'Oh, now...' She put her elbows on the edge of the sofa, clasped her hands and looked down at the portfolio. 'Well, they went on up. I suppose a god's horse can go anywhere, but the real horse must have found it tough. I was there that time, the time paps made the photogram. Yes, when White Fox was almost at the top a mist came down and hid the moon, so he couldn't find his way. That was the god's work. White Fox had to wait for daylight before he could do anything.'
'Where was the chief and his men?'
'I don't know. So: White Fox went right to the top and found there was a cliff below him. Just here.' She pointed. 'It doesn't show in the photogram it's a cliff, but it is. At the edge of the cliff were four hoof-marks in the rock. They don't show either in this, but they're there: I saw them.'
'Real hoof-marks? In rock?'
'Well—they surely looked real,' she said with reluctant conviction, then hurried on in the businesslike tone she had been using earlier. 'The horse had taken a leap into the sky, where the god was waiting for Dawn Daughter. He'd seen her and loved her when he sent the horse. And when she came to him he was so mightily glad he forgot to take the mist away, so it's still there.'
'What did White Fox do?'
'I don't know. White Fox. Isn't that a fool name? Dawn Daughter too.'
Hubert did not speak. To him, those were not fool names.
'What I think,' said Hilda, abruptly standing up, 'some old Indian just fancied the whole tale to explain the mist and the marks in the rock.'
'It doesn't quite explain the mist. But you said the marks looked real.'
Her manner changed again. 'Yes, they did.'
'Where is Mount Gibson?'
He had not wanted to know, only to continue the conversation. As soon as the words were out, he knew he had made a mistake, and from the way she looked past him and muttered her reply (which he failed to take in) he knew just what he should have said: that, whatever she thought, he believed the tale of Dawn Daughter and White Fox. It would have been too late now even if, having finished her conversation with the preceptress, Dame van den Haag had not been on her way to join them. But there would be another time: there must be.
The next morning, Abbot Peter Thynne sat in his parlour over a breakfast he had hardly touched. Normally he ate this meal in the refectory; he found it a useful occasion for meeting those in his charge before the day's work began and offering any necessary words of encouragement and advice. But in his present mood, the mood that had fallen upon him more than twenty-four hours earlier, when the news had been brought of Hubert's disappearance, the notion of company was distasteful to him. Within his reach lay two books delivered not long before from Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford: a new commentary on the De Existentiae Natura of Monsignor Jean-Paul Sartre, the French Jesuit, and an analysis of Count William Walton's church music. The Abbot had eagerly looked forward to the arrival of both volumes; as yet he had not had the heart to open either.
There was a knock at the door. 'Yes?' he said rather sharply.
Father Dilke came in, bowed, and said, 'Good morning, my lord. I trust your lordship slept well?'
'No. Of course not. What is it, Father?'
'I have a little news, my lord.'
At once the Abbot's demeanour altered. 'Sit down, Father. Forgive me for speaking as I did. What news?'
'The ostler advises that the mare Joan is returned.'
'At what hour?'
'Some time in the night, my lord. She was grazing near the stable when he made his early round. He further advises that she hadn't been ridden far and had been fed and watered yesterday afternoon or evening.'
'Where, I wonder? In Coverley, one would think. By whom? That's more difficult. Or it should be. I can't get free of the idea that that New Englander type is involved. Who else in Coverley has acquaintance with Hubert, pattie-shop men and such excluded?'
'But at his second visit the proctor was positive that the Ambassador is in London and that his Secretary here denies all possibility of a visit from Hubert. And surely...'
The Abbot sighed. 'Where then did the mare carry him?'
'To a train or omnibus.'
'Which might have carried him anywhere in the land.'
'But most likely to London.'
'And the New Englander Embassy, into which our constabulary can't enter.'
'I hardly think the Ambassador would shelter an English runaway, my lord. The diplomatic consequences —'
'The fellow's a New Englander, confound him,' said the Abbot, rubbing his eyes wearily and sighing again. 'I should never have allowed him across this threshold. See the proctor here is let know of the mare's return and of the other advice.'
'Yes, my lord.'
'Should we talk again to Decuman and his party?'
'I find no advantage in it, sir. They told the truth, as I think, when they denied knowledge of Hubert's goal.'
'Yes, yes. It was Decuman who took the mare at first.'
