Bed-Knob and Broomstick (14 page)

   
"No," admitted Emelius. "No. I suppose you couldn't."
"Unless," said Miss Price, suddenly thoughtful, leaning forward on
the rake and gazing earnestly into the middle distance, "you mean-"
"Yes," put in Emelius hastily, "that's what I do mean."
"What?" asked Miss Price wonderingly.

   
"That's what I was confusing it with."
"With what?"
"With-" Emelius hesitated. "With what you were going to say."
"But intrasubstantiary-locomotion is quite different." Miss Price
sounded surprised and rather puzzled.

   
"Oh, yes," admitted Emelius hastily, "it's completely different,
but all the same-"
"You see intrasubstantiary-locomotion is making a pair of shoes walk without
any feet in them."
"Ah, yes," agreed Emelius with relief. "Shoes. That's it."
"Or a suit of clothes get up and sit down."
"Yes," said Emelius, but he sounded a little less sure of himself.

   
"Of course," went on Miss Price enthusiastically,. "the very
best results are got from washing on a line." She laughed delightedly.
"It's amazing what you can do with washing on a line."
"Astounding," agreed Emelius. He gave a nervous little laugh.

   
"Except sheets," Miss Price pointed out.

   
"Oh, sheets are no good."
"It has to be wearing apparel. Something you can make look as if a person
was inside it."
"Naturally," said Emelius rather coldly.

   
At first Miss Price, anxious not to have him on her hands for too long, had
taken great trouble to explain the circumstances that governed the length of
Emelius's visit, but, latterly, as he began to settle down and find happiness
in the discovery of friends, she, too, seemed sad at the thought of his departure.
And contented as he was, he himself was a little worried about the Fire of London
and what might have happened to his rooms in Cripplegate, and, also, he felt
in duty bound (having read of his aunt's death in the churchyard) to attend
to the business of inheriting her estate. "I can always come back and visit
you," he would explain, "if you could come and fetch me."
But Miss Price didn't approve of this idea. "One thing or another,"
she would say, "not this dashing about between centuries. A settled life
is good for everyone. I think the wise thing to do would be to give up your
London establishment and settle down in your aunt's house at Pepperinge Eye.
And we could walk up there sometimes, and it would be nice to think of your
living there. You would not seem so far away."
Emelius thought this over. "It's a good piece of land," he said at
last, but he spoke rather sadly.

   
Carey, who was present, said warmly, as if to comfort him: "We'd go there
often. We'd sit on the stones in the parlor, near where the fireplace was, and
we'd feel awfully near you-"
Emelius looked at her. "I'd like you to see the house," he said. "As
it is in my day."
Carey turned to Miss Price.

   
"Couldn't we go just once?" she asked.

   
Miss Price tightened her lips. "It's always 'just once,' Carey. You've
had your 'just once,' and we've still to take Mr. Jones back."
"If we promise not to stay a minute, just a second, when we take him back,
couldn't we just go once and see him at his aunt's house?"
Emelius glanced at Miss Price's face, then sadly down at the lawn.

   
"It isn't," said Miss Price uncomfortably, "that I wouldn't be
happy to go and see Mr. Jones, especially in that dear little house, but-"
"But what?" asked Carey.

   
"I'm responsible for you children. There seems to be no way of knowing
what may happen on these outings-"
"Well," said Carey reasonably, "it's hardly much of an outing-just
to go and visit Mr. Jones-in his quiet little house at Pepperinge Eye-not two
miles away."
"I know, Carey," Miss Price pointed' out. "But what about that
quiet day we planned on the beach?"
"Well, after all, that was a cannibal island. This is quite different.
Mr. Jones's -aunt's dear little house. At Pepperinge Eye-"
"If you came just once," said Emelius. "Say, a week after I left,
just to see it all. Then after that you could just come in spirit-"
"In spirit?" said Miss Price dubiously.

   
"I mean just take a walk up to where the house was and we'll think of each
other," said Emelius.

   
Miss Price sat silent. They could not read her expression. At last she said,
rather surprisingly: "I don't like flying in the face of nature-"
"Well," Carey pointed out, "isn't the broomstick-?"
"No," said Miss Price, "that's different, that's accepted- witches
have always flown on broomsticks." She paused. "No, I don't quite
know how to put it, and I don't really like to mention it, but there's no getting
away from the fact that, as far as we're concerned, Mr. Jones is long since
dead and buried."
Emelius stared glumly at the grass between his feet. He could not deny it.

   
"I don't hold it against him," went on Miss Price. "We must all
come to it sooner or later, but it doesn't seem wise or natural to foster these
attachments with one who is no more."
They sat silent; then, after a bit, Emelius sighed. "There is no record
of my death in the churchyard," he pointed out.

   
Miss Price pursed up her lips. "That proves nothing. We did not look in
the annex behind the yew hedge."
"Don't let's," said Carey suddenly.

   
A CHANGE OF MIND
But Miss Price stuck to the original plan. When Emelius's clothes arrived from
the cleaners, they took him back. They dropped him in Goat Alley at night and
did not stay a minute. Miss Price never liked long-drawn-out good-bys, and in
her efforts to spare everybody's feelings she was almost too businesslike. She
would not "step upstairs" to try his cherry cordial. She bundled the
children back onto the bed with almost indecent haste, and left Emelius standing,
somber and dark-robed, in the moonlit street. Embarrassed she seemed, and worried
by the whole business, and she was sharp with the children when they got home,
and next day flung herself into bottling as though she tried to drown the memory
of that sad white face deep in sliced apricot and squashed tomato pulp. She
did not join the children on their expeditions, and the bed-knob had been hidden
away.

   
The happy atmosphere of the little house seemed to have dispersed, and the children
wandered into the fields and sat on gates, talking and kicking their heels.
They chewed long stalks of grass and quarreled idly, while the end of the holidays
loomed in sight and lowered over them.

   
No one even mentioned Emelius until one day at tea when Miss Price, quite suddenly,
brought the subject up herself.

   
"I wonder," she said, gazing pensively at the brown teapot, "if
we should have taken Mr. Jones right home."
The atmosphere at once became electric. Carey laid down her teaspoon. All three
pairs of eyes were fixed on Miss Price's face.

   
"But we did," said Charles after a moment.

   
"I mean," went on Miss Price, "leaving him in the street like
that. It was rather rude."
"Yes," said Carey. "His house might have been damaged in the
fire, or anything. He might have had nowhere to sleep that night."
Miss Price looked worried. "It was just that we agreed- didn't we?-not
to stay."
"Yes," said Carey. "You remember we asked you whether if we promised
not to stay a minute, a second, when we took him back, you would let us go later
and visit him properly."
"I didn't promise anything," replied Miss Price hastily. She poured
herself out another cup of tea. As she stirred it, she said uncertainly: "But
I think he's all right, don't you? He could always go down to Pepperinge Eye."
"Yes," said Carey, "I'm sure he'd manage."
"And yet," went on Miss Price, "in some ways Mr. Jones is rather
helpless. That fire, you know, they say there were riots afterwards." Miss
Price, without noticing what she was doing, put another spoonful of sugar in
her tea.

   
"If one could write to him . . ." she suggested.

   
"Yes," said Carey, "but we can't.

   
Charles cleared his throat. "Would you like Paul and me just to run down
and take a look at him?"
Carey opened her mouth. "Without me?" she said indignantly.

   
"No, no," put in Miss Price. "It wouldn't be fair to leave Carey.
Perhaps-" she hesitated-"perhaps we ought all to
go."
The children were silent. They dared not urge her. Carey crossed her thumbs
and stared fixedly at the tablecloth.

   
"We could just go to his lodgings and peep in at the window. Just to see
if he's all right, don't you know. We wouldn't disturb him. I think," said
Miss Price, "it would be kind."
The children did not speak.

   
"Once we knew he was all right," went on Miss Price, "we could
come back and settle down happily to our lives."
"Yes," said Carey guardedly.

   
"Don't you think?" asked Miss Price.

   
"Oh, yes," said Charles.

   
"Although this is a flying visit," said Miss Price, "I think
we should be prepared for any emergency." She took down her father's sword
from its hook on the wall and tested the blade with her finger. Then she strapped
the scabbard to the bed rail. Carey and Charles were folding blankets, and Paul
was opening out the ground sheet. It was nine o'clock in the morning, and they
were all gathered together in Miss Price's bedroom to prepare for the journey.

   
"You see," went on Miss Price, "although I'm now convinced it
is our duty to go, it is a great responsibility for me, now, at the end of the
holidays. I don't feel justified in taking risks. I'm not sure that we shouldn't
be disguised-"
"How do you mean?" asked Charles.

   
"We look so very twentieth century," said Miss Price. "And it
will be daylight this time."
"I know!" exclaimed Carey. "Let's hire something from a costumer,
like we did for the school play."
"No, no," said Miss Price. "I couldn't go in fancy dress. I shouldn't
feel myself at all-but I have that black cloak, and you children would be all
right in long dressing gowns, pinned up at the neck."
"Oh, Miss Price, that wouldn't look like anything. The costumer would have
the exact dress. I have seven and sixpence."
"It would cost more than seven and sixpence," said Miss Price. "And
we're only going to stay ten minutes. Dressing gowns are good enough. You are
always apt to overdo things, Carey, and become fantastic. Now help me turn the
mattress."
"I should think," said Carey, taking hold of the mattress, "we
should look jolly fantastic walking about London in Charles IFs reign wearing
twentieth-century dressing gowns pinned up at the neck-"
"Now, Carey, that's enough. I have not the remotest intention of walking
about London, and you're very lucky to be going at all."
SO NEAR
Emelius opened his eyes. Then he closed them again. The light hurt them. "It
is a dream," he told himself, "a nightmare, the worst I have ever
had." He felt cold, but too bruised and tired to mind that he felt cold.
He just lay there, on the stone floor, trying not to wake up. But, after a while,
his eyes seemed to open of their own accord, and he saw the small, barred window
and the gray sky beyond. He sat up suddenly, and then cried out with pain as
the movement hurt him. He smelt the wetness of his clothes, and his hands slipped
on the floor. Slowly he began to remember: yesterday, the horsepond; today,
the stake . . .

   
He had been betrayed. During the Fire of London men had lost their heads. A
papist plot, they said, had caused it, and Frenchmen had thrown fireballs to
burn the city. Somebody had spoken of Emelius, who live i so mysteriously in
his dim lodging off Goat Alley, and king's men had searched his dwelling. There
they found evidence of witchcraft and of sorcery, and when, on his return, he
had walked up the dark stairway, two men had met him at the head and another,
appearing from nowhere, cut off his retreat at the foot. He had been thrown
into prison and tried, so angry were the people, almost immediately. When it
was proved that he was no Frenchman, nor implicated in any "papist"
plot, they accused him of having helped to cause the fire by magic. It was strange,
they said, how he had left the city just before and returned when danger was
over, and that his house, in the midst of such destruction, was barely touched.

   
Ah, the horsepond . . . that was terror! One little boy he remembered, a little
boy with bare feet, who had run along beside him, ahead of the crowd, as they
half dragged, half carried him towards the pond; a little brown-faced boy who
shouted and jeered, showing his white teeth, and who stooped every few moments
to pick a stone out of the dust. Emelius would try to duck, to shy away from
that stone when it came singing through the air. He felt the little boy's laughing
delighted face as part of the pain when the stone cut his cheek or glanced off
his head.

   
And the tying of his hands and feet, the constable standing by, the clergyman's
solemn face. And then the sickening plunge downwards to the green water, the
floating duckweed ... a little parchment boat, half soaked, caught on a twig
. . . and then the choking, greenish darkness . . . a noise in his ears like
a scale played quickly on a violin. If he sank and died there in the water,
it showed he was a human man and innocent of magic, but if he lived, that was
a sign that he lived by supernatural powers, and they would burn him at the
stake.

   
Then up he had come, choking, spluttering, coughing. The thick robe, tied at
the ankles, had held the air. He saw the sunlight and heard the frightened quack
of ducks. Then down, down again, into the water . . . the singing in his ears,
the blackness; a blackness that thickened and spread, calming his fear, blotting
out his thoughts.

   
And now it was morning. He had lain all night where they had thrown him on the
cold floor. Cold . . . yes, he was cold, right through to the kernel of his
heart, but he would not be cold for long; soon his wet clothes would steam;
he would feel the hot steam rise upward past his face, and then his clothes
would smolder; he would feel the heat of their smoldering against his skin,
and their dry smoke in his nostrils-then, suddenly, the clothes would flare
up into a running flame. . . .