CHAPTER VIII
ENDYMION LEER LOOKS FRIGHTENED, AND A BREACH IS MADE IN AN OLD FRIENDSHIP
Master Ambrose fully expected on reaching home to find that one of the grooms he had despatched after Moonlove had returned with her in safe custody.
This, however, was not the case, and he was confronted with another frightful contingency. Moonlove had last been seen running, at a speed so great and so unflagging as to hint at some sustaining force that was more than human, due West. What if she were making for the Debatable Hills? Once across those hills she would never again be seen in Dorimare.
He must go to Mumchance at once, and give the alarm. Search parties must immediately be sent to ransack the country from one end to the other.
On his way out he was stopped by Dame Jessamine in the fretful complaining condition that he always found so irritating.
"Where have you been, Ambrose?" she cried querulously. "First Moonlove screaming like a mad cockatoo! And then you rushing off, just after your dinner too, and leaving me like that in the lurch when I was so upset that I was on the verge of swooning! Where did you go to Ambrose?" and her voice grew shrill. "I do wish you would go to Miss Primrose and tell her she must not let Moonlove be such a tom-boy and play practical jokes on her parents ... rushing home in the middle of the day like that and talking such silly nonsense. She really is a very naughty girl to give us such a fright. I feel half inclined to go straight off to the Academy and give her a good scolding."
"Stop chattering, Jessamine, and let me go," cried Master Ambrose. "Moonlove is not at the Academy."
And he found a sort of savage satisfaction in calling back over his shoulder as he hurried from the room, "I very much fear you will never see your daughter again, Jessamine."
About half an hour later, he returned home even more depressed than when he had set out, owing to what he had learned from Mumchance as to the recent alarming spread in the town of the consumption of fairy fruit. He found Endymion Leer sitting in the parlour with his wife.
Her husband's parting words had brought on an attack of violent hysterics and the alarmed servants, fearing a seizure, had, on their own responsibility, summoned the only doctor of Lud in whom they had any faith, Endymion Leer. And, judging from Dame Jessamine's serene and smiling face, he had succeeded in removing completely the terrible impression produced by her husband's parting words, and in restoring to what she was pleased to call her mind its normal condition, namely that of a kettle that contains just enough water to simmer comfortably over a low fire.
She greeted Master Ambrose with a smile that for her was quite eager.
"Oh, Ambrose!" she cried, "I have been having such a pleasant talk with Dr. Leer. He says girls of her age often get silly and excited, though I'm sure I never did, and that she's sure to be brought home before night. But I do think we'd better take her away from Miss Primrose's. For one thing she has really learned quite enough now—I know no one who can make prettier groups in butter. So I think we had better give a ball for her before the winter, so if you will excuse me, Dr. Leer, I have just a few things to see to...." and off she bustled to overhaul Moonlove's bridal chest, which, according to the custom of Dorimarite mothers, she had been storing, ever since her daughter's birth, with lace and velvets and brocade.
Not without reason, Dame Jessamine was considered the stupidest woman in Lud-in-the-Mist. And, in addition, the Ludite's lack of imagination and inability to feel serious emotions, amounted in her to a sort of affective idiocy.
So Master Ambrose found himself alone with Endymion Leer; and, though he had never liked the man, he was very glad to have the chance of consulting him. For, socially, however great his shortcomings might be, Master Ambrose knew him to be undeniably the best doctor in the country, and a very clever fellow into the bargain.
"Leer," he said solemnly, when Dame Jessamine had left the room, "there are very queer things happening at that Academy ... very queer things."
"Indeed?" said Endymion Leer, in a tone of surprise. "What sort of things?"
Master Ambrose gave a short laugh: "Not the sort of things, if my suspicions are correct, that one cares to talk about—even between men. But I can tell you, Leer, though I'm not what one could call a fanciful man, I believe if I'd stayed much longer in that house I should have gone off my head, the whole place stinks with ... well, with pernicious nonsense, and I actually found myself, I, Ambrose Honeysuckle, seeing things—ridiculous things."
Endymion Leer looked interested.
"What sort of things, Master Ambrose?" he asked.
"Oh, it's not worth repeating—except in so far as it shows that the fancies of silly overwrought women can sometimes be infectious. I actually imagined that I saw the Senate room portrait of Duke Aubrey reflected on the window. And if I take to fancying things—well, there must be something very fishy in the offing."
Endymion Leer's expression was inscrutable.
"Optical delusions have been known before, Master Ambrose," he said calmly. "Even the eyes of Senators may sometimes play them tricks. Optical delusions, legal fictions—and so the world wags on."
Master Ambrose grunted. He loathed the fellow's offensive way of putting things.
But he was sore at heart and terribly anxious, and he felt the need of having his fears either confirmed or dispelled, so, ignoring the sneer, he said with a weary sigh: "However, that's a mere trifle. I have grave reasons for fearing that my daughter has ... has ... well, not to put too fine a point on things, I'm afraid that my daughter has eaten fairy fruit."
Endymion Leer flung up his hands in horror, and then he laughed incredulously.
"Impossible, my dear sir, impossible! Your good lady told me you were sadly anxious about her, but let me assure you such an idea is mere morbidness on your part. The thing's impossible."
"Is it?" said Master Ambrose grimly; and producing the slipper from his pocket he held it out, saying, "What do you say to that? I found it in Miss Crabapple's parlour. I'm not much of a botanist, but I've never seen purple strawberries in Dorimare ... toasted cheese! What's taken the man?"
For Endymion Leer had turned livid, and was staring at the design on the shoe with eyes as full of horror as if it had been some hideous goblin.
Master Ambrose interpreted this as corroboration of his own theory.
He gave a sort of groan: "Not so impossible after all, eh?" he said gloomily. "Yes, that I very much fear is the sort of stuff my poor little girl has been given to eat."
Then his eyes flashed, and clenching his fist he cried, "But it's not her I blame. Before I'm many days older I'll smoke out that nest of wasps! I'll hang that simpering old woman from her own doorpost. By the Golden Apples of the West I'll...."
Endymion Leer had by this time, at any rate externally, recovered his equanimity.
"Are you referring to Miss Primrose Crabapple?" he asked in his usual voice.
"Yes, Miss Primrose Crabapple!" boomed Master Ambrose, "nonsensical, foul-minded, obscene old...."
"Yes, yes," interrupted Endymion Leer with good-humoured impatience, "I daresay she's all of that and a great deal more, but, all the same, I don't believe her capable of having given your daughter what you think she has. I admit, when you first showed me that slipper I was frightened. Unlike you, I am a bit of a botanist, and I certainly have never seen a berry like that in Dorimare. But after all that does not prove that it grows ... across the hills. There's many a curious fruit to be found in the Cinnamon Isles, or in the oases of the Amber Desert ... why, your own ships, Master Ambrose, sometimes bring such fruit. The ladies of Lud have no lack of exotic fruit and flowers to copy in their embroidery. No, no, you're a bit unhinged this evening, Master Ambrose, else you would not allow so much as the shadow of foul suspicions like these to cross your mind."
Master Ambrose groaned.
And then he said a little stiffly, "I am not given, Dr. Leer, to harbouring foul suspicions without cause. But a great deal of mischief is sometimes done by not facing facts. How is one to explain my daughter's running away, due west, like one possessed? Besides, Prunella Chanticleer as much as told me she had ... eaten a certain thing ... and ... and ... I'm old enough to remember the great drought, so I know the smell, so to speak, of evil, and there is something very strange going on in that Academy."
"Prunella Chanticleer, did you say?" queried Endymion Leer with an emphasis on the last word, and with a rather odd expression in his eyes.
Master Ambrose looked surprised.
"Yes," he said. "Prunella Chanticleer, her school fellow and intimate friend."
Endymion Leer gave a short laugh.
"The Chanticleers are ... rather curious people," he said drily, "Are you aware that Ranulph Chanticleer has done the very thing you suspect your daughter of having done?"
Master Ambrose gaped at him.
Ranulph had certainly always been an odd and rather disagreeable boy, and there had been that horrid little incident at the Moongrass cheese supper-party ... but that he actually should have eaten fairy fruit!
"Do you mean? Do you mean...?" he gasped.
Endymion Leer nodded his head significantly: "One of the worst cases I have ever known."
"And Nathaniel knows?"
Again Endymion Leer nodded.
A wave of righteous indignation swept over Master Ambrose. The Honeysuckles were every bit as ancient and honourable a family as the Chanticleers, and yet here was he, ready to tarnish his escutcheon for ever, ready if need be to make the town crier trumpet his disgrace from the market-place, to sacrifice money, position, family pride, everything, for the good of the community. While the only thought of Nathaniel, and he the Mayor, was to keep his skeleton safely hidden in the cupboard.
"Master Ambrose," continued Endymion Leer, in a grave impressive voice, "if what you fear about your daughter be true, then it is Master Nathaniel who is to blame. No, no, hear me out," as Master Ambrose raised a protesting hand. "I happen to know that some months ago Mumchance warned him of the alarming increase there has been recently in Lud in the consumption of ... a certain commodity. And I know that this is true from my practice in the less genteel parts of the town. Take it from me, Master Ambrose, you Senators make a great mistake in ignoring what takes place in those low haunts. Nasty things have a way of not always staying at the bottom, you know—stir the pond and they rise to the top. Anyway, Master Nathaniel was warned, yet he took no steps."
He paused for a few seconds, and then, fixing his eyes searchingly on Master Ambrose, he said, "Did it never strike you that Master Nathaniel Chanticleer was a rather ... curious man?"
"Never," said Master Ambrose coldly. "What are you insinuating, Leer?"
Endymion Leer gave a little shrug: "Well, it is you who have set the example in insinuations. Master Nathaniel is a haunted man, and a bad conscience makes a very good ghost. If a man has once tasted fairy fruit he is never the same again. I have sometimes wondered if perhaps, long ago, when he was a young man...."
"Hold your tongue, Leer!" cried Master Ambrose angrily. "Chanticleer is a very old friend of mine, and, what's more, he's my second cousin. There's nothing wrong about Nathaniel."
But was this true? A few hours ago he would have laughed to scorn any suggestion to the contrary. But since then, his own daughter ... ugh!
Yes, Nathaniel had certainly always been a very queer fellow—touchy, irascible, whimsical.
A swarm of little memories, not noticed at the time, buzzed in Master Ambrose's head ... irrational actions, equivocal remarks. And, in particular, one evening, years and years ago, when they had been boys ... Nat's face at the eerie sound produced by an old lute. The look in his eyes had been like that in Moonlove's today.
No, no. It would never do to start suspecting everyone—above all his oldest friend.
So he let the subject of Master Nathaniel drop and questioned Endymion Leer as to the effects on the system of fairy fruit, and whether there was really no hope of finding an antidote.
Then Endymion Leer started applying his famous balm—a balm that varied with each patient that required it.
In most cases, certainly, there was no cure. But when the eater was a Honeysuckle, and hence, born with a healthy mind in a healthy body there was every reason to hope that no poison could be powerful enough to undermine such a constitution.
"Yes, but suppose she is already across the border?" said Master Ambrose. Endymion Leer gave a little shrug.
"In that case, of course, there is nothing more one can do," he replied.
Master Ambrose gave a deep sigh and leant back wearily in his chair, and for a few minutes they sat in silence.
Drearily and hopelessly Master Ambrose's mind wandered over the events of the day and finally settled, as is the way with a tired mind, on the least important—the red juice he had noticed oozing out of the coffin, when they had been checked at the west gate by the funeral procession.
"Do the dead bleed, Leer?" he said suddenly.
Endymion Leer sprang from his chair as if he had been shot. First he turned white, then he turned crimson.
"What the ... what the ..." he stuttered, "what do you mean by that question, Master Ambrose?"
He was evidently in the grip of some violent emotion.
"Busty Bridget!" exclaimed Master Ambrose, testily, "what, by the Harvest of Souls, has taken you now, Leer? It may have been a silly question, but it was quite a harmless one. We were stopped by a funeral this afternoon at the west gate, and I thought I saw a red liquid oozing from the coffin. But, by the White Ladies of the Fields, I've seen so many queer things today that I've ceased to trust my own eyes."
These words completely restored Endymion Leer's good humour. He flung back his head and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks.
"Why, Master Ambrose," he gurgled, "it was such a grisly question that it gave me quite a turn. Owing to the deplorable ignorance of this country I'm used to my patients asking me rather queer things ... but that beats anything I've yet heard. 'Do the dead bleed? Do pigs fly?' Ha, ha, ha, ha!"
Then, seeing that Master Ambrose was beginning to look stiff and offended, he controlled his mirth, and added, "Well, well, a man as sorely tried as you have been today, Master Ambrose, is to be excused if he has hallucinations ... it is wonderful what queer things we imagine we see when we are unhinged by strong emotion. And now I must be going. Birth and death, Master Ambrose, they wait for no man—not even for Senators. So I must be off and help the little Ludites into the world, and the old ones out of it. And in the meantime don't give up hope. At any moment one of Mumchance's good Yeomen may come galloping up with the little lady at his saddle-bow. And then—even if she should have eaten what you fear she has—I shall be much surprised if a Honeysuckle isn't able with time and care to throw off all effects of that foul fodder and grow up into as sensible a woman—as her mother."
And, with these characteristic words of comfort, Endymion Leer bustled off on his business.
Master Ambrose spent a most painful evening, his ears, on the one hand, alert for every sound of a horse's hoof, for every knock at the front door, in case they might herald news of Moonlove; and, at the same time, doing their best not to hear Dame Jessamine's ceaseless prattle.
"Ambrose, I wish you'd remind the clerks to wipe their shoes before they come in. Have you forgotten you promised me we should have a separate door for the warehouse? I've got it on paper.
"How nice it is to know that there's nothing serious the matter with Moonlove, isn't it? But I don't know what I should have done this afternoon if that kind Doctor Leer hadn't explained it all to me. How could you run away a second time, Ambrose, and leave me in that state without even fetching my hartshorn? I do think men are so heartless.
"What a naughty girl Moonlove is to run away like this! I wonder when they'll find her and bring her back? But it will be nice having her at home this winter, won't it? What a pity Ranulph Chanticleer isn't older, he'd do so nicely for her, wouldn't he? But I suppose Florian Baldbreeches will be just as rich, and he's nearer her age.
"Do you think Marigold and Dreamsweet and the rest of them will be shocked by Moonlove's rushing off in this wild way? However, as Dr. Leer said, in his quaint way, girls will be girls.
"Oh, Ambrose, do you remember my deer-coloured tuftaffity, embroidered with forget-me-nots and stars? I had it in my bridal chest. Well, I think I shall have it made up for Moonlove. There's nothing like the old silks, or the old dyes either—there were no galls or gum-syrups used in them. You remember my deer-coloured tuftaffity, don't you?"
But Master Ambrose could stand it no longer. He sprang to his feet, and cried roughly, "I'll give you a handful of Yeses and Noes, Jessamine, and it'll keep you amused for the rest of the evening sorting them out, and sticking them on to your questions. I'm going out."
He would go across to Nat's ... Nat might not be a very efficient Mayor, but he was his oldest friend, and he felt he needed his sympathy.
"If ... if any news comes about Moonlove, I'll be over at the Chanticleers. Let me know at once," he called over his shoulder, as he hurried from the room.
Yes, he was longing for a talk with Nat. Not that he had any belief in Nat's judgement; but he himself could provide all that was needed.
And, apart from everything else, it would be comforting to talk to a man who was in the same boat as himself—if, that is to say, the gossip retailed by Endymion Leer were true. But whether it were true or not Leer was a vulgar fellow, and had had no right to divulge a professional secret.
So huge did the events of the day loom in his own mind, that he felt sure of finding their shadow lying over the Chanticleers; and he was prepared to be magnanimous and assure the conscience-stricken Master Nathaniel that though, as Mayor, he may have been a little remiss and slack, nevertheless, he could not, in fairness, be held responsible for the terrible thing that had happened.
But he had forgotten the gulf that lay between the Magistrates and the rest of the town. Though probably the only topics of conversation that evening in every kitchen, in every tavern, in every tradesman's parlour, were the good run for his money little Miss Honeysuckle had given her revered father that afternoon, and the search parties of Yeomen that were scouring the country for her—not to mention the terrible suspicions as to the cause of her flight he had confided to Mumchance; nevertheless not a word of it all had reached the ears of the other Magistrates.
So, when the front-door of the Chanticleers was opened for him, he was greeted by sounds of uproarious laughter proceeding from the parlour.
The Polydore Vigils were spending the evening there, and the whole party was engaged in trying to catch a moth—flicking at it with their pocket-handkerchiefs, stumbling over the furniture, emulating each other to further efforts in the ancient terms of stag-hunting.
"Come and join the fun, Ambrose," shouted Master Nathaniel, crimson with exertion and laughter.
But Master Ambrose began to see red.
"You ... you ... heartless, gibbering idiots!" he roared.
The moth-hunters paused in amazement.
"Suffering Cats! What's taken you, Ambrose?" cried Master Nathaniel. "Stag-hunting, they say, was a royal sport. Even the Honeysuckles might stoop to it!"
"Don't the Honeysuckles consider a moth a stag, Ambrose?" laughed Master Polydore Vigil.
But that evening the old joke seemed to have lost its savour.
"Nathaniel," said Master Ambrose solemnly, "the curse of our country has fallen upon you and me ... and you are hunting moths!"
Now, "curse" happened to be one of the words that had always frightened Master Nathaniel. So much did he dislike it that he even avoided the words that resembled it in sound, and had made Dame Marigold dismiss a scullery-maid, merely because her name happened to be Kirstie.
Hence, Master Ambrose's words sent him into a frenzy of nervous irritation.
"Take that back, Ambrose! Take that back!" he roared. "Speak for yourself. The ... the ... the cur ... nothing of that sort is on me!"
"That is not true, Nathaniel," said Master Ambrose sternly. "I have only too good reason to fear that Moonlove is stricken by the same sickness as Ranulph, and...."
"You lie!" shouted Master Nathaniel.
"And in both cases," continued Master Ambrose, relentlessly, "the cause of the sickness was ... fairy fruit."
Dame Dreamsweet Vigil gave a smothered scream, Dame Marigold blushed crimson, and Master Polydore exclaimed, in a deeply shocked voice, "By the Milky Way, Ambrose, you are going a little too far—even if there were not ladies present."
"No, Polydore. There come times when even ladies must face facts. You see before you two dishonoured men—Nathaniel and myself. One of our statutes says that in the country of Dorimare each member of a family shall be the master of his own possessions, and that nothing shall be held in common but disgrace. And before you are many days older, Polydore, your family, too, may be sharing that possession. Each one of us is threatened in what is nearest to us, and our chief citizen—hunts moths!"
"No, no, Nathaniel," he went on in a louder and angrier voice, "you needn't glare and growl! I consider that you, as Mayor of this town, are responsible for what has happened today, and...."
"By the Sun, Moon and Stars!" bellowed Master Nathaniel, "I haven't the slightest idea what you mean by 'what has happened today,' but whatever it is, I know very well I'm not responsible. Were you responsible last year when old Mother Pyepowders's yapping little bitch chewed up old Matt's pet garters embroidered by his first sweetheart, and when...."
"You poor, snivelling, feeble-minded buffoon! You criminal nincompoop! Yes, criminal, I say," and at each word Master Ambrose's voice grew louder. "Who was it that knew of the spread of this evil thing and took no steps to stop it? Whose own son has eaten it? By the Harvest of Souls you may have eaten it yourself for all I know...."
"Silence, you foul-mouthed, pompous, brainless, wind-bag! You ... you ... foul, gibbering Son of a Fairy!" sputtered Master Nathaniel.
And so they went at it, hammer and tongs, doing their best to destroy in a few minutes the fabric built up by years of fellowship and mutual trust.
And the end of it was that Master Nathaniel pointed to the door, and in a voice trembling with fury, told Master Ambrose to leave his house, and never to enter it again.