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Prelude To Adventure

<h2> CHAPTER VI — THE WATCHERS </h2> <h3> 1 </h3> He was running—running for his life. Behind stretched the long white road rising like a great bloated, warning finger out of the misty trees. Heavy cushions of grey cloud blotched the sky; through the mist ridges of ploughed field rose like bars. The dog, Bunker, was running beside him, his tongue out, body solid grey against the lighter, floating grey around. His feet pattered beside his master, but his body appeared to edge away and yet to be held by some compelling force. Olva was running, running. But not from Carfax. There in the wood it lay, the leg doubled under the body, the head hanging limply back. . . . But that was nought, no fear, no terror in that. It could not pursue, nor in its clumsy following, had it had such power, would there have been any horror. There was no sound in the world save his running and the patter of the dog's feet. Would the lights never come, those sullen streets and at last the grateful, welcome crowds? He could see one lamp, far ahead of him, flinging its light forward to help him. If he might only reach it before the pursuer caught him. Then, behind him, oh! so softly, so gently, with a dreadful certainty, it came. If he did but once look round, once behold that Shadow, his defeat was sure. He would sink down there upon the road, the mists would crowd upon him, and then the awful end. He began to call out, his breath came in staggering gasps, his feet faltered. "O, mercy, mercy—have mercy." He sank trembling to his knees. "Dune, Dune, wake up! What's the matter? You've been making the most awful shindy. Dune, Dune!" Slowly he came to himself. As his eyes caught the old familiar objects, the little diamond-paned window, the books, the smiling tenderness of "Aegidius," the last evening blaze lighting the room with golden splendour, he pulled himself together. He had been sitting, he remembered now, in the armchair by the fire. Craven had come to tea. They had had their meal, had talked pleasantly enough, and then Olva had felt this overpowering desire for sleep come down upon him. He knew the sensation of it well enough by now, for his nights had often been crowded with waking hours, and this drowsiness would attack him at any time—in hall, in chapel, in lecture. Sometimes he had struggled against it, but to-day it had been too strong for him. Craven's voice had grown fainter and fainter, the room had filled with mist. He had made one desperate struggle, had seen through his hall-closed eyes that Craven was looking at a magazine and blowing, lazily, clouds of smoke from his pipe . . . then he had known no more. Now, as he struggled to himself, he saw that Craven was standing over him, shaking him by the arm. "Hullo," he said stupidly, "I'm afraid I must have dropped off. I'm afraid you must have thought me most frightfully rude." Craven left him and went back to his chair. "No," he said, "that's all right—only you did talk in the most extraordinary way." "Did I?" Olva looked at him gravely. "What did I say?" "Oh—I don't know—only you shouted a lot. You're overdone, aren't you? Been working too hard I expect." Then he added, slowly, "You were crying out about Carfax." There was a long pause. The clock ticked, the light slowly faded, leaving the room in shadow. Craven's voice was uncomfortable. He said at last— "You must have been thinking a lot about Carfax lately." "What did I say?" asked Olva again. "Oh, nothing." Craven turned his eyes away to the shadowy panes. "You were dreaming about a road—and something about a wood . . . and a matchbox." "I've been sleeping badly." Olva got up, filled his pipe and relit it. "I expect, although we don't say much about it, the Carfax business has got on all our nerves. You don't look yourself, Craven." He didn't. His careless, happy look had left him. Increasingly, every day, Olva seemed to see in him a likeness to his mother and sister. The eyes now were darker, the tines of the mouth were harder. Meanwhile so strong bad the dream's impression been that Olva could not yet disentangle it from his waking thoughts. He was in his room and yet the white road stretched out of it—somewhere there by the bookcase—oil through the mist into the heart of the dark wood. He had welcomed during these last days Craven's advances towards friendship, partly because he wanted friends now, and partly, he was beginning now to recognize, there was, in the back of his mind, the lingering memory of the kind eyes of Margaret Craven. He perceived, too, that here was sign enough of change in him—that he who had, from his earliest days, held himself proudly, sternly aloof from all human companionship save that of his father, should now, so readily and eagerly, greet it. Craven had been proud of him, eager to be with him, and had shown, in his artless opinions of men and things, the simplest, most innocent of characters. "Time to light up," said Olva. The room had grown very dark. "I must be going." Olva noticed at once that there was a new note in Craven's voice. The boy moved, restlessly, about the room. "I say," he brought out at last, laughing nervously, "don't go asleep when I'm in the room again. It gives one fits." Both men were conscious of some subtle, vague impression moving in the darkness between them. Olva answered gravely, "I've been sticking in at an old paper I've been working on—no use to anybody, and I've been neglecting my proper work for it, but it's absorbed me. That's what's given me such bad nights, I expect." "I shouldn't have thought," Craven answered slowly, "that anything ever upset you; I shouldn't have thought you had any nerves. And, in any case, I didn't know you had thought twice about the Carfax business." Olva turned on the electric light. At the same moment there was a loud knock on the door. Craven opened it, showing in the doorway a pale and flustered Bunning. Craven looked at him with a surprised stare, and then, calling out good-bye to Olva, walked off. Bunning stood hesitating, his great spectacles shining owl-like in the light. Dune didn't want him. He was, he reflected as he looked at him, the very last person whom he did want. And then Bunning had most irritating habits. There was that trick of his of pushing up his spectacles nervously higher on to his nose. He bad a silly shrill laugh, and he had that lack of tact that made him, when you had given him a shilling's worth of conversation and confidence, suppose that you had given him half-a-crown's worth and expect that you would very shortly give him five shillings' worth. He presumed on nothing at all, was confidential when he ought to have been silent, and gushing when he should simply have thanked you with a smile. Nothing, moreover, to look at. He had the kind of complexion that looks as though it would break into spots at the earliest opportunity. His clothes fitted him badly and were dusty at the knees; his hair was of no colour nor strength whatever, and he bit his nails. His eyes behind his spectacles were watery and restless, and his linen always looked as though it had been quite clean yesterday and would be quite filthy to-morrow. And yet Olva, as he looked at him seated awkwardly in a chair, was surprisingly, unexpectedly touched. The creature was so obviously sincere. It was indeed poor Bunning's only possible "leg," his ardour. He would willingly go to the stake for anything. It was the actual death and sacrifice that mattered—-and Bunning's life was spent in marching, magnificently and wholeheartedly, to the sacrificial altars and then discovering that he had simply been asked to tea. Now it was evident that he wanted something from Olva. His tremulous eyes bad, as they gazed at Dune across the room, the dumb worship of a dog adoring its master. "I hear," he said in that husky voice that always sounded as though he were just swallowing the last crumbs of a piece of toast, "that you stopped Cardillac and the others coming round to my rooms the other night. I can't tell you how I feel about it." "Rot," said Olva brusquely. "If you were less of an ass they wouldn't want to come round to your rooms so often." "I know," said Bunning. "I am an awful ass." He pushed his spectacles up his nose. "Why did you stop them coming?" he asked. "Simply," said Olva, "because it seems to me that ten men on to one is a rotten poor game." "I don't know," said Bunning, still very husky, "If a man's a fool he gets rotted. That's natural enough. I've always been rotted all my life. I used to think it was because people didn't understand me—now I know that it really is because I am an ass." Strangely, suddenly, some of the burden that bad been upon Olva now for so long was lifted. The atmosphere of the room that had lain upon him so heavily was lighter—and he seemed to feel the gentle withdrawing of that pursuit that now, ever, night and day, sounded in his ears. And what, above all, had happened to him? He flung his mind back to a month ago. With what scorn then would he have glanced at Bunning's ugly body—with what impatience have listened to his pitiful confessions. Now he said gently— "Tell me about yourself." Bunning gulped and gripped the baggy knees of his trousers. "I'm very unhappy," he said at last desperately—"very. And if you hadn't come with me the other night to hear Med-Tetloe—I'm sure I don't know why you did—I shouldn't have come now—-" "Well, what's the matter?" Bunning's mouth was full of toast. "It was that night—that service. I was very worked up and I went round afterwards to speak to him. I could see, you know, that it hadn't touched you at all. I could see that, and then when I went round to see him he hadn't got anything to say—nothing that I wanted—and—suddenly—then—at that moment—I felt it was all no good. It was you, you made me feel like that—-" <h3> "I?" </h3> "Yes. If you hadn't gone—like that—it would have been different. But when you—the last man in College to care about it-went and gave it its chance I thought that would prove it. And then when I went to him he was so silly, Med-Tetloe I mean. Oh! I can't describe it but it was just no use and I began to feel that it was all no good. I don't believe there is a God at all—it's all been wrong—I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. I've been wretched for days, not sleeping or anything. And then they come and rag me—and—and—the Union men want me to take Cards round for a Prayer Meeting—and—and—I wouldn't, and they said. . . . Oh! I don't know, I don't know what to do—I haven't got any-thing left!" And here, to Olva's intense dismay, the wretched creature burst into the most passionate and desperate tears, putting his great hands over his face, his whole body sobbing. It was desolation—the desolation of a human being who had clutched desperately at hope after hope, who had demanded urgently that he should be given something to live for and had had all things snatched from his hands. Olva, knowing what his own loneliness was, and the terror of it, understood. A fortnight ago he would have hated the scene, have sent Bunning, with a cutting word, flying from the room, never to return. "I say, Bunning, you mustn't carry on like this—you're overdone or something. Besides, I don't understand. What does it matter if you have grown to distrust Med-Tetloe and all that crowd. They aren't the only people in the world—that isn't the only sort of religion." "It's all I had. I haven't got anything now. They don't want me at home. They don't want me here. I'm not clever. I can't do anything. . . . And now God's gone. . . . I think I'll drown myself." "Nonsense. You mustn't talk like that—God's never gone." Bunning dropped his hands, looked up, his face ridiculous with its tear-stains. "You think there's a God?" "I know there's a God." "Oh!" Bunning sighed. "But you mustn't take it from me, you know. You must think it out for yourself. Everybody has to." "Yes—but you matter—more to me than—any one." <h3> "I?" </h3> "Yes." Bunning looked at the floor and began to speak very fast. "You've always seemed to me wonderful—so different from every one else. You always looked—so wonderful. I've always been like that, wanted my hero, and I haven't generally been able to speak to them—my heroes I mean. I never thought, of course, that I should speak to you. And then they sent me that day to you, and you came with me—it was so wonderful—I've thought of nothing else since. I don't think God would matter if you'd only let me come to see you sometimes and talk to you—like this." "Don't talk that sort of rot. Always glad to see you. Of course you may come in and talk if you wish." "Oh! you're so different—from what I thought. You always looked as though you despised everybody—and now you look—Oh! I don't know—but I'm afraid of you—-" The wretched Bunning was swiftly regaining confidence. He was now, of course, about to plunge a great deal farther than was necessary and to burden Olva with sell-revelations and the rest. Olva hurriedly broke in— "Well, come and see me when you want to. I've got a lot of work to do before Hall. But we'll go for a walk one day. . . ." Bunning was at once flung back on to his timid self. He pushed his spectacles back, blushed, nearly tumbled over his chair as he got up, and backed confusedly out of the room. He tried to say something at the door—"I can't thank you enough. . ." he stuttered and was gone. As the door closed behind him, swiftly Olva was conscious again of the Pursuit. . . . He turned to the empty room—"Leave me alone," he whispered. "For pity's sake leave me alone." The silence that followed was filled with insistent, mysterious urgency. <h3> 2 </h3> Craven did not come that night to Hall. Galleon had asked him and Olva to breakfast-the next morning. He did not appear. About two o'clock in the afternoon a note was sent round to Olva's rooms. "I've been rather seedy. Just out for a long walk—do you mind my taking Bunker? Send word round to my rooms if you mind.—R. C." Craven had taken Bunker out for walks before and had grown fond of the dog. There was nothing in that. But Olva, as he stood in the middle of his room with the note in his hand, was frightened. The result of it was that about five o'clock on that afternoon Olva paid his second visit to the dark house in Rocket Road. His motives for going were confused, but he knew that at the back of them was a desire that he should find Margaret Craven, with her grave eyes, waiting for him in the musty little drawing-room, and that Mrs. Craven, that mysterious woman, should not be there. The hall, when the old servant had admitted him, once again seemed to enfold him in its darkness and heavy air with an almost active purpose. It breathed with an actual sound, almost with a melody . . . the "Valse Triste" of Sibelius, a favourite with Olva, seemed to him now to be humming its thin spiral note amongst the skins and Chinese weapons that covered the walls. The House seemed to come forward, on this second occasion, actively, personally. . . . His wish was gratified. Margaret Craven was alone in the dark, low-ceilinged drawing-room, standing, in her black dress, before the great deep fireplace, as though she had known that he would come and had been awaiting his arrival. "I know that you will excuse my mother," she said in her grave, quiet voice. "She is not very well. She will be sorry not to have seen you." Her hand was cool and strong, and, as he held it for an instant, he was strangely conscious that she, as well as the House, had moved into more intimate relation with him since their last meeting. They sat down and talked quietly, their voices sounding like low notes of music in the heavy room. He was conscious of rest in the repose of her figure, the pale outline of her face, the even voice, and above all the grave tenderness of her eyes. He was aware, too, that she was demanding from him something of the same kind; he divined that for her, too, life had been no easy thing since they last met and that she wanted now a little relief before she must return. He tried to give it her. All through their conversation he was still conscious in the dim rustle that any breeze made in the room of that thin melody that Sibelius once heard. . . . "I hope that Mrs. Craven is not seriously ill? "No. It is one of her headaches. Her nerves are very easily upset. There was a thunder-storm last night. . . . She has never been strong since father died." "You will tell her how sorry I am." "Thank you. She is wonderfully brave about it. She never complains—she suffers more than we know, I think. I don't think this house is good for her. Father died here and her bedroom now is the room where he died. That is not good for her, I'm sure. Rupert and I both are agreed about it, but we cannot get her to change her mind. She can be very determined." Yes—Olva, remembering her as she sat so sternly before the fire, knew that she could be determined. "And I am afraid that your brother isn't very well either." She looked at him with troubled eyes. "I am distressed about Rupert. He has taken this death of his friend so terribly to heart. I have never known him morbid about anything before. It is really strange because I don't think he was greatly attached to Mr. Carfax. There were things I know that he didn't like." "Yes. He doesn't look the kind of fellow who would let his mind dwell on things. He looks too healthy." "No. He came in to see us for an hour last night and sat there without a word. I played to him—he seemed not to hear it. And generally he cares for music." "I'm afraid"—their eyes met and Olva held hers until he had finished his sentence—"I'm afraid that it must seem a little lonely and gloomy for you here—in this house—after your years abroad." She looked away from him into the fire. "Yes," she said, speaking with sudden intensity. "I hate it. I have hated it always—this house, Cambridge, the life we lead here. I love my mother, but since I have been abroad something has happened to change her. There is no confidence between us now. And it is lonely because she speaks so little—I am afraid she is really very ill, but she refuses to see a doctor. . . ." Then her voice was softer again, and she leant forward a little towards him. "And I have told you this, Mr. Dune, because if you will you can help me—all of us. Do you know that she liked you immensely the other even big? I have never known her take to any one at once, so strongly. She told me afterwards that you had done her more good than fifty doctors—just your being there—so that if, sometimes, you could come and see her——" He did not know what it was that suddenly, at her words, brought the terror back to him. He saw Mrs. Craven so upright, so motionless, looking at him across the room—with recognition, with some implied claim. Why, he had spoken scarcely ten words to her. How could he possibly have been of any use to her? And then, afraid lest his momentary pause had been noticeable, he said eagerly—- "It is very kind of Mrs. Craven to say that. Of course I will come if she really cares about it. I am not a man of many friends or many occupations. . . ." She broke in upon him— "You could be if you cared. I know, because Rupert has told me. They all think you wonderful, but you don't care. Don't throw away friends, Mr. Dune—one can be so lonely without them." Her voice shook a little and he was suddenly afraid that she was going to cry. He bent towards her. "I think, perhaps, we are alike in that, Miss Craven. We do not make our friends easily, but they mean a great deal to us when they come. Yes, I am lonely and I am a little tired of bearing my worries alone, in silence. Perhaps I can help you to stand this life a little better if I tell you that—mine is every bit as hard." She turned to him eyes that were filled with gratitude. Her whole body seemed to be touched with some new glow. Into the heart of their consciousness of the situation that had arisen between them there came, sharply, the sound of a shutting door. Then steps in the hall. "That's Rupert," she said. They both rose as he came into the room. He stood back in the shadow for a moment as though surprised at Olva's presence. Then he came forward very gravely. "I've found something of yours, Dune," he said. It lay, gleaming, in his hand. "Your matchbox." Dune drew a sharp breath. Then he took it and looked at it. "Where did you find it?" "In Saunet Wood. Bunker and I have been for a walk there. Bunker found it." As the three of them stood there, motionless, in the middle of the dark room, Olva caught, through the open door, the last sad fading breath of the "Valse Triste." <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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