THE SCARECROW RIDES (11 page)

He picked up the dead parson's wig and put it on his head. He looked
once more in the mirror. The incongruity of the raven locks escaping
from below the rigid white line of the formal wig, made him smile. He
took a pull at the jug of small beer, and smiled again. From the chest
he took his toilet case, and with a pair of scissors he cut away the
rebellious hair that hung beneath the wig. He threw the cut hair into
the fire, and as it fizzled, he found his dark-tinted spectacles that
he had used in the tropics and pushed them on his nose. Once more he
regarded himself in the mirror and was so elated by what he saw that he
took a deep pull at his silver brandy flask. He then discarded the wig,
the hood and the gown and began to dress himself in a fine suit of
scarlet velvet trimmed with silver braid. The coat, which was
full-skirted in the fashion that had already passed out in England, he
bound round the waist with a silver sash into which he thrust his brace
of pistols. Before fastening one of the swords to the carriage, he
pulled on a long and elegant pair of thigh boots, and then attached the
sword. Into his hat he clipped a fine ostrich feather, and then picking
up the silver flask with one hand and fingering the hilt of his sword,
he yet again approached the pier glass and favoured his magnificent
reflection with a bow. Just then the stable clock struck three.

“Captain Clegg,” he whispered, “I regret to inform you that we have
reached in safety the parting of the ways. If I do not discontinue your
company, it is as like as not that I should accompany you to Execution
Dock, and I should be desolate to see you in such straits. I have to
thank you for many thrilling years of companionship. Your long sword
and your skill with it, your pistols and your skill with them, your
quick wit and your gallantry have countless times saved not only my
poor life but the lives of many a stout friend. Your successor, who
will now take command, is in no ways comparable to yourself, though
more suitable for the work at hand. I commit you with honour to lie in
the chest which you have filled for me, and after your successor has
turned me into a humdrum parson, I'll take my oath that there will come
times when I shall itch for your gay life. By reason of the many
services you have done for me, and for the fact that the name of
Captain Clegg is known and trembled at over the seven seas, I rest your
humble servant. Let me in parting present you to your successor, Dr.
Syn—Christopher Syn, D.D., of Oxford University and vicar of
Dymchurch-under-the-Wall, in the County of Kent.”

Drawing his sword, he picked up the gown and wig upon the point and
made it bob up and down before the mirror.

The same three strokes of the stable clock reminded Charlotte of her
promise to her mother, so after seeing that Meg was still under the
influence of Sennacharib Pepper's sleeping draught, she gently opened
the door and crept along the gallery to awaken Mrs. Lovell, the
housekeeper. There was no need for her to carry a light, as the moon,
riding now in a clear sky, shone brightly through the landing window.
Her mind, so running on the guest who had been cast up by the sea, it
was only natural that she should look across to the door of the room
she knew he was occupying. It was shut, of course, but she saw suddenly
that the door of his powder closet was open. After his fearful
experience of the wreck, she felt it would be too cruel if he were kept
awake by a creaking door, so very quietly she crossed the landing to
close it. Small as this service was, she found so much pleasure in
doing it that her heart was beating so loud that she was afraid someone
might hear it.

It was not until she reached the door that her heart-beats stopped
in sheer terror. She had not even the power to speak or cry out, for
there, standing in a most unearthly light, she saw a vision of her
father's guest, the man who had so disturbed her heart. Overcoming her
terror with all her strength, she forced herself to look at him more
intently.

There he stood looking at her, yet not seeming to notice her. She
had heard tales of ghostly visitants that looked through one and there
was nothing real about this figure. It certainly resembled the man she
so admired in feature, but the clothes were those of a swaggering
gallant. True, she could not see too plainly, for in front of him there
flickered a veil of light, a sheen that shimmered so that the face
seemed to be hovering in airy darkness beyond the moving radiance. But
why should a living man appear to her? It was then that she saw the
dead one. A second form, vaguer than his, seemed to be dancing beside
him, and she recognised the white wig and shiny-black silk preaching
gown of the dead parson.

Then in sheer panic Charlotte fled along the gallery.

How she reached the housekeeper's room without falling she didn't
know, but when she did she found to her infinite relief that Mrs.
Lovell had her candle lighted and had just been getting ready to
relieve her.

“But whatever ails you, Miss Charlotte? Did you fall asleep and
dream? It was the stable clock that woke me. I wondered why you did not
come at once.”

“I've seen the dead parson,” she whispered in terror. “He was in the
powder closet of his old room.”

“Nonsense, child,” replied the old lady. “I never hold with ghosts
and such things.” But her terrified looks belied her, though she tried
to show a brave face before her young mistress.

“I told her ladyship it was not right for you to sit up after such a
night of tragedy,” she whispered. “Come, I'll take you back to your
room and you'll soon be asleep. We don't want another invalid to look
after. Was it in the powder closet that you thought you saw him?”

“You don't think he's returned to harm father's guest, do you?”
asked Charlotte.

“What, Parson Bolden do harm? Alive or dead, he could do nothing but
good. It would cheer me to see him again alive, my dear.” She did not
add that she had no such desire to see his ghost.

Together they sallied out, clutching one another at every sound and
encouraging one another with whispers. Mrs. Lovell held a candle high
above her head and walked slowly, so that if they caught a glimpse of
the distant ghost they could scuttle back to safety.

They reached the landing and paused, for they were now within sight
of the door.

“The door was open, you said, dear?” whispered the old lady.

“I went to shut it, yes, and then I saw him.” Somehow she could not
bring herself to speak of the other that she had seen.

“Then you were dreaming, child,” said Mrs. Lovell, mightily
relieved. “For, look, the outer door of the powder closet is shut.”

Charlotte could not believe her eyes till Mrs. Lovell tried the door
softly and found that it would not yield.

“It's locked from the inside, my dear. You go and dream better
dreams in bed, Miss Charlotte.”

And when Mrs. Lovell left her in her room, Charlotte began to wonder
whether she had seen anything or no.

As Dr. Syn drained his flask in a parting salute to his resplendent
reflection, he heard a noise which he took to be the rustling of ivy
against the window. He heard it again. It was very faint, but since his
sea-chest was open, he had no wish to be surprised. Once more he heard
it, but this time it seemed to be dying away into the distance. This
time, however, he located it as coming from the powder closet. He could
see the half-opened door in the pier glass, but beyond it was pitch
dark. He felt a draught towards the door and remembered the squire had
told him that there was a way through to the landing. Was it possible
that someone had entered the powder closet? Was it possible that
someone was still there? What he had thought to be the stirring of the
ivy might well have been the rustling of a silk petticoat. He knew that
the ladies were keeping vigil beside the bereaved young widow. For some
purpose, one of them might have crept to his door.

As it would never do to be caught in his present finery, he quickly
divested himself of hat, pistols, sash and coat. Then laying his sword
upon the bed, he slipped into the quilted dressing robe, and picking up
a candle tiptoed into the powder closet. The door leading to the
landing was wide open. There was no one in the powder closet, and all
was still and quiet on the landing and galleries when he looked out.
But just as he was about to close the door, his eye caught something
white upon the carpet near the wall. He saw it was a small lace
handkerchief and picked it up. The faint odour of roses which it held,
rolled back the years with that subtle swiftness that only scent
possesses, and he felt young again, romantic and in love. All very
ridiculous, as he knew, for between those far-off days which the
perfumed piece of lace brought back, were all the properties of
Tragedy—storm, tempest, villainy, death, destruction and a broken
heart turned vindictive. No, those years rose up with the smell of
powder, rum and blood forbidding romance with their stench.

Yet, being his first night in England since so long, Dr. Syn, with
the same whimsicality that he had betrayed over his sea-chest, allowed
himself not to do the sensible thing, which was to drop the little lace
handkerchief where he found it. Instead, he held it to his lips, and
when he heard footsteps and whisperings approaching round the gallery
he took it with him, when he quietly shut the door and locked it.

He heard them approach the door. He was the other side of it when
Mrs. Lovell tried it, and he wondered what dreams they had been when
she said: “You go and dream better dreams in bed, Miss Charlotte.”

He went back to the bedroom and began stowing all his property back
into the chest. The throwing a towel around his shoulders, he sat in
front of the dressing-table and cut his hair short. Having done this to
the best of his ability in the candle-light, and promising himself to
better it in the morning, he made up the fire, consigned a handful of
black locks to the flames, put out the candle, and then after opening
the casement wide, so that he could hear the sea grinding upon the
beach, a soothing lullaby to one who had spent so much of his life upon
it, he clad himself, by the light of the fire, in a nightcap and gown
of the squire's providing, and took himself and the lace handkerchief
to the sanctuary of the great four-poster bed, where, holding the
kerchief close to his face in the hope that its gentle fragrance might
breathe into his sleep sweet dreams of long-forgotten innocence, and
thanking God for having preserved him through so many dangers and for
bringing him home again, he heard the stable clock strike four and fell
asleep.

The next thing he knew was the same clock striking eight. Through
the open casement he saw sea-gulls wheeling in a sky that, ashamed of
its ill vapours the night before, was bright, clear and crisp.

Dr. Syn swung himself out of bed and crossed eagerly to the window.
The first view of English countryside is always a joy to those who have
been long abroad, and everything he saw was a joy to him. Regardless of
his bobbing nightcap and white gown, he hung out over the sill to get a
wider view. There across the red roofs of the farm and Little Manor
rose the sharp grass bank of the sea-wall upon which a party of men
were at work repairing the damages of the storm. Observing the
eagerness with which they toiled, Dr. Syn repeated to himself the
slogan of the Marsh, “Serve God, honour the King, but first maintain
the Wall,” and he added this comment: “Good men will serve God, loyal
men will honour the King, but there's nothing that every man fights
harder for than his own personal safety,” and looking first this way
and then that and delighting in all he saw, he told himself that so
long as the Wall
was
maintained, a fairer spot than little
Dymchurch-under-the-Wall could not be found on the coast of England.

A sharp, frightened scream immediately beneath him interrupted his
meditations. A buxom dairy wench who had no doubt been tempted to look
up from her task of pail-carrying in order to watch the screaming
sea-gulls, circling the lofty rookery, who with their shrill sea voices
seemed to be asking their sedater fellows, the rooks, how they had
fared in the last night night's storm.

Expecting, therefore, to see sea-gulls and rooks arguing the point
overhead, she was greatly alarmed to see the apparition of a strange,
queer-looking man, dressed only in nightcap and shirt, looking round
the corner of his window-sill like Mr. Punch awakened by the beadle in
the puppet show. As their eyes met she dumped down the pails on the
uneven ground with such a bump that rivers of pure milk ran here and
there amongst the gravel. The yoke she threw from her shoulders
backwards, tripped over it, saved herself with both hands and after
crawling clear of the wreckage on all fours, picked herself up and fled
in confusion back towards the farm.

Her exhibition was so entirely comical that Dr. Syn, feeling in the
best of spirits, burst out laughing, when a door beneath him opened and
the charming vision of Charlotte appeared, dressed in a green velvet
riding habit trimmed with fur. It was her habit to go riding every
morning with the squire. She had witnessed the disaster of the milk
pails and had stepped out on the path to see the cause of it, when
looking up at the sound of his laughter she saw the doctor in his very
ludicrous costume.

Although she could not help laughing at the ridiculous situation,
she pretended to be very stern with her father's guest.

“You'll catch your death of cold,” she called. “After your wetting
last night to be hanging out of an open window in nothing but a shirt.
Why, you want looking after.”

“Mothering, eh?” chuckled Dr. Syn.