Pearl Of Pearl Island Part 11

Well now, what will you do? Put me out into the road? Or can you find me somewhere else?--though I'm quite sure you'll not be able to find me any place as comfortable as this."

"Whatt will we do?" she said, much disturbed, and gazed at him thoughtfully. Then, with sudden inspiration, "There iss the big house up the garden?" and looked at him hopefully.

"But it's empty."

"Everything iss there, and all ready for them to come any time they want to. It woult only mean making up a bed and you coult come here for your meals."

"That would do first-rate if you can arrange it."

"I will write to Mrs. Lee to-day and ask her to tell me by the telegraph. It will be all right."

"That's all right then. Who's the wretched person who is turning me out of here?"

"It is two leddies. They wrote to the Vicar, and he asked John Philip and he told my man."

"Two ladies! Then I can't possibly have my meals in here. You'd better let me join you in the kitchen,"--a consummation he had been striving after for some time past, in fact ever since his literary instincts had shaken off the thrall and got their heads above the mists,--with a view, of course, of turning a more intimate knowledge of his surroundings to profitable account.

But his hostess was jealous of her kitchen and would not hear of it.

"There iss no need. I will arrange it, and you will tek your meals in here just as usual. Which room woult you like in the big house?"

"I'll go up and have a look round. Does it make any difference to you which I choose? I'd like one with a balcony if it's all the same to you."

"It iss all the sem, and I will get it ready for you as soon a.s.s I hear from Mrs. Lee. You will not be afraid, all alone by yourself up there?"

"Afraid? No. What is there to be afraid of?"

"Och, I do not know. Only--all alone--sometimes one iss afraid--"

"There aren't any ghosts about, are there?"

"Ghosts? Noh!"--with a ghost of a laugh. "I do not believe in ghosts or any such things, though some people does. There are some people"--very scornfully--"will not go by the churchyard at night, and"--lest so sceptical a mind should provoke reprisal--"I do not know that I woult myself. And down by the Coupee--But the house there iss too new to have anything like that." "Well, if I see any I'll try and catch one and bring it down to breakfast."

And so it was arranged that, if the permission of the owner of the Red House could be obtained, he should sleep there and come down to the cottage for his meals, Mrs. Carre undertaking that no inconvenience should thereby be caused to any of those concerned.

He strolled up the garden, with the dogs racing in front, to choose his bedroom, and came across his host unwillingly busy with hoe and spade in the potato patch. His whole aspect betokened such undisguised sufferance that Graeme could not repress a smile.

"Like it?" he asked.

"Noh!"

"Sooner be at the fishing?"

A nod and a brief smile, and Graeme left him to his unwelcome labours, and pa.s.sed through the gap in the tall hedge to his new abode.

It was a well-built house, gray granite below and red tiles up above, with a wide verandah round the lower storey and white balconies to the upper one; the inside was all polished pitch pine, and the rooms were large and airy and suitably furnished for summer occupancy. It was left in Mrs. Carre's charge, and she and the sun and wind kept it always sweet and clean, and ready for use at an hour's notice.

With the a.s.sistance of his two friends, who displayed an active and intelligent interest in the matter, he chose the room with the largest balcony, and said to himself that the coming of the ladies was, after all, a blessing in disguise. He believed he would be even more comfortable there than he had been at the cottage. He would have been quite willing to move in at once if that had been possible.

Next morning, however, the permission duly arrived, and in many trips he gaily carried all his belongings up the garden and installed himself in the balcony room.

It was a very delightful room, with fine wide outlook--over towards the church in its dark embowerment of evergreen oaks, which some of the folk would not pa.s.s by night; over the long sweep of the land towards Little Sark; then, over to the left, a glimpse of the sea and a dark blue film on the horizon which he knew was Jersey.

This room and the balcony outside should be his workshop, he decided, and he looked forward, with an eagerness to which he had been stranger for weeks past, to burying himself in his work and finding in it solace and new strength.

II

Graeme possessed a lively imagination, else surely he had never taken to writing. But a lively imagination, sole occupant of a ten-roomed house in a strange land whose inhabitants believed firmly in ghosts and spirits and things that walked by night, and that house but a stone's-throw from the black churchyard where such discomforting things might naturally be supposed to congregate, was not nearly so enjoyable a possession at midnight as in the full light of day.

He lay awake for hours, hearing what seemed to him uncanny sounds about the house, inside and out. The night wind sighed through the heavy pale leaves of the eucalyptus trees, and set the roses and honeysuckle on the verandah posts whispering and tapping. In the stark silence, sounds came out of the other nine empty rooms as though they chose that quiet time for pa.s.sing confidences. The stairs creaked as though invisible feet pa.s.sed up and down. And once he could have sworn to stealthy footsteps along the verandah below his window.

He laughed at his own foolishness. Ghosts, he vowed, he did not believe in, and the Sark men were notably honest. All the same it was close on daylight before he slept.

When he pushed through the dewy hedge and went down to the cottage for breakfast, his hostess's eyes twinkled as she asked, "You did not see any ghosts--Noh?"

"Not a ghost, but all the same it did feel a bit lonesome. What would you say to my taking Punch with me to-night, just for company?"

"Yess indeed, tek him. He iss quiet. The other iss too lively."

"And when do your ladies arrive?"

"With the boat. When will you be pleased to have your dinner?"

"I'm off to Little Sark for the day. How would seven o'clock suit you and them?"

"I will mek it suit. They will haf dinner before or after. It will be quite all right."

He spent the day with the dogs, scrambling among the rugged bastions at the south end of the island, investigated the old silver mines, bathed, all three, in the great basin of Venus in the hollow under the southern cliffs, and came home after sunset, tired and ravenous.

"Well, have your ladies come?" he asked, as he sat down to his dinner.

"Oh yess, they are come. They are gone for a walk. One of them is Miss Hen and the other iss Miss Chum."

"Good Lord, what names! Two old maids, I presume,--curls and spectacles and that kind of thing!"

"They are not old, noh. And they are ferry nice to look at, especially Miss Chum."

"Well, well, so she ought to be to make up for her name."

"They were quite put out to think of having turned you out of your roomss--"

"Not half as much as I was, but you can a.s.sure them that I am delighted they came. It's as nice a house as one could wish for, and if you can arrange the meals all right I'll not trouble them in the least. How long are they going to stay?"

"They are like you. They do not know. It may be a month, it may be more."

"Oh well, I'll keep out of their way as much as possible. People who come to Sark come to be quiet, I expect. Don't trouble about coffee tonight, Mrs. Carre. I shall just have a smoke and then turn in. I'm tired but and I want a good night's rest."

"Ah yess. Well, you will tek Punch to-night, and then you will hear no ghosts."