"Don't go back to your dreary old post office. We're going to have
supper in my room--something hot. Come and join us. Hurry up!"
There had been an ice carnival, and the last party, tailing up the
snow-slope to the hotel, called him. The Chinese lanterns smoked and
sputtered on the wires; the band had long since gone. The cold was
bitter and the moon came only momentarily between high, driving clouds.
From the shed where the people changed from skates to snow-boots he
shouted something to the effect that he was "following"; but no answer
came; the moving shadows of those who had called were already merged
high up against the village darkness. The voices died away. Doors
slammed. Hibbert found himself alone on the deserted rink.
And it was then, quite suddenly, the impulse came to--stay and skate
alone. The thought of the stuffy hotel room, and of those noisy people
with their obvious jokes and laughter, oppressed him. He felt a longing
to be alone with the night; to taste her wonder all by himself there
beneath the stars, gliding over the ice. It was not yet midnight, and he
could skate for half an hour. That supper party, if they noticed his
absence at all, would merely think he had changed his mind and gone to
bed.
It was an impulse, yes, and not an unnatural one; yet even at the time
it struck him that something more than impulse lay concealed behind it.
More than invitation, yet certainly less than command, there was a vague
queer feeling that he stayed because he had to, almost as though there
was something he had forgotten, overlooked, left undone. Imaginative
temperaments are often thus; and impulse is ever weakness. For with such
ill-considered opening of the doors to hasty action may come an invasion
of other forces at the same time--forces merely waiting their
opportunity perhaps!
He caught the fugitive warning even while he dismissed it as absurd, and
the next minute he was whirling over the smooth ice in delightful curves
and loops beneath the moon. There was no fear of collision. He could
take his own speed and space as he willed. The shadows of the towering
mountains fell across the rink, and a wind of ice came from the forests,
where the snow lay ten feet deep. The hotel lights winked and went out.
The village slept. The high wire netting could not keep out the wonder
of the winter night that grew about him like a presence. He skated on
and on, keen exhilarating pleasure in his tingling blood, and weariness
all forgotten.
And then, midway in the delight of rushing movement, he saw a figure
gliding behind the wire netting, watching him. With a start that almost
made him lose his balance--for the abruptness of the new arrival was so
unlooked for--he paused and stared. Although the light was dim he made
out that it was the figure of a woman and that she was feeling her way
along the netting, trying to get in. Against the white background of the
snow-field he watched her rather stealthy efforts as she passed with a
silent step over the banked-up snow. She was tall and slim and graceful;
he could see that even in the dark. And then, of course, he understood.
It was another adventurous skater like himself, stolen down unawares
from hotel or chalet, and searching for the opening. At once, making a
sign and pointing with one hand, he turned swiftly and skated over to
the little entrance on the other side.
But, even before he got there, there was a sound on the ice behind him
and, with an exclamation of amazement he could not suppress, he turned
to see her swerving up to his side across the width of the rink. She had
somehow found another way in.
Hibbert, as a rule, was punctilious, and in these free-and-easy places,
perhaps, especially so. If only for his own protection he did not seek
to make advances unless some kind of introduction paved the way. But for
these two to skate together in the semi-darkness without speech, often
of necessity brushing shoulders almost, was too absurd to think of.
Accordingly he raised his cap and spoke. His actual words he seems
unable to recall, nor what the girl said in reply, except that she
answered him in accented English with some commonplace about doing
figures at midnight on an empty rink. Quite natural it was, and right.
She wore grey clothes of some kind, though not the customary long gloves
or sweater, for indeed her hands were bare, and presently when he skated
with her, he wondered with something like astonishment at their dry and
icy coldness.
And she was delicious to skate with--supple, sure, and light, fast as a
man yet with the freedom of a child, sinuous and steady at the same
time. Her flexibility made him wonder, and when he asked where she had
learned she murmured--he caught the breath against his ear and recalled
later that it was singularly cold--that she could hardly tell, for she
had been accustomed to the ice ever since she could remember.
But her face he never properly saw. A muffler of white fur buried her
neck to the ears, and her cap came over the eyes. He only saw that she
was young. Nor could he gather her hotel or chalet, for she pointed
vaguely, when he asked her, up the slopes. "Just over there--" she said,
quickly taking his hand again. He did not press her; no doubt she wished
to hide her escapade. And the touch of her hand thrilled him more than
anything he could remember; even through his thick glove he felt the
softness of that cold and delicate softness.
The clouds thickened over the mountains. It grew darker. They talked
very little, and did not always skate together. Often they separated,
curving about in corners by themselves, but always coming together again
in the centre of the rink; and when she left him thus Hibbert was
conscious of--yes, of missing her. He found a peculiar satisfaction,
almost a fascination, in skating by her side. It was quite an
adventure--these two strangers with the ice and snow and night!
Midnight had long since sounded from the old church tower before they
parted. She gave the sign, and he skated quickly to the shed, meaning to
find a seat and help her take her skates off. Yet when he turned--she
had already gone. He saw her slim figure gliding away across the snow
... and hurrying for the last time round the rink alone he searched in
vain for the opening she had twice used in this curious way.
"How very queer!" he thought, referring to the wire netting. "She must
have lifted it and wriggled under ...!"
Wondering how in the world she managed it, what in the world had
possessed him to be so free with her, and who in the world she was, he
went up the steep slope to the post office and so to bed, her promise to
come again another night still ringing delightfully in his ears. And
curious were the thoughts and sensations that accompanied him. Most of
all, perhaps, was the half suggestion of some dim memory that he had
known this girl before, had met her somewhere, more--that she knew him.
For in her voice--a low, soft, windy little voice it was, tender and
soothing for all its quiet coldness--there lay some faint reminder of
two others he had known, both long since gone: the voice of the woman he
had loved, and--the voice of his mother.
But this time through his dreams there ran no clash of battle. He was
conscious, rather, of something cold and clinging that made him think of
sifting snowflakes climbing slowly with entangling touch and thickness
round his feet. The snow, coming without noise, each flake so light
and tiny none can mark the spot whereon it settles, yet the mass of it
able to smother whole villages, wove through the very texture of his
mind--cold, bewildering, deadening effort with its clinging network of
ten million feathery touches.