The Secret Places of the HeartWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
General
The Secret Places of the Heart
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
England -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Psychological fiction
As they approached the grey old stones they became aware of a certain
agitation among them. A voice, an authoritative bass voice, was audible,
crying, “Anthony!” A nurse appeared remotely going in the direction of
the aeroplane sheds, and her cry of “Master Anthony” came faintly on the
breeze. An extremely pretty young woman of five or six and twenty became
visible standing on one of the great prostrate stones in the centre of
the place. She was a black-haired, sun-burnt individual and she stood
with her arms akimbo, quite frankly amused at the disappearance of
Master Anthony, and offering no sort of help for his recovery. On the
greensward before her stood the paterfamilias of the family automobile,
and he was making a trumpet with his hands in order to repeat the name
of Anthony with greater effect. A short lady in grey emerged from among
the encircling megaliths, and one or two other feminine personalities
produced effects of movement rather than of individuality as they
flitted among the stones. “Well,” said the lady in grey, with that
rising intonation of humorous conclusion which is so distinctively
American, “those Druids have GOT him.”
“He’s hiding,” said the automobilist, in a voice that promised
chastisement to a hidden hearer. “That’s what he is doing. He ought not
to play tricks like this. A great boy who is almost six.”
“If you are looking for a small, resolute boy of six,” said Sir
Richmond, addressing himself to the lady on the rock rather than to the
angry parent below, “he’s perfectly safe and happy. The Druids haven’t
got him. Indeed, they’ve failed altogether to get him. ‘Stonehenge,’ he
says, ‘is no good.’ So he’s gone back to clean the lamps of your car.”
“Aa-oo. So THAT’S it!” said Papa. “Winnie, go and tell Price he’s
gone back to the car.... They oughtn’t to have let him out of the
enclosure....”
The excitement about Master Anthony collapsed. The rest of the people
in the circles crystallized out into the central space as two apparent
sisters and an apparent aunt and the nurse, who was packed off at
once to supervise the lamp cleaning. The head of the family found some
difficulty, it would seem, in readjusting his mind to the comparative
innocence of Anthony, and Sir Richmond and the young lady on the rock
sought as if by common impulse to establish a general conversation.
There were faint traces of excitement in her manner, as though there
had been some controversial passage between herself and the family
gentleman.
“We were discussing the age of this old place,” she said, smiling in the
frankest and friendliest way. “How old do YOU think it is?”
The father of Anthony intervened, also with a shadow of controversy in
his manner. “I was explaining to the young lady that it dates from
the early bronze age. Before chronology existed.... But she insists on
dates.”
“Nothing of bronze has ever been found here,” said Sir Richmond.
“Well, when was this early bronze age, anyhow?” said the young lady.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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