about reading the tea-leaves?’ Her eyes were avid and scornful and afraid.
Mrs Pearson shook her head without looking up. She had languidly reached for a women’s magazine from the table beside the bed and was looking with pleasure at each bright, enticing illustration; seriously considering the merits of every advertisement.
‘I can’t do that, dear,’ she said in a moment without glancing up, ‘or rather – I could if I’d let myself. But I said I never would again, you know. Not deliberately. Not even for a friend.’
10
Peggy walked quickly northwards. By quiet roads and short cuts she came out at last on to the former meadows of Parliament Hill, and walked straight up them, crunching through grass now lightly whitened by frost. She passed one or two people taking their dogs for a run. Below, London began to arrange itself into a colossal shallow bowl, filled with sparkles and glints.
She stopped, once, to look down at the new skyscrapers in their fierce delicate beauty; they were squares, oblongs, towers, bastions, made of light without visible walls; palaces built for the god Mammon out of glittering shadowy silver and palest gold, insubstantial, chilling. Then she sped on. The air was very cold.
On the summit of a hill she paused again. Moonlight had come into its own, and the lights below seemed remote. The greyish expanses of Hampstead Heath now spread away towards a barrier of ancient forest. She went straight towards it, down into a valley where clusters of reeds looked brown against the pallid grass.
She glanced, indifferently, towards a shape that was moving erratically among the reeds; colourless as the tussocks around it: featureless, no more than a bundle of clothes that suggested humanity.
The figure stooped, retrieved something from the grass, and, retracing its steps to a pile of objects that glimmered at a distance, placed it on the heap. At the same moment, Peggy heard the sound of a motor-cycle engine, and saw a red light coming down a distant path.
She quickened her pace, and was soon at the top of the opposite slope and disappearing into the shadow of some large trees. She wanted no involvement with humanity.
The engine stopped, and the rider dismounted, revealing himself in the chill light as a policeman, and a young one. He advanced leisurely towards the figure, which had stood still at his approach, with uplifted face turned towards him.
‘Busy?’ he inquired, when he was within a few paces of what he now saw to be an old man – and a mental case, he judged.
‘Isn’t it time you were at home, Grandad?’ he added, as it was borne in on upon him that here stood no ordinary old man but a true ancient, who must be nearer ninety than eighty.
The young policeman, whose name was Charley Mackray, had tried to make his voice at once authoritative and kindly; indeed, his disapproval was mild. But it was disapproval; ninety-year-olds should be safe at home on a frosty night in December, full moon or no full moon.
He had expected a whine about ‘doing no harm’ or a whine of some kind. But the voice that answered was no whine; it was weak, so worn by the use of almost a century that it barely carried across six feet of air, but it sounded sane, and it did not lack dignity.
‘I am collecting the litter,’ it said slowly. ‘It is an outrage on these meadows, all what’s left of the pools and streams where the monks once caught their Friday fish. On fine nights, this is what I do. I puts it into a heap. And I keeps the clean paper.’
Charley Mackray did not know what to do or say for a moment, because he was so surprised. The reference to monks and fish and pools, too, had rather confused him: a number of other things and people seemed suddenly to have intruded themselves between the Law, represented by himself, and this grotesque figure.
‘Well, that’s nice of you, grandad, but there’s keepers for that job, you know, paid by the Council. That’s their
Mrs Pearson shook her head without looking up. She had languidly reached for a women’s magazine from the table beside the bed and was looking with pleasure at each bright, enticing illustration; seriously considering the merits of every advertisement.
‘I can’t do that, dear,’ she said in a moment without glancing up, ‘or rather – I could if I’d let myself. But I said I never would again, you know. Not deliberately. Not even for a friend.’
10
Peggy walked quickly northwards. By quiet roads and short cuts she came out at last on to the former meadows of Parliament Hill, and walked straight up them, crunching through grass now lightly whitened by frost. She passed one or two people taking their dogs for a run. Below, London began to arrange itself into a colossal shallow bowl, filled with sparkles and glints.
She stopped, once, to look down at the new skyscrapers in their fierce delicate beauty; they were squares, oblongs, towers, bastions, made of light without visible walls; palaces built for the god Mammon out of glittering shadowy silver and palest gold, insubstantial, chilling. Then she sped on. The air was very cold.
On the summit of a hill she paused again. Moonlight had come into its own, and the lights below seemed remote. The greyish expanses of Hampstead Heath now spread away towards a barrier of ancient forest. She went straight towards it, down into a valley where clusters of reeds looked brown against the pallid grass.
She glanced, indifferently, towards a shape that was moving erratically among the reeds; colourless as the tussocks around it: featureless, no more than a bundle of clothes that suggested humanity.
The figure stooped, retrieved something from the grass, and, retracing its steps to a pile of objects that glimmered at a distance, placed it on the heap. At the same moment, Peggy heard the sound of a motor-cycle engine, and saw a red light coming down a distant path.
She quickened her pace, and was soon at the top of the opposite slope and disappearing into the shadow of some large trees. She wanted no involvement with humanity.
The engine stopped, and the rider dismounted, revealing himself in the chill light as a policeman, and a young one. He advanced leisurely towards the figure, which had stood still at his approach, with uplifted face turned towards him.
‘Busy?’ he inquired, when he was within a few paces of what he now saw to be an old man – and a mental case, he judged.
‘Isn’t it time you were at home, Grandad?’ he added, as it was borne in on upon him that here stood no ordinary old man but a true ancient, who must be nearer ninety than eighty.
The young policeman, whose name was Charley Mackray, had tried to make his voice at once authoritative and kindly; indeed, his disapproval was mild. But it was disapproval; ninety-year-olds should be safe at home on a frosty night in December, full moon or no full moon.
He had expected a whine about ‘doing no harm’ or a whine of some kind. But the voice that answered was no whine; it was weak, so worn by the use of almost a century that it barely carried across six feet of air, but it sounded sane, and it did not lack dignity.
‘I am collecting the litter,’ it said slowly. ‘It is an outrage on these meadows, all what’s left of the pools and streams where the monks once caught their Friday fish. On fine nights, this is what I do. I puts it into a heap. And I keeps the clean paper.’
Charley Mackray did not know what to do or say for a moment, because he was so surprised. The reference to monks and fish and pools, too, had rather confused him: a number of other things and people seemed suddenly to have intruded themselves between the Law, represented by himself, and this grotesque figure.
‘Well, that’s nice of you, grandad, but there’s keepers for that job, you know, paid by the Council. That’s their
Similar Books
