Leslie Hartley - The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

One evening they had stayed away later than usual and were beginning to feel hungry and look forward to the hot, steaming supper their mother always prepared for them; so in spite of everything they found themselves longing for the moment in their homeward walk when they could first see the light shining through the windows. But there was no light and when they got into the house it was empty. They called and called but nobody answered, so they began to feel rather frightened and went out of doors again. It was much lighter out of doors because there was a moon.

‘It’s a full moon,’ whispered Peter to Olga, ‘like that evening the pedlar came.’

They went back into the house and found some matches and lit the lamp, and felt a little more cheerful, for it showed them their supper keeping warm on the hearth. They did not go to bed when they had eaten their supper; they sat in chairs like grown-up people. But Peter had gone to sleep before their father came in.

‘Where’s Cindra?’ he said in a thick voice. (He called her Cindra sometimes.) ‘I asked you, where’s Cindra?’ Peter woke up and began to cry. They told him all they knew. ‘But she can’t be gone,’ said Michael disbelievingly. ‘She wouldn’t leave us.’ He got up and went into the bedroom and stayed there a long time. When he came back his hand shook and he was so pale that his hair looked quite black. ‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘she has gone. I found a letter. She says I’m not to try to follow her. She’s gone where her heart calls her. What shall we do? What shall we do?’

When Olga saw that he was frightened she suddenly felt sorry for him and much less frightened herself.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘We know where she’s gone to, don’t we, Peter?’

‘Where, where?’ their father asked, his eyes darting at them.

‘To the Crossways.’

‘Nonsense,’ he snapped. ‘There is no such place.’

‘Yes, there is,’ said Olga patiently, ‘in the middle of the forest. You can find it by following the full moon.’

‘The full moon!’ he echoed scornfully. ‘I know every inch of the forest and I tell you there isn’t any Crossways.’

‘Please, please don’t be angry,’ Olga begged him. ‘Let Peter and me go, if you don’t believe us.’

‘Let you go,’ he said, ‘and lose you too? Haven’t I told you that the forest is dangerous? Do you want to send me mad? Sit still and don’t stir from here till I come back.’

He went out and they heard him calling ‘Cindra! Cindra!’ until his voice died away.

‘There’s only one thing to do,’ said Olga. ‘We must find her and bring her back.’

‘But what about the bears and the wild boars?’ said Peter.

‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry about them,’ said Olga. ‘I’d much rather you went with me, of course, but if you’re afraid I’ll go alone.’

This made Peter feel much braver and they started off. They met with no difficulty in finding the way, for the moon made a pathway through the leafless trees; and at first they were not at all frightened, for when they looked back they could still see the light in the cottage windows. They walked hand in hand and their feet made a pleasant rustling on the fallen leaves.

‘Will she be pleased to see us?’ Peter asked.

‘Of course she will, we’re her children,’ Olga answered.

‘But suppose we don’t find her at the Crossways?’

‘Then we must go on until we do find her. The signpost will say which way she went.’

Whiter and whiter grew the moon as it swung into the heavens, and colder grew the air.

‘I don’t think I can go on much longer, Olga,’ Peter said.

‘You can if you try.’

It was then that they saw the bear. It was walking on all fours when they saw it, but when it saw them it stood up.

‘Oh, it’s going to hug us!’ Peter cried.

‘Nonsense,’ said Olga, but her voice trembled. ‘Perhaps it’ll give you a scar like the one Daddy has,’ she added, hoping to encourage him.

‘I don’t want a scar now,’ sobbed Peter.

‘All right,’ said Olga. ‘I shall just tell it why we’ve come.’

She went up to the bear and explained that they were looking for their mother, and the bear seemed satisfied, for after swaying a little on its feet and shaking its head, it got on to all fours again and shambled off.

After this escape they both felt very much better, and as if nothing could now go wrong. And suddenly they found that they were not walking on a path any longer, but on a road, a smooth straight road that led right out of the forest. On either side the trees seemed to fall back, and they were standing on the edge of a great circular plain which the moon overhead made almost as bright as day.

‘Now we shall soon see her,’ Olga said. But it wasn’t quite so easy as she thought, for the plain was dotted with small, dark bushes any one of which might have been a human being; and Peter kept calling out, ‘Look, there she is!’ until Olga grew impatient.

They saw the Crossways long before they came to it. It was shaped like a star-fish, only a star-fish with fifty points instead of five; and the place where they met was like white sand that has been kicked up by the feet of many horses.

But their mother was not there and they walked slowly round the centre, looking at each signpost in turn to see which led to the Land of Heart’s Desire. But not one gave any direction; they were all blank, and presently the children found themselves back at the signpost they had started from.

Then in the silence they heard a little sound like a moan, and looking round they saw their mother, lying in a hollow beside the road. They ran to her and she sat up and stretched her arms out and kissed them many times.

‘We’ve come to fetch you back,’ they said.

She smiled at them sadly. ‘I can’t come back,’ she said. ‘You see, I’ve hurt my foot. Look how swollen it is. I’ve had to take my shoe off.’ They saw how swollen her foot was, and it was bleeding too. ‘You’d better go home, my darlings,’ she said, ‘and leave me here.’ ‘But we can’t leave you,’ they both cried. And Peter said, ‘Look, there are some people coming. They will help us.’

He ran towards them crying, ‘Please help us’, but they paid no heed and did not seem to see him. One after another they found the signpost they were looking for, and went the way it pointed, laughing and singing.

‘They can’t see us,’ Lucindra said, ‘because they are going to the Land of their Heart’s Desire, and we don’t belong to it.’

Then both the children felt cold and frightened, much more frightened than when they had met the bear.

‘Couldn’t you walk if you leaned on both of us?’ Peter asked. She shook her head. ‘And how should we find the way?’ she said. ‘The moon won’t help us to go back.’

They lay down beside her, clasping her in their arms, and tried to keep awake, for the cold was making them drowsy. Just as they were dropping off they heard a footstep coming down the road; they did not pay much attention for they knew they would be invisible to whoever came. But Olga roused herself. ‘I’m going to try again,’ she said, and standing up she saw a long shadow like a steeple, and in front of it a man, walking very fast.

‘Oh, Daddy, Daddy!’ she cried. But his eyes were wild and staring, and bright with the empty shining of the moon. Terrified lest he too should not recognize them, she seized his hand. He stopped so suddenly that he nearly fell over.

‘Where is your mother?’ he cried.

‘Here! She is here!’

She pulled at his hand, but he shrank back when he saw them, and without looking at their mother he said, ‘Cindra, I came to say goodbye.’