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good
to me;
good
to me he was. And that clever! You'd have thought he was a
doctor!'
Her glance meanwhile was roving in confusion into every corner
of the room as though she were looking for something, and was
afraid of what she might find. He could hardly keep his own from
following them. 'That kind and gentle he was! Just like a doctor he
was!' And again a menacing silence swallowed up her words. The
An Ideal Craftsman
209
boy's face reflected a distrust deepening into hostility. Was the
whole thing a cheat then? Was Jacobs as usual playing the sneak?
Would he suddenly leap out on him? In any case he knew he was
only being cajoled, if not ridiculed.
'There, now!' she suddenly broke out, 'if he isn't
thinking
again.
That's what he's doing. He's thinking about what I was saying to
meself when that funny dream came over me. That's what he's
doing. And why not, I should like to know. Eh?' She shot him a
searching, ogling glance.
'I didn't notice,' he answered. 'Your
eyes
looked rather queer,
with the whites gone up, and your skin twitched just as if the water
burnt it. But I didn't mind.'
'How long was you there, then? Tell me that?' Her nails were
now gripped uncomfortably sharp on his arm. 'You stand there
frowning and sulking, my young soldier. And by what rights, may
I ask? Just you tell me how long you was there!' Her face had
grown hard and dangerous, but he shut his mouth tight and re-
turned sullenly stare for stare. 'So help me,' she half whispered,
releasing him, 'now I've been and frightened him again. That's it.
He thinks I'm angry with him. Lord love you, my precious, I didn't
mean anything like that. Not me. P'raps you just came down for a
bit of fun, eh?'
She fixed her eyes on the dagger, and shuddered. 'What was I
saying? Ah, yes. How long —
how long
was — you — there?' She
stamped her foot. 'That's right, saucer-eyes, stare, stare! Didn't I
say
I'm old and ugly! Ain't
he
said it too? Oh, oh, oh! What shall
I do, what shall I do?' She hid her face in her hands and her tears
gushed out anew.
The boy stood stiffly at her side. This unexpected capitulation
unnerved him, and his heart began to heave menacingly.
'I'm sorry; but I must go now,' he repeated, trying with as little
obvious aversion as possible to drag his hand from her hot wet
cheek. 'And I don't see what good crying will do.' As if by magic
the snuffling ceased.
'Good! Who said, what "good"? It's
me
who must be going, my
young man, and don't you make any mistake about
thatV
She
shook out her skirts, and searched in vain for the bonnet on her
head. He nearly laughed out loud, so absurd was the attempt - for
the bunched-up old thing was dangling by its strings, behind her
back. But this retrieved, she drew it on, pushing under it stragglings
210 Walter de la Mare
of her iron-grey hair. Then she opened a fat leather purse, stuffed
with keys and dirty crumpled papers.
'Now what have I got here?' she began wheedlingly, as she
pushed about with her finger and took out a sixpence. 'What have
I got here? Why, a silver sixpence. And who's that for? Why, for
any nice little boy what won't spy and pry. That's what that's for.'
She stooped nearly double, holding it out to him with bolting eyes
in her purpled face. 'What? He won't take it? Shakes his head? Too
proud to take it. Oh, very well, very well.'
She opened her purse again and with shaking fingers pushed the
sixpence back. She was not crying now, but her face had gone a
deathly grey, and a blank, dreadful misery had crept into it. This
woman was a very strange woman. He had never met anyone who
behaved in such a queer way. He watched her as she went waddling
off out of the kitchen and over the stone floor into the darkness
beyond. Her footsteps ceased to sound. She was gone, then? And
she must have left the garden door open behind her; the wind was
bellying in his nightshirt and icy under his arms. Here was the cat
come in, too, rolling in its sodden fur on the oilcloth at his feet.
'Puss, Puss,' he said. Where had
he
been to get in such a state. The
boy stood dismayed and discomfited, while the cat rubbed its body
and its purring jaws against his stockinged legs.
A stark unstirring silence had spread into the kitchen, though the
gas was faintly singing - high and from very far away. And, as if to
attract his attention, a wisp of hair was patting his forehead under
his ridiculous cap brim. The silence entangled his thoughts in a
medley of absurd misgivings productive only of chicken skin and
perplexity. Something had gone wrong — the house was changed;
and he didn't know how or why. He glanced up at the clock, which
thereupon at once began to tick. His eyes dodged from side to side
of the familiar kitchen and then it was as if a stealthy warning
finger had been laid upon his thoughts, and chaos became unity.
His roving glance had fallen on the cupboard door. For there in
the crack at the bottom of it, shut in and moving softly in the wind,
showed a corner of green baize. Jacobs was there, then; bunched
up there, then; smiling to himself and waiting, and listening in
there, then? The boy stood appalled, his bright black eyes fixed on
this flapping scrap of green baize apron. The whole thing
was
a
trap. And yet, as he tried hard to keep his wits, he had known
instantly there was something wrong — something he couldn't
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