The Doll Maker

5

Clare slept deep and without dreaming that night; and she woke, as she had woken sometimes as a child on holiday in Spain, with a fine feeling that content was complete, that the day before her was wholly dedicated to happiness. The impress of Niall's kisses was on her lips, the strength of his arms was round her. His return and his touch had brought the final reinforcement that gave her victory over Paston Hall.

She looked round at the too−familiar, dreary little room, and laughed at it. It had no power whatsoever over her heart now. She remembered her promise to go over Brackenbine wall at midnight to meet him, and she exulted. The freedom she had ranged the night to find was not illusion: she was free—free as she had never been before, and her freedom had been found in such a desired captivity. She tried to conjure back again the overpowering happiness of being possessed that she had experienced when his arms tightened round her and his lips pressed hers; she could recapture only a part of it and she longed for the reality to be repeated. She marvelled at the paradox that surrender could bring such victory, captivity such freedom, and as she moved about her room, she glanced sideways into her looking−glass and wondered at the smile of deep content with which her musings had lit her face.

Life and time to come were very clear and definite to Clare this morning. One more term at Paston Hall, and then, freedom of body as well as this moral freedom she had won. She scarcely doubted now that she would win the Oxford Scholarship; she felt confident of overcoming any obstacle. Oxford, and the right to manage her own life.... Long Vacation when Niall would come and stay with her people in the country cottage where her father meant to settle down... long walks through green England, rambling where they would, talk and confidence and understanding as wide and deep as a summer sea and love like a sparkle of sunrise upon it. Niall and his mother would come and visit her in Oxford, in Oxford....

She recited softly to herself as she moved about the room:

'With her fair and floral air

And the love that lingers there.... '

Ah! if it were summer now, and the green leaves were spread in Brackenbine wood and the warm sunlight were pouring down into the glades.

She stood again in front of her looking−glass: her lips were curved, her eyes were bright; and yet it was so strange that a man such as he should love her, her—for what was she but a dull, shy, awkward schoolgirl, not even pretty in a young−girl way like some who had been in the Sixth last year? How old was he? He seemed so much older than she—but then, that might be past illness or some hard experience in foreign countries; he could not be more than thirty, and perhaps much less; he talked and laughed like a boy; perhaps he was not more than six or seven years older than she. But he had lived so much more; he had had so much more experience of the world; he must have known many more attractive girls than she. He had seen men and cities, and women, and yet he loved her.

She thought of his hands, the long, strong, craftsman's hands. His life was busy with delightful occupations and bright with constant new discoveries. With a sudden remembrance of an extra pleasure blossoming on the perfection of this morning, she opened her cupboard and took out the little parcel wrapped in tissue−paper and carefully undid it to examine the doll in the daylight.

It was hard to believe that something so life−like could be carved out of wood. The features were exquisitely made and painted with great delicacy. He had said that his mother painted his puppets and dressed them; she could imagine the care, the patience and skill Mrs. Sterne would bring to the task. And this doll had obviously been painted by an artist; indeed the face was not that of a doll at all, it was really a miniature portrait representing a girl of about Clare's own age, though, she admitted, much prettier than she. The eyes, in themselves, were a marvel, being tiny orbs of a glass−like substance inlaid in the wood and reproducing perfectly, though minutely, the white, the iris and the pupil of the natural eye. The hair was wonderfully well done also. Clare wondered what material Niall had used. It looked as though it might be silk; it was pale golden in colour, thick and shining, flowing to the little figure's waist, and it was so cunningly attached to the head that it seemed to grow out of the wood as real hair grows from the living scalp. She examined the arms and turned back the dress and looked at the body and legs of the figure. The workmanship seemed perfect, the effect astonishingly life−like; the figure was painted in flesh−tone so that the grain of the wood was not visible, and the modelling was exceedingly fine and accurate, down to the smallest lines of the toes and fingers, yet the whole figure was not more than eight or nine inches high. There was something Clare could not understand about it: it was a beautiful little statuette, but how could it ever have worked? She imagined a puppet as something like a child's wooden doll, only with more and looser joints. This figure did not appear to have any movable joints at all. Gently she tried to bend its arms and legs, and could not make them move. Niall had said it was a failure. Was that what he meant? But it did not seem to have been made to be moved. Unless... she peered more closely at the knee and elbow joints, and at last she thought she could discern some extremely fine, faint lines there. Were those the joints that should have moved and would not? She could not tell; she would have to ask Niall to let her handle one of the good ones when he showed her his puppet theatre. She smoothed down the dress again and brushed the silky hair with the tip of her hair−brush. It was a delightful little figure and she loved it for its own sake as well as because it was his. Jealously she wrapped it up again and put it away at the back of the top shelf of her cupboard. Miss Geary did not ask her that evening whether Niall had returned. In fact, during the next week Clare saw little of Miss Geary, for the old lady caught a bad cold and could not go out. To Clare's astonishment, Miss Sperrod raised no objection to her returning by herself in the afternoons from Brackenbine. From time to time when she encountered her about the school the Principal asked her about her studies, mentioned Mrs. Sterne and said she hoped Clare was working hard to take every advantage of the opportunity given her, but such enquiries were made in Miss Sperrod's customary defensive way, as if to prevent rather than elicit a reply. Clare volunteered no information whatsoever about what she was doing, and believed that in reality the Principal wanted none.

Still, that absence of interference was so unlooked−for that she could not help remarking on it to Niall. He waited for her at the lodge−gates in these days and they walked together to the house, making the most of their time alone with each other.

“I believe you've put a spell on Miss Sperrod, as well as on me,” she said. She had told him already all that she felt about Paston Hall and all about her past miseries there and her brief hopes of escape under Anne Otterel's guidance. She had made it a kind of play to believe that he had necromantic powers.

“Could you enchant someone at a distance? I used to think of that sometimes as a kid when I was feeling particularly revengeful against the Principal. You ought to know a spell to give her bad dreams—not now, I mean: she's behaving particularly well just now. But in case she back−slides.”

“You're convinced I gave you those dreams you had?”

“Yes. I believe you're a master−sorcerer. I expect you were gathering herbs for a potion that very first night I saw you from the wall. What were those other little lights I saw that night? They could have been Grim's eyes, but they could have been witches' flowers that bloom in mid−December and glow luminous at one certain hour. Or perhaps they were mandrakes. I've read that you sorcerers go gathering mandrakes at midnight.”

“Oh? Where did you read that? What volumes of necromancy have you in Paston Hall library? But mandrakes don't shine, they shriek when pulled from their bed.”

“Who wouldn't—in the middle of a freezing winter's night?”

He laughed, and before they came to the door of the house, drew her aside between the bushes and kissed her.

“There's more enchantment in these two lips of yours and in these two dear grey eyes than in all the books of Azzimari, and no herb this side the fence of fairyland could bind the senses like this fragrance of your hair.”

“Ah, no,” she said. “There's no enchantment in me, except what you've planted. Perhaps that's it: you captured me that night and you've kept me in a magic cage ., ever since because you wanted someone to practise spells on. Is that it?”

“Do you mind if it is?”

“No,” she confessed, smiling up at him and speaking with a most innocent simplicity. “I like being your captive.”

They laughed silently at each other as he held her a little way off to look into her eyes. “Who is Azzi—? the name you said just now?” she asked.

“Azzimari. That was the name of the Berber Kaid who bought my ancestor, Captain Trethewy, from the Sallee Rovers. He was a practitioner of this art of magic, which seeks to know the other side of Nature. It seems their doctors had studied these matters, there in the Southern Atlas Mountains, before the Koran came among them. The Captain translated some of Azzimari's books and brought them back with him.”

“And you've learnt magic from them?”

He nodded solemnly. “From them and from experience.” She bent her head and stroked his arms.

“And you are Azzimari to me, and I'm a slave like the Captain. Dear Captain! I am so glad he brought Azzimari's magic home for you. I wonder if he loved his master as I love mine?”

“Perhaps. But he fled from him at last. And you too will want to be free.” She pressed close to him, winding his arms about her.

“No, no. I am free, like this. You must be a stern master, and if I try to break the spell you must double it and treble it, chain me down in the deepest dungeon in your castle, imprison me in the hollow of an oak in your enchanted wood. You must not let me go!”

“Ah, no,” he said with wondering tenderness. “Dungeons I have and hollow oaks, but not for you. One ancient ceremony of bondage is enough. If you want to be my slave I'll perform it: the same that Azzimari performed upon the Captain. Shall I?”

“Yes, yes,” she said in a scarcely audible voice, pressing her head against his coat.

He laughed. “Not now. It must be in the propitious conjunction of the planets. Time and place must adhere. I will do it when you come to see the puppets.”

The Easter term began that week. The fact that Niall had fixed a night for his puppet−show after the school was full again did not trouble Clare at all. Even in the Third Form, when she and her gang shared a dormitory with others who were not in the secret, their excursions had never been discovered. Nowadays, when she had a room of her own, the risk in slipping out through the sleeping school was negligible.

It was a Saturday that Niall had appointed. Some snow fell early that morning, but by noon the sky was clear, and before sunset it began to freeze again. Niall walked back with her from the house to the lodge−gates after her lesson. Clare was happy and excited; they scooped up the soft snow from the ruts in the drive and snowballed each other, then sat, putting off their parting, on the great rock. Grim, who had followed them, thrust himself in between them and snuffed delicately at a handful of snow that Clare offered him.

She stroked his thick fur. “I never knew a cat that would follow you like a dog before,” she said. “What breed is he—if cats have breeds? I don't know.”

“You never knew any cat like Grim before,” said Niall. “As to his breed, I have a theory—a fancy, my mother would say, like all my theories. Look at his colour; look closely.”

Clare did so, and noticed in that cold white light something that had escaped her before. The cat's coat was not a uniform black: within its glossy darkness there were darker markings still, a kind of ghost pattern of blotches and stripes which were invisible in most lights and at a little distance.

“You see?” said Niall. “Well, now, observe his build —the breadth of his head, the strength of his body and this great bushy tail. He's different from most breeds of tame cats, isn't he? Where he came from I don't know. I found him—or he found me—in the wood. He took a lot of persuading to come to the house, but he did come in the end, and I suppose we gave satisfaction, and he condescended to retain our services. Well, my theory is that Grim is descended from wild ancestors. There must be some tame blood in him, of course, to give him his black coat, but I believe the dominant strain is Felis Silvestris Grampia—the wild cat of old Britain.”

“But there couldn't be any wild cats in Brackenbine wood, could there?” Clare asked.

“Oh, not now. But I like to think of Grim as a true native of these woods. I can imagine a time—oh, two hundred, three hundred years ago, when the oaks of Brackenbine went all the way to Wales—this wood of ours, you know, is one of the last remnants of the primaeval forest of Britain: no Saxon felled and no English squire planted it; that's why the Captain settled here, I think. Well, three hundred years ago there were still wild boar in England and wolves in Scotland; would it be so strange if there was still a wild cat or two lingering on in Brackenbine? Say there was but one pair in my ancestor's day; one of them is killed—there's an old wheel−lock fowling−piece among our lumber that might have done the very deed—and the survivor lives on until one day a sleek black pussy walks out of the house, as they will, you know, and meets him. Well, that's fancy, perhaps, but my Great−Uncle Jabez used to tell me that his father's keepers used to shoot what they called wild cats in the wood every now and again. I can't help but think the old strain stuck to Brackenbine, however watered down, and this is its latest representative.”

“But do you know that Captain Trethewy kept cats?” Clare asked. “How do you know that he had a sleek black pussy?”

Niall threw back his head and laughed.

“You mustn't examine the products of my imagination so critically,” he protested. “If it's a good story it's unfair to ask for proof. When I tell a story I permit my fancy its sleights, just as my hands have their sleights when I bring my dolls to life. I hope you won't examine them so critically.”

“Oh, but I should like to see how they work? Can't I?”

“How they work? Perhaps I don't work them—only create the illusion in you. You must come half−way and believe what the showman wants you to believe.”

Clare jumped down from the rock.

“I had rather believe you are a true magician and not a showman. You will have gathered herbs to touch my eyes with when I come tonight.”

They parted and he watched her hurry away through the fading winter light until the brown trees hid her.

It was a little before midnight when Clare slipped once again out of the Prefects' Room window. It was a clear night with a half−moon just rising and beginning to shine on the thin crust of snow which crunched loudly under her feet. She ran across the light field of snow until she reached the shadow of the copse by the wall and there stood a moment to regain her breath. The night was quite windless. There was not a murmur from Brackenbine wood. She groped her way behind the beech−tree and felt for the snow−covered ledges of the buttress. It was very dark under the trees on the other side. She raised herself on to the coping and peered about for a sign of Niall. She had scarcely straddled the walltop when a feeble ray of lamplight shone out just below her and a low voice said: “Well done! Punctual to the minute!”

She saw that a short roughly−made ladder had been placed against the wall. In a moment she was down and Niall was pushing the woollen cap back from her forehead and laying his cold cheek against hers.

He led her by the hand, winding swiftly among the trees, finding his way without the aid of the lantern. He went with such swiftness and sureness through the dark wood, and, drawn on by his strong arm, Clare seemed to move with so little volition of her own, that her course was like those she had made through the Captain's wood in her dreams, and she half−looked to see the darkness change to a dream light and show her that these trees whose thin fingers stroked her were the girls of her dream spreading their foliage−tresses about them.

The darkness did lighten; they had mounted by a slanting path some way up the hillside; the trees receded and the sky was open above them; near at hand Clare saw an even slope of snow glittering in the frosty moonlight. It was some moments before she realised that the regular, smooth incline was the roof of Brackenbine House. Niall laughed softly.

“We'll not disturb my mother. I'm taking you in by the skylight.”

He scrambled up the slope and disappeared through the skylight, which was propped open. Then his head and shoulders reappeared and he held out an arm. Clare grasped his hand and clambered up. He guided her feet as she turned and wriggled through the opening, and she found herself standing beside him on a low table which was set below the skylight. Wood embers still glowed on the hearth at one end of the studio and the air was warm.

Niall stepped down and opened the shutter of his dark lantern and threw the yellow beam up and down the long room as though making sure that all was in order. Clare came down from the table looking about her, a little puzzled and disappointed to find that the room was exactly the same as when she had seen it before: there were no special preparations for the show. Niall lit one of the reading lamps and blew out his lantern. He carried the lamp forward to the end of the room where the curtained window was and set it down on a stool there. Then he turned and beckoned to Clare.

“I kept the fire in,” he said, as she came and stood near to him. “You'll not be cold?”

There was a curious, suppressed excitement in his whisper which communicated itself to her so that she could not trust herself to speak, but only shook her head. Very gently he unwound the scarf from her throat and unbuttoned her coat. His fingers seemed nervous and clumsy; but when she had slipped out of her coat and pulled off her cap he took her in his arms with his old sureness.

“You've not forgotten?” he asked. “I said I would perform a ceremony—a ceremony of bondage. Do you want me to?”

She nodded.

“No, but you must say you do,” he insisted. “It is a ceremony of great power. Unless you undergo it willingly, gladly, it is no use. It will fail.”

It seemed to Clare that her willingness or unwillingness was without meaning. She had no will, and wanted none; his firm embrace about her was all she wanted; but it was delightful to obey him and so, when he repeated his question, urgently: “Are you willing?” she smiled and answered, “Yes, I am.”

With one hand he drew aside the curtain and revealed the window and the deep wooden seat below it. He moved her towards it and seated her there with her back to the window. Then he stepped between her and the lamp and bent over her. She felt a keen breath of night air on her neck and shivered. “It's only a moment,” he whispered. With a firm pressure of his left hand he bent back her head until she felt the edge of the opened window−frame just behind her left ear. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him pick up with his right hand from the window−seat a small instrument that glinted. His right hand brushed her cheek and she felt a sharp prick in the lobe of her left ear. She uttered an exclamation of pain in a startled, little−girl voice, but he caught the hand she lifted and held it fast.

“Don't touch it,” he commanded with such momentarily fierce authority that her protest died away and she sat as still as a cowed child.

She saw him take from his pocket a small glass tube in which there appeared to be two or three tiny slivers of wood. He took out the stopper and pressed the mouth of the tube to the lobe of her ear where it smarted. At the same time he recited in a loud voice something in the same incomprehensible jargon that she had heard when he drew the circle round her in the wood and lit the candles on the Christmas−tree. Now, he seemed to speak over her head, out to the cold night through the open window. He plucked the tube away and released her, stepping back and laughing softly.

“There, it's over. Did I hurt you?”

She felt her ear and, bringing away her hand, saw a tiny smear of blood on her finger. She looked wonderingly at his hands, but the phial had disappeared into his pocket again.

It had hurt for a moment and it still smarted slightly, but she did not mind. It was a queerly pleasurable smart. She smiled and shook her head. “No. At least—yes— but it doesn't matter.”

He shut the window and pushed the catch firmly home.

“Now,” he said, “the puppet−show. Let me make you comfortable. I shall have to leave you.”

While she still had not brought her thoughts and feelings into sufficient order to enable her to ask what he had done to her ear, he gathered a few cushions together in the window−seat and bade her sit still there and watch through the window.

“But on no account try to open it,” he instructed her. “And don't make any noise. I shall turn the lamp out because otherwise you won't be able to see what goes on outside, and don't light it again until I come back.”

He drew the thick curtain again, shutting her in the window recess as it were in a little room. Then he turned out the lamp and she heard the faint sounds of his climbing out through the skylight.

She gave all her attention now to what lay beyond the window. The moon had risen high enough to throw its light down into the steep−sided hollow that enclosed the old Captain's miniature park, but at the same time the tops of the rock walls and the trees that crowned them were lost in the dark blue gloom of the night, so that the illusion of looking into a distant valley surrounded by tremendous cliffs was complete. Over all tonight lay the pure snow on which the frost−fires glinted palely under the moon; the undulations of the landscape were smooth under that white coat, and the ancient trees upheld on crown and branch a white burden. Clare let her eyes wander slowly over the whole prospect, charmed by that white quietude and the delicate radiance of cold

lights reflected. The coppices were etched in grey and sepia against the white field, and the thicker wood in the distance was a grey cloud; behind it, barely distinguishable against the shadow of the cliff, was the denser darkness of that rough pile she called the Castle. Tonight, distincter than it had been in the daylight when the mossy sward was all green, she noticed below the far slope that led up to the thick wood a pond whose frozen surface blinked like steel in the moonlight.

Shut between the heavy curtain and the tightly−closed window Clare could hear no sound of movement either inside or outside the house. She wished Niall had not left her alone—although common sense promptly reminded her that he could not sit with her and work his puppets at the same time. It was not that she was afraid—or not exactly so, she told herself; but she was constantly looking for Niall nowadays, and missing him was as strong as a simple physical want like hunger or thirst. The need to have him near her had become doubly strong tonight since his firm holding of her head to inflict that swift, small wound on her. The wound itself had ceased to smart but she felt a kind of general, tingling excitement that verged on fear—that needed him to calm it.

She pressed her forehead against the cold panes, aware that she had been musing a long time. She wondered how long still it would be before the show began, and then, with a start, she saw that it had begun already.

Some tiny yellow points of light had appeared in the black mass of the Castle behind the wood. They remained steady, as though they were lamp−lit windows; but some others winked and flitted within the wood itself, exactly like those she had seen that first night of all in Brackenbine wood, but more than this, there was movement by the pond at the foot of the snowy slope. Figures were moving there, very small and distant, gliding and turning across the frozen pond with the unmistakable motions of skaters. In the deceptive moonlight the effect was perfect; the action of the little figures was as smooth as that of living persons. She stared and stared, trying to make out the details more plainly, but the motion and the faintness of the light defeated her. Sometimes she fancied that she could discern the lift and flow of a flared skirt and a swinging of long hair as a figure pirouetted, but she could not in the end have surely said whether the figures were male or female; all she could be certain of was that they were moved with consummate skill; but, again, how, and from where, she could not possibly make out. Before she had fairly begun to think about the mechanics of the show her attention was distracted from the skaters by more lights. These began to shine among the thinner woods and coppices on the left of her view. She remembered now that in the daylight she had noticed a drive coming down in that direction, and in a little while she saw that these new lights were lanterns borne by some kind of procession moving through the trees obliquely towards her. Soon, dim shapes were visible crossing zones of snow between the trees, appearing and disappearing. Then a group definitely emerged from the trees and turned, moving as if it would cross the open field of snow immediately in front of her window.

It came nearer and she could not suppress an exclamation of amazement and delight. It was a perfect little sleigh drawn by two horses which trotted and tossed their heads and swished their tails—or appeared to do so— with all the freedom of living animals; two lamps threw a mellow splash of light upon the snow and above them sat a tophatted driver holding whip and reins. Behind him, in the boat−like body of the sleigh, there seemed to be two figures warmly muffled up in furs. Clare gave them but a hasty glance, for more wonders followed: a cavalcade of riders, and then more sleighs. The riders were the most wonderful of all, for not only did their horses trot with as convincing an action as the sleigh horses, but the riders themselves moved in their saddles, lifted their arms, appeared to incline towards one another, as if conversing together. Their motions were indeed so life−like that Clare could almost fancy she heard faint voices and laughter mingling with the crunch of hooves and the jingle of sleigh−bells.

The light from the lanterns some of them carried, from the sleigh−lamps and from the half−moon, was strong enough to show Clare the details of these figures' dresses, though, again, too uncertain for her to distinguish the mechanism of their motion. They were gorgeously dressed, some in scarlet, some in blue coats, some with three−cocked hats laced with silver, some with black peaked caps like a huntsman's, some in white breeches and boots, some with great shining black jack−boots that came half−way up their thighs like and eighteenth−century cavalryman's. Their horses were as diverse in colour as their own costumes: black, grey, bay and chestnut and skewbald. They kept no particular order but rode sometimes in a bunch behind the leading sleigh and sometimes separated into twos and threes to accompany the other three or four sleighs.

Clare could not be sure how many of the little figures there were, but it seemed a party of not less than thirty or forty.

The procession went at a lively pace across the open area of the park in front of the window, and when they had nearly reached the trees on the other side they turned about and crossed Clare's front again, this time coming nearer still to her window. She looked intently at the leading sleigh and the four or five horsemen who accompanied it and who were made to move as if they were chatting with its occupants. Horsemen, she had assumed, from their dress, but now she was not sure that some of them were not women or girls: she saw long hair escaping from under the caps of some of them and spreading on the shoulders of scarlet coats, and it seemed to her that some of the figures had a softly feminine shape. She remembered now what Niall had said about creating an illusion: he had selected exactly the right light for his purpose and aided it skilfully by his use of little lanterns in the puppets' hands. In that strange mingling of lantern−light and moonlight, of cold radiance from the snow and soft blue shadows, there was movement enough to trick the eye into believing that the faces of the puppets themselves were animated: Clare could have sworn that she saw their expressions change, saw them laugh and move their lips and eyes—and yet there was a veiling dimness over the whole scene that was sufficient to soften and blur the mechanical jerkiness with which they must in reality have moved, and prompt the spectator's eye unconsciously to fill out and complete the imperfections of their forms and motions.

Clare had never seen any spectacle in all her life like this, and had never imagined that puppets could be brought to such perfection. She did not realise at the time, though she reflected on it later, that the very elaborateness of the puppets' costumes and the fine detail of their finish was part of the trick, for by engaging the eye with those attractions the showman might distract it from the mechanism of the show.

The leading sleigh passed in front of Clare again. The riders who were with it suddenly spurred ahead and gave her a glimpse of two figures of a man and a girl; and just before the sleigh turned the figure of the girl seemed to throw back the edge of the fur rug and Clare for a second saw a laughing face and a bare shoulder and arm, and caught a sparkle of jewels at wrist and neck. The puppet turned with an extraordinarily smooth and graceful motion to its companion, whose scarlet−sleeved arm then encircled the gleaming shoulder and drew the head of thick brown hair down to his breast. Then the sleigh, and after it the whole procession, turned up the middle of the park and went swiftly between the gentle waves of snow to the hollow where the pond lay.

There they halted for a moment or two and Clare now saw the figures of the skaters more clearly as they came up from the ice. Though diminished by distance they were recognisable in the light of the lanterns as girls clad in short fur−trimmed frocks. Clare even caught the glint of the skates swinging from their hands as they approached the main party. They appeared to greet the riders and the people in the sleighs, then mounted the sleighs with them. The whole body then formed into a procession once more and sped up the long slope in the distance and soon was lost in the darkness of the wood. Clare gazed after them until, one by one, the yellow fights in the top of the Castle went out and there was nothing to be seen except the cold, still moonlight on the snow, the grey and brown blur of the woods and the vast looming shadows of the cliffs behind.

Clare sat on in her window−recess, held in a muse of wonder by the animation of the pleasure party that had passed before her eyes. She was entranced by the gaiety and the liveliness and colour of the spectacle and, so completely had she accepted the illusion, she felt a pang of envy of those happy little figures in their companionship. The suggestion of enjoyment was so strong: as in her dreams when Niall had been away, a laughing throng had passed by her, crowding away to the Castle where there was mirth and music and gay revels in which she should have had her part. She should have been one of those little figures in the sleighs. Her second's glimpse of the beautiful young girl with her lover in the leading sleigh was most vivid now in her memory and, in a strange perturbation of feeling, she realised that the girl's face, the movement of her arm and the toss of her brown hair were not only life−like but familiar. Somewhere she had seen that lovely, laughing face turned in just that manner towards someone; somewhere she had seen those brown eyes sparkling for their lover. She had known them, but where and when escaped her; it could only have been in some episode of those crowded dreams.

A soft thud and a noise that was half purr, half growl, recalled to her immediate reality. She drew the curtain and felt Grim brush against her legs. Then there came a scuffling and scraping noise and Niall's voice called softly: “Here I am again! Wait, I'll make a light.”

Soon a match spurted and Clare was blinking in a lamplight that seemed excessively bright and brassy after the soft, elusive radiance of the snow theatre outside. Niall looked at her in high delight.

“Well?” he whispered. “Did you like them?”

She could not find words to express her wonder. All her vocabulary of praise seemed clumsy and inadequate for a performance of such delicacy and mastery.

“I'm glad you weren't disappointed, anyway,” said Niall, laughing with pleasure at her praise. “I thought you might have been expecting a sort of play, and the best I could do was a parade. I told you my interest is in making these little things and making them move. I have no idea how to produce a play with them.”

“Ah,” she said quickly. “It was more than a play. It was just like a few minutes of the life of a gay crowd of people. I might have been looking from a window into a real park with a big house−party out for a midnight drive in the snow and all streaming back to supper and dancing in the Castle. I mean, it was so real, I did believe that they had been living before I saw them and were going on living after they disappeared among the trees. Oh, it's hard to say what I mean, but while I was watching them I was sad that I wasn't with them, that I hadn't been invited to their party.”

“Were you?” he asked, drawing her close to him. “Were you, my beloved?”

She stroked his hand. “Yes. And yet I'm grateful. It's so odd a thing I feel about you Niall dear. I feel so many, many things all the time and yet, under them all, there's one constant thing: it's a kind of humility, a kind of humble gratitude, and I don't know whether it's gratitude to you or to the kind fates that made me meet you.”

“I know. I've felt like that to the fates who brought you over our wall that very night when I happened to be on that side of the wood.”

“No. It's different for me. I mean, I might have been any girl just happening to have the enterprise to climb out of school because she hated it—and they all do hate it. But you are so rare a person; you have so rare a skill, and all this strange knowledge and learning and power. Why, why should you care for a plain, dull girl like me?”

He took her face between his hands and tilted it to his own.

“The short answer is that you are neither plain nor dull. And what's all learning but a candle compared to the daylight of a loving eye, and what's the rarest artificer's skill beside the living body? I love you, and that's the sum of all that I could ever say of you; but still, there is a corollary: I want to please you, to make you as happy as you thought my little puppets were tonight.”

“You have. You have,” she said.

“Yes, but there might be a keener and completer joy than that. If you were constantly mine—if I could possess your heart for always and convert you to be a dweller in that rare world I love, beyond the dark wood; if I could take you there, under the immortal boughs...”

“And go up to the enchanted Castle together, to the music and the dancing,” said Clare. “Ah, but you would have to lead. You already know part of the way.”

“And would you follow?”

“Happily. Oh! so happily. I couldn't choose but go. All my happiness now is in doing what delights you. The very air I breathe is full of your enchantment. Only keep me bound by your spell. Let nothing break it.”

He caressed her ear very tenderly, touching the place where he had pricked it.

“You shall go to the Castle beyond the wood,” he murmured before he kissed her. “I do know the way and you shall ride there prouder and happier than any of those you envied tonight.”

They parted at the foot of the wall by his rough ladder. He touched her ear once more before she climbed

up.

“Does it hurt now?” he asked.

“I can't feel it at all,” she admitted. “What did you do? Did you put something on it out of that little tube?” “That's a secret,” he grinned. “I might have put something on it. I might have taken something from it.”

She rubbed it. “It seems to be all there, anyway. You couldn't have taken anything much except a drop of blood, and you're welcome to that. You won't work much of a spell with just one drop!”

She climbed to the wall−top and paused for a moment there before dropping down on the Paston Hall side. “Who knows?” he answered softly. “One drop may be habitation enough for the whole spirit.”