THE TERRACES OF NIGHT Page 22

  ‘You’ve bought it, I say. Take it. You won’t find such another!’ He laughed suddenly. Was it the light dazzling her eyes, or the heat affecting her again, Miss Cox wondered, for he sounded at once near and far away; and she could not see him quite clearly, the light seemed to dance and dazzle so!

  ‘Freight it with your soul and let go, little lady . . . but watch. Be careful! It’s the coming back that’s the difficulty. Unless, of course, you don’t want to come back. . . .’

  The voice died away. It seemed to Miss Cox afterwards that she must have been standing in the Broad Walk for a long time staring at the balloon in her hand—golden, glittering, resplendent, its smooth, shining sphere clear as a piece of sun-kissed amber. A long time, it must have been, since the Balloon Man had totally disappeared. Afar off, the crimson balloon fluttered above the heads of a group of slum-children, as Nicky of Bethnal Green displayed his treasure, and, seeing it, Miss Cox heaved a sigh of relief. It was all right—it was real!

  She had really seen the Balloon Man, and—she supposed—bought two balloons instead of one, driven by that mad impulse. . . . She supposed he had agreed to take threepence each instead of sixpence, though she could not remember the transaction at all clearly. Anyway, it didn’t matter. The main thing was she had her balloon, if she had gone without dinner for it; and strangely enough, she no longer cared about dinner very much. She felt as if no food would ever interest her any more . . . walking weakly back to her seat in the sunshine, Miss Cox wondered vaguely why, not knowing that there comes a stage in semi-starvation, when, a little lightheaded with lack of nourishment, the mere thought of food either nauseates or else becomes utterly dull and uninteresting.

  Sitting down, she examined her treasure tenderly, lovingly, and discovered an odd thing—that just below the neck of the balloon hung a tiny paper boat! A flimsy, ridiculous little fragment of paper, yet palpably a boat, shaped like an airship’s ‘cabin’ and securely fastened to the rubber neck of the balloon with fine white thread. Smiling, Miss Cox eyed it and wondered. That was odd—a real balloon, complete with passenger accommodation! Ready to float to Fairyland, or wherever good balloons travel to; she laughed aloud at her own fantasy, and let the great yellow globe float gently up into the air as she held its string tight in one grey-gloved hand.

  A new idea. She had never heard of it, but people were always bringing out new things, and this looked charming, the stately golden galleon of the skies bearing aloft its little boat, freighted with dreams . . . a vague, recollection drifted through Miss Cox’s mind as the yellow ball soared high and higher, tugging gently at her restraining hand.

  ‘Freight it with your soul . . . and let go.’ Why, that was what she wanted to do so much, so much! To ‘let go’—to float away—away over the earth; away from petty anxieties; from worries and pains and fears. To leave behind the stuffiness and discomforts of Ramsay House Private Hotel, to rise so far that there was nothing but sunshine, sunshine and blue skies, and at night the twinkling far-away stars and the prim-faced moon, the moon that always somehow reminded Miss Cox of pictures of old Queen Victoria. If she was only in the little paper boat of that balloon!—if she could only creep inside and let go and float way, carried by the soft winds over the whispering, startled trees, nodding together as she rose above them! Dear God, to rise above it all, to forget everything in life but the few dear and sweet and kindly things that lingered, thank heaven, in one’s memory and saved one from utter bitterness and despair. . . .

  To forget everything but thoughts of the old home! The bark of sweet-tempered Mick, the spaniel, dead these forty years; the laughter of the village children at play upon the green; the pink-and-white glory of the blossoming pear-trees in the vicarage garden; the pungent crispness of the ginger-nuts that Mamma made on high days and holidays, and her laughter as she scolded you for tasting. The sight and smell of the fields at home, yellow-carpeted, thick with cowslips . . . why, it was in a field of cowslips that she had first met Jack Wilson, of course!

  When she was a girl of sixteen, in a stiff white muslin frock and blue hair-ribbon, and he was a naval cadet. How the sun had shone and sparkled on his curly fair hair as he had stood, cap in hand, beside her; a little shy, a little tongue-tied, as she too had been, but with his blue eyes seeking hers, downcast, afraid . . . ah, how long, how long ago, and yet how sweet, how strong, the cowslips smelt. How warm the sun was. . . . Why, how extraordinary! Indeed, this was a most curious dream . . . for it seemed that she was, actually, looking down upon a wide carpet of yellow cowslips, just beneath the drifting balloon, dragging its cord among them with a soft shurring noise!

  It was, of course, an absurd dream—but how wonderful, how real it seemed. The sky was blue and calm above, and very far off lay a belt of purple hills, with white clouds drifting softly like cotton-wool along their wrinkled sides, and at their feet, dark sleeping forests that ran down to a distant line of glittering blue that could only mean the Sea! And as far as hills and forests and distant sea there stretched the glorious carpet of cowslips, fluttering tiny golden banners in the soft and scented breeze like flags of greeting, with an eager little sound like the clapping of a million fairy hands. . . .

  Dazed and speechless, Miss Cox glanced down at her own hands, gripping the boats’ paper rim, and saw that they were small and white and dimpled, with black velvet bracelets below the puffed white muslin sleeves, the hands of a girl! She touched her cheeks gently, unbelieving, and knew them soft and round; touched her hair, thick-curling under its blue ribbon snood—knew, and sobbed aloud for you and amazement as a voice called her, a voice dear and welcome above all others in this world or any other!

  ‘Come down, Kitty, my darling—Kitty, sweetheart, come down to me!’

  Of course . . . he would be there. Had she not known it? Just as she remembered him, standing bareheaded, knee-deep among the cowslips, the light turning his tousled fair head to a halo of glory; his eyes blue as hyacinths; laughing intent on hers as she drifted above him in her fairy boat?

  Just for a brief second the wing of fear brushed against her soul as she looked down. Something . . . there was something . . . she could not remember now. But there was something familiar in those eyes, in darling Jack’s eyes, that reminded her of someone she had seen long ago—of someone who sold balloons . . . someone who had warned her of something? She could not remember who, nor what he looked like, but he had had blue eyes, most oddly like Jack’s own. Blue eyes, bright blue—eyes that were somehow not quite—real . . . and he had said something, warned her . . . something stupid about ‘not getting back’. But pshaw, this was foolish! Why was she wasting time trying to remember a mere fantastic dream when Jack—her own, her darling Jack—stood and called to her from among the cowslips, stood stretching his arms out, begging her to leap into them?

  She was, somehow, a little afraid, she did not know why . . . but it was not far, and Jack would catch her. She could not understand quite how all this came to happen; things were curiously vague and dim, but in any case she did not care. She must choose—she must decide quickly, for the balloon was rising, it seemed; she must jump quickly or be carried away, perhaps for always, back into . . . into what? She did not know, she could not remember, but it was something dark and lonely and terrible . . . somewhere where she had been imprisoned for ages and ages, it seemed. . . . Oh, God, no! Wait, Jack, wait! I am coming to you! Hold out your arms, my darling, my love. . . .

  * * * * *

  The verdict, after some little discussion, was ‘Found dead’, and the strange case of Miss Catherine Cox soon forgotten. But it was for long a puzzle to the Coroner, who was a conscientious man, as to the doctor—with whom he frequently discussed the affair afterwards —how it came to pass that a woman, sitting peacefully upon a seat in a public park, could possibly come to die of a broken neck.

  November

  The Schoolmaster’s Tale

  The Death Strap

  Mr Samuel Bendigo was a dealer in antiques. I
n real antiques, may I hasten to declare, although the dark, beetle-browed entrance of his tiny shop in Yeld Passage, Camden Town, did not, to the casual observer, hold out any very great promise of treasure trove within. It was a dark, ugly little shop-front, clumsily built into a dark, ugly little house; yet Mr Bendigo and his timid little wife had lived and thrived there happily and successfully for at least twenty-seven years, and looked forward to handing on, in due time, a flourishing business to their only son, David Bendigo, who at thirteen already showed a taste and aptitude for judging old china, glass, pictures and furniture that was encouraging in the extreme.

  David Bendigo was small, pale and plumpish, like his father; a solemn little boy with glasses; diligent at his books and almost unbelievably good and obedient at home. There are such boys, strange as it may sound! Mrs Bendigo, as has been stated, was a timid woman, devoted to her husband and son, as to her home; an admirable cook and manager, and no mean assistant to her husband when times were busy. Mr Bendigo, on the contrary, was as sharp as his wife was timid. Thin-haired, paunchy, and spectacled; fifty years of age, and attached permanently to a rusty brown velveteen jacket. The rest of the family consisted of a small maid, who regarded the Bendigo family as semi-Olympians; a large yellow cat, who regarded them as no such thing; and an enormous family of mice, whose periodic attacks on her well-stocked larder drove Mrs Bendigo at times almost to madness.

  In a word, it was a comfortable, happy, humdrum little household, contented in its monotonous existence and no wise anxious to change it. But after the way of things, a change was imminent—a change drastic and terrible in the extreme—though certainly there was nothing about the tall and shabby stranger who stooped his way beneath the low browed lintel one gusty noon in March, to inquire the price of a certain piece of carved ivory in the window, to indicate that he brought with him Tragedy, lean and threatening!

  Mr Bendigo rose, hastily bolting a lump of bread-and-butter well smeared with anchovy paste. He was eating his frugal lunch at the time, in the shelter of a gorgeous red, black and gold Coromandel screen that fenced away the desk from the rest of the shop; and the stranger’s advent disconcerted him a trifle, as the arrival of a customer during the hours of one and two was distinctly unusual. The little dealer advanced into the shop murmuring vague excuses, conscious of crumbs on his waistcoat and a general air of moist greasiness; but the stranger was obviously heedless of anything so unimportant as the appearance of the owner of the shop. Cutting brusquely through Mr Bendigo’s murmured apologies, he nodded in the direction of the crowded window.

  ‘The price of that carved tusk in the corner? I collect ivories, and it seems a good bit. I suppose it’s a genuine antique?’

  Mr Bendigo flushed with wounded pride as he fumbled about among the dusty treasures in the little window after the long curved slip of ivory.

  ‘Everything ’ere’s genuwine, sir—unless I get took in, and that don’t orften happen. This is a pertickerly good piece. I bought it from Sir George Waltham when he broke up ’is collection of Chinese stuff a month or so ago.’

  The stranger dumped a collection of odd parcels, books, papers, upon the counter as he took the lovely parchment-tinted thing in his hands, studying the delicate lace-like carving, the tiny figures, with an appreciation that brought a gleam of sympathy to the little dealer’s eyes.

  ‘Ah! Of course I know his reputation as a collector. This is a good piece; what d’you want for it?’

  Ensued the usual polite fencing that invariably takes place during such transactions, but Mr Bendigo was no shark, albeit an astute little man enough; and in a few moments the stranger, well content, deposited the precious tusk, carefully wrapped in soft paper, in one of the capacious pockets of his ulster, and sweeping up his varied parcels, departed, while an equally contented Mr Bendigo, rubbing his hands, turned once more to his interrupted feast.

  Passing the counter, after shutting the door on his customer’s heels he struck his foot against something, and, glancing down, saw a small brown-paper packet roughly tied with string, reposing against the leg of a Sheraton chair. Remembering the array of bundles that had been hung about the stranger, Mr Bendigo picked it up and hurried to the door; but the long lean man had already disappeared in the greyness of the dull March day. After standing a moment looking up and down the street, the dealer shrugged his shoulders and, shutting the shop door, returned to his solitary meal, throwing the package carelessly in to the drawer of his desk. It if was of any value, the stranger would return to claim it anon. . . . Meantime it would be safe there.

  Mr Bendigo dismissed the matter, yawning, from his mind, and by the morrow, engrossed in business interests, the stranger and his parcel were forgotten. For a time at least, life went on for the little household much as usual. Business was flourishing; the weather, turning mild, gave Mrs Bendigo’s rheumatism a chance to, as she phrased it, ‘let up on her for a while’; David’s school reports came back with almost boring regularity and excellence as he progressed in grace and learning . . . when suddenly a bombshell burst, and in a flash the peaceful atmosphere of the shop in Yeld Passage was shattered like a pane of glass in a thunderstorm!

  Long afterwards, Mrs Bendigo realised that the oncoming of the Terror was not entirely unheralded—but the shadow it cast before it as it stole upon them was so vague and impalpable, so faint, that for all, on looking back, one could see its darkness overshadowing life, yet at the time one dismissed it as ‘nerves’, ‘imagination’, ‘being run down’, that useful explanation of all human ills.

  It was less than a month after the advent of the stranger, in truth, that David began to have Dreams. He did not mention them for a time; merely appeared at breakfast heavy-eyed and rather silent, disinclined for the excellent porridge and bacon on which his busy little mother insisted on his starting the day. Even when, casually, he mentioned the fact that he was Having Dreams—disquieting Dreams—his parents were inclined to pooh-pooh them as mere tokens of boyish ill-health. Mrs Bendigo promptly instituted a course of saline medicine, to cool the blood, and Mr Bendigo administered some herbal pills, warranted to ensure sound sleep—yet the boy remained obstinately white, depressed and spiritless.

  Questioned subsequently, in private, by a secretly worried mother, he said rather fretfully that he couldn’t say precisely of what the said dreams consisted! They were just—dreams; rather alarming dreams, certainly, for he invariably woke with a jerk, sweating, cold with some vague indefinite fright. He had a cloudy impression that a sudden terrible fall, the sensation of stepping off solid ground into thin air, as one might step sheer over the edge of a cliff, was invariably the forerunner of this awakening. He also had the memory of a curiously constricted feeling about wrists, ankles and throat, for which he could not account at all . . . also, oddest thing of all, he had developed a definite yet unaccountable fear of heights!

  This having been discovered by some of his schoolmates, he endured tortures during recess by being forced, if they could get him into a corner away from the master in charge, to walk along the top of the twelve-foot brick wall that ringed the playground. This, the boy declared, now gave him a sensation of sheer naked terror—yet, although he had been at no time a boy given to sports, he had shown no especial terror of heights before; once, indeed, he had walked along that very playground wall from end to end for some boyish bet.

  Puzzled, alarmed with a faint yet growing alarm, Mrs Bendigo listened and comforted, yet said so word to her husband, after the manner of wives. But all these vague unformed fears in her motherly heart culminated in a sudden and unpleasant shock one day, about two months after the day on which this story opens. Busily pottering about her warm little kitchen, making shepherd’s pie, savoury with rings of onion and cloaked with browned potatoes, in the old-fashioned way Mr Bendigo loved, Mrs Bendigo’s attention was abruptly diverted from her house-wifely task by a sudden call in her husband’s voice from the shop—a call sharp with tensed anxiety.

  ‘Katie . . .
come quick!’

  Wiping her hands on her apron, the little woman ran up the few dark steps that led from the kitchen to the level of parlour and shop; ran through the cosy parlour to the crowded little shop, and caught her breath in sudden mortal terror—for David lay flat along the counter, his head supported on his father’s arm, while Mr Towser, the headmaster of the St Enoch’s School, the great Mr Towser himself in person, stooped anxiously over his pupil, administering brandy and sal volatile!

  As his mother rushed forward the boy’s eyes opened, and he smiled, a faint, scared smile that culminated in an outburst of half-hysterical tears of relief as her comforting arms closed about him. . . . Ten minutes later, the patient safely tucked into bed with a hot-water bottle, a drink of warm milk, and a new number of the Boy’s Own to distract his obviously overstrung mind, the anxious little parents faced the schoolmaster in a state of distress quite pitiable. What had happened—what in the world? . . . yet Mr Towser’s explanation merely landed them in a fresh fog of bewilderment.

  It seemed that one of the boys had come rushing in, when the rest of the school trooped back to class from the eleven o’clock recess, with a white, scared face, and the information that he had found ‘Bendy’, as Dave was known to his fellows, lying in a heap in a corner of the playground, having evidently fallen off a carefully erected pile of stones and flower-pots. Not that there was anything vastly odd about this; the boy might have been piling up a stack of things simply in order to mount them and peer into the road. Yet there were one or two things, Mr Towser admitted, that struck him, on reaching the spot, as somewhat unusual.

  Firstly, the boy had chosen a corner where the wall joined the main building, where there was no road and consequently nothing to see; secondly, there was a short iron hook lying on the ground beside him, a hook that was newly wrenched from its position just under the coping of the twelve-foot wall, an old hook that had been there so long in the wall that its original purpose was long forgotten, unless it had once served to swing a lantern to light the old school-yard. This hook had evidently been wrenched from the wall by some weight swung upon it for a moment, some weight which it had proved too frail, being eaten deep with rust, to bear.