The Folly of Eustace | Page 7

That depended, surely, on the nature of the man in whom it sprang, from whom it flowed. She wanted to be sure of that nature; but she acknowledged to herself, as she sat by the fire, that she was perplexed. Perhaps even that perplexity was merciful. Yet she wished to sweep it away. She knit her brows moodily, and longed for a secret divining-rod that would twist to reveal truth in another. For truth, she thought, is better than hidden water-springs, and a sincerity--even of stupidity--more lovely than the fountain that gives flowers to the desert, wild red roses to the weary gold of sands.
The wind roared again, howling to poor, shuddering Mayfair, and there came a step outside. Eustace sprang in upon Winifred's council, looking like a gay schoolboy, his cheeks flushed, his lips open to speak.
"Dreaming?" he said.
She smiled.
"Perhaps."
"That concert paralyzed me. Too much Beethoven. I wanted Wagner. Beethoven insists on exalting you, but Wagner lets you revel and feel naughty. Winnie, d'you hear the wind?"
"Could I help it?" she asked.
"Does it suggest something to you?"
He looked at her, and made his expression mischievous, or meant to make it. She looked up at him, too.
"Yes, many things," she said--"many, many things."
"To me it suggests kites."
"Kites?"
"Yes. I'm going to fly one now in the Park. The stars are out. Put on your hat and come with me."
He seemed all impulse, sparkling to the novelty of the idea.
"Well, but------" She hesitated.
"I've got one--a beauty, a monster! I noticed the wind was getting up yesterday. Come!"
He pulled at her hand; she obeyed him, not quickly. She put on her hat, a plain straw, a thick jacket, gloves. Kite-flying in London seemed an odd notion. Was it lively and entertaining, or merely silly? Which ought it to be?
Eustace shouted to her from the tiny hall.
"Hurry!" he cried.
The wind yelled beyond the door, and Winifred ran down, beginning to feel a childish thrill of excitement. Eustace held the kite. It was, indeed, a white monster, gaily decorated with fluttering scarlet and blue ribbons.
"We shall be mobbed," she said.
"There's no one about," he answered. "The gale frightens people."
He opened the door, and they were out in the crying tempest. The great clouds flew along the sky like an army in retreat. Some, to Winifred, seemed soldiers, others baggage-waggons, horses, gun-carriages, rushing pell-mell for safety. One drooping, tattered cloud she deemed the colours of a regiment streaming under the stars that peeped out here and there--watching sentinel eyes, obdurate, till some magic password softened them.
As they crossed the road she spoke of her cloud army to Eustace.
"This kite's like a live thing," was his reply. "It tugs as a fish tugs a line."
He did not care for the tumult of a far-off world.
They entered the Park. It seemed, indeed, strangely deserted. A swaggering soldier passed them by, going towards the Marble Arch. His spurs clinked; his long cloak gleamed like a huge pink carnation in the dingy dimness of the startled night. How he stared with his unintelligent, though bold, eyes as he saw the kite bounding to be free.
Eustace seemed delighted.
"That man thinks us mad!" he said.
"Are we mad?" Winifred asked, surprised at her own strange enjoyment of the adventure.
"Who knows?" said Eustace, looking at her narrowly. "You like this escapade?"
"Yes," she answered.
"My mask!" he thought, secretly longing to be quietly by the fire sipping tea and reading Punch. "She loves that."
They were through the trees now, across the broad path, out on the open lawns.
"Now for it!" he shouted, as the wind roared in their faces.
He paid out the coils of the thin cord. The white monster skimmed, struggled near the ground, returned, darted again upward and outward, felt for the wind's hands, caught them and sprang, with a mad courage, star-wards, its gay ribbons flying like coloured birds to mark its course. But soon they were lost to sight, and only a diminished, ghost-like shadow leaping against the black showed where the kite beat on to liberty.
Eustace ran with the wind, and Winifred followed him. The motion sent an exultation dancing through her veins, and stirred her blood into a ferment. The noises in the trees, the galloping music of the airs on their headlong courses, rang in her ears like clashing bells. She called as she ran, but never knew what words. She leaped, as if over glorious obstacles. Her feet danced on the short grass. She had a sudden notion: "I am living now!" and Eustace had never seemed so near to her. He had an art to find why children are happy, she thought, because they do little strange things, coupling mechanical movements, obvious actions that may seem absurd, with soft flights of the imagination, that wrap their prancings and their leaps in golden robes, and give to the