The House Without Windows · Chapter 2 (3/3)

Eepersip was much more cautious after this. She was always on the lookout. Several times Toby asked her why she didn’t want to be seen. But she would not answer him. She was, however, very kind in all other respects. Several times Mrs. Carrenda found Toby playing with her, but never spoke or let him know. She saw that Eepersip played nicely with him and that they liked each other much; so she did not interfere. Once, however, she put her hands suddenly on Eepersip’s shoulders from behind and said kindly: “Little girl, don’t be afraid of me.”

Eepersip sprang to her feet, stared wildly a moment, and then dashed off straight to the sea. But for fear of making Toby very unhappy, Mrs. Carrenda never questioned him about her.

She and her husband had many anxious conferences together. Her husband thought that it was exceedingly risky to let Toby play so unwatched with Eepersip, but Toby’s mother did not feel that way at all. Then they talked over the matter of who she was.

One day Eepersip was peeping into the house to see if she could find Toby, for he had not been out to play with her. Looking into the dining-room, she saw him there, eating luncheon with Mr. and Mrs. Carrenda. They were talking anxiously, and she was curious, and listened.

“I have it,” said Mr. Carrenda suddenly. “Don’t you remember those people⁠—the Eeglines, or Eigleens⁠—that came over to the hill near Mount Varcrobis where we lived before we came here? who wanted to know if we had seen a strange little girl, dressed all in ferns? She is the Eigleens’ lost little girl.”

Mrs. Carrenda looked puzzled.

“They told us, you know, that they had given up all hope of having Ee⁠—ee⁠—serpip” (Toby started violently) “back again⁠—”

“Oh yes, I remember now.”

“⁠—When Fleuriss came, and⁠—”

“Oh yes, it all comes back to me now. They were making a great effort to find her and entice her back home by telling her about her baby sister.”

“Yes.”

“Why, father,” said Toby, “Eepersip⁠—” He suddenly saw her in his mind, kneeling in front of him, begging him not to tell⁠—and he said no more. Nobody noticed his remark.

A moment Mrs. Carrenda gazed at her husband astounded. Then she said: “I believe it is so. Let us send word to them right off.”

“No,” said Mr. Carrenda, bluntly. “Supposing they came all the way down here. Supposing the plan failed. Mrs. Eigleen would only be unhappier than ever. We’ll just have to let them alone for a while. Supposing we try it. Supposing it fails. Mrs. Eigleen will never know. Supposing it succeeds. They will be much happier, and we shall have made some staunch and grateful friends.”

“Oh, let’s try it!” agreed Mrs. Carrenda.

“I bet Eepersip⁠—Ee-serpip, Eeserpip, Eepersip, Eeserpip, Eepersip⁠—funny name!⁠—I bet she’ll go home fast when she finds out.”

“Perhaps⁠—but she is like a sea-nymph now. How strange it is! Well, it’s worth trying, at any rate.”

Eepersip had listened with growing amazement⁠—fascinated, entranced. But when they paused in their conversation, the charm was broken that had held her there. She sped away into the woods. She came to a place that she knew well, a glade surrounded by ferns and a few wild-rose-bushes now in bloom.

She had a little sister!⁠—it was too much. And that little sister haunted her dreams and her imagination, making everything seem less joyful than before. She felt a strange longing⁠—the longing to see her. She might be several years old now. Eepersip had forgotten what a “year” meant, but she had a vague feeling that Fleuriss had been living some time already. Why had no one told her? She felt a sort of angry resentment, but it cooled immediately when she remembered that her parents had been trying desperately to tell her. Yes, a plan was certainly shaping itself in Eepersip’s mind⁠—but not the plan of letting herself be caught, tamed, and carried home. No indeed. She dreamed of some day going home by stealth, seeing Fleuriss, and playing with her as she now played with Toby. She wondered silently if she would be anything like the fair-haired little boy. She wondered whether Fleuriss, too, would play with her secretly. If Fleuriss were like Toby, how wonderful it would be!

But the problem of getting back home to see her did not appear so serious to her now while she had Toby to play with.

She continued her beloved explorations, discovering islands, beaches, peninsulas, and rocks out of sight of land, which she charted down in her mind, so that she could almost always find them.

One day Toby came to her and told her that they were going off on a tramp, rowing over across the bay to the woods near a little cottage that Mr. Carrenda knew about. They had always been interested in the cottage; they wanted to see who was living there. And they had heard about some beautiful hills behind it, which Mr. Carrenda wanted very much to see. And if it was pleasant they were going to start the next day. Eepersip was curious. She wondered if it could possibly be her cottage and her hills⁠—the cottage she had discovered, and the hills that she had climbed about in. She decided to follow and see where it was that the Carrendas were going.

When the boat started she let it get some way off, then she plunged into the sea and followed it. The waves came up behind, and she gained fast, but when she got dangerously near she stopped for a while, waiting for the boat to get farther off. They landed just where she thought they might⁠—by the little cottage.

Near it they set up their tent, and soon they were exploring the peninsula. They climbed the beautiful hill which Eepersip had climbed. Once they saw her as she darted behind a tree, and wondered how she had got there so quickly. And they fell to talking about her again. She heard them talking over their plan of capturing her, telling her about Fleuriss, and, when she had been smoothed down a bit, letting her go back to the Eigleens to make them happy. If only they could have foreseen!

They tried only once, and never had the chance again. It was a golden day in October. Eepersip was sitting on a rock repairing some tears in her seaweed dress. The waves were high, and every once in a while a little spray would splash up on to the rock where she was sitting. Mr. Carrenda discovered her sitting there, and, tiptoeing forward he caught her by the shoulders. She gnashed her little white teeth at him and struggled to get away, but he held her fast, and was about to pick her up in his arms. She shouted: “O waves, help me!” And, magically, a great wave rushed up, whirled itself into the air, and broke in Mr. Carrenda’s face. He dropped her, and with a lightning manoeuvre she dived down from the rock into the sea, and was far out before he recovered from the surprise. After this she remained far from the cottage and made her home on a deserted island. This island was a lovely place. It had a beach of fine sand on one side and was entirely surrounded with rocks on the other sides⁠—rocks and, in places, even high cliffs. There was a grove of yellow pines there, where Eepersip danced when she wished to turn nymph again. There was a spring of fresh water on a small hill behind the grove. The hill was still covered with blueberries and raspberries; also there was a multitude of the plants with the sweet white roots that Eepersip was so fond of. There were asters, too, and Eepersip wove them in with her ferns or seaweed, and crowned herself with them. Very happy to find not a single house on the island, she lived there for a long time, glad also to be able to have both the sea and the woods, to which she still instinctively returned occasionally. The period through which she stayed on this uninhabited island was one of the happiest stretches of her life by the sea.

But, now that she was alone again, Eepersip was filled once more with longing to see the little sister⁠—to know her, love her, play with her, teach her to leap and dance and swim: filled with curiosities about what was going on at the home which she had been away from for so long. And these emotions grew and grew until they became a firm resolution. She struggled a while to prevent herself from thinking she had made a mistake in running away, and, thinking it all over, said that she had not, even if she did miss such exciting things as little sisters.

The plan of seeing Fleuriss had become more and more developed, now that she saw little of the boy and had more time to think about it. (It was only once in a while that she swam to the mainland to play with him.) Her idea had changed a great deal: it now was to take Fleuriss away to live with her. She wondered whether she could ever get her over those awful crags, through that shadowy forest, to the sea; whether she could make her comfortable living the wild life. Here was a difficult situation, for Eepersip was sure that so young a child could never endure the hardships of the life she lived⁠—at least, until she was used to it.

This problem troubled her mind for days. Then, suddenly, as she was gazing over the restless murmuring sea, she had a great inspiration. “Oh! beautiful!” she exclaimed in her delight. The vision of the little brown cottage in the grove of white pines had come back to her⁠—the whole thing, how she had been borne to it on her raft by those friendly yet terrible waves. And now she had a use for it! It seemed strange, when she hated houses so. But then, no one need know. She would go at once and make sure whether the Carrendas had gone from their camp, then fix up the cottage and discover all its secrets. Then she could go and take Fleuriss away.

So one cold day she swam back to the cottage. The Carrendas’ tent was gone; everything was as it had been before. But this time it did not appear hateful. She opened the door and went into the pleasant little living-room with the fireplace. Then she investigated the whole house thoroughly. She found a room with glass cupboards on the walls, filled with a marvellous collection of all kinds of seaweeds, shells, and corals (how Fleuriss would enjoy them! she thought); and there was a tiny kitchen. There was one small attic room, with a ladder going up to it through a trapdoor, and in it was a soft little bed with warm blankets, and a fireplace. Above the bed were three casement windows, and Eepersip liked to think how it would delight Fleuriss to see the stars out these. When she went to the second floor she came to a snug alcove with glass doors opening on to a porch, free to the wind and sun, overlooking the sea: and two sunny bedrooms.

But just as she was preparing to start after Fleuriss, her reason again detained her. Fleuriss of course could not begin her wild life in the winter: she must have a summer of it first, to see what it was like. So Eepersip waited patiently till spring. During the winter she lived in a great pasture on a hill behind the cottage.

The spring came round incredibly soon, and again Eepersip prepared to start.

The night before she went a great black cloud came up from the west, and soon a gale was raging. The waves mounted higher than any Eepersip had ever seen before, topped with flying snow-white spray. They leaped the highest cliffs, thundered on the wet rocks, and then retreated, swashing down through the cracks with a strange hollow sound and sweeping the seaweeds wildly up and down. The wind sounded as on a mountaintop, a curious mixture of high-pitched whistling and bass droning. Occasionally it would rise into a terrific scream, making the waves rage with the uncanny storm-green. At the crisis of the storm Eepersip, who had been standing on the beach watching, her curls flying, her ferns fluttering and often tearing loose, flung herself into the storm from a high rock, and was swept about like a tiny insect, disappearing under a wave, bobbing up to take a breath just as the next breaker washed over her. She had a glorious time out in the waves and the spray. The seagulls shrieked; sometimes they struck at a fish, and appeared all covered with spray and shaking the drops from their wings⁠—strong narrow wings that beat down the air as the birds rose again, to hover and swoop and plunge. These marvellous birds being blown wildly in the gale reminded Eepersip of the swallows, as they were tossed about by the high pasture winds⁠—the swallows she had loved so when she lived on the meadow.

Slowly the wind abated its fury, and Eepersip, covered with water-drops and spray like a silver fish or a seagull, swam to the shore bubbling with happiness. With the water still standing on her hair, she sang a sea-song on the beach, accompanied by the rocking waves, now calmed down, and by the screaming and wildly circling gulls.

It was a wonderful night afterwards, for soon the sea was entirely calm, and the moon and the stars came out, reflecting themselves in trembling silver. Eepersip was up all that night, dancing, singing, swimming and diving in the glorious moonlight. And then she remembered⁠—tomorrow! and went up on the hill to say goodbye to the meadow, the pastured hill, and the quiet, mossy pool that she had loved so.

Up on the hill she saw the sun rise. First the dark blue sky turned grey, and then a pearly streak came on the horizon as the first ray of the sun appeared; then it turned to the most heavenly shade of pink and deep rose, and then into the blue of one of the most gorgeous days Eepersip had ever seen. She gazed and gazed at the dawn until it grew pale and buttercup yellow, and finally turned to blue. The sun made a mass of gold sun-sparkles on the sea, and they blended together from the high hill and formed a solid splotch of gold, separating at the edges into individual sparkles. It was a windy day, but the wind was warm, and at first the sea was only rippling gently and smiling.

Then Eepersip remembered her little sister Fleuriss, and she wished her already there to share that beautiful, beautiful day. And off at one end of the beach she found, to her delight, a little green boat with two oars, which had been washed in by the storm. Now she had everything she needed, for the clumsy raft was difficult to manage in the wind, and she might even be blown so far off that she could never find the cottage again. Now, however, all was ready.

And so she made her way home, beginning in the boat, and rowing to where she had first entered the sea; then past the great precipices over which she had so laboriously clambered as she went to the sea over hills, down into valleys, crossing rivers, and tearing her way through forests, until at last, to her delight, she arrived at the beautiful meadow where she had spent her first years of wildness with Chippy, Snowflake and the deer.

The deer did not remember Eepersip; that was one thing which distressed her. But a little fawn came cautiously and sniffed at her, obviously wishing he dared to approach and eat the ferns of her dress. She did not see Chippy anywhere.

She was soon at her own house, spying around, and looking in windows. All she could think of was Fleuriss, her little sister.