It was dark as pitch when they reached the house. The rain Rusk had
prophesied had already begun to fall, and the wind was rising steadily.
The son of a neighbour, a boy who was supposed to have looked after
Denis--or who at any rate had been requested to do so--during the
latter’s brief period at school, was present at dinner. He had ridden
over, the bearer of a message, and had been persuaded to stay.
Mrs. Bracknel introduced him to Rusk as a friend of her son’s, and Rusk
could guess just how far the friendship went. He had a chat with this
youth later on in the evening, when Denis was out of the room, and while
the girls and their mother were discussing some bazaar they had promised
to help at. They talked a little of football, and then by a question or
two Rusk brought their conversation round to his pupil. One of the first
things he learned was that Skinny was “a freak,” and could never be much
improved. Not a bad soul when you got to know him, but “an awful wee
fool.” “He did the maddest kind of things--you’d hardly believe! And he
was always getting into rows--silly kinds of rows that no one else ever
got into. There was no harm in anything he did, you know, but it was all
just senseless, childish stuff: he seemed to think he was living in a
fairy-tale. And the masters couldn’t stand him. They had an idea half
the time that he was ‘rotting’ them, but they could never quite tell.
You see, he’s a facetious little beast in his own way. I’ve known him
give the most frightful cheek even to quite big chaps, without realizing
what he was doing. He has cheeked me before now; and of course that
sort of thing doesn’t do.”
“But how did he get on with the other boys? Was he liked at all?” Rusk
inquired.
“Oh, he was liked all right in a sort of a way. After all there’s
nothing much to _dislike_ about him, is there, even though he’s pretty
rotten at everything? He can hardly help that, though, as he didn’t make
himself. The only thing was that most of the boys couldn’t quite get the
hang of him. Of course, if he had stayed on a bit longer he _might_ have
learned some sense; but I don’t think myself it would have made much
difference. As it was, he hadn’t any chance. He seemed to me to be
getting along fairly well in his own way, and then, after he got ill, it
came out that everything had been wrong from the first--one or two
beasts had been giving him no end of a bad time. I needn’t tell you I
didn’t know anything about it before. Neither did anybody else, for that
matter. He never told a soul. Queer enough, for a little chap like that!
And then, I didn’t really see very much of him. When a fellow is younger
than you are, and is no use at anything, you can’t see much of him, can
you? And Skinny was always loafing about in an aimless sort of way. A
boy like him shouldn’t be sent to school at all. He’s bound to have a
rotten time, and the chances are he’ll get into bad ways and go to the
mischief.”
“I don’t think there was much danger of that, at all events,” said Rusk.
“No, I don’t suppose there was. He’s about as straight as they’re made.
I like him, you know; I really do; there’s something nice about him;
only he’s too queer for anything. I must tell you a thing he did one
day. It was on the Sunday before he took ill, I believe, and before all
the row----”
But Rusk was never to hear the remainder of the tale, for at that moment
Denis himself entered the room. He held a long, narrow, green volume in
his hand, and as Rusk and the young guest came over to join the little
group by the fire he opened it and began to read aloud slowly and
gravely, with a little upward wrinkle of his delicate eyebrows:
“‘What is your favourite musical instrument?’
‘The harp.’
‘Who is your favourite hero in fiction?’
‘Donovon.’
‘What do you consider to be the most beautiful thing in nature?’
‘Ruins by moonlight.’”
But May by this time had begun to recognize a smack of familiarity in
these remarks, and she now made a sudden grab at the book. Her brother
was too quick for her and dodged behind his mother’s chair.
“Where did you get it?” she demanded indignantly.
“I got it in the bookcase. ‘What is your opinion of the young man of the
period?’ This is for you, Mr. Rusk, ‘My opinion is that----’”
“Stop. Mamma make him stop. I wrote it ages and ages ago, and I don’t
want him to read it.”
She made another attempt to get the book, but Denis again eluded her. “I
wasn’t going to tell whose it was,” he said.
“Don’t read it, dear, if she doesn’t want you to,” Mrs. Bracknel
interposed.
“But it is only her modesty,” Denis insisted.
“You wouldn’t like anybody to read your things,” cried May, catching him
by the jacket, and beginning a noisy struggle.
“I would, if they were nearly as good as this. And at any rate I can’t
leave Mr. Rusk in suspense about the young man of the period. ‘My
opinion----’”
“No--no. Mamma, make him give me the book. It is mine. Mr. Rusk, make
him give it to me.”
Rusk caught his pupil’s hands and the book fell to the floor, where May
pounced upon it. As soon as it was safely in her own possession she
began to laugh. “Aunt Lizzie gave it to me one Christmas; I’d forgotten
all about it. It’s a Confession Album. I must get you to write in it,
Mr. Rusk, as soon as I’ve taken mine out.”
“Jimmy Temple has done a humorous one,” said Denis. “Let me read _it_.”
“No.”
“Do, it’s frightfully clever. ‘What coloured eyes and hair do you most
admire?’ ‘Strawberry ice and jugged hare.’ That’s only a sample, there
are other things just as good. For May’s benefit he has put the puns in
brackets and underlined them. I wonder how long it took him to sweat it
out. About a month?”
“It’s not half-bad,” said May. “And it was quite decent of Jimmy to
write at all.”
“Half-bad! It’s ripping. It’s the only really serious one in the book.
Mr. Rusk, ‘What do you consider to be the most beautiful thing in
nature?’ Come now, you oughtn’t to have to go very far afield for that!
May, stand up----” But his sister’s hand was clapped over his mouth, and
the rest of his speech was lost in a splutter.
Mrs. Bracknel watched them with a gentle smile.
“They’re burning nuts and doing all kinds of things in the kitchen,”
said Denis, when he could free himself. “Don’t you think we had better
go down? Cook was going through some mysterious rite with a red-herring
when I was there. I couldn’t make out what it was, but she got mad with
Johnson, because he spoiled it. It’s the greatest lark. Let us go. I’m
going. I’m going to burn myself with cook. She’s very fond of me: a
_grande passion_, mamma.”
* * * * *
In the ebb and flow of his present existence Rusk had now for some time
been conscious of what appeared to be a favourable current, but never
had it so strongly revealed itself as on this particular evening. Amy
seemed in quite a normal mood again, and her relation with her sister
was more natural and friendly than it had been since the day of his
arrival. In fact when he retired that night to his bedroom it was with a
reassuring sense that things had after all worked out all right--an idea
which gave a pleasant encouragement to his naturally easy optimism, to
his innate conviction that in the long run, if you only let them, they
invariably do. To-night, up in his own room, while the wind was rocking
the trees outside and coming in gusty blasts against his window with a
hard sweep and rattle of driving rain, he had been thinking of these
things, and at last had taken up a novel, an old-fashioned novel by Le
Fanu, which promised to be full of mystery and suspense. It was a little
past midnight, and he was just beginning to abandon himself to the spell
of his book, when suddenly, above the rush and moaning of the wind
outside, coming almost like an echo to the passage he was reading, he
heard a cry. At this hour, when he believed everyone but himself to be
in bed, the thing was somehow startling and unpleasant. Rusk listened
intently for a few seconds but he could hear nothing further. Then he
got up and opened his door, going some little way along the passage,
still listening.
Evidently he had not been mistaken, for the next moment Denis, too, in
his sleeping-suit and looking rather white and scared, came out. They
stood together, uncertain as to the direction the sound had proceeded
from, but almost immediately the door of May’s room, at the very end of
the passage, opened, and Amy appeared. She remained for perhaps a
quarter of a minute motionless and in silence on the threshold. She held
a lamp above her head and its light shone on her pale face and on her
red hair. She was extraordinarily white it seemed to Rusk--he had never
seen her so white before. He took a step forward, but there was
something in her eyes that brought him up again on the instant.
“What do you want?” she asked sharply, in a clear, cold voice, that rang
out with a metallic distinctness in the silence of the house. “And what
is Denis doing there, prowling about at this hour?”
Rusk felt somewhat foolish but he began to explain. “I thought I heard
someone calling,” he said awkwardly, “so I came to see.”
“Were you frightened? You seem to be very easily alarmed! I suppose you
heard May calling to me. I am sorry we frightened you.”
She spoke with a kind of deliberate contempt, and Rusk coloured as he
drew back with a murmured apology. The next moment, closing the door
sharply in their faces, she had disappeared once more into May’s room,
leaving them to return to their own quarters or to continue standing in
the passage, whichever they pleased.
“I told you they would be trying things,” Denis murmured, with a queer
little smile. Rusk, however, felt rather sore and angry. They might cry
out as much as they pleased in future, but it would be a long time
before he would trouble himself again about any of them. Shortly after
he had returned to his room, however, his indignation began to cool.
What he had heard still sounded in his ears, and he was now persuaded
that it had been a cry of fear. As he thought of it, in spite of Amy’s
lofty attitude he did not feel altogether satisfied. He had been very
easily put off. But, on the other hand, what _could_ have happened? And
even granting that something had, why should she be so anxious to
conceal it? He resolved not to trouble himself with the matter any
further, and placing his reading-lamp on a table near his pillow he
undressed and got into bed, taking up his novel again at the point where
he had left it.
He read several chapters before he began to feel drowsy. He had heard
the clock strike one some time ago, and he had closed his book and was
about to put out his lamp when a slight sound reached him, coming from
the direction of Denis’s room. The next moment there was a tap at his
door.
“Come in,” Rusk called out. Then:
“What is the matter?” he asked, as in response to his bidding the boy
entered the room.
Denis approached the side of the bed. His face had a curious expression
and his eyes seemed unnaturally bright. “Will you let me sleep with
you?” he asked hurriedly. “I will tell you----”
Rusk turned out the lamp and made room for the boy beside him. Five--ten
minutes passed, and still they lay in silence, for he did not want to
question Denis, in case he should prefer not to answer. But the boy
spoke at length of his own accord:
“It was a thing I heard,” he began suddenly in a half-whisper. “I heard
it last night, too, and it kept me awake till morning. To-night, about
half-an-hour ago, I woke up, and it had begun again. I had just had the
most horrible dream and I could not stand it somehow. I lay for a bit,
and then I thought I would come in to you. Do you mind?”
“Of course I don’t mind,” said Rusk kindly. “I am very glad if it makes
you more comfortable.... What was it?” he went on gently, for he could
tell from the boy’s voice that he was still extraordinarily nervous.
“Perhaps you were only dreaming. It wasn’t what we heard before, was
it?”
“No, it wasn’t that. It was ... I heard the death-watch.”
Rusk lay still a moment. “I don’t understand,” he then said.
“I heard it ticking--somewhere at the head of the bed.... The last time
I heard it was about four years ago--two or three weeks before my
grandfather’s death.”
“Oh,--I know what you mean now.... But it is only a little insect that
gets into the woodwork of a bed.” He spoke on purpose very quietly.
“There isn’t any woodwork,” said Denis.
“Well, into the wall, then. We’ll have a hunt for him in the morning.”
Denis said nothing further, but Rusk knew that he was unconvinced. He
had no other explanation to offer, however, and indeed he felt that just
at present there was little use in trying to reason with the boy. His
nerves were over-strung--the combined effects of the cry they had heard,
of his bad dream, and of this last sound, had been too much for him. He
put out his arm, and Denis lay with his head against his shoulder. It
suddenly occurred to him, and he wondered that he had never thought of
it before, that possibly it was not a very uncommon thing for his pupil
to be nervous at night. He remembered certain things that Miss Anna
Birch had told him about his childhood, and he wondered if he had
altogether outgrown his old weakness.
“Do you often have bad dreams?” he asked. And then as he spoke a sudden
sense of the strangeness of life came over him--of its peculiar
isolation, the insurmountable loneliness of each separate soul as it
floats swiftly on into darkness....
“Sometimes,” the boy replied. “Not nearly so often as I used to: I used
to hate going to bed. I used to dread it for an hour before the
time--and sometimes it was horrible--I could see things even after I
woke up. I don’t know how I came through it. There was one thing that I
used to see standing beside me when I woke up. It came back and back
again, the same thing; very tall, and with a long, white, horrible,
grinning, cruel face. And its teeth, I remember its teeth when it
smiled. I used to be frightened of meeting it after dark in some empty
room, on the stairs, even outside in the black avenue behind the house,
for it seemed to hover about here, never to go very far away.... There
are times even now when I have feelings like that, but--but not often.”
“Would you like to have your bed brought in here? The room is quite
large enough for both of us. Tell me really. It wouldn’t disturb _me_ in
the very least, you know. That is absolutely true. It won’t make the
smallest difference so far as I am concerned, and, if you would like it,
you might just as well be here as not.”
Denis waited, but not for very long. Then he said: “I would like to
come.”
“I wonder I didn’t think of it sooner,” Rusk murmured. “It was stupid of
me, but I never understand anything unless it is half pushed down my
throat.”
“You do understand,” said Denis quickly. “There is nobody else
understands so well. You didn’t think I was such a baby. How could you?”
“My dear boy, it is all just a matter of temperament, of imagination;
you aren’t in the least a baby.”
Denis made no reply, and Rusk thought he must have fallen asleep, when
he suddenly said, “Don’t mention it before papa, will you? He wouldn’t
allow it.” He was silent again for some moments till he added, “I’m
afraid it won’t do. The others would find it out, and they’d think me
cowardly and babyish, I know they’d be horrid. It’s just the kind of
thing they’d think it funny to be always alluding to. They’re not like
you.”
“Will you _leave_ it to me?” asked Rusk.
“But what will you do about it?”
“You don’t call that leaving it, do you? I’ll speak to your mother. At
any rate, if nothing else, you can always come in as you have done
to-night, without anybody knowing.”
A little later he could tell from his low, regular breathing that Denis
had dropped asleep. Rusk himself lay awake for some time longer. He was
again busy with the idea of taking the boy away, and just now, curiously
enough, the difficulties to be surmounted did not seem to be nearly so
formidable as they had appeared before. He determined at any rate to do
his best in the matter, and not to give in without a hard struggle.