Fear Read online

  Miss Gribbin jumped up as if in anger, but her brow was smooth and her mouth dropped at the corners.

  ‘Mr Everton,’ she said, ‘I wish you had not told me all this.’ Her lips worked. ‘You see,’ she added unsteadily, ‘I don’t believe in telepathy.’

  Easter, which fell early that year, brought little Gladys Parslow home for the holidays to the Vicarage. The event was shortly afterwards signalized by a note from the Vicar to Everton, inviting him to send Monica down to have tea and play games with his little daughter on the following Wednesday.

  The invitation was an annoyance and an embarrassment to Everton. Here was the disturbing factor, the outside influence, which might possibly thwart his experiment in the upbringing of Monica. He was free, of course, simply to decline the invitation so coldly and briefly as to make sure that it would not be repeated; but the man was not strong enough to stand on his own feet impervious to the winds of criticism. He was sensitive and had little wish to seem churlish, still less to appear ridiculous. Taking the line of least resistance he began to reason that one child, herself no older than Monica, and in the atmosphere of her own home, could make but little impression. It ended in his allowing Monica to go.

  Monica herself seemed pleased at the prospect of going but expressed her pleasure in a discreet, restrained, grown-up way. Miss Gribbin accompanied her as far as the Vicarage doorstep, arriving with her punctually at half past three on a sullen and muggy afternoon, and handed her over to the woman-of-all-work who answered the summons at the door.

  Miss Gribbin reported to Everton on her return. An idea which she conceived to be humorous had possession of her mind, and in talking to Everton she uttered one of her infrequent laughs.

  ‘I only left her at the door,’ she said, ‘so I didn’t see her meet the other little girl. I wish I’d stayed to see that. It must have been funny.’

  She irritated Everton by speaking exactly as if Monica were a captive animal which had just been shown, for the first time in its life, another of its own kind. The analogy thus conveyed to Everton was close enough to make him wince. He felt something like a twinge of conscience, and it may have been then that he asked himself for the first time if he were being fair to Monica.

  It had never once occurred to him to ask himself if she were happy. The truth was that he understood children so little as to suppose that physical cruelty was the one kind of cruelty from which they were capable of suffering. Had he ever before troubled to ask himself if Monica were happy, he had probably given the question a curt dismissal with the thought that she had no right to be otherwise. He had given her a good home, even luxuries, together with every opportunity to develop her mind. For companions she had himself, Miss Gribbin, and, to a limited extent, the servants …

  Ah, but that picture, conjured up by Miss Gribbin’s words with their accompaniment of unreasonable laughter! The little creature meeting for the first time another little creature of its own kind and looking bewildered, knowing neither what to do nor what to say. There was pathos in that – uncomfortable pathos for Everton. Those imaginary friends – did they really mean that Monica had needs of which he knew nothing; of which he had never troubled to learn?

  He was not an unkind man, and it hurt him to suspect that he might have committed an unkindness. The modern children whose behaviour and manners he disliked were perhaps only obeying some inexorable law of evolution. Suppose in keeping Monica from their companionship he were actually flying in the face of Nature? Suppose, after all, if Monica were to be natural, she must go unhindered on the tide of her generation?

  He compromised with himself, pacing the little study. He would watch Monica much more closely, question her when he had the chance. Then, if he found she was not happy, and really needed the companionship of other children, he would see what could be done.

  But when Monica returned home from the Vicarage it was quite plain that she had not enjoyed herself. She was subdued, and said very little about her experiences. Quite obviously the two little girls had not made very good friends. Questioned, Monica confessed that she did not like Gladys – much. She said this very thoughtfully with a little pause before the adverb.

  ‘Why don’t you like her?’ Everton demanded bluntly.

  ‘I don’t know. She’s so funny. Not like other girls.’

  ‘And what do you know about other girls?’ he demanded, faintly amused.

  ‘Well, she’s not a bit like –’

  Monica paused suddenly and lowered her gaze.

  ‘Not like your “friends”, you mean?’ Everton asked.

  She gave him a quick, penetrating little glance and then lowered her gaze once more.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘not a bit.’

  She wouldn’t be, of course. Everton teased the child with no more questions for the time being, and let her go. She ran off at once to the great empty room, there to seek that uncanny companionship which had come to suffice her.

  For the moment Everton was satisfied. Monica was perfectly happy as she was, and had no need of Gladys or, probably, any other child friends. His experiment with her was shaping successfully. She had invented her own young friends, and had gone off eagerly to play with the creations of her own fancy.

  This seemed very well at first. Everton reflected that it was just what he would have wished, until he realized suddenly with a little shock of discomfort that it was not normal and it was not healthy.

  Although Monica plainly had no great desire to see any more of Gladys Parslow, common civility made it necessary for the Vicar’s little daughter to be asked to pay a return visit. Most likely Gladys Parslow was as unwilling to come as was Monica to entertain her. Stern discipline, however, presented her at the appointed time on an afternoon pre-arranged by correspondence, when Monica received her coldly and with dignity, tempered by a sort of grown-up graciousness.

  Monica bore her guest away to the big empty room, and that was the last of Gladys Parslow seen by Everton or Miss Gribbin that afternoon. Monica appeared alone when the gong sounded for tea, and announced in a subdued tone that Gladys had already gone home.

  ‘Did you quarrel with her?’ Miss Gribbin asked quickly.

  ‘No-o.’

  ‘Then why has she gone like this?’

  ‘She was stupid,’ said Monica, simply. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Perhaps it was you who was stupid. Why did she go?’

  ‘She was frightened.’

  ‘Frightened!’

  ‘She didn’t like my friends.’

  Miss Gribbin exchanged glances with Everton.

  ‘She didn’t like a silly girl who talks to herself and imagines things. No wonder she was frightened.’

  ‘She didn’t think they were real at first, and laughed at me,’ said Monica, sitting down.

  ‘Naturally!’

  ‘And then when she saw them –’

  Miss Gribbin and Everton interrupted her simultaneously, repeating in unison and with well-matched astonishment, her two last words.

  ‘And when she saw them,’ Monica continued, unperturbed, ‘she didn’t like it. I think she was frightened. Anyhow, she said she wouldn’t stay and went straight off home. I think she’s a stupid girl. We all had a good laugh about her after she was gone.’

  She spoke in her ordinary matter-of-fact tones, and if she were secretly pleased at the state of perturbation into which her last words had obviously thrown Miss Gribbin she gave no sign of it. Miss Gribbin immediately exhibited outward signs of anger.

  ‘You are a very naughty child to tell such untruths. You know perfectly well that Gladys couldn’t have seen your “friends”. You have simply frightened her by pretending to talk to people who weren’t there, and it will serve you right if she never comes to play with you again.’

  ‘She won’t,’ said Monica. ‘And she did see them, Miss Gribbin.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Everton asked.

  ‘By her face. And she spoke to them too, when she ran to the door. They w