“Come back--give me my glasses--where are you?--I believe all you
say--What! will you give me up, and the Calendar unfinished?”
Then, as I still did not answer, “Holy saints! The little devil has
hobbled me, and I shall be caught and martyred.”--A longish
pause--“_In manus tuas, Domine, com_-- I wonder if in Paradise--the
scarce copper--h’m!”
He began to gnaw his knuckles, with a sort of pleased abstraction over
the thought. It would never do. I came out of my hiding.
“Will you take me with you?” I repeated.
“O, it’s you?” he cried, with a start. “Where are my glasses?”
“In my hand.”
“Will you return them to me?”
“Will you let me go with you?”
“Scandalous!”
“I will carry the book.”
“Pooh!”
“I will walk behind.”
“Pish!”
“If anything happens to me, then”--
“Fah!” he interposed; and then added, “What could happen to you?”
“Do you suppose I shall stay in these clothes?” I said. “I shall
return to be a girl; and what am I to do then, without someone to
protect and help me back to my parents?”
“That’s nothing to me,” he said.
“Good-bye,” said I.
He scrambled to his feet with a roar: “Give me back my glasses!”
I stood quite still, making no sound. He thought I had really gone
this time, and began taking little strides hither and thither, and
throwing his arms about. Suddenly he stopped, sweating with agitation.
“Are you there?” he said.
I did not answer. He hopped from leg to leg, pulling with one hand at
the other, as if at a tight glove.
“Child!” he cried, “you’re a good child--a perfect little sweep. You
shall come--do you hear?--if we ever get off this roof. We’ll escape
by the woods--nobody will see us there together--and I can catch some
arguses (_lasiommata ægeria_) that will be in season.”
V.
I AM CARRIED AWAY AS A SPECIMEN
The very rudeness of the creature nominated by Fate to be my warden
gave me a feeling of confidence. Here was a shepherd’s dog ugly enough
to frighten away the wolf himself, should he cross us in the shape of
my master. I thrilled to have secured his promise, which, for all his
boorishness, and perhaps because of it, I had faith in. The dark pit
was already half bridged in my foolish young imagination, and I
dreamed of alighting on the farther side--to what? Not, indeed, to the
old melancholy life of the cottage near the Steine. For all my sad
experience, I never entertained that prospect for one moment. I was
but now in my eleventh year, yet some instinct informed me that the
dead--amongst whom, surely, I must be written--should not return if
they would avoid the mortification of home truths; that broken threads
cannot be made one again, and leave no scar. Perhaps the spirit of
vagabondage even had entered a little into my blood. In any case, it
was the breezy security of my father’s, not my mother’s, protection to
which I hurried in thought, with this reverent cur for escort.
As for him, accounting for his presence on the roof, he growled out to
me once after this, in order to still my inquisitive importunity,
while I still held the spectacles in pledge, that he had indeed taken
the alarm that morning, with the rest of the family to whom he was
spiritual director; but that, remembering his book left behind, he had
insisted upon quitting the general flight and returning for it--with
what awkward results for the steward had appeared, though, as a fact,
I believe the poor man recovered later. Now, I was to understand, he
had the intention, if he could make good his escape, to seek asylum,
while the storm blew over, with a lady, a co-religionist and
connection of his patrons, who lived distant a two days’ journey on
foot. And so, having grudgingly informed me, he subsided into his
unsavoury self, and would speak no more.
I did not much care, once being put in possession of the facts and the
chances they afforded me. No one, it was evident, guessed at our
retreat; and, for the rest, I was content to bide my time, and the
opportunity I foresaw of impressing even this dull animal with a
revelation of the pretty romance he had undertaken to squire.
Evening fell, and we were still sitting there. Not a footstep sounded
in the house beneath us; not a voice but the birds’ came from the
garden. Presently, emboldened by the quiet, I went softly climbing and
investigating, finding the trap-door by way of which the chaplain had
ascended, and peeping between the gables and over the roof ridges. So
far as I could see, nothing human was stirring in all the placid
demesne. The sundial on the lawn, the arbour in the corner, the brook
embroidering the low trees, like a ribbon run through lace, were
things inanimate in a painted picture. But there was something in
their voiceless watchfulness that made me long to open the door, as it
were, and run into the air. I was not born, like my mother, for
cloisteral seclusions.
I was passing my companion once soft-footed, when he startled me by
demanding, suddenly and savagely, “What’s your name?”
“Diana, please,” I answered, in a flutter.
“_Diana--Please!_” he protested crossly. “Fah! Diana Please don’t
please”--and he subsided into himself again.
But he had christened me. I had gone lacking nothing but a name of my
own hitherto and here was one given me, apt and pat. From that moment
I became Diana Please.
The very sense of its possession made me forward.
“Aren’t we safe now?” I said, “or are you going to stop here all
night?”
He looked up at me hurriedly, and, scowling, motioned me away from
him. Then, without a word, he snatched his book, rose, and striding to
the trap-door, began to descend. I followed him closely. The way led
by a flight of steps in the walls to a cupboard under the main stairs
where they rose from the hall. We emerged from darkness into a wide
echoing twilight. For the first time the thought of my master secreted
somewhere, watchful and waiting for me, sent my spirits reeling. I
slunk against the wall.
“Where was it?” demanded my companion brusquely.
I stared at him. He stamped his foot, so that the noise resounded
horribly through the empty house.
“The steward!” he cried. “Where did they leave him?”
“By the door,” I whispered, trembling--“out there.”
It was still ajar. He hurried to it, looked out, went out, returned
after a minute or two, and slammed the oak thunderously.
“There are trails of blood down the steps. He has been removed, or has
removed himself,” he said, and began immediately to ascend the stairs.
“O, where are you going?” I cried fearfully.
“To bed,” he snapped.
“To bed!”
I clung to his coat-tails. There was a sort of nightmare struggle
between us, up as far as the first landing. There he rent himself
away, and, leaving me sprawling, banged and locked himself into a
room. I crouched on the mat outside, sobbing and imploring. “What am I
to do? Where am I to go?”
He answered not a word to my pleading. Presently I heard him snoring,
and--would you believe it?--the gross carnival of sound was heavenly
music in my ears. In all that vast loneliness it was my only human
stay and comfort. O, my Alcide! To think of thy Diane owing her reason
to the grunting of a hog.
It was a terrible night. I dared not move--scarcely breathe. But fear
and exhaustion at last overcame me, and I slept.
I awoke to sweet, soundless daylight. The look and smell of sunshine
restored me in a moment to myself. I had not been disturbed. The house
was utterly abandoned. I arose, resolved at once to put into effect
the plan I had formed. A little memory of something I had noticed
yesterday was urging me. I fled softly upstairs. Signs of the raid met
me at every turn: broken crucifixes, torn vestments, scattered
Hosts--up and down they lay, trodden into dirty rubbish by the
swarming footsteps. There had been, I believe, no secular looting,
unless, as was probable, by my master, who would be sure, on that
account, to have withdrawn himself remote from consequences. I had
nothing to fear from him. I looked for a room where I had seen some
children’s clothes scattered, and finding it still undisturbed,
quickly selected from among the litter the simplest outfit I could
adapt in mind to my figure.
A common watch lay ticking on a table. I examined it--scarce five
o’clock--lingered, hesitated, and left it where it was. I had not yet
come to thieve, even had it been less bulky for my juvenile fob.
Hastily I snatched soap and towels from a washing-stand, and holding
the clothes so as not to soil them against my own, stole out. There
was not water enough in all the house for my cleansing. My spirit
rushed to the little river I had seen gleaming under the trees.
At the back of the hall I found a low window, unlatched it, and
dropped into the garden. A light fog was spread abroad, which,
dripping from the trees, alarmed me with a thought of unseen things
moving near. But presently a bird piped close above my head, with a
note of reassurance, and I slipped on and made my way stealthily
towards the river until I heard it gurgling; and in a moment later I
came upon it.
There, with only the wild things in the grass to scare my modesty, I
made my bath. The ecstasy of it, as all that foul husk slipped off,
and was carried from me down the stream! The joy to recover my
near-forgotten self, the thing of pink and pearl, from its long
mourning! The wonder, and the strangeness of that reincarnation to a
maturer estate! I was not, like the Sleeping Beauty, to renew my old,
but to awake to a newer self--a different from the Diana from whom I
had departed nine months before. It seemed incredible; and still when
I was washed as white as a lamb, I must sluice, and relather, and
sluice again, to convince myself that no stain of my horrible livery
remained. Then, at last, I came out, and dried and dressed myself
hurriedly; and so, being secure, sat awhile on the bank to let my hair
sun. It had never been but roughly clipped since that first cruel
shearing, and now was down to my collar, thick and golden. I could see
it in the water glass, when I bent over, reflected like a dim glory,
and I nodded and laughed to the picture in my delight, and was only
sorry presently to bind it about gipsy fashion with the silk
handkerchief I had brought down with me for the purpose. But time was
moving, and so must I be. I rose, and returned to the house.
I heard a shuffling on the stairs as I re-entered by the window, and
in a moment, tripping lightly, came upon Father Pope descending. He
had his great book under his arm, and he tiptoed with a sort of scared
effort to hush the creaking of his tell-tale shoes. He gave a guilty
start on seeing me standing smiling before him, and stumbled and
caught himself erect by the banisters, frowning at me.
I did not speak. I stood dumbly to let him canvass the transformation;
but the creature had no nerve of sentiment in all his dull anatomy.
“What do you want?” he said; “who are you?”
I could see he only fenced with the truth to recover himself. I
dropped him a pretty little curtsey.
“Diana, please,” I said.
I was in trepidation that he would deny me, as I was convinced he had
designed to give me the slip; and, though for policy’s sake I must
propitiate him, I hated the creature for his treachery. But, despite
his being a Jesuit, he was too crude a wit for the double part.
“Humph!” he growled. “I was wondering what had become of you,”--which,
no doubt, was true enough.
He glowered at me dislikingly; then bidding me wait for him, stalked
off into the gloom of passages, from which he presently re-emerged
with a bagful of bread and biscuit ends which he had collected.
“I have no money,” he said. “You must manage with your share of these
or nothing. If you look for better, it must be out of my company.”
“What does for you, will do for me, Father,” I said meekly; but
nothing would disarm his churlishness.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” said he. “I could do very well without
you, to begin with.”