Half-Past Bedtime

by Sir H. H. Bashford

But next morning it all seemed more real again, and Captain Jeremy took them round the town; and they had lunch with one of the fruit-merchants in a low-walled house built round a courtyard. After lunch they slept in long armchairs, and when they woke up queer sorts of drinks were brought to them; and then it was time to go back to the ship again and watch the cases of fruit being packed in the hold. After a day or two, when they had learned their way about, Captain Jeremy let them go ashore alone; and by the end of the week they had explored every corner of the town, and even gone for walks along the country roads. Some of these were broad roads leading to other towns, but most of them became mule-tracks after a mile or two; and they seldom went very far up these because of the heat, which was greater then even the inhabitants had ever known.

Day after day, through the still air, the great sun emptied itself into the town; and the streets cracked, and the barometer fell, and Captain Jeremy looked anxiously at the weather; and it was upon the hottest day of all—the day before they were leaving—that Gwendolen suddenly gripped Marian's arm.

It was early in the morning, before the sun was at its steepest, and they had wandered past the cathedral into the outskirts of the town, where a little track between two high garden walls had tempted them to explore it. It had led them into a sort of garden, untidy and deserted, and on the other side of this there stood a house—a yellow-walled house with latticed windows and violet shadows under its broken roof. Beside the front door stood a crooked pot, and the front door itself was a cave of darkness, and up in the right-hand corner, under the roof, was a little window standing open. Gwendolen found herself shaking all over.

"Why, it's the very house," she said, "of the sorrowful picture."

And so it was, and as they stood looking up at it, it seemed more sorrowful to Gwendolen than ever. For there was the little window almost beseeching her in actual words to go and comfort it; and she even had a feeling that for all these years it had been crying in vain to her across half the world. But there was the front door too, dark with anger, and before they could move a man came out of it. He was a big man with a fat face, and he stood blinking for a moment in the sunshine; and then they saw him frown as he caught sight of them; and he shouted words at them that they didn't understand.

But it was evident that he wanted them to go away, and they saw him touch a knife that he wore in his belt; and so they ran back again up the little track, and there in the street they met Lancelot. He was grinning as usual, and he looked so big and strong that they could almost have hugged him on the spot; but his face grew serious when they told him what had happened, and he stroked his chin and became thoughtful.

"Well, it's a good thing," he said, "that you come away. In this here town you have to be careful. But I'll have a turn round and see if I can find anything out about this here house and the feller as lives in it."

Then he mopped his face and looked at the sky and told them to go back again to the ship; and a couple of hours later he came aboard and beckoned them to talk to him while he smoked his pipe. Everything was ready now for the ship to sail next morning, and most of the other sailors were asleep, and Captain Jeremy had gone to lunch again with the fruit-merchant in the town.

"Well, this here feller," said Lancelot, "seems a queer sort of cove, with a bad name, and he lives all alone; and his wife ran away from him six years ago, taking their only little girl along with her. But there's some folks believe that he went after her and killed her—anyway, she was found dead in the forest—but what happened to Pepita, who was three years old at the time, nobody knows, for she's never been seen."

Then he smoked his pipe for a minute. "But I tell you what," he said. "He's pretty sure to be asleep just now. And if you like I'll go and have a look at the house, and see what there is to it, and come and tell you."