Part 7
Even with her hand pressing upon it, it had taken months to die. It had never really flickered out until he had ceased trying to find one of them to love. He had tried each of them in turn, from the rating, jibing mother herself to the red-haired baby screaming on the hearth, and then he had suddenly let them all go. Perhaps it might never have died at all if Marget had allowed him to play his fiddle from time to time, but it was the first part of him at which she struck. The sound of it seemed to send her out of her mind, and even the baby greeted it with yells. Certainly, its unearthly, quivering note, peculiarly thin and sweet, made an almost heart-breaking wail in the little house. He did his best to obey, but it was a long time before he learned to keep his fingers from the strings. Often he found himself playing without knowing that he had begun, and awoke to a chorus of abuse and screams. He would play in the night, too, forgetting that it was night, and then even the neighbours would start knocking at the walls. There was always music singing in his mind, so that he did not always know when the fiddle was singing, too. He used to wonder, when they made so much to-do, how it was they did not hear the other music as well. But even the red-haired baby did not seem to hear that. Anyhow, if it did, it did not scream.
When he found that he could not play in the house, he tried to find somewhere to play outside—down by the river, for instance, close to the bridge. He had a rather wonderful time down there until Marget scented him out. Sitting on a great root at the water’s edge, he would play to the forest above and the forest beneath, until folk came along walking through the one, while their reflections walked through the other, down below. They used to seat themselves on the tree-trunks near or stand about him in groups, while he played them varsovianas and schottisches and reels. Of course there were always children, but others came as well, and sometimes there was quite a crowd. The music would run to the village across the fields, though never as far as Marget’s open door. But over the river and up the park it went as far as it liked, and as far as it liked with the river down to the sea. On the grass at the river’s edge the sun threw patches never twice alike, and the listening faces looked paler under the trees. Kit, in his old clothes, was just a bit of the trunk on which he leaned, except for the flying movements of his hands. Beside him was the velvety water, deep black, shot and shivered by gold patines and leaf-dances and lacy patterns and bright gleams.
Sometimes, when he was tired, he talked to the crowd, telling them of old dances and melodies and old times. They left the tree-trunks, and came nearer by degrees, the lads with their hands in their pockets and the children with fingers in their mouths. He looked round at their friendly eyes, and thought how nearly all eyes changed when a fiddle was played. If anybody laughed or jeered at first, he was an open or a sneaking worshipper before long. Sometimes the women who lived near brought him a cup of tea and a snack to eat, and nothing he ever had at Marget’s heartened him half so much. And on especially blessed days when the tunes went like so much unwound silk, there came somebody who remembered Fiddlin’ Kit.
It was after one of these days, taking him clean back to happier times, that he brought a horrible vengeance on himself. One afternoon, when the children were coming home from school, he went out to the forbidden footpath under the chestnuts and played. He forgot all about the cottage just across, and Marget of the music-hating heart. He forgot that he was only a beggar-man and that somebody paid his keep. He only remembered that he was Fiddlin’ Kit, at sight of whom folk had always danced, and the feet of the children stirred his ancient blood. The young feet, the feet of the coming generation of dancers, always stirred his blood. From the end of the village they came skipping down the road, singing a little tune they had learned in school. Most of them came in twos and threes, linked together by twining arms, or trailing a little cloak by its hem in the dust. Some whispered great mysteries in others’ ears. Some held a little school on the kerb, as if they had not already had enough, and in the midst of the lesson gathered themselves up and ran. And all the time, here and there, some of them sang, and the tune that they sang got into the fiddle and played. Kit, down the long perspective of the street, saw the white school from which they had come, and the tune, as it were, coming with them out of the door. He had known the song long ago, and he never forgot a tune. It was only in nature that the fiddle should sing, too.
Marget, staring crossly at neglected plants in the ill-treated patch behind the house, heard both fiddle and voices lilting over the roof. They climbed the slates and swung off the chimney-tops to drop in delicate sweetness on her head. She thought of Kit, of course, in the first breath, but remembered that she had left him nodding in the house. The red-haired baby, she knew, had had him under its eye. She glanced suspiciously down the cottage backs, wondering which harboured this nuisance to the rest. The Martin boy had a fancy for fiddling, she believed; she had caught him talking to Kit about it in the road. Then there was that lass of Simpson’s that thought she played—the one that was going to service before so long. Folks never seemed to care whether the neighbours liked the noise, though they were fit to swear if the red-haired baby cried. There was more than one that she wanted a word with about that, a word flung in like a bomb at a cottage door. This dratted fiddling might give her her excuse, so she picked up her vegetables and hurried down.
She thought of Kit again as she flapped along, and again told herself that it was somebody else. He was safe enough under her thumb, by now, the silly old man. He had given her a deal of trouble at first, fiddling in other folks’ houses when he might not fiddle in hers, but of course she had easily traced him by the sound. Then she had stolen upon him unawares, breaking the harmonies like so much silvered glass, and after a time or two he had never done it again. Besides, this playing came from the street, and if she was sure of anything she was sure she had cured him of that. It was much more likely to be some fiddling tramp, who would be knocking for ha’pence at her door. She slipped as she ran down the steps to give him the best of her tongue, and the potatoes flew out of her apron left and right. It took her some minutes to pick them up again, and as she was doing so the music changed. Now it was playing a dismal little tune, and little voices began to sing it in breathless little jerks. On the top of the tune she heard laughter and applause, and then fiddle and voices went on their way alone. Puzzled, she scrambled up with grubby hands, bunched the potatoes in her grimy apron and opened the cottage door.
The old man stood on the footpath under the trees, his ear bent to the fiddle as he played. His eyes, looking gravely before him at the scene, were as intent as if the fate of nations hung on his bow. The street was full of folk as far as she could see, and in the midst of them the children were playing “London Bridge.” Under the trees and over the sun-flecked road they moved slowly and solemnly to the tune, and between the laughing folk on either side their faces looked serious and sad. There were babies among them, for this is the little children’s game, and even the babies’ faces were sad. They stood facing each other in rows across the street, keeping themselves up by the grasp of their little hands. Sometimes they lost their balance and fell down, but they were so intent on the game that even as they bumped their faces never changed. Suddenly Marget discovered some of her own offspring in the crowd, and that the younger ones were even taking part. Last of all she saw the red-haired baby among the rest, clenching determined fists and setting a firm mouth.
“_London Bridge is broken down, Broken down, broken down. London Bridge is broken down, (My fair Ladye!)_
_Build it up with pins and needles, Pins and needles, pins and needles. Build it up with pins and needles, (My fair Ladye!)_
_Pins and needles rust and bend, Rust and bend, rust and bend. Pins and needles rust and bend, (My fair Ladye!)_”
Marget made a rush as soon as she got her breath, but the crowd closed in before her and held her back. She could see the smiling faces all along the street, people staring over the shoulders of others or peering over their heads, leaning out of upstairs windows and sitting along the wall. There were even faces peeping down from the trees, and drawn up close to the kerb was the Squire’s carriage and pair. The horses’ heads were turned away from the scene, but the Squire and his wife were leaning over the hood. Even the coachman was screwing his neck as far as it would go, and as for the footman, he had forgotten himself right out, and had turned about and was kneeling on the seat. And in the midst of the smiles and amusement and applause the babies bobbed and moved with never a smile, and the old man played as if he played before kings.
“_Here’s a prisoner we have got, We have got, we have got. Here’s a prisoner we have got, (My fair Ladye!)_
_What’s the prisoner done to you, Done to you, done to you? What’s the prisoner done to you? (My fair Ladye!)_
_Stole my watch and broke my chain, Broke my chain, broke my chain. Stole my watch and broke my chain, (My fair Ladye!)_”
It was the first and only time that Marget’s children got anywhere near his heart. Even the elder ones had forgotten to be cross and ugly under the spell of the game. They laughed and skipped as they watched, and sang the tune and clapped their hands with the rest. As for the red-haired baby, Kit’s eyes followed it all the time. He had given up the red-haired baby latest of all, and now it seemed he had captured it at last. It seemed to him for the first time to have a look of his own babies, who were either dead or lost in the likenesses of men. He watched it stumbling over its own feet and taking headers over its dirty gown. In the house it would have screamed until it choked, but now it picked itself up without a sound, and the solemn intensity never left its face. He watched it tail up behind the rest until it was circled by the gaolers’ arms, and saw its eyes widen as sentence was pronounced.
“_Off to prison she must go, She must go, she must go! Off to prison she must go, (My fair Ladye!)_”
The fiddle shivered and halted and the tune nearly broke. It seemed to him suddenly a rather cruel little game. It was not a game, really, but a memorial to a tradition—the tradition that the foundation-stones of London Bridge had been sprinkled with the blood of little children. The babies were right who treated it as drama and not play. Ever since the beginning of the world children had been martyrs in some cause, and in the little song was the sound of all that they had suffered through the years. When the fiddle jarred the enchantment halted, too, and into the red-haired baby’s face came panic fright. It was at that moment that Marget broke through the crowd and snatched it into her arms.
The babies tumbled about her as if she had struck them down, flung out of the magic, bewildered and alarmed. Some of them burst into loud sobs, and even above Marget’s voice came the red-haired baby’s cries. She hustled the crowd right and left with a fierce arm, that seemed mighty enough to push even the Squire’s carriage out of the way. Coachman and footman were already mere liveried backs, with a couple of crested buttons winking in the sun. “Making such a stir in front o’ folks’ doors,” Marget said, “and keeping the poor barns from their tea an’ all! It was a pity folks hadn’t summat better to do than to go dancing and singing like a German band. But there was no sense o’ decency in yon wastrel she and her husband had to keep. You might as well keep a dancing bear and ha’ done wi’ it right out!”
She reached Kit where he stood with a dropped bow, and caught hold of his arm with an angry pull. He moved mechanically at her touch, and was dragged away to the house without looking at her once. His head swam with the violent flow of her speech and the shrieks of the baby flung across her arm. Once he shrank, hearing a giggle out in the crowd. But the Squire thanked him by name as he went by.
It passed, of course—all that vast and returning storm which followed these mistakes, shaking the house like a powder-mill gone up, until the frightened neighbours hammered at the walls. He left behind him at last the shock and shame of that afternoon, forgetting it in the healing of his dreams. But for a time he kept a faint affection for the red-haired baby who had entered so passionately into his game, and at first it seemed to be attracted to him, too. It would clutch itself on to its feet by the help of his knee, and stand staring at him with great, demanding eyes, as if asking him for the magic they had made together in the street. It even tried to play the game by itself, mopping and mowing in its trailing skirt, but the fiddle never came to its aid, and very soon it ceased to ask. It forgot to lift up wondering, seeking eyes, by which even the dirtiest baby may win a heart, and became again the chief terror of the house. Always, that is, excepting Marget herself. But then Marget’s terror was on a plane of its own. The red-haired baby, at least, was human in its misdeeds, but Marget was elemental, inhuman as packing ice.
And yet, even after the link with the baby had gone, a touch of feeling for Marget stayed with Kit. He had had a glimpse of her while it stood in the gaolers’ hands, and the game had begun to harrow its little soul. Marget had looked as perhaps those other mothers had looked, as mothers always look in the grip of the great fear.... While he remembered it, he saw her with different eyes.
But even that attempt at sympathy went the way of the rest at last. Marget was as open-handed with her smacks as she was open-mouthed with abuse, and the red-haired baby came in for the hardest smacks of all. He watched long enough for that glimpse to come again, but it never did. He was one of those who make angels out of a passing smile, and even to Marget he looked to show a wing. But the feet of even his wandering trust had struck a blind alley at last, and, seeing the face of her daily life, he forgot the look that had made him drop his bow.
It was shortly after this, too, that the Persecution of the Fiddle began, leaving him little time for dreams or anything else. All his life the fiddle had been secure as the Lady riding through Ireland in her gems, but it was in peril in a robber-country now. On the marsh he had never been afraid to lay it down where he chose, on table or chair, in the garden or the hedge-side. Somebody was sure to bring it back if it was lost, and nobody ever dreamed of doing it harm. Sometimes his own dog fetched it home, without as much as a scratch on the shining wood, and once a butcher had seen it in the grass, and turned his horse with it on the road he had come. And there was a tale that a great musician had found it on the shore, and taken it far out and played it on the sands. Kit could never be persuaded to speak of that, because it was the nearest thing to stealing that had come the fiddle’s way. Besides, he had an idea that it was never afterwards quite the same. There was a certain un-English fierceness in the lower notes, an occasional puzzling wildness in the higher. It had gained something rather wonderful and strange, but it seemed to him that it had lost something, too. Still, the fiddle itself had come back safe to the farm, with a little note of thanks that was signed by a famous name.
He kept his trick of confidence for months after he arrived at Marget’s house. The fiddle came down with him in the morning when he rose, and during the day might be found anywhere at all, from the door-mat to the mantelpiece or the flowerless flower-box on the sill. It was a miracle that it escaped being thrown on the fire, or stamped to pieces under the children’s feet. There were occasional terrible moments when it really disappeared, and nobody would help him in the search. Once it was away from him for a whole night, and he sat on his bed in the dawn, and was wholly uncomforted by his magic tree. But he did not believe that it was lost, and he was right, for during the morning a neighbour brought it timidly to the door. He learned to be careful, however, after that, and seldom let the fiddle out of his hands.
But now Marget announced boldly that she meant to destroy it before she was done. Perhaps she was really ashamed because her father-in-law had fiddled in the street; she had so little of any other shame that at least there was plenty to spare. Perhaps it was just a natural hate of a beautiful thing beyond her ken, or a grudge for that touch of terror in the red-haired baby’s face. In any case, she meant to steal the fiddle as soon as she could, and make an end of it before his eyes. She let the children share in this pleasant game, offering a reward, and setting them to catch him off his guard. She could not take the fiddle from him by force, because in spite of his age he would have given her a hard fight. Besides, there was as much pleasure in the promise of the crime as there could possibly be in the crime itself. She was always hinting at plots that couldn’t help but succeed, and her nods and winks to the grinning fry turned the old man cold. Her provisions for the doom of the fiddle were various in the extreme. She would burn it ... break it in pieces with the axe ... crucify it on the kitchen door. She would give it to the ragman to take away in a bag, or to the children to bury in the field. She would fling it into the barrel out at the back, and they would all stand round and watch it sink and drown. “And what’ll Gran’pa do wi’ his daft self then?” she would ask of the children with meaning smiles, while Kit sat still before an untouched plate. The children would echo her words and nudge each other and laugh, and he would clutch the fiddle under the table until it spoke.
In the dark well where it was so difficult to see he felt always about him creeping fingers and prying eyes. In the narrow room which had neither corners nor dreaming-places for the old, there seemed always a host of spies that crouched and peered. When he drowsed in spite of himself on a hot afternoon, he would start awake to find stealthy hands grasping at the treasure on his knee. Instinct told him, as a rule, when the enemy was about, but sometimes the fiddle warned him with a speaking string. He used to think that it knew its danger as well as he; but of course it didn’t do to trust to that. Small wonder he learned to take it with him in his dreams!
He thought once of asking Thomas to take it away, so that at least it would be safe from Marget and her gang. This was on one of the days when his fear was more than he could bear, when the hints and nudges had over-tried his mind. What troubled him most was the thought of the fiddle being drowned. He pictured it at the bottom of the barrel in the dark, a choked and silenced creature rotting out of reach. He saw himself, armed with a stick, everlastingly trying to drag it up, and for ever watching it drift down again to die. It would be like seeing some singing-bird thrust under to drown, not once, but many times before it sank. At least it would have a chance of life if it was given away; it might hear itself speak, might even come to be loved. And if they broke it to bits, at least it would die quick, but he could not endure that rotting by degrees. He would find it hard to sleep when they took it away, but if it lay in the barrel how could he sleep at all? So when Thomas, after his duty visit, rose to go, the old man followed him out into the street. In the dark he felt the fiddle thrust into his hands, and listened dully to the hurried request. “I’ll see to it, never fret,” he said, when he understood, and moved away with the fiddle under his coat; but he hadn’t gone far before Kit was at his side, begging in anxious tones to have it back. So master and fiddle returned together to the house of hinting and spies. He said to himself that they might take it from him if they could; at least he could never bring himself to send it away.
When Marget had her will of them both at last, it was his habit of old time that delivered them into her hands. A man from the marsh came along the street and hailed Kit through the window as he passed, and Kit rose and ran out as if an angel had beckoned through the pane. Marget heard him chattering in the street, and found the fiddle lying on a chair. He did not see her or even feel her near, stooped like a vulture over its watched-for prey. The strings jarred together as she took the fiddle up, but he never heard them or even turned his head. He went on talking and laughing in the street long and long after the fiddle had disappeared....
The week that followed was just seven days and nights blotted clean out of his tale of life. He never spoke of his loss, nor did he even begin to make a search. He said nothing even in the first shock of finding the fiddle gone. He just stood and stared at the chair where it had lain as one stares at a shell where the spirit has once been. The sense of irrevocable loss was as clear about the chair as about the heedless dead with their shuttered eyes. Kit had always been queer about furniture, as Thomas knew, and one of Marget’s unmeaning chairs said something to him at last.
He did not know whether he spoke or ate during that dead week, but for the most part he was silent and refused his food. Still, his absent-mindedness was an old tale by now, so Marget got little satisfaction out of that. The only difference was that he would not sit in the kitchen any more, and no amount of abuse could fetch him back. Perhaps he was afraid of the chair that was like a coffin in his eyes; at all events, he refused to sit in it again. Instead, he sat in his bedroom on his bed, staring for ever at his magic tree. But there was no magic about it now, because the fiddle had gone away, and without it the fairy glades would never let him in. Yet still he sat there, staring and staring, while the sun climbed the morning hills, touched the house in passing with a golden wing, and fled away to break into colours in the west. Always he sat with his fingers lightly clasped, as if something were lying within them on his knee.
So, as it happened, Marget found her vengeance a poor thing, after all. The scene that she had looked for hung fire and never came off. There was nothing exciting in the way of pleading and tears; nothing, in fact, except this absolute blank, risen like a fog between her victim and herself. Even the children felt that the situation had fallen flat. Instead of “carrying on,” as they had hoped, Gran’pa had been as dull as a dead fish. He hadn’t even spoken, nor did he mean to speak. He had not given them any sort of scope for their peculiar powers. Why, you might almost have thought that he didn’t even know!