The Black Diamond

by Francis Brett Young

‘My . . . how cold you are!’ she whispered.

Half an hour later she let him out into the yard, with more tender whispers of farewell and warnings that her father slept lightly. For a few minutes he stood away from the moonlight in the shadow of the house, bewildered, stunned. He saw the white road stretching in the direction of Chapel Green and Wolfpits, but it meant no more to him than if it had led to the world’s end. He was no longer a part of the world. He towered above it supreme and isolated in the flame of his own throbbing exaltation. He had no need of friends or houses or rest, no memory of the past, no thought for the future. He stood there self-sufficient and unassailable.

A little later he became aware of the fact that his feet were carrying him automatically over the moon-lit road toward the hills, but he was almost unconscious of his progress, and it filled him with a sort of mild surprise when he saw familiar landmarks of the road loom up before him, grow clear, and fall away behind. His footsteps rang upon the iron road as though he were shod with steel. From the brow of the hill above Wolfpits he saw the basin of the Folly Brook brimmed with mist. The gables of the house rose up into the moonlight, the hills stood black behind. Under the heavy chestnuts of the avenue it was almost dark; the water in the ruts had frozen to a thin crust so that the surface was curiously splashed with moonlight and with ice. Fifty yards in front of him he saw a figure moving with lurches from side to side of the lane. At first he thought it was a stray bullock, but there was something human in its movements and so he leapt to the conclusion that it was old man Drew rolling home drunk with sweet turnip from the cottage of some friend. The figure leaned for a moment against a stone wall, and Abner, coming abreast of it, saw that the drunken man was George Malpas.

‘Hallo, George, what’s up?’ he called.

‘God, Abner, is that you?’ George murmured thickly. ‘I haven’t half got a drop, I haven’t!’ The situation amused George so much that he shook with weak laughter.

‘Come on, then, old son!’ said Abner, taking him by the arm. Strong as he was he found it difficult to steer a straight course. George, having once submitted to the direction of another will, now became somnolent. Abner almost had to carry him up the garden path.

A light burned in the kitchen, and on the doorstep Mary stood waiting for them. She looked very frail and beautiful in the light of candles. From the first her eyes had taken in the situation, and she offered no spoken comment on it though her mouth showed that she was suffering the shame of the situation.

‘Give me a hand upstairs with him, please,’ she said.

The excuses that Abner was ready to offer for his friend died on his lips. Between them they directed the steps of George upstairs. When he reached the bedroom he stared about him as though he had never been there before, and then, giving the problem up, lurched over on to the bed covering his head with his hands.

‘We’d best get his boots off,’ said Abner.