Devil By The Sea by Nina Bawden Read Free Book Online Page A

insist that he face up to it. She was a very courageous woman.
    In the middle of the night, Peregrine woke and screamed. Hilary got out of bed and went to him. His hands, clutching at her
     nightdress, were sticky and hot.
    “It’s all right,” she crooned, “all right. Hilly’s here.”
    Pushing her arm aside, he stared into her face with dark, glittering eyes, words stumbled out between great, hiccoughing sobs.
     “The Devil came and sat on the end of my bed. He was black. There were wings round his head.”
    Hilary looked round the nursery and saw the chipped, white-wood furniture, unearthly in the moonlight but unmistakeable. Their
     flannel dressing-gowns hung, grey and shapeless on the back of the door; their clothes, draped baggily over their separate
     chairs, were only clothes. The painted, gleaming eyes of the rocking-horse gave her a lurching moment of fear, but she spoke
     soothingly.
    “There’s nothing here. Only the toys and things and me. Go to sleep.”
    His eyelids drooped. She hugged him maternally and said, to comfort herself, now, “If there had been anyone here, I’d have
     seen him too.”
    She felt a shudder go through him. He stiffened and sat bolt upright, beating the bedclothes with clenched fists.
    “He was here, he was. I didn’t see him with my eyes. I saw him out of the back of my head. He was awful.”
    There was nothing to be said to
that.
She pressed him with delicious fearfulness but he either would not, or could not, answer. Nothing else that he said was at
     all lucid. Thefearful vision was fading fast and there was nothing left but terror. When she tried to make him lie down he resisted her
     with wiry strength and cried for his mother.
    She tried to comfort him. “It’s all right now. If you like, you can come into my bed. If you promise not to wet it.”
    He fought her off frantically. “Mummy.” His voice rose wildly. In moments of disaster, he always turned to his mother, believing
     that once he reached her, he would be safe. Hilary would have liked to think that this was true but knew it was not: this
     was the difference the years had made between them.
    Peregrine got out of bed and hobbled across the linoleum, his pyjama trousers round his ankles, his small behind gleaming.
     Hilary got back into her own bed and tried to warm her feet by wrapping her nightgown round them.
    She heard Peregrine’s voice on the landing, outside their mother’s door. It was raised in a loud, formless wail, a cry of
     lamentation. No words could be distinguished. A door opened and there was a rush of voices. Peregrine’s cries died as he was
     carried into the room and the door was closed.
    Hilary dozed, her head on the cold pillow. Distantly, she was aware that the whole household was awake. Someone had closed
     the nursery door but the landing light shone in a streak beneath it. She heard her father’s voice, then Janet’s.
    A little later, the door opened and a shaft of light sprang across the room. Peregrine was carried in, limp in his mother’s
     arms. His legs and arms dangled loosely, he made no sound. Alice’s hair, out of its braid, hung gloriously to her waist. Lying
     on her side, Hilary watched her with one jealous eye, the other being pressed into the pillow.
    Janet said, from the doorway, “Will he sleep now?”Hilary could only see her by moving her eye so far round in its socket that it hurt.
    Alice made a shushing sound. Then she bent over Peregrine, tucking him up. She turned towards Hilary’s bed and Hilary closed
     her eyes tightly. She felt her mother’s breath like a small cold wind on her skin, but the kiss she expected did not come.
    Alice left, rustling, and Hilary heard her whispering on the landing.
“She’s
asleep, anyway. Did you hear him, crying about the Devil?”
    Janet muttered. Then she said more loudly, “… all Hilary’s fault. I expect she was trying to frighten him.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” said Alice, exasperated. Hilary