Charles Palliser by The Quincunx Read Free Book Online

could feel that my mother was shivering, though it was a warm night. At last my keener hearing detected something: “Do you hear that?” I asked.
    Bissett cautiously made her way to the window and looked out: “There they go,” she exclaimed. “I’ve just seen one of ’em go up the road.”
    “Oh, thank heavens,” sighed my mother.
    Then we all started and stared at each other in dismay as footsteps approached down the passage. The door opened slowly and Mrs Belflower appeared, magnificent in a night-gown and night-cap and carrying a candle. She was pale with terror.
    She collapsed onto the bed and it was some minutes before she was able to tell us her story. Sleeping at the back of the house (and very heavily) she had not been woken by my cries, but she had heard sounds from downstairs and so had gone down.
    “When I got to the foot of the stairs,” she went on, “I could see someone at the door trying to pull back them bolts as sticks so bad. I hadn’t brung no candle but there was light enough for me to see: ’twas a man! A stranger.”
    “Oh you must have been terrified,” exclaimed my mother.
    “No, ma’am, for I didn’t think. I jist said: ‘Who are you and what are you a-doin’?’ And he said … ” She glanced at me and said: “Well, nivver mind what he said. Then he just kind of girned and went on, cool as you like, pulling at them bolts. In a minute he had
    ’em free, and then he jist opened the door and made off.”
    “What did he look like?” asked my mother.
    However, she was unable to describe the man at all and even when my mother prompted her with a description of the tramper she could neither confirm nor deny that it might have been he. She was the only one of us, of course, who had not seen him that afternoon. Remembering the threat the man had made, I said nothing.

    A WISE CHILD

    23

    Bissett suddenly said: “Did you open them shutters, Master Johnnie?”
    “No,” I said and then felt myself blushing at my words. But it wasn’t a lie for I had not meant to leave them unfastened and besides, it occurred to me, if I were to explain that I had heard voices I would have to tell the whole story and expose my mother and myself to the threat the man had made.
    There were many questions that could be left to the morning, but the one that had to be decided now was that of the dispositions for the remainder of the night. There was some discussion of whether Mr Pimlott should be summoned to keep guard, but since even the redoubtable Bissett was reluctant to venture the few yards to his house, the scheme was abandoned in favour of other precautions. Mrs Belflower announced that she would go back to her bed but leave her door open.
    “Let me stay with you,” I said to my mother.
    “There’s no call for that,” Bissett put in. “I’ll watch the rest of the night, but I’ll warrant they’ll not come back. And if you take him, we shall have all that to-do over again of getting him to sleep on his own.”
    “No we shan’t,” I protested.
    “I think nurse is right, dearest. You’ll be quite safe here now.”
    “Why do you always do what she says?” I demanded.
    “I don’t,” she said, blushing slightly. “Very well, I suppose one night won’t hurt.” And so, despite Bissett’s forebodings, she took me back to her bed for the remainder of the night.

    When I awoke the next morning it seemed perfectly natural that I should be in my mother’s bed. As usual she had already risen and as I pulled back the curtains and looked round the chamber I saw that everything was as always, and yet seemed unfamiliar: the clothes-press and wash-stand stood where they always did and on the dressing-table was the beautiful japanned box with its picture of a tiger-hunt and the silver clasps at the corners like claws. Then suddenly the events of the night came flooding back and I remembered that the room seemed unfamiliar because I no longer slept there.
    As I came down the stairs some