Part 10 (2/2)

Faint through a crack In the ice of the whiteness, I heard Somebody whisper my name With a magical word.

And the moon and the stars and the sky, And the roofs of the street, Fell in fragments of darkness and silver That danced at my feet.

And we danced, and we danced, and we danced, And oh! tired was I When, full-faced and white, the cold moon Shone again in the sky.

THE IMAGINARY BOY

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Haunted Wood]

VII

THE IMAGINARY BOY

Soon after Doris's adventure with the flute, Marian and Gwendolen made a most solemn vow. Marian p.r.i.c.ked her finger with a needle and made a tiny drop of blood come, and then she rubbed it into the palm of Gwendolen's hand and promised to be faithful to her for ever. Then Gwendolen p.r.i.c.ked her own finger and rubbed it into the palm of Marian's hand, and took her dying oath that Marian should always be her greatest friend. Then they washed their hands under the nursery tap and cleaned the needle and put it back in the workbox, and Marian was very pleased, and so was Gwendolen, and when they told Cuthbert he said that he didn't mind much.

Marian was pleased, because she knew that Gwendolen would ask her to tea pretty often at the old farmhouse; and Gwendolen was pleased, because that was the first time that she had ever had a greatest friend; and Cuthbert didn't mind much, because he had gone to a new school, where there was a boy called Edward Goldsmith, who was wonderfully strong, and could dive into the water backward from the top diving-board at the town baths. He was going to be a barrister like Mr Jenkins, who took the plate round at St Peter's Church, and after that he was going to be Lord Chief Justice, like the great Lord Barrington at Fairbarrow Park.

Gwendolen's aunt was pleased too, and so was Captain Jeremy when Gwendolen told him, and so were her father and mother, who were climbing the Himalaya Mountains and writing a book called _Two Above the Snowline_. But Gwendolen didn't know, of course, about her father and mother being glad till she got a letter from them; and by then she had become quite used to having Marian for her greatest friend.

This letter came during the first week of the holidays, while Marian was staying for a few days with Gwendolen. Both Gwendolen's aunt and Captain Jeremy were away on a short voyage, and Marian and Gwendolen had the house to themselves, except for Mrs Robertson, the cook, Amy and Agnes, the two maids, and Percy, the boot-and-garden boy.

Percy was the boy that used to open the door when Gwendolen's aunt lived in Bellington Square, and his father was a gamekeeper, called Mr Williams, who worked for Lord Barrington at Fairbarrow Park. Percy was sixteen, and was going to marry Agnes as soon as he had saved enough money, and though he was rather proud, Marian and Gwendolen liked him, but not so much as they liked his father.

They liked Mr Williams, because he knew all about rabbits, and used to take them through places marked PRIVATE; and they liked Mrs Williams, because she gave them peppermints and never minded how many questions they asked. Mr Williams was tall, with a grey moustache, and his clothes smelt of tobacco, and he wore gaiters; and Mrs Williams was short, and her arms smelt of soap, and she was always popping upstairs to change her ap.r.o.n. They lived in a little cottage near the Park gates, and they had six children besides Percy, but Mr Williams was nearly always out, setting traps or counting the young partridges.

Fairbarrow Park was about three miles round, and was half-way to Fairbarrow Down; and in the middle of it was Lord Barrington's house, with its thirty bedrooms and all its gardens. There was an Italian garden and a Dutch garden and a rose-garden and a water-garden; and there were lawns as smooth as a ballroom floor, over which the peac.o.c.ks cried and strutted. But besides all these, and the Park in which they nestled, most of the country round belonged to Lord Barrington; and it was in the woods and fields which he let to different farmers that the pheasants and partridges made their homes.

When they had finished reading Gwendolen's letter, which came just after their middle-day dinner, Marian and Gwendolen thought that they would go and see Mr Williams, and watch the young partridges that he was bringing up by hand. So they set off, and presently they found him just at the farther edge of Lord Barrington's estate, where there was a little wood climbing up the side of Fairbarrow Down. There was a sort of gra.s.sy hollow near the wood, and here Mr Williams had placed half a dozen hen-coops; and in front of these he had built a little mound, made of lumps of turf dug from the Down. In among these lumps of turf there were thousands of ants and several ants' nests full of eggs; and a score of young partridges were scrambling over them, finding their afternoon meal.

Usually Mr Williams was glad to see the girls, and to let them play with the young partridges, but this afternoon he only nodded to them and went on smoking in silence. They were a little surprised, because it was such a lovely afternoon, with the sky bluer than any ocean, and the fields all glittering with the leaves of the root crops, or hidden away under the golden wheat. Here and there the reapers were already at work cutting the first of the oats and barley, and about a mile away they could see the chimneys of the great house s.h.i.+ning in groups between the tree-tops.

The only dark spot was the thick and tangled pinewood, known as the Haunted Wood, into which Lord Barrington never allowed anybody besides himself to go. It was inside the Park, and round two sides of it ran the Park wall, with sharp iron spikes on the top; and round the other two sides there was a barbed-wire fence, with a small gate in it, heavily padlocked. For twenty years it had never been touched. When a tree fell over, it lay where it had fallen; between the trunks of the trees there had grown a jungle of undergrowth; and only Lord Barrington had the key of the gate.

Mr Williams was still sitting down, staring moodily in front of him, when Marian asked him what was the matter, and was he angry with them for coming?

”No, no, it's not that,” he said, ”but I've just got the push. His lords.h.i.+p has given me a month's notice. I'm got to quit and find a new job, after forty-two years here, man and boy.”

Marian and Gwendolen stared at him in astonishment.

”Why, whatever have you been doing?” Gwendolen asked.

He took his pipe from his mouth and pointed to the Haunted Wood.

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