Changing Winds Part 95

"Extraordinarily still," he answered.

There was no one in the village street and there were no lights s.h.i.+ning from any of the windows, except from the bedroom of a cottage near the sea.

"They've all gone to bed very early, haven't they?" he said, glancing about the deserted street.

"But it isn't early, Quinny," she replied. "It's quite late. It must be nearly ten o'clock. We had dinner much later to-night because your train was so long in getting in!"

"Well, they're missing a gorgeous night, all of them," he exclaimed, holding her tightly.

They walked to the fisherman's shelter and stood against the iron rail on top of the low cliff. The moon had made a broad path of golden light across the bay, from the s.h.i.+ngle to the pinnacle on the nearer of the two headlands, and they could see the golden water flowing through the hole in the cliff.

"I'd love to bathe now," Mary said. "I'd love to swim all along that splash of moonlight to the caves and back again...."

A belated sea-gull cried wearily overhead and then flew off to its nest in the cliffs.

"The water's awfully black looking outside the moonlight," Henry exclaimed.

"Ummm!" she answered.

They s.h.i.+vered a little in the cold air, and instinctively they drew closer to each other. Beneath them, lying high on the s.h.i.+ngle, were the trawlers, lying ready for the morning when the fishermen would push them down into the sea.

"Tom Yeo and Jim Rattenbury are going to have a motor put into their trawler," Mary said. "It'll make a lot of difference to them. They'll be able to go out even when there isn't any wind."

Henry did not answer. He had a strange sense of fear that was inexplicable to him. He seemed to be outside himself, outside his own fear, looking on at it and wondering what had caused it. He felt as if something were pulling at him, trying to force him to look round ... and he was afraid to look round.... He shuddered violently.

"Are you cold, Quinny?" Mary said anxiously, turning to him.

"Yes," he answered quickly, wis.h.i.+ng to account for his sudden s.h.i.+vering in a way that would not alarm her. "We'd better go back!..."

What was the matter? Why was he so suddenly afraid and so strangely afraid? If it had been dark, very dark, and he had been alone ... but it was bright moonlight ... so bright that one could almost see to read ...

and Mary was with him ... and yet he was afraid to look round at the White Cliff. Something inside him, apart from him, seemed to feel that if he looked up the long steep path over the White Cliff ... _he would see something_.

"Come on, Mary!" he said, turning to go, and turning in such a way that he could not see the Cliff.

They walked rapidly up the street.... "That'll warm me," he explained to Mary ... and as he walked, he was afraid to look back.

"What the devil's the matter with me?" he kept saying to himself until they reached the end of the lane leading to the Manor.

"You're walking too quickly, Quinny!" Mary said, holding back.

"I'm sorry, dear," he exclaimed, slackening his pace reluctantly.

He had never had this sensation before ... as if a fear had been stuck on to him, a fear that was not part of his nature, a thing outside him trying to get inside him.... He forgot that Mary had complained of the rapidity with which he was walking, and he set off again. The pine trees had a black, ominous look, and the sound of the wind blowing through their needles was like continuous moaning.

"Are you trying to win a race, Quinny?" Mary said.

He laughed nervously. "No. I'm ... I'm sorry!..."

As they pa.s.sed the copse, he shut his eyes, and so he stumbled over the rough ground and almost fell.

"What is it, Quinny?" Mary demanded, catching hold of him.

"It's nothing," he said. "I'm tired, that's all...."

7

He shut the door behind him quickly, and fastened the bolts. Mary had gone into the drawing-room, and when he had secured the door, he followed her.

"Mother's gone to bed," she said, and then, going to him and putting her hands on his shoulder, she added, "What is it, Quinny? Something's upset you. I know it has!"

He looked at her for a few moments without speaking.

"Tell me, please!" she insisted.

He put his arm about her and led her to the armchair by the fire, and when she was seated, he sat down on the floor beside her.

"I didn't want to tell you until we got home," he said. "I didn't want to frighten you...."

"What was it? Was there anything there?..."

"I don't know what it was, Mary, but I suddenly felt frightened ... a queer kind of fright. I was afraid to look round for fear I should see something ... I don't know what ... on the cliff. I felt that something wanted me to look round, and I wouldn't. I didn't dare to look round.

All the way up the street, I felt that something wanted me to look round.... I'm not afraid now!"

"How queer," she said in a low voice.

"I've never felt anything like it before ... half afraid and half not afraid!..."

He began to talk about Mullally. "He's a toad, that fellow," he said, "an ... an enlarged toad!"

"I'm going to bed," she interrupted. "Good-night, Quinny!"

She bent her face to his.

"Good-night, my dear!" he said, kissing her fondly.

8

Three days later, when he had almost forgotten his fright on the cliffs, he went down to the village to get the morning papers.

"What's the news," he said to one of the villagers whom he met on the way.

"'Bout the same, sir. Don't seem to be much 'appenin' at present," the man replied.

He went on to the news agency and got the papers, and then, hastily glancing at the headlines for the more obvious news, he tucked the papers under his arm and went slowly back to the Manor by another road than the one by which he had come into the village. There was a field with a hollow where one could lie in shelter and see the whole of the bay and the eastern cliffs in one direction, and the Axe Valley in another, and here he sat for a while, smoking and reading and now and then trying to follow the tortuous windings of the Axe as it came down the marsh to the sea.

"If Ninian were here," he said to himself, "he'd start making plans to straighten it out!..."