Selected Stories (80 page)

‘Ah, it's a great responsibility – particularly with that old cat Amoore looking at the lists over your shoulder. And such a shocking thing happened last summer! Poor crazy Cissie, my Nurse that I was telling you of, she took three solid silver tablespoons.'

‘Took! But isn't that stealing?' Una cried.

‘Hsh!' said Philadelphia, looking round at Puck. ‘All I say is she took them without my leave. I made it right afterwards. So, as Dad says – and he's a magistrate – it wasn't a legal offence; it was only compounding a felony.'

‘It sounds awful,' said Una.

‘It was. My dear, I was furious! I had had the keys for ten months, and I'd never lost anything before. I said nothing at first, because a big house offers so many chances of things being mislaid, and coming to hand later. “Fetching up in the lee-scuppers”, my Uncle calls it. But next week I spoke to old Cissie about it when she was doing my hair at night, and she said I wasn't to worry my heart for trifles!'

‘Isn't it like 'em?' Una burst out. ‘They see you're worried over something that really matters, and they say, “Don't worry”; as if
that
did any good!'

‘I quite agree with you, my dear; quite agree with you! I told Ciss the spoons were solid silver, and worth forty shillings, so if the thief were found, he'd be tried for his life.'

‘Hanged, do you mean?' Una said.

‘They ought to be; but Dad says no jury will hang a man nowadays for a forty-shilling theft. They transport 'em into penal servitude at the uttermost ends of the earth beyond the seas, for the term of their natural life. I told Cissie that, and I saw her tremble in my mirror. Then she cried, and caught hold of my knees, and I couldn't for my life understand what it was all about – she cried so.
Can
you guess, my dear, what that poor crazy thing had done? It was midnight before I pieced it together. She had given the spoons to Jerry Gamm, the Witchmaster on the Green, so that he might put a charm on me! Me!'

‘Put a charm on you? Why?'

‘That's what
I
asked; and then I saw how mad poor Cissie was! You know this stupid little cough of mine? It will disappear as soon as I go to London. She was troubled about
that
, and about my being so thin, and she told me Jerry had promised her, if she would bring him three silver spoons, that he'd charm my cough away and make me plump – “flesh-up”, she said. I couldn't help laughing; but it was a terrible night! I had to put Cissie into my own bed, and stroke her hand till she cried herself to sleep. What else could I have done? When she woke, and I coughed – I suppose I
can
cough in my own room if I please – she said that she'd killed me, and asked me to have her hanged at Lewes sooner than send her to the uttermost ends of the earth away from me.'

‘How awful! What did you do, Phil?'

‘Do? I rode off at five in the morning to talk to Master Jerry, with a new lash on my whip. Oh, I was
furious
! Witchmaster or no witchmaster, I meant to – ‘

‘Ah! what's a Witchmaster?'

‘A master of witches, of course.
I
don't believe there are witches; but people say every village has a few, and Jerry was the master of all ours at Marklake. He has been a smuggler, and a man-of-war's man, and now he pretends to be a carpenter and joiner – he can make almost anything –but he really is a white wizard. He cures people by herbs and charms. He can cure them after Dr Break has given them up, and that's why Dr Break hates him so. He used to make me toy carts, and charm off my warts when I was a child.' Philadelphia spread out her hands with the delicate shiny little nails. ‘It isn't counted lucky to cross him. He has his ways of getting even with you, they say. But
I
wasn't afraid of Jerry! I saw him working in his garden, and I leaned out of my saddle and double-thonged him between the shoulders, over the hedge. Well, my dear, for the first time since Dad gave him to me, my
Troubadour
(I wish you could see the sweet creature!) shied across the road, and I spilled out into the hedge-top.
Most
undignified! Jerry pulled me through to his side and brushed the leaves off me. I was horribly pricked, but I didn't care. “Now, Jerry,” I said, “I'm going to take the hide off you first, and send you to Lewes afterwards. You well know why.” “Oh!” he said, and he sat down among his bee-hives. “Then I reckon you've come about old Cissie's business, my dear.” “I reckon I just about have,” I said. “Stand away from these hives. I can't get at you there.” “That's why I be where I be,” he said. “If you'll excuse me, Miss Phil, I don't hold with bein' flogged before breakfast, at my time o' life.” He's a huge big man, but he looked so comical squatting among the hives that – I know I oughtn't to – I laughed, and he laughed. I always laugh at the wrong time. But I soon recovered my dignity, and I said, “Then give me back what you made poor Cissie steal!”

‘“Your pore Cissie,” he said. “She's a hatful o' trouble. But you shall have 'em, Miss Phil. They're all ready put by for you.” And, would you believe it, the old sinner pulled my three silver spoons out of his dirty pocket, and polished them on his cuff! “Here they be,” he says, and he gave them to me, just as cool as though I'd come to have my warts charmed. That's the worst of people having known you when you were young. But I preserved my composure. “Jerry,” I said, “what in the world are we to do? If you'd been caught with these things on you, you'd have been hanged.”

‘“I know it,” he said. “But they're yours now.”

‘“But you made my Cissie steal them,” I said.

‘“That I didn't,” he said. “Your Cissie, she was pickin' at me and tarrifyin' me all the long day an' every day for weeks, to put a charm on you, Miss Phil, and take away your little spitty cough.”

‘“Yes, I knew that, Jerry, and to make me flesh up!” I said. “I'm much obliged to you, but I'm not one of your pigs!”

‘“Ah! I reckon she've been talking to you, then,” he said. “Yes, she give me no peace, and bein' tarrified – for I don't hold with old women – I laid a task on her which I thought 'ud silence her.
I
never reckoned the old scrattle ‘ud risk her neckbone at Lewes Assizes for your sake, Miss Phil. But she did. She up an' stole, I tell ye, as cheerful as a tinker. You might ha' knocked me down with any one of them liddle spoons when she brung 'em in her apron.”

‘“Do you mean to say, then, that you did it to try my poor Cissie?” I screamed at him.

‘“What else for, dearie?” he said. “
I
don't stand in need of hedge-stealings. I'm a freeholder, with money in the bank; and now I won't trust women no more! Silly old besom! I do beleft she'd ha' stole the Squire's big fob-watch, if I'd required her.”

‘“Then you're a wicked, wicked old man,” I said, and I was so angry that I couldn't help crying, and of course that made me cough.

‘Jerry was in a fearful taking. He picked me up and carried me into his cottage – it's full of foreign curiosities – and he got me something to eat and drink, and he said he'd be hanged by the neck any day if it pleased me. He said he'd even tell old Cissie he was sorry. That's a great come-down for a Witchmaster, you know.

‘I was ashamed of myself for being so silly, and I dabbed my eyes and said, “The least you can do now is to give poor Ciss some sort of a charm for me.”

‘“Yes, that's only fair dealings,” he said. “You know the names of the Twelve Apostles, dearie? You say them names, one by one, before your open window, rain or storm, wet or shine, five times a day fasting. But mind you, ‘twixt every name you draw in your breath through your nose, right down to your pretty liddle toes, as long and as deep as you can, and let it out slow through your pretty liddle mouth. There's virtue for your cough in those names spoke that way. And I'll give you something you can see, moreover. Here's a stick of maple which is the warmest tree in the wood.”'

‘That's true,' Una interrupted. ‘You can feel it almost as warm as yourself when you touch it.'

‘“It's cut one inch long for your every year,” Jerry said. “That's
sixteen inches. You set it in your window so that it holds up the sash, and thus you keep it, rain or shine, or wet or fine, day and night. I've said words over it which will have virtue on your complaints.”

‘“I haven't any complaints, Jerry,” I said. “It's only to please Cissie.”

‘“I know that as well as you do, dearie,” he said. And – and that was all that came of my going to give him a flogging. I wonder whether he made poor
Troubadour
shy when I lashed at him? Jerry has his ways of getting even of people.'

‘I wonder,' said Una. ‘Well, did you try the charm? Did it work?'

‘What nonsense! I told René about it, of course, because he's a doctor. He's going to be a most famous doctor. That's why our doctor hates him. René said, “Oho! Your Master Gamm, he is worth knowing,” and he put up his eyebrows – like this. He made joke of it all. He can see my window from the carpenter's shed, where he works, and if ever the maple stick fell down, he pretended to be in a fearful taking till I propped the window up again. He used to ask me whether I had said my Apostles properly, and how I took my deep breaths. Oh yes, and the next day, though he had been there ever so many times before, he put on his new hat and paid Jerry Gamm a visit of state – as a fellow-physician. Jerry never guessed René was making fun of him, and so he told René about the sick people in the village, and how he cured them with herbs after Dr Break had given them up. Jerry could talk smugglers' French, of course, and I had taught René plenty of English, if only he wasn't so shy. They called each other Monsieur Gamm and Mosheur Lanark, just like gentlemen. I suppose it amused poor René. He hasn't much to do, except to fiddle about in the carpenter's shop. He's like all the French prisoners – always making knick-knacks; and Jerry had a little lathe at his cottage, and so – and so – René took to being with Jerry much more than I approved of. The Hall is so big and empty when Dad's away, and I will
not
sit with old Amoore – she talks so horridly about everyone – specially about René.

‘I was rude to René, I'm afraid; but I was properly served out for it. One always is. You see Dad went down to Hastings to pay his respects to the General who commanded the brigade there, and to bring him to the Hall afterwards. Dad told me he was a very brave soldier from India – he was Colonel of Dad's regiment, the Thirty-third Foot, after Dad left the Army, and then he changed his name from Wesley to Wellesley,
⁴
or else the other way about; and Dad said I was to get out all the silver for him, and I knew that meant a big dinner. So I sent down to the sea for early mackerel, and had
such
a morning in the kitchen and the store-rooms. Old Amoore nearly cried.

‘However, my dear, I made all my preparations in ample time, but the fish didn't arrive – it never does – and I wanted René to ride to Pevensey and bring it himself. He had gone over to Jerry, of course, as he always used, unless I requested his presence beforehand.
I
can't send for René every time I want him. He should be there. Now, don't you ever do what I did, child, because it's in the highest degree unladylike; but – but one of our woods runs up to Jerry's garden, and if you climb – it's ungenteel, but I can climb like a kitten – there's an old hollow oak just above the pigsty where you can hear and see everything below. Truthfully, I only went to tell René about the mackerel, but I saw him and Jerry sitting on the seat playing with wooden toy trumpets. So I slipped into the hollow, and choked down my cough, and listened. René had never shown
me
any of these trumpets.'

‘Trumpets? Aren't you too old for trumpets?' said Una.

‘They weren't real trumpets, because Jerry opened his shirt collar, and René put one end of his trumpet against Jerry's chest, and put his ear to the other. Then Jerry put his trumpet against René's chest, and listened while René breathed and coughed. I was afraid
I
would cough too.

‘“This hollywood one is the best,” said Jerry. “'Tis won‘erful like hearin' a man's soul whisperin' in his innards; but unless I've a buzzin' in my ears, Mosheur Lanark, you make much about the same kind o' noises as old Gaffer Macklin – but not quite so loud as young Copper. It sounds like breakers on a reef – a long way off. Comprenny?”

‘“Perfectly,” said René. “I drive on the breakers. But before I strike, I shall save hundreds, thousands, millions perhaps, by my little trumpets. Now tell me what sounds the old Gaffer Macklin have made in his chest, and what the young Copper also.”

‘Jerry talked for nearly a quarter of an hour about sick people in the village, while René asked questions. Then he sighed, and said, “You explain very well, Monsieur Gamm, but if only I had your opportunities to listen for myself! Do you think these poor people would let me listen to them through my trumpet – for a little money? No?” – René's as poor as a church mouse.

‘“They'd kill you, Mosheur. It's all I can do to coax 'em to abide it, and I'm Jerry Gamm,” said Jerry. He's very proud of his attainments.

‘“Then these poor people are alarmed – No?” said René.

‘“They've had it in for me for some time back because o' my tryin' your trumpets on their sick; and I reckon by the talk at the alehouse they won't stand much more. Tom Dunch an' some of his kidney was drinkin' themselves riot-ripe when I passed along after noon. Charms an' mutterin's
and bits o' red wool and black hens is in the way o' nature to these fools, Mosheur; but anything likely to do 'em real service is devil's work by their estimation. If I was you, I'd go home before they come.” Jerry spoke quite quietly, and René shrugged his shoulders.