CHAPTER XVI
TIME HALTS
He looked at his watch a second time, and found that it was later thanhe had supposed--eleven o'clock. In the act of winding it, however, hepaused; something he had forgotten came back to him, and a curioussmile broke over his face. He stroked his beard, glanced at the ceilingwhere the moths still banged and buzzed, then strolled over to the openwindow, and said "Hm!" He put his head and shoulders out into the air.And then he again said "Hm--m--m"--only longer than the first time. Itseemed as if some one answered him. That "Hm" floated off to some onewho was listening for it. Perhaps it was an echo that came floatingback. Perhaps it wasn't.
But any grown-up person who hesitates in an empty room of a countryhouse at eleven o'clock at night and murmurs "Hm" into the open air isnot in an ordinary state of mind. The normal thing is to put the lightsout and go up more or less briskly to bed. Uncle Felix was no exceptionto this rule. His emotions, evidently, were not quite normal.
He listened. The night was very still. The stars, like a shower ofgolden rain arrested in full flight, paused in a flock and looked athim, but in so deliberate a way that he was conscious of being lookedat. It was rather a delightful sensation, he thought; never before hadthey seemed so intimate, so interested in his life. He was aware that afriendly relationship existed between him and those far, bright,twinkling eyes. "Hm" he murmured softly once again, then heard a soundof wings rush whirring past his face, and next a chattering of birdssomewhere overhead among the heavy eaves. "So I'm not the only oneawake," he thought, and, for some odd reason, felt rather pleased aboutit. "Sounds like swallows. I wonder!"
But he saw no movement anywhere; no wind stirred the ivy on the wall,the limes were motionless, the earth asleep. Even the stream beyond thelaurel shrubberies ran silently. Dimly he made out the garden lying atattention, the flower-beds like folded hands upon its breast; andfurther off, the big untidy elms in pools of deeper shadow, theiroutlines blurred as dreams blur the mind. Yet, though he could detectno slightest movement, he was keenly aware that other things beside thestars were looking at him. The night was full of carefully-screenedeyes, all fixed upon him. Framed in the lighted window, he was soeasily visible. Night herself, calm and majestic, gazed down upon himthrough wide-open lids that filled the entire sky. He felt theintentness of her steadfast gaze, and paused. He stopped. It seemedthat everything stopped too. So striking, indeed, was the sensation,that he gave expression to it half aloud:
"It's slowing up," he murmured, "stopping!... I do believe! Hm!..."
There was no answer this time, no sign of echo anywhere, but he heardan owl calling its muffled note from the Wood without a Centre.
"It's probably seen me too," he thought, and then it also stopped.
He waited a moment, hoping it would begin again, for he loved theatmosphere of childhood that the sound invoked in him. But the fluteycall was not repeated. He drew his head in, closed and bolted thewindow, fastened the shutters carefully and pulled the curtains over;then he extinguished the lamps, lit his candle, and moved out softlyinto the hall on his way upstairs. And for the first time in his lifehe felt that in shutting the window he had not shut the beauty out. Thebeauty of that watching, listening night had not gone away from him byclosing down the shutters. It was not lost. It stopped there. Thisnovel realisation was very queer and very exquisite. Regret did notoperate.
And he went along the passage, murmuring "Hm" over and over to himself,for there seemed nothing more adequate that he could think of. Theservants had long since gone to bed; he alone was awake in the wholebig house. He moved cautiously down the long corridor towards the greenbaize doors, fully aware that it was not the proper way upstairs. Hepushed them, and they swung behind him with a grunt that repeateditself several times, lessening and shortening until it ended in anabrupt puffing sound--and he found himself in a chilly corridor ofstone. It was very dark; the candle threw the shadow of his hand downthe gaping length in front of him. He went stealthily a few stepsfurther, then stopped opposite a closed door of white. For a moment heheld his breath, examining the panels by the light of the raisedcandle; then turned the knob of brass, threw it wide open, and foundhimself--in Mrs. Horton's kitchen.
The room was very warm. There was the curious, familiar smell of broomsand aprons, of soap and soda, flavoured with brown sugar, treacle, anda dash of toast and roasted coffee. The ashes still glowed between thebars of the range like a grinning mouth. He put the candle down andlooked about him nervously. There was an awful moment when he thought agreat six-foot cook, with red visage and bare arms, would rise andstrike him with a ladle or a rolling-pin. In the faint light he madeout the white deal table in the centre, the rows of pots and pansgleaming in mid-air, dish-cloths hanging on a string to dry, layers ofplates of various sizes on the shelves, and jugs suspended by theirhandles at an angle ready for pouring out. He saw the dresser with itshuge, capacious drawers--the only drawers in the world that openedeasily, and were deep enough to be of value.
Also--there was a sound, the sound all kitchens have, steadily tapping,clicking, ticking. He turned; he saw the familiar object whence thesound proceeded. At the end of the great silent room, upright like asentry placed against the wall, stiff and rigid, he saw a figure with around and pallid face, staring solemnly at him through the gloom. Hestiffened and stood rigid too, listening to the tapping noise thatissued from its hollow interior of wood and iron. Watching him withremorseless mien, the kitchen clock asked him for the password. "Whynot? Why not?" its ticking said distinctly.
The warmth was comforting. He sat down on the white deal table, knowinghimself an intruder, but boldly facing the tall monster that guardedthe deserted room and challenged him. "_You_ haven't stopped," heanswered in his beard. "Why not?" And as he said it, a new expressionstole upon its hardened countenance, the challenge melted, the obduratestare relaxed. The quaint, grandfatherly aspect of benevolence shoneover it like a smile; it looked not only kind, but contrite. He saw itas it used to be, ages and ages ago, when he was a boy, sliding downthe banisters towards it, or towards its counterpart in the hall. Itwinked.
The ticking, too, became less aggressive and relentless, less sure ofitself, almost as though it were slowing up. There was a plaintive notebehind the metallic sharpness. The great kitchen clock also was awareof a conspiracy hatching against Time....
And as he sat and listened to the machinery tapping away the seconds,he heard a similar tapping in his brain that swung gradually intorhythm with the clock. A pendulum in his mind was swinging, each swinga little shorter than the one before; and he remembered that a dozenpendulums in a room, starting at different lengths, ended by swingingall together. "We're slowing up together--stopping!" murmured the twopendulums. "Why not? Why not? Why not?..."
Presently both would cease, yet ceasing would be the beginning, not theend. A state without end or beginning would supervene. Ticking meanttime, and time meant becoming; but beyond becoming lay the bottomlesssea of being, which was eternity. Maria floated there--calm, quiet,serene, little globular Maria, circular, the perfect form.
The Kitchen Spell rolled in upon him, smothering mind and senses.
It came at first so gradually he hardly noticed it, but it rose androse and rose, till at length he sat dipped to the eyes in it, and thenfinally his eyes went under too. He was immersed, submerged. Theparochial vanished; he swam in the universal. He felt drowsy, soothed,and very happy; his heart beat differently. Consciousness ranfluttering along the edge of something hard that hitherto had seemed anunsurpassable barrier. The barrier melted and let him through.
He rubbed his eyes and started. "That's the clock in Mrs. Horton'skitchen," he tried to say, but the words had an empty and ridiculoussound, as if there was no meaning in them. They flew about him in theair like little butterflies trying to settle. They settled on onemeaning, only to flit elsewhere the next minute and settle on anothermeaning. They could mean anything and everything. They did meaneverything. They meant _one_ thing. Finally
they settled back into hisheart. And their meaning caught him by the throat in a most deliciousway. The air was full of tiny fluttering wings; he heard pattering feetand little voices; hair tied with coloured ribbons brushed his cheeks;and laughing, mischievous eyes like stars floated loose about theceiling. The Kitchen Spell grew mighty--irresistible... rising over himout of a timeless Long Ago.
From the direction of the ghostly towel-horse it seemed to come. Butbeyond the towel-horse was the window, and beyond the window lay theopen fields, and beyond the fields lay miles and miles of countryasleep beneath the stars; and this country stretched without a breakright up to the lonely wolds of distant Yorkshire where an old greyhouse contained another kitchen, silent and deserted in the night. Allthe empty kitchens of England were at this moment in league together,but this old Yorkshire kitchen was the parent of them all--and thencethe Spell first issued. It was his own childhood kitchen.
And Uncle Felix travelled backwards against the machinery of Time thatcheats the majority so easily with its convention of moving hands andticking voice and bullying, staring visage. He slid swiftly down thelong banister-descent of years and reached in a flash that old sombreYorkshire kitchen, and stood, four-foot nothing, face smudged andfingers sticky, beside the big deal table with the dying embers in thegrate upon his right. His heart was beating. He could just reach thejuicy cake without standing on a chair. He ate the very slice that hehad eaten forty years ago. It _was_ possible to have your cake and eatit too!...
He gulped it down and sucked the five fingers of each hand inturn--then turned to attack the staring monster that had tried to makehim believe it was impossible. He crossed the stone floor on tiptoe,but with challenge in his heart, looked straight into its humbuggingbig face, opened its carefully buttoned jacket--and took off theweights.
"Hm!" he murmured, with complacent satisfaction that included victory,"I've stopped you!"
There was a curious, long-drawn sound as the machinery ran down; thechains quivered, then hung motionless. There was disaster in the sound,but laughter too--the laughter of the culprit caught in the act,unmasked, exposed at last. "But I've had a good time these last hundredyears," he seemed to hear, with the obvious answer this insolencesuggested: "Caught! You're It!"--in a tone that was not wholly unlikeMaria's.
He turned and left the kitchen as stealthily as he had entered it. Hewent along the cold stone corridor, through the green baize doors, andso up the softly carpeted stairs to his bedroom. He undressed androlled solemnly between the sheets. He sighed deeply, but he did notmove again. He fell instantly into the right position for sleep.
But while he slept, the timeless night brought up its mystery. Mooredoutside against the walls an Extra Day lay swinging from the stars. Thewaves of Time washed past its sides, yet could not move it. The windwas in the rigging; it lay at anchor, filling the sky with a beauty ofeternity. And above the old Mill House the darkness, led by the birds,flowed on to meet the quivering Dawn.