Part 31

His voice was thick and without resonance in his mouth, smothered like a sound in a closed box. And as he heard the name a kind of silent laughter reached him--inaudible really, as though inside him--sly laughter like her own. For the name had lost its known familiarity. It, too, was different and otherwise, though for the life of him he could not seize at first wherein the alteration lay.

She smiled, and her eyes, wide opened, were like stars. The breath came soft and windily between her lips, but no words with it. It was regular, deep, unhurried. There was something in her face that petrified him--something, as it were, non-human. He began to forget who and where he was. Identity slipped from him like a dream.

With another effort, this time a more violent one, he strove to fasten upon things that were close and real in life. He felt the buttons down his coat, fingering them desperately till they hurt his hands and escaped from his slippery moist skin.

‘Mánya!’ he repeated in a louder voice, while his mind plunged out to seek the child he had always known behind the familiar name.

And this time she answered; but to his horror, the whole room, and even space beyond the actual room, seemed to answer with her. The name was repeated by her lips, yet came from the night beyond the open window too. He had made a question of it. The answer, repeating it, was assent.

‘M á n y-a ...’ he heard all round him, while the head bent gently down and forward.

The shock of it restored to him some power of movement, and he stumbled back a step or two further from her side. It might well have been whimsical and cheap, this artificial play upon a name, but instead of either it was abominably significant. This motionless figure, so close that he could feel her breath upon his face, was positively in some astonishing way more than one. She _was_ many. The laughter that lay behind the trivial little thing was a laughter both grand and terrible. It was the laughter of the sea, of the woods, of sand--a host that no man counteth--the laughter of a multitude.

And he thrust out both his hands automatically lest she should touch him. He shook from head to toe. Contact with her person would break up his being into millions. The sensation of terror was both immense and acute, sweeping him beyond himself. Like her, he was becoming many--becoming hundreds and thousands--sand that none can number.

‘Child!’ he heard his voice repeating faintly, yet with an emphasis that spaced the words apart with slow distinctness, ‘what does this mean?’ In vain he tried to smother the beseeching note in it that was like a cry for help.

He stepped back another pace. She did not move. Composure then began to come back slowly to him, a little and a little. He remembered who he was, and where he was. He said to himself the commonplace thing: ‘This is Mánya, my little niece, and she ought to be asleep in bed.’ It sounded ridiculous even in his mind, but he tried deliberately to think of ordinary things.

And then he said it aloud: ‘Do you realise where you are and what you are doing, child?’ And then he added, gaining courage, a question of authority: ‘Do you realize what time it is?’

Her answer came again without hesitation, as from a long way off. A smile lit up the entire face, gleaming from her skin like moonlight. There were tears, he saw, upon the cheeks. But the face itself was radiant, wonderful.

‘The time,’ she said, peering very softly into his eyes, ‘is _now_.’ And she took a slow-gliding step towards him, with a movement that frightened him beyond belief.

But by this time he had himself better in hand. He understood that the child was walking in her sleep. It was her little frame that was being worked and driven by--Another. She was possessed. Something was speaking through the entranced physical body. Her answer regarding time was the answer absolute, not relative, the only true answer that could be given. Other answers would be similar. He understood that here was the long expected revelation, and that he must question her if he wished to hear it. He resolved to do so, but with a cold awe in his heart as though he were about to question--Death.

They both retained their first positions, three feet apart, standing. The candle behind him on the table shed its flickering light across her altered features. Outside he heard the trees shaking and tossing in the gusts of rainy wind.

‘Who are you then?’ he asked hesitatingly, in a low tone.

There was no reply. But effort, showing that she heard and tried to answer, traced a little frown above the eyebrows; and the eyes looked puzzled for a moment.

‘You mean,’ he whispered, ‘you cannot tell me?’

The head bowed slowly once by way of assent.

‘You cannot find the word, the language?’ he helped her. ‘Is that it?’ He still whispered, afraid of his own voice.

‘Yes,’ was the answer, spoken below the breath. Then instantly afterwards, straightening herself up with a vigorous movement that startled him horribly, she made a curious, rushing gesture of the whole body, spreading her arms out through the air about her. ‘I am--_like that_!’ the voice sprang out loud and clear.

She seemed by the gesture to gather space and the night into her wide embrace. She repeated it. The face smiled marvellously. Through this slim body, he realised, there rolled something ancient as the stars. It poured through space against him like a sea. It turned his little ideas of space all--otherwise.

‘Tell me where you come from,’ he asked quickly, eager yet dreading to hear.

‘From everywhere,’ came the answer like a wind.

He paused, breathless with astonishment. He felt himself dwindling. Here was a vaster thing than he had contemplated. It was surely no single discarnate influence that possessed the child!

‘And--for whom?’ It was whispered as before.

The figure stepped with a single gliding stride towards him, coming so close that he held his ground only by a tremendous effort of the will.

‘For you!’ The voice came like a clap of wind again, at once soft yet thundering, filling the entire room.

‘For me,’ he faltered. ‘Your message is for me?’

He felt the assault of strange, violent sensations he had never known before and could not name. A boyhood’s dream rushed back upon him for an instant. He recalled his misery and awe when he stood before the Judgment Throne for some unforgivable breach of trust which he could not explain because the dream concealed its nature. Only this was ten times greater, and his guilt beyond redemption.

‘And I,’ he stammered, ‘who am I?’

Her eyes looked him all over like a stare of the big moon.

‘_You_,’ she answered, without pause or hesitation.

‘You do not know my name?’ he insisted, still clinging to the clue that her he spoke with must be from the dead.

The little frown came back between the eyes. She nodded darkly.

‘_You_,’ she repeated, giving the answer absolute again, the only really true one.

The girl stood like a statue, serene and solemn. She stared through and beyond him, motionless but for a scarcely perceptible swaying, and calm as a meadow in the dawn. Enormous meanings passed from her eyes across the air, and sank down into him like meanings from a forest or a sea.

From these, he realised, came her stupendous inspiration, and, so realising, he knew at last his deep mistake. For not so do the Dead return. They never, indeed, return, because from the heart that loved them they have never gone away, but only changed their magic intercourse in kind. And, had _she_ known, she would have approved the wisdom of his great decision, while clearing his motive of all insincerity at the same time.

It was not _she_ who brought the protest and the menace. It was something bigger by far, something awful and untamed. It was the Place itself. And behind the Place stood Nature. It was Nature that possessed the child and used her little lips and hands and body for its thundering message of disapproval.

Mánya was possessed by Nature.

* * * * *

And the shock of the discovery first turned him into stone. His body did not stir the fraction of an inch. In that moment of vivid realisation these two little human figures stood facing one another, motionless as columns; and, while so standing, the One who brought the Message for himself drew closer.

For several minutes he saw absolutely nothing. The approach was too big for any sensory perceptions he could recognise. And then, mercilessly, pitilessly, the power of sight returned.

He knew the touch of a giant, earthy hand was upon his arm. Beside him, in the flickering candle light, stood Nature. He looked into a host of mighty eyes that yet his imagination translated into merely two--eyes set wide apart beneath enormous brows. He met the gaze of the Gigantic, the Patient, the Inexorable that saw him as he was, and judged him where he stood. And a melting ran through his body, as though the bones slipped from their accustomed places, leaving him utterly without support. He swayed, but did not fall. His physical frame stood upright to receive like a blow the revelation that was coming.

And then, with a curious, deep sense of shame, he realised abruptly that his position in regard to her was inappropriate. He, at any rate, had no right to stand. His proper attitude must be a very different one.

He took her by the hand and, bending his head with an air of humble worship, led her slowly across the room. The touch of her was wonderful--like touching wind--all over him. With a reverence he guided her, all unresisting, to a high-backed chair beside the open window. She lowered herself upon it, and sat upright. She stared fixedly before her into space. No clothing in the world could have stolen from her childish face and figure the nameless air of grandeur that she wore. She was august.

And he knelt before her. He raised his folded hands. A moment his eyes rested on the dispassionate little face, then looked beyond her into the night of wind and rain. His gaze returning then sought the eyes again.

And the child, sweet little human interpreter of so vast a Mystery, bent her head downwards and looked into his heart. Wind stirred the hair upon her neck. He saw the bosom gently rise and fall.

‘What is it that you have to say to me?’ he whispered, like a prayer for mercy. ‘What is the message that you bring?’

Her lips moved very slightly. The smile broke out again like moonlight across the lowered face. The words dropped through the sky. Very slowly, very distinctly, they fell into his open heart: simple as wind or rain.

‘Leave--me--as--I--am--and--as--you--found--me. Leave--us--together--as--we--are--and--as--we--were.’

XIV

There came then a sudden blast that swept with a shout across the night; and through his mind passed also a tumult like a roaring wind. Both winds, it seemed to him, were in the room at once. He had the sensation of being lifted from the earth. The candle was extinguished. And then the sound and terror dipped away again into silence and into distance whence it came....

* * * * *

He found himself standing stiffly upright, though he had no recollection of rising from his knees. With an abruptness utterly disconcerting he was himself again. No item of memory had faded; he remembered the entire series of events. Only, he was in possession of his normal mind and powers, fear, awe, and wonder all departed. Mánya, who had been walking in her sleep, was sitting close before him in the darkness. He could just distinguish her outline against the open window. But he was master of himself again. Even the wild improbability, the extravagance of his own actions, the very lunacy of the picture that the night now smothered, left him unbewildered. And the calmness that thus followed the complete transition proved to him that all he had witnessed, all that had happened, had been--true. In no single detail was there falseness or distortion due to the excitement of a hysterical mood. It had been right and inevitable.

He lit the candle again quietly, with a hand that did not tremble. He saw Mánya sitting on the high-backed chair with her head sunk forward on her breast. Gently he raised the face. The eyes were now closed, and the regular, deep breathing showed that the girl was sound asleep--but with the normal sleep of tired childhood. The Immensity to which he had knelt and prayed in her was gone, gone from the room, gone out into the open darkness of the Place. It had visited her, it had used her, it had left her. But at the same time he understood, as by some infallible intuition, that the warning to depart she brought him was not yet complete. It had reached his mind, but not as yet his soul. In its fulness the Notice to Quit could not be delivered between close, narrow walls. Its delivery must be outside.

He looked at the sleeping child in silence for several minutes. She sat there in a semi-collapsed position and in momentary danger of falling from her chair. The lips were parted, the eyes tight shut, the red tam-o’-shanter dropping over one side of the face. Both hands were folded in her lap. By the light of two candles now he watched her, while the perspiration he had not been as yet aware of, dried upon his skin and made him shiver with the cold. And, after long hesitation, he woke her.

With difficulty the girl came to, stared up into his face with a blank expression, rubbed her eyes, and then, with returning consciousness of who and where she was, looked mightily astonished.

‘Mánya, child,’ he began gently, ‘don’t be frightened.’

‘I’m not,’ she said at once. ‘But where am I? Is that you, Uncle?’

‘Been walking in your sleep. It’s all right. Nothing’s happened. Come, I’ll see you back to bed again.’ And he made a gesture as though to take her hand.

But she avoided him. Still looking bewildered and perplexed, she said:

‘Oh--I remember now--I wanted to go out and see things. I want to go out still.’ Then she added quickly as the thought struck her, ‘But does Fräulein know? You haven’t told Fräulein, Uncle, have you? I mean, you won’t?’

He shook his head. This was no time for chiding.

‘I often go out like this--at night, when you’re all asleep. It’s the only time now, since----’

He stopped her instantly at that. ‘You fell asleep while dreaming! Was that it?’ He tried to laugh a little, but the laughter would not come.

‘I suppose so.’ She glanced down at her extraordinary garments. But no smile came to the eyes or lips. Then she looked round her, and gazed for a minute through the open window. The rain had ceased, the wind had died away. Moist, fragrant air stole in with many perfumes. ‘I don’t remember quite. I was in bed. I had been asleep already, I think. Then--something woke me.’ She paused. ‘There was something crying in the night.’

‘Something crying in the night?’ he repeated quickly, half to himself.

She nodded. ‘Crying for me,’ she explained in a tone that sent a shudder all through him before he could prevent it. ‘So I thought I’d go out and see. Uncle, I _had_ to go out,’ she added earnestly, still whispering, ‘because they were crying--to get at you. And unless _I_ brought them--unless they came through me,’ she stopped abruptly, her eyes grew moist, she was on the verge of tears--‘it would have been so terrible for you, I mean----’

He stiffened as he heard it. He made a violent effort at control, stopping her further explanation.

‘And you weren’t afraid--to go out like this into the dark?’ he asked, more to cover retreat than because he wanted to hear the reply.

‘I put myself out for you,’ she answered simply. ‘I let them come in. That way you couldn’t get hurt. In me they had to come gently. They were an army. Only, nothing out of me could hurt you, Uncle.’ She suddenly put her arms about his neck and kissed him. ‘Oh, Uncle Dick, it _was_ lucky I was there and ready, wasn’t it?’

And Eliot, remembering that great Disturbance in the woods, pressed the child tenderly to himself, praying that she might not understand his heart too well, nor feel the cold that made his entire body tremble like a leaf. He had thought of an angry animal Presence lurking in the darkness. It had been bigger than that, and a thousand times more dangerous!

‘You see,’ she added with a little gasp for breath when he released her, ‘they waked me up on purpose. I dressed at an awful rate. I got to the door--I remember that perfectly well--and then----’ An expression of bewilderment came into her face again.

‘Yes,’ he helped her, ‘and then--what?’

‘Well, I forget exactly; but something stopped me. Something came all round me and took me in their arms. It was like arms of wind. I was lifted up and carried in the air. And after that I forget the rest, forget everything--till now.’

She stopped. She took off her tam-o’-shanter and smoothed her untidy hair back from the forehead. And as he looked a moment at her--this little human organism still vibrating with the passage of a universal Power that had obsessed her, making her far more than merely child, yet still leaving in her the sweetness of her simple love--he came to a sudden, bold decision. He would face the thing complete. He would go outside.

‘Mánya,’ he whispered, looking hard at her, ‘would you like to go out--now--with me? Come, child! Suppose we go together!’

She stared at him, then darted about the room with little springs of excitement. She clapped her hands softly, her eyes alight and shining.

‘Uncle Dick! You really mean it? Wouldn’t it be grand!’

‘Of course, I mean it. See! I’m dressed and ready!’ And he pointed to his boots and clothes.

‘It’s the very best thing we can do, really,’ she said, trying to speak gravely, but the mischievous element uppermost at the idea of the secret nocturnal journey. ‘They’ll see that you’re not afraid, and you’ll be safe then for ever and ever and ever! Hooray!’

She twirled the tam-o’-shanter in the air above her head, skipping in her childish joy.

‘And we’ll go past Fräulein’s door,’ she insisted mischievously, as he took her outstretched hand and led the way on tiptoe down the dark front stairs.

‘Hush!’ he whispered gruffly. ‘Don’t talk so loud.’

She fastened up her garments, and they moved like shadows through the sleeping house.

XV

That journey he made with this ‘child of Nature’ among the dripping trees and along soaked paths was one that Eliot never forgot. For him its meaning was unmistakable. His early life again supplied a parallel. He had once seen a wretched man marched out of camp with two days’ rations to shift for himself in the wilderness as best he might,--a prisoner convicted of treachery, but whose life was spared on the chance that he might redeem it, or die in the attempt. He had seen it done by redskins, he had seen it done by white. And hanging had been better. Yet the crime--stealing a horse, or sneaking another’s ‘grub-stakes’--was one that civilisation punishes with a paltry fine, or condones daily as permissible ‘business acumen.’

In primitive conditions it was a crime against the higher law. It was sinning against Nature. And Nature never is deceived.

Richard Eliot was now being drummed out of camp. And the child who led him, mischief in her eyes and the joy of forbidden pleasure in her heart, was all unconscious of the awful rôle she played. Yet it was she who as well had pleaded for his life and saved him.

Nature turned him out; the Place rejected him; and Mánya saw him safely to the confines of that wilderness of houses, ugliness, commercial desolation where he must wander till he re-made his soul or lost it altogether.

They cautiously opened the front door, and the damp air rushed to meet them.

‘Hush!’ he repeated, closing it carefully behind him. But the child was already upon the lawn. Beyond her, dark blots against the sky, rose the massed outline of the little pointed hills. There were no stars anywhere, though the clouds were breaking into thinning troops; but it was not too dark to see, for a moon watched them somewhere from her place of hiding. The air was warm and very sweet, left breathing by the storm.

‘Hush, Mánya!’ he whispered again, ill at ease to see her go. She ran back, her feet inaudible upon the thick, wet lawn, and took his hand. ‘We’ll go by the Piney Valley,’ she said, assuming leadership. And he made no objection, though this was the direction of the sample pits. It led also, he remembered, to the Mill--the spot where she who had left him in charge had gone upon her long long journey.

They went forward side by side. The wind below them hummed gently in the tree-tops, but it did not reach their faces. The whole wet world lay breathing softly about them, exhausted by the tempest. It was very still. It watched them pass. There was no effort to detain them. And in Dick Eliot’s heart was a pain that searched him like a pain of death itself.

But his companion, he now clearly realised, was merely the child again--eerie, wonderful, eldritch, but still the little Mánya that he knew so well. Mischief was in her heart, and the excitement of unlawful adventure in her blood; but nothing more. The vast obsessing Entity that had constituted her judge and executioner was now entirely gone. He was spared the added shame of knowing that she realised what she did.

Sometimes she left his side, to come back presently with a little rush of pleasurable alarm. He was uncertain whether he liked best her going from him or her sudden return. Their tread was now muffled by the needles as they went slowly down the pathways of the Piney Valley. The occasional snapping of small twigs alone betrayed their movements. Heavy branches, soaked like sponges, splashed showers on the ground when their shoulders brushed them in passing, and drops fell of their own weight with mysterious little thuds like footsteps everywhere about them in the woods.

Mánya dived away from his side. She came back sometimes in front of him and sometimes behind. He never quite knew where she was. His mind, indeed, neglected her, for his thoughts were concentrated within himself. Her movements were the movements of a block of shadow, shifting here and there like shadows of trees and clouds in faint moonlight.

‘Uncle, tell me one thing,’ he heard with a start, as she suddenly stood in front of him across the narrow pathway, and so close that he nearly bumped against her. ‘Isn’t there something here that’s angry with you? Something you’ve done wrong to?’

‘Hush, child! Don’t say such things!’ He felt the shiver run through him. He pushed her forward with his hands.

‘But they’re being said--all round us. Uncle, don’t you hear them?’ she insisted.