by Forrest Reid
“I’m sorry about the garden,” Tom said uncomfortably. Dusk hid the full extent of the ravages, but he could see that they had been considerable.
“Yes, we’re all sorry about that,” the wine merchant put in; and for a moment or two they stood looking at each other—Tom with very grave and serious eyes.
“It was an accident,” he said.
“But it made a fine show—eh? Clement, I’m afraid, will have to be more careful in future about the pleasures he arranges for his friends. Something a little less Neronic perhaps.”
Miss Pascoe’s dark eyes, very bright in the small wizened face, had been all this time fixed on Tom in a close scrutiny. “Do you know, I believe the child was hypnotized!” she now abruptly exclaimed. “He was! You can see it!” She gave a sudden little cackle of laughter which astonished everybody, though it drew a sigh of relief from the depressed Pascoe.
“Come in,” she cried, grasping Tom’s arm tightly. “You must have some supper before you go home. The men can look after the wreckage.” And she drew him towards the house, leaving the wine merchant and Pascoe to follow.
“Are you really sorry?” she questioned, peering at him curiously; “because I never saw anybody who looked more rapt in enjoyment. Tell me the truth, please; it’s the least you can do.”
“I’m sorry now,” Tom told her. “I’m very sorry about your garden. But at the time I don’t think I was sorry. I mean I did enjoy it.”
“Well, you gave me something to enjoy when you sang to me,” Miss Pascoe answered, “so perhaps we’d better leave it at that.”
“Would you like me to sing again?” Tom asked her.
Miss Pascoe laughed quickly. “Yes, I would,” she said. “I’d like you to sing that song again before you go. Then you’ll be able to tell your mother that the evening was a complete success.” She gave his arm a sudden squeeze that was almost a pinch as she spoke; adding however, with just the faintest sigh: “She’ll require all the assurance you can give her, I expect. That is, if she happens to look over my wall to-morrow morning.”
PART THREE
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A PECULIAR thing was, that though it had several times occurred to Tom that he might be asked to stay on at the Manor House after Mother’s and Daddy’s departure, and return with Pascoe at the end of the holidays, this evidently had occurred to nobody else. Or perhaps it had, and they didn’t want him. At any rate, whatever the cause, no invitation had been given; yet the wine merchant was gone, and even if he had been still there, there must be heaps of empty rooms.
Nor was it much good, he found, trying to make the most of his last two days. They weren’t days at all; he had no sooner got up than it was time to go to bed again. Possibly these days contained, as usual, twenty-four hours, but it was difficult to believe it. Time was a cheat. If you watched the hands of the clock you could hardly see them moving, but the moment you turned your back and got interested in anything they simply raced. Breakfast—a bathe—and then the clatter of the lunch bell to announce that the day was half over. And always a melancholy feeling that there were only so many hours more; with gaps—great empty blanks—to be deducted for sleep.
On the last night of all, as he looked out of his window before getting into bed, he saw that it had begun to rain. Not heavily, but a feeling of gathering rain was in the air—the weather was breaking. And then, with a sudden pang of conscience, Tom realized the frightful selfishness of his thought. He couldn’t help the thought, but he could make amends for it by adding a special petition for fine weather to his prayers, and he did this, leaving the rest to Providence.
When he awoke the sun was shining brilliantly. Part of his prayer at least had been answered, if not the Aunt Rhoda part. The whole place was looking its best, and the knowledge that he would be leaving it in another hour or two added to its attractiveness. He dressed and went downstairs. He almost wished that they were starting at once, for he had a feeling of restlessness, which nevertheless wasn’t in the least like the restlessness he had felt when they were leaving home. It had no excitement in it: he merely felt unsettled. . . .
At breakfast both Daddy and Mother were fussy. Practically all the packing had been done overnight; only the last few things remained to be put in; and directly the meal was finished Mother went upstairs to do this while Daddy waited to pay the bill. Tom went out into the garden.
He expected Pascoe, but no Pascoe appeared. Presently the luggage was brought down and stowed away in the car. This was too sad to watch, so Tom hung over the wall and looked down at the sea. He imagined Pascoe running in at the last minute with an invitation from Aunt Rhoda. That would be a real answer to his prayer—far more to the point than all this sunshine. “Come along. Tom, and get your coat on,” Daddy called out; while Mother asked, as he slowly approached: “Are you sure you’ve left nothing behind you?”
Yes, Tom was sure. He put on his cap and his overcoat. Here was the lunch-basket—a good big one—for they were going to picnic by the roadside. Then came the last good-byes, shakings of hands, prognostications for next year—which might or might not come true, and anyhow were cold comfort—and he took his place beside Mother in the seat behind. The door slammed; more waving of hands; Daddy started cautiously, yet for all that managed to uproot a croquet hoop with the left back wheel as he turned the sharp corner through the gateway.
But it was better now that the journey had begun. Strange, however, that Pascoe hadn’t turned up. He had said he would: he must have overslept himself. Tom pictured him enviously, with the whole long summer day before him—nearly a fortnight before him. Lucky Pascoe! And there he was, racing down the road, waving and shouting! Tom waved, so did Mother, but Daddy wouldn’t stop. How pleasant it would be if by some miracle Daddy and Mother, like Saint Paul, were suddenly to be converted, change their minds, and decide to stay on for another week. Only it was too late now, he supposed: their rooms would have been taken. . . .
They drove on—past the Post Office—through the village—past Danny McCoy’s cottage—nothing before them now but the empty road.
“Well, so far so good!” Daddy remarked, with what seemed to Tom an unnecessary air of joviality. The statement wasn’t even true, so he found a faint pleasure in contradicting it. “I’ve forgotten my bathing things,” he said.
The car slowed down. Tom knew he had been pretty careless, but somehow his mood was not apologetic. “And I particularly asked you if you’d got everything!” Mother exclaimed. “Besides going through all your drawers myself.”
Bathing things weren’t usually put in a drawer, Tom thought, but he kept this to himself. “I know,” he said. “They weren’t in my room; they were on the garden wall, drying. And I’ve left my racquet up in the tower; and the tennis balls are there too, and my tennis shoes.”
Daddy laughed, but Mother didn’t. She told him he was the most provoking boy she had ever met, adding in a tone of resignation: “I suppose we’ll have to go back.” Daddy turned the car.
This time he didn’t bring it in to the Fort, but waited at the side of the road, and Tom had to run on by himself and make his collection. The place was deserted; everybody had disappeared—gone golfing, or bathing, or whatever the morning’s programme might be. He wouldn’t think about it: it was too depressing. He got his things and returned to the car.
* * *
The second start was accomplished without spectators or good wishes. Tom had a flat sort of feeling, as he scrambled back into his seat, that the Fort and all connected with it belonged to the past.
He was not in a talkative mood; neither was Mother; and Daddy never talked while he was driving. Mother made an occasional remark, but only of the kind to which you answered “yes” or “no” out of politeness. Nor were they even remarks about the recent holidays, but about home matters, about Phemie and Mary, and the hour of arrival. Tom leaned up against her, snuggling into the most comfortable position he could find.
The journey was uneventful,
and even on the barest and straightest stretches Daddy demonstrated clearly that he was not one of our Speed Kings. “Step on it!” Tom urged him, but the request was received and intended merely as a mild little joke. They were not a motoring family; Mother probably came nearest to it of the three.
Towards one o’clock they began to look out for a suitable place to have lunch—eventually drawing up in a lane. It proved, however, to be less suitable than had at first appeared, for they had scarcely unpacked the basket before the car was surrounded by an audience of released schoolchildren. “They all look so hungry, too!” Mother exclaimed, torn between compassion and a desire for privacy. “Give that little girl a sandwich, Tom.”
“If they’re hungry, it’s only because it’s their dinner time,” Daddy said unsentimentally. “They’re perfectly ordinary, well nourished, greedy children.”
Mother, nevertheless, insisted on distributing cake and bananas to those she fancied—a most unfair arrangement, Tom considered—for obviously there wasn’t enough to go round, and he could see the little boys were getting nothing. He gave the last banana to a boy of his own size.
During the second part of the drive he felt pleasantly sleepy, and it was only when Mother began to recognize landmarks that he sat up and looked out. They were within a few miles of home now, and as the road grew more and more familiar Tom’s alertness increased. Soon they were within walking distance, and a few minutes later the car slackened speed before turning in at their own gate. The journey was over.
And there was William—there was everything in fact—looking exactly as if they had never been away. William had cut the grass, too, and marked the tennis court, which was surprising. All the windows in the front of the house were open.
Mary must have been on the look-out, for she was at the hall door before Tom could scramble from the car. Mother and Daddy were slower. Then Phemie appeared, and William began to take out the luggage. Mother went straight on into the house, but Daddy, William, Mary, and Phemie collected bags and suitcases before following her. Tom brought up the rear, carrying Daddy’s golf-clubs.
The first thing he did on entering the hall was to look at the clock. It had stopped. He left the golf-bag in the cloakroom and came out to have another look. Yes, it had stopped—and at three minutes to twelve. “Three minutes before midnight,” he added darkly to himself, though he knew it was just as likely to have been three minutes before noon. And it didn’t really matter anyhow; all that mattered was that from three minutes to twelve on a certain day or night the house had been left unguarded.
Everybody else had gone upstairs carrying luggage; Tom was left alone in the hall. He had wound up the clock once before and he determined to wind it again. But he must act swiftly, before Daddy came down: the clock might have something to tell him in private. He opened the door; he wound the clock and started the pendulum; then he stepped back and looked inquiringly at the round mild face. The clock regarded Tom with an air of recognition, but it said nothing. It really did look different from the way it had looked a minute ago. Its ticking, too, seemed laden with unconfided secrets. If only it would hurry up, for time was so important! Here was Tom back again! it ticked; and doubtless it would be as well that he should know what had taken place during his absence—certain things, certain doings, more than odd. Any rate he would be able to judge of that for himself. The clock cleared its throat and——
Of course William must appear and spoil everything! Down the stairs he came clumping, and didn’t pass on, but stopped beside Tom. “You’ve set her going again, Master Tom,” he observed. “You weren’t long!”
“It’s not ‘her’, it’s ‘him’,” answered Tom rather crossly, as the clock discreetly struck twelve in the perfectly conventional manner of ordinary clocks. William waited till the last note had sounded. “No,” he then said, “clocks is always ‘her’; same as boats. You haven’t moved the hands: it should be eight minutes past four.” He had spoiled everything any way, Tom thought, and he was sure the opportunity would never occur again. It couldn’t; he didn’t know why, but he felt sure that it couldn’t. This had been the one chance, and it had been wasted.
Meanwhile Daddy’s head appeared over the banisters. “Leave that clock alone, Tom. How often have I told you not to touch it!”
“I just wound it up,” Tom explained guiltily, “just to save you the trouble.”
But he sighed directly afterwards. There must be a doom upon this house. He had only been back about five minutes, and already he had told a lie and begun thinking in the old way. “Where’s Henry?” he asked William gloomily.
“I’ve hardly set eyes on him, Master Tom; not since yous all left. He’s taken to running wild, though he comes home for his food and it’s always gone in the morning. Once or twice I got him sleeping up in the loft when I’d left some boards that he could climb up by, and one evening, after dayligh’ gone, I see him along the loanin’ that takes you up by the old churchyard. There’s a wheen o’ rabbits there and he’d likely be hunting them.”
“I just thought he wasn’t here,” Tom answered, frowning. “I knew it the minute we arrived.”
William reassured him. “Oh, he’ll be back, Master Tom; you needn’t fear that. He’ll know when the family gets home: cats always knows.”
“If he knew, he should have been here to meet us,” Tom said.
“Give him time, give him time,” William muttered. Then with a renewed sense of social requirements: “Did you enjoy your holidays, Master Tom? I suppose you’d be bathing three and four times a day.”
Tom gave him a quick look. “I bathed once a day,” he replied suspiciously, for William before now had been known to attempt a joke.
And even that, he reflected, as he accompanied William out on to the lawn, was an exaggeration; there had been coldish days when he hadn’t bathed at all.
He did not stay with William, but began a tour of inspection which brought him to the yard, and eventually up to his play-loft. Everything seemed undisturbed, from the cobwebs to the mice—for a tell-tale rustle reached his ears. His paper man was still there, lying on the floor. But he was no longer spotless, he was marked all over with Henry’s footprints. Tom stood looking down at him, and then, moved by a superstitious impulse, lifted the paper and tore it into fragments. He was about to throw these fragments away when a second thought occurred to him. He climbed down the ladder, made a little heap of paper on the cobblestones, and lit the heap with one of Pascoe’s matches. “Why had he done .this?” he asked himself, as he watched the paper burning. . . . All the same, he knew the answer.
He returned to the house, for it must be nearly tea time, and went on up to his own room. Mother and Daddy were still in their room, and through the not-quite-closed door he could hear them talking. Tom sat down on the side of the bed.
He was perfectly certain that Henry had been in his room. All was as he had left it, except that his suitcase was on the floor and the windows were as wide open as they would go. Also there were clean sheets on the bed, clean pillow-cases, clean pyjamas, clean towels—everything was spotless, and yet he knew Henry had been here—and not once only, but repeatedly, perhaps every day.
Suddenly Mother appeared in the doorway. “Where have you been, and why aren’t you getting ready for tea? Mary says she found your room in an awful state. Birds must have got into the chimney. The grate was full of soot, and there was even soot on the carpet and on the bed, though how it can have got there is a mystery. Anyway, the chimney will have to be swept. I told Mary to telephone about it, so if you hear unusual sounds in the morning, you’ll know what they are.”
“It wasn’t birds, it was Henry,” answered Tom, with complete conviction.
Mother laughed; she even called out the joke to Daddy.
But Tom could see nothing to laugh at. “Birds don’t build nests at this time of year,” he told her; “and a bird wouldn’t get on to the bed even if it did come down the chimney. Besides, it would have been there for Mary t
o see, it isn’t very likely to have found its way up again!”
“It may have been an old nest,” Mother answered rather wildly. Then, noting his expression: “At all events there’s no need to look so worried about it. What’s the matter? Why are you looking so glum? Surely it’s not because we’re home again. You didn’t expect to stay on at the Fort for ever!”
“No,” said Tom, “of course not.”
“And if Pascoe got staying longer, he didn’t come till after you did.”
“It’s not that,” cried Tom, repudiating indignantly such a suggestion. “As if I cared how long Pascoe stayed! It’s nothing to do with Pascoe.”
“What has it to do with then? Why won’t you tell me—instead of scolding me?”
Tom smiled. “Well, I will tell you. . . . Whisper.”
Mother bent down her head, and he first kissed her cheek, and next put his mouth to her ear. Then he blew.
“Don’t!” cried Mother, who particularly disliked this trick and had told him so before. She gave him a push, half annoyed and half relieved. “You’re a little humbug,” she said. But her voice sounded reassured, and Tom himself, a minute or two later, was whistling and singing while he washed his face and hands.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THOUGH HE could only extract a sort of half-promise from Mother that she might play tennis later on if she didn’t feel too tired, Tom put up the net, cleaned the balls by rubbing them on the back of the doormat, and begged Phemie to be punctual with dinner because the evenings were getting so short. Then he changed into his white flannels, hoping that this would make it more difficult for Mother to refuse.
She didn’t refuse, in spite of Daddy, who seemed to want her to, and asked in the most dubious tone: “Are you going to play? I should have thought you’d done enough!”
“So I have,” Mother replied, “but I don’t expect it will kill me.”