Henry Wimbush’s long cigar burned aromatically. The “History of Crome”
lay on his knee; slowly he turned over the pages.
“I can’t decide what episode to read you to-night,” he said
thoughtfully. “Sir Ferdinando’s voyages are not without interest. Then,
of course, there’s his son, Sir Julius. It was he who suffered from the
delusion that his perspiration engendered flies; it drove him finally to
suicide. Or there’s Sir Cyprian.” He turned the pages more rapidly. “Or
Sir Henry. Or Sir George...No, I’m inclined to think I won’t read about
any of these.”
“But you must read something,” insisted Mr. Scogan, taking his pipe out
of his mouth.
“I think I shall read about my grandfather,” said Henry Wimbush, “and
the events that led up to his marriage with the eldest daughter of the
last Sir Ferdinando.”
“Good,” said Mr. Scogan. “We are listening.”
“Before I begin reading,” said Henry Wimbush, looking up from the
book and taking off the pince-nez which he had just fitted to his
nose--“before I begin, I must say a few preliminary words about Sir
Ferdinando, the last of the Lapiths. At the death of the virtuous and
unfortunate Sir Hercules, Ferdinando found himself in possession of the
family fortune, not a little increased by his father’s temperance and
thrift; he applied himself forthwith to the task of spending it, which
he did in an ample and jovial fashion. By the time he was forty he had
eaten and, above all, drunk and loved away about half his capital, and
would infallibly have soon got rid of the rest in the same manner, if
he had not had the good fortune to become so madly enamoured of the
Rector’s daughter as to make a proposal of marriage. The young lady
accepted him, and in less than a year had become the absolute mistress
of Crome and her husband. An extraordinary reformation made itself
apparent in Sir Ferdinando’s character. He grew regular and economical
in his habits; he even became temperate, rarely drinking more than
a bottle and a half of port at a sitting. The waning fortune of the
Lapiths began once more to wax, and that in despite of the hard times
(for Sir Ferdinando married in 1809 in the height of the Napoleonic
Wars). A prosperous and dignified old age, cheered by the spectacle of
his children’s growth and happiness--for Lady Lapith had already borne
him three daughters, and there seemed no good reason why she should not
bear many more of them, and sons as well--a patriarchal decline into the
family vault, seemed now to be Sir Ferdinando’s enviable destiny. But
Providence willed otherwise. To Napoleon, cause already of such infinite
mischief, was due, though perhaps indirectly, the untimely and violent
death which put a period to this reformed existence.
“Sir Ferdinando, who was above all things a patriot, had adopted, from
the earliest days of the conflict with the French, his own peculiar
method of celebrating our victories. When the happy news reached London,
it was his custom to purchase immediately a large store of liquor and,
taking a place on whichever of the outgoing coaches he happened to light
on first, to drive through the country proclaiming the good news to all
he met on the road and dispensing it, along with the liquor, at every
stopping-place to all who cared to listen or drink. Thus, after the
Nile, he had driven as far as Edinburgh; and later, when the coaches,
wreathed with laurel for triumph, with cypress for mourning, were
setting out with the news of Nelson’s victory and death, he sat through
all a chilly October night on the box of the Norwich ‘Meteor’ with a
nautical keg of rum on his knees and two cases of old brandy under the
seat. This genial custom was one of the many habits which he abandoned
on his marriage. The victories in the Peninsula, the retreat from
Moscow, Leipzig, and the abdication of the tyrant all went uncelebrated.
It so happened, however, that in the summer of 1815 Sir Ferdinando was
staying for a few weeks in the capital. There had been a succession of
anxious, doubtful days; then came the glorious news of Waterloo. It was
too much for Sir Ferdinando; his joyous youth awoke again within him. He
hurried to his wine merchant and bought a dozen bottles of 1760 brandy.
The Bath coach was on the point of starting; he bribed his way on to
the box and, seated in glory beside the driver, proclaimed aloud the
downfall of the Corsican bandit and passed about the warm liquid joy.
They clattered through Uxbridge, Slough, Maidenhead. Sleeping Reading
was awakened by the great news. At Didcot one of the ostlers was so
much overcome by patriotic emotions and the 1760 brandy that he found it
impossible to do up the buckles of the harness. The night began to grow
chilly, and Sir Ferdinando found that it was not enough to take a nip
at every stage: to keep up his vital warmth he was compelled to drink
between the stages as well. They were approaching Swindon. The coach
was travelling at a dizzy speed--six miles in the last half-hour--when,
without having manifested the slightest premonitory symptom of
unsteadiness, Sir Ferdinando suddenly toppled sideways off his seat
and fell, head foremost, into the road. An unpleasant jolt awakened the
slumbering passengers. The coach was brought to a standstill; the
guard ran back with a light. He found Sir Ferdinando still alive, but
unconscious; blood was oozing from his mouth. The back wheels of the
coach had passed over his body, breaking most of his ribs and both arms.
His skull was fractured in two places. They picked him up, but he was
dead before they reached the next stage. So perished Sir Ferdinando,
a victim to his own patriotism. Lady Lapith did not marry again, but
determined to devote the rest of her life to the well-being of her three
children--Georgiana, now five years old, and Emmeline and Caroline,
twins of two.”
Henry Wimbush paused, and once more put on his pince-nez. “So much
by way of introduction,” he said. “Now I can begin to read about my
grandfather.”
“One moment,” said Mr. Scogan, “till I’ve refilled my pipe.”
Mr. Wimbush waited. Seated apart in a corner of the room, Ivor was
showing Mary his sketches of Spirit Life. They spoke together in
whispers.
Mr. Scogan had lighted his pipe again. “Fire away,” he said.
Henry Wimbush fired away.
“It was in the spring of 1833 that my grandfather, George Wimbush, first
made the acquaintance of the ‘three lovely Lapiths,’ as they were always
called. He was then a young man of twenty-two, with curly yellow hair
and a smooth pink face that was the mirror of his youthful and ingenuous
mind. He had been educated at Harrow and Christ Church, he enjoyed
hunting and all other field sports, and, though his circumstances were
comfortable to the verge of affluence, his pleasures were temperate and
innocent. His father, an East Indian merchant, had destined him for a
political career, and had gone to considerable expense in acquiring a
pleasant little Cornish borough as a twenty-first birthday gift for his
son. He was justly indignant when, on the very eve of George’s majority,
the Reform Bill of 1832 swept the borough out of existence. The
inauguration of George’s political career had to be postponed. At the
time he got to know the lovely Lapiths he was waiting; he was not at all
impatient.
“The lovely Lapiths did not fail to impress him. Georgiana, the eldest,
with her black ringlets, her flashing eyes, her noble aquiline profile,
her swan-like neck, and sloping shoulders, was orientally dazzling; and
the twins, with their delicately turned-up noses, their blue eyes, and
chestnut hair, were an identical pair of ravishingly English charmers.
“Their conversation at this first meeting proved, however, to be so
forbidding that, but for the invincible attraction exercised by their
beauty, George would never have had the courage to follow up the
acquaintance. The twins, looking up their noses at him with an air of
languid superiority, asked him what he thought of the latest French
poetry and whether he liked the ‘Indiana’ of George Sand. But what
was almost worse was the question with which Georgiana opened her
conversation with him. ‘In music,’ she asked, leaning forward and
fixing him with her large dark eyes, ‘are you a classicist or a
transcendentalist?’ George did not lose his presence of mind. He had
enough appreciation of music to know that he hated anything classical,
and so, with a promptitude which did him credit, he replied, ‘I am a
transcendentalist.’ Georgiana smiled bewitchingly. ‘I am glad,’ she
said; ‘so am I. You went to hear Paganini last week, of course. “The
prayer of Moses”--ah!’ She closed her eyes. ‘Do you know anything more
transcendental than that?’ ‘No,’ said George, ‘I don’t.’ He hesitated,
was about to go on speaking, and then decided that after all it would be
wiser not to say--what was in fact true--that he had enjoyed above all
Paganini’s Farmyard Imitations. The man had made his fiddle bray like
an ass, cluck like a hen, grunt, squeal, bark, neigh, quack, bellow, and
growl; that last item, in George’s estimation, had almost compensated
for the tediousness of the rest of the concert. He smiled with pleasure
at the thought of it. Yes, decidedly, he was no classicist in music; he
was a thoroughgoing transcendentalist.
“George followed up this first introduction by paying a call on the
young ladies and their mother, who occupied, during the season, a small
but elegant house in the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square. Lady Lapith
made a few discreet inquiries, and having found that George’s financial
position, character, and family were all passably good, she asked him to
dine. She hoped and expected that her daughters would all marry into
the peerage; but, being a prudent woman, she knew it was advisable to
prepare for all contingencies. George Wimbush, she thought, would make
an excellent second string for one of the twins.
“At this first dinner, George’s partner was Emmeline. They talked of
Nature. Emmeline protested that to her high mountains were a feeling and
the hum of human cities torture. George agreed that the country was very
agreeable, but held that London during the season also had its charms.
He noticed with surprise and a certain solicitous distress that Miss
Emmeline’s appetite was poor, that it didn’t, in fact, exist. Two
spoonfuls of soup, a morsel of fish, no bird, no meat, and three
grapes--that was her whole dinner. He looked from time to time at her
two sisters; Georgiana and Caroline seemed to be quite as abstemious.
They waved away whatever was offered them with an expression of delicate
disgust, shutting their eyes and averting their faces from the proffered
dish, as though the lemon sole, the duck, the loin of veal, the trifle,
were objects revolting to the sight and smell. George, who thought the
dinner capital, ventured to comment on the sisters’ lack of appetite.
“‘Pray, don’t talk to me of eating,’ said Emmeline, drooping like a
sensitive plant. ‘We find it so coarse, so unspiritual, my sisters and
I. One can’t think of one’s soul while one is eating.’
“George agreed; one couldn’t. ‘But one must live,’ he said.
“‘Alas!’ Emmeline sighed. ‘One must. Death is very beautiful, don’t you
think?’ She broke a corner off a piece of toast and began to nibble
at it languidly. ‘But since, as you say, one must live...’ She made a
little gesture of resignation. ‘Luckily a very little suffices to keep
one alive.’ She put down her corner of toast half eaten.
“George regarded her with some surprise. She was pale, but she looked
extraordinarily healthy, he thought; so did her sisters. Perhaps if
you were really spiritual you needed less food. He, clearly, was not
spiritual.
“After this he saw them frequently. They all liked him, from Lady Lapith
downwards. True, he was not very romantic or poetical; but he was such a
pleasant, unpretentious, kind-hearted young man, that one couldn’t
help liking him. For his part, he thought them wonderful, wonderful,
especially Georgiana. He enveloped them all in a warm, protective
affection. For they needed protection; they were altogether too frail,
too spiritual for this world. They never ate, they were always pale,
they often complained of fever, they talked much and lovingly of death,
they frequently swooned. Georgiana was the most ethereal of all; of the
three she ate least, swooned most often, talked most of death, and was
the palest--with a pallor that was so startling as to appear positively
artificial. At any moment, it seemed, she might loose her precarious
hold on this material world and become all spirit. To George the thought
was a continual agony. If she were to die...
“She contrived, however, to live through the season, and that in spite
of the numerous balls, routs, and other parties of pleasure which, in
company with the rest of the lovely trio, she never failed to attend. In
the middle of July the whole household moved down to the country. George
was invited to spend the month of August at Crome.
“The house-party was distinguished; in the list of visitors figured
the names of two marriageable young men of title. George had hoped that
country air, repose, and natural surroundings might have restored to
the three sisters their appetites and the roses of their cheeks. He was
mistaken. For dinner, the first evening, Georgiana ate only an olive,
two or three salted almonds, and half a peach. She was as pale as ever.
During the meal she spoke of love.
“‘True love,’ she said, ‘being infinite and eternal, can only be
consummated in eternity. Indiana and Sir Rodolphe celebrated the mystic
wedding of their souls by jumping into Niagara. Love is incompatible
with life. The wish of two people who truly love one another is not to
live together but to die together.’
“‘Come, come, my dear,’ said Lady Lapith, stout and practical. ‘What
would become of the next generation, pray, if all the world acted on
your principles?’
“‘Mamma!...’ Georgiana protested, and dropped her eyes.
“‘In my young days,’ Lady Lapith went on, ‘I should have been laughed
out of countenance if I’d said a thing like that. But then in my young
days souls weren’t as fashionable as they are now and we didn’t think
death was at all poetical. It was just unpleasant.’
“‘Mamma!...’ Emmeline and Caroline implored in unison.
“‘In my young days--’ Lady Lapith was launched into her subject;
nothing, it seemed, could stop her now. ‘In my young days, if you didn’t
eat, people told you you needed a dose of rhubarb. Nowadays...’
“There was a cry; Georgiana had swooned sideways on to Lord Timpany’s
shoulder. It was a desperate expedient; but it was successful. Lady
Lapith was stopped.
“The days passed in an uneventful round of pleasures. Of all the gay
party George alone was unhappy. Lord Timpany was paying his court to
Georgiana, and it was clear that he was not unfavourably received.
George looked on, and his soul was a hell of jealousy and despair. The
boisterous company of the young men became intolerable to him; he shrank
from them, seeking gloom and solitude. One morning, having broken away
from them on some vague pretext, he returned to the house alone. The
young men were bathing in the pool below; their cries and laughter
floated up to him, making the quiet house seem lonelier and more silent.
The lovely sisters and their mamma still kept their chambers; they did
not customarily make their appearance till luncheon, so that the male
guests had the morning to themselves. George sat down in the hall and
abandoned himself to thought.
“At any moment she might die; at any moment she might become Lady
Timpany. It was terrible, terrible. If she died, then he would die
too; he would go to seek her beyond the grave. If she became Lady
Timpany...ah, then! The solution of the problem would not be so simple.
If she became Lady Timpany: it was a horrible thought. But then suppose
she were in love with Timpany--though it seemed incredible that anyone
could be in love with Timpany--suppose her life depended on Timpany,
suppose she couldn’t live without him? He was fumbling his way along
this clueless labyrinth of suppositions when the clock struck twelve. On
the last stroke, like an automaton released by the turning clockwork, a
little maid, holding a large covered tray, popped out of the door that
led from the kitchen regions into the hall. From his deep arm-chair
George watched her (himself, it was evident, unobserved) with an idle
curiosity. She pattered across the room and came to a halt in front of
what seemed a blank expense of panelling. She reached out her hand and,
to George’s extreme astonishment, a little door swung open, revealing
the foot of a winding staircase. Turning sideways in order to get her
tray through the narrow opening, the little maid darted in with a rapid
crab-like motion. The door closed behind her with a click. A minute
later it opened again and the maid, without her tray, hurried back
across the hall and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. George
tried to recompose his thoughts, but an invincible curiosity drew his
mind towards the hidden door, the staircase, the little maid. It was in
vain he told himself that the matter was none of his business, that to
explore the secrets of that surprising door, that mysterious staircase
within, would be a piece of unforgivable rudeness and indiscretion.
It was in vain; for five minutes he struggled heroically with his
curiosity, but at the end of that time he found himself standing in
front of the innocent sheet of panelling through which the little maid
had disappeared. A glance sufficed to show him the position of the
secret door--secret, he perceived, only to those who looked with
a careless eye. It was just an ordinary door let in flush with the
panelling. No latch nor handle betrayed its position, but an unobtrusive
catch sunk in the wood invited the thumb. George was astonished that he
had not noticed it before; now he had seen it, it was so obvious,
almost as obvious as the cupboard door in the library with its lines
of imitation shelves and its dummy books. He pulled back the catch and
peeped inside. The staircase, of which the degrees were made not
of stone but of blocks of ancient oak, wound up and out of sight.
A slit-like window admitted the daylight; he was at the foot of the
central tower, and the little window looked out over the terrace; they
were still shouting and splashing in the pool below.
“George closed the door and went back to his seat. But his curiosity
was not satisfied. Indeed, this partial satisfaction had but whetted
its appetite. Where did the staircase lead? What was the errand of the
little maid? It was no business of his, he kept repeating--no business
of his. He tried to read, but his attention wandered. A quarter-past
twelve sounded on the harmonious clock. Suddenly determined, George
rose, crossed the room, opened the hidden door, and began to ascend
the stairs. He passed the first window, corkscrewed round, and came
to another. He paused for a moment to look out; his heart beat
uncomfortably, as though he were affronting some unknown danger. What
he was doing, he told himself, was extremely ungentlemanly, horribly
underbred. He tiptoed onward and upward. One turn more, then half a
turn, and a door confronted him. He halted before it, listened; he could
hear no sound. Putting his eye to the keyhole, he saw nothing but a
stretch of white sunlit wall. Emboldened, he turned the handle and
stepped across the threshold. There he halted, petrified by what he saw,
mutely gaping.
“In the middle of a pleasantly sunny little room--‘it is now Priscilla’s
boudoir,’ Mr. Wimbush remarked parenthetically--stood a small circular
table of mahogany. Crystal, porcelain, and silver,--all the shining
apparatus of an elegant meal--were mirrored in its polished depths. The
carcase of a cold chicken, a bowl of fruit, a great ham, deeply gashed
to its heart of tenderest white and pink, the brown cannon ball of
a cold plum-pudding, a slender Hock bottle, and a decanter of claret
jostled one another for a place on this festive board. And round the
table sat the three sisters, the three lovely Lapiths--eating!
“At George’s sudden entrance they had all looked towards the door, and
now they sat, petrified by the same astonishment which kept George fixed
and staring. Georgiana, who sat immediately facing the door, gazed at
him with dark, enormous eyes. Between the thumb and forefinger of her
right hand she was holding a drumstick of the dismembered chicken; her
little finger, elegantly crooked, stood apart from the rest of her hand.
Her mouth was open, but the drumstick had never reached its destination;
it remained, suspended, frozen, in mid-air. The other two sisters had
turned round to look at the intruder. Caroline still grasped her knife
and fork; Emmeline’s fingers were round the stem of her claret glass.
For what seemed a very long time, George and the three sisters stared
at one another in silence. They were a group of statues. Then suddenly
there was movement. Georgiana dropped her chicken bone, Caroline’s knife
and fork clattered on her plate. The movement propagated itself, grew
more decisive; Emmeline sprang to her feet, uttering a cry. The wave of
panic reached George; he turned and, mumbling something unintelligible
as he went, rushed out of the room and down the winding stairs. He came
to a standstill in the hall, and there, all by himself in the quiet
house, he began to laugh.
“At luncheon it was noticed that the sisters ate a little more than
usual. Georgiana toyed with some French beans and a spoonful of
calves’-foot jelly. ‘I feel a little stronger to-day,’ she said to Lord
Timpany, when he congratulated her on this increase of appetite; ‘a
little more material,’ she added, with a nervous laugh. Looking up, she
caught George’s eye; a blush suffused her cheeks and she looked hastily
away.
“In the garden that afternoon they found themselves for a moment alone.
“You won’t tell anyone, George? Promise you won’t tell anyone,’ she
implored. ‘It would make us look so ridiculous. And besides, eating IS
unspiritual, isn’t it? Say you won’t tell anyone.’
“‘I will,’ said George brutally. ‘I’ll tell everyone, unless...’
“‘It’s blackmail.’
“‘I don’t care, said George. ‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours to
decide.’
“Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course; she had hoped for better
things--for Timpany and a coronet. But George, after all, wasn’t so bad.
They were married at the New Year.
“My poor grandfather!” Mr. Wimbush added, as he closed his book and
put away his pince-nez. “Whenever I read in the papers about oppressed
nationalities, I think of him.” He relighted his cigar. “It was
a maternal government, highly centralised, and there were no
representative institutions.”
Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued Ivor’s
whispered commentary on the spirit sketches once more became audible.
Priscilla, who had been dozing, suddenly woke up.
“What?” she said in the startled tones of one newly returned to
consciousness; “what?”
Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, nodded reassuringly.
“It’s about a ham,” she said.
“What’s about a ham?”
“What Henry has been reading.” She closed the red notebook lying on
her knees and slipped a rubber band round it. “I’m going to bed,” she
announced, and got up.
“So am I,” said Anne, yawning. But she lacked the energy to rise from
her arm-chair.
The night was hot and oppressive. Round the open windows the curtains
hung unmoving. Ivor, fanning himself with the portrait of an Astral
Being, looked out into the darkness and drew a breath.
“The air’s like wool,” he declared.
“It will get cooler after midnight,” said Henry Wimbush, and cautiously
added, “perhaps.”
“I shan’t sleep, I know.”
Priscilla turned her head in his direction; the monumental coiffure
nodded exorbitantly at her slightest movement. “You must make an
effort,” she said. “When I can’t sleep, I concentrate my will: I say,
‘I will sleep, I am asleep!’ And pop! off I go. That’s the power of
thought.”
“But does it work on stuffy nights?” Ivor inquired. “I simply cannot
sleep on a stuffy night.”
“Nor can I,” said Mary, “except out of doors.”
“Out of doors! What a wonderful idea!” In the end they decided to sleep
on the towers--Mary on the western tower, Ivor on the eastern. There
was a flat expanse of leads on each of the towers, and you could get a
mattress through the trap doors that opened on to them. Under the stars,
under the gibbous moon, assuredly they would sleep. The mattresses were
hauled up, sheets and blankets were spread, and an hour later the two
insomniasts, each on his separate tower, were crying their good-nights
across the dividing gulf.
On Mary the sleep-compelling charm of the open air did not work with its
expected magic. Even through the mattress one could not fail to be aware
that the leads were extremely hard. Then there were noises: the owls
screeched tirelessly, and once, roused by some unknown terror, all the
geese of the farmyard burst into a sudden frenzy of cackling. The stars
and the gibbous moon demanded to be looked at, and when one meteorite
had streaked across the sky, you could not help waiting, open-eyed and
alert, for the next. Time passed; the moon climbed higher and higher in
the sky. Mary felt less sleepy than she had when she first came out.
She sat up and looked over the parapet. Had Ivor been able to sleep? she
wondered. And as though in answer to her mental question, from
behind the chimney-stack at the farther end of the roof a white form
noiselessly emerged--a form that, in the moonlight, was recognisably
Ivor’s. Spreading his arms to right and left, like a tight-rope dancer,
he began to walk forward along the roof-tree of the house. He swayed
terrifyingly as he advanced. Mary looked on speechlessly; perhaps he was
walking in his sleep! Suppose he were to wake up suddenly, now! If she
spoke or moved it might mean his death. She dared look no more, but sank
back on her pillows. She listened intently. For what seemed an immensely
long time there was no sound. Then there was a patter of feet on the
tiles, followed by a scrabbling noise and a whispered “Damn!” And
suddenly Ivor’s head and shoulders appeared above the parapet. One leg
followed, then the other. He was on the leads. Mary pretended to wake up
with a start.
“Oh!” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” he explained, “so I came along to see if you
couldn’t. One gets bored by oneself on a tower. Don’t you find it so?”
It was light before five. Long, narrow clouds barred the east, their
edges bright with orange fire. The sky was pale and watery. With the
mournful scream of a soul in pain, a monstrous peacock, flying heavily
up from below, alighted on the parapet of the tower. Ivor and Mary
started broad awake.
“Catch him!” cried Ivor, jumping up. “We’ll have a feather.” The
frightened peacock ran up and down the parapet in an absurd distress,
curtseying and bobbing and clucking; his long tail swung ponderously
back and forth as he turned and turned again. Then with a flap and swish
he launched himself upon the air and sailed magnificently earthward,
with a recovered dignity. But he had left a trophy. Ivor had his
feather, a long-lashed eye of purple and green, of blue and gold. He
handed it to his companion.
“An angel’s feather,” he said.
Mary looked at it for a moment, gravely and intently. Her purple pyjamas
clothed her with an ampleness that hid the lines of her body; she looked
like some large, comfortable, unjointed toy, a sort of Teddy-bear--but
a Teddy bear with an angel’s head, pink cheeks, and hair like a bell
of gold. An angel’s face, the feather of an angel’s wing...Somehow the
whole atmosphere of this sunrise was rather angelic.
“It’s extraordinary to think of sexual selection,” she said at last,
looking up from her contemplation of the miraculous feather.
“Extraordinary!” Ivor echoed. “I select you, you select me. What luck!”
He put his arm round her shoulders and they stood looking eastward. The
first sunlight had begun to warm and colour the pale light of the dawn.
Mauve pyjamas and white pyjamas; they were a young and charming couple.
The rising sun touched their faces. It was all extremely symbolic;
but then, if you choose to think so, nothing in this world is not
symbolical. Profound and beautiful truth!
“I must be getting back to my tower,” said Ivor at last.
“Already?”
“I’m afraid so. The varletry will soon be up and about.”
“Ivor...” There was a prolonged and silent farewell.
“And now,” said Ivor, “I repeat my tight-rope stunt.”
Mary threw her arms round his neck. “You mustn’t, Ivor. It’s dangerous.
Please.”
He had to yield at last to her entreaties. “All right,” he said, “I’ll
go down through the house and up at the other end.”
He vanished through the trap door into the darkness that still lurked
within the shuttered house. A minute later he had reappeared on the
farther tower; he waved his hand, and then sank down, out of sight,
behind the parapet. From below, in the house, came the thin wasp-like
buzzing of an alarum-clock. He had gone back just in time.