HIS COMPANION IN PRISON
Shocks of terror, as they increase in number, apparently lessen in
effect; the repeated calls made upon Jimbo's soul by the emotions of
fear and astonishment had numbed it; otherwise the knowledge that he was
locked in the room with this mysterious creature beyond all possibility
of escape must have frightened him, as the saying is, out of his skin.
As it was, however, he kept his head in a wonderful manner, and simply
stared at the silent intruder as hard as ever he could stare. How in the
world it got in was the principal thought in his mind, and after that:
what in the world was it?
The dawn must have come very swiftly, or else he had been staring longer
than he knew, for just then the sun topped the edge of the world and the
window-sill simultaneously, and sent a welcome ray of sunshine into the
dingy room. It turned the grey light to silver, and fell full upon the
huddled figure crouching against the opposite wall. Jimbo caught his
breath, and stared harder than ever.
It was a human figure, the figure, apparently, of a man, sitting
crumpled up in a very uncomfortable sort of position on his haunches. It
sat perfectly still. A black cloak, with loose sleeves, and a cowl or
hood that completely concealed the face, covered it from head to foot.
The material of the cloak could not have been very thick, for inside the
hood he caught the gleam of eyes as they roamed about the room and
followed his movements. But for this glitter of the moving eyes it might
have been a figure carved in wood. Was it going to sit there for ever
watching him? At first he was afraid it was going to speak; then he was
afraid it wasn't. It might rise suddenly and come towards him; yet the
thought that it would not move at all was worse still.
In this way the two faced each other for several minutes until, just as
the position was becoming simply unbearable, a low whisper ran round the
room: "At last! Oh! I've found him at last!" Jimbo was not quite sure of
the words, though it was certainly a human voice that had spoken; but,
the suspense once broken, the boy could not stand it any longer, and
with a rush of desperate courage he found his voice--a very husky
one--and moved a step forward.
"Who are you, please, and how _did_ you get in?" he ventured with a
great effort.
Then he fell back against the wall, amazed at his own daring, and waited
with tightly-clenched fists for an answer. But he had not to wait very
long, for almost immediately the figure rose awkwardly to its feet, and
came over to where he stood. Its manner of moving may best be described
as shuffling; and it stretched in front of it a long cloaked arm, on
which the sleeve hung, he thought, like clothes on a washing line.
He breathed hard, and waited. Like many other people with strong wills
and sensitive nerves, Jimbo was both brave and a coward: he hoped
nothing horrid was going to happen, but he was quite ready if it should.
Yet, now that the actual moment had come, he had no particular fear, and
when he felt the touch of the hand on his shoulder, the words sprang
naturally to his lips with a little trembling laugh, more of wonder
perhaps than anything else.
"You do look a horrid ... _brute_," he was going to say, but at the
last moment he changed it to "_thing_," for, with the true intuition of
a child, he recognised that the creature inside the cloak was a kind
creature and well disposed towards him. "But how did you get in?" he
added, looking up bravely into the black visage, "because the doors are
both locked on the outside, and I couldn't get out?"
By way of reply the figure shuffled to one side, and, taking the hand
from his shoulder, pointed silently to a trap-door in the floor behind
him. As he looked, he saw it was being shut down stealthily by some one
beneath.
"Hush!" whispered the figure, almost inaudibly. "He's watching!"
"Who's watching?" he cried, curiosity taking the place of every other
emotion. "I want to see." He ran forward to the spot where the trap-door
now lay flush with the floor, but, before he had gone two steps, the
black arms shot out and caught him. He turned, struggling, and in the
scuffle that followed the cloak shrouding the figure became disarranged;
the hood dropped from the face, and he found himself looking straight
into the eyes, not of a man, but of a woman!
"It's you!" he cried, "YOU--!"
A shock ran right through his body from his head to his feet, like a
current of electricity, and he caught his breath as though he had been
struck. For one brief instant the sinister face of some one who had
terrified him in the past came back vividly to his mind, and he shrank
away in terror. But it was only for an instant, the twentieth part of an
instant. Immediately, before he could even remember the name,
recognition passed into darkness and his memory shut down with a snap.
He was staring into the face of an utter stranger, about whom he knew
nothing and had no feelings particularly one way or another.
"I thought I knew you," he gasped, "but I've forgotten you again--and I
thought you were going to be a man, too."
"Jimbo!" cried the other, and in her voice was such unmistakable
tenderness and yearning that the boy knew at once beyond doubt that she
was his friend, "Jimbo!"
She knelt down on the floor beside him, so that her face was on a level
with his, and then opened both her arms to him. But though Jimbo was
glad to have found a friend who was going to help him, he felt no
particular desire to be embraced, and he stood obstinately where he was
with his back to the window.
The morning sunshine fell upon her features and touched the thick coils
of her hair with glory. It was not, strictly speaking, a pretty face,
but the look of real human tenderness there was very welcome and
comforting, and in the kind brown eyes there shone a strange light that
was not merely the reflection of the sunlight. The boy felt his heart
warm to her as he looked, but her expression puzzled him, and he would
not accept the invitation of her arms.
"Won't you come to me?" she said, her arms still outstretched.
"I want to know who you are, and what I'm doing here," he said. "I feel
so funny--so old and so young--and all mixed up. I can't make out who I
am a bit. What's that funny name you call me?"
"Jimbo is your name," she said softly.
"Then what's _your_ name?" he asked quickly.
"My name," she repeated slowly after a pause, "is not--as nice as yours.
Besides, you need not know my name--you might dislike it."
"But I must have something to call you," he persisted.
"But if I told you, and you disliked the name, you might dislike _me_
too," she said, still hesitating.
Jimbo saw the expression of sadness in her eyes, and it won his
confidence though he hardly knew why. He came up closer to her and put
his puzzled little face next to hers.
"I like you very much already," he whispered, "and if your name is a
horrid one I'll change it for you at once. Please tell me what it is."
She drew the boy to her and gave him a little hug, and he did not
resist. For a long time she did not answer. He felt vaguely that
something of dreadful importance hung about this revelation of her name.
He repeated his question, and at length she replied, speaking in a very
low voice, and with her eyes fixed intently upon his face.
"My name," she said, "is Ethel Lake."
"Ethel Lake," he repeated after her. The words sounded somehow familiar
to him; surely he had heard that name before. Were not the words
associated with something in his past that had been unpleasant? A
curious sinking sensation came over him as he heard them.
His companion watched him intently while he repeated the words over to
himself several times, as if to make sure he had got them right. There
was a moment's hesitation as he slowly went over them once again. Then
he turned to her, laughing.
"I like your name, Ethel Lake," he said. "It's a nice
name--Miss--Miss----" Again he hesitated, while a little warning tremor
ran through his mind, and he wondered for an instant why he said "Miss."
But it passed as suddenly as it had come, and he finished the
sentence--"Miss Lake, I shall call you." He stared into her eyes as he
said it.
"Then you don't remember me at all?" she cried, with a sigh of intense
relief. "You've quite forgotten?"
"I never saw you before, did I? How can I remember you? I don't remember
any of the things I've forgotten. Are you one of them?"
For reply she caught him to her breast and kissed him. "You precious
little boy!" she said. "I'm so glad, oh, so glad!"
"But do you remember _me_?" he asked, sorely puzzled. "Who am I? Haven't
I been born yet, or something funny like that?"
"If you don't remember _me_," said the other, her face happy with smiles
that had evidently come only just in time to prevent tears, "there's
not much good telling you who _you_ are. But your name, if you really
want to know, is----" She hesitated a moment.
"Be quick, Eth--Miss Lake, or you'll forget it again."
She laughed rather bitterly. "Oh, I never forget. I can't!" she said. "I
wish I could. Your name is James Stone, and Jimbo is 'short' for James.
Now you know."
She might just as well have said Bill Sykes for all the boy knew or
remembered.
"What a silly name!" he laughed. "But it can't be my real name, or I
should know it. I never heard it before." After a moment he added, "Am I
an old man? I feel just like one. I suppose I'm grown up--grown up so
fast that I've forgotten what came before----"
"You're not grown up, dear, at least, not exactly----" She glanced down
at his alpaca knickerbockers and brown stockings; and as he followed her
eyes and saw the dirty buttoned-boots there came into his mind some dim
memory of where he had last put them on, and of some one who had helped
him. But it all passed like a swift meteor across the dark night of his
forgetfulness and was lost in mist.
"You mustn't judge by these silly clothes," he laughed. "I shall change
them as soon as I get--as soon as I can find----" He stopped short. No
words came. A feeling of utter loneliness and despair swept suddenly
over him, drenching him from head to foot. He felt lost and friendless,
naked, homeless, cold. He was ever on the brink of regaining a whole lot
of knowledge and experience that he had known once long ago, ever so
long ago, but it always kept just out of his reach. He glanced at Miss
Lake, feeling that she was his only possible comfort in a terrible
situation. She met his look and drew him tenderly towards her.
"Now, listen to me," she said gently, "I've something to tell you--about
myself."
He was all attention in a minute.
"I am a discharged governess," she began, holding her breath when once
the words were out.
"Discharged!" he repeated vaguely. "What's that? What for?"
"For frightening a child. I told a little boy awful stories that weren't
true. They terrified him so much that I was sent away. That's why I'm
here now. It's my punishment. I am a prisoner here until I can find
him--and help him to escape----"
"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed quickly, as though remembering something. But
it passed, and he looked up at her half-bored, half-politely. "Escape
from what?" he asked.
"From here. This is the Empty House I told the stories about; _and you
are the little boy I frightened_. Now, at last, I've found you, and am
going to save you." She paused, watching him with eyes that never left
his face for an instant.
Jimbo was delighted to hear he was going to be rescued, but he felt no
interest at all in her story of having frightened a little boy, who was
himself. He thought it was very nice of her to take so much trouble, and
he told her so, and when he went up and kissed her and thanked her, he
saw to his surprise that she was crying. For the life of him he could
not understand why a discharged governess whom he met, apparently, for
the first time in the Empty House, should weep over him and show him so
much affection. But he could think of nothing to say, so he just waited
till she had finished.
"You see, if I can save you," she said between her sobs, "it will be all
right again, and I shall be forgiven, and shall be able to escape with
you. I want you to escape, so that you can get back to life again."
"Oh, then I'm dead, am I?"
"Not exactly dead," she said, drying her eyes with the corner of her
black hood. "You've had a funny accident, you know. If your body gets
all right, so that you can go back and live in it again, then you're not
dead. But if it's so badly injured that you can't work in it any more,
then you are dead, and will have to stay dead. You're still joined to
the body in a fashion, you see."
He stared and listened, not understanding much. It all bored him. She
talked without explaining, he thought. An immense sponge had passed over
the slate of the past and wiped it clean beyond recall. He was utterly
perplexed.
"How funny you are!" he said vaguely, thinking more of her tears than
her explanations.
"Water won't stay in a cracked bottle," she went on, "and you can't stay
in a broken body. But they're trying to mend it now, and if we can
escape in time you can be an ordinary, happy little boy in the world
again."
"Then are you dead, too?" he asked, "or nearly dead?"
"I am out of my body, like you," she answered evasively, after a
moment's pause.
He was still looking at her in a dazed sort of way, when she suddenly
sprang to her feet and let the hood drop back over her face.
"Hush!" she whispered, "he's listening again."
At the same moment a sound came from beneath the floor on the other side
of the room, and Jimbo saw the trap-door being slowly raised above the
level of the floor.
"Your number is 102," said a voice that sounded like the rushing of a
river.
Instantly the trap-door dropped again, and he heard heavy steps rumbling
away into the interior of the house. He looked at his companion and saw
her terrified face as she lifted her hood.
"He always blunders along like that," she whispered, bending her head on
one side to listen. "He can't see properly in the daylight. He hates
sunshine, and usually only goes out after dark." She was white and
trembling.
"Is that the person who brought me in here this morning at such a
frightful pace?" he asked, bewildered.
She nodded. "He wanted to get in before it was light, so that you
couldn't see his face."
"Is he such a fright?" asked the boy, beginning to share her evident
feeling of horror.
"He _is_ Fright!" she said in an awed whisper. "But never talk about
him again unless you can't help it; he always knows when he's being
talked about, and he likes it, because it gives him more power."
Jimbo only stared at her without comprehending. Then his mind jumped to
something else he wanted badly to have explained, and he asked her about
his number, and why he was called No. 102.
"Oh, that's easier," she said, "102 is your number among the Frightened
Children; there are 101 of them, and you are the last arrival. Haven't
you seen them yet? It is also the temperature of your broken little body
lying on the bed in the night nursery at home," she added, though he
hardly caught her words, so low were they spoken.
Jimbo then described how the children had sung and danced to him, and
went on to ask a hundred questions about them. But Miss Lake would give
him very little information, and said he would not have very much to do
with them. Most of them had been in the House for years and years--so
long that they could probably never escape at all.
"They are all frightened children," she said. "Little ones scared out of
their wits by silly people who meant to amuse them with stories, or to
frighten them into being well behaved--nursery-maids, elder sisters, and
even governesses!"
"And they can never escape?"
"Not unless the people who frightened them come to their rescue and _run
the risk of being caught themselves_."
As she spoke there rose from the depths of the house the sound of
muffled voices, children's voices singing faintly together; it rose and
fell exactly like the wind, and with as little tune; it was weird and
magical, but so utterly mournful that the boy felt the tears start to
his eyes. It drifted away, too, just as the wind does over the tops of
the trees, dying into the distance; and all became still again.
"It's just like the wind," he said, "and I do love the wind. It makes me
feel so sad and so happy. Why is it?"
The governess did not answer.
"How old am I _really_?" he went on. "How can I be so old and so
ignorant? I've forgotten such an awful lot of knowledge."
"The fact is--well, perhaps, you won't quite understand--but you're
really two ages at once. Sometimes you feel as old as your body, and
sometimes as old as your soul. You're still connected with your body;
so you get the sensations of both mixed up."
"Then is the body younger than the soul?"
"The soul--that is yourself," she answered, "is, oh, so old, awfully
old, as old as the stars, and older. But the body is no older than
itself--of course, how could it be?"
"Of course," repeated the boy, who was not listening to a word she said.
"How could it be?"
"But it doesn't matter how old you are or how young you feel, as long as
you don't hate me for having frightened you," she said after a pause.
"That's the chief thing."
He was very, very puzzled. He could not help feeling it had been rather
unkind of her to frighten him so badly that he had literally been
frightened out of his skin; but he couldn't remember anything about it,
and she was taking so much trouble to save him now that he quite forgave
her. He nestled up against her, and said of course he liked her, and she
stroked his curly head and mumbled a lot of things to herself that he
couldn't understand a bit.
But in spite of his new-found friend the feeling of over-mastering
loneliness would suddenly rush over him. She might be a protector, but
she was not a _real_ companion; and he knew that somewhere or other he
had left a lot of other _real_ companions whom he now missed dreadfully.
He longed more than he could say for freedom; he wanted to be able to
come and go as he pleased; to play about in a garden somewhere as of
old; to wander over soft green lawns among laburnums and sweet-smelling
lilac trees, and to be up to all his old tricks and mischief--though he
could not remember in detail what they were.
In a word, he wanted to escape; his whole being yearned to escape and be
free again; yet here he was a wretched prisoner in a room like a
prison-cell, with a sort of monster for a keeper, and a troop of
horrible frightened children somewhere else in the house to keep him
company. And outside there was only a hard, narrow, paved courtyard with
a high wall round it. Oh, it was too terrible to think of, and his heart
sank down within him till he felt as if he could do nothing else but
cry.
"I shall save you in time," whispered the governess, as though she read
his thoughts. "You must be patient, and do what I tell you, and I
promise to get you out. Only be brave, and don't ask too many questions.
We shall win in the end and escape."
Suddenly he looked up, with quite a new expression in his face. "But I
say, Miss Cake, I'm frightfully hungry. I've had nothing to eat since--I
can't remember when, but ever so long ago."
"You needn't call me Miss Cake, though," she laughed.
"I suppose it's because I'm so hungry."
"Then you'll call me Miss Lake when you're thirsty, perhaps," she said.
"But, anyhow, I'll see what I can get you. Only, you must eat as little
as possible. I want you to get very thin. What you feel is not really
hunger--it's only a memory of hunger, and you'll soon get used to it."
He stared at her with a very distressful little face as she crossed the
room making this new announcement; and just as she disappeared through
the trap-door, only her head being visible, she added with great
emphasis, "The thinner you get the better; because the thinner you are
the lighter you are, and the lighter you are the easier it will be to
escape. Remember, the thinner the better--the lighter the better--and
don't ask a lot of questions about it."
With that the trap-door closed over her, and Jimbo was left alone with
her last strange words ringing in his ears.