by E. Nesbit
III
EDEN
WHEN you have made an aeroplane, the next thing is to make it fly. Andhowever agreeable an admiring audience may be while one is fiddling withdefinite and concrete objects of wood, canvas, and metal, one is apt,for the flight itself--the great flight, the flight by which theaeroplane shall stand or fall--to desire solitude.
That was why Edward drew the yellow blind up and the dimity curtainaside and turned his bed round, so that the sun at its first risingshould strike through his dreams and awaken him. The sun did exactlywhat it was expected to do, and Edward awoke saying "Bother" before heremembered that "Bother" was not at all what he meant. Then he got upand splashed gently, so as not to break the audible sleep of the peoplein the next room, stole down the creaking, twisted stairs in histennis-shoes, soft-footed as a cat, drew the bolts of the back door, andslipped out, closing the door noiselessly behind him. He was careful todraw the bolt into its place again by means of a bit of fishing-line.You can do this quite easily with an old door that does not fit veryclosely--if you are careful to mark with chalk on the outside of thedoor, as Edward did, the exact place where the bolt is. Having thussecured the door against passing tramps or burglars, he went out acrossthe highroad, soft with thick, white dust, where the dew lay on hedgeand grassy border, and the sun made diamonds of the dew. Charles,choking himself in the stable, grew faint with distance.
Beyond the village was a meadow suited to his needs. It was bordered onone side by a high red-brick wall, above whose moss-grown coping therounded shapes of trees leaned. A wood edged it on two other sides, andin the front was a road.
Here he made his preparations, wound up his machine, and, after one ortwo false starts, got it going. He meant to fly it like a kite, and tothis end he had tied one end of a ball of fine twine to the middle ofits body. Now he raised it above his head and launched it. The littlecreature rose like a bird; the ball of string leaped and jumped betweenhis feet, as he paid out the line; the whirring wings hung poised asecond, at the level of the tree-tops, and then, caught by the wind,sailed straight toward the red wall, burrowed into the trees, andstopped. He ran toward the wall, winding up the string, and stood below,looking up. He could not see the winged loose thing. He tweaked thestring and his tweak was met with uncompromising resistance. Theaeroplane had stuck in a chestnut-tree, and hung there, buzzing.
Edward measured the wall with his eye. It was an old wall, of soft redbrick, from which the mortar had fallen away. In its crannies moss grew,and ragged-robin and ground-ivy hung their delicate veil in the anglesof its buttresses--little ferns and wall-flowers run to seed marked itscourses, the yellow snapdragon which English children call toad-flaxflaunted its pure sulphur-colored plumes from the ledge below thecoping. An architect would have said that the wall wanted pointing; abuilder would have pointed it--an artist would have painted it. To anengineer in grief for a lost toy the wall presented itself as anobstacle to be climbed. He climbed it.
He thrust the string into his jacket pocket, and presently set hand andfoot to the hold that the worn wall afforded. In half a minute he wasastride the coping; next moment he had swung by his hands and lethimself go on the wall's other side. It was a longer drop than heexpected; it jarred him a little, and his hat tumbled off. As he pickedthis up he noticed that the wall on the inside had been newly pointed.The trees were a good thirty feet from the wall. There would be nogetting back by the way he had come. He must find a gate. Meantime thelittle aeroplane's buzzing had grown faint and ceased. But the twine ledhim to the tree, as the silken clue led Queen Eleanor to the tower ofFair Rosamond. The next thing was to climb the tree and bring down thetruant toy.
The park spread smooth and green before him--the green smoothness thatcomes only to English grass growing where grass has been these manyyears. Quiet trees dotted the smooth greenness--thickening about thehouse, whose many chimneys, red and twisted, rose smokeless above theclustered green. Nothing moved in all the park, where the sun drank thedew; birds stirred and twittered in the branches--that was all. Thelittle aeroplane had stopped its buzzing. Edward was moved to thank Fatethat he had not brought Charles. Also he was glad that this trespass ofhis had happened so early. He would get down the aeroplane and quietlygo out by the lodge gate. Even if locked, it would be climbable.
The chestnut-tree, however, had to be climbed first. It was easyenough, though the leaves baffled him a little, so that it was some timebefore he saw the desired gleam of metal and canvas among the dappledfoliage. Also, it was not quite easy to get the thing down withoutinjuring it, and one had to go slowly.
He lowered it, at last, by its string to the ground from the lowestbranch, then moved along a little, hung by his hands, and dropped.
He picked up the toy and turned to go. "Oh!" he said, without meaningto. And, "I beg your pardon," without quite knowing what for.
Because, as he turned he came face to face with a vision, the last onewould have expected to see in an English park at early day. A girl in aBurmese coat, red as poppies, with gold-embroidered hem a foot deep. Herdress was white. Her eyes were dark, her face palely bright, and behindher dark head a golden-green Japanese umbrella made a great ridged halo.
"I beg your pardon," said Edward again, and understood that it wasbecause he was, after all, trespassing.
"I should think you did," said the vision, crossly. "What on earth doyou mean by it? How did you get in?"
Edward, standing a little awkwardly with the aeroplane in his hands,looked toward the wall.
"I came over after this," he said. "I'm very sorry. I was flying thething and it stuck in the tree. If you'll tell me the way to the lodge,I'll--I hope I didn't scare you."
"I couldn't think what it was," she answered, a little less crossly. "Isaw the tree tossing about as if--as if it had gone mad."
"And you thought of dryads and hastened to the spot. And it was only anidiot and his aeroplane. I say--I _am_ sorry--"
"You can't help not being a dryad," she said, and now she smiled, andher smile transformed her face as sunlight does a landscape. "What Ireally thought you were was a tramp. Only tramps never climb trees. Icouldn't think how you got in here, though. Tramps never climb walls.They get in sometimes through the oak fence beyond the plantations."
"It was very intrepid of you to face a tramp," he said.
"Oh, I love tramps," she said; "they're always quite nice to you if youdon't bully them or patronize them. There were two jolly ones last week,and I talked to them, and they made tea out in the road, you know, andgave me a cup over the fence. It _was_ nasty." She shuddered a little."But I liked it awfully, all the same," she added. "I wish I were atramp."
"It's not a bad life," said he.
"It's _the_ life," she said, enthusiastically. "No ties, noresponsibilities--no nasty furniture and hateful ornaments--you just gowhere you like and do what you like; and when you don't like where youare, you go somewhere else; and when you don't like what you're doing,you needn't go on doing it."
"Those are very irresponsible sentiments--for a lady."
"I know. That's why I think it's so dull being a woman. Men can dowhatever they want to."
"Only if they haven't their living to earn," said Edward, not quite somuch to himself as he would have liked.
There was a little pause, and then, still less himself, he blunderedinto, "I say, it is jolly of you to talk to me like this."
She froze at once. "I forgot," she said, "that we had not beenintroduced. Thank you for reminding me."
Edward's better self was now wholly lost, and what was left of him couldfind nothing better to answer than, "Oh, I say!"
"What I ought to have said," she went on, her face a mask of coldpoliteness, "is that you can't possibly get out by the lodge. There arefierce dogs. And the lodge-keepers are worse than the dogs. If you willfollow me--at a distance, for fear I should begin to talk to youagain--I'll show you where the gardener's ladder is, and you can put itup against the wall and get out that way."
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p; "Couldn't I get out where the tramps get in?" he asked, humbly. "I don'tlike to trouble you."
"Not from here. We should have to pass close by the house."
The "we" gave him courage. "I say--do forgive me," he said.
"There's nothing to forgive," said she.
"Oh, but do," he said, "if you'd only see it! It was just because it wasso wonderful and splendid to have met you like this . . . and to haveyou talk to me as you do to the other tramps."
"You're not a tramp," she said, "and I ought not to have forgotten it."
"But I am," said he, "it's just what I really and truly am."
"Come and get the ladder," said she, and moved toward the wall.
"Not unless you forgive me. I won't," he added, plucking up a littlespirit, "be indebted for ladders to people who won't forgive a manbecause he speaks the truth clumsily."
"Come," she said, looking back over her shoulder.
"No," he said, obstinately, not moving. "Not unless you forgive me."
"It can't possibly matter to you whether I forgive you or not," sheturned to say it. And as she spoke there came to Edward quite suddenlyand quite unmistakably the knowledge that it did matter. Sometimesglimpses do thus suddenly and strangely come to us--and that by somemagic inner light that is not reason we know things that by the light ofreason we could never know.
"Look here," he said. "I'll go after that ladder in a minute. But firstI've got something to say to you. Don't be angry, because I've got tosay it. Do you know that just now--just before I said that stupid thingthat offended you--you were talking to me as though you'd known me allyour life?"
"You needn't rub it in," she said.
"Do you know why that is? It's because you _are_ going to know me allyour life. I'm perfectly certain of it. Somehow or other, it's true.We're going to be friends. I sha'n't need to say again how jolly it isof you to talk to me. We shall take all that as a matter of course.People aren't pitchforked into meetings like this for nothing. I'm gladI said that. I'm glad you were angry with me for saying it. If youhadn't I might just have gone away and not known till I gotoutside--and then it would have been a deuce and all of a business toget hold of you again. But now I know. And you know, too. When shall Isee you again? Never mind about forgiving me. Just tell me when I shallsee you again. And then I'll go."
"You must be mad," was all she could find to say. She had furled hersunshade and was smoothing its bamboo ribs with pink fingers.
"You'll be able to find out whether I'm mad, you know, when you see meagain. As a matter of fact--which seems maddest, when you meet some oneyou want to talk to, to go away without talking or to insist on talk andmore talk? And you can't say you didn't want to talk to me, because youknow you did. Look here, meet me to-morrow morning again--will you?"
"Certainly not."
"You'll be sorry if you don't. We're like two travelers who havecollected all sorts of wonderful things in foreign countries. We long toshow each other our collections--all the things we've thought anddreamed. If we'd been what you call introduced, perhaps we shouldn'thave found this out. But as it is, we know it."
"Speak for yourself," she said.
"Thank you," he said, seriously. "I will. Will you sit down for tenminutes? This tree-root was made for you to sit down on for tenminutes, and I will speak for myself."
"I can't," she said, and her voice--there was hurry in it, andindecision, but the ice had gone. "You must come at once for thatladder. It's getting more dangerous every moment. If any one saw youhere there'd be an awful row."
"For you?"
"Yes, for me. Come on."
He followed her along the wall under the chestnuts. There was no morespoken words till they came to the ladder.
Then, "Right," he said. "Thank you. Good-by." And set the ladder againstthe wall.
"Good-by," said she. "I'll hand the aeroplane up to you?"
"Stand clear," he said, half-way up the ladder. "I'll give it a sidewaystip from the top--it'll fall into its place. It's too heavy for you tolift. Good-by."
He had reached the top of the wall. She stood below, looking up at him.
"There won't be any row now?"
"No. It's quite safe."
"Then have you nothing to say?"
"Nothing. Yes, I have. I will come to-morrow. You'll misunderstandeverything if I don't."
"Thank you," he said.
She came up the ladder, two steps, then handed him his toy. Then theladder fell with a soft thud among the moss and earth and dead leaves;his head showed a moment above the wall, then vanished.
He went thoughtfully through the dewy grass, along the road, and back tohis inn.
Tommy met him by the horse-trough. "You been flying it?" he asked,breathlessly.
"Yes. She went like a bird."
"How far did she go?" Tommy asked.
"I don't quite know," said Edward, quite truly, "how far she went. Ishall know better to-morrow."