"Couldn't we go just once?" she asked.
Miss Price tightened her lips. "It's always 'just once,' Carey. You've had your 'just once,' and we've still to take Mr. Jones back." "If we promise not to stay a minute, just a second, when we take him back, couldn't we just go once and see him at his aunt's house?" Emelius glanced at Miss Price's face, then sadly down at the lawn.
"It isn't," said Miss Price uncomfortably, "that I wouldn't be happy to go and see Mr. Jones, especially in that dear little house, but-" "But what?" asked Carey.
"I'm responsible for you children. There seems to be no way of knowing what may happen on these outings-" "Well," said Carey reasonably, "it's hardly much of an outing-just to go and visit Mr. Jones-in his quiet little house at Pepperinge Eye-not two miles away." "I know, Carey," Miss Price pointed' out. "But what about that quiet day we planned on the beach?" "Well, after all, that was a cannibal island. This is quite different. Mr. Jones's -aunt's dear little house. At Pepperinge Eye-" "If you came just once," said Emelius. "Say, a week after I left, just to see it all. Then after that you could just come in spirit-" "In spirit?" said Miss Price dubiously.
"I mean just take a walk up to where the house was and we'll think of each other," said Emelius.
Miss Price sat silent. They could not read her expression. At last she said, rather surprisingly: "I don't like flying in the face of nature-" "Well," Carey pointed out, "isn't the broomstick-?" "No," said Miss Price, "that's different, that's accepted- witches have always flown on broomsticks." She paused. "No, I don't quite know how to put it, and I don't really like to mention it, but there's no getting away from the fact that, as far as we're concerned, Mr. Jones is long since dead and buried." Emelius stared glumly at the grass between his feet. He could not deny it.
"I don't hold it against him," went on Miss Price. "We must all come to it sooner or later, but it doesn't seem wise or natural to foster these attachments with one who is no more." They sat silent; then, after a bit, Emelius sighed. "There is no record of my death in the churchyard," he pointed out.
Miss Price pursed up her lips. "That proves nothing. We did not look in the annex behind the yew hedge." "Don't let's," said Carey suddenly.
A CHANGE OF MIND But Miss Price stuck to the original plan. When Emelius's clothes arrived from the cleaners, they took him back. They dropped him in Goat Alley at night and did not stay a minute. Miss Price never liked long-drawn-out good-bys, and in her efforts to spare everybody's feelings she was almost too businesslike. She would not "step upstairs" to try his cherry cordial. She bundled the children back onto the bed with almost indecent haste, and left Emelius standing, somber and dark-robed, in the moonlit street. Embarrassed she seemed, and worried by the whole business, and she was sharp with the children when they got home, and next day flung herself into bottling as though she tried to drown the memory of that sad white face deep in sliced apricot and squashed tomato pulp. She did not join the children on their expeditions, and the bed-knob had been hidden away.
The happy atmosphere of the little house seemed to have dispersed, and the children wandered into the fields and sat on gates, talking and kicking their heels. They chewed long stalks of grass and quarreled idly, while the end of the holidays loomed in sight and lowered over them.
No one even mentioned Emelius until one day at tea when Miss Price, quite suddenly, brought the subject up herself.
"I wonder," she said, gazing pensively at the brown teapot, "if we should have taken Mr. Jones right home." The atmosphere at once became electric. Carey laid down her teaspoon. All three pairs of eyes were fixed on Miss Price's face.
"But we did," said Charles after a moment.
"I mean," went on Miss Price, "leaving him in the street like that. It was rather rude." "Yes," said Carey. "His house might have been damaged in the fire, or anything. He might have had nowhere to sleep that night." Miss Price looked worried. "It was just that we agreed- didn't we?-not to stay." "Yes," said Carey. "You remember we asked you whether if we promised not to stay a minute, a second, when we took him back, you would let us go later and visit him properly." "I didn't promise anything," replied Miss Price hastily. She poured herself out another cup of tea. As she stirred it, she said uncertainly: "But I think he's all right, don't you? He could always go down to Pepperinge Eye." "Yes," said Carey, "I'm sure he'd manage." "And yet," went on Miss Price, "in some ways Mr. Jones is rather helpless. That fire, you know, they say there were riots afterwards." Miss Price, without noticing what she was doing, put another spoonful of sugar in her tea.
"If one could write to him . . ." she suggested.
"Yes," said Carey, "but we can't.
Charles cleared his throat. "Would you like Paul and me just to run down and take a look at him?" Carey opened her mouth. "Without me?" she said indignantly.
"No, no," put in Miss Price. "It wouldn't be fair to leave Carey. Perhaps-" she hesitated-"perhaps we ought all to go." The children were silent. They dared not urge her. Carey crossed her thumbs and stared fixedly at the tablecloth.
"We could just go to his lodgings and peep in at the window. Just to see if he's all right, don't you know. We wouldn't disturb him. I think," said Miss Price, "it would be kind." The children did not speak.
"Once we knew he was all right," went on Miss Price, "we could come back and settle down happily to our lives." "Yes," said Carey guardedly.
"Don't you think?" asked Miss Price.
"Oh, yes," said Charles.
"Although this is a flying visit," said Miss Price, "I think we should be prepared for any emergency." She took down her father's sword from its hook on the wall and tested the blade with her finger. Then she strapped the scabbard to the bed rail. Carey and Charles were folding blankets, and Paul was opening out the ground sheet. It was nine o'clock in the morning, and they were all gathered together in Miss Price's bedroom to prepare for the journey.
"You see," went on Miss Price, "although I'm now convinced it is our duty to go, it is a great responsibility for me, now, at the end of the holidays. I don't feel justified in taking risks. I'm not sure that we shouldn't be disguised-" "How do you mean?" asked Charles.
"We look so very twentieth century," said Miss Price. "And it will be daylight this time." "I know!" exclaimed Carey. "Let's hire something from a costumer, like we did for the school play." "No, no," said Miss Price. "I couldn't go in fancy dress. I shouldn't feel myself at all-but I have that black cloak, and you children would be all right in long dressing gowns, pinned up at the neck." "Oh, Miss Price, that wouldn't look like anything. The costumer would have the exact dress. I have seven and sixpence." "It would cost more than seven and sixpence," said Miss Price. "And we're only going to stay ten minutes. Dressing gowns are good enough. You are always apt to overdo things, Carey, and become fantastic. Now help me turn the mattress." "I should think," said Carey, taking hold of the mattress, "we should look jolly fantastic walking about London in Charles IFs reign wearing twentieth-century dressing gowns pinned up at the neck-" "Now, Carey, that's enough. I have not the remotest intention of walking about London, and you're very lucky to be going at all." SO NEAR Emelius opened his eyes. Then he closed them again. The light hurt them. "It is a dream," he told himself, "a nightmare, the worst I have ever had." He felt cold, but too bruised and tired to mind that he felt cold. He just lay there, on the stone floor, trying not to wake up. But, after a while, his eyes seemed to open of their own accord, and he saw the small, barred window and the gray sky beyond. He sat up suddenly, and then cried out with pain as the movement hurt him. He smelt the wetness of his clothes, and his hands slipped on the floor. Slowly he began to remember: yesterday, the horsepond; today, the stake . . .