“Not so fast!” he said. “Who are you, and what are you doing? Were you climbing in or out?”
Clare found her tongue. He had held her and talked just long enough for her first alarm to quieten; his voice was educated and young, and he sounded amused. He must, she guessed, as she gathered her wits, be one of the Sterne family. The fall on the dead leaves had not hurt her, and her indignation at his rough handling vanished with her physical fear; but it was followed by a more acute embarrassment and alarm of a different kind at being caught in such an escapade by someone who probably knew Miss Sperrod.
“I wasn't doing anything,” she said, in a voice that seemed to her own ear to speak directly out of Third−Form days. “I was trying to get back when you pulled me down.”
“I'll be bound you were! Why were you on our wall at all at this hour of the night, I'd like to know? If Miss Spoil−the−Child approves of these nocturnal exercises she should have warned us to expect an occasional—what shall I say?—involuntary invasion?”
“Spoil−the−Child?” Clare repeated, uncomprehending, and then, forgetting how foolish she felt, she laughed. “That's one we never thought of!” She paused and became uncomfortably aware again that the man's hand was still on her shoulder. “Well,” she said, very awkwardly, “you know where I come from. Will you please let me get up? I have to get back.”
“By cock−crow, you would imply?”
“No, before the housekeeper gets up,” Clare answered simply.
“Hm! If you hadn't scrabbled among those branches like a porcupine in a laundry−basket and plumped some−, thing solidly on to these dead leaves here, I might think” you a being less substantial than you claim to be. I'm only half convinced that you are one of Spare−the−Rod's little lodgers, for I've never known one before that had the nerve to prowl about the borders of Brackenbine by night. Besides, the place is closed for the holidays.”
There was so sharp a note of suspicion in the last words, that an anxious and disarming explanation tumbled at once from Clare's lips.
“I see,” he said slowly. “But I'm still not convinced. A sprite so shrewd as to take on the form of a schoolgirl would be sure to have an explanation for everything. I think I had better make sure of you by tracing a circle about you and reciting certain words of power to bind a spirit.”
He released her and she heard the dead leaves rustling a short way off. She scrambled to her feet and groped to find the wall.
“Don't run away,” said the man quietly. “I speak to the corporeal casing you may, or may not, have borrowed,” he went on. “You can't climb the wall on this side. And it's devilish dark in the wood. Whether that body is your own or not it won't thank you for a pair of barked shins and a broken nose.”
Clare stood bewildered. She had no idea of the layout of Brackenbine grounds; she knew only that the wood was wild and tangled and that, as he said, the wall was smooth and unclimbable on that side. She heard a slight metallic scraping and then found herself looking into the little yellow−lit window of an old−fashioned dark−lantern. The light moved regularly up and down and then proceeded slowly to circle her, while, with solemn and sonorous emphasis the man, whom she could not see in the dark behind the lantern, recited a litany of jargon. Clare saw her own form in the lantern−light and shrank, as she pivoted slowly with the circling flame, to think that the unseen eyes were examining her.
The circle was completed; the lantern was lowered to the ground, and Clare gave a sudden loud gasp of fright: two green eyes shone out at her from the shadow where the feeble rays failed. The man shifted the lantern slightly and revealed an enormous black cat sitting with upturned face, steadily regarding her. She had forgotten the small paws that pounced on her when she was thrown down on the leaves.
“Grim,” said the man, not addressing the cat, but introducing him. “Short for Grimalkin. He told me someone was about before you snapped that branch off.”
The man stood, entirely concealed in the dark and was silent for so long that Clare twisted her hands uneasily together, more puzzled, perhaps, than nervous, but wishing more and more to escape, while too acutely conscious of looking silly to make a dash into the wood. So she stood, as though the circle he had jokingly traced had indeed bound her to the spot.
“Well,” he said at length, “I do appreciate your anxiety to be off, and though there's a great deal I should like to ask you still, I won't take the risk of Spare−the−Rod's not doing so—metaphorically, of course. So, night−wandering sprite, I command you, or schoolgirl, I invite you, to return whence you came. Whichever you are you cannot choose but obey now the spell is cast.”
A momentarily−seen black shadow, he crossed the lantern's ray, bent down near the wall so that she could just make out his dark head, with face averted, and his two hands, with fingers interlocking, making a step for her to mount.
The unexpectedness and decisiveness of his act kept Clare rooted where she stood. Then he spoke, and she started, hurried to the wall, put her foot in the stirrup his hands made, and scrambled, careless of inelegance, to the top of the wall.
There, when she had twisted round and found the buttress with her toe, she regained self−possession enough to pause and say “Thank−you", but he had shut off the light and retreated into the black wood.
She lowered herself until her head was below the coping, and then, being back in the School territory, a frank, schoolgirl concern came to the surface of her feelings.
“I say,” she called over the wall. “You won't tell, will you?”
She listened, but there was no reply; only the quiet creaking of the boughs in the cold wind.
2
It wanted three days to Christmas. Miss Sperrod came looking for Clare in the Prefects' Room and found her sitting in the window−seat with her head against the rain−beaded glass, staring out at the sodden lawn to where the bare poles of coppice trees seemed to hold up a thick soft fabric of mist to veil the school wall. It was only when the Principal spoke that Clare turned her head and got reluctantly to her feet. Even then she was not clearly aware what Miss Sperrod was saying; she saw that she had a sheet of blue notepaper in her hand and realised that she was offering some confused explanations; her habitual note of over−emphasis which seemed always to anticipate objection was more than usually pronounced. “I really can't go myself,” the Principal was saying. “Quite some time ago I arranged to go to town for Christmas. Quite some time ago; and I really must go up on Christmas Eve. It is most awfully kind of Mrs. Sterne and I feel quite distressed that it's fallen out so awkwardly. I wouldn't wish to give her the slightest cause for offence. I shall write and tell her how terribly sorry I am that I can't alter my own arrangements now. I'm sure she'll understand. And I shall tell her that Miss Geary and you will be delighted to accept. It really is unfortunate that she didn't give me a little more warning. She didn't invite us last Christmas, or I would have waited before making my arrangements with my brother. But Miss Geary will represent me, and you, Clare, will have to represent the Prefect Body. Of course, Mrs. Sterne doesn't expect there to be many senior girls at school for the holidays.”
“Is it an invitation?” Clare asked.
“Have I not made myself clear?” said the Principal. She looked at the sheet of notepaper again. “Mrs. Sterne says she would be very pleased if I and any of the assistant mistresses and senior girls who are staying in school for Christmas will give her the pleasure of taking tea with her on Christmas Eve.”