He led the way out of the laboratory, turning the key behind him. The bell in the tower was ringing for supper. The school was all lit up. He climbed the railing which divided the playground from the football field, telling me to follow. We passed across the meadows to the village, which lay on the northward side of Eden Hill; it snuggled among trees. The cottages were straw-thatched. Frost glistened on the window-panes, behind which lamps were set. Unmelted snow glimmered here and there in the gardens in patches among cabbage stumps. We turned in at a gate. The Creature raised the latch of the door and we entered.
How cozy the little house was after the bare stone corridors and cold, boarded dormitories. All the furnishings of the room into which he led me were worn and out-of-date; but they had a homelike look about them which atoned for their shabbiness. The walls bulged. Pictures hung awry upon them. The springs of the sofa had burst; you sank to an unexpected depth when you sat upon it. The carpet was threadbare; patch-work rugs covered the worst places. Yet for all its poverty, you knew that it was a room in which people had loved and been kind to one another. An atmosphere of memory hung about it.
The Creature appeared to be his own house-keeper. He left me alone while he went somewhere into the back to get things ready. I could hear him striking matches and jingling cups against saucers.
As I sat looking curiously round at wax-fruit in glass-cases and a stuffed owl on the mantel-shelf, the door was pushed open gently. An old lady entered. She trod so lightly, gliding her feet along the floor, that I should not have heard her save for the turning of the handle. She was dressed from head to foot in clinging muslin. Her face and hands were so frail and white that you could almost see through them. Her faded hair fell disordered and scanty about her shoulders. Her eyes were unnaturally large and luminous. She showed no surprise at seeing me. She looked at me so stealthily that she seemed to establish a secret. Crossing her hands on her breast she courtesied, and then asked me as odd a question as was ever addressed to a little boy. “Are you my Lord?”
“If you please, mam,” I faltered, “I’m Dante Cardover.”
Her look of intense eagerness faded, and one of almost childish disappointment took its place. She moved slowly about the room, from corner to corner, bowing to people whom I could not see and whispering to herself.
My host came shuffling along the passage. He was carrying a tea-tray. When he saw the woman, he set it hurriedly down on the table and went quietly towards her. “Gipie,” he said, “Egypt, we’re not alone; we have a guest. Tell them to go away.”
He spoke to her soothingly, as though she were a child. Her eyes narrowed, the strained far-away expression left her face. She made a motion with her hand, dismissing the invisible persons. He led her to me. It was strange to see a grown woman follow so obediently.
“Gipie,” he said, “I want you to listen to me. This boy is my friend. They were fighting him up there,” jerking his head in the direction of the school. “He’s lonely; so I brought him to you. Tell him that you care.”
The old lady lifted her hands to my shoulders—such pale hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. It was like a child repeating a lesson.