by Forrest Reid
“Goodness, you’re hard to wake!” Pascoe exclaimed. He had a towel and a bathing suit, and he looked very “early-morning” and energetic. “I’m going to bathe before breakfast,” he said. “Down below the castle. Do you want to come?”
But for a moment or two Tom could not answer. “What time is it?” he then asked weakly. “And how long have you been here?”
“About an hour,” Pascoe said, “shaking you as hard as I could. It’s after eight, but there’s still plenty of time if you hurry up.”
Tom heaved a deep sigh, though it was a sigh of relief and he disguised it as a yawn. He stretched himself under the bedclothes and smiled. “I’ve had the queerest dream,” he couldn’t help beginning, but Pascoe would not listen.
“Are you coming or not?” he asked impatiently. “When I say there’s plenty of time I don’t mean there’s time to waste. You can talk about your dream on the way.”
Tom would rather have talked where he was. He didn’t particularly want to bathe—the water would be as cold as ice at this hour—only still less did he want to go to sleep again. But he could set that Pascoe wasn’t in the mood for dreams: he seldom was, for that matter. “Yes, I’ll come,” he said, making up his mind. “But I’ll not dress. I’ll just put on a coat and come as I am.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LEANING OVER the stern of the boat, Tom dabbled his hand in the water and wished that the holidays were not so nearly over. Pascoe was in the bow among the lobster-creels—which contained more wrack than lobsters, for the haul had been a poor one—and old Danny McCoy was rowing, with little dips of strokes, and chewing a plug of tobacco. Tom and Pascoe had rowed round from the harbour to the lobster-pots; Danny was bringing the boat back. . . .
Only three more days for him—though Pascoe would be staying longer. But on Saturday Tom would be going home—Mother had actually suggested going on Friday—and two weeks later (it had all been settled in an extraordinary hurry) he and Pascoe would be going to their new school.
Not that Tom had any apprehensions about that, and he was still to keep on his music lessons with Mr. Holbrook. . . . Mr. Holbrook might now be engaged to be married. At any rate there had been plenty of time: it seemed to Tom ages since that afternoon when he had sat with Miss Jimpson in the teashop.
He gazed down idly through the water. The boat was passing over a shoal of jelly-fish. He had never seen a lot of them together like this before, and he hoped they were drifting out to sea. Possibly jelly-fish served some useful purpose—Mother said everything did—but he doubted it, and in a swarm they looked repulsive. Ambiguous creatures at the best, on the border line between two kingdoms, hardly more animal than vegetable. Pascoe said they could move in any direction they pleased, by a process of suction and contraction—Pascoe was always interested in how things worked—but to Tom it looked as if they merely drifted on the current or the tide, trusting to encounter a bather. . . .
Danny rowed on in silence. The only sound was a cloppity noise—like little slaps—made by the sea against the bows of the boat. Pascoe had taken a small book from his pocket and was reading it. It was called Spinning Tops, but, in spite of this rather gay title, was in reality a scientific primer. Pascoe was unique—absolutely single-minded; Tom couldn’t imagine anybody else who would bring Spinning Tops with him when going out on a lobster hunt. . . .
He listened dreamily to the cloppity clop. The sea was lovely. When he grew up he wouldn’t live in a town or near a town, but by the sea. Danny McCoy shifted his plug of tobacco from the left cheek to the right. Why did he do that? Danny’s brown hands, rough and wrinkled as oak-bark, tugged at the oars with little jerks that had not much weight behind them. He was a strange old man—“touched”, people said—and Tom had once seen him the worse for drink. But he had been told that two pints of stout could produce this effect on Danny, and anyhow, even when drunk, he was never objectionable. He might stagger a bit, and talk to himself out aloud, but that was all, and it did not happen very often. He lived alone in a thatched cottage at the end of the village, and the country people said he was odd because he had been “away” when a boy. This meant, Tom knew, that he had been taken by the fairies. He was burning to question Danny on the subject, but had been cautioned against doing so. The old man never spoke of his experience himself, and got angry if anyone else alluded to it.
Daddy, of course, said it was all nonsense—at least the fairy part of it. This, and one or two similar tales which Tom had picked up, Daddy said were the inventions of ignorance and superstition embroidering on what probably were ordinary cases of hysteria. Pascoe was equally incredulous, but Tom himself had seen a young man—Sam Grogan—who had been chased for more than a mile by a ghost. Along the high road, too! He had been on his bicycle, and riding as hard as he could, yet the ghost had only given up the pursuit at the edge of the village. Outside the Post Office Sam had fallen off his bicycle exhausted. He had been taken into the Post Office by several friends—for it was a spot where most of the boys and young men gathered in the evenings—and somebody had brought him a drink from Casey’s public house opposite. Tom had not only seen Sam Grogan, but he had also seen and talked to one or two of those who had assisted him, had seen the bicycle, had seen Casey’s public house, had been in the Post Office—had seen everything in short except the actual ghost, and it, save for Sam’s first impression of a tall shadowy figure approaching through a gap, nobody had seen. But its screams had been bloodcurdling, and it had screamed the whole time it was chasing Sam—screams of murder.
Tom felt tempted to ask Danny’s opinion of this story: he felt particularly tempted to ask him what he thought of Port-a-Doris. For Tom had recently visited that lonely little shut-in bay and had not liked it. To say he had not liked it was indeed a mild statement of his feelings. He had hated it. He had felt uncomfortable the whole time he had been there. Port-a-Doris had seemed to him ugly, gloomy, and even sordid, which was remarkable, since it was a kind of show spot, and supposed to be most picturesque and romantic. You got to it through a little tunnel in the rocks. There was nothing but a narrow stony beach, the sea, the black rocks, and a high sloping grassy cliff. Yet while everybody else was exclaiming how charming it was, Tom had got an impression of something sinister and depressing. It had been a most unpleasant feeling, as if a cloud of ugliness, gloom, and evil, were pressing down upon his mind. And—which was stranger still—the ugliness was the same kind of ugliness he had seen once in a crude woodcut Brown had brought to school, showing a man, in a squalid bedroom, hacking with a razor at the throat of a half-naked woman.
What produced this sense of ugliness, and why should he alone feel it? It had not been there for Daddy or Mother or Pascoe. Pascoe had bathed, and while he was still in the water two young lovers had come along to look for cowrie-shells on the beach. Mother in the end had got quite cross with Tom because he couldn’t help suggesting every now and again that they should go away. They had brought a tea-basket with them, and though at last she had given in to his persistence, she had said that she would never go another picnic with him. And Tom loved picnics. But not picnics to Port-a-Doris. . . .
While he was thinking these thoughts he kept his gaze fixed on Danny’s face, and old Danny rowed in meditative silence. His eyes were nearly shut, but what you could see of them was greenish-grey. He wore an old blue jersey; his hair was white; his face and throat were mahogany brown. And myriads of little crinkles, fine as threads, radiated from the corners of his eyes. Tom liked these, perhaps because they showed more clearly when the old man smiled. His smile made you smile back again, and, though his teeth were very much discoloured, it had all the engaging innocence and immediate friendliness of a baby’s.
The sea dropped in glittering showers from Danny’s dipping oar-blades. The blades themselves were hardly wider than the clumsy shafts. There was a gurgle of water under the floorboards of the boat when she tilted, and the mast and the rolled-up patched sails lay along the bottom under the seats. D
anny rarely sailed her except when he went out fishing at night or across to Magilligan. Perhaps a little smuggling went on. Pascoe was sure there was a great deal, which was why Danny had not invited them to go out with him at night, in spite of several pretty broad hints. The hints had been dropped by Pascoe, but Tom hadn’t bothered, because he was sure that anyway he wouldn’t be allowed to go. . . .
The shore glided slowly past: the Manor House glided past; the Fort was gliding past, when Danny rested on his oars and gazed up at it. Pascoe went on reading, but Tom looked up too, though only for a moment, because really he was watching the old fisherman’s face. “Strange things do be on the sea at night,” Danny pronounced slowly, “and strange things on land. I’ve seen a light rising out of the sea like a thousand holy burning candles, and I’ve climbed the hill to Glenagivney and seen a glory of saints and angels in the sky.”
“I’ve seen that too,” Tom said, and the old man looked at him kindly.
“You’re living up there,” he went on mildly, nodding his head towards the Fort. “And I’ve seen a strange sight there too—not so long back.”
“Yes,” Tom answered softly.
“It was a night it might be two or three weeks ago when I seen it,” Danny went on.
“From here?” Tom asked. “From the sea?”
But Danny shook his head. “That night I wasn’t on the sea. It was from up yonder—from the castle. I’d been resting my bones there in the early evening, and sleep came on me, and when I woke the moon was up and throwing a light you’d see clearly by it to read a book. But the sight I’m tellin’ you of was two figures on the battlement, and one might be like yourself in your night clothes, but the other bigger—and the big one was in his pelt. The little one was ordinary like, but the other had a shining round him that was more than the shining of the moon. Maybe you’ll be thinking I had a drop taken, and maybe I had before I lay down. But it had passed off, and I was as sober then as I am now. I didn’t offer to rise up from where I was, and I didn’t stir hand or foot unless maybe it was to cross myself. Not that there was danger for me or anyone in that shining boy, and him with the beauty of an angel of God. I just looked for while you’d be holding your breath, and then they was gone.”
Beyond the old fisherman Tom could see Pascoe, but Pascoe had not even stopped reading.
“I’ll take you in here,” said the old man pleasantly, “and it’ll save you the walk round from the harbour.”
He put the boat in close to the rocks, and Tom and Pascoe jumped ashore. But even when they were alone Pascoe made no comment on Danny’s story, though he must have heard it. On the other hand, he didn’t know what Tom knew, for Tom had not told him his dream. Interrupted at the time, he had never told it later, so perhaps there wasn’t really very much for Pascoe to say.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ON THE level ground above the rocks they separated, and Tom climbed the path to the kitchen garden of the Fort. He was dining at the Manor House that evening for the first time, and Mother had told him that he must put on a clean shirt and collar and his Sunday clothes—a black jacket and light grey trousers. Miss Pascoe, it seemed, would expect nothing less, though Tom was sure, from the odd glimpses he had caught of her, that she wasn’t the kind of person who cared at all about dress. She rarely went outside her own garden, and she must be as old as the hills, being not really Pascoe’s aunt but his father’s.
Dinner was at seven o’clock and Pascoe himself opened the door when Tom arrived. He gazed at the immaculate attire without comment, but also, Tom felt, without approval, his own appearance being precisely what it had been an hour ago when they had stepped out of Danny McCoy’s boat. “You’re in plenty of time,” he said. “Aunt Rhoda’s having a bath.”
Tom, a little disconcerted by this frankness, murmured that he was sorry. “I mean,” he explained, “if I’m too early.” He was on the early side, he knew, and Mother had warned him that he would be. But he hadn’t thought it mattered, and anyway Pascoe’s greeting ought to have been different.
Pascoe was still taking in the details of the Sunday clothes, when a stout florid gentleman, in a crumpled grey flannel suit, descended the stairs, whistling. He, also, cast a glance at Tom, and then immediately turned to his son. “Now you just run along and dress properly to receive your guest,” he said. “This is a civilized country and somebody must keep up appearances.”
“Come in, come in,” he went on breezily to Tom, shaking hands in such a manner as to propel him at the same time into a large, low-ceilinged room. “Run on now,” he repeated over his shoulder to the motionless and reluctant Pascoe. Then, shutting the door, he turned to Tom with what was remarkably like a wink, and said: “He’ll blame this on you, I expect.”
Tom, from the last glimpse he had had of Pascoe’s face, thought it very likely, but he couldn’t help it and didn’t very much mind. He looked about him curiously. This was the drawing-room, he could see, and it contained a frightful lot of furniture—cabinets with glass and china in them, high-backed chairs, and round polished tables. There was a black woolly hearthrug of the kind he liked to lie on, a grey patternless carpet very soft underfoot, a grand piano, an ornamental gilt clock flanked by Dresden china shepherds and shepherdesses, a beautiful Japanese screen in four panels, and a sprinkling of Yorkshire terriers.
“Seven of them, said the wine merchant, who had been closely following Tom’s gaze. “Companionable little beasts. Usually find one or two of them on your bed in the morning. There were eleven, but she screwed herself up to parting with four. . . . You wait,” he went on, with a quick glance at the clock. “It’s now ten minutes to seven. You just wait!”
Naturally he would wait, Tom thought; and it seemed to him a strange thing to say, seeing that he had been asked to dinner. But the wine merchant continued to look at the clock as if it held some secret. He had not invited Tom to sit down, and they were both standing facing the chimney-piece when there arose a remarkable though distant noise, as of demons struggling in a cataract. “The bath water,” said the wine merchant, cocking an ear. “You’ll find this a house of surprises. Makes the deuce of a row, doesn’t it! Whole place needs going over from chimneys to drains—particularly the drains—only she won’t listen to advice. . . . By the way, we’ve not met before,” he suddenly recollected. “Better introduce ourselves.”
“I know who you are, sir,” Tom said politely. “And I know who you are. Call it a draw, and start at scratch. . . . Six minutes now.”
It seemed to Tom that the wine merchant was a most unusual person, and especially surprising as the father of Pascoe. Of course Pascoe was unusual too, but not in the same way—not nearly so genial and off-hand.
“You’re Clement’s great friend, aren’t you?” the wine merchant said. “At least, his only friend, which mayn’t be quite the same thing. I’d ask you your opinion of him only I don’t believe you’d tell me.”
Tom didn’t tell him, and the wine merchant hardly gave him an opportunity before he added: “You’re having great times, I understand. It’s just the place for that. I had great times here myself when I was a boy, and I wouldn’t mind having them over again. . . . Three minutes more.”
His gaze was still glued to the clock, and Tom found himself staring at it too, though without the faintest comprehension. Even the companionable dogs seemed infected by the mysterious expectancy, for they had gathered round, with their seven little faces lifted.
“Ah!” murmured the wine merchant at last, raising both hands to his ears as the first silvery note of the chiming hour floated out. But one note only was audible, for with that there arose from the seven Yorkshires such a nerve-shattering acclamation as Tom had never heard in his life. They stood in a crescent before the chimney-piece, their heads thrown back, their lungs expanded, and the din while it lasted was appalling. It was all over in less than a minute, however, leaving Tom slightly dazed. The wine merchant withdrew his fingers from his ears, laughed briefly, and looked at him with
rueful, comical eyes. “She’s trained them to do it,” he said apologetically. “Miss Pascoe, I mean.”
Tom drew in a breath. “Trained them!” Then, recovering, he added half incredulously: “Every time the clock strikes?”
“Yes,” the wine merchant sighed. “Every time. It’s their star turn—and there used to be eleven of them.”
“Eleven!” Tom echoed.
The wine merchant nodded. “They only do it if they’re in this room, you know; but then they usually are in this room, except at night. Still, it’s a comfort that they don t do it for other clocks. There are clocks all over the house, you see—even in the bathrooms—and few of them agree about the time.”
“But how very——” Tom was beginning, and then stopped.
The wine merchant’s eyes met his in a glance of complicity mingled with warning. “Unusual—eh?” he suggested. “I’d call it that—till you get home at any rate. The old lady likes you to be surprised, but not anything more. Not a word of criticism, remember: the dogs are sacred. I asked Clement if he had told you about them, and he said he hadn’t.”
These last words were enlightening; they explained to Tom why he had been brought into the drawing-room with such eagerness. Pascoe’s father, he was beginning to think, must be rather an anxiety for Pascoe the son. Perhaps that was why he had not been introduced before, though Pascoe had been on familiar terms with his people for ever so long. “No,” he said, “he didn’t. Maybe he wanted me to be surprised too.”