TOGETHER they went round the Long Gallery, gazing at the
treasure on its walls, which to him meant so much, to her so little.
She tried to see it with his eyes or if this could not be, at least get
some clue to the quality which made quite ordinary looking objects the
things they were.
Who could have believed that an old and dirty thing which she had heard
even Uncle Si describe as a daub, would turn out to be a fortune? Other
fortunes were here to gaze upon, but why they were so precious would
always be for June a mystery of mysteries. Even with William’s help it
was a subject on which she could never be really wise. She had now a
great desire to reach out after Culture; the “Mill on the Floss” was
most stimulating to the mind; but just now she felt, in Blackhampton
phrase, that already “she had bitten off more than she could chew.”
Perhaps it was the presence of William which had induced a mood of
great complexity. Old unhappy things were flooding back. And as they
walked slowly round the Gallery, an object at its extreme end suddenly
sprang into view, which brought her up with an icy gasp. The Hoodoo was
grinning at her.
In its new setting the monster was merely grotesque. Retrieved from
the morose interior of Number Forty-six, New Cross Street, which it
had darkened so long with its malice, it was no longer an active
embodiment of evil. The force of its ugliness was less, yet for June,
in a subtle way, the implication of its presence was more.
It was as if the Fates were saying to her: “We are watching you, my
girl. This young man, whom now you dare to love, have you not tricked
him out of his patrimony by your pretended worship of beauty? Share
his ecstasy, if you please, of his Peter This and his Mathew That, but
don’t forget that Our eye is still upon you. What you have already
received you will long remember, but you may get another dose if you
are not careful.”
Hearing words to this sinister effect in the secret places of her soul,
June could only shiver. William, now as conscious of the invalid’s
frailty as of the imperious challenge of beauty, led her at once to a
seat without seeking the cause of her distress.
He saw she was still very weak and hastened therefore to set her down
on a chair of the Empire, heedless of the fact that she was almost
cheek by jowl with the Hoodoo.
“Mustn’t tire yourself,” he said in a voice of rare sympathy which
did but add to the feeling of misery that crept upon her. “I’m afraid
you’ve walked a bit too far.”
Again June shivered. The old unhappy things were threatening once
more to submerge her. “How I wish That had not come here,” she said
dismally. There was no need to point at the Image; she was sure that he
knew what she meant.
But amazing young man that he was, this was trying him a little too
highly.
“Oh, you mean the James,” he said pointing to a windmill opposite.
“He isn’t a Mathew, is he? I’m so glad, Miss June, you think that too,
because with you to back me, I may be able to break it to Sir Arthur,
that this isn’t quite the place for him.”
Divine humility! Mad confusion! Had she but felt a little stronger, a
little less unhappy, she really could have shaken him.
“I mean the Hoodoo,” she said woefully.
Her wild bird’s heart went quick and high as she saw him turn casually
and enfold That with a slow smile. “Right again,” he said, his head a
little to one side in pure connoisseurship, a trick she had learned to
watch for. “I quite agree with you--the old fool swallows more than his
share of this beautiful light.”
June was not thinking of the beautiful light. She was trembling in
spirit; but one of his nature could not be expected to know what demons
from the abyss were invading her. “How I wish it was somewhere else.”
His laugh of gay agreement was suddenly checked as he caught the look
in her eyes and in the next instant he saw the old man lying dead at
the foot of the Hoodoo.
It was like the passing of a cloud across the sun. Life for him, also,
had found another notation in these terrible months. He had been
through a hard school. Certain lines in his face were deeper and there
were hollows under his eyes. Never again must he allow the ideal to run
so far ahead of the real. Yet in this harsh moment the power of his
nature kept him up.
He was able to pierce to the true reason for June’s deadly pallor. It
was not wholly due to the fact that she was still weak or that she had
walked too far. Trolls even now were in her brain. With his instinct
for healing he must do his utmost to cast them out.
“We’ll try to persuade Miss Babraham to have him put in the garden.”
Scarcely had he spoken the words when the fairy godmother, accompanied
by Sir Arthur Babraham, entered the Long Gallery.