‘I suppose you caught it in the Tropics?’
Theodoric, whose acquaintance with the Tropics was limited to an annual present of a chest of tea from an uncle in Ceylon, felt that even the malaria was slipping from him. Would it be possible, he wondered, to disclose the real state of affairs to her in small instalments?
‘Are you afraid of mice?’ he ventured, growing if possible, more scarlet in the face.
‘Not unless they came in quantities, like those that ate up Bishop Hatto. Why do you ask?’
‘I had one crawling inside my clothes just now,’ said Theodoric in a voice that hardly seemed his own. ‘It was a most awkward situation.’
‘It must have been, if you wear your clothes at all tight,’ she observed; ‘but mice have strange ideas of comfort.’
‘I had to get rid of it while you were asleep,’ he continued; then, with a gulp, he added, ‘it was getting rid of it that brought me to◦– to this.’
‘Surely leaving off one small mouse wouldn’t bring on a chill,’ she exclaimed, with a levity that Theodoric accounted abominable.
Evidently she had detected something of his predicament, and was enjoying his confusion. All the blood in his body seemed to have mobilised in one concentrated blush, and an agony of abasement, worse than a myriad mice, crept up and down over his soul. And then, as reflection began to assert itself, sheer terror took the place of humiliation. With every minute that passed the train was rushing nearer to the crowded and bustling terminus where dozens of prying eyes would be exchanged for the one paralysing pair that watched him from the further corner of the carriage. There was one slender despairing chance, which the next few minutes must decide. His fellow-traveller might relapse into a blessed slumber. But as the minutes throbbed by that chance ebbed away. The furtive glance which Theodoric stole at her from time to time disclosed only an unwinking wakefulness.
‘I think we must be getting near now,’ she presently observed.
Theodoric had already noted with growing terror the recurring stacks of small, ugly dwellings that heralded the journey’s end. The words acted as a signal. Like a hunted beast breaking cover and dashing madly towards some other haven of momentary safety he threw aside his rug, and struggled frantically into his dishevelled garments. He was conscious of dull suburban stations racing past the window, of a choking, hammering sensation in his throat and heart, and of an icy silence in that corner towards which he dared not look. Then as he sank back in his seat, clothed and almost delirious, the train slowed down to a final crawl, and the woman spoke.
‘Would you be so kind,’ she asked, ‘as to get me a porter to put me into a cab? It’s a shame to trouble you when you’re feeling unwell, but being blind makes one so helpless at a railway station.’
THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVIS
First collected in 1911
To the Lynx Kitten,
With His Reluctantly Given Consent,
This Book is Affectionately
Dedicated
H. H. M.
August, 1911
Esmé
‘All hunting stories are the same,’ said Clovis; ‘just as all Turf stories are the same, and all–’
‘My hunting story isn’t a bit like any you’ve ever heard,’ said the Baroness. ‘It happened quite a while ago, when I was about twenty-three. I wasn’t living apart from my husband then; you see, neither of us could afford to make the other a separate allowance. In spite of everything that proverbs may say, poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up. But we always hunted with different packs. All this has nothing to do with the story.’
‘We haven’t arrived at the meet yet. I suppose there was a meet,’ said Clovis.
‘Of course there was a meet,’ said the Baroness; ‘all the usual crowd were there, especially Constance Broddle. Constance is one of those strapping florid girls that go so well with autumn scenery or Christmas decorations in church. “I feel a presentiment that something dreadful is going to happen,” she said to me; “am I looking pale?”
‘She was looking about as pale as a beetroot that has suddenly heard bad news.
‘“You’re looking nicer than usual,” I said, “but that’s so easy for you.” Before she had got the right bearings of this remark we had settled down to business; hounds had found a fox lying out in some gorse-bushes.’
‘I knew it,’ said Clovis; ‘in every fox-hunting story that I’ve ever heard there’s been a fox and some gorse-bushes.’
‘Constance and I were well mounted,’ continued the Baroness serenely, ‘and we had no difficulty in keeping ourselves in the first flight, though it was a fairly stiff run. Towards the finish, however we must have held rather too independent a line, for we lost the hounds, and found ourselves plodding aimlessly along miles away from anywhere. It was fairly exasperating, and my temper was beginning to let itself go by inches, when on pushing our way through an accommodating hedge we were gladdened by the sight of hounds in full cry in a hollow just beneath us.
‘“There they go,” cried Constance, and then added in a gasp, “In Heaven’s name, what are they hunting?”
‘It was certainly no mortal fox. It stood more than twice as high, had a short, ugly head and an enormous thick neck.
‘“It’s a hyæna,” I cried; “it must have escaped from Lord Pabham’s Park.”
‘At that moment the hunted beast turned and faced its pursuers and the hounds (there were only about six couple of them) stood round in a half-circle and looked foolish. Evidently they had broken away from the rest of the pack on the trail of this alien scent, and were not quite sure how to treat their quarry now they had got him.
‘The hyæna hailed our approach with unmistakable relief and demonstrations of friendliness. It had probably been accustomed to uniform kindness from humans, while its first experience of a pack of hounds had left a bad impression. The hounds looked more than ever embarrassed as their quarry paraded its sudden intimacy with us, and the faint toot of a horn in the distance was seized upon as a welcome signal for unobtrusive departure. Constance and I and the hyæna were left alone in the gathering twilight.
‘“What are we to do?” asked Constance.
‘“What a person you are for questions,” I said.
‘“Well, we can’t stay here all night with a hyæna,” she retorted.
‘“I don’t know what your ideas of comfort are,” I said; “but I shouldn’t think of staying here all night even without a hyæna. My home may be an unhappy one, but at least it has hot and cold water laid on, and domestic service, and other conveniences which we shouldn’t find here. We had better make for that ridge of trees to the right; I imagine the Crowley road is just beyond.”
‘We trotted off slowly along a faintly marked cart-track, with the beast following cheerfully at our heels.
‘“What on earth are we to do with the hyæna?” came the inevitable question.
‘“What does one generally do with hyænas?” I asked crossly.
‘“I’ve never had anything to do with one before,” said Constance.
‘“Well, neither have I. If we even knew its sex we might give it a name. Perhaps we might call it Esmé. That would do in either case.”
‘There was still sufficient daylight for us to distinguish wayside objects, and our listless spirits gave an upward perk as we came upon a small half-naked gipsy brat picking blackberries from a low-growing bush. The sudden apparition of two horsewomen and a hyæna set it off crying, and in any case we should scarcely have gleaned any useful geographical information from that source; but there was a probability that we might strike a gipsy encampment somewhere along our route. We rode on hopefully but uneventfully for another mile or so.