Henry and the other cats would soon go too, he thought, for they disliked getting wet much more than he did. . . .
* * *
The rain was taking a long while to pass—or had it already passed?—for he must have been thinking of other things. At the same time it struck him that it had grown very dark, which possibly was why, when he stood up to look, everything appeared strange, and vaguely different. It must be the effect of this mist, which had floated up and now hung in a thickening veil over the fields. At any rate he had better go back, for after all he was not much more than a mile from home, and he set off at a trot in the direction he had come from. The rain grew no heavier, it was the mist which had this curious effect on the aspect of things. But it was thinning a little; and soon through it, and down below him, he caught a glimpse of the river. He ran on and on, while all the time it was growing lighter.
Only where exactly was he? He was standing on an upland; beside him was a long narrow ravine, thickly wooded; before him was the river valley. All this he recognized, yet with a swiftly increasing uneasiness. For the scene was not quite as he knew it, and that grey stone house, bare and gaunt, was certainly not his home. The garden, too, was gone. He felt a strange drumming in his ears, and a dizziness. The memory of the garden, the memory of his own house, began to wink and flicker. Instinctively he clung to it, feeling that if his mind relaxed ever so little the memory would go out. And it seemed even now to be very faint, and difficult to keep before him. He bent his whole mind, with a painful concentration, on that wavering vision. The struggle was acute, and it was like the struggle against a powerful anæsthetic. A rapid succession of waves of light and darkness swam before his eyes, through which, very shadowy and dim, the phantom of a garden hovered. Only the great stone house before him was solid and real, and drew him with a fascination that was stronger than his will. Then the struggle was forgotten. . . .
It was winter, and the fallen leaves lay soaked and sodden on the grass. The house showed no sign of being inhabited, except that a dense coil of smoke curled up from one chimney and spread sluggishly against a leaden sky. Tom drew nearer still; he passed round the side of the house. He saw a heavy door, studded with iron nails and ornamented with a design in beaten ironwork. And though the door was shut he felt quite sure that it was not locked, that he had only to push it and it would open. He did not do so; he peered through a window, but could see nothing except a dirty empty vault-like room. Ten yards from the front of the house rose a tree, with black leafless twisted boughs that were patterned against the cold grey sky. By jumping he might just reach the lowest branch, and he did so. Pulling himself up, he clambered astride this branch, and once there, the tree was easy to climb. He climbed till he was on a level with the upper windows, and then, hugging the trunk tightly, he stood gazing into a familiar room. On the bare floor were traced the magic symbols; a fire burned on the hearth; an old man was sitting in a chair, absorbed in a big book which lay open on a table before him—and staring straight out of the window, with fierce hungry eyes, was a huge black cat. . . .
The cat saw him, the cat’s tail began to twitch, his mouth opened, and, though no sound reached Tom, the wizard raised his head. Simultaneously Tom half slid, half tumbled down the tree. For a moment he lay sprawling on the cold wet grass; then he was up and running as hard as he could. He ran and ran and ran, till he could run no longer. He staggered a few steps further, but presently, tipping over a hidden ivy root, he tumbled down—lost, breathless, and exhausted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
IT HAD begun to rain again. Tom wriggled in between two whin-bushes growing under a tumbled-down wall. . . .
A wall! And the ground was rough and broken into mounds and hollows: he was back once more in the graveyard.
He had neither looked nor cared whither he was running, yet it seemed an evil omen. A yellow twilight swam between earth and sky, and beneath it the landscape had taken on a livid unnatural hue. A black motionless figure crouched at a little distance.
He was trapped. To try to go home would only be to return to the house he had run away from—the house of his dream, the house the serpent had shown him: how could he ever go home again if his true home was not there.
But if it was not there, where was it? And instantly the answer came to him that it was there, only not there for him. Something had happened to him which shut him out. It was there, but he was not there. And if he could not get back to it, get back to Daddy and Mother, then neither would they be able to get to him. They might be looking for him even now, but their “now” was not his “now” He could do nothing: he was lost. . . .
* * *
For a while sheer helplessness produced a kind of mental inertia; and then, without seeking for it, he saw the flaw in his reasoning, and hope revived. He must have escaped at least from that, which was the worst. The proof was staring him in the face: the proof lay just in this ruined graveyard, for it could not be in the same “present” as the house he dreaded. Centuries stretched between them. Moreover he remembered the drifts of fallen leaves, the black naked tree, the winter sky—and this was not winter. It might seem to him a long long time since he had set out to wander over the fields, but the season was the same, it must be the same afternoon; he would go back, he must try it again at whatever risk, and this time perhaps all would be well.
Then his eyes fell on the crouching beast, which at the first movement he made had raised its head. Half hidden in the long grass it lay—sleek, with pointed ears—a cat, but not Henry, much larger than Henry, as large nearly as a lynx—as large as the cat in that house. And with this last recognition Tom cowered back again.
He shut his eyes. Some minutes seemed to pass—how many he did not know—perhaps only one or two, perhaps none, merely an infinitesimal interval of silence, not ordinary silence, but a total absence of sound, such as must exist in the unimaginable void of outer and empty space. It was simply there, and then it was gone, though it had been broken only by a ripple of light. But Tom was breathing again, the earth was breathing , and very far and faint, he now heard a positive sound, hardly audible indeed, and yet surely a sound of barking. Again came the drifting wave of light, and this time through the heavy canopy of cloud a thin lance of sunshine pierced—stretched across the g
raveyard and vanished. Tom lifted his head. The clouds were splitting into two solid masses, were drawing back like dark immense gates between which a hot gush of sunlight swept, spreading over the fields and flooding them. In another second it had reached the graveyard, and the big cat rose to its feet, angry and threatening, but not threatening Tom, for its back was turned to him, and it was watching a young man who had just then come into sight at the edge of the adjoining field. Tom stood up to watch him too. He was still some distance off, but he was moving swiftly, and a few yards in front of him ran a white woolly dog about the size of a sheepdog.
Tom’s heart leapt; he dared not shout; but he saw the dog raising his head as if to catch a scent, and directly afterwards he sprang forward at full gallop.
What happened next happened quickly—so quickly that Tom had no distinct view of it. There was a leap, a furious snarling, but there was no battle—the black cat was gone.
And while Tom still stood staring at the spot where it had been, the young man reached the graveyard. Tom heard him and turned round. He had seen him twice before—once as a boy, once as a youth. Then, without quite knowing why, but to hide a deeper feeling that he could not express, he stooped and began to stroke and make friends with the dog.
There were no greetings; the young man simply sat down on the broken wall and Tom sat beside him. The white dog stretched himself at their feet.
It was enough; there seemed to be no more need for speech; at any rate Tom felt none. The young man understood; Tom too understood. And merely to sit like this was in itself a happiness, which no words could deepen.
“All the same,” Tom thought, “I very nearly forgot to call him.” And after a while he asked, remembering the vanished beast: “Where did it come from?”
“From you,” the young man said, and so quietly that Tom glanced at him in doubt.
“From me?”
The strangely bright eyes were fixed on his; the young man spoke again. But his voice had not the tone Tom wanted, nor were his words the words he wanted. “In itself it was nothing,” he said; “only the image of your fear, which you brought to life.”
Tom hung his head; he had perhaps deserved some such answer, but that was not what troubled him. He knew the answer to his next question also, though he could not keep it back. “And when you go away from me again—will that too be all?” Suddenly he felt that it would be very easy to cry, though quite useless—useless unless he could be given the comfort, find the comforter, he longed for.
But the angel did not comfort him, nor did he seem to notice the hand that Tom instinctively half held out and then quickly withdrew. Did not take it at all events, but only counselled gravely: “Do not think about it; it will do no good; because at present you cannot understand. . . . I am you; the beast that is gone was you; do not think about it, but go to sleep.”
“I don’t——” Tom was beginning sadly, when a sudden drowsiness covered up his thought. For a moment, as he tried to grasp it, the thought flickered back into consciousness, or something like it. What he wanted to say was: “Can’t you——”
Only somehow he was listening to the waves, and watching them, and lying on the sand at Glenagivney, and Pascoe, not the angel, was beside him. . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A GRASSHOPPER was singing near the furze-brake. “Tom!” it sang in a shrill thin voice. “Tom—wake up now—Tom!” The voice grew louder and more insistent; it no longer sang, it spoke—and a little anxiously, for it had become Miss Jimpson’s voice. “It seems very strange, Geoffrey! Do you think there can be anything the matter?”
The “Geoffrey” was interesting, therefore Tom hung on a little longer to a now pretended slumber. He didn’t even peep, though sorely tempted to, for he was both curious and faintly amused; but he kept his eyes fast shut. Then, like the turtle’s, the voice of Geoffrey was heard in reply. “No, Anna, I don’t. His eyes are tighter shut than they were a minute ago. He’s shamming.”
Tom smiled and looked up at them. “I was really asleep at first,” he protested, scrambling to his feet. “Honestly.”
“But wasn’t that very foolish of you!” Miss Jimpson exclaimed. “I’m sure the ground must be damp.”
Tom, after the least hesitation, remembered that it had been raining, though nothing to speak of. That was why he had got in under the whin-bushes, he told her, and added: “I’m really looking for mushrooms.”
Miss Jimpson laughed. But presently she asked: “How long have you been tucked in there?”
Tom hesitated again. He knew he had come out soon after lunch, but how long ago was that? “I’m afraid I’ve been here most of the afternoon,” he was obliged to confess. “What time is it now?”
“It’s nearly half past five,” Miss Jimpson answered. “We were on our way home when we saw you, or rather saw the dog.”
“The dog!” cried Tom quickly, turning abruptly around. But no dog was visible.
There was a brief pause. “A big white woolly thing,” Miss Jimpson then went on in a tone of faint surprise. “He seems to have disappeared. . . . It was he, anyway, who attracted our attention. He looked exactly as if he were mounting guard over something—as apparently he was—so we came to have a closer inspection. . . . Oh!—here he comes.”
But Tom had already seen him, and also seen that Mr. Holbrook’s face wore a curiously speculative expression. The white dog came trotting up.
“He must be a stray dog,” Tom began. “I mean—he’s not mine.”
Mr. Holbrook was still watching him, and now he spoke. “He doesn’t seem to be aware of that,” Mr. Holbrook observed quietly, and there could be no denying that this was so. The white dog had suddenly planted his two fore-paws on Tom’s shoulders and was licking his cheek. Tom’s arms clasped him tightly. “I wish he was mine,” he said.
“Can do, I should think,” Mr. Holbrook murmured, while Miss Jimpson looked at them both, frankly mystified.
“There were only cats here when I came,” Tom continued, with a glance round at the now abandoned tombstones. “A whole lot of them—sitting like a row of images—but they all seem to have gone.”
“And we ought to be going,” Miss Jimpson declared. Then she said to Tom: “I shouldn’t pet him too much or you’ll have him following you the whole way home.”
“Yes,” Tom answered gravely, “I’m going to take him home. He’s a stray dog.”
Miss Jimpson was quite sure he was nothing of the sort. “Nonsense!” she said. “No stray dog ever had a coat like that. He looks to me as if he had been washed and combed within the last hour.”
“He hasn’t a collar,” Tom maintained with a hint of stubbornness.
“No,” replied Miss Jimpson, “which is a further proof that he’s been washed quite recently.”
Tom said nothing, but his silence was not submissive, and Mr. Holbrook intervened. “Oh, I shouldn’t worry,” he told Miss Jimpson. “The dog can look after himself, I expect. He’s by no means a pup, and if he wants to see Tom home why prevent him?”
“I’m not preventing him,” Miss Jimpson answered. “Only it would be easier to get rid of him now than it will be then, and less disappointing to the dog.”
“I don’t intend to get rid of him,” Tom muttered under his breath.
But Miss Jimpson heard him; she had very sharp ears. Now, Tom,” she said firmly, “you know very well that you can’t take possession of other people’s dogs.”
Not this one—with any safety,” Mr. Holbrook agreed tactfully. At the same time he laid a friendly hand on Tom’s shoulder. “He’s pretty conspicuous, isn’t he?”
The white dog appeared to be following the discussion, though not as if it mattered much.
“Dogs are such queer things!” Miss Jimpson unexpectedly murmured. “You can see he’s taken some notion into his head. . . . About Tom, I mean.”
“Well, he found Tom,” said Mr. Holbrook. “Found him when he was asleep—like Moses in the bulrushes—and ‘finds’ are ‘
keeps’ I suppose.”
Miss Jimpson supposed so also, and her manner, Tom was quick to perceive, had lost its slightly dictatorial tone. “What sort of dog is he?” she mused. “Not a sheepdog and not a poodle. . . . I’ve never seen a dog like him before.”
“Oh yes you have,” Mr. Holbrook contradicted.
“Where?” asked Miss Jimpson, still pondering. “And when?”