Witching Hill (18 page)

Then it was that I found myself mistaken in Ricardo. He had not taken his eyes off the retreating pair. He was crouching to follow them, only waiting till they were at a safe distance. I also waited - till they disappeared - then I touched him on the shoulder.

He jumped up, gasping. I had my finger before my lips.

"Can't you trust them now?" I whispered.

"Spying!" he hissed when he could find his tongue.

"What about you, Captain Ricardo?"

"It was my wife."

"Well, it was my friend and you're his enemy. And his enemy was armed to the teeth," I added, handing him the big stick that he had left leaning against the wall.

"That wasn't for him. This was," muttered Ricardo, lapping the lash round his crop. "I was going to horsewhip him within an inch of his life. And now that you know all about it, too, I've a damned good mind to do it still!"

"There are several reasons why you won't," I assured him.

"You're his bully, are you?" he snarled.

"I'm whatever you choose to make me, Captain Ricardo. Already you've consoled me for doing a thing I never dreamt of doing in my life before."

"But, good God! I never dreamt of listening either. I was prepared for a very different scene. And then - and then I thought perhaps I'd better not make one after all! I thought it would only make things worse. Things might have been worse still, don't you see?"

"Exactly. I think you behaved splendidly, all the same."

"But if you heard the whole thing - - "

"I couldn't help myself. I found myself following you by pure chance. Then I saw what you had in your hand."

With a common instinct for cover, we had drifted round to the other side of the wall. And neither of us had raised his voice. But Ricardo never had his eyes off me, as we played our tiny scene among the broken columns, where Uvo and Mrs. Ricardo had just played theirs.

"Well, are you going to hold your tongue?" he asked me.

"If you hold yours," I answered.

"I mean - even as between you two!"

"That's just what I mean, Ricardo. If neither of us know what's happened, nothing else need happen. 'Least said,' you know."

"Nothing whatever must be said. I'll trust you never to tell Delavoye, and, if it makes you happier, you can trust me to say nothing to - to anybody. It's my only chance," said Ricardo, hoarsely. "I've not been all I might have been. I see it now. But perhaps ... it isn't ... too late...."

And suddenly he seized me violently by the hand. Then I found myself alone in the shadow of the wall which had once borne a fresco by Nollikins, and I stood like a man awakened from a dream. In the flattering moonlight, the sham survivals of the other century might have been thousands of years old, their suburban setting some sylvan corner of the Roman campagna.... Then once more I heard the nightingale, and it sang me back into contemporary realities. I wondered if it had been singing all the time. I had not heard less of it during the hour that Uvo and I had spent underneath this very wood, four summers ago!

That was on the first night of our life at Witching Hill, and this was to be our last. I arranged it beautifully when I got in and had tried to explain how entirely I had lost my bearings in the wood. I told Uvo, and it happened to be true, that I had been wondering why on earth he would not come up north with me next day. And before midnight he had packed.

Then we sat up together for the last time in that back room of his on the first floor, and watched the moon set in the tree-tops, and silver leaves twinkle as the wood sighed in its sleep. One more pipe, and the black sky was turning grey. A few more pipes, much talk about old times, and the wood was a wood once more; its tossing crests were tipped with emeralds in the flashing sun; and as tree after tree broke into a merry din, we spoke of joy-bells taken up by steeple after steeple, and Uvo read me eight lines that he had discovered somewhere while I was away.

"Some cry up Gunnersbury,

For Sion some declare,

And some say that with Chiswick House

No villa can compare;

"But ask the beaux of Middlesex,

Who know the country well,

If Witching Hill - if Witching Hill -

Don't bear away the bell."

"I hope you agree, Beau Gillon?" said Uvo, with the old wilful smile. "By the way, I haven't mentioned him since you've been back, but on a last morning like this you may be glad to hear that my old ghost of the soil is laid at last.... The rest is silence, if you don't mind, old man."