The Dark House. I. A. R. Wylie

drew away a little, her face between her hands, and he felt that somehow he had failed again—that she had slipped through his fingers. If only for a moment she had looked up to him and believed in him the evil spirit that was climbing up on to his shoulders would have fled away. There was a stout piece of stick lying amidst the rubble at his feet, and he took it up and felt it as a swordsman tests his blade.

      "I'm going to be a doctor too," he said truculently. "A big doctor. I shall make piles of money, and have three ass-assistants. P'r'aps, if you're any good you shall be one of them."

      She did not answer. The intent, observing look had come into her eyes. The cool wind lifted the brown hair so that it was like a live thing floating about her head. She seemed as lovely to him as his mother. He wanted terribly to say to her, "It's my birthday, Francey, and they haven't even wished me many happy returns;" but that would have shown her how little he was, and how unhappy. Instead, he began to lunge and parry with an invisible opponent, talking in a loud, fierce voice.

      "I wish the others would come. I've got a topping plan. Edith goes shopping 'bout six o'clock when it's almost dark. We'll wait at the corner of John Street and jump out at her and shriek like Red Indians. And then she'll drop dead with fright. She's such a silly beast——"

      Then to his amazement he saw that Francey had grown quite white. Her mouth quivered. It was as though she were going to cry. And he had never seen her cry.

      "They—they aren't coming, Robert."

      "N-not coming? W-why not?"

      "There's been a row. Someone complained. Their people won't let them come any more. Not to play with you. They say—they say——"

      He went on fighting, swinging his sword, over his head, faster and faster. Someone was pressing his heart so that he could hardly breathe. It was all over. They knew. Everything was going. Finished.

      "What do they say?"

      "They say you're not a nice little boy——"

      There were some tall weeds growing out of the tumbled bricks. He slashed at them through the mist that was blinding him. He would cut their heads off, one after another—just to show her.

      "I don't care—I don't care——"

      "That's why I waited this afternoon. I wanted to tell you. And that

       I'd come—if you liked—sometimes—as often as I could——"

      "I don't care—I don't care," he chanted.

      One weed had fallen, cut in two as by a razor. Now another. You had to be jolly strong to break them clean off like that. He wasn't missing once.

      "Don't!"

      "I shall. Why shouldn't I? You couldn't do it like that."

      Another. No one to play with any more. Never to be able to pretend again that one was just like everyone else. People drawing away and saying to each other, "He's not a nice little boy!"

      "Please—please, don't, Robert!"

      "Why not? They're only weeds—beastly, ugly things."

      "They've not done you any harm. It's a shame to hurt them. I like them."

      "They're no good. It's practice. I'm a soldier. I'm cutting the enemy to pieces."

      A red rage was mounting in him. He hardly knew that she had stood up until he saw her face gleaming at him through the mist. She was whiter than ever, and her eyes had lost their distant look and blazed with an anger profounder, more deadly, than his own.

      "You shan't!"

      "Shan't I?"

      She caught the descending stick. He tried to tear it from her, and they fought each other almost in silence, except for the sound of their quick, painful breath. He grew frantic, twisting and writhing. He began to curse her as his father cursed Christine. But her slim brown wrists were like steel. And suddenly, looking into her eyes he saw that she wasn't angry now. She knew that she was stronger than he. She was just sorry for him, for everything.

      He dropped the stick. He turned on his heel, gulping hard.

      "I don't fight with girls," he said.

      He walked away steadily with his head up. He did not once look back at her. But as he climbed the hill he seemed to himself to grow smaller and smaller, more and more tired and lonely. He had lost her. He would never play with her again. The Brothers Banditti had gone each to his home. They sat by the fireside with their people, and were nice children. To-morrow they would play just as though nothing had happened. And Francey would be there, dancing in and out——

      He stumbled a little. The hiccoughs were definitely sobs, hard-drawn, shaking him from head to foot. It was his birthday. And at the bottom of the hill, hidden in evening mist, the big dark house waited for him.

      4

      There was light showing in the dining-room window, so that he knew his father had come home. At that all his sorrow and sense of a grievous wrong done to him was swallowed up in abject physical terror. Even later in life, when things had shrunk into reasonable proportions, it was difficult for him to see his father as others had seen him, as an unhappy not unlovable man, gifted with an erratic genius which had been perverted into an amazing facility for living on other people's money, and cursed with the temper of a maniac. To Robert Stonehouse his father was from first to last the personification of nightmare.

      He stood now in the deep shadow of the porch, trying to make up his mind to ring the bell. His legs and arms had become ice-cold and refused to move. There did not seem to be anything alive in him except his heart, which was beating all over him, in his throat and head and body, with a hundred terrible little hammers. He thought of the Prince in the story which Christine had read aloud to him. The Prince, who was a fine and dashing fellow, had gone straight to the black enchanted cave where the dragon lived, and had thumped on the door with the hilt of his gold sword and shouted: "Open, Sesame!" And when the door opened, he had gone straight in, without turning a hair, and slain the dragon and rescued the Princess.

      Somehow the story did not make him braver. He had no sword, and his clothes were not of the finest silk threaded with gold. He was a small boy in a patched sailor-suit, with a bandage round his head and a dirty face—cold, hungry and buffeted by a day of storms. He wished he could stay there in the shadow until he died, and never have to fight anyone again, or screw himself to face his father, or live through any more rows. But it seemed you didn't die just because you wanted to. All that happened was that you grew colder and more miserable, knowing that the row would be a great deal worse when it came. Goaded by this reasoning, he crept down the area steps to the back door which, by a merciful chance, had been left unlocked, and made his way on tiptoe along the dark stone passage to the kitchen.

      It was a servantless period. But there was a light in the servants' living-room, and the red comforting glow of a fire. The bailiff lived there. Robert could hear him shuffling his feet in the fender, and sniffing and clearing his throat as though the silence bothered him, and he were trying to make himself at home. For a moment Robert longed to go in and sit beside him, not saying anything, but just basking in the quiet warmth, protected by the presence of the Law which seemed so astonishingly tolerant in the matter of the Stonehouse shortcomings. For the bailiff was a good-natured man. He had endeavoured to make it clear to Robert from the beginning, by means of sundry winks and smiles, that he understood the whole situation, which was one in which any gentleman might find himself, and that he meant to act like a friend. But Robert had only scowled at him. And even now, frightened as he was, he disdained all parley. The bailiff was an enemy, and when it came to a fight the Stonehouse family stood shoulder to shoulder. So he crept past the cheerful light like a hunted mouse, and up the stairs to the green-baize door, which shut off the kitchen from the library and dining-room.

      It was an important door. Dr. Stonehouse had had it made specially to muffle sounds from the servants' quarters whilst he was working. He had never worked, and there had been very rarely any servants to disturb him, but the door