The Garden at No. 19/Chapter 11

DRANK a stiff whisky and soda, ate some biscuits with it, and went to bed. I awoke next morning languid, still shaken by the  upheaval of my being the night before. The thought of Pamela, her transformed face, and  her kisses was very restoring. The image of her passionate, moonlit face was very present  to my mind;  I filled with a burning eagerness  to see her.

I could not wait till the evening. I was going out of London to take a proof of the  evidence of  a witness who lived at Chipperfield, in Hertfordshire. It was a surprise visit; I might not find him at home, be detained, and  not reach home till late. Then I had the happiest thought: I would take Pamela with me.

I opened wide the door into my garden, and as  I ate my breakfast—I found myself uncommonly hungry—I listened for her coming into  the garden. I was sure, quite sure, that she would come. And when I heard the garden door of No. 19 open, my heart leapt.

I went out into the garden and half-way down it I called to her softly and she answered. I told her quickly of my plan, and she seemed to  hesitate. Then she said, and I caught a new note of shyness in her voice, "Yes, I'll come.  I—I  should love to.  I'll put uncle's food ready for  him, and then I can come."

"I will be ready in half an hour, then," I said, and I went back and finished my breakfast.

I did not go right to the end of the road to wait for Pamela. I waited at No. 16, in the middle of the block of empty houses. Presently she came on rather halting feet, with a fine flush in her cheeks, and shy eyes. I glanced up the road, saw it empty, and caught her to me and kissed her.

Then we turned to go up the road.

"You're all right after last night? Those rites are rather a nerve-racking business," I said.

"Oh, yes," she said; but when the flush faded from her cheeks, I saw that her pallor had lost some of its warmth.

"Well, last night you saw all of them that is to be seen, and now you're satisfied?" I said.

"Oh, don't let's talk about them," she said, with a shiver. "They're fascinating and thrilling. But they're horrid.  I don't want to see  them again."

"I'm glad of that," I said. "I'm sure that they are the forbidden thing. Certainly, the  day after, they do seem on the appalling side."

"Oh, they are," she said. "At the same time I suppose that there are hundreds of people who would give their ears  to be thrilled as we were thrilled last night."

"Yes, we were thrilled," she said.

"And it was an extraordinary thrill. I don't  suppose that many people in the whole course  of their lives get worked up to such a pitch of  emotion.  I felt in a kind of ecstasy. But it  was dangerous, too; and I think we're well out  of it."

"Oh, we are," she said earnestly. "And, oh, I did learn a lot last night—not only about  the mysteries but about myself, too.  But I  want no more of them."

"What did you learn?" I said curiously.

She shook her head. Then with an enchanting smile she said, "Oh, Heine, dear, let's talk about the weather, and where we are going to."

I told her that we were going to Chipperfield, and then fortune brought an empty taxicab  down the road, and it carried us swiftly to Euston station.

When our train had started I took my fill of kisses.

Then I said, "How old are you, Pamela?"

"I'm eighteen on the fourteenth of September."

"That's older than I thought you were. I'm afraid you're not old enough for us to get married at once.  But I don't see why we shouldn't  get married in about a year."

"Get married!" she cried, startled, and blushing.

"Of course. You will marry me, won't you?" I said, and kissed her again.

"I—I—never thought about it," she said.

"But you will? I do love you so; and if you won't, I shall be awfully unhappy."

She hesitated, and the flush deepened in her cheeks; then with her enchanting smile she said,  "I couldn't make you awfully unhappy, could  I, Heine?"

We spent a delightful day. We walked by field paths to Chipperfield, and I left her to stroll on the common while I did my business. We spent the rest of the day in the pine-wood on the common, only leaving it to have lunch  and tea and dinner in the village inn. The enchanted hours passed swiftly.

After dinner we had an hour before we need start for our train, and we went back to the  pine-wood. The shafts of bright moonlight smote down, here and there, through its dimness; but it had suffered a change since the  setting of the sun and had grown full of mystery. Pamela seemed invaded by a vague uneasiness. We sat down at the foot of a great pine growing out of a round barrow, the tomb  of some old-time chieftain. She nestled close to me, and now and again she would draw herself upright and peer about, or seem to listen  with intent ears. No uneasiness invaded me, though the sense of the mystery of the wood was  strong on me.

At last she said, "What a place for the celebration of the rites, Heine!"

"It is indeed," I said and held her closer to me.

We were silent a while, and for my part I was abandoning myself freely to the influences of the place. I should have been very  little surprised to see a nymph or a faun come stealing through the tall tree-trunks.

Then I said, and unconsciously I spoke in a hushed voice:

"After all, I don't really know what happened last night. The incense was a thick veil.  Were there other dancers on the lawn besides  the celebrants of the rites?"

"I did not see them; I could not. But I knew  that there were.  I knew it well," said Pamela  earnestly. "Oh, don't let's talk about them."

"We won't," I said, drawing her closer to me. "But I can't believe that all the creatures of the Abyss are harmful.  Your sisters, the  nymphs, now—if one of them came to us  through the trees, I should not feel frightened in the least.  Would you?"

"No; and the wood is full of them—and other things."

"It is mysterious, and you're not quite happy here. Let's go out into the moonlight," I said,  and kissed her.

We had time and to spare to catch our train; and we walked very slowly across the moonlit  fields.

We were a long while saying good-by in the Walden Boad. When I came in I had the leisure to ponder the change I had observed in Pamela. I had not been able to make out what it was, and I puzzled over it. At last I understood what had happened; Pamela had become a  woman. I did not know whether to be glad or sorry. I was too new to the change; and I had found her such a delightful child.

Then at last I began to enjoy a full life. Pamela broadened and widened it for me; she rounded it off. As far as the rest of the world went, we might, in the Walden road, have been  on a desert island. She fell into the way of slipping into No. 20 whenever the fancy took  her. Her uncle, as long as he found his simple, spare meals ready for him when he chose to take  them, troubled no more about her. He never asked how she had been spending her time,  whether she had been in the house or out of it. Often she dined with me; often she came in after dinner. Sometimes we  talked  the  evening  through; sometimes she brought her sewing and  sewed as we talked; sometimes we read, now and  again laying down our books to talk. They were delightful evenings. Always she was reluctant to go; always I was reluctant to let her go.

In a few days our dread of the rites of the Abyss had begun to wear off. And for my part, as the dread wore off, I found that my  curiosity, my desire to know once and for all  the truth of the matter began to return. Pamela confessed one evening that she, too, was beginning to grow curious again, but her curiosity was far weaker than mine, and I did nothing to foster its growth.

At the end of a fortnight I was in two minds whether to watch the next celebration of the  rites; at the end of another week I had made  up my mind that I would watch them.

On the fourth evening before the full moon Pamela had dined with me, and after dinner  we were sitting in my study talking, when we  heard a knocking on the door of No. 19. It was opened; we heard a mutter of voices: someone  went in, and the door was shut.

"This is awkward," I said. "Suppose, just as you went into the house, your uncle and his visitor came out of his study and met you in the  hall. You'd be called on to explain."

"There's no hurry for me to go. I can wait till the visitor leaves," said Pamela, and with a little sigh of content she settled herself down  more comfortably.

"And after all, if he stays on and stays on, you can always return along the gutter into your bedroom."

"Yes, the window is open," she said.

We took up the broken thread of our talk.

It was rather more than an hour later when we heard the door of No. 19 open and a boot  crunch the gravel of its garden path.

Then the voice of the rich man, deeply aggrieved, said: "You'll have to reconsider it;  you will really, Woodfell.  You can't let us  down like this, hang it all!"

"I've told you forty times, and I tell you again that there will be no more celebration this year," said Woodfell; and his hoarse voice  rang angry. "It's all very well for you three amateurs; you're content with what we have  got.  I'm not; it's child's play."

"I don't know what more a man could want," said the rich man almost in a whine of appeal.

"You don't; and you're not likely to. But I tell you what; you and Parmenter and Goskin  can celebrate the rites by yourselves.  I'll lend  you the garden and the shrine—no, I won't;  I'll hire them out to you—and you'll see what  you'll get," jeered Woodfell.

"That's no use. You know it isn't. "We must have you," cried the rich man in a sorrowful voice.

"Well, you won't," said Woodfell. "I won't celebrate the rites again till I have added the rite of Ashtaroth; and her priestess will take long finding."