He awoke with a start. It was night, the house breathed silently around him, no sound from the window save for a gentle breeze that billowed the white curtains. Seemingly at some point in his chaotic reverie he had fallen asleep, for his shoes were removed and someone had covered him with a woollen blanket. He sat up, touched by this evidence of care, and looked about him, for the first time truly appreciating the comfort of his surroundings, the cleanliness of the sheets and pillows, the solid straight lines of walls and windows, half seen in the dim moonlight. How long had it been since he had lived thus? Not since childhood, surely. He rose, discarding the blanket and walked to the window, half of which was open like a narrow door, looking out into the moon silvered garden, high walled and shadowy and as silent as the house, silent save for the song of a bird, perhaps even a nightingale . . . ah! There it was again, perhaps it had been this sound which had woven itself into his dream, a single note like a summons . . . he glanced back at the bed, discerning amongst the shadowy bedclothes the darker shape of his instrument case. His fingertips tingled with anticipation and a familiar excitement arose in his chest. Why not? What if Bottelli should hear? Let him write down what he heard, if he could. A fair enough trade; food and lodging in return for music, perhaps even more, perhaps, what? ‘Fame and fortune’? Why not? Smiling slightly he stooped to the bed and removed his instrument, crossing to the open window to take up his stance, the violin firmly tucked under his chin. Tentatively he sounded the strings, adjusting, refining the tone, then turned to the moon-silvered expanse of the garden and raised the bow.
Silence answered him. Instead of melody, instead of the rush of certainty and passion, silence. He hands which had been raised in anticipation gradually lowered and he frowned with confusion and the beginnings of a faint, terrible fear. He stared out of the window, as if what was not present were somehow out there, hidden in the shadows. A presence which had called to him, a ghostly audience for whom his music had been flung into the night, now had the implacable severity of a judge. Thought died, and he stood, head lowered, violin and bow held uselessly at his side.
There came a rustle of movement in a tree at the edge of his sight. A flutter as of wings, and a single soft cry. Eagerly he searched the shadows, there! No, now there! Moving further off? No, no he must not lose sight, he had to . . . explain, apologise, he had not meant. . . . Desperately he closed violin and bow into their case, fumbled his way into shoes and rushed back to the window. With both casements open it was a little way to the gravel path beneath, and awkwardly he managed to reach it, heedless of the pain of unaccustomed movement and scraping his knee on the hard sill. Carrying the violin case protectively close to his chest with one hand as he might have held a small child, he followed the loom of the moonlit path, striving for a sight of movement in the dark foliage at the garden’s borders. Another soft cry . . . there! Eagerly he pushed forward, only to strike his hand painfully on an implacable wall of masonry. No! The movement of the leaves came from a tree on the other side of the wall! Wait . . . striving to master his panic he attempted to think, to remember. He was directly opposite the dark bulk of the house; hadn’t there been a gate, set in the wall? He felt along the rough brick and tangled ivy, heedlessly brushing aside the clinging strands of spiderweb with his outstretched hand. Suddenly his questing fingers met the warmer texture of wooden planks, the colder metallic feel of rusted metal, solid and immovable as the wall. Hopelessly he stood back a little, craning his head upward. Again the soft sound from above, the quick flutter of wings . . . almost, he thought, impatient . . . desperately he flung himself at the door again, feeling with his free hand for a bolt, a latch, anything. He had no way of knowing that his host kept this particular portal unlocked on certain nights, the hinges oiled and silent. His questing fingers encountered the damp cold of an iron ring, and hopelessly he twisted it and pulled, expecting stubborn resistance, almost falling backward as the gate quietly swung open. Hesitatingly he stepped through the narrow doorway.
He found himself in a shadowed lane, bordered by trees, their leaves darkly silhouetted against the moonlight, whispering quietly together with a passing wind. He shut the gate, careful to engage the latch, all the while searching overhead for a tell-tale movement. Yes, there it was! A sudden flurry amongst the leaves, a soft voiced note, and the indistinct shape flew off, landing on another branch further down the lane. His heart pounding, the old man followed.
The lane joined another street, lamp lit and quietly respectable, and he saw the quick beat of wings for a brief moment as the bird passed a circle of illumination. He tried to keep his head down and walk naturally, while still keeping his eyes raised to the foliage of the trees lining the pavement. Once he passed a uniformed police constable, resplendent in brass and leather, making his slow rounds in the opposite direction. He shrank inwardly, expecting a peremptory summons, but the man only nodded in greeting, and he realised that his borrowed clothes marked him out as a respectable citizen out for a midnight stroll, or perhaps a musician coming home after a late concert rehearsal.
On he went, always guided by the rustle of wings among the leaves or occasionally a quick shape darting ahead at an open intersection. As if in a dream he walked on through streets deserted and silent, the houses becoming less frequent and finally giving way to open countryside. Finally he stood at the crest of a rise, the road stretching away into the distance, dimly lit by the westering moon. A little wind passed, cooling his sweaty forehead, and whispered in the dry weeds by the roadside. In the silence that followed he heard, faintly, the chime of a distant clock and like a sleepwalker suddenly awakened he wondered where he was and what he was doing, alone on an unfamiliar road in the middle of the night. Could he find his way back to the Maestro’s house before his absence should be discovered? He realised that he had no memory of the way he had come, and with a sudden panic turned and searched the darkness behind him for a light or a familiar landmark but there was nothing, nothing but the pale road, yawning and empty. Where was the bird? Had there even been a bird? Old tales, half remembered, of travellers being lured to their doom by spirits rose up in his memory, beneath which was the deeper fear of madness. He clutched the violin to his chest, an impulse to run wildly back, to some kind of safety and shelter jerking his foot and causing him to stumble, almost losing his balance.
Suddenly into the stillness came a single note of birdsong, falling from the sky like a pebble of crystal into a dark pool. The old man turned back, searching among the faint stars and wisps of cloud. There! Hardly to be distinguished against the sky, a winged shadow swooped down and away, and again he heard the single peremptory summons. Beyond fear, beyond coherent thought, he followed, over the crest of the hill and into the night beyond. Shadows surrounded him, underneath bushes and the occasional tree, and the road was only a lighter patch at his feet, faintly luminous in the faint light from moon and stars, leading onward only as far as the next hill or bend, and then the next, indistinct as a dream.
The moon was low over the horizon and his feet were beginning to stumble from sheer weariness when he noticed a glow ahead, silhouetting the treetops of a small wood. In a short time he came to the dark opening of a lane, down which he could make out the light of a fire, or several fires, and faintly borne on the wind the sound of voices. The loneliness and silence of the night were suddenly unbearable, and without conscious decision he found his steps turning down the rough track. The rutted ground kept his eyes straining downward to see his footing, and so it was that he was quite near the source of the firelight before he realised. All the while the sound of human voices had been growing, and suddenly one voice raised in song, and he stopped suddenly in amazement, for both melody and words were known to him, out of the mists of his distant childhood, a woman’s voice it had been then, singing,
Wild bird, brother bird
Where are you leading me?
Wild bird, brother bird
Without rest, without a home
Only you hea
r my song
Only you hear my heart cry
Wild bird, brother bird
Where is my love?
The dogs had approached silently, unlike farm dogs he had known, and suddenly they were all around him, half a dozen lean sinewy animals with cold eyes and a terrible menace in their lowered heads and exposed teeth. In another instant several human figures came bounding through the brush on either side of the rough track. He saw the dark shapes of heavy sticks in their hands and the glitter of a knife blade and his heart leaped painfully, freezing the air in his lungs. Roughly he was seized by both arms, while some of the group pushed past him and seemed to search the area round about. A voice shouted something in the language of the song, strange and yet tantalisingly familiar, something about ‘one’ and ‘light’. With the same violence he was hustled along the path toward the glow of the fire.
The scene that met his eyes might have been conjured out of nightmare. A half dozen bulky, high wheeled drays were grouped around a large bonfire. Silhouetted against the leaping flames were a score of dark faced, raggedly dressed figures, as savage as the dogs and no less menacing. They pressed around him, their dark eyes glittering and angry, voices raised loudly but speaking too rapidly to understand. His violin was snatched from him and quick hands explored his pockets and then deftly removed his jacket. He was turned this way and that, in a manner that reminded him unpleasantly of a cat playing with a helpless mouse, then finally forced to his knees in the damp grass. His captors became still and one figure stood before him, a young man more colourfully dressed, with gold rings in his ears and a silken scarf about his neck. One cheek was disfigured by a large scar, like a burn long healed. He stood looking down, his expression touched by an unpleasant glint of humour.
‘So!’ he said finally, in the language of the city. ‘The great lord comes to visit the gypsies in the night! What does he seek, creeping about like a thief?’ He spat out the word, looking around the circle of faces. ‘Perhaps he seeks gold, or women, eh, gaje man?’ The old man shook his head helplessly, unable to speak. One of the others approached, carrying the violin from where he had been examining it by the light of the fire. He spoke a few words in an angry undertone, gesturing to the instrument. ‘Well!’ said the first speaker, folding his arms. ‘It seems you have already stolen from us! How comes it you carry a gypsy fiddle?’
‘No . . . my own . . . given . . .’ The old man halted in confusion, overwhelmed to hear his voice speaking words in a tongue long forgotten, words spoken only rarely, in the night, a secret shared by mother and son. A chorus of exclamations arose, and the leader gestured for silence, sweeping his hands wide with a mocking smile.
‘So! And what traitorous fool has taught you the words of the People? Are you then one of those who come to steal our language? Steal our music? Write everything down with little black marks to imprison in books? Eh, gaje man? Do you know what your people do to thieves? Like this?’ He pointed to the scar on his cheek. ‘May be we mark you too!’ There was an angry murmur at this, and one of the men took a burning stick from the edge of the fire and held it out suggestively. The old man shrank away but his captors pressed close about and hard hands took hold of his arms.
Suddenly there came a disturbance at the outer edge of the crowd, and the pressure of bodies eased somewhat. A loud voice, a woman’s voice, rang out over the laughter and shouting, two words in the strange/familiar tongue:
‘Milosh! Enough!’ He was released, and the group melted away to either side, leaving a corridor down which a large bulky figure approached, silhouetted by the firelight. Closer to, he could discern voluminous skirts, and a broad bodice hung with what must have been a king’s ransom in gold pieces fashioned into necklaces that clinked musically in the sudden silence. The woman’s face was of no particular age, compressed and hard as her voice, and her eyes glittered like jet as she stood before him and stared down, hands planted on her substantial hips. The man addressed as Milosh began a torrent of objection in which only the words ‘thief’ and ‘fire’ were comprehensible, and the woman silenced him with a gesture, without shifting her gaze. She seemed to grow even larger, and her eyes bored down. The old man trembled, unable to look away.
‘How come you here, stranger?’ The words came slowly and clearly, and with a certainty of being understood.
‘I followed . . . a bird . . . called to me . . .’ He dredged in his memory desperately, searching through a kaleidoscope of fragmented images, of his mother’s voice, whispering in the night, the angry face of his father, the shame of shouted arguments overheard. He was conscious, too, of the dew soaking his trouser legs, but dared not move from the kneeling position into which he had been thrust. The woman nodded once, then called out something sharply over her shoulder, holding out one hand. The man who held his violin came forward and offered her the instrument together with its bow.
The woman held both in front of his eyes, and addressed him again, speaking as if to the child he had once been.
‘One gave you these. One taught you the words of the People. Who?’
A face rose up in his mind, dark skinned as the faces around him, but groomed and dressed in the style of the city, a face bruised and angry, whispering by his bedside, strong fingers clutching his shoulder. ‘Never forget! Your soul comes from my soul! Listen when it calls to you!’ And as if the years had fallen from him, he called out one word, in anguish, in desperate longing, tears long unshed filling his eyes.
‘Mother!’
His hands covering his face, he was dimly conscious of strong hands raising him to his feet. As if coming out of nightmare into a familiar world, he lowered his arms to find himself surrounded by faces warm and welcoming. The man Milosh clapped him on the shoulder, turned to the others and shouted, ‘What was lost returns! We take back what is ours!’ There were grins and shouts of approval at this, for the word he had used meant the taking of a chicken or pig strayed by the roadside. Then the woman, the matriarch, eldest and head of the kumpania, held out his violin and bow for him to take.
‘Now play!’ she commanded. ‘Play what is in your heart!’
Silence fell as he adjusted the instrument under his chin and raised the bow. For a moment he searched the smoke filled darkness overhead for the faint flutter of wings. Then the music rose up and consumed him utterly.
***
Next morning, Maestro Bottelli, discovering the absence of his guest, instituted a search of the neighbourhood. The local constable remembered having seen someone of that description, carrying an instrument case, at about midnight the previous evening on the road to the east, and a search party accordingly set out in that direction. A few miles from the city, they discovered a lane showing the recent passage of a number of wheeled vehicles, and some distance from the road, the ashes of a large fire. But of the solitary violinist there was no trace.
THE LIGHTHOUSE
I no longer remember where I was when I first heard of the lighthouse. I know I was at a rootless, aimless period of my life, that having retired from the great ocean-going ships at long last I sought peace and rest in my declining years, and I know also that the sea still drew me, as it does all who have sailed on her so that although I had no specific destination in mind I knew that if I lived anywhere it would be within sight and sound of the sea.
I had, however, very little in the way of money, for the pension of an old sea captain, especially one employed by such rapacious sharks as the owners of the line had proved to be, would not stretch to anything much above a hovel, so that I was at my wits’ end how I should get by when someone mentioned that the lighthouse keeper in the town of ——— had recently passed away, and that the authorities were anxious to replace him with someone of experience, the rocky point where the lighthouse was situated being the site of many naval disasters.
Accordingly I wrote expressing an interest in obtaining the position, giving full particulars of my experience both on land and on sea, and was pleasantly surprised to receive a
n answer by return of post, directing me to proceed without delay to ——— and there to present myself at the offices of the local authority. Included in the missive was a chit to defray my travel expenses which I thought surprising, indicating as it seemed an eagerness bordering on panic to see the position filled, but then I reasoned that we were entering on the season of storms, it being late Autumn, and no doubt it was a matter of some urgency that the lighthouse keeper be on duty as soon as was practically possible.
With a heart considerably lighter than it had been of late I bid farewell to the miserable lodgings I had taken for want of anything better, and shouldering my dunnage I boarded the next coach for ———, which I reached late that afternoon.
The Girl with the Peacock Harp Page 7