The Weeping Ash (52 page)

They were all tired out by the time, close on sunset, that they reached the Holy Pir's mountain. Buyantu was waiting to stable the ass and led it away, with grunts of disapproval and censorious glances at the travelers for having kept his holy master out so long. The Pir retired wearily to his cave, Cal retreated hastily to a distant cell-like cranny which he had adopted for work and reflection, the Therbah hurried off to tend the camels. Cameron was left with Scylla in the open entrance cavern, which Buyantu kept piled high with firewood and stores of grain, salt, dried snow mushrooms, and strings of edible herbs.

Cameron gave Scylla an irresolute glance, moved, as if to walk off to the cave that he used as his sleeping quarters, then turned back again.

“Miss Paget—” he began abruptly. “I have been thinking about what happened at the Bai's castle—”

Scylla was exceedingly tired. The day's expedition had been a long one, in hot mountain sun and biting wind. She had found the sight of the burned fortress across the valley inexpressibly saddening, and the legend of the giant's horse had done nothing to pick up her spirits. She interrupted hurriedly:

“Pray do not allude to that, Colonel Cameron. I am sure there were faults on both sides—no useful purpose would be achieved in discussing it. Indeed, it might well be disastrous.”

“But I—”

“Excuse me, if you please. It is bad enough to realize that, if we had only known
then
about the Holy Pir's treasure and his obliging nature, we need never have visited your friend the Bai—about whom I would prefer to hear no more.”

“Very well,” he replied haughtily but with evident deep mortification, and Scylla made all speed off to her own cave before he could find some other means of reintroducing the topic. The last thing she wanted just then was another quarrel with Colonel Cameron! Indeed even this passage between them, brief though it was, had power to sink her into such dejection that she cast herself on her feather couch and, to her own shame, indulged in a shower of tears. Little Chet, roused from a daylong nap in a box of sweet-smelling grass, gazed at her wonderingly until she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his hay-scented draperies. She did not know what had overset her, she told herself. Her irritation of the spirits could be nothing but fatigue and stupidity! But she was glad that Miss Musson was not there at that moment to catechize her. Miss Musson had lately taken to long periods of meditation, sitting cross-legged in a high, airy cavern that faced north; sometimes she spent the whole night there.

The evening meal, when the travelers met again, was a very silent one. Nobody had much appetite for the broth which Miss Musson had made earlier, and which the Therbah now heated up. Cal, it was worryingly plain to his sister, had succumbed to such a severe bout of creative fever that he was hardly aware of anything passing about him. His hands shook, his eyes were glazed and bloodshot, he constantly made notes on dried leaves and scraps of parchment. Scylla could only hope that this preoccupation did not bring on another of his seizures. She must be glad of anything that distracted his attention from his lost love, but this theme, perhaps, was rather too close to his own grief to be a true distraction. After swallowing a few mouthfuls of broth, he made his excuses and returned to his study-cave. Scylla, shortly following his example, bade good night to her guardian and Cameron, giving as pretext that she was weary and wished to sleep. In reality her mind was far too active for slumber, and she sat restlessly with her chin on her fists, or paced to and fro, watching the northern stars while they glitteringly wheeled across the window cranny of her cave. She would have liked to talk to Cal—but he would be busy writing, or asleep. It was unfair!
He
poured out his heart to her, whenever he chose.

At last, restless beyond endurance, she wrapped a black shawl around her and started out in the direction of Cal's eyrie. The way to it led past the communal chamber where they had the fire (when Cameron judged it safe to light one). To Scylla's considerable surprise, a dim glow of light still emanated from this chamber, and she heard the voice of her guardian, whom she had thought to be long retired, in sleep or meditation.

“No, no, my dear Rob! You are all consideration, as always—kindness itself! But my mind is made up on this head. As I told His Holiness—I have other reasons, other commitments. One cannot always do as one chooses.”

Cameron's voice came with unwonted diffidence—in a tone he had never used to Scylla.

“Miss Amanda—you may not immediately approve of what I am about to suggest now—but I must ask you not to come to any hasty conclusion until you have heard me out.”

A murmur from Miss Musson appeared to accede to this request; he went on: “That girl—that child
must
be a constant anxiety to you—to both of us—until she is delivered to her friends in England. With her appearance—her very considerable degree of charm—and her hasty, headstrong,
willful
disposition—occurrences such as the recent one must, I fear, be all too frequent between here and the Levant. Indeed, I do not scruple to say that, if we manage to get her safe as far as the shores of the Mediterranean, it will be nothing short of a miracle. Hitherto we have been traveling in the wilds—but we shall be passing through towns, Kabul, Girishk, Herat—”

“Oh, come now, my dear Rob—”

“I am not joking, Miss Amanda. I saw the looks that Mir Murad was giving her. If we had not left the Bai's castle when we did—”

“In that case, you have been rather unfairly hard on her,” dryly remarked Miss Musson.

“
Hard
on her! If the wretched girl had any notion how I have worried about her—what a desperate anxiety I have been in as to her welfare—”

Here Scylla, listening in a kind of paralysis, almost interrupted to beg the colonel icily not to concern himself about her to such a degree, but he then took her breath away by continuing:

“Ma'am, I have thought it all over very carefully—many,
many
times—and I can only urge you to allow me to bed her now—
here!
—because it is almost impossible that she should escape capture and seduction somewhere along the way and—and by this means we may ensure that at least the child she bears will be white—of European blood—and that she will be somewhat prepared for what she—will understand a little better what constitutes provocative behavior—will know how to go on, in short! Also, I myself would then be in a—in a better-defined position with regard to her!”

There was a considerable pause here, while Scylla gazed ahead of her motionless, trembling, in the darkness; then Miss Musson spoke again.

“I consider that you rate the risks much too highly, Rob. I see no need for the somewhat drastic remedy you propose. Besides—only consider the consequences—suppose the poor girl were to fall in love with you?”

“Well,” he said very slowly, “then I suppose I could marry her!”

The dryness of his voice matched that of Miss Musson's. She said quickly:

“No, no—that would be frantic folly! You are far too disparate—in age, in nature, habit—everything! No, no, you have windmills in your brain, my dear Rob! No such desperate remedy is called for. We must trust in Providence. She is a good child—and, in time, will be a sensible one; if she is overtaken by some such misfortune as you suggest, she will know how to bear it with philosophy.”

“Oh—you have been imbibing too many of the Pir's doctrines!” he exclaimed in an exasperated tone. “Take no action! Do nothing! Raise no finger to avert disaster! Well, I have made my offer, and, since it is rejected, I will take myself off to bed.”

“Good night, Rob. Believe me, I am obliged to you for your practical consideration!” Scylla could hear the smile in Miss Musson's voice. “I daresay you may be glad enough that I did not take you at your word and put it to the test!”

Scylla waited no longer. Silent as night itself, she turned and fled back at top speed to the chamber she had just quitted. Once there, safe from discovery, she allowed her outrage to boil over.

Striding to and fro, folding and unfolding her arms, clenching her fists, she silently fulminated against him. The presumption! The callous, arrogant self-satisfaction!

“I suppose I could marry her!” “Could you, indeed, my dearest Colonel!” she muttered between her teeth. “How very self-sacrificingly kind! What an obliging thought! And you could even overcome your repugnance so much as to bed me, so that my child might be Anglo-Saxon. Very considerate indeed! Shows such a distinguishing regard, to be sure! How exceedingly thoughtful of you it was to save me from the Bai's horrid embraces—at the cost of a slight misunderstanding or two! You need not have troubled yourself, I assure you! I had
rather
be embraced by the Bai!”

And then, giving up all pretenses, even to herself, she sank down on her rumpled couch in a despairing agony of tears. Oh, it's not true, it's not true! I love him, I love him! It's burning my heart out! And all I am to him is a hideous anxiety, an encumbrance that he had better take to bed so—so that I shall know how to go on when some amir carries me off!

Love is a fever, Cal had said. I feel as if I were being stretched on a rack. Sister, you have no idea! But I have, my dear Cal, his sister had silently assured him. I know what you mean only too well.—In fact it was his description of his plight that had sharpened her perceptions of her own. When had it begun? She could not say. How could it end? There was no hope of Cameron returning her feelings—no hope whatsoever. “You are too disparate in everything,” Miss Musson had said, and she had spoken nothing but the truth. He would never entertain such a notion. He thought of her as an irksome responsibility. He had loved once and would not be caught twice in that agonizing snare—and who could blame him? He was a rover, besides—would probably never settle again anywhere. His end would be like that of his wife and child—bare bones scattered on some mountainside.

Writhing in misery, shame, and anguish, Scylla thought that she would never find forgetfulness in sleep. But, astonishingly, in the end she did. The day's exhaustion suddenly took effect, and she sank into merciful blankness and lay totally inert, heavy as a sheepskin pegged out in the waters of a mountain brook.

For what period of time she had slept she could not tell; but suddenly she was roused, she could not say how, by the presence of somebody beside her. Sound there was none—but she had a perception of warmth, breathing, awareness—then a hand grasped hers in silence: two arms went around her, two lips met hers. Confused, languid, and dizzy after this abrupt awakening out of her brief and heavy slumber, she was inclined to think it was a dream; she had had such dreams before. But this seems
real
, she thought bewilderedly. These arms, these lips; the prickling of a beard. Could I have imagined that? Or the strength, the weight of this body accommodating itself to hers, the desperate urgency of the stroking, caressing touches, the demanding kisses, the wilder and wilder excitement?
Could
I have imagined this? He has come, she thought, in spite of what my guardian said, he has come—not because he thought it right or prudent but because he wanted to! He has longed for this, he wanted it just as much as I did—oh, my dearest, dearest Rob! But no wonder he is so silent—and so will I be too—she thinks it unnecessary—
folly
—better if she does not know, for the present, at least. Oh, but something as marvelous as this cannot be folly! Her whole body was vibrating like—like the great horse on the mountainside, the Asp-i-Dheha—and when he drove into her, with a great gasping shudder of joy and triumph, it was all she could do not to cry out too, in triumph and wonder, So it was of
this
that you wanted to warn me! But you need not have been so concerned for me. It could not have been like this with anybody else. I shall be safe, now, forever; defended by knowledge, protected by love.

He murmured something, yearning and tender, nuzzling his head in her neck. “Hush, love!” she whispered, but he murmured it again, and this time she heard.

“Sripana!”

Suddenly stone-cold with terror, Scylla raised herself on her elbow. Night had paled, infinitesimally; dawn was not here yet, but it was on the way; dimly, now, she was able to see.

And what she saw was her brother Cal.

“Down the
well
?” Fanny repeated half incredulously. She could only breathe with difficulty; it was hard to speak. “My baby is
down the well
? How
could
he be?”

“Oh, ma'am! That's what we none of us know!”

But Fanny had not waited to hear what Mrs. Strudwick had to say.

With a kind of awed respect—not unmixed with gloating curiosity—the crowd parted to let her through as she hurried across the grass to the wellhead.

Her little flower border had been much trampled by many feet. She knelt trembling in the mud, regardless of her best sprig muslin, and looked over into the narrow brick shaft, which seemed to go darkly down forever. A faint, a very faint cry came up from far below.

“Is he badly hurt?” she whispered. “How can he be reached? How did it happen?”

How, indeed, could it have happened? Little Thomas was unable to crawl yet. Suppose he had fallen from his cradle, twenty yards away under the weeping ash, it was wholly impossible that he should have managed to make his way as far as this, let alone clamber over the low stone wall. And why had the lid been open? The servants had strict orders to keep it closed at all times, save when drawing water.

The cry came again.

“He's not in the water—he is not drowned?”

“No, 'ee bain't in the water, missus,” a grizzled man said—vaguely, Fanny recognized him; he was Daintrey, one of the bricklayers working on Thomas's addition to the house. “Lucky for 'ee the water in the owd quill be turble low, 'count o' this drought we been having; that saved the nipper from drowning, reckon. 'E be stuck, like, on a spong o' rock what juts out down thurr; 'countable okkerd it do be getting the bucket past it now an' agen. 'E be just about resting on it, thanks be.”

“Hope 'e don't slither offen it,” somebody gloomily said.

“Suppose we get a haitch o' rain, an' the water come down in a lavant,” somebody else suggested. “It'll rise up an' drown the dawlin'.”

“But can he not be rescued?” Fanny frantically said. “Why does nobody go down after him?”

She looked desperately around at the ring of faces. “Jem? Goble? Can you not—?”

But Goble seemed to have been overwhelmed by a fit of prayer. He was kneeling on his leather apron in the mud and chanting, “‘They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.'”

This last seemed to be in reference to Jem, who now brought a candle and held it over the edge of the well, endeavoring to show Fanny where the problem lay.

“Ye see, missus, 'tis wide enow up atop here, but lower down the owd quill do become lamentable narrer. 'Tis on'y just wide enow to take the bucket, see? I'd goo down on a rope, and gladly, aiter the nipper, but I be too broad in the beam.”

Jem, indeed, was a big, broad-shouldered boy, but even so—“Are you
sure
, Jem?” Fanny asked.

“Sartin sure, missus. Daintrey an' them, they h'isted me down thurr afore, but I stuck fast; cardenly they drug me up agen.”

“But then what is to be done?”

“Could send for a looksman and borrow his bilbo? Hook out the liddle 'un,” somebody suggested.

Surely, Fanny thought, there must be a more suitable implement than a shepherd's crook nearer to hand.

“'Appen us might use a weed hook—or a ditch hook—or a Cannerbury hoe?”

Jem ran off to the shed and came back with a Canterbury hoe, which was lowered on the end of a rope.

“Pray take care!” Fanny cried beseechingly.

The rain now came on harder.

“Let me fetch ye a cloak, ma'am,” said Mrs. Strudwick solicitously, and did so, draping it around the shoulders of Fanny, who hardly noticed the attention.

“Can you not reach him?” she demanded as the third attempt with the Canterbury hoe proved unavailing.

“'Tisn't that, missus; but the hoe do slip off 'thout gripping, simmingly, an' we dassn't furrage about, 'fear of tipping the liddle feller off'n the rock. 'Tis a hem setout!”

“Oh, dear God! What can be done?”

“'E be still lively enow, anyways,” someone said hearteningly. “Hark at 'im gizzle!”

Indeed the baby's cries, because of the rain, or possibly because he had been scraped by the hoe, now became louder.

“Soon it will be dark. What shall we do then?” Bet said with what seemed like a kind of gloomy relish.

Fanny had an inspiration.

“Jem! Pray run up to Petworth House and ask for Lord Egremont!”

“Ah—I'll fet'n anon, missus! That be a 'countable good notion!” said Jem, and ran off.

“I am sure
he
will know what to do,” Fanny said hopefully to Bet.

For though the ring of men around the well seemed kindly enough disposed toward her, she could not feel that their intelligence was of a high order. Moreover they appeared rather inclined to regard the emergency as an interesting event on its own merits, a kind of entertainment to be relished for its drama, rather than a challenge requiring any solution by
them
.

Some, indeed, muttered that it was the will of 'Im up there, and it was best to let such matters alone.

“Ah, I allus did say this was a proper unked owd spot! They do say as 'ow the owd monks still haunts around, from the monastery as used to be here in Queen Mary's time.”

“Arr! My owd 'ooman, she saw a black Token down this-a-way on Andring Eve. An' it beckoned to her, but she ran t'other way.”

“'Tis larmentable ellynge, here, come bat-flit time. Ye can hear the owd aps tree a-groaning an' the house do give a skreek or a skreel, now an' now;
I
wouldn't live 'in 'er, not nohow, not for a whole trug o' gold guineas.”

To turn the talk from this depressing and unprofitable vein, Fanny asked:

“Can nobody tell me how the baby contrived to fall into the well?”

Heads were shaken. Nobody knew. The bricklayers all asseverated that they had taken pains to make sure the well cover was always closed. Goble, interrupted in his orisons, agreed.

“Ah, she were shut, right enow, time I done watering my greens and brockyloes.”

Jemima swore, again and again, that she had only left the baby for a moment, to run indoors and get an umbrella to put over him, as it was coming on to fret with rain. But why hadn't she taken the baby in with her, as it was raining? Fanny asked. “Oh, it didn't look to be coming on muchly, ma'am. If you ask
me
,” Jemima said with a darkling glance around her, “'twas liddle Miss Patty as done it! You know how she is—forever tormenting and teasing Master Tom, don't I watch her like a hawk.”

“What?” exclaimed Fanny. “You think that Patty—oh no, impossible!”

Privately, it was true, Fanny did believe her youngest stepdaughter capable of
conceiving
such an act—especially when suffering from such a severe disappointment as she had that day—but it was doubtful whether Patty would be physically capable of it. Thomas was a large, heavy baby; his inertia and slowness in learning to roll over had made him unusually stout for his age.

“I don't believe Patty could carry him so far. And you say that you were gone only a couple of minutes,” Fanny pointed out.

“'Count it might ha' been a
liddle
longer—time Missus Strudwick ast me to hurry an' help her in wi' the wash afore it got wet,” Jemima said in a defensive tone.

“You were a-drinking a cup of morgan tea in my kitchen!” Mrs. Strudwick contradicted.

“Where is Patty now, by the by?” Fanny asked, perceiving that it was going to be almost impossible to sift a true tale from these accounts.

“I locked her in her room,” Jemima said self-righteously. “She was a-willocking around, an' getting underfoot, so I took an' shut her in.”

Fanny let pass without comment the fact that Patty was supposed to be confined to her chamber in any case. Fortunately at this moment Jem appeared at a run and panted out the information that Lord Egremont was following fast behind.

“'E'll be here drackly, missus; 'e be a-going to the town cage, fustways.”

“The
jail
? But why?” Fanny demanded, greatly puzzled.

“Ah!” said Jem, proud of himself. “I ax to see owd Lordy, missus, like ye said, an' I tells him how 'countable narrer 'tis, down thurr. ‘Then we'll be needing a 'countable skinny feller to goo down arter the babby,' says Lordy, ‘an' the place to find un's in the jail, where the prisoners gits only the vittles they needs an' nothing extry. Tell your missus I'll be down wi' the skinnest poacher or pickpocket they have in the place.'”

And indeed, hardly more than three minutes later, Lord Egremont himself came down the lane, cheerful and good-natured-looking as always, with his hat tipped onto the back of his head, accompanied by the tallest, thinnest, palest man that Fanny had ever laid eyes on, clad in the prison garb of dark-colored waistcoat and breeches and coarse shirt with different-colored sleeves.

“Massypanme,” muttered Jem. “I niver did see one nigher a skellington, not in all my borns! If
he
can't do it, no one in the world can!”

Lord Egremont walked rapidly up to Fanny, exclaiming, “Why, my poor child, this is a wretched affair! I was never so shocked in my life as when your garden lad told me what had happened—”

“Oh, my lord, I am sensible of my forwardness in applying to you, but indeed I knew not where else to turn—I am so unspeakably grateful—” she stammered.

“Come, come, no tears now! I daresay we shall find that it is no great matter after all,” he added reassuringly. “These good fellows are apt to fall into a despondency at the least setback, you know!”

Two of the Petworth House footmen had followed Lord Egremont, bearing bundles of the rush flares known as fried straws, and they now lit these so as to allow Lord Egremont sufficient light to inspect the situation in the well.

“Hm, yes—I see how it is,” he remarked. “Indeed I had no idea that well was built so narrow! I fancy the soil must have subsided, pushing the walls inward. But now, let us consider. What we need here, I fancy, is a pair of fire tongs. Have you such a thing in the house, ma'am—a pair with a decent long handle?”

“Why, yes, I fancy so, sir,” said Fanny, and set Tess running for the long-handled pair from the parlor. Meanwhile Egremont had the prisoner, whose name, it appeared, was Tom Callow, brought up to inspect the well. He peered down it somewhat wanly and nodded without speaking as Lord Egremont gave him his instructions.

Tess came back with the tongs.

“Capital; capital. Now, these must be tied to your wrists, Tom, my man—it would not do if you were to let them drop on the baby, ha! ha!—and the other ropes around your ankles—so—”

“Ah, say one thing for owd Lordy, 'e do allus know 'is mind to a marvel,” someone murmured admiringly.

“The man is to go down
head foremost
?” Fanny demanded in horror as Callow was lowered over the lip of the well.

“Certainly he must,” Egremont assured her. “Even he, you see, skinny though he is, would not, the right way up, be able to dangle low enough down to reach your little one. What we need is somebody with a girth of a child—but then a child's reach and strength would not be sufficient. However I am in hopes that Callow may succeed with those tongs—if not, we must find a longer implement.”

A long-drawn-out, silent, tense period of time ensued. When what seemed intolerable slowness the silent Callow was gingerly lowered, several men holding on to each of the top ropes that were attached to his ankles. Fanny clenched her hands, thinking, first, of the dreadfulness of being hung upside down in a well, and second!—a thought which she tried to banish—of how desperate the case must be if Callow could
not
reach the baby.

“I hope that poor fellow may be pardoned for whatever crime he has committed,” she murmured in a low voice to Lord Egremont. “It is very brave of him to attempt the rescue.”

“Pardoned? No, my child, that would not be right,” Lord Egremont said kindly but briskly. “What he has done, he has done. However, as chief magistrate and lord lieutenant, I can see to it that his sentence is as light as possible. He stole a loaf, you know, from a bakery; bakers have to live as well as other people. But you can take Callow a basket of fruit in jail, if you wish to show your gratitude—the prisoners get meat, potatoes, bread, and buttermilk for their daily diet—I daresay they acquire a craving for green stuff.”

Callow, down the well, here let out a muffled guttural sound which the men holding the rope interpreted as a signal of qualified cheer.

“'E kicked twice, that means let down another couple o' feet,” said Daintrey.

“No, 'e kicked once, to signify lug 'er up a bit,” objected another man.

Daintrey overruled this man, and more rope was let out.

“Liz sent her love to you, by the by,” said Lord Egremont, kindly attempting to distract Fanny at this agitating moment. “She would have accompanied me, only she is laid up—has been, indeed, these ten days—with a putrid sore throat, and cannot leave her chamber. She would have asked you to visit her but feared to communicate the infection—Aha!”

Another, more promising signal from Callow had induced the men to begin cautiously hauling up on the ropes. Egremont went swiftly to the wellside.

“Handsomely now, my lads!—Not too fast, or you may jerk his hold—remember he grasps the child but with a pair of fire tongs—it would be easy to let go—and then all your work is for naught! Handsomely—imagine that you have the biggest carp in Burton Furnace Pond at the end of your line! Half a guinea to each of you if you bring him safe to land!”