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

life of me imagine why on earth we are all--"

"Oh, Darnby, do be sensible," said Miss Ford. "Of course we know it is wrong to break the law, but in this case--well, I myself should be the last to blame her."

"No, not the last," said Sarah Brown.

"What do you mean?"

"Certainly not the last. Probably not even the penultimate one. You flatter yourself."

"Why, surely some of you ladies, movin' in the 'ighest circles, knows of gentlemen in the Foreign Office that would do a little shut-eye job, for old times' sake," suggested the Mayor.

This was a challenge to Miss Ford. She ceased to gaze haughtily on Sarah Brown. "Men from three departments of the Foreign Office are fairly regular Wednesday friends of mine," she said. "But I could hardly trouble any of them on--er--so trivial a matter."

There was silence, while Miss Ford toyed gingerly with one of the paper packets out of the witch's drawer. Presently she said: "What about Richard?"

Lady Arabel showed sudden irritation. "There you go again, Meta; I have spoken to you of it again and again. It's Rrchud this and Rrchud that whenever anything in the least tahsome or out of the way happens. One would think you considered the poor boy a wizard."

"You needn't lose your temper, Arabel," said Miss Ford coldly. "I only meant that Richard might be useful, having so many friends, and such skill in ... chemistry...." As if unconsciously she tore off one corner of the packet of magic she held before adding: "And besides, as I have often told you, I believe Richard to have real Occult Power, which would give him a special interest in this case."

Sarah Brown, who was burying her face in her hands and missing much of the conversation, caught the name of Richard, and said: "Richard has gone to his True Love."

A tempest of restrained embarrassment arose.

"She's feverish," murmured Miss Ford, turning scarlet.

"My dear Sarah," said Lady Arabel tartly. "You are quite mistaken, and I must beg of you to be careful how you repeat idle gossip about my son. Rrchud is at his office. You know it is only open at night--one of Rrchud's quaint fancies."

"I will ring up his office," said Miss Ford, deciding to ignore Sarah Brown both now and in future. "Where is the telephone?"

"There is none," replied Sarah Brown. "This is the House of Living Alone."

Miss Ford was pouring a grain or two of the magic into her palm. "How very credulous people are," she said with a self-conscious smile. "If Thelma Bennett Watkins were here she would credit this powder with--"

She stopped, for an astonishing sharp smell filled the Shop. Almost immediately a curious wheezy sound, punctuated by taps, proceeded from the corner. It was Mr. Bernard Tovey trying to sing, "Mon coeur s'ouvr' a ta voix," and beating time by swinging his heels against the counter on which he sat.

Sarah Brown felt suddenly well. She trembled but was well. She jumped off the counter. "I will run across, if you like," she said, "and ring up Richard from the ferryman's house. He may have left his True Love now. I am not deaf on the telephone, and the ferryman won't admit strangers."

As she left, the smell of magic was getting stronger and stronger. Mr. Tovey, still impersonating Delilah in the corner, was approaching the more excitable passages of the song. Miss Ford was saying, "Really, Bernard...." Sarah Brown felt a slight misgiving.

A warm and rather dramatic-looking light was shining behind the red curtain of the ferryman's lattice window, as Sarah Brown crossed the moonlit road. She delighted, after her recent black hours, to think of all those people in the world who were sitting stuffily and pleasantly in little ugly rooms that they loved, doing quiet careful things that pleased them. And she told herself that the thought of Richard's little office, alone and alight in the deserted City every night, would comfort her often in the darkness.

The ferryman opened his door, and invited her genially to his telephone. He had been sitting at his table, surrounded by the snakes that for him took the place of a family. On the table was a bowl of milk from which a large bull-snake, in a gay Turkey-carpet design, was drinking. A yellow and black python lay coiled in several figures of eight in the armchair, and an intelligent-looking small dust-coloured snake with a broad nose and an active tongue leaned out of the ferryman's breast pocket.

"Aren't they beautiful?" he said, with shy and paternal pride, as Sarah Brown tried to find a place on which the python would like to be tickled or scratched. Somehow the python has a barren figure, from a caresser's point of view. The ferryman went on: "There is something about the grip and spring in a snake's body that makes me feel giddy with pleasure. Snakes to me, you know, are just a drug, sold by the yard instead of in bottles. My brain is getting every day colder and quieter, and all through loving snakes so."

Sarah Brown rang up Richard's office, and the over-refined voice of a young gentleman clerk answered her.

Mr. Higgins was not in the office.

Mr. Higgins had left particular word that if any one wanted him they were to be told that he had--er--gone to his True Love.

But any minor business matter connected with magic could be attended to in his absence. Mr. Higgins spending so much of his time on the battlefield at present, a good deal of the routine work had to be done in any case by the speaker, his confidential clerk.

Passports to America? Perfectly simple. The office had simply to issue blank sheets treated in a certain way, and every official to whom the sheet should be presented would read upon it what he would want. But Mr. Higgins would have to affix his mark and seal. Mr. Higgins would be in the office sometime to-night, probably within the hour.

How many passports?

"Two," said Sarah Brown. "One for my friend and one for me. A dog doesn't need one, does he--a British dog? I will book the berths to-morrow. I can pawn my--or rather, I can sell my War Loan."

As she hung up the receiver, the ferryman asked: "Are you having a party up at the Shop, in the superintendent's absence?"

"Not intentionally," replied Sarah Brown. "Why?"

"Well, I just wondered. There's a noise like a thousand mad gramophones playing backwards, coming from there."

Sarah Brown's misgivings returned like a clap of thunder. She rushed back to the Shop.

The lantern was standing in the middle of the floor, its glass was shattered, and out of each of its eight panels streamed a great flame six or seven feet high, like the petal of an enormous flower. Facing these flames stood Miss Ford and Mr. Tovey, hand in hand, each singing a different song very earnestly. Lady Arabel had found somewhere a patent fire extinguisher, and was putting on her glasses in order to read the directions. Mr. Frere was hesitating in the background with a leaking biscuit tin full of water. The Mayor was gone.

"Great Scott!" said Sarah Brown. You'll burn the place down. Look at that row of petticoats up there, catching fire already. What have you done with the Mayor?"

"We made him invisible by mistake," whispered Mr. Tovey. "But sh--sh, he doesn't know it yet."

"Nothing matters," said Miss Ford. "We are all going to America." And she continued her song, which was an extempore one about the sea.

"But that's no reason why you should burn the house down," said Sarah Brown.

"That's what I thought," agreed Mr. Frere. "But water won't put out that flame."

The singers fell silent. Only the voice of the invisible Mayor could be heard, singing, "If those lips could only speak," in a loud tremulous voice, to the accompaniment of his own unseen stamping feet.

"You've been putting magic into that flame," said Sarah Brown distractedly. "I told you it was dangerous. Nothing will put magic out, except more magic. What will the witch say?"

"It doesn't matter what anybody says," said Miss Ford. "We are all going to America. No place and no person matters when I am not there. There are no places and no people existing where I am not. I have suspected it before, and now I am sure that everything is all a pretence, except me. Look how easy it was to dismiss that gross grocer from sight. He was just a bit of background. I have painted him out."

The drapery department on the ceiling was ablaze now, and flakes of ashy petticoat, and the metal frames of buttons, showered to the floor.

"I will go and get help," said Sarah Brown, and hurried out of doors, followed feverishly by David, who was not a very brave dog in moments of crisis, and yet liked to appear busy and helpful. It was to the ferryman's telephone that they returned. Sarah Brown knew that the fire was a magic fire, and that an appeal to the L.C.C. Fire Brigade would only bring defeat and unnecessary bewilderment upon a deserving organisation.

Sarah Brown rang up Richard's office, and Richard, who had a heroic and almost cinematic gift for being on hand at the right moments, answered her himself.

"Come at once," said Sarah Brown. "The House of Living Alone is on fire. Someone has been tampering with the magic drawer."

"Oh deah, deah," said Richard. "And this is such a busy night at the office too. Do you think it is really important? It is my house, you know."

"Well, I don't see what is to prevent Mitten Island from being burnt to the water's edge. In fact I don't see why, being a magic fire, it should stop at the water's edge. Not to mention that the Mayor----"

"Very well, I'll come," said Richard.

As she stepped out of the door he arrived.

"I came by flash of lightning," he explained, smoothing his hair and readjusting his Bill Sykes service cap, in the manner of one who has moved swiftly. "The lightning service is getting very bad. I was held up for quite three-quarters of a second over Whitehall. There was some wireless war-news coming in, and the lightning had to let it pass. Now, what's all this fuss about, Sarah Brown?"

There was a crowd of delirious Mitten Islanders round the House of Living Alone. While Sarah Brown and Richard were about fifty yards away, a many-forked and enormous white flame suddenly wrapped the house about, like a hand clutching and crushing it.

"The faggots round the stake are lighted," said Richard. "But the witch has fled."

It seemed that the stars were devoured by the flame, so far did it outshine them. The flame shrank in upon itself and collapsed. There was no more House of Living Alone.

"Oh, Richard," said Sarah Brown. "Your mother and Miss Ford and----"

"Was mother in there?" asked Richard placidly. "Wonders will never cease. Well, well, it is fortunate that no magic of any sort could ever touch mother."

And indeed, as they pushed through the crowd, they saw all the recent occupants of the Shop arguing at the front gate.

"I didn't blow it," Mr. Tovey was saying in an aggrieved voice. "I was singing, not blowing."

"Well, all I know is that while you were on that high note something seemed to