by C. S. Lewis
well. She hasn’t read her Ovid. Ad metam properate simul.’
‘We cannot delay it if we wished,’ said Straik.
‘What are we talking about?’ said Mark.
‘The disturbances at Edgestow,’ answered Feverstone.
‘Oh…I haven’t been following them very much. Are they becoming serious?’
‘They’re going to become serious, Sonny,’ said the Fairy. ‘And that’s the point. The real riot was timed for next week. All this little stuff was only meant to prepare the ground. But it’s been going on too well, damn it. The balloon will have to go up tomorrow, or the day after, at latest.’
Mark glanced in bewilderment from her face to Feverstone’s. The latter doubled himself up with laughter and Mark, almost automatically, gave a jocular turn to his own bewilderment.
‘I think the penny hasn’t dropped, Fairy,’ he said.
‘You surely didn’t imagine,’ grinned Feverstone, ‘that the Fairy left the initiative with the natives?’
‘You mean she herself is the Disturbance?’ said Mark.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Filostrato, his little eyes glistening above his fat cheeks.
‘It’s all fair and square,’ said Miss Hardcastle. ‘You can’t put a few hundred thousand imported workmen–’
‘Not the sort you enrolled!’ interjected Feverstone.
‘Into a sleepy little hole like Edgestow,’ Miss Hardcastle continued, ‘without having trouble. I mean there’d have been trouble anyway. As it turns out, I don’t believe my boys needed to do anything. But, since the trouble was bound to come, there was no harm in seeing it came at the right moment.’
‘You mean you’ve engineered the disturbances?’ said Mark. To do him justice, his mind was reeling from this new revelation. Nor was he aware of any decision to conceal his state of mind: in the snugness and intimacy of that circle he found his facial muscles and his voice, without any conscious volition, taking on the tone of his colleagues.
‘That’s a crude way of putting it,’ said Feverstone.
‘It makes no difference,’ said Filostrato. ‘This is how things have to be managed.’
‘Quite,’ said Miss Hardcastle. ‘It’s always done. Anyone who knows police work will tell you. And as I say, the real thing –the big riot–must take place within the next forty-eight hours.’
‘It’s nice to get the tip straight from the horse’s mouth!’ said Mark. ‘I wish I’d got my wife out of the town, though.’
‘Where does she live?’ said the Fairy.
‘Up at Sandown.’
‘Ah. It’ll hardly affect her. In the meantime, you and I have got to get busy about the account of the riot.’
‘But–what’s it all for?’
‘Emergency regulations,’ said Feverstone. ‘You’ll never get the powers we want at Edgestow until the Government declares that a state of emergency exists there.’
‘Exactly,’ said Filostrato. ‘It is folly to talk of peaceful revolutions. Not that the canaglia would always resist–often they have to be prodded into it–but until there is the disturbance, the firing, the barricades –no one gets powers to act effectively. There is not enough what you call weigh on the boat to steer him.’
‘And the stuff must be all ready to appear in the papers the very day after the riot,’ said Miss Hardcastle. ‘That means it must be handed in to the DD by six tomorrow morning, at latest.’
‘But how are we to write it tonight if the thing doesn’t even happen till tomorrow at the earliest?’
Everyone burst out laughing.
‘You’ll never manage publicity that way, Mark,’ said Feverstone. ‘You surely don’t need to wait for a thing to happen before you tell the story of it!’
‘Well, I admit,’ said Mark, and his face was full of laughter, ‘I had a faint prejudice for doing so, not living in Mr Dunne’s sort of time nor in looking-glass land.’
‘No good, Sonny,’ said Miss Hardcastle. ‘We’ve got to get on with it at once. Time for one more drink and you and I’d better go upstairs and begin. We’ll get them to give us devilled bones and coffee at three.’
This was the first thing Mark had been asked to do which he himself, before he did it, clearly knew to be criminal. But the moment of his consent almost escaped his notice; certainly, there was no struggle, no sense of turning a corner. There may have been a time in the world’s history when such moments fully revealed their gravity, with witches prophesying on a blasted heath or visible Rubicons to be crossed. But, for him, it all slipped past in a chatter of laughter, of that intimate laughter between fellow professionals, which of all earthly powers is strongest to make men do very bad things before they are yet, individually, very bad men. A few moments later he was trotting upstairs with the Fairy. They passed Cosser on the way and Mark, talking busily to his companion, saw out of the corner of his eye that Cosser was watching them. To think that he had once been afraid of Cosser!
‘Who has the job of waking the DD up at six?’ asked Mark.
‘Probably not necessary,’ said the Fairy. ‘I suppose the old man must sleep sometime. But I’ve never discovered when he does it.’
At four o’clock Mark sat in the Fairy’s office re-reading the last two articles he had written–one for the most respectable of our papers, the other for a more popular organ. This was the only part of the night’s work which had anything in it to flatter literary vanity. The earlier hours had been spent in the sterner labour of concocting the news itself. These two Leaders had been kept for the end, and the ink was still wet. The first was as follows:
While it would be premature to make any final comment on last night’s riot at Edgestow, two conclusions seem to emerge from the first accounts (which we publish elsewhere) with a clarity which is not likely to be shaken by subsequent developments. In the first place, the whole episode will administer a rude shock to any complacency which may still lurk among us as to the enlightenment of our own civilisation. It must, of course, be admitted that the transformation of a small university town into a centre of national research cannot be carried out without some friction and some cases of hardship to the local inhabitants. But the Englishman has always had his own quiet and humorous way of dealing with frictions and has never showed himself unwilling, when the issue is properly put before him, to make sacrifices much greater than those small alterations of habit and sentiment which progress demands of the people of Edgestow. It is gratifying to note that there is no suggestion in any authoritative quarter that the NICE has in any way exceeded its powers or failed in that consideration and courtesy which was expected of it; and there is little doubt that the actual starting point of the disturbances was some quarrel, probably in a public house, between one of the NICE workmen and some local Sir Oracle. But as the Stagyrite said long ago, disorders which have trivial occasions have deeper causes, and there seems little doubt that this petty fracas must have been inflamed, if not exploited, by sectional interests or widespread prejudice.
It is disquieting to be forced to suspect that the old distrust of planned efficiency and the old jealousy of what is ambiguously called ‘Bureaucracy’ can be so easily (though, we hope, temporarily) revived; though at the same time, this very suspicion, by revealing the gaps and weaknesses in our national level of education, emphasises one of the very diseases which the National Institute exists to cure. That it will cure it we need have no doubt. The will of the nation is behind this magnificent ‘peace-effort’, as Mr Jules so happily described the Institute, and any ill-informed opposition which ventures to try conclusions with it will be, we hope, gently, but certainly firmly, resisted.
The second moral to be drawn from last night’s events is a more cheering one. The original proposal to provide the NICE with what is misleadingly called its own ‘police force’ was viewed with distrust in many quarters. Our readers will remember that while not sharing that distrust, we extended to it a certain sympathy. Even the false fears of those who love liberty should be respected a
s we respect even the ill-grounded anxieties of a mother. At the same time we insisted that the complexity of modern society rendered it an anachronism to confine the actual execution of the will of society to a body of men whose real function was the prevention and detection of crime: that the police, in fact, must be relieved sooner or later of that growing body of coercive functions which do not properly fall within their sphere. That this problem has been solved by other countries in a manner which proved fatal to liberty and justice, by creating a real imperium in imperio, is a fact which no one is likely to forget. The so-called ‘Police’ of the NICE–who should rather be called its ‘Sanitary Executive’–is the characteristically English solution. Its relation to the National Police cannot, perhaps, be defined with perfect logical accuracy; but, as a nation, we have never been much enamoured of logic. The executive of the NICE has no connection with politics; and if it ever comes into relation with criminal justice, it does so in the gracious role of a rescuer–a rescuer who can remove the criminal from the harsh sphere of punishment into that of remedial treatment. If any doubt as to the value of such a force existed, it has been amply set at rest by the episodes at Edgestow. The happiest relations seem to have been maintained throughout between the officers of the Institute and the National Police, who, but for the assistance of the Institute, would have found themselves faced with an impossible situation. As an eminent police officer observed to one of our representatives this morning, ‘But for the NICE Police, things would have taken quite a different turn.’ If in the light of these events it is found convenient to place the whole Edgestow area under the exclusive control of the Institutional ‘police’ for some limited period, we do not believe that the British people–always realists at heart–will have the slightest objection. A special tribute is due to the female members of the force, who appear to have acted throughout with that mixture of courage and common sense which the last few years have taught us to expect of English women almost as a matter of course. The wild rumours, current in London this morning, of machine-gun fire in the streets and casualties by the hundred, remain to be sifted. Probably, when accurate details are available, it will be found (in the words of a recent Prime Minister) that ‘when blood flowed, it was generally from the nose’.
The second ran thus:
What is happening at Edgestow?
That is the question which John Citizen wants to have answered. The Institute which has settled at Edgestow is a National Institute. That means it is yours and mine. We are not scientists and we do not pretend to know what the master-brains of the Institute are thinking. We do know what each man or woman expects of it. We expect a solution of the unemployment problem, the cancer problem, the housing problem, the problems of currency, of war, of education. We expect from it a brighter, cleaner and fuller life for our children, in which we and they can march ever onward and onward and develop to the full urge of life which God has given each one of us. The NICE is the people’s instrument for bringing about all the things we fought for.
Meanwhile–what is happening at Edgestow?
Do you believe this riot arose simply because Mrs Snooks or Mr Buggins found that the landlord had sold their shop or their allotment to the NICE? Mrs Snooks and Mr Buggins know better. They know that the Institute means more trade in Edgestow, more public amenities, a larger population, a burst of undreamed-of prosperity. I say these disturbances have been ENGINEERED.
This charge may sound strange, but it is true.
Therefore I ask yet again: What is happening at Edgestow?
There are traitors in the camp. I am not afraid to say so, whoever they may be. They may be so-called religious people. They may be financial interests. They may be the old cobweb-spinning professors and philosophers of Edgestow University itself. They may be Jews. They may be lawyers. I don’t care who they are, but I have one thing to tell them. Take care. The people of England are not going to stand this. We are not going to have the Institute sabotaged.
What is to be done at Edgestow?
I say, put the whole place under the Institutional Police. Some of you may have been to Edgestow for a holiday. If so, you’ll know as well as I do what it is like–a little, sleepy, country town with half a dozen policemen who have had nothing to do for ten years but stop cyclists because their lamps have gone out. It doesn’t make sense to expect these poor old Bobbies to deal with an ENGINEERED RIOT. Last night the NICE police showed that they could. What I say is–Hats off to Miss Hardcastle and her brave boys, yes, and her brave girls too. Give them a free hand and let them get on with the job. Cut out the Red Tape.
I’ve one bit of advice. If you hear anyone back-biting the NICE police, tell him where he gets off. If you hear anyone comparing them to the Gestapo or the Ogpu, tell him you’ve heard that one before. If you hear anyone talking about the liberties of England (by which he means the liberties of the obscurantists, the Mrs Grundies, the Bishops, and the capitalists), watch that man. He’s the enemy. Tell him from me that the NICE is the boxing glove on the democracy’s fist, and if he doesn’t like it, he’d best get out of the way.
Meanwhile–WATCH EDGESTOW.
It might be supposed that after enjoying these articles in the heat of composition, Mark would awake to reason, and with it to disgust, when reading through the finished product. Unfortunately the process had been almost the reverse. He had become more and more reconciled to the job the longer he worked at it.
The complete reconciliation came when he fair-copied both articles. When a man has crossed the T’s and dotted the I’s, and likes the look of his work, he does not wish it to be committed to the wastepaper basket. The more often he re-read the articles the better he liked them. And, anyway, the thing was a kind of joke. He had in his mind a picture of himself, old and rich (probably with a peerage, certainly very distinguished) when all this–all the unpleasant side of the NICE–was over, regaling his juniors with wild, unbelievable tales of this present time. (‘Ah…it was a rum show in those early days. I remember once …’) And then, too, for a man whose writings had hitherto appeared only in learned periodicals or at best in books which only other dons would read, there was an all but irresistible lure in the thought of the daily press–editors waiting for copy –readers all over Europe–something really depending on his words. The idea of the immense dynamo which had been placed for the moment at his disposal, thrilled through his whole being. It was, after all, not so long ago that he had been excited by admission to the Progressive Element at Bracton. But what was the Progressive Element to this? It wasn’t as if he were taken in by the articles himself. He was writing with his tongue in his cheek–a phrase that somehow comforted him by making the whole thing appear like a practical joke. And anyway, if he didn’t do it, someone else would. And all the while the child inside him whispered how splendid and how triumphantly grown up it was to be sitting like this, so full of alcohol and yet not drunk, writing (with his tongue in his cheek) articles for great newspapers, against time, ‘with the printer’s devil at the door’ and all the inner ring of the NICE depending on him, and nobody ever again having the least right to consider him a nonentity or cipher.
Jane stretched out her hand in the darkness but did not feel the table which ought to have been there at her bed’s head. Then with a shock of surprise she discovered that she was not in bed at all, but standing. There was utter darkness all about her and it was intensely cold. Groping, she touched what appeared to be uneven surfaces of stone. The air, also, had some odd quality about it–dead air, imprisoned air, it seemed. Somewhere far away, possibly overhead, there were noises which came to her muffled and shuddering as if through earth. So the worst had happened–a bomb had fallen on the house and she was buried alive. But before she had time to feel the full impact of this idea she remembered that the war was over…oh, and all sorts of things had happened since then…she had married Mark…she had seen Alcasan in his cell…she had met Camilla. Then, with great and swift relief she thought, ‘It is one of my
dreams. It is a piece of news. It’ll stop presently. There’s nothing to be frightened of.’
The place, whatever it was, did not seem to be very large. She groped all along one of the rough walls and then, turning at the corner, struck her foot against something hard. She stooped down and felt. There was a sort of raised platform or table of stone, about three feet high. And on it? Did she dare to explore? But it would be worse not to. She began trying the surface of the table with her hand, and next moment bit her lip to save herself from screaming, for she had touched a human foot. It was a naked foot, and dead to judge by its coldness. To go on groping seemed the hardest thing she had ever done but somehow she was impelled to do it. The corpse was clothed in some very coarse stuff which was also uneven, as though it were heavily embroidered, and very voluminous. It must be a very large man, she thought, still groping upwards towards his head. On his chest the texture suddenly changed–as if the skin of some hairy animal had been laid over the coarse robe. So she thought at first; then she realised that the hair really belonged to a beard. She hesitated about feeling the face; she had a fear lest the man should stir or wake or speak if she did so. She therefore became still for a moment. It was only a dream; she could bear it; but it was so dreary and it all seemed to be happening so long ago, as if she had slipped through a cleft in the present, down into some cold, sunless pit of the remote past. She hoped they wouldn’t leave her here long. If only someone would come quickly and let her out. And immediately she had a picture of someone, someone bearded but also (it was odd) divinely young, someone all golden and strong and warm coming with a mighty earth-shaking tread down into that black place. The dream became chaotic at this point. Jane had an impression that she ought to courtesy to this person (who never actually arrived though the impression of him lay bright and heavy on her mind), and felt great consternation on realising that some dim memories of dancing lessons at school were not sufficient to show her how to do so. At this point she woke.
She went into Edgestow immediately after breakfast to hunt, as she now hunted every day, for someone who would replace Mrs Maggs. At the top of Market Street something happened which finally determined her to go to St Anne’s that very day and by the ten-twenty-three train. She came to a place where a big car was standing beside the pavement, an NICE car. Just as she reached it a man came out of a shop, cut across her path to speak to the chauffeur of the car, and then got in. He was so close to her that, despite the fog, she saw him very clearly, in isolation from all other objects: the background was all grey fog and passing feet and the harsh sounds of that unaccustomed traffic which now never ceased in Edgestow. She would have known him, anywhere: not Mark’s face, not her own face in a mirror, was by now more familiar. She saw the pointed beard, the pince-nez, the face which somehow reminded her of a waxworks face. She had no need to think what she would do. Her body, walking quickly past, seemed of itself to have decided that it was heading for the station and thence for St Anne’s. It was something different from fear (though she was frightened too, almost to the point of nausea) that drove her so unerringly forward. It was a total rejection of, or revulsion from, this man on all levels of her being at once. Dreams sank into insignificance compared with the blinding reality of the man’s presence. She shuddered to think that their hands might have touched as she passed him.
The train was blessedly warm, her compartment empty, the fact of sitting down delightful. The slow journey through the fog almost sent her to sleep. She hardly thought about St Anne’s until she found herself there: even as she walked up the steep hill she made no plans, rehearsed nothing that she meant to say, but only thought of Camilla and Mrs Dimble. The childish levels, the undersoil of the mind, had been turned up. She wanted to be with Nice people, away from Nasty people–that nursery distinction seeming at the moment more important than any later categories of Good and Bad or Friend and Enemy.
She was roused from this state by noticing that it was lighter. She looked ahead: surely that bend in the road was more visible than it ought to be in such a fog? Or was it only that a country fog was different from a town one? Certainly what had been grey was becoming white, almost dazzlingly white. A few yards further and luminous blue was showing overhead, and trees cast shadows (she had not seen a shadow for days), and then all of a sudden the enormous spaces of the sky had become visible and the pale golden sun, and looking back, as she took the turn to the Manor, Jane saw that she was standing on the shore of a little green sunlit island looking down on a sea of white fog, furrowed and ridged yet level on the whole, which spread as far as she could see. There were other islands too. That dark one to the west was the wooded hills above Sandown where she had picnicked with the Dennistons; and the far bigger and brighter one to the north was the many caverned hills–mountains one could nearly call them–in which the Wynd had its source. She took a deep breath. It was the size of this world above the fog which impressed her. Down in Edgestow all these days one had lived, even when out-of-doors, as if in a room, for only objects close at hand were visible. She felt she had come near to forgetting how big the sky