AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She considered the matter, frowning and staring at the tips of her fingers.
‘I don’t know. I don’t want to leave them.’
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘Oh, you know!’ she said, and turned her head half shyly.
‘What? Your – friends, Monica?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wouldn’t you like other playmates?’
‘I don’t know. I love them, you see. But they said – they said I ought to go to school if you ever sent me. They might be angry with me if I was to ask you to let me stay. They wanted me to play with other girls who aren’t – who aren’t like they are. Because you know, they are different from children that everybody can see. And Mary told me not to – not to encourage anybody else who was different, like them.’
Everton drew a deep breath.
‘We’ll have a talk tomorrow about finding a school for you, Monica,’ he said. ‘Run off to bed, now. Good night, my dear.’
He hesitated, then touched her forehead with his lips. She ran from him, nearly as shy as Everton himself, tossing back her long hair, but from the door she gave him the strangest little brimming glance, and there was that in her eyes which he had never seen before.
Late that night Everton entered the great empty room which Monica had named the schoolroom. A flag of moonlight from the window lay across the floor, and it was empty to the gaze. But the deep shadows hid little shy presences of which some unnamed and undeveloped sense in the man was acutely aware.
‘Children!’ he whispered. ‘Children!’
He closed his eyes and stretched out his hands. Still they were shy and held aloof, but he fancied that they came a little nearer.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ he whispered. ‘I’m only a very lonely man. Be near me after Monica is gone.’
He paused, waiting. Then as he turned away he was aware of little caressing hands upon his arm. He looked around at once, but the time had not yet come for him to see. He saw only the barred window, the shadows on either wall and the flag of moonlight.
Ringing the Changes
by Robert Aickman
He had never been among those many who deeply dislike church bells, but the ringing that evening at Holihaven changed his view. Bells could certainly get on one’s nerves, he felt, although he had only just arrived in the town.
He had been too well aware of the perils attendant upon marrying a girl twenty-four years younger than himself to add to them by a conventional honeymoon. The strange force of Phrynne’s love had borne both of them away from their previous selves: in him a formerly haphazard and easy-going approach to life had been replaced by much deep planning to wall in happiness; and she, though once thought cold and choosy, would now agree to anything as long as she was with him. He had said that if they were to marry in June, it would be at the cost of not being able to honeymoon until October. Had they been courting longer, he had explained, gravely smiling, special arrangements could have been made; but, as it was, business claimed him. This, indeed, was true; because his business position was less influential than he had led Phrynne to believe. Finally, it would have been impossible for them to have courted longer, because they had courted from the day they met, which was less than six weeks before the day they married.
‘ “A village”,’ he had quoted as they entered the branch line train at the junction (itself sufficiently remote), ‘ “from which (it was said) persons of sufficient longevity might hope to reach Liverpool Street.” ’ By now he was able to make jokes about age, although perhaps he did so rather too often.
‘Who said that?’
‘Bertrand Russell.’
She had looked at him with her big eyes in her tiny face.
‘Really.’ He had smiled confirmation.
‘I’m not arguing.’ She had still been looking at him. The romantic gas light in the charming period compartment had left him uncertain whether she was smiling back or not. He had given himself the benefit of the doubt, and kissed her.
The guard had blown his whistle and they rumbled into the darkness. The branch line swung so sharply away from the main line that Phrynne had been almost toppled from her seat.
‘Why do we go so slowly when it’s so flat?’
‘Because the engineer laid the line up and down the hills and valleys such as they are, instead of cutting through and embanking over them.’ He liked being able to inform her.
‘How do you know? Gerald! You said you hadn’t been to Holihaven before.’
