Strange Stories Read online

  He continued along the ridge towards her while she watched him. Only when he was directly above her did he trust his own words to reach her.

  ‘No. I’m really just filling in time. Thank you very much.’

  ‘If you go on to the top, there’s a spring.’

  ‘I should think you have to have it pointed out to you. With all this heather.’

  She looked down for a moment, then up again. ‘Do you live here?’

  ‘No. I’m staying with my brother. He’s the rector. Perhaps you go to his church?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. We don’t go to any church.’

  That could not be followed up, Stephen felt, at his present distance and altitude. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. ‘Collecting stones for my father.’

  ‘What does he do with them?’

  ‘He wants the mosses and lichens.’

  ‘Then,’ cried Stephen, ‘you must know my brother. Or your father must know him. My brother is one of the great authorities on lichens.’ This unexpected link seemed to open a door; and, at least for a second, to open it surprisingly wide.

  Stephen found himself bustling down the rough but not particularly steep slope towards her.

  ‘My father’s not an authority,’ said the girl, gazing seriously at the descending figure. ‘He’s not an authority on anything.’ ‘Oh, you misunderstand,’ said Stephen. ‘My brother is only an amateur too. I didn’t mean he was a professor or anything like that. Still, I think your father must have heard of him.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the girl. ‘I’m almost sure not.’ Stephen had nearly reached the bottom of the shallow vale.

  It was completely out of the wind down there, and surprisingly torrid.

  ‘Let me see,’ he said, looking into the girl’s basket, before he looked at the girl.

  She lifted the basket off the ground. Her hand and forearm were brown.

  ‘Some of the specimens are very small,’ he said, smiling. It was essential to keep the conversation going, and it was initially more difficult now that he was alone with her in the valley, and close to her.

  ‘It’s been a bad year,’ she said. ‘Some days I’ve found almost nothing. Nothing that could be taken home.’

  ‘All the same, the basket must be heavy. Please put it down.’ He saw that it was reinforced with stout metal strips, mostly rusty.

  ‘Take a piece for yourself, if you like,’ said the girl. She spoke as if they were portions of iced cake, or home-made coconut fudge.

  Stephen gazed full at the girl. She had a sensitive face with grey-green eyes and short reddish hair - no, auburn. The demode word came to Stephen on the instant. Both her shirt and her trousers were worn and faded: familiar, Stephen felt. She was wearing serious shoes, but little cared for. She was a part of nature.

  ‘I’ll take this piece,’ Stephen said. ‘It’s conglomerate.’

  ‘Is it?’ said the girl. Stephen was surprised that after so much ingathering, she did not know a fact so elementary.

  ‘I might take this piece too, and show the stuff on it to my brother.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ said the girl. ‘But don’t take them all.’

  Feeling had been building up in Stephen while he had been walking solitarily on the ridge above. For so long he had been isolated, insulated, incarcerated. Elizabeth had been everything to him, and no one could ever be like her, but ‘attractive’ was not a word that he had used to himself about her, not for a long time; not attractive as this girl was attractive. Elizabeth had been a part of him, perhaps the greater part of him; but not mysterious, not fascinating.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Stephen. ‘How far do you have to carry that burden?’

  ‘The basket isn’t full yet. I must go on searching for a bit.’

  ‘I am sorry to say I can’t offer to help. I have to go back.’

  All the same, Stephen had reached a decision.

  The girl simply nodded. She had not yet picked up the basket again.

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Quite near.’

  That seemed to Stephen to be almost impossible, but it was not the main point.

  Stephen felt like a schoolboy; though not like himself as a schoolboy. ‘If I were to be here after lunch tomorrow, say at half past two, would you show me the spring? The spring you were talking about.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘If you like.’

  Stephen could not manage the response so obviously needed, gently confident; if possible, even gently witty. For a moment, in fact, he could say nothing. Then - ‘Look,’ he said. He brought an envelope out of his pocket and in pencil on the back of it he wrote: ‘Tomorrow. Here. 2.30 p.m. To visit the spring.’

  He said, ‘It’s too big,’ and tore one end off the envelope, aware that the remaining section bore his name, and that the envelope had been addressed to him care of his brother. As a matter of fact, it had contained the final communication from the undertaking firm. He wished they had omitted his equivocal and rather ridiculous OBE.

  He held the envelope out. She took it and inserted it, without a word, into a pocket of her shirt, buttoning down the flap. Stephen’s heart beat at the gesture.

  He was not exactly sure what to make of the situation or whether the appointment was to be depended upon. But at such moments in life, one is often sure of neither thing, nor of anything much else.

  He looked at her. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked, as casually as he could.

  ‘Nell,’ she answered.

  He had not quite expected that, but then he had not particularly expected anything else either.

  ‘I look forward to our walk, Nell,’ he said. He could not help adding, ‘I look forward to it very much.’

  She nodded and smiled.

  He fancied that they had really looked at one another for a moment.

  ‘I must go on searching,’ she said.

  She picked up the heavy basket, seemingly without particular effort, and walked away from him, up the valley.

  Insanely, he wondered about her lunch. Surely she must have some? She seemed so exceptionally healthy and strong.

  His own meal was all scarlet runners, but he had lost his appetite in any case, something that had never previously happened since the funeral, as he had noticed with surprise on several occasions.

  Luncheon was called lunch, but the evening meal was none the less called supper, perhaps from humility. At supper that evening, Harriet referred forcefully to Stephen’s earlier abstemiousness.

  ‘I trust you’re not sickening, Stephen. It would be a bad moment. Dr Gopalachari’s on holiday. Perhaps I ought to warn you.’

  ‘Dr Who?’

  ‘No, not Dr Who. Dr Gopalachari. He’s a West Bengali. We are lucky to have him.’

  Stephen’s brother, Harewood, coughed forlornly.

  ***

  For luncheon the next day, Stephen had even less appetite, even though it was mashed turnip, cooked, or at least served, with mixed peppers. Harriet loved all things oriental.

  On an almost empty stomach, he hastened up the long but not steep ascent. He had not known he could still walk so fast uphill, but for some reason the knowledge did not make him particularly happy, as doubtless it should have done.

  The girl, dressed as on the day before, was seated upon a low rock at the spot from which he had first spoken to her. It was not yet twenty past. He had discerned her seated shape from afar, but she had proved to be sitting with her back to the ascending track and to him. On the whole, he was glad that she had not been watching his exertions, inevitably comical, albeit triumphant.

  She did not even look up until he actually stood before her. Of course this time she had no basket.

  ‘Oh, hullo,’ she said.

  He stood looking at her. ‘We’re both punctual.’

  She nodded. He was panting quite strenuously, and glad to gain a little time.

  He spoke. ‘Did you find many more suitable stones?’

 
She shook her head, then rose to her feet.

  He found it difficult not to stretch out his arms and draw her to him.

  ‘Why is this called Burton’s Clough, I wonder? It seems altogether too wide and shallow for a clough.’

  ‘I didn’t know it was,’ said the girl.

  ‘The map says it is. At least I think this is the place. Shall we go? Lead me to the magic spring.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Why do you call it thatV ‘I’m sure it is magic. It must be.’

  ‘It’s just clear water,’ said the girl, ‘and very, very deep.’ Happily, the track was still wide enough for them to walk side by side, though Stephen realized that, further on, where he had not been, this might cease to be the case.

  ‘How long are you staying here?’ asked the girl.

  ‘Perhaps for another fortnight. It depends.’

  ‘Are you married? ’

  ‘I was married, Nell, but my wife unfortunately died.’ It seemed unnecessary to put any date to it, and calculated only to cause stress.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the girl.

  ‘She was a wonderful woman and a very good wife.’

  To that the girl said nothing. What could she say?

  ‘I am taking a period of leave from the civil service,’ Stephen volunteered. ‘Nothing very glamorous.’

  ‘What’s the civil service? ’ asked the girl.

  ‘You ought to know that,’ said Stephen in mock reproof: more or less mock. After all, she was not a child, or not exactly. All the same, he produced a childlike explanation. ‘The civil service is what looks after the country. The country would hardly carry on without us. Not nowadays. Nothing would run properly.’

  ‘Really not?’

  ‘No. Not run properly.’ With her it was practicable to be lightly profane.

  ‘Father says that all politicians are evil. I don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Civil servants are not politicians, Nell. But perhaps this is not the best moment to go into it all.’ He said that partly because he suspected she had no wish to learn.

  There was a pause.

  ‘Do you like walking?’ she asked.

  ‘Very much. I could easily walk all day. Would you come with me?’

  ‘I do walk all day, or most of it. Of course I have to sleep at night. I lie in front of the fire.’

  ‘But it’s too warm for a fire at this time of year.’ He said it to keep the conversation going, but, in fact, he was far from certain. He himself was not particularly warm at that very moment. He had no doubt cooled off after speeding up the ascent, but the two of them were, none the less, walking reasonably fast, and still he felt chilly, perhaps perilously so.

  ‘Father always likes a fire,’ said the girl. ‘He’s a cold mortal.’

  They had reached the decayed milestone or waymark at which Stephen had turned on the previous day. The girl had stopped and was fingering the lichens with which it was spattered. She knelt against the stone with her left arm round the back of it.

  ‘Can you put a name to them? ’ asked Stephen.

  ‘Yes, to some of them.’

  ‘I am sure your father has one of my brother’s books on his shelf.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the girl. ‘We have no shelves. Father can’t read.’

  She straightened up and glanced at Stephen.

  ‘Oh, but surely—’

  For example, and among other things, the girl herself was perfectly well spoken. As a matter of fact, hers was a noticeably beautiful voice. Stephen had noticed it, and even thrilled to it, when first he had heard it, floating up from the bottom of the so-called clough. He had thrilled to it ever since, despite the curious things the girl sometimes said.

  They resumed their way.

  ‘Father has no eyes,’ said the girl.

  ‘That is terrible,’ said Stephen. ‘I hadn’t realized.’

  The girl said nothing.

  Stephen felt his first real qualm, as distinct from mere habitual self-doubt. ‘Am I taking you away from him? Should you go back to him? ’

  ‘I’m never with him by day,’ said the girl. ‘He finds his way about.’

  ‘I know that does happen,’ said Stephen guardedly. ‘All the same—’

  ‘Father doesn’t need a civil service to run him,’ said the girl. The way she spoke convinced Stephen that she had known all along what the civil service was and did. He had from the first supposed that to be so. Everyone knew.

  ‘You said your dead wife was a wonderful woman,’ said the girl.

  ‘Yes, she was.’

  ‘My father is a wonderful man.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stephen. ‘I am only sorry about his affliction.’

  ‘It’s not an affliction,’ said the girl.

  Stephen did not know what to say to that. The last thing to be desired was an argument of any kind whatever, other perhaps than a fun argument.

  ‘Father doesn’t need to get things out of books,’ said the girl.

  ‘There are certainly other ways of learning,’ said Stephen. ‘I expect that was one of the things you yourself learned at school.’

  He suspected she would say she had never been to school. His had been a half-fishing remark.

  But all she replied was, ‘Yes’:

  Stephen looked around him for a moment. Already, he had gone considerably further along the track than ever before. ‘It really is beautiful up here.’ It seemed a complete wilderness. The track had wound among the wide folds of the hill, so that nothing but wilderness was visible in any direction.

  ‘I should like to live here,’ said Stephen. ‘I should like it now.’ He knew that he partly meant ‘now that Elizabeth was dead’.

  ‘There are empty houses everywhere,’ said the girl. ‘You can just move into one. It’s what Father and I did, and now it’s our home.’

  Stephen supposed that that at least explained something. It possibly elucidated one of the earliest of her odd remarks.

  ‘I’ll help you to find one, if you like,’ said the girl. ‘Father says that none of them have been lived in for hundreds of years. I know where all the best ones are.’

  ‘I’ll have to think about that,’ said Stephen. ‘I have my job, you must remember.’ He wanted her to be rude about his job.

  But she only said, ‘We’ll look now, if you like.’

  ‘Tomorrow, perhaps. We’re looking for the spring now.’

  ‘Are you tired?’ asked the girl, with apparently genuine concern, and presumably forgetting altogether what he had told her about his longing to walk all day.

  ‘Not at all tired,’ said Stephen, smiling at her.

  ‘Then why were you looking at your watch?’

  ‘A bad habit picked up in the civil service. We all do it.’

  He had observed long before that she had no watch on her lovely brown forearm, no bracelet; only the marks of thorn scratches and the incisions of sharp stones. The light golden bloom on her arms filled him with delight and with desire.

  In fact, he had omitted to time their progression, though he timed most things, so that the habit had wrecked his natural faculty. Perhaps another twenty or thirty minutes passed, while they continued to walk side by side, the track having as yet shown no particular sign of narrowing, so that one might think it still led somewhere, and that people still went there. As they advanced, they said little more of consequence for the moment; or so it seemed to Stephen. He surmised that there was now what is termed an understanding between them, even though in a sense he himself understood very little. It was more a phase for pleasant nothings, he deemed, always supposing that he could evolve a sufficient supply of them, than for meaningful questions and reasonable responses.

  Suddenly, the track seemed not to narrow, but to stop, even to vanish. Hereunto it had been surprisingly well trodden. Now he could see nothing but knee-high heather.

  ‘The spring’s over there,’ said the girl in a matter of fact way, and pointing. Such simple and natural gestu
res are often the most beautiful.

  ‘How right I was in saying that I could never find it alone!’ remarked Stephen.

  He could not see why the main track should not lead to the spring - if there really was a spring. Why else should the track be beaten to this spot? The mystery was akin to the Burton’s Clough mystery. The uplands had been settled under other conditions than ours. Stephen, on his perambulations, had always felt that, everywhere.

  But the girl was standing among the heather a few yards away, and Stephen saw that there was a curious serpentine rabbit run that he had failed to notice - except that rabbits do not run like serpents. There were several fair-sized birds flying overhead in silence. Stephen fancied they were kites.

  He wriggled his way down the rabbit path, with little dignity.

  There was the most beautiful small pool imaginable: clear, deep, lustrous, gently heaving at its centre, or near its centre. It stood in a small clearing.

  All the rivers in Britain might be taken as rising here, and thus flowing until the first moment of their pollution.

  Stephen became aware that now the sun really was shining. He had not noticed before. The girl stood on the far side of the pool in her faded shirt and trousers, smiling seraphically. The pool pleased her, so that suddenly everything pleased her.

  ‘Have you kept the note I gave you?’ asked Stephen.

  She put her hand lightly on her breast pocket, and therefore on her breast.

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Stephen.

  If the pool had not been between them, he would have seized her, whatever the consequences.

  ‘Just clear water,’ said the girl.

  The sun brought out new colours in her hair. The shape of her head was absolutely perfect.

  ‘The track,’ said Stephen, ‘seems to be quite well used. Is this where the people come?’

  ‘No,’ said the girl. ‘They come to and from the places where they live.’

  ‘I thought you said all the houses were empty.’

  ‘What I said was there are many empty houses.’

  ‘That is what you said. I’m sorry. But the track seems to come to an end. What do the people do then?’

  ‘They find their way,’ said the girl. ‘Stop worrying about them.’

  The water was still between them. Stephen was no longer in doubt that there was indeed something else between them. Really there was. The pool was intermittently throwing up tiny golden waves in the pure breeze, then losing them again.