Dance of the Years by Margery Allingham Read Free Book Online Page B

other sensitivenesses which were kin with them, were the cause of so much pride, so much superstition, muddle and fuss generally, on so many different occasions,that perhaps it would be better to spend a little time on the one manifest on this occasion which was a perfect and simple example.
    James merely felt that he suddenly knew something with his head which all the rest of him had known for a very long time. That thing was that there was something dangerous to his comfort and unlucky and inescapable for him in Shulie. It was no vague impression. It clamped down upon him; a sensation of disaster so strange and inexplicable that he began to cry out at the top of his voice that he was frightened. He bellowed with fear, growing crimson in the face as if he were choking. Dorothy caught him in her arms. She hated any suggestion that James was “different,” especially in a psychic or magical fashion. That stressed the gypsy element far too much. Already there were a great many tales about Shulie in this respect; these had been bound to arise for the whole countryside was steeped in superstition concerning the gypsies. The truth, at any rate as far as Shulie was concerned, lay in two facts.
    The first was that the actual physical life in her was so powerful that she could pass on a little of it when emotion freed it. No one called it animal magnetism at that time.
    The second was simply that certain of her senses were animal sharp, and she was apt to feel a message from any of these so acutely that she was absorbed by it, and had no time to analyse the sensation.
    There were times, therefore, when she appeared prophetic, inasmuch as she behaved like the animal who pulls up and refuses to move just before the bridge breaks, or the tree crashes across the path. It was magic of a kind all right, but no more of the devil than many other secrets of the earth. However, at the time there were several mysteries.
    When old Squire Green, Galantry’s neighbour, who had been away at Wells recuperating from his excesses, came over to see his old friend’s new folly, Galantry thought he looked very much better, but Shulie saw grey under his tan, and smelt a very faint and terrifying odour; and she was so overwhelmed by the recollection which it conjured up, of the ritual of a burning pyre of a caravan far back in her childhood, that she flew into a panic, grew pale herself, and began to cry. She would say nothing to Galantry afterwards except that she “smelled death.” This was the literal truth, but as a remark it exasperated him, and when old Philip took ill some days after, and died in a week or so in circumstances Doctor Wild did not altogether understand, since cancer of the upper bowel was not in his experience, there was quite a lot of talk about “Galantry’s witch,” and the old man himself looked at her curiously.
    There were other incidents, too. She could often smell out things which had been mislaid, and could tell if a stranger had recently been in the house. She could never give any satisfactory explanation of herpowers, and on the occasion on which she suddenly took an aversion to the parlour hearth, and insisted on Galantry leaving it, the great fall of burning soot which smothered half the room some hours later, surprised her as much as it did anybody else. But whereas after it had happened, she merely felt happy and relieved, they were upset and mystified, and knew not whether to blame her for making it happen, or for not warning them that it was about to do so.
    All this sort of thing made for a great deal of mystery and uncertainty, and Dorothy disliked it because she felt it was “gypsy,” and she watched James most anxiously for any sign of the streak. She did her best with him; she cut his hair as short as she dared to try to get the curl out, washed him nightly in lemon water in a pathetic attempt to whiten his skin, raved at him unreasonably for the least untidiness, and