









                         Chapter VII
                              
             Master Ambrose Chases a Wild Goose
                      and Has a Vision


Master Ambrose Honeysuckle had finished his midday meal, and
was smoking his churchwarden on his daisy-powdered lawn,
under the branches of a great, cool, yellowing lime; and
beside him sat his stout comfortable wife, Dame Jessamine,
placidly fanning herself to sleep, with her pink-tongued
mushroom-coloured pug snoring and choking in her lap.
   Master Ambrose was ruminating on the consignment he was
daily expecting of flowers-in-amber -- a golden eastern
wine, for the import of which his house had the monopoly in
Dorimare.
   But he was suddenly roused from his pleasant reverie by
the sound of loud excited voices proceeding from the house,
and turning heavily in his chair, he saw his daughter,
Moonlove, wild-eyed and dishevelled, rushing towards him
across the lawn, followed by a crowd of servants with scared
faces and all chattering at once.
   "My dear child, what's this?  What's this?" he cried
testily.
   But her only answer was to look at him in agonized
terror, and then to moan, "The horror of midday!"
   Dame Jessamine sat up with a start and rubbing her eyes
exclaimed, "Dear me, I believe I was napping.  But...
Moonlove! Ambrose!  What's happening?"
   But before Master Ambrose could answer, Moonlove gave
three blood-curdling screams, and shrieked out, "Horror!
Horror! The tune that never stops!  *Break* the fiddle! 
*Break* the fiddle!  Oh, Father, quietly, on tiptoe behind
him, cut the strings.  Cut the strings and let me out, I
want the dark."
   For an instant, she stood quite still, head thrown back,
eyes alert and frightened, like a beast at bay.  Then, swift
as a hare, she tore across the lawn, with glances over her
shoulder as if something were pursuing her, and, rushing
through the garden gate, vanished from their astonished
view.
   The servants, who till now had kept at a respectful
distance, came crowding up, their talk a jumble of such
exclamations and statements as "Poor young lady!"   "It's a
sunstroke, sure as my name's Fishbones!"   "Oh, my! it quite
gave me the palpitations to hear her shriek!"
   And the pug yapped with such energy that he nearly burst
his mushroom sides, and Dame Jessamine began to have
hysterics. 
   For a few seconds Master Ambrose stood bewildered, then,
setting his jaw, he pounded across the lawn, with as much
speed as was left him by nearly fifty years of very soft
living, out at the garden gate, down the lane, and into the
High Street.
   Here he joined the tail of a running crowd that, in
obedience to the law that compels man to give chase to a
fugitive, was trying hard to catch up with Moonlove.
   The blood was throbbing violently in Master Ambrose's
temples, and his brains seemed congested.  All that he was
conscious of, on the surface of his mind, was a sense of
great irritation against Master Nathaniel Chanticleer for
not having had the cobbles on the High Street recently
renewed -- they were so damnably slippery.
   But, underneath this surface irritation, a nameless
anxiety was buzzing like a hornet.
   On he pounded at the tail end of the hunt, blowing,
puffing, panting, slipping on the cobbles, stumbling across
the old bridge that spanned the Dapple.  Vaguely, as in
delirium, he knew that windows were flung open, heads stuck
out, shrill voices enquiring what was the matter, and that
from mouth to mouth were bandied the words, "It's little
Miss Honeysuckle running away from her papa."
   But when they reached the town walls and the west gate,
they had to call a sudden halt, for a funeral procession,
that of a neighbouring farmer, to judge from the appearance
of the mourners, was winding its way into the town, bound
for the Fields of Grammary, and the pursuers had perforce to
stand in respectful silence while it passed, and allow their
quarry to disappear down a bend of the high road.
   Master Ambrose was too impatient and too much out of
breath consciously to register impressions of what was going
on round him.  But in the automatic unquestioning way in
which at such moments the senses do their work, he saw
through the windows of the hearse that a red liquid was
trickling from the coffin.
   This enforced delay broke the spell of blind purpose that
had hitherto united the pursuers into one.  They now ceased
to be a pack, and broke up again into separate individuals,
each with his own business to attend to.
   "The little lass is too nimble-heeled for us," they said,
grinning ruefully.
   "Yes, she's a wild goose, that's what she is, and I fear
she has led us a wild goose chase," said Master Ambrose with
a short embarrassed laugh.
   He was beginning to be acutely conscious of the
unseemliness of the situation -- he, an ex-Mayor, a Senator
and judge, and, what was more, head of the ancient and
honourable family of Honeysuckle, to be pounding through the
streets of Lud-in-the-Mist at the tail end of a crowd of
'prentices and artisans, in pursuit of his naughty, crazy
wild goose of a little daughter!
   "Pity it isn't Nat instead of me!" he thought to
himself.  "I believe *he'd*  rather enjoy it."
   Just then, a farmer came along in his gig, and seeing the
hot breathless company standing puffing and mopping their
brows, he asked them if they were seeking a little lass,
for, if so, he had passed her a quarter of an hour ago
beyond the turnpike, running like a hare, and he'd called
out to her to stop, but she would not heed him. 
   By this time Master Ambrose was once more in complete
possession of his wits and his breath.
   He noticed one of his own clerks among the late pursuers,
and bade him run back to his stables and order three of his
grooms to ride off instantly in pursuit of his daughter.
   Then he himself, his face very stern, started off for the
Academy.
   It was just as well that he did not hear the remarks of
his late companions as they made their way back to town; for
he would have found them neither sympathetic nor
respectful.  The Senators were certainly not loved by the
rabble.  However, not having heard Moonlove's eldritch
shrieks nor her wild remarks, they supposed that her father
had been bullying her for some mild offence, and that, in
consequence, she had taken to her heels.
   "And if all these fat pigs of Senators," they said, "were
set running like that a little oftener, why, then, they'd
make better bacon!"
   Master Ambrose had to work the knocker of the Academy
door very hard before it was finally opened by Miss Primrose
herself.
   She looked flustered, and, as it seemed to Master
Ambrose, a little dissipated, her face was so pasty and her
eyelids so very red.
   "Now, Miss Crabapple!" he cried in a voice of thunder,
"What, by the Harvest of Souls, have you been doing to my
daughter, Moonlove?  And if she's been ill, why have we not
been told, I should like to know?  I've come here for an
explanation, and I mean to get it."
   Miss Primrose, mopping and mowing, and garrulously
inarticulate, took the fuming gentleman into the parlour. 
But he could get nothing out of her further than disjointed
murmurs about the need for cooling draughts, and the child's
being rather headstrong, and a possible touch of the sun. 
It was clear that she was scared out of her wits, and,
moreover, there was something she wished to conceal.
   Master Ambrose, from his experience on the Bench, soon
realized that this was a type of witness upon whom it was
useless to waste his time; so he said sternly, "You are
evidently unable to talk sense yourself, but perhaps some of
your pupils possess that useful accomplishment.  But I warn
you if... if anything happens to my daughter it is you that
will be held responsible.  And now, send... let me see...
send me down Prunella Chanticleer, she's always been a
sensible girl with a head on her shoulders.  She'll be able
to tell me what exactly is the matter with Moonlove -- which
is more than *you* seem able to do."
   Miss Primrose, now almost gibbering with terror,
stammered out something about "study hours," and "regularity
being so desirable," and "dear Prunella's having been a
little out of sorts herself recently."
   But Master Ambrose repeated in a voice of thunder, "Send
me Prunella Chanticleer, at *once*."
   And standing there, stern and square, he was a rather
formidable figure. 
   So Miss Primrose could only gibber and blink her
acquiescence and promise him that "dear Prunella" should
instantly be sent to him.
   When she had left him, Master Ambrose paced impatiently
up and down, frowning heavily, and occasionally shaking his
head.
   Then he stood stock-still, in deep thought.  Absently, he
picked up from the work-table a canvas shoe, in process of
being embroidered with wools of various brilliant shades.
   At first, he stared at it with unseeing eyes.
   Then, the surface of his mind began to take stock of the
object.  Its half finished design consisted of what looked
like wild strawberries, only the berries were purple instead
of red.
   It was certainly very well done.  There was no doubt but
that Miss Primrose was a most accomplished needle-woman.
   "But what's the good of needlework?  It doesn't teach one
common sense," he muttered impatiently.
   "And how like a woman!" he added with a contemptuous
little snort, "Aren't *red* strawberries good enough for
her?  Trying to improve on nature with her stupid fancies
and her purple strawberries!"
   But he was in no mood for wasting his time and attention
on a half-embroidered slipper, and tossing it impatiently
away he was about to march out of the room and call loudly
for Prunella Chanticleer, when the door opened and in she
came.
   Had a stranger wanted to see an upper class maiden of
Lud-in-the-Mist, he would have found a typical specimen in
Prunella Chanticleer.
   She was fair, and plump, and dimpled; and, as in the case
of her mother, the ruthless common sense of her ancestors of
the revolution had been trivialized, though not softened,
into an equally ruthless sense of humour.
   Such *had* been Prunella Chanticleer.
   But, as she now walked into the room, Master Ambrose
exclaimed to himself, "Toasted cheese!  How plain the girl
has grown!"
   But that was a mere matter of taste; some people might
have thought her much prettier than she had ever been
before.  She was certainly less plump than she used to be,
and paler.  But it was the change in the expression of her
eyes that was most noticeable.
   Hitherto, they had been as busy and restless (and, in
justice to the charms of Prunella let it be added, as golden
brown) as a couple of bees in summer -- darting incessantly
from one small object to another, and distilling from each
what it held of least essential, so that in time they would
have fashioned from a thousand trivialities that inferior
honey that is apt to be labeled "feminine wisdom."
   But, now, these eyes were idle.
   Or, rather, her memory seemed to be providing them with a
vision so absorbing that nothing else could arrest their
gaze. 
   In spite of himself, Master Ambrose felt a little uneasy
in her presence.  However, he tried to greet her in the tone
of patronizing banter that he always used when addressing
his daughter or her friends.  But his voice had an unnatural
sound as he cried, "Well, Prunella, and what have you all
been doing to my Moonlove, eh?  She came running home after
dinner, and if it hadn't been broad daylight, I should have
said that she had seen a ghost.  And then off she dashed, up
hill and down dale, like a paper chaser without any paper. 
What have you all been doing to her, eh?"
   "I don't think we've been doing anything to her, Cousin
Ambrose," Prunella answered in a low, curiously toneless
voice.
   Ever since the scene with Moonlove that afternoon, Master
Ambrose had had an odd feeling that facts were losing their
solidity; and he had entered this house with the express
purpose of bullying and hectoring that solidity back to
them.  Instead of which they were rapidly vanishing,
becoming attenuated to a sort of nebulous atmosphere.
   But Master Ambrose had stronger nerves and a more decided
mind than Master Nathaniel.  Two facts remained solid,
namely that his daughter had run away, and that for this
Miss Crabapple's establishment was responsible.  These he
grasped firmly as if they had been dumb-bells that, by their
weight, kept him from floating up to the ceiling.
   "Now, Prunella," he said sternly, "there's something very
queer about all this, and I believe you can explain it. 
Well?  I'm waiting."
   Prunella gave a little enigmatical smile.
   "What did she say when you saw her?" she asked.
   "Say?  Why, she was evidently scared out of her wits, and
didn't know *what* she was saying.  She babbled something
about the sun being too hot -- though it seems to me very
ordinary autumn weather that we're having.  And then she
went on about cutting somebody's fiddle strings... oh, I
don't know what!"
   Prunella gave a low cry of horror.
   "*Cut the fiddle strings!*" she repeated incredulously. 
And then she added with a triumphant laugh, "she *can't do
that!"
   "Now, young lady," he cried roughly, "no more of this
rubbish!  Do you or do you *not* know what has taken
Moonlove?"
   For a second or two she gazed at him in silence, and then
she said slowly, "Nobody ever knows what happens to other
people.  But, supposing... supposing she has eaten fairy
fruit?" and she gave a little mocking smile.
   Silent with horror, Master Ambrose stared at her.
   Then he burst out furiously, "You foul-mouthed little
hussy!  Do your *dare* to insinuate..."
   But Prunella's eyes were fixed on the window that opened
on to the garden, and instinctively he looked in that
direction too. 
   For a second he supposed that the portrait of Duke Aubrey
that hung in the Senate Room of the Guildhall had been moved
to the wall of Miss Primrose's parlour.  Framed in the
window, against the leafy background of the garden stood,
quite motionless, a young man in antique dress.  The face,
the auburn ringlets, the suit of green, the rustic
background -- everything, down to the hunting horn entwined
with flowers that he held in one hand, and the human skull
that he held in the other, were identical with those
depicted in the famous portrait.
   "By the White Ladies of the Fields!" muttered Master
Ambrose, rubbing his eyes.
   But when he looked again the figure had vanished.
   For a few seconds he stood gaping and bewildered, and
Prunella seized the opportunity of slipping unnoticed from
the room.
   Then he came to his senses, on a wave of berserk rage. 
They had been playing tricks, foul, vulgar tricks, on him,
on Ambrose Honeysuckle, Senator and ex-Mayor.  But they
should pay for it, by the Sun, Moon and Stars, they should
pay for it!  And he shook his fist at the ivy and squill
bedecked walls.
   But, in the meantime, it was he himself who was paying
for it.  An appalling accusation had been made against his
only child; and, perhaps, the accusation was true.
   Well, things must be faced.  He was now quite calm, and,
with his stern set face, a much more formidable person than
the raging spluttering creature of a few seconds ago.  He
was determined to get to the bottom of this affair, and
either to vindicate his daughter from the foul insinuation
made by Prunella Chanticleer, or else, if the horrible thing
were true (and a voice inside him that would not be silenced
kept saying that it *was* true) to face the situation
squarely, and, for the good of the town, find out who was
responsible for what had happened and bring them to the
punishment they merited.
   There was probably no one in all Lud-in-the-Mist who
would suffer in the same degree from such a scandal in his
family as Master Ambrose Honeysuckle.  And there was
something fine in the way he thus unflinchingly faced the
possibility.  Not for a moment did he think of hushing the
matter up to shield his daughter's reputation.
   No, justice should run its course even if the whole town
had to know that Ambrose Honeysuckle's only child -- and she
a girl, which seemed, somehow, to make it more horrible --
had eaten fairy fruit.
   As to his vision of Duke Aubrey, *that* he dismissed as
an hallucination due to his excited condition and perhaps,
as well, to the hysterical atmosphere that seemed to lie
like a thick fog over the Academy.
   Before he left Miss Primrose's parlour his eyes fell on
the half embroidered slipper he had impatiently tossed away
on the entrance of Prunella Chanticleer.
   He smiled grimly; perhaps, after all, it had not been due
to mere foolish feminine fancy that the strawberries were
purple instead of red.  She may have had real models for her
embroidery. 
   He put the slipper in his pocket.  It might prove of
value in the law courts.
   But Master Ambrose was mistaken in supposing that the
berries embroidered on the slipper were fairy fruit.
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