Читать книгу The Coldstone - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Anthony went up the hill with the feeling of adventure strong in him. The Stones appeared to be the subject of some extraordinary taboo. Miss Agatha was round about seventy years of age; she had lived seventy odd years in this delightful, benighted, mediævally rustic spot—and she had never bothered to cross three fields and look at the Stones. Mrs. Hutchins had also lived here all her life—Miss Arabel had informed him that her father had been sexton for some vast number of years. The “Mrs.” was apparently in the nature of a brevet. She also had never troubled to climb these gently tilted fields. Going to see the Stones wasn’t done in Ford St. Mary; you didn’t go and see them, and you didn’t talk about them. The villagers entertained vain superstitions about them. Now he wondered a good deal whether Sir Jervis had not entertained them too.

He crossed the last field and came to an apparently impenetrable hedge. There was no pathway, and there was no stile; there was nothing you could climb over or under.

Anthony began to break a way through the hedge with the oddest sense of guilt. He had to go on reminding himself that it was his own hedge and his own field. He felt exactly as if he were eight years old, breaking into an orchard to steal plums. In the end he pushed his way through a tangle of sloe and thorn, and got clear of the hedge with a jagged tear in his coat and a scratch on the cheek from a blackberry trail. There was going to be a jolly good crop of blackberries here if the weather held. He disentangled another trail from his left ankle and looked about him.

The field was almost waist-high in flowering grass, hemlock and sorrel, with a few late moon-daisies and patches of purple thistle. The other fields had been mown, and had their second crop of grass drying off in the sun. It was scarcely knee-high. But this field had not been touched. Its hedges closed it in like prison walls. There was no way into it except the way that he had broken for himself.

He looked about him and saw the Stones, two of them, separated by almost the whole width of the field, the nearer one not twenty feet away, a tall, misshapen monolith of roughened grey stone stained with orange fungus. He walked up to it, wondering whether it had been one of a pair like the great uprights of Stonehenge. There was no sign of anything but this one pillar. He judged it to be about fifteen feet high, narrower than the stones at Stonehenge.

He cut across the field diagonally towards the other monolith. It did not seem to be quite so tall, and it leaned sideways a little, like the leaning tower of Pisa. The grass and the sorrel were up to his waist as he walked. Everything smelt very sweet. There was red clover amongst the grass, and camomile. The sun was going slowly down the hazy slope of the sky. Everything was very still, and hot, and sweet. The only sound was the swishing of the ripened grass as he pushed through it.

And then all of a sudden the grass came to an end and he saw the third Stone. It lay flat in a bare space. First the long grass ceased, then the short, sparse, weedy straggle. The Stone lay flat, and for a yard all round it there was not so much as a green blade.

Anthony came out on to the open place and looked down at the Stone. It was not quite so big as the others. It was wider, flatter. It was sunk, so that only a hand’s breadth of its worn grey sides showed above the earth. It looked as if it had been laid there. He wondered whether it had been laid there, or whether it had fallen hundreds of years ago. The place gave him a curious feeling.

He walked all round the Stone, and just as he came to the east side of it, he saw the marks upon its surface. The low sun caught a faint, worn tracery. Right in the middle of the Stone there was something that looked like interlaced triangles. It was very much rubbed and worn; two of the points were gone. But there it was. He wondered who had done it, and how long ago; and he wondered what it meant.

He looked up towards the other standing Stone, and saw a man’s face watching him. The Stone was up in the left-hand corner of the field, not half a dozen yards from the hedge. The man’s face looked out of the hedge. He must have forced his way into the middle of it and pushed his head between two branches of leafy elder, for only his head was visible—a head with smooth black hair, pale oval face, and black staring eyes. The eyes were fixed on Anthony, but the moment that Anthony’s own eyes met them the head vanished. One minute it was there, and the next minute it wasn’t there. It was all so very sudden that just for a moment Anthony wasn’t sure whether his imagination had been playing him tricks.

He pelted off up the field, reached the hedge, and parted the elder branches. There was no one there. There was nothing to be seen in the field beyond except some placidly cropping sheep. The grass was short, thanks to the sheep, but there were four hedges. Anthony was blowed if he was going to scramble through another thickset hedge to search for the gentleman with the staring eyes. He had a look at the standing Stone, and then walked back across the field to the gap he had made in the lower hedge.

As he walked, he couldn’t help thinking about the face. It was odd. Why was it odd? There wasn’t anything odd about it. Someone was having a look through the hedge—and why not? On the other hand, why? It wasn’t a village lad. Now how on earth could he be sure of that? He didn’t know. But he was sure. He began to produce reasons. The fellow had a sort of high-brow look, well brushed, well shaved. He kept seeing the pale oval face with the smooth lip and chin and the black hair brushed away from the pale high forehead. Well, anyone can look through a hedge. So they can—but they needn’t glare. This fellow had most undoubtedly glared. No, glared wasn’t really strong enough. “He looked as if I was poison—rank bad poison.” Very surprising to be looked at like that. Anthony gave it up.

He reached the gap he had made in the hedge, and received a second surprise. A girl in a blue cotton dress was standing in the gap, looking past him up the field. She must have heard him coming, but she did not move until he was within a yard. Then she let go of the thorny trail which she had pushed on one side and sprang back. He followed her. His visit to the Stones seemed to be attracting quite a lot of attention.

As he emerged from the hedge, he was aware of her, quite close. She wore a blue sun-bonnet that matched her dress; her skirts were a good deal longer than the skirts of the girls he knew. She held her hands together in front of her, as if she was shy. She bobbed a little curtsey and said in a breathless, pretty voice with a marked country accent.

“I’m sure I beg your pardon, sir.”

Anthony supposed that she was one of the girls from the village—his village. He wasn’t quite sure how he ought to talk to her. She was a pretty girl, and she looked fearfully shy, and as if she was afraid she had made a break of some kind. It was rather embarrassing.

He said, “Why should you beg my pardon?” and he smiled, because he always smiled when he felt shy.

The girl bent her head so that the wing of the blue sun-bonnet hid her face. He didn’t know village girls ever wore sun-bonnets now. They were awfully becoming.

He said, “Do you live here?”

“No,” said the pretty voice. There was a pause “I’m visiting my granny.” The head began to lift again. “I’ve heard tell of the Stones, and I wanted to see them.”

He found himself looking into a lovely pair of eyes. He had never seen any eyes quite like them. They were just the colour of sea water when it is rather green; they were blue, and yet not blue. They had a sparkle in them which he found hard to reconcile with her rustic shyness. The lashes were black, and fine, and soft.

Anthony removed his gaze with an effort. It was possible to do this because the black lashes had swept down suddenly and covered the sparkle.

“Haven’t you seen the Stones before?”

“No,” said the girl. Then quickly, “No, sir.”

“Do you want to go in and look at them?”

“No, sir—I’ll be getting back.”

They began to walk along side by side. Anthony felt rather worried about it. If they walked back together into Ford St. Mary, the whole village would probably talk—he hadn’t been brought up in a village for nothing. On the other hand, he didn’t want to be rude. She might think it most awfully rude if he turned back now. Besides, there was the fellow who had glared.

He had got as far as this, when the girl said,

“I’ll be getting back now.”

“Yes, of course,” said Anthony easily. “You—you’re visiting your grandmother, you said. Does she live in Ford St. Mary?”

“Yes, sir. You’re Mr. Colstone, sir, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I don’t know anyone in the village yet—I only came to-day. I expect I shall meet your grandmother. What is her name?”

“Mrs. Bowyer. And now I’ll be getting back, sir.”

What was she driving at? He suspected a convention of some sort.

“Yes—rather.”

The sun-bonnet hid the face rather suddenly. He felt a most uncommon ass. The girl stopped dead and spoke without looking at him:

“I’ll be getting along by myself, sir. Folks’ll talk if you walk with me, and Gran’ll be in a way.”

“Look here,” said Anthony, “that’s all right. But there was a man in the hedge just now, up at the top of the field where the Stones are. I didn’t like the look of him. That’s why I thought I had better walk with you.”

There was a quick lift of the blue sun-bonnet.

“A man?”

“In the hedge—staring at me.”

“What sort of a man?” A complete change had taken place in her manner; she spoke only just above her breath, yet with a certain force that pressed for an answer.

He found himself speaking as if to someone whom he knew well.

“Awfully odd sort of fellow. I couldn’t make out what he was up to.”

“What was he like?”

This wasn’t the embarrassed village girl he had been walking with. He looked at her in astonishment. He had thought her pretty, and gauche. She was self-possessed enough now, and it wouldn’t have occurred to him to call her pretty; the word didn’t seem to have anything to do with her. It suggests something commonplace, and there was nothing commonplace here. The lovely eyes looked out of an almost colourless face; the lips took an odd irregular curve.

He said, “Oh—queer—very pale—black hair and staring eyes. He looked as if he’d like to do me in.” He broke off with a short laugh. “That’s nonsense of course. But I thought I’d better see you across the fields.”

She looked away. He caught her profile. Her nose had a sort of ripple in it—rather nice. She walked on in silence to the edge of the field. Then she turned with downcast eyes and fingers catching at her dress.

“And now I’ll be getting along, thank you kindly all the same, sir.”