Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (431 page)

“Half-past ten, by Jove! Well, we’ll make the sport an excuse. They wouldn’t want to see me the first evening, at any rate. Gone to bed, probably.” He skirted by the open French windows of the drawing-room. “No, they haven’t. They look very comfy in there.”

He could see his father in his own particular chair, the mother in hers, and the back of a girl at the piano by the big potpourri-jar. The gardens looked half divine in the moonlight, and he turned down through the roses to finish his pipe.

A prelude-ended, and there floated out a voice of the kind that in his childhood he used to call “creamy” a full, true contralto; and this is the song that he heard, every syllable of it:

  Over the edge of the purple down,

        Where the single lamplight gleams,

  Know ye the road to the Merciful Town

        That is hard by the Sea of Dreams —

  Where the poor may lay their wrongs away,

        And the sick may forget to weep?

  But we — pity us!  Oh, pity us!

        We wakeful; ah, pity us! —

  We must go back with Policeman Day —

        Back from the City of Sleep!

  Weary they turn from the scroll and crown,

        Fetter and prayer and plough

  They that go up to the Merciful Town,

        For her gates are closing now.

  It is their right in the Baths of Night

        Body and soul to steep

  But we — pity us! ah, pity us!

        We wakeful; oh, pity us! —

  We must go back with Policeman Day —

        Back from the City of Sleep!

  Over the edge of the purple down,

        Ere the tender dreams begin,

  Look — we may look — at the Merciful Town,

        But we may not enter in!

  Outcasts all, from her guarded wall

        Back to our watch we creep:

  We — pity us! ah, pity us!

        We wakeful; oh, pity us! —

  We that go back with Policeman Day —

        Back from the City of Sleep

At the last echo he was aware that his mouth was dry and unknown pulses were beating in the roof of it. The housekeeper, who would have it that he must have fallen in and caught a chill, was waiting to catch him on the stairs, and, since he neither saw nor answered her, carried a wild tale abroad that brought his mother knocking at the door.

“Anything happened, dear? Harper said she thought you weren’t — ”

“No; it’s nothing. I’m all right, mummy. Please don’t bother.”

He did not recognise his own voice, but that was a small matter beside what he was considering. Obviously, most obviously, the whole coincidence was crazy lunacy. He proved it to the satisfaction of Major George Cottar, who was going up to town to-morrow to hear a lecture on the supply of ammunition in the field; and having so proved it, the soul and brain and heart and body of Georgie cried joyously: “That’s the Lily Lock girl — the Lost Continent girl — the Thirty-Mile Ride girl — the Brushwood girl! I know her!”

He waked, stiff and cramped in his chair, to reconsider the situation by sunlight, when it did not appear normal. But a man must eat, and he went to breakfast, his heart between his teeth, holding himself severely in hand.

“Late, as usual,” said the mother. “‘My boy, Miss Lacy.”

A tall girl in black raised her eyes to his, and Georgie’s life training deserted him — just as soon as he realised that she did not know. He stared coolly and critically. There was the abundant black hair, growing in a widow’s peak, turned back from the forehead, with that peculiar ripple over the right ear; there were the grey eyes set a little close together; the short upper lip, resolute chin, and the known poise of the head. There was also the small well-cut mouth that had kissed him.

“Georgie — dear!” said the mother, amazedly, for Miriam was flushing under the stare.

“I — I beg your pardon!” he gulped. “I don’t know whether the mother has told you, but I’m rather an idiot at times, specially before I’ve had my breakfast. It’s — it’s a family failing.” He turned to explore among the hot-water dishes on the sideboard, rejoicing that she did not know — she did not know.

His conversation for the rest of the meal was mildly insane, though the mother thought she had never seen her boy look half so handsome. How could any girl, least of all one of Miriam’s discernment, forbear to fall down and worship? But deeply Miriam was displeased. She had never been stared at in that fashion before, and promptly retired into her shell when Georgie announced that he had changed his mind about going to town, and would stay to play with Miss Lacy if she had nothing better to do.

“Oh, but don’t let me throw you out. I’m at work. I’ve things to do all the morning.”

“What possessed Georgie to behave so oddly?” the mother sighed to herself. “Miriam’s a bundle of feelings — like her mother.”

“You compose — don’t you? Must be a fine thing to be able to do that. [‘Pig-oh, pig!’ thought Miriam.] I think I heard you singin’ when I came in last night after fishin’. All about a Sea of Dreams, wasn’t it? [Miriam shuddered to the core of the soul that afflicted her.] Awfully pretty song. How d’ you think of such things?”

“You only composed the music, dear, didn’t you?”

“The words too. I’m sure of it,” said Georgie, with a sparkling eye. No; she did not know.

“Yeth; I wrote the words too.” Miriam spoke slowly, for she knew she lisped when she was nervous.

“Now how could you tell, Georgie?” said the mother, as delighted as though the youngest major in the army were ten years old, showing off before company.

“I was sure of it, somehow. Oh, there are heaps of things about me, mummy, that you don’t understand. Looks as if it were goin’ to be a hot day — for England. Would you care for a ride this afternoon, Miss Lacy? We can start out after tea, if you’d like it.”

Miriam could not in decency refuse, but any woman might see she was not filled with delight.

“That will be very nice, if you take the Bassett Road. It will save me sending Martin down to the village,” said the mother, filling in gaps.

Like all good managers, the mother had her one weakness — a mania for little strategies that should economise horses and vehicles. Her men-folk complained that she turned them into common carriers, and there was a legend in the family that she had once said to the pater on the morning of a meet: “If you should kill near Bassett, dear, and if it isn’t too late, would you mind just popping over and matching me this?”

“I knew that was coming. You’d never miss a chance, mother. If it’s a fish or a trunk I won’t.” Georgie laughed.

“It’s only a duck. They can do it up very neatly at Mallett’s,” said the mother, simply. “You won’t mind, will you? We’ll have a scratch dinner at nine, because it’s so hot.”

The long summer day dragged itself out for centuries; but at last there was tea on the lawn, and Miriam appeared.

She was in the saddle before he could offer to help, with the clean spring of the child who mounted the pony for the Thirty-Mile Ride. The day held mercilessly, though Georgie got down thrice to look for imaginary stones in Rufus’s foot. One cannot say even simple things in broad light, and this that Georgie meditated was not simple. So he spoke seldom, and Miriam was divided between relief and scorn. It annoyed her that the great hulking thing should know she had written the words of the song overnight; for though a maiden may sing her most secret fancies aloud, she does not care to have them trampled over by the male Philistine. They rode into the little red-brick street of Bassett, and Georgie made untold fuss over the disposition of that duck. It must go in just such a package, and be fastened to the saddle in just such a manner, though eight o’clock had struck and they were miles from dinner.

“We must be quick!” said Miriam, bored and angry.

“There’s no great hurry; but we can cut over Dowhead Down, and let ‘em out on the grass. That will save us half an hour.”

The horses capered on the short, sweet-smelling turf, and the delaying shadows gathered in the valley as they cantered over the great dun down that overhangs Bassett and the Western coaching-road. Insensibly the pace quickened without thought of mole-hills; Rufus, gentleman that he was, waiting on Miriam’s Dandy till they should have cleared the rise. Then down the two-mile slope they raced together, the wind whistling in their ears, to the steady throb of eight hoofs and the light click-click of the shifting bits.

“Oh, that was glorious!” Miriam cried, reining in. “Dandy and I are old friends, but I don’t think we’ve ever gone better together.”

“No; but you’ve gone quicker, once or twice.”

“Really? When?”

Georgie moistened his lips. “Don’t you remember the Thirty-Mile Ride — with me — when ‘They’ were after us — on the beach-road, with the sea to the left — going toward the lamp-post on the downs?”

The girl gasped. “What — what do you mean?” she said hysterically.

“The Thirty-Mile Ride, and — and all the rest of it.”

“You mean — ? I didn’t sing anything about the Thirty-Mile Ride. I know I didn’t. I have never told a living soul.’”

“You told about Policeman Day, and the lamp at the top of the downs, and the City of Sleep. It all joins on, you know — it’s the same country — and it was easy enough to see where you had been.”

“Good God! — It joins on — of course it does; but — I have been — you have been — Oh, let’s walk, please, or I shall fall off!”

Georgie ranged alongside, and laid a hand that shook below her bridle-hand, pulling Dandy into a walk. Miriam was sobbing as he had seen a man sob under the touch of the bullet.

“It’s all right — it’s all right,” he whispered feebly. “Only — only it’s true, you know.”

“True! Am I mad?”

“Not unless I’m mad as well. Do try to think a minute quietly. How could any one conceivably know anything about the Thirty-Mile Ride having anything to do with you, unless he had been there?”

“But where? But where? Tell me!”

“There — wherever it may be — in our country, I suppose. Do you remember the first time you rode it — the Thirty-Mile Ride, I mean? You must.”

“It was all dreams — all dreams!”

“Yes, but tell, please; because I know.”

“Let me think. I — we were on no account to make any noise — on no account to make any noise.” She was staring between Dandy’s ears, with eyes that did not see, and a suffocating heart.

“Because ‘It’ was dying in the big house?” Georgie went on, reining in again.

“There was a garden with green-and-gilt railings — all hot. Do you remember?”

“I ought to. I was sitting on the other side of the bed before ‘It’ coughed and ‘They’ came in.”

“You!” — the deep voice was unnaturally full and strong, and the girl’s wide-opened eyes burned in the dusk as she stared him through and through. “Then you’re the Boy — my Brushwood Boy, and I’ve known you all my life!”

She fell forward on Dandy’s neck. Georgie forced himself out of the weakness that was overmastering his limbs, and slid an arm round her waist. The head dropped on his shoulder, and he found himself with parched lips saying things that up till then he believed existed only in printed works of fiction. Mercifully the horses were quiet. She made no attempt to draw herself away when she recovered, but lay still, whispering, “Of course you’re the Boy, and I didn’t know — I didn’t know.”

“I knew last night; and when I saw you at breakfast — ”

“Oh, that was why! I wondered at the time. You would, of course.”

“I couldn’t speak before this. Keep your head where it is, dear. It’s all right now — all right now, isn’t it?”

“But how was it I didn’t know — after all these years and years? I remember — oh, what lots of things I remember!”

“Tell me some. I’ll look after the horses.”

“I remember waiting for you when the steamer came in. Do you?”

“At the Lily Lock, beyond Hong-Kong and Java?”

“Do you call it that, too?”

“You told me it was when I was lost in the continent. That was you that showed me the way through the mountains?”

“When the islands slid? It must have been, because you’re the only one I remember. All the others were ‘Them.’

“Awful brutes they were, too.”

“I remember showing you the Thirty-Mile Ride the first time. You ride just as you used to — then. You are you!”

“That’s odd. I thought that of you this afternoon. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“What does it all mean? Why should you and I of the millions of people in the world have this — this thing between us? What does it mean? I’m frightened.”