The Age of Magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

at a calm sky. Distant bells sounded on the breeze. There was laughter down below. They felt as if they had been transported from their bodies by a god and delivered to a realm of pure delight. Then they heard music across the lake, and held their breath.
    Arcadia is a dream, and dreams infect reality with their truth.
    Mistletoe would remember that moment as one of the purest of her life. Lao would forever associate it with a certain half-lit landscape in paradise.

11
    When they went down to dinner they found that all was not well. Everyone looked a little distressed, seated gloomily round a long table. Jim’s thinning hair was unkempt, his eyes distracted. Propr’s moustache was all awry, as if he had twisted it into the visual image of his mood. Jute sat in monumental impassivity. Riley seemed to have shrunk below the rim of the table. Sam didn’t know where to hide his eyes. Husk sat there, saying nothing, but managed to spread a toxic atmosphere.
    Lao looked at Jim enquiringly.
    ‘Bad news from home,’ he said, in a whisper.
    Lao and Mistletoe found seats for themselves. A waitress came to take their orders but the atmosphere was so forbidding that she stood there staring. No one spoke to her, so she left.
    Husk was eviling. Her eyes were narrowed in pain and bitterness. She kept to herself the bad news that she had received. But she sat there and poured out an evil mood.
    Her eyes were troubling. No one could quite look at her. Eviling eyes are as bad as evil deeds. Such a person seems capable of worse things than they really are. No one forgets a witnessed eviling. Suspicion about one seen doing it can last a lifetime. But everyone dwells under the inexplicable cloud of a foul mood at some time or another. The crew round the table concentrated too much on Husk. Her mood fed on their attention.
    The cutlery shone on the tables in the dining room, and the glasses glittered in the light of the chandeliers. Couples were having quiet dinners in distant corners. A Schubert Quintet swam through the atmosphere.
    Round their table they all took Husk’s eviling personally. Maybe it was because in their rooms, looking out at the lake, feeling the breeze on their faces, they had glimpsed a moment of beauty. There is something poisonous about eviling in the midst of happiness.

12
    The human spirit knows how to protect itself from these things, Lao was thinking, when Mistletoe rose like a dryad from her chair. She went round to Husk, embraced her like a twin sister, and gave her a gift-wrapped present.
    ‘Happy birthday,’ she said.
    Husk blushed.
    ‘I didn’t think anyone knew,’ she said, tears sparkling in her eyes.
    All at once they crowded round Husk, hugging and consoling her, bringing out gifts and cards they had carried around in secret. They lavished on her much affection and soon pleasure replaced the bitterness on her face.
    Joy flowed with her tears. Though they didn’t know what they were consoling her for, nor what privation she was enduring, they managed to revive her spirits.
    When they had all gone back to their seats, Propr tapped a knife against a glass and cried:
    ‘Speech, Husk, speech!’
    ‘And make it brief,’ Jim teased, ‘we’ve got a film to finish.’
    Husk smiled; everyone laughed. Her smile was infectious. It lifted the general mood. She seemed inspired.
    ‘About birthdays there is not much to say. One was born on a certain day, so so many years ago…’
    ‘Reveal! Reveal!’ cried Lao.
    Husk smiled indulgently, and continued.
    ‘And one moves closer to one’s death. Every birthday is a dying…’
    ‘You are not allowed to be gloomy today,’ said Riley, touching her on the shoulder.
    Husk gave an uncertain smile.
    ‘A dying and a being born. We get worse, we get better, we try to sing the song. It is not an especially happy birthday for me, but it is special because of you all. You’ve all been so generous. Who shall I thank first? Lao, how did you know I love Gregorian