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There stood a Dustman of no particular size or shape, his face masked with soot from which shone water-blue eyes and a white slot of an ivory smile. Dust sifted from his sleeves and his pants as he moved, as he talked quietly, nodding.
“I couldn’t get through the mob earlier,” he said, holding his dirty cap in his hands. “Now, going home, here I am. Must I pay?”
“No, Dustman, you need not,” said Camillia gently.
“Hold on—” protested Mr. Wilkes.
But Camillia gave him a soft look and he grew silent.
“Thank you, ma’am.” The Dustman’s smile flashed like warm sunlight in the growing dusk. “I have but one advice.”
He gazed at Camillia. She gazed at him.
“Be this Saint Bosco’s Eve, sir, ma’am?”
“Who knows? Not me, sir!” said Mr. Wilkes.
“I think it is Saint Bosco’s Eve, sir. Also, it is the night of the Full Moon. So,” said the Dustman humbly, unable to take his eyes from the lovely haunted girl, “you must leave your daughter out in the light of that rising moon.”
“Out under the moon!” said Mrs. Wilkes.
“Doesn’t that make the lunatic?” asked Jamie.
“Beg pardon, sir.” The Dustman bowed. “But the full moon soothes all sick animal, be they human or plain field beast. There is a serenity of color, a quietude of touch, a sweet sculpturing of mind and body in full moonlight.”
“It may rain—” said the mother uneasily.
“I swear,” said the Dustman quickly. “My sister suffered this same swooning paleness. We set her like a potted lily out one spring night with the moon. She lives today in Sussex, the soul of reconstituted health!”
“Reconstituted! Moonlight! And will cost us not one penny of the four hundred we collected this day, Mother, Jamie, Camillia.”
“No!” said Mrs. Wilkes. “I won’t have it!”
“Mother,” said Camillia.
She looked earnestly at the Dustman.
From his grimed face the Dustman gazed back, his smile like a little scimitar in the dark.
“Mother,” said Camillia. “I feel it. The moon will cure me, it will, it will....”
The mother sighed. “This is not my day, nor night. Let me kiss you for the last time, then. There.”
And the mother went upstairs.
Now the Dustman backed off, bowing courteously to all.
“All night, now, remember, beneath the moon, not the slightest disturbance until dawn. Sleep well, young lady. Dream, and dream the best. Good ni
ght.”
Soot was lost in soot; the man was gone.
Mr. Wilkes and Jamie kissed Camillia’s brow.
“Father, Jamie,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
And she was left alone to stare off where at a great distance she thought she saw a smile hung by itself in the dark blink off and on, then go round a corner, vanishing.
