ONE-EYED HOUSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 543, 21 December 1928, Page 5 (Supplement)

ONE-EYED HOUSE

By

HERE the white roads running from north to south and coast to coast met near the River Ney there stood a fling themselves at its inscrutably placid front, lying clean and bright at its feet, but really the house had risen because of the roads. Tired horsemen lost on a moonless night, would bless its beacon lanthorn and the generous welcome meal. It fed equally placidly Red Rose and White Rose, Jacobite and Ironside, and because of its obvious non-partisanship both sides loved the little house and let it live. Always through its long history a woman had been the owner, a strong and placid woman, yet of a fierce vitality. She awed her guests, and made them properly behaved to herself and her handmaidens. She was, they felt, essentially a great wife and mother —no man’s light o’ love she —and they respected her in their rough way accordingly. But where was the husband? Sometimes up the hill behind the little house, could be seen a stooping figure, bending over his patches of arable terraced on the slopes, or milking the few cows. They concluded that this must be the great woman’s husband —the drone of the hive, for certainly three or four lusty children played about on the white road. Straight-limbed Saxon children, with short yellow hair and skin of flower-petals: they played solidly and without emotion in the rushy ditches, but with a quite terrible intentness. The bright-armoured soldiers, quiet friars or silken ladies, who sought hospitality at their mother’s house, moved them not at all—mere butterflies, they were, in the serious ,business of life. The One-Eyed House, the neighbours called the crossways dwelling, when they bothered to think of it, because of its squat tower with one window fallen to a rakish angle. Sometimes the shadow-man in the background would suggest enlarging the place, and giving it the dignity of Inn, but through the ages its women held on, blindly, stupidly people said.. They gave it no title, and nowise enlarged it. Who could tell, they said, if the money spent on alterations would

HELEN WOLSELEY RUSSELL

return? Feed the -weary traveller—certainly; an army if necessary, but more than ten men, sleeping within on the floor of the tower room, was not permitted. Too much trouble and noise, explained the placid woman, when she chose to give a reason for anything. So it came about that the oldest woman-child possessed the place in each generation. The shadowy father, and the woman of a fierce vitality, would fade away in middle life, none knew whither: a young, tawny-haired creature, whom none dared to trifle with, carried on the endless chain. Some there were who whispered it was no man working on the hillside, but the devil himself, and no true husband. Such, never so spoke again, for were not their children bewitched with agues, their cows made dry, and even the roaring fires, cold as snow-water afterward? Yet what else would explain the terrible woman, who bent all to her will, and who, age after age, was never barren of a female child? « * * Came a day when the One-Eyed House was

'merely the corner-stone of a vast city, built on the arms of the once-white roads. Motor-cars roared past, all day and half the night; airplanes flew high over its ancient tower; trains shrieked and grunted in the nearby station, and immense office buildings reared scornful heads of either side of the little house. Very little now it seemed, but steadfastly its one eye blinked at the new world, and desperately its woman clung to her delight and possession. But now was no garden in which a shadowy man might delve and sow, and no children brightened the old rooms with a solid radiance —and for the first time in its history. The greedy city had taken all to its maw, and now clamoured for the house itself a rich site in the business centre. Despairing, its woman sold, and fled, none knew whither. * • * The new owner of the property had at last found time to visit it, preparatory to giving orders for its demolition. All day had he spent in the house, cataloguing the contents for the sale of effects the next week. And having some knowledge of those matters, he computed that the age-old pieces of furniture, though often crude examples of their period, would double the value of his bargain. Evidently that woman with steady eyes and quiet manner, had no knowledge of its value. And she had completely disappeared, he was told —she who was as much a landmark as the house itself. He sat down in a chair black with age and wood-smoke, and lit a contemplative pipe. Without, the city workers hurried homewards after a long day’s toil. The eager exodus from shop and office seemed to hasten the traffic as well as to augment it. Anxious trams slid more rapidly on their silver rails. Top-heavy buses seemed weighed down with care as well as with human freight, keen to get all safely home for the night. The pulsing heart of the city must

rest till morning, and send its life blood out to recuperate in the suburbs. But in the little old house, wedged between towering office buildings, a man sat as if mesmerised in the gathering dusk. . . . He was a pale and paunchy fellow, this new owner of the One-Eyed House, with slightly pendulous cheeks and hesitant gait. His manner, too, was hesitant and apologetic, as if in his forty years of life he had always apologised for his bargain made with the unwary to their detriment. He sat now, huddled and afraid, in the old chair. Bitterly he resented this new-born fearfulness, this unwanted emotion so suddenly arrived. The little house mocked his ownership he felt, and lived on, a life of its own, secure, serene. . . . Suddenly he knew he would never realise on that priceless furniture, or even demolish the building, for he was fast becoming part of the place. In desperation he rose, and lighted a lanthorn, hanging from the roof, to dispel his gloom. Gradually the traffic noises subsided in the road outside, and out of the summer night came grey moths to play about the lanthorn. The man mused there in candle light, in a world far removed from his surroundings. ... Soon no sound at all broke the dead night. Mystified at the unwonted quiet, he rose, and

looked through the leaded panes; through soma he could not see, for they were glazed with darkgreen bottle-ends, and none opened. Fresh air was admitted, however. A hole the size of a thimble had been bored behind the window pane. Moreover, it was only curtained in winter-time, when rheums wandered abroad to catch the unwary. Now, as be gazed through a clear pane, the paunchy man saw two white roads crossing outside the front door. Out in a rushy ditch beside the road, two lusty children played in the moonlight, methodically, and with great intent. They had straight-cut hair of a tawny-yellow, and the mild eyes of a cow. They looked up to the window and saw him but made no sign. The new owner retired, baffled, his pendulous cheeks trembling with a strange fearfulness. Sinking again into the chair, he saw other like children, with clear eyes and long brown limbs, pass from some room into the dark passage. Noiselessly they moved and with an easy grace. . . . Light from the ancient lanthorn fell on the figure crouched in an age-old chair. One might see that once his hair and moustaches had been a pallid gold, as were his eyebrows yet, and that his eyes had once been blue. He stared fixedly at the moth-bodies lying dead around the lauthorn, in an effort to think of concrete things. How strangely neat and tidy they looked in death that were so violent and erratic alive. Stiffly they lay sleeping on the dark oak —brief life and immortality it seemed. . . What tales that table could tell to be sure, when one considered its varied guests. . . He had heard that this house had been a kind of private hostel, and always kept by a womaD. ... Curious that: men managed things so much better. . . . All at once he knew the house as he knew his own boots. Up in the top room, of the tower, a mere attic above the guests’ sleeping room, was a bedroom furnished with an immense four(Continuad on Pape 8)