THE LITTLE HOUSE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3993, 23 September 1930, Page 78

THE LITTLE HOUSE.

By Cecilie S. D.‘ Wright.

On the broad bosom of Glenariffe, lying close to the sea, there stood a little house. Four windows looked up into tne greenness of the Glen, and three gazed dreamily over the waters and watched the fishing boats going to and fro, and the sunsets splashing the distant coasts with subdued patches of colour. In winter the Little House stood empty and forlorn. The four windows no longer smiled up into the Glen, but frowned fiercely under brows of dust. Then spring came, and the Little House became almost gay with expectancy, and in the month of May the blinds were pulled up, and spiral curls of blue-grey smoke winged upwards from the chimney pots. Heavy lace curtains framed the windows, and the brass knocker on the door shone priglitly in the sunlight, for a man and i woman were coming to dwell within. On the day of their arrival the Little ’House was agog with excitement. The panes in the windows shimmered tremulously. Was it only the sunlight? The Little House knew it to be the outward evidence of the throbbing of its heart.

The woman came first. She was largely built, and the most outstanding thing about her was an atrocious yellow Jiat. The Little House grimaced faintly. She pushed open the door and entered. She was loud-voiced, so the Little House had no difficulty in hearing her remarks. She took off the dreadful yellow hat and threw it on a table, then, going back to the doorway, she - called, “ William! hurry please! I don’t like being alone in this poky little hole.” The Little House bridled momentarily, and then a wave of disappointment engulfed it, as William, a small man with a very red face, staggered up the garden path, weighed down heavily with bags, travelling rugs, etc. “ I’m coming, dear,” he said faintly, and lumbered through the doorwav.

She had thrown herself into an armchair that stood by the fireplace, and as her husband came into view she studied him with cool, insolent eyes. “ I don't know what prompted you to come to this lonely, God-forsaken place,” she said. William mopped his brow with a purple silk handkerchief. “ Thought you would like it, m’dear,” he mumbled apologetically. “ I used to stay in the village there when I was a kid.” “ How interesting,” said his wife with thinly-veiled sarcasm. “ The prodigal’s return to the old homestead.” She rose and left Hie room. He walked to the window and looked out over the bay. The beauty of the sunset glinting on the distant coast fascinated him. The fishing boats with their great brown sails sped past his view, hardly giving him time tc define their beauty. “ All life was like that,” he reflected sombrely. “ Things sped past, and in them you caught a fleeting beauty. But it didn’t last. No, it didn't last. Pity, too. Why, now, there was Sally. He thought that she would have revelled in the quiet beauty of Glenariffe. She had been so enthusiastic over the picture postcards he had shown her when first they met. Now that she was married, she didn’t seem to care about things in the same way. Only yesterday -she had actually asked him to burn all those wretched views. Rum things, women. Perhaps she was a bit nervy. The passage across from Glasgow had been rough, and Sally wasn’t a good sailor.’ No doubt when to-morrow came she would be in love with the house, and the village, and the bay, and all the things that were so dear to him.” The Little House felt very sorry for the pathetic little man, burdened with the awful woman upstairs who was his wife Sally drew a comb through her fierce yellow hair, and frowned fiercely at a patch of grey which had not yielded to the devastating effects of the dye. “ I’m growing old,” she muttered to herself, and her eyes loomed back at her morosely from the mirror. “What a place! Let me see, now. I’m fifty. A month in this house will add ten years to my age. That makes me sixty. A year spent here and that will finish me.” And with this morbid speculation she took the keys of her suitcase from her pocket and commenced to unpack. They dined at eight, off home-cured ham from the village shop and a small loaf of bread from the baker, whose skill was known and tested for miles around. This simple fare aroused William’s enthusiasm. “ The real stuff,” he said, forlornly waving a piece of ham on the end of his fork. He wished Sally would eat something. She just pecked at food “ Have some ham,” he said pleadingly. She regarded him fixedly. ‘ I hate ham,” she said, and turned her gaze through the window and out over the bay. William shrugged his thin shoulders despondently. This was something he could not understand.

That night the Little House lay deep in thought. Depression was wafted into ever corner and gloom descended like a heavy mantle. Each day following the atmosphere became more gloomy, and the Little House was bordering on the ver<*e of a nervous breakdown with the tension of it all.

On the Saturday evening, which completed a week of' hot, sultry weather. William set out by himself to walk up into the greenness of the Glen. Sally watched his short, stubbly figure walking meditatively up the path, pausing now and then as if struck by sudden thought which required consideration. Presently he disappeared round the bend. She waited for a few moments to make quite sure that he would not return for some forgotten article, then she hurried back to the bedroom with an expression of set

purpose on her face. The Little House held its breath. What was going to happen now? An interval of 30 minutes elapsed, and the Little House heard unfamiliar footsteps on the stairs. It strained its eyes into the dimness of the hall. Sally was creeping from the house on tiptoe, in her right hand she carried a suitcase, and over her left arm lay a travelling rug. She was going away! A feeling of exultation throbbed through the Little House. Hooray! hooray! hooray! it whispered under its breath. Sally walked away quickly, never stopping to look back, and the Little House heaved a sigh of relief. William did not return until the world was falling under cover-of darkness. He pushed open the front door. “ Sally,” he called, and, receiving no response, he repeated, “ Sally, m’dear. What do you think I saw just now'?” His. question mocked him from the top of the stairs. A feeling of desolation sank from hisheart into his legs. He crept* wearily upstairs and entered the bedroom. After fumbling about for matches, finding one, and lighting the lamp on the dressing table, he picked up a note addressed to himself in Sally’s handwriting. The Little House peeped over his shoulder and tried to read his secret, but without success. William read the note twice to convince himself of its contents, then he stumbled over to the bed, and sat down heavily upon it. He stared with unseeing eyes at the lamp on the dressing table, till the glare hurt him. Presently facts arranged themselves coherently in his brain. “ She’s left me.’’ he muttered like a child who does not understand. “I wonder what I did?” And he buried his face in his hands. The Little House stood at his back, filled with a longing desire to comfort the pathetic little man, and to tell him that Sally wasn’t w'orth it, but . William did not go to bed that night, but sat by the window and looked up into the darkness that shrouded the glen. In the morning he left very early, and the Little House never saw him again. Five days later two lads from the village came and put up an ugly white board at the gate. On the board were the words “To Let.” The Little House pretended not to notice this insult, and gaze abstractedly, but this time with a purpose, over the bay. Weeks passed, and the rain came and wept softly on the windows of the lonely Little House. One night, when the sorrow of the rain was at its height, four very wet young men pushed open the door and came in. They made a fire in the cold fireplace, and lit the lamp on the table. The Little House looked down at them- from the top of the stairs.

One was very’ young, with sharp, keen features. He sat by the fire, and the glow softened the hard lines of his face. Why, he was naught more than a boy, thought the Little House. The others addressed him as “ Larry.” There was a tall, loose-limbed lad with serious eyes and a weak mouth, who was drawing a cork from a bottle, talking the while, and punctuating his conversation with gusts of foolish mirth. No one seemed to listen to him. He talked on stupidly' into the night. At the table sat a heavily-built man with a fat red neck. The Little House could not repress a faint shudder of distaste. He was shuffling a pack of cards, and at short intervals his attention would wander to who sat by the fire, gazing into its depths. The Lisle House let its gaze fall on the fourth and last member of the group. He was a tiny’ man, with a baby’s complexion, and little fat hands. The Little House would not have been surprised if he had clapped those little fat hands and shouted “ Goo ! goo ! ” —so very' obvious was his lack of guile.

The Little House could not control a feeling of acute disappointment after a survey of its new masters. The young man who sat so quietly by the fire was the only promising member of the group.

They stayed there for three days, while the rain lashed itself in terror against the window-panes. They drank bad whisky, which came to them by night in a motor car, and played cards well into the night, quarrelling fiercely over the issues. The Little House ■withdrew itself into the recesses of old memories, and tried hard not to notice the vileness of the atmosphere below. . On the evening of the fourth day- the storm showed signs of abating. The tall, loose-limbed lad lit the lamp, and called to the others to join him “at the cards.” Larry was very drunk. The' others had seen to that—two bottles of very bad whisky and one small meal for a whole day were not without effect. “ I will not play,” he said. “ Leave me alone. I don’t like you. No, none of you.” He ended with drunken mutterings, and the others looked at each other significantly. The little man with the tiny fat hands approached him. “ Be sensible,” he said soothingly, and laid five pink-tipped, podgy fingers on the lad’s shoulders. The touch maddened Larry. He sprang to his feet, and swept the little man aside, and with a drunken gait proceeded to the door. “ I’m goin’ home,” he said. “ I’m through with you all. I’m goin’ to tell the police.’ Here he made a half-hearted effort to regain a dignified balance. His brain cleared a little, and by the glow of the lamp he saw the malevolent expressions on the faces of his companions. He shuddered in the atmosphere of evil and tried to open the door. It was locked! “Let me out, you scoundrels,” he screamed. There

was a dead silence. They were all waiting for something. Then, “ Just sign your father’s name to that little piece of paper,” said the man with the fat, red neck. “ You can go after that.” Here the ingratiating tone deepened into a snarl as he shot out his evil face close to Larry’s fair young one. Larry’s wandering forces seemed to rally, stung into life by the last remark addressed to him. “ I will not forge my father’s name,” he said. “ I’m going to the police right now, and I’m going to tell them everything.” He tugged at the door vainly' while they watched him very quietly; then he made a rush for the window, but was trapped while they watched_/him very quietly; then he made a rush for the window, but was trapped halfway by three bodies surmounted by three heads with desperation written on the faces. It all happened very suddenly. The lamp was overturned. An agonising scream rent the air, followed by low moans of agony, which decreased as the sufferer sank ’into unconsciousness. Then there were low whisperings, a door banged, and three men crept from the door out into the night.

A great shudder passed through the frame of the Little House.

After what seemed a period of eternity, the dawn filtered in through the rain-stained windows, and outlined the body of a man lying face downwards by the table. Later the morning sunshine glinted into the gold of his hair and from thence over his collar and glinted coldly on the silver gleam of The Little House screamed, for Larry lay’ there with an ugly knife buried in his back.

A day passed and the Little House grew heavy with fear, and the knowledge of its awful secret. The next evening two men in blue unforms with brass buttons, burst open the crazy hasp of the door and entered. They expressed no surprise at their find, but after a few mutterings departed and returned an hour later accompanied by three other men, garbed similarly. They grouped themselves round Larry and wrote down stupid little notes in stupid little black books. Then a small, dark man, with a black leather bag, came in, and turned the body over, so that the Little House could see the staring eyes, the sharp features, and the foolish dead smile. Next day more men came, and the Little House had never entertained such a large company. They talked and jested, and all the time Larry lay among them, smiling his foolish dead smile at the oaken beams in the ceiling. The third day’ they departed taking the body with them, and the Little House sobbed unrestrainedly.

For a year the Little House stood high and lonely in the glen. No one came near. The village folk crossed themselves when occasion compelled them to pass it, and the children were told the story of its downfall, and warned to keep away from it. Even the leprechauns would risk being soaked in the dew, rather then shelter in the eaves, as they’ had been wont to do in the past. So the Little House grew very bitter. With dust-dimmed ey’es it strained to watch the fishing boats with their great brown sails passing to and fro in the bay, and the ordinary world of everyday going on in the same way’. Winter came, and the winds, once kindly and sympathetic, raged round the walls, and tore off part of the roof. The Little House waited quietly for death to come. Spring drifted in softly, filling the glen with greenness, and the air with perfume. The Little House was musing softly’ on dear, dead memories of the days of its youth, when Anthony Chawnor Mac Neill came up from the sea. He was alone. It was a pretty stiff climb up from the bay, and the Little House watched him apathetically as he strode nearer. April sunshine played on his features, and now and then he smiled as if some happy thought had caught him unawares. A picture hung on the wall opposite the staircase. This was a picture of him. They called the picture “ Sir Galahad.”

Anthony turned the bend in the path, and the Little House flashed into view. A fierce desire to attract and keep this man filled the soul of the Little House. It sent up a little prayer. “Let him stay,” it pleaded. A soft spring wind fluttered past, flower-laden. The neglected garden gave out a dank smell. The door creaked noisily, and the garden gate sung dismally. The prayer of the Little House had passed unheeded. It turned down its eyes and wept softly. He would go away. How lovely he was. But it didn’t matter. He would go away. °

But the strange thing was, he didn’t go away. Instead, he ignored the creaking door, and passed into the hall. He inspected every corner of the Little House, and, as he came downstairs, he paused by the picture of Sir Galahad, and carefully wiped off the dirt which the Little House had left. He looked at it for quite a long time. Then he laughed, a clear, ringing laugh, and the Little House laughed, too, with the sheer happiness of it all. He went away, but the Little House knew that he was coming back soon, and, indeed, sooner than it had expected, for very early next morning he walked up the path again.

In the month of May the Little House was transformed. Clean lace curtains fluttered against the windows that looked over the bay, while the windows that looked glenwards were being polished, so that they, too, might be similarly adorned.

June came in a shimmering radiance of beauty. Anthony was working very hard. A great bookcase stood at the ft ot of the stairs filled with big books with dull bindings. One day, the Little House caught a fleeting glimpse of a picture in one of these books, as it lay on the table. It shuddered and turned away, for the picture showed a long, thinbladed knife, and ugly memories came crowding back. One day, when the master was in the glen, the postman thrust a letter through the slit of the letter-box. It fell with a soft plop on the polished floor. The envelope was addressed to “ Doctor Anthony C. Mac Neill. ' Doctoi - ? Oh! The Little House heaved a deep sigh of gladness. So he was a doctor, a healer. The picture of the ugly knife was explained. With August came a spell of extreme heat. Anthony seemed listless, and did not go out to the big bookcase so often. Instead, he would go out for long walks round the corners of the bay, and return in the cool of the evening, restless and dissatisfied. The Little House watched him with anxious eyes, and longed to lay soothing fingers on the deepening lines of his forehead.

The nights were very beautiful, a great, round moon lighting up the dim blackness of the glen and turning the bay into a mirror reflecting the soft, moonlit clouds in the sky. On such a night as this Jennifer sat by her window, clasping her knees, and looking out with dream-laden eyes at the silver beauty outside. The moonlight strayed over her white fingers and crept up her long throat, over her mouth, into her eyes, and rested on the crown of her hair, black as the raven’s wing, that framed her forehead. She could resist it no longer. She rose, and went quietly downstairs into the magic of the night. In the distance she could hear the soft plash! plash! of the waves on the shore. From the fastness of the glen came the solitary note of a bird. Jennifer walked on, drugged with the beauty of it all. In London they called her the “ girl with the golden voice.” For three years now she had held vast audiences under the spell of her liquid notes. The training had been very hard, and often she had been very discouraged. She was alone in the world, except for an uncle who had financed her in the early months of her training. Now her financial worries were over. Fame had descended upon her in all its greatness. She was a celebrity. And what did'it all matter? Nothing really, for she was lonely, inexpressibly lonely. She wondered if the admirers in the stalls ever realised how little there really was in Fame when there was no one to care. Here, Jennifer shook herself to rid herself of the depressing thoughts. For one month she had been here, in this glorioiis place, wholly beautiful by day, glorious by night. She came to the entrance of the glen where “ two birches leaned together, so silver-limbed and fair,” like sentinels of elfland. The mystery of the glen lay ahead. She passed into the fastness. The village folks spoke among themselves of the power of the glen in moonlight. They said that whosoever entered the glen when the moon was at the full came out strangely altered. They pointed to Mairi O’Connor as a living witness. Mairi had gone into the glen 12 years ago, and when she came home her will was gone. She went about the village with stupid, cloudy eyes and a foolish smile.

But Jennifer had never heard the storx of Mairi O’Connor’s downfall, and, even if she had, it would have made no differ ence to her decision to penetrate into the heart of the glen. After walking slowlj' for about 15 minutes, drinking In the beauty with her eyes, she came to a great clearing. Round the clearing grew silver birches; beneath them, as ii by magic, were toadstools in great profusion. A fallen tree trunk lay across the path. Jennifer sat down on it, ami loosened her dark hair till it fell like a dusky cloud to her shoulders. For a space of time she was content to be impressed by it all, then she could restrain herself no longer, and, caring little for the sleeping hours of leprechauns, pixies, and other glen folk, she started forth with a few tremulous notes, growing louder, until the whole glen was filled with the richness of her golden voice. And thus it was that Anthony, another restless mortal, sitting by his window, heard the liquid notes in the valley. The Little House shivered in an ecstasy of appreciation. Richer and fuller grew the notes, until the whole earth seemed ringing with melody. He ran downstairs, out through the door, and the Little House, remembering the village tale of the power of the glen, looked after him anxiously. Was it a fairy?

He came upon her suddenly, standing in the moonlight, head erect, and her dark hair rippling to her shoulders. To Anthonj’ she was as a vision from another world. He paused, scarcely daring to breathe, in case she would vanish from his sight. An intuition warned her of his approach. She stopped singing, and gathered up her hair into a loose knot. He went to her. “ How wonderfully yon sing,” he said. She smiled up at him. “ I have wonderful inspiration here,” she said. They sat down on the fallen tree trunk in silence, for each was afraid to break the spell. Presently he said, “ I was almost afraid to speak to you in case you would'vanish from sight.” She laughed softly. “I am very mortal,” she said.

They sat there for an hour. The Little House kept a rigid eye on the clock at the top of the stairs. “ Yes,” it affirmed, “one hour. Disgraceful! Had the glen kept him? Was there some truth in the village tale, after all?” Fear swelled

high in the bosom of the Little House. Half an hour later Anthony and Jennifer came into view, passing the silver birch sentinels at the entrance to the glen, who seemed to nod homage. They stood a long time together. “ Yes, she was very beautiful,” quoth the Little House, and retired to rest.

When the long golden days of Septem-. her came loitering in Anthony brought his bride to the Little House. On the first day of her homecoming she stood a long time at the window gazing over the bay. Anthony stood behind her protectingly. The Little House watched them with love-laden eyes. “ Anthony,” she said, still gazing’ over the waters, “ I think this house has a soul.”

As the j'ears passed many strange people came up from the sea and looked approvingly at the Little House. “ That is the home of the Girl with the Golden Voice,” they said, “ and her husband* Anthony Mac Neill, one of the greatest surgeons of the age.” The Little House swelled with pride. “ It’s a pity they’ve retired here for good,” said anothervoice. Then Jennifer would come out to, the gate and ask them indoors. “ I’m so glad you like our little house,” she would say. “We call it the Lodge of Heaven.”

And that, Mavourneen, is the story of how the Little House came into its own, —Weekly Scotsman.