Living Alone

  CHAPTER V

  AN AIR RAID SEEN FROM BELOW

  Magic is a disconcerting travelling companion. While seldom actuallyconspicuous, it seems to have a mysterious and varying effect on thesurrounding public. I have met travellers by Tube who tell of strangedoings in those regions, when the conductor of one compartment fellsuddenly in love with the conductress of the next, and they ran to eachother and met in the middle of the car. As nobody opened the gates orrang the bells, the bewildered train stood for hours at MorningtonCrescent before any member of the watching public could find the heartto interrupt the pretty scene. It is patent that a magic person musthave been the more or less deliberate cause of this episode. Then again,there is the story of the 'bus that went mad, just as it was leaving itsburrow at Dalston. It got the idea that the kindly public was itsenemy. You should have seen the astonishment of Liverpool Street andthe Bank as it rushed by them. Old ladies about to ask it whether itwent to Clapham--its label said it was bound for Barnes--stood aghast,and their questions died on their lips. Policemen put up their handsagainst it,--it ran over them. It even learned the trick of avoiding thenimble business man by a cunning little skid just as he thought he hadcaught it. You will hardly believe me, but that 'bus ran seven timesround Trafalgar Square, until the lions' tails twisted for giddiness,and Nelson reeled where he stood. I don't know where it went to thatday, certainly not to Barnes, but late in the evening it burst intoanother 'bus's burrow at Tooting, its sides heaving, its tyres worn tothe quick, its windows streaming with perspiration, and a great bruiseon its forehead where a chance bomb had struck it. I believe the poorthing had to be put out of its misery in the end. And what was thereason of all this? It was found that a wizard, called Innocent, ofStoke Newington, had been asleep on the top all the time, havingforgotten to alight the night before, on his return from the City.

  Sarah Brown, on the night of Lady Arabel's supper party, was unaware ofthe risk she ran in entering a public conveyance in company with awitch. But she was spared to a merciful extent, for nothing happened onany of the 'buses they boarded, except that, as they crossed the Canal,a cloud of sea-gulls swooped and swirled into the 'bus, resting awhileon the passengers' willing shoulders before disappearing again. Also thepassengers on the Baker Street stretch sang part-songs, all the way downto Selfridge's. The conductor turned out to have rather a pleasing tenorvoice.

  The witch and Sarah Brown knocked at the Higgins' door five minutesbefore supper-time. Lady Arabel herself opened it.

  "My dears, isn't it too dretful. All our servants are gone. It's anextraordinary thing, they never can stand Rrchud and his ways."

  The tactful Sarah Brown nudged the witch. "Better not stay," shemurmured.

  "Of course we'll stay," replied the witch loudly. "I'm horribly hungry,and there's sure to be some supper."

  "Certainly there is," added Lady Arabel. "I cooked it myself. Do youknow, I've never seen a cookery book before, and the little pictures ofanimals with the names of joints written all over them shocked medretfully. I feel I could have a too deliciously intimate conversationwith a bullock now."

  The house of Higgins had an enormous hall to which a large number ofhigh windows gave the impression of a squint. I should think two smallZeppelins could have danced a minuet under its dome. Sarah Brown and thewitch put on their cathedral look at once, by mistake, and proppingtheir chins upon their umbrellas gazed reverently upward.

  "Too dretful, a house of this size without servants," said Lady Arabel."The fourth footman was the last to go. He said even the Army would bebetter than this. He liked spooks, he said, at second hand, but nototherwise. Too funny how people take dear Rrchud seriously. I'm glad tosay the orchestra has stayed with us. Come into Rrchud's study, won'tyou, while I just go and help the first violin to dish up the soup."

  Sarah Brown and the witch were left in a small room that opened on tothe great hall. It was furnished rather like a lodging-house parlour.There was a thermometer elaborately disguised as a model of theEddystone Lighthouse on the mantelpiece, flanked on each side by a chinaboot in pink, with real bootlaces, and a pig looking out of the top ofeach. There were pictures on the walls, mostly representing youngladies, more or less obviously in love, supported by rustic properties.I have noticed that the girl's first love is the monopoly of theVictorian painter, whereas the boy's is that of the novelist, but I donot know the reason of this.

  There was a slight clap of thunder and Richard entered. He would havebeen very obviously a wizard even without the thunder, and seemed muchless innocent about his magic than the witch. He had pale hair, a paleface, and eyes that did not open wide without a certain effort on thepart of the brows.

  "You are despising my ornaments," he said to Sarah Brown. "I admire themawfully. I don't like really clever art. Do you know, it makes mesneeze."

  Directly he spoke, one saw that he was making the usual effort of magicto appear real. Witches and wizards lead difficult lives because theyhave no ancestry working within them to prompt them in the littledetails. Whenever you see a person being unusually grown-up, suspectthem of magic. You can always notice witches and wizards, for instance,after eight o'clock at night, pretending that they are not proud ofsitting up late. It is all nonsense about witches being night birds;they often fly about at night, indeed, but only because they are likepermanent children gloriously escaped for ever from their Nanas.

  "This picture," added Richard, "seems to me very beautiful." The picturemight have cost a shilling originally, framed, or it might have beenattached to a calendar once. It was a landscape so thick in colouringand so lightless that it failed to give an outdoor impression at all.There was a river and waterfall like well-combed hair in the middle, anda dozen leaden mountains lying aboutwith--apparently--pocket-handkerchiefs on their tops, and adropsical-looking stag drinking. "I can't imagine," insisted Richard,"that there could be a more beautiful picture than that, but perhaps itappeals to me specially because father and mother and I so often talkabout the place together--the place like that, near to the mountainwhere I was born. That was in the Rockies, you know, and just below ourmountain I am sure there was a canyon like that--I dream of it--withmilky-green water running under and over and round the mostextraordinary shapes of ice, and cactuses like green hedgehogs in thecrevices of the rocks, and great untidy pine-trees clinging to an ounceof earth on an inch of flat surface. And the rocks are a most splendidrose-red, and lie in steep layers, and break out into shapes that are sodeliberate, they look as if they must mean something. Indeed theydo...."

  A stave played by a 'cello called them to supper, and, as they returnedto the hall, a burst of earnest music from the whole orchestra partiallydrowned the clap of thunder that again marked Richard's passage throughthe door. Sarah Brown felt sure that Lady Arabel arranged this onpurpose. The wizard's mother obviously had great difficulty in notnoticing the phenomena connected with her son, and she wore a strivingsmile and a look of glassy and well-bred unconsciousness wheneveranything magic happened.

  At the end of the hall the orchestra, arranged neatly in a crescent, wasbusily employing its violins in a unanimous melody of so rude anddestructive a nature that it seemed as if every string must be broken.This mania spread until even the outlying bassoons, triangles, andcelestas were infected. A piercing note of command, however, from aclarinet caused a devastating dumbness to fall suddenly on everyinstrument except the piano, which continued self-consciously alone. Thepianist looked at the ceiling mostly, but one note seemed to be anespecial favourite with him, and whenever he played it he looked closelyand paternally at it, almost indeed applying his nose to it. All atonce, just as Sarah Brown was beginning to imagine that she could catchthe tune and the time, the music ceased, apparently in the middle of abar. Richard sneezed once or twice. That unsophisticated wizard wasevidently enjoying himself in the practice of his art. One felt thatmagic was not encouraged in the Army, and that the supernatural orgy inwhich he was now indulging was the accumulated reaction after longself-control
. Strange noises of unnatural laughter, for instance,proceeded from distant corners of the hall, and each of the electriclights in turn winked facetiously. The string of the double bass brokeloudly, and the new string which its devotee laboriously inserted alsobroke at once. The performer looked appealingly at Lady Arabel, but sherefrained from meeting his eye. A blizzard of butterflies enveloped thetable. This was evidently rather a difficult trick, for the spellcollapsed repeatedly, and from one second to another Sarah Brown wasnever quite sure whether there were really Purple Admirals drowning inher soup or not.

  "You are so lucky," sighed the witch, "plenty of room and everyfacility. I myself am so dreadfully cramped and hampered. I often haveto boil my incantations over a spirit lamp, and even that is becomingdifficult--no methylated."

  "Not really lucky," said Richard. "In France the smallest pinch of magicseems to make the N.C.O. sick, and that's why I never got my stripe. Tokeep my hand in, I once did a little stunt with the sergeant'scigarette: it grew suddenly longer as he struck a match to light it, andwent on growing till he had to ask me to light it for him, and then itshrank up and burnt his nose. Of course he couldn't really bring thething home to me, but somehow--well, as I say, I never got my stripe."

  To this discussion, and indeed to all the enchantments, Lady Arabel paidno attention, but continued to talk a little nervously on very insipidsubjects. Her eyes had the pathetic look often seen in stupid people'seyes, the "Don't-listen-to-me" look, "I am not saying what I should liketo say. The real Me is better than this."

  Finally Richard indulged in a trick that was evidently a stock jokeamong magic people, for the witch laughed directly it began. Just as thehostess, with poised fork and spoon, was about to distribute thewhitebait, the round table began to spin, and the whitebait were whiskedaway from her. The table continued to spin for a moment, with a deepthrilling organ sound, and when it stopped, the whitebait were found tohave assembled opposite to Richard's place. He distributed them gravely.Lady Arabel turned scarlet, and murmured to Sarah Brown: "So dretfullyingenious, and so merry."

  Sarah Brown took pity on her, and began talking at random. The orchestrawas busy again, and to the tune of a loud elusive rag-time, she shouted:"Do you know, I gave my job the sack this morning. I shall be on thebrink of starvation in three and a half days' time. That's counting abox of Oxo Cubes I have by me. You don't happen to know of a suitablejob. I can't cook, and if I sew a button on it comes off quicker than ifI hadn't. But I once learnt to play the big drum."

  "My dear," said Lady Arabel, instantly motherly. "How too dretful. Iwish I knew of something suitable. But--war-time you know,--I'm afraid Ishan't be justified in keeping on the orchestra, certainly not in addingto it. Besides, of course, although women are simply too splendidnowadays, don't you think the big drum--just a wee bit unwomanly, mydear. However----"

  "Are you clever?" asked Richard.

  "Yes, she is," said the witch proudly. "She writes Minor Poetry. I saw abit by her in a magazine that had no pictures,--the bit of poetry wasbetween an article on Tariff Reform and a statement of the CoalSituation, and it began 'Oh my beloved....' I thought it was a verybeautiful bit of Minor Poetry, but somehow I couldn't make it fit inwith the two articles. That worried me a little."

  "If you'd try your best not to be clever I'd give you a job," saidRichard, who with a rather tiresome persistence was now levitating thechicken, so that, invisibly suspended at a height of eighteen inchesabove the middle of the table, it dripped gravy into a bowl ofdaffodils. "In fact I will give you a job. I have a farm called HigginsFarm, just about half-way between sea-level and sky-level. You can be aHand, if you like, at sixpence an hour. You can get there from MittenIsland every day quite easily, and I'll tell you how. It's just theother side of the Parish of Faery, on your right as you reach themainland from Mitten Island. You follow the Green Ride through theEnchanted Forest, until you come to the Castle where the YoungestPrince--who rescued one of the Fetherstonhaugh girls from a giant andmarried her--used to live. The Castle's to let now; she is an ambulancedriver in Salonika, and he a gunner--just got his battery, I believe.Below the outer wall of the Castle you will see the Daisified Path, andthat leads you straight to the gate of Higgins Farm, under a clipped boxarchway."

  "I haven't got a land outfit," said Sarah Brown. "But I saw a paircalled Mesopotamian Officer's Model, with laces and real white buckskincollision mats between the knees, that would fit me, and I can pawnmy----"

  At that moment there was a loud report. Every one looked at the doublebass, but all his strings were for the moment intact.

  "A maroon," said the witch.

  "My dears," exclaimed Lady Arabel, much relieved to hear that this newsensation was not supernatural. "How too dretfully tahsome with thesweet and the savoury still to come. Do you know, I promisedPinehurst--my husband--never to remain in this house during an air-raid.It was his own fault, the dear thing; he had a craze for windows; thishouse has more glass space than wall, I think, and Pinehurst, in hisspare time, used always to be making plans for squeezing in morewindows. Our room is like a conservatory--so dretfully embarrassing. SoI always take my knitting across the road to the crypt of St.Sebastian's, and I'm sure you won't mind coming too. You might havebrought a box of spellicans, or a set of table croquet, but I'm afraidthe Vicar wouldn't like it. A nice man but dretfully particular. We mustwait for the end of this piece, the first violin is so touchy."

  They all waited patiently while the piece continued. It was a plainuneventful piece, composed by a Higgins relative and therefore admiredin the household.

  "A thing that puzzles me," said the witch, taking advantage of anemotional pause while one violin was wheezing a very long small note byitself, "is why only ugly songs are really persistent. Haven't younoticed, for instance, that a peacock, or a cat on the wall, or a babywith a tin trumpet, will give their services most generously for hourson end, while a robin on a snowy tree, or a nightingale, or a fairy----"

  She was interrupted by a scuffling sound in the umbrella-stand, andHarold the Broomstick, after a moment's rather embarrassing entanglementwith a butterfly net, approached, panting.

  "I must go," said the witch. "I bet you twopence we shall have some funto-night. Sarah Brown, I'll come back and fetch you when it's allover."

  Lady Arabel and Sarah Brown crossed the road to the church, Richardfollowing a few yards behind.

  "I'm afraid my little dinner-party wasn't a great success," said LadyArabel confidentially. "Rrchud and Angela didn't get that good talk onoccult subjects as Meta Ford said they would. Of course Rrchud, as younoticed, was dretfully restless and lighthearted; all boys are like thatfor the first few hours of their leave. He is naturally of a quietdisposition, though you wouldn't think it from to-night."

  There was a distant blot of gunfire on the air, just as they reached thedoor of the crypt. The very stout dog of the Vicar (are not all reverenddogs fat?) was waiting there with a bored look.

  "The Vicar allows no animals inside the crypt. So hard on Mrs. Perry'scanary which has fits. I was here once when the Vicar's youngest sonbrought in a rabbit under his coat. A dretful scene, my dear."

  That district of London happened to be rather a courageous one. Theinhabitants felt that if the War had to be brought home to them, commonpoliteness dictated that it should find them at home. There were notmore than a dozen people in the crypt therefore. Most of them were oldladies from the district's less respectable quarter, knitting. The Vicarwas trying to press comfort upon them, but without much success, forthey were all quite content, discussing the deaths in their families.

  The noise of gunfire was coming nearer, shaking the ground like theuneven tread of a drunken giant. Sarah Brown concentrated on an eveningnewspaper, busily reading again and again one of those columns ofconfidential man-to-man advertisement, which everybody reads withavidity while determining the more never to buy the article advertised.But presently the fidgeting hands of Richard caught her eye, and shelooked at him. He was sitting nex
t to his mother on a stone step. Heseemed to be in a quieter mood and attempted no manifestation. SarahBrown thought he was suppressing excitement, however, and indeed hepresently said: "I say, won't it be fun lying about all this toposterity and Americans, and other defenceless innocents."

  Opposite to them, on two campstools, sat a young bridling mother offifty, with her old hard daughter of sixteen or so. Hard was thatdaughter in every way; you would have counted her age in winters, not insummers, so obviously untender were her years. An iron plait of hair layfor about six inches down her spine; her feet and ankles made thecampstool on which she sat, looking pathetically ethereal. Of such stuffas this is the backbone of England made, which is perhaps why thebackbone of England sometimes seems so sadly inflexible.

  There was a screeching noise outside, followed by an incredible crash.It seemed to cleave a bottomless abyss between one second and the next,so that one seemed to be conscious for the first time in an astonishedand astonishing world.

  Lady Arabel said: "Boys will be boys, of course I know, but really thisis going a little too far. Pinehurst's one hobby was his windows."

  The campstooled mother gave a luxurious little shriek as soon as thecrash was safely over. "The villains," she said kittenishly. "Aiming atplaces of worship as usual. I am absolutely paralysed with terror. Mary,darling, I don't believe you turned a hair."

  "Pas un cheval," replied her firm daughter, in not unnatural error. Onecould easily see that she was beloved at home, and one wondered why.

  The sound of the guns seemed only a negative form of sound after thebomb, and clearly above the firing could be heard a howl. The Vicar'sdog, still howling, ran into the crypt.

  "RUPERT!" said the Vicar, in a terrible voice, interrupting himself inthe middle of a cheering platitude. But he had no time to say anythingmore, for behind Rupert came a procession of perhaps a dozen people, alldressed in sheets. Everybody saw at one pitiful glance that these wereunfortunate householders, so suddenly roused from oblivion as to forgetall their ordinary suburban dignity, probably barely escaping fromruined homes with their lives and a sheet each. There was a very oldman, a middle-aged spinster, and then an enormous group of children ofages varying from two months to twenty years, followed by their parents,teachers, or guardians.

  A nearer gun began to fire, and one of the old ladies on the other sideof the crypt suddenly threw down her knitting and began confessing hersins. "Ow, I shall go to 'ell," she shouted dramatically. "I bin sich awicked ol' woman. I nearly done in me first ol' man by biffin' thechopper at 'is nob, and Lawd, the lies I bin an' tol' me second onlyyesterday."

  "This is indeed a solemn moment," said the sheeted spinster sitting downbeside Lady Arabel. "I hope I am meeting it in a proper spirit, but ofcourse one is still only human, and naturally nervous. I have learned mystatement by heart."

  "What statement?" asked Lady Arabel, who was rather deeply engrossed inturning the heel of the sock she was knitting.

  "The statement I shall make when the sheep are divided from the goats."

  "Oh, come, come," said kind Lady Arabel. "Things are not so bad asthat, surely. You must not be so dretfully pessimistic."

  "You mistake me," said the sheeted lady, bridling. "There is, I amconfident, no cause whatever for pessimism on my part. I have nomisgivings as to the verdict. But not being used to courts of law, Ithought it best to learn my statement, as I say, by heart."

  The old knitter had been rather annoyed to find her confessioninterrupted. "A wicked ol' woman I may be," she said with more dignity."But I'll never regret givin' that bloody speshul a bit o' me mind thismornin' when 'e turned saucy to the sugar queue. I ses to 'im----"

  "We all have our faults," Lady Arabel's neighbour broke in. "But Ithink, at this solemn moment, I may feel thankful that hastiness ofrecrimination was never one of mine. All my life I have made it anunalterable rule never to make a statement without first asking myself:Is it _TRUE_? Is it _JUST_? Is it _KIND_?"

  "You may well say so," replied Lady Arabel pleasantly. "I only wish theyounger generation would follow your example. Nowadays it is much morelikely to be: Is it true? No. Is it just? No. Is it kind? No. Is it_FUNNY_? Yes. And out it comes."

  "Be that as it may," said the ladylike creature. (One could see she wasa Real Lady even through the sheet. Obviously she read the _MorningPost_ daily.) "Be that as it may, perhaps you can help me in one littlematter which is intriguing me slightly even at this solemn moment. Doyou suppose the sheep will be allowed to hear the trial of the goats, orwill the court be cleared? I must say I should be so interested to hearthe defence of the late churchwarden who eloped with----"

  "Ah, please, please," said Lady Arabel, "don't talk in that dretful way.Don't let your mind dwell on the worst. I assure you that you will beall right."

  "Of course I shall be all right, as you put it," said the elderly lady,coldly drawing herself up. "Everybody can be my witness that I have keptmy candle burning in my small corner----"

  "Good gracious," shrieked the kittenish mother. "A candle burningto-night. And probably unshaded. Don't you know that those fiends in thesky are always on the watch for the slightest illumination?"

  "Fiends in the sky!" exclaimed the sheeted lady. "Do you mean to saythey are abroad even at this solemn moment?"

  "Oh, don't talk such rot," implored the hard flapper. "Who the dickensdo you suppose was responsible for that crash?"

  "Responsible for the crash!" said the other, whose tones were becomingmore and more alive with exclamation marks. "Is then the solemn work ofsummoning us entrusted to the minions of the Evil One?"

  A series of crashes interrupted her, the work of the adjacent gun. Theearth shook, and each report was followed by the curious ethereal wailof shells on their way.

  "What, again?" exclaimed Lady Arabel's sheeted neighbour. "I should havethought one would have been ample. But still, one cannot be too careful,and some people are heavy sleepers. I heard the first myself without anypossibility of mistake, and rose at once, though the slab lay heavy onmy chest----"

  "Most unwise," said Lady Arabel, "to touch that sort of thing late atnight. I always have a little Benger myself."

  Sarah Brown happened to look at Richard. His eyes were shut, but he wassmiling very broadly with tight lips, and his face was turned towardsthe ceiling. His fingers were very tense and busy on his lap, as thoughhe were still fidgeting with magic. But her study of him was interruptedby the loud denouncing voice of the very venerable man who had led theprocession of late-comers.

  "A dog in this hallowed place," he said, pointing at the deeplydisconcerted Rupert who was weaving himself nervously in and out of hismaster's legs. "Never in all the forty years of my ministration herehave I allowed such an outrage----"

  "Gently, gently, my dear sir," protested the Vicar, a little roused. "Iam the minister of this church, and the dog is mine. I was indeed aboutto turn it out when you entered, after which I lost sight of it for amoment. Rupert, go home."

  Rupert howled again, and lay down as if about to faint.

  "Forty years have I been Vicar of this parish," said the veteran, "andnever----"

  "What?" interrupted the Vicar, "Forty years Vicar of this parish. Thenyou must be Canon Burstley-Ripp. How very extraordinary, I alwaysunderstood that he passed away quite ten years ago."

  He approached the old man and strove to button-hole him. The sheet atfirst foiled him in this intention, but he presently contented himselfwith seizing a little corner of it, by which he led his aged brothervicar into a corner. There they could be heard for some timemisunderstanding each other in low earnest tones.

  "Ow, what a wicked ol' woman I bin an' bin," suddenly burst forth againthe repentant knitter. "I bin an' stole 'arf a pound o' sugar off of theEelite 'Atshop where I does a bit o' cleanin'. Ef I get out o' thisalive, I swear I'll repay it an 'undredfold--that is ef I can get thatmuch awf me sugar card...."

  Sarah Brown was becoming sleepy. A blankness was invading her mind, andthe talk in the crypt s
eemed to lose its meaning, and to consist chieflyof S's. She pondered idly on the family of children with their elders,all of whom were now studying each other with a certain look ofdisillusionment. It was a group whose relationships were difficult tomake out, the ages of many of the children being unnaturallyapproximate. There seemed to be at least seven children under threeyears old, and yet they all bore a strong and regrettable familylikeness. Several of the babies would hardly have been given credit forhaving reached walking age, yet none had been carried in. The woman whoseemed to imagine herself the mother of this rabble was distributingwhat looked like hurried final words of advice. The father with apensive eye was obviously trying to remember their names, and atintervals whispering to a man apparently twenty years his senior, whomhe addressed as Sonny. It was all very confusing.

  A long dim stretch of time seemed to have passed when suddenly the noteof a bugle sprang out across space. Somehow the air at once felt coolerand more wholesome, the sound of the All-clear had something akin to thesight of the sun after a thunderstorm, lighting up a crouching whippedworld.

  "The Trump at last," said Lady Arabel's garrulous neighbour, rising withalacrity, and twitching her sheet into more becoming folds. "I was justwondering----"

  But at that moment the two Vicars approached, and the elder one,including both the spinster and the mysterious family in one glance,spoke in a clerical yet embarrassed voice.

  "Dear friends, a slight but inconvenient mistake has occurred, and I amafraid I must ask you to submit blindly to my guidance in a matterstrangely difficult to explain, even as I--myself in much confusion--bowto the advice of my reverend friend here. It would be out of place----"

  The spinster interrupted, and, by the way she did it, one saw that shewas Chapel. "Excuse me, Canon," she said acidly, "but is not alldiscussion out of place at this solemn moment?"

  "Believe me, madam," replied the aged Burstley-Ripp. "You overrate thesolemnity of the moment. I must earnestly ask you all to return with meto the places whence--labouring under an extraordinary error--we cameto-night. I see that Mrs. Parachute trusts me, and is prepared to leadher little flock to rest again. You, madam----"

  "Where Mrs. Parachute leads, far be it from me to seem behindhand," saidthe other, much ruffled, as she gathered her sheet about her. By the wayshe said it, one saw that she and Mrs. Parachute did not call. She bowedto Lady Arabel, and became satirical, even arch. "Good afternoon,Mrs.--er--, I am assured that the moment is not solemn, and thereforesolemn it shall not be. To turn to lighter subjects, I hope I shall havethe pleasure of meeting you and your delightful son and daughter againat no distant date, the moment then being genuinely solemn. I fear Ihave no visiting card on me, but--er--perhaps my slab just outside--verysuperior granite--would do as a substitute...."

  The pale party filed out of the crypt and disappeared. The remainingVicar smote his brow, and addressed the now calm Rupert in a low voice,but with such unaccountable warmth that that harassed animal disappearedprecipitately in the direction of his home.

  Lady Arabel, Sarah Brown, and Richard crossed the churchyard together.

  "Oh, my dears, look," said Lady Arabel. "How too too dretful, that bombfell quite close to us. Do look how it has disturbed the graves...."