Miss Silver picked up her suit-cases, walked in, and found herself in an uncarpeted passage paved with stone and lighted only by a very low-powered bulb at the far end. Like shadows against this insufficient light there danced, shrieked, howled, and blew upon their combs, a long thin girl of twelve whom she knew to be Jennifer, and the two boys of seven and four who were Maurice and Benjy.
Miss Silver walked past them without paying any attention to their antics, upon which the performance on the combs passed into a loudly shrieked out “Dilly, dilly, dilly, come and be killed!” But before there had been more than half a dozen repetitions of this rather sinister invitation a door on the left was flung open and Mr. Craddock appeared, very Olympian in a belted blouse of white wool. In the dusk of the passage this was as much as could be seen, but as the children vanished with loud quacking noises and he ushered her into the room from which he had emerged, Miss Silver perceived that his costume was completed by corduroy trousers of a rich shade of crimson, and that the blouse itself was a work of art embroidered with a number of figures which she presently discerned to be the signs of the Zodiac.
The room into which they had come was warm and well lighted. There were book-lined walls, a large writing-table, thick curtains, and some comfortable chairs. A wood fire burned pleasantly on the wide, deep hearth. Advancing towards it, Miss Silver remarked upon its cheerful glow.
“Really quite a chilly afternoon.”
Mr. Craddock beamed.
“There is no welcome like a fire,” he said in the resonant voice which gave an air of importance to the words and an almost ecclesiastical flavour to a passing reference to the children’s noisy greeting. “Such high spirits. The privilege of youth.”
She was replying in a non-committal manner, when the door was opened and there came in a little woman carrying a loaded tray. The sound of scuttering footsteps suggested that it was one of the children who had opened the door.
Mr. Craddock waved a majestic hand.
“My wife, Mrs. Craddock. Emily, this is Miss Silver who is going to be so kind as to help you. This is most opportune-she will be glad of some refreshment after her cold journey.”
He made no effort to help his wife, and she was too much encumbered to do more than murmur a few breathless and rather unintelligible words before setting down the heavy tray. Since there was no table ready to receive it, it had perforce to be accommodated on the writing-table, a circumstance which called forth a rebuke from Mr. Craddock.
“My dear Emily, would it not be as well to have the tea-table in readiness before you bring in the tray? A little forethought, my dear-a little forethought.”
If it did not occur to him that he might have exercised this forethought himself, it certainly did not occur to Mrs. Craddock. A nervous start, an indistinguishable murmur of apology, and she was busying herself with dragging forward a gate-legged table and setting the tray on it. Her surprised, “Oh, thank you!” as Miss Silver hastened to assist her showed how little she was accustomed to being helped. The tray was a great deal too heavy for so frail a person. Mr. Craddock found Miss Silver regarding him in a manner so little suggestive of admiration as to cause him some annoyance.
Looking back afterwards, she was to consider her first impressions of the Craddocks. That he was desirous of producing an effect, she was at once aware. There was nothing very strange about this. A man with a fine exterior and some natural advantages may readily be tempted to assume a part which he is not really qualified to play. To look like Jove does not imply a power to wield the thunder. As for Mrs. Craddock, she was, as Frank Abbott had said, quite literally wrapped in the domestic overall, a garment of faded print which hung limply on her small, thin frame. She was very thin and a good deal bent. Her little pinched face was deeply lined. A pair of faded blue eyes looked nervously from her husband to Miss Silver, and then as a matter of habit back again to her husband. She admired him, she was afraid of him, she made haste to do his slightest bidding.
Over what she now discovered to be health tea with an odd lingering flavour of camomile, Miss Silver began to talk to her about the children. Jennifer was twelve, Maurice was seven, and Benjy four.
“They have so much energy,” said Mrs. Craddock in the soft tired voice which seemed to slur the words because it really had not strength enough to sustain them. “I hope you will not find them too difficult to manage.” Mr. Craddock cut himself a large slice of home-made cake.
“There must, of course, be no coercion,” he said. “That is understood, is it not? The free expression and development of individuality is a cardinal point. Freedom to express, freedom to develop, freedom to come face to face with the Ultimate and fulfil its purpose-these are essentials. I can rely on you to give them full scope?”
Replying that she would do her best, Miss Silver could not help wondering which of these freedoms had fallen to Mrs. Craddock’s share.
“Emily,” said Mr. Craddock in his deepest tones, “you are neglecting Miss Silver. Her cup is empty.” He turned a benignant gaze upon the guest. “My own special herbal tea- healthful and invigorating. I experimented for months before I satisfied my exacting taste. The gathering of the herbs is in accordance with the dictates of astrological science-those under the moon’s influence to be gathered at the full of the moon, those under Venus and the other planets at the appropriate times. There is a vast mass of accumulated lore on the subject. But there are fields still unexplored. It is in connection with these that I hope my name may yet go down to posterity. Meanwhile my health tea is a humble offering to progress.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“I am afraid I am very ignorant about such matters. They must require a great deal of study.”
Since Mrs. Craddock had filled up her cup, she had perforce to drink a second and stronger infusion of the health tea. Considered as an offering to progress, it appeared to her inadequate, since its only merit was that it was hot, and this might have been achieved by the simple boiling of a kettle. She could not help reflecting that Mr. Craddock’s labours had involved a sad waste of time.
In the course of the next half hour she heard a good deal more about these labours. Mr. Craddock, it appeared, was engaged upon a Great Work. He required perfect quiet, both for the preliminary meditations which such a task required and for the actual literary work involved. There were also experiments of so delicate a nature that the least interruption would be fatal to their success. To this end he reserved for himself what he alluded to as a Retreat in the otherwise unused central block of the house.
“It is not generally habitable, and parts of it are far from safe. As regards the children, I have been obliged to lay an embargo on it. Much as I dislike rules or any attempt to curtail their perfect freedom of action, you will, I am sure, understand that in this case there is no alternative.” He was helping himself to strawberry jam as he spoke and spreading it thickly upon the current slice of cake.
“Mr. Craddock must have perfect quiet,” said Mrs. Craddock in a faint twittering voice. “He must never be disturbed.”
When Miss Silver was presently conducted to her room, it was by Mrs. Craddock. No one, least of all Mr. Craddock, having attempted to do anything about her suit-cases, she picked up one herself and saw Mrs. Craddock stoop for the other. Since the farther door had been closed, there was nothing to restrain her from saying in a decidedly disapproving manner,