CHAPTER III
Midsummer Madness
I
THE night was hot. Felicity Broome, tossing on her small single bed at the Vicarage, found sleep an impossibility. She counted imaginary sheep, she thought over the events of the day, she played an imaginary set of tennis, she visualized the top of her dressing-table and recalled to mind which aunt had presented her with each of the pretty but inexpensive adjuncts which reposed on it, and upon what festival, anniversary, or occasion she received the gift – but all was to no purpose. Hot and wide-awake she remained. She flung off first the coverlet and then the sheet. She sat up. She seized the pillows and banged and punched them. She lay down again. The pillows still felt as though they were filled with lumps of wood instead of soft down feathers. Felicity groaned and flung her slim body restlessly about.
A car went by along the main road. Somewhere in the house a man was talking interminably. Her father, she knew. The vicar seldom retired to bed before twelve.
A bat flew into the room, fluttered uncertainly round in a jerky, frightened fashion, and flew out again. Somewhere an owl was calling. Two men went by, their heavy boots ringing sharply on the road.
There was no moon, but through the wide-open uncurtained window she could see the stars clustered gemlike, remote and shining, in the clear night sky. Felicity slid out of bed and walked to the window. She leaned out into the glimmering faëry darkness.
Away to the left lay the thickly wooded park of the Manor House. The trees were like a drifting cloud, felt rather than seen. Mysteriously attractive they loomed, shadowy, awesome, and inviting.
Felicity ran a comb through her short dark hair; soft and shining was her hair, like silk. She gave it a toss to settle it into place, then she pulled on a pair of rubber-soled gymnasium-shoes, tightened the string of her pyjama trousers, thrust her arms into the sleeves of her old school blazer, and climbed cat-like down the porch on to the Vicarage flower-bed.
Her father’s study was at the side of the house. Felicity was thankful for this. She felt instinctively that, broadminded as the vicar undoubtedly was, he could scarcely be expected to approve of his motherless daughter’s present walking costume. Felicity slipped noiselessly across the lawn, vaulted the low stone wall which separated the Vicarage garden from the churchyard, and flitted like some slim, entrancing ghost in and out among the gleaming tombstones. She reached the ancient lych-gate, climbed profanely over it, and dropped down into the road. This was a mere sandy Jane which acted as tributary to the main Bossbury-London thoroughfare, which ran clean through the centre of Wandles Parva village.
Around her and above her head, beneath her feet, before her and behind, were all the scents and sounds and silence of night. Felicity breathed them in – breathed long and deeply. The firm, long, winding road, the quiet hedgerows, filled her with nameless joy. She longed to travel in their company to the world’s end and into the fields of asphodel that grace the heaven of youth.
The main road was deserted. Not even a car passed by. The lights of the village were out. The village itself lay behind her. Beyond was ecstasy. The solitude itself was adventure.
Less than five minutes’ easy walking brought her to the little wicket gate which opened into the Manor House park. Felicity pushed at the gate. It was not locked, but appeared to be stuck fast. She pushed again. Standing at this portal which bordered the enchanted land she imagined so attractive, her courage failed her. The gloomy woods were black with heavy shadows. The place looked lonely, not with the loneliness and charm of quiet solitude, not even with the loneliness of death, but awesome with the loneliness of living things whose thoughts were not as hers. The true witch-magic of a wood on a midsummer night when the trees are heavy with leaves, and every leaf, however still the forest, has a voice and a secret all its own, affrighted and unnerved her. She was in half a mind to retreat; to leave the pagan temple for a safe and Christian pillow. The factor of the fast-shut gate decided her. To make it an excuse of cowardice was to condemn herself. Retreating a dozen steps, she darted forward, placed one hand upon the topmost rail, and vaulted neatly over it.
It was eerily dark among the trees. They whispered to Felicity their strange and awesome secrets. They were old. They had some mystery in their keeping, and they leaned towards her with their gloomy branches and brushed her cheek with their summer-heavy leaves, trying to attract and snare her – trying to tell her something which she could never understand. Felicity trembled, and her courage failed her. She remembered that in the centre of this great deciduous wood some bygone owner of the Manor House had planted a circle of pines. Tall, straight, and stark they waited, towering into heaven; and in the centre of their circle stood the Stone of Sacrifice. Felicity had heard queer tales about the Stone. It was a solid block of granite, roughly triangular in shape, and once, so ran the legends, it had been the altar of some prehistoric temple to the sun. Priests of a lost religion had sacrificed upon it to their god the flesh of rams or cattle or the blood of human kind. What dread ecstatic dances, what strange and awful sights, what deeds of violence and cruelty the Stone had witnessed, the girl could only guess. She turned, and began to retrace her steps.
Suddenly she stumbled upon the narrow pathway which led towards the Manor House, or, conversely, to the road. Irresolute, she halted and glanced round. All the blood in her body came racing to her head. In the near distance, and among the shadowy trees, she saw a steady gleam of light.
II
‘Aubrey dear,’ said Mrs Bryce Harringay for the fifth time. She had commenced by saying it lovingly. She had continued by saying it coaxingly. Then she had proceeded to put it petulantly, and at length she resorted to command. This also having failed to produce the desired reaction on the part of her son, she had fallen back on a fond and foolish mother’s last hope – entreaty.
‘All right, mater,’ her heir returned, also for the fifth time. He sighed, thrust a picture postcard of Hobbs into a copy of The Hairy Ape, laid Mr O’Neill on top of the piano and followed his mother up the stairs.
‘Good night, Jim, old man,’ he remarked as he passed out of the room. Jim Redsey looked up from his own book and nodded. He looked harassed and ill.
At the top of the stairs, Mrs Bryce Harringay paused.
‘Good night, Aubrey dear. Now do try to be down in time for breakfast to-morrow morning. Remember – “Punctuality is the politeness of princes.” So charming of them, I always think. So you will make a special effort, won’t you?’
‘Righto. Good night, mater. Sleep well. Oh, do you want, me to come and goggle under the bed for you?’
‘Well –’ said Mrs Bryce Harringay hesitatingly. It was a strong woman’s one weakness, this fear of burglars under the bed.
‘Righto,’ said Aubrey good-naturedly. He preceded her into the room and switched on the electric light, for the wealthy Rupert possessed his own electric plant and paid his own electrician to look after it. Having looked solemnly under his mother’s bed, Aubrey stepped across to the window and, pulling back the edge of the blind which Mrs Bryce Harringay’s maid had already drawn down, he peered out. Although the hour was late, it was not dark outside. He could perceive the outline of the summer-house, and some formless shadows which were the roses and the flowering garden-beds by day. Suddenly a shaft of light shone broadly out on to the gravel path, and, from the library below, a man stepped out and walked towards the stables. Aubrey watched him go, and in a few seconds observed that he returned and apparently switched off the electric light.