The Complete Bostock and Harris

by Leon Garfield

  Not much comforted, he went inside the house. Morgan, who had been feeding Adelaide, shouted to him not to bang the door. But, as he’d already banged it, her remark seemed unnecessary.

  Everything was unnecessary. He began to mount the stairs. Caroline was still crying. He went toward her room with the general idea of being disagreeable. He had no pity for her. She was a female and Harris loathed and despised all females. They always caused trouble and never seemed to get the blame. He opened her door.

  “Go away!” sobbed Caroline.

  She was sitting on her bed, holding a doll, and with her eyes as red as poppies.

  “Shut up!” said Harris sternly.

  Caroline’s face crumpled up, as if an invisible fist were squeezing it to get more tears from her eyes. She looked very small and insignificant. Harris felt vaguely touched and inquired as to the source of her grief.

  More tears and a frantic rocking of her doll, who persisted in smiling glassily. Harris told her to pull herself together.

  It turned out that Caroline’s grief proceeded from an undying hatred for her sister Mary. Mary, it seemed, had inexplicably wished to disassociate herself from Caroline. She had threatened to punch Caroline in the stomach and scratch her eyes out if Caroline so much as came anywhere near her once they got to Devil’s Dyke.

  Harris nodded; he understood both points of view. For the first time in his life he found himself sympathizing with two of his sisters at the same time. He thought.

  “I’ll take you,” he said. “We’ll walk up to the Dyke together.” It had occurred to him that, by producing Caroline on top of Devil’s Dyke, he would be destroying Mary’s happiness, probably destroying Caroline’s, and he would be discomforting Bostock by catching him out. In short, he would be killing a large number of birds with one stone. Also, he wanted very much to go to Devil’s Dyke, and he was feeling so lonely that even his small sister’s company was better than none.

  “What are you doing with Miss Caroline?” demanded Morgan, coming out of the nursery with Adelaide under her arm.

  “He’s taking me up to the party on Devil’s Dyke,” said Caroline, proudly clutching her brother’s sleeve.

  “Now don’t you go and lose her!” said Morgan, her wild Welsh mind muddled with ancient memories of changelings and foundlings and lostlings on the downs. “And don’t bang that door!”

  Devil’s Dyke was five miles off and uphill every weary step of the way. Long before they were halfway there, Harris yearned to realize Morgan’s worst fears and lose his bitterly complaining sister for good. She was hungry, she was thirsty, her toe hurt, and there was a tickling in one of her ears—had an animal gotten in?

  Harris poked his finger in, and Caroline shrieked. They went on. Caroline hated Harris, and Harris hated Caroline; nevertheless they clung together as it was beginning to get dark.

  At about seven o’clock they passed the old inn before the top of the Dyke itself. Already fires had been lighted, for the downs were chilly when the sun went down, and it was still only April.

  Smoke was rising from the high place where, long ago, the Devil had stood and scooped out the deep, precipitous Dyke that was meant to let the sea come rushing in and drown all the churches of the Weald. It was as if his footprints were still hot.

  There was a red glow in the air and a throng moved against it, mysteriously black. Then a wind blew. The smoke flattened and a million golden sparks danced and raced, as if Pigott’s comet, to signify its arrival, had shaken out its tail.

  A pleasant smell of cooked food was wafted across the downs, together with the cheerful sounds of plates, bottles, faintly jingling harness, and the pigmy out-of-doors voices of the comet watchers, as they laughed and strolled and found best places for their feasts, around the dancing green.

  “Look!” cried Caroline, dragging on Harris’s sleeve. “There’s Dolly with Maggie Hemp!”

  Harris, much relieved, hastened to dispose of Caroline. He appeared like a specter in Dorothy’s path. She halted.

  “That’s Ma’s brooch you’re wearing,” said Caroline observantly. “I’ll tell.”

  “For God’s sake!” said Dorothy in a rage. “Go away!”

  Nobody, she thought, can expose you to the contempt and ridicule of the whole world better than your own family!

  Maggie looked at the brooch. “It is a little old for you, dear,” she said.

  Dorothy wondered why she ever went out with Maggie Hemp, who always managed to say something hurtful. She longed for the dancing to begin, even though she didn’t have much hope of a partner.

  “Look!” she said. “There’s Mr. Top-Morlion and his family! I wonder when they’ll start to play.”

  Maggie Hemp pulled Dorothy the other way. “Look!” she said. “There’s Mr. Collier selling those comet cakes! Come along and I’ll buy you one, Dolly!”

  Away they went.

  “Look!” shouted Caroline. “There’s Mary! Over there! Look! She’s with—”

  But Harris was no longer by her side. He had seen not Mary but the murderous Irishman! At once the prospect of personal violence had flashed upon his inner eye, and with a faint cry of alarm he had vanished from human sight.

  The abandoned Caroline began to howl and scream, but it was too late. Harris, when he vanished, vanished for good.

  Cassidy also had been surprised. He kept gazing about him and seeing the familiar faces of Brighton folk, ringing the firelight like demons. He felt he was drowning all over again, and yesterday was flashing before his eyes.

  He and O’Rourke, having been unable to pay their bill at the Black Lion, had been obliged to work off their debt by carrying part of the landlord’s family and a stock of Patcham beer and pies “up yonder hill.”

  Not being geographers, they’d toiled up in all innocence from the Patcham side. Not Sir Francis Drake himself, leaving Plymouth and then coming back to it without having turned a corner, could have been more astonished than Cassidy and O’Rourke when they beheld what they thought they’d left behind.

  There was Mary Flatley herself, walking arm in arm with her Englishman, who was as tall as a lamppost, only without the shine.

  All Cassidy’s hopes came back to him and then were dashed when he saw the size of his rival. He longed to distinguish himself, to do something valiant—to save a life, maybe . . . hers if it could happen without putting her in danger! But it was hopeless. What could he do beside Andrews, who had everything he lacked, and a rowboat besides?

  “Look!” said O’Rourke. “There’s that boy who’ll see ye hanged, Cassidy!”

  “Where?”

  “Ah, he’s gone now. Most likely he’s gone for the magistrate. Ye’d best keep out of the way, Cassidy!”

  “I’ll kill him!” said Cassidy, retreating into obscurity with a tray of Patcham Ales (None Finer). “I might as well be hanged for a boy as for a brass telescope I never had!”

  So Cassidy went looking for Harris, while Harris stayed where he was, trembling and perspiring under the Top-Morlions’ cart.

  He saw Cassidy’s stoutly gaitered legs coming near. Urgently he searched for some means of defense. He found a brick wedged under one of the wheels. He pulled it free, meaning to sell his life dearly.

  Cassidy, not finding Harris—and not really wanting to—put down his tray of Patcham Ales (None Finer) and rested against the cart, while nearby the Top-Morlions tuned their instruments for the beginning of the dance.

  Monsieur Top-Morlion, observing out of the corner of his eye the tray of Patcham Ales, wondered if they were an additional tribute to the musicians—a kindly refreshment, such as was always offered in France? He put down his cello. . . .

  “My God!” said Mrs. Top-Morlion, poking her son in the back with the bow of her fiddle. “Look at your father! He’s done it again!”

  Monsieur Top-Morlion was swaying in his chair and clutching his sensitive stomach with every appearance of agony.

  “He’s a pig!” said Mrs. Top-Morlion furiously
. “He’s just drunk a whole bottle of beer after all that wine! He’s nothing but a pig!”

  Monsieur Top-Morlion fell off his chair and rolled on the ground, groaning piteously.

  “I’d better fetch Dr. Harris,” said Philip, no less furiously. “Maybe he can give him something right away.”

  He hurried away to where the Harris family were settled and explained the situation. Dr. Harris came at once.

  “He should never have had that beer,” he said after he had examined Monsieur Top-Morlion. “I warned him about straining his stomach.”

  “Can’t you do something, Dr. Harris?” pleaded Mrs. Top-Morlion. “Just so he can play for this evening?”

  The look on her face suggested that, after that, she didn’t care.

  Dr. Harris said there was nothing he could do, and Mrs. Top-Morlion said it was intolerable that everybody’s pleasure should be ruined because of her husband’s irresponsible greed.

  Dr. Harris sympathized, and, wishing to be of service to his patient’s family and the company in general, suggested that, if the music wasn’t very difficult, his daughter Dorothy might take the cello part. She was, after all, Monsieur Top-Morlion’s pupil and would most likely do him credit.

  At once Philip’s heart began to beat violently. He assured Dr. Harris that the cello part was simplicity itself. A child could manage it, let alone an accomplished young lady like Miss Harris.

  “I’ll go and find her,” said Dr. Harris.

  “She’s over there!” said Philip rapidly.

  Dr. Harris approached his daughter.

  “Really, Pa!” said Dorothy, her heart beating violently. “The very idea! Besides, I haven’t practiced for ages. I’d just be making a fool of myself!”

  Maggie Hemp agreed. Dolly couldn’t possibly do it!

  “On the other hand,” said Dorothy, dragging Maggie toward the Top-Morlions, “I don’t want to be a spoilsport. And—and you can turn the pages for me, Maggie!”

  She greeted Mrs. Top-Morlion politely and looked daggers at Philip. He needn’t imagine she’d come to make things up.

  “We really are obliged to you, Miss Harris,” said Philip icily. “I think you’ll find the music is quite straightforward.”

  She sat down, and Mrs. Top-Morlion passed her the cello. Philip leaned over to open the music.

  “Miss Hemp will turn the pages for me,” said Dorothy. “There’s no need for you to stand so close, Mr. Top-Morlion.”

  She smiled triumphantly at Maggie, who smiled uncertainly back. She didn’t trust Dolly an inch.

  “Are you ready, Miss Harris?”

  Dorothy nodded, and they began to play, almost together. A stir went through the firelit crowd, a hastening to and fro.

  Then the music launched itself into “Nancy Dawson,” which children know as “My Grandmother,” and two by two the dancers came, shyly and awkwardly onto the green.

  “Please try to keep in time!” muttered Philip, briefly lowering his flute.

  “I am in time!”

  “Then you’re out of tune!”

  “Please don’t criticize. I’ll stop if you go on like that!”

  “You should practice more.”

  “How can I? Nobody bothers to teach me!”

  “What do you mean by that? And don’t keep stopping every time you talk!”

  “I wasn’t stopping. That was a rest. Oh, I see—it was a smudge. If you’d come to give me my lesson that night—”

  “I did come!”

  “Philip!” said Mrs. Top-Morlion. “For goodness’ sake, don’t keep stopping!”

  “You didn’t come! I waited till—”

  “I did come. And you threw water over me! And you called me a filthy little beast!”

  “I didn’t! Oh, my God! Was it you?”

  “Who the devil else would be playing the cello under your window?”

  “Miss Harris! Philip! Please keep playing!”

  “I thought it was my brother,” said Dorothy savagely, and then: “Oh, Mr. Top-Morlion, what must you have thought of me?”

  “A great deal, Miss Harris!”

  “Will you ever forgive me?”

  Would he? He thought about it. He would. Suddenly he felt that his skin was too small to hold in the bursting happiness it contained. He felt an overwhelming desire to hop and skip and fly with Miss Harris in his arms.

  Impulsively he turned to Miss Hemp, who was suddenly his most talented pupil of the flute.

  “Here,” he said, thrusting the instrument into her hands. “Would you mind, Miss Hemp? The music’s quite easy, you know!”

  Then, before Maggie Hemp could say more than “VIPER!”, he released Dorothy from the cello and escorted her onto the green.

  “Philip! Miss Harris!” wailed Mrs. Top-Morlion, as the dancers clumped and turned and bowed to the scraping of a single violin. “Come back!”

  Too late. With the lady on his left, and his right hand holding her left, Philip led Dorothy in the dance.

  Drive with the left foot; step forward on the right . . . all move around one place . . .

  Dorothy floated and Dorothy flew, as she danced on the top of Devil’s Dyke with Philip Top-Morlion, to the unspeakable envy of Maggie Hemp!

  “Serpents! Weasels! Hyenas and goats!” sobbed Maggie Hemp as her worst suspicions came true. “I hate the world!”

  She flung down the flute and went to sit on the back of the pony cart, to cry and cry and cry.

  Unfortunately it was the very cart under which Harris was concealed, and from which he had removed the securing brick. Looking up, he was alarmed to see the cart begin to move under the tempestuous weight of Miss Hemp.

  Fearing exposure, Harris began to crawl away, taking good care to choose the opposite direction from where he could still see Cassidy’s feet.

  In consequence of this, he was forced to brush lightly against the pony’s legs. At once the ignorant beast snorted, tossed its head, and jerked its tethering post out of the ground.

  Maggie Hemp screamed, and the pony, frightened out of its wits, set off briskly in the direction of the wild, plunging Dyke itself.

  Cassidy, picking himself up from where he’d fallen when the cart had left him, saw at once an opportunity of distinguishing himself and shining in Mary Flatley’s eyes.

  “I’ll save ye! I’ll save ye!” he roared and stared wildly around for Mary Flatley, just to make sure she could see him.

  But for God’s sake, she was nowhere to be found, and there was the poor girl screaming her head off and being rattled along to her terrible death, maybe hundreds of feet down below!

  “I’ll save ye! I’ll save ye!” yelled Cassidy frantically, and shut his eyes in terror and waited for the faraway crash!

  It wasn’t that he was a coward; it was just that he was so frightened of going over the edge with the cart that he couldn’t move a step.

  He heard shouts, he heard cries, but, Heaven be praised, he heard no crash. He opened his eyes and saw that the cart had been stopped and the poor, weeping girl was standing upright on the ground. Who had saved her? ANDREWS!

  The dirty scoundrel had poked his nose in again! He was a professional rescuer, and that’s all there was to it! Poor Cassidy never stood a chance. A fellow like that would have beaten St. George himself to the dragon . . . the great big hulking lump of wood! Cassidy sat down and cried.

  “Will ye not come and dance with me, Michael Cassidy?” said Mary Flatley’s voice, while Mary Flatley’s hand came down and stroked his hair.

  He looked up, and she looked down, and there was a look in her eyes that would have raised Dublin Castle up if ever it had tumbled down.

  “But—but yer friend over there?”

  “He’s no friend of mine, Michael Cassidy,” said Mary Flatley, offering him her hand. “D’ye think I’ve got the time of day for a fellow that’s always goin’ after rescuin’ and leavin’ me standin’ on me own?”

  Cassidy stood up.

  “And d’ye think, Mi
chael Cassidy, that I’ve not got eyes in me head to see that ye love me truly? For wasn’t it yerself that risked yer life to save me from drownin’ when ye couldn’t swim a stroke? So I’ll never forget that it was yerself that didn’t risk yer neck for another girl, and not him!”

  They walked onto the green to join the waiting dancers, and the lonely lady fiddler struck up again.

  Hop on the left foot, step with the right; ladies turn under the gentlemen’s arms. All move around one place . . .

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” said Maggie Hemp, drying her eyes and cautiously examining her savior from beneath lowered lids. “Really I don’t.”

  Andrews didn’t know either, although he appeared to be giving the matter some thought. He felt vaguely distressed to see that he’d lost Mary Flatley and, with her, his contribution to the feast. He looked wistfully toward her as she and Cassidy danced together, like two green leaves.

  “Would you—would you like to dance with me?” asked Maggie Hemp, feeling that such a sacrifice was the least she could make.

  “I’m not much of a dancer, miss.”

  “I don’t believe you!” said Maggie Hemp, taking hold of Andrews’ huge hand. “I really don’t!”

  Onto the green they went and joined in the growing dance. Andrews tripped and stumbled and trod on Maggie’s foot. Just as he’d said, he wasn’t much of a dancer, but at least he’d told the truth and not been sly. That was something. And compared with that weedy Top-Morlion, he was a real Apollo, even though he smelled of fish. She hoped Dolly Harris could see her and go green with envy over her catch!

  For a little while Harris, his danger past and his person secure, watched the revolving dancers on the green.

  Hop on the right foot, step with the left . . . partners give right hands and make a turn . . . all move around one place . . .

  He turned away. Not for him the happiness of finding a partner, only the sadness of losing a friend. He looked up, hoping to catch a glimpse of the comet, which surely was as solitary as himself. But the air was too full of smoke and flying sparks.

  The dance went on. Flushed faces bobbed; eyes winked like stars.

  Gentlemen bow . . . and rise up on their toes . . .