Living Alone by Stella Benson (bts book recommendations .TXT) 📕

sinking ship, and rats pride themselves so on knowing when to----"

Sarah Brown seized the witch by the shoulder. "Go away, witch," she said.

"How d'you mean--go away?" asked the witch. "I've only just this minute come."

"Go away, go away," was all that Sarah Brown could manage to repeat.

"Oh, very well," said the witch in her offended grown-up voice. "I can take a hint, I suppose, as well as anybody. I'm going."

She seated herself with an irritable flouncing movement on Harold's saddle, and flew away.

The policeman climbed out of the water, looking like an enraged seal. Peals of laughter from the other side of the moonlit river robbed him of adequate words.

"Not ser fast, my fine feller," he roared, seeing Richard kissing the Horse Vivian on the nose, preparatory to riding away. "Don't you think for a minute I don't know 'oo's at the bottom of this."

"You don't know how tired I am of loud noises," said Richard, lifting one foot with dignity to the stirrup. "You don't know how bitterly I long to be still and hear things very far off ... but always there is an angry voice or the angry noise of guns in the way...."

He twined one finger negligently into the mane on the Horse Vivian's neck, and pulled himself slowly into the saddle. The policeman stood mysteriously impotent. Water dripped loudly from his clothes and punctuated Richard's quiet speech.

"Dear policeman," continued Richard. "I believe you have talked so much to-night that you haven't heard what a quiet night it is. You are smaller than a star, and yet you make more noise than all the stars together. You are not so cold as the moon, and yet your teeth chatter more loudly than hers. The heat of your wrath is less than the heat of the sun, and yet, while he is silent and departed, you fill the air with clamour, and--if I may say so--seem to be outstaying your welcome. Oh, dear policeman, listen.... Do you know, if there were no London on this side and no War on that, the silence would be deep enough to fill all the seas of all the worlds...."

He shook the reins, and the Horse Vivian moved, treading quietly on the strip of grass that borders the path to the ferry.

"I am going to talk to my True Love now," said Richard, his voice fading away as he rode. "My True Love's voice is the only voice that is a little more beautiful to me than silence...."

For a moment he looked every inch a wizard. Every button on his uniform and every buckle on the Horse Vivian's harness caught the moonlight, and changed into faery spangles as he turned and waved his hand before disappearing.

The policeman seemed quieted, as he looked at Sarah Brown sitting, white and haggard with pain, on the river bank, with her arm round the shivering David.

"In a minute, in a minute, my One," she was saying to David. "We are nearly home now. We shall soon be quiet now."

There was always something startlingly inoffensive about Sarah Brown's appearance.

"I'd like to know 'oo was responsible for this houtrage, all the same," said the policeman.

Sarah Brown did not hear him, but she said: "Oh, I am so very sorry it happened. It was a pure accident, of course, but it is so terrible to see any one have an accident to his dignity. You must forget it quickly, you must run and find someone who knows you at your best, you must tell her a fine revised version of the incident, and then you will feel better."

The ferryman shouted: "I don't mind coming in now to fetch this young woman. You can come too now if you like, Mr. Pompous-in-the-Pond, for the party you're looking for is not at home, and I've no doubt but what that crowd over there will give you a gay welcome."

"I'll look into the metter to-morrer," said the policeman. "You 'aven't 'eard the last of this, none of you 'aven't, not by a long chalk. I've a good mind to get the Mayor to read the Riot Act at you."

As Sarah Brown landed on Mitten Island she could not distinguish the faces of the waiting crowd, but she heard sharp anxious voices.

"They ain't goin' to get 'er, not if I knows it."

"She never speaks but kindness, the dear lamb."

"She's more of a saint than any in the Calendar."

"She gave my Danny a room in 'er house, and put 'eart into 'im after 'e lost 'is sight in the War."

"She's the good fairy of the Island."

"She grew all them Sweet Williams in my garden in one night, when I first come 'ere and was 'omesick for Devon."

"The law's always after saints and fairies, always 'as bin."

"But the law can't catch 'er."

"The law has driven her away," said Sarah Brown. "There is no magic now on Mitten Island."

She staggered through the open door of the Shop. "This is Richard's house," she said to herself as she entered, and felt doubly alone because Richard was far away, riding to his True Love. She struck her last match, lit the lantern, and looked round. There was no sound in the house of Living Alone, she thought there would never again be any magic sound there to penetrate to her imprisoned hearing. The aprons hanging from the ceiling near the door flapped in the cold wind, and she thought they were like grey bats in a cave. The breeze blew out the open lantern. Ah, how desolate, how desolate....

A piece of paper was impaled upon the counter by means of a headless hatpin. There was something very largely and badly written on it. Sarah Brown read: "Well Soup it looks like my Night's come and what dyou think Sherry's come too. Im an me as gone off to a place e knows that's a fine place for such a boy as Elbert to be born in so no more at present from your true Peony."

Sarah Brown climbed up the short stairway, painful step by painful step, to her cell. She sat on her bed holding her throbbing side, and breathing with fearful caution. She looked at the empty grate. She put a cigarette in her mouth, the unconscious and futile answer of the Dweller Alone to that blind hunger for comfort. But she had no matches, and presently, dimly conscious that her groping for comfort had lacked result, she absently put another cigarette into her mouth, and then felt a fool.

She stared at the cold window. The sky seemed to be nailed carelessly to it by means of a crooked star or two.

These are the terrible nights of Living Alone, when you have fever and sometimes think that your beloved stands in the doorway to bring you comfort, and sometimes think that you have no beloved, and that there is no one left in all the world, no word, no warmth, nor ever a kindly candle to be lighted in that spotted darkness that walls up your hot sight. Again on those nights you dream that you have already done those genial things your body cries for, or perhaps That Other has done them. The fire is built and alight at last, a cup of something cool and beautifully sour stands ready to your hand, you can hear the delicious rattle of china on a tray in the passage--someone coming with food you would love to look at, and presently perhaps to eat ... when you feel better. But again and again your eyes open on the cold dumb darkness, and there is nothing but the wind and strange sinister emptiness creaking on the stair.

These are the terrible nights of Living Alone, yet no real lover of that house and of that state would ever exchange one of those haunted and desert nights for a night spent watched, in soft warm places.

Sarah Brown was not long left alone that night to look at the strip of moonlight on the cold ashes of her fireplace. The Shop below shook suddenly with many footfalls, and the metallic officious barking of the Dog David rent the still air of her cell.

A man's voice at the foot of the stairs said: "I can hear a dog barking." And a woman's voice followed it: "Angela, dear, is that you?"

Sarah Brown was only aware of a vague and irksome disturbance. She groped to her door, opened it, and shouted miserably: "Go away, policeman, go away. She is not here."

Lady Arabel came up, flashing an electric torch.

"My dear, you look dretfully ill. Why look, you are trembling. Why look, your little dog is making your counterpane muddy. Don't be afraid for Angela, we are all here to try and help her."

"All here?"

"Yes, Meta and the Mayor and Mr. Tovey and Mr. Frere. Let me help you into bed, and then you shall tell me what you know of her. You have had a dretfully trying time."

"I am well," said Sarah Brown ungraciously. "You are none of you going to help the witch without me."

"Ah, this is all very dretful," sighed Lady Arabel. "Most foolish of us to come here all together like this, after the policeman took our names and addresses, and was dretfully impertinent and suspicious. But Meta insisted. I quite expect to spend the next twenty-four hours in gaol, or else to be shot for Offence of the Realm. In fact, speaking as a ratepayer, I think the police ought to have done it before. Still, Meta thought we might perhaps be able to help Angela.... Meta has many friends who seem influential ... but _so_ talkative, my dear."

She led the way downstairs. Mr. Tovey and the Mayor were talking at the foot of the stairs, Mr. Frere was listening sardonically. As Sarah Brown went past them into the Shop, she smelt the unflower-like scent that always denoted the presence of Miss Ford. Sarah Brown herself was accompanied by nothing more seductive than a faint smell of gasoline, showing that her clothes had lately been home-cleaned. In the darkness of the Shop she saw Miss Ford stooping, trying to shut the big difficult drawer in which the witch kept her magic.

"It is frightfully explosive," said Sarah Brown.

Miss Ford started and straightened her back. "Ah, Miss Brown.... I was just looking about...."

Sarah Brown sat gasping on the counter, and the rest of the party re-entered the Shop, bringing the lantern.

"How very absurd all this is," said Miss Ford nervously,--"taking such a great deal of trouble about a necessitous case."

"America is in my mind," said Lady Arabel. "If we could get her there. Anybody who has done anything silly goes to America. Indeed, if I remember rightly, America is entirely populated with fugitives from somewhere else. So dretfully confusing for the Red Indians. They say the story of the Tower of Babel was only a prophecy about the Woolworth Building--"

"You couldn't get a passport," said Mr. Darnby Frere, who was the only person present really conscious of sanity. "Only a miracle could produce a passport in these days, especially for a fugitive from justice."

"Only a miracle--or magic," said Sarah Brown.

Miss Ford moved instinctively behind the counter towards the open drawer full of ingredients for happiness.

"We must remember," added Mr. Frere, "that, after all, she did break the law. In fact I cannot for the