The Magicians

by J. B. Priestley

  “Nothing to be done that hasn’t been done, I’m afraid, Sir Charles,” said the sergeant, mopping the sweat off his face. “Pilot must ha’ baled out an’ the plane come down like a mad thing an’ hit the end fair an’ square. Old Albert was doin’ his hens—so he’s only a nasty case o’ shock—but his missis an’ the two maids are goners all right. We’re not sure about Perkins—that’s the odd-job chap as looked after the bar. If he was there, then he’s had it too, but he might be out somewhere, seein’ it’s afternoon. Can’t tell yet——”

  “Perkins is safe.” Somebody had joined them.

  “How d’you know?” the sergeant demanded sharply, rattled by this interruption. “Who are you?”

  “Perkins went out on his bicycle after lunch. My name is Wayland, Sergeant. I was staying here with two friends. We are all safe. We were in the shelter at the far end of the garden when the aeroplane hit the house.”

  “Glad to hear that, Mr.—er—Wayland,” cried the sergeant apologetically. “Sorry to be so sharp with you—but I’m a bit on edge naturally. I wanted to know about you three—only ones stayin’ here, weren’t you? Well, that settles that. Lost all your luggage, though, Mr. Wayland—eh?”

  “No, we had it with us.”

  The sergeant stared. “Funny idea! Just goin’, perhaps? No? Well, I haven’t time to work that one out. Must get on. Oh—this is Sir Charles Ravenstreet, gentleman who lives at Broxley Manor close by.” And the sergeant bustled off, leaving the other two to take stock of each other.

  Wayland smiled at Ravenstreet. He was a spare, elderly man, wearing an old-fashioned Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers. Observing him more closely, Ravenstreet saw that he was far older than he first appeared to be, for his deeply-tanned, clean-shaven face was covered with tiny wrinkles and through the tan were visible the dark spots of age. He wore no hat and the immense bald dome of his head shone in the sun. Probably, Ravenstreet concluded, a health crank of the rather more intelligent kind, a Bernard-Shaw-Jaeger-and-beans type.

  “I’m upset about this,” Ravenstreet confessed. “I often came here. These people were friends of mine, Mr. Wayland.”

  “They were good people. We tried to warn them. But of course——” And he made a little shrugging movement.

  Ravenstreet decided to let this go without com­ment. The man was probably far more shaken than he pretended to be. “You were staying here?”

  “Three of us, yes,” replied Wayland, smiling. “My two friends are foreigners. We meet every few years. Mostly abroad. But this time I brought them here. For what you might call a little conference.”

  Ravenstreet came to a decision, though how he arrived at it he never knew then or afterwards. “Mr. Wayland, as the sergeant told you, I have a house near here. I’m alone there, except for a domestic staff that badly needs more to do. If you and your two friends would care to stay, I’ll be glad to put you up for a few days. I really mean that——”

  “I see you do,” the other man murmured. And he looked as if he did, for he had been staring hard.

  “You won’t worry me. I won’t worry you. You can continue holding your little conference without inter­ruption, and perhaps save precious time and trouble. I have a car here. We can be there in ten minutes.”

  “Thank you. I will bring my friends. And if you are wondering if there is anything you can do to help here, I can assure you, Sir Charles, there is now nothing to be done.”

  Wayland’s two friends looked at a first glance like a vaudeville act. One was immensely tall, thin, beaky; the other short and broad, a tub of butter. The tall one was French, his name Marot. The fat one was called Perperek, and must have originally come from some part of the Balkans. His English was bold but sketchy, and his accent so bad that it took Ravenstreet some time to understand what he was saying; but he seemed to be a friendly soul, his enormous swarthy face wore a rich fat smile, and he continually chuckled and bubbled. Monsieur Marot spoke excellent English but his speech was as spare and gaunt as his giant frame: a man more unlike the typical garrulous Frenchman could hardly be imagined. Like Wayland, these two soon gave Raven­street the impression that they were much older than they had at first appeared to be. All three in fact made him feel that they were old men who had somehow contrived to maintain a vitality of mind and body. They made a very rum trio.

  Ravenstreet ran them home, settled them in their respective rooms, and then went down to explain them to the Wiversons, the couple who kept house for him. Wiverson was a melancholy little chap, who had failed in various unpretending businesses; he was hard­working and conscientious, able to put his hand to anything in or around a country house, but always in despair, as if he were on the wrong planet. Mrs. Wiverson was larger, louder, altogether more cheerful than her husband; she dyed her hair a canary shade, slapped on make-up, wore unsuitable garish clothes, and had a quite misleading raffish air, as if she had retired from a gambling hell and might soon open the lowest type of night club; she was in fact respectability itself, bullied the village cleaning women into thorough­ness, and was a sensible housekeeper and a passable if uninspired cook. But dinner for four, including peculiar and particular foreigners, when she had expected only one, was an order that left her panic-stricken. So Ravenstreet returned to his guests, undecided whether to apologise in advance for what would undoubtedly be a very inadequate meal or to suggest that he took them out for dinner.

  No sooner had he hinted at this indecision than the fantastic Perperek cut him short. “Pliz—pliz! You have things—any things to eat? Then I cook. These two talk soon tonight of what I do not care to talk—so I cook. Is it not so, my friends?”

  “Yes,” said Wayland, smiling at Ravenstreet. “Marot and I are discussing some subjects that do not interest Perperek. He’ll enjoy cooking the dinner—and he really is a first-class cook.”

  “Mag-neef-isend!” cried Perperek, his dark eyes twinkling away. “Best in these place any time! I speak first to your cook woman—very careful—diplomateek, you see—I know of these thing. You show me—introduce—pliz! After then I show you.” He talked in this strain all the way down to the kitchen, but already Ravenstreet had guessed that most of this was deliberate clowning, probably to ease the situation. As if he knew what his host was thinking, Perperek halted at the foot of the stairs and tapped his nose with a fat forefinger. “Is better to play fool than be fool—um? For these kitchens people I am comical old foreign man—you see. No trouble, no fight. All good—nice. You see.”

  After taking him into the kitchen to meet the Wiversons, Ravenstreet left him to it and did some various odd jobs that were waiting for him. It was half-an-hour or so later when he went back, to find every­thing amiably settled. Perperek, without his coat and wearing an apron that looked a mere bib against his massive bulk, was exploring the cupboards, with the Wiversons in fascinated attendance. Seeing that all was well, Ravenstreet slipped out again, wrote a few letters, went out to drop them in the box, and had some talk with Bury, his gardener. The day had an exhausted and nervous air; some angry clouds were already massing in the western sky; Bury was certain there would be a thunderstorm. Ravenstreet had to describe the catastrophe at the White Horse to Bury, who announced that storm or no storm he would cycle over to look at the ruin. This recollection of it shook Ravenstreet more than his original encounter with it had done; horror and death screaming down out of the sleepy afternoon. He passed another half-hour pottering about in the garden, smoking, and wondering what his three guests thought they were settling at their little con­ference. He caught a glimpse of the Wiversons going out at the back, presumably for the evening and by Perperek’s permission, certainly not by his. This fat character might look like a comic baron in a Balkan musical comedy, but he knew how to handle types like the Wiversons. He had in fact, Ravenstreet decided, a very powerful personality.

  As soon as he looked into the kitchen again, Perperek commanded him to stay. Not that he needed any help, Perperek explained, but while he was preparing the
dinner—and these preparations appeared to be on a large and complicated scale—he would be glad to have a little talk with his host. This seemed to Ravenstreet a good opportunity to discover who these three were and why they met. It would be easier to question Perperek, all beaming good-nature, than the other two, so much more austere and aloof. And this worked. Perperek never stopped bustling about, was forever chopping, mixing, stirring, tasting; his English was often so eccentric that it made nonsense of his replies, even if he had intended them to be sensible; nevertheless Raven­street did obtain some facts about the three of them. Wayland, it appeared, was part English, part Balt; he was a retired civil engineer who had worked for many years in the East. Marot was an optician in Bordeaux. Perperek himself was a Bulgarian by birth, had spent much time ‘as merchant’ in the Near East, and now had some mysterious business that kept him travelling between Italy and Greece. It was quite obvious that while Perperek produced these facts because Raven­street more or less demanded them, he attached no importance to them, clearly believing that what they had done or did to earn a living did not matter. They seemed to have known one another for at least forty years; and Ravenstreet got the impression, though nothing was said definitely about this, that they were the surviving members of a much larger group. But Perperek did not explain what brought them together, why a retired civil engineer in England, a French optician, a ‘merchant’ from the Eastern Mediterranean, should go to the trouble of meeting like this. Raven­street came to the conclusion that they must be the remaining members of some cranky religious-cum-philosophical movement, about which Perperek chose to be silent. But there was something in the fat man’s dark twinkling gaze and an odd suggestion of force in him that prevented Ravenstreet from deciding they were merely a bunch of absurd elderly eccentrics. Then he remembered the queer business of the luggage.

  “One thing puzzles me,” he said. “How did you come to have your suitcases with you when you were talking in the garden shelter this afternoon, when the hotel was hit? Were you about to leave anyhow?”

  “We thought better to be ready,” replied Perperek who was deftly chopping onions. “Something happens perhaps.”

  “But you couldn’t have known there was going to be an accident.”

  Perperek did not trouble even to look up. “To us not an accident.”

  Ravenstreet couldn’t pass this. “But it was an accident. Something went wrong with the aircraft, the pilot baled out, and unluckily it crashed into the hotel.”

  For a minute or two Perperek, who was now frying the chopped onions, said nothing. It was obvious that he had not taken offence at anything Ravenstreet had said. Either he was not interested or he was too busy with the onions. Ravenstreet waited, keeping a look of enquiry directed at him. Finally Perperek turned, caught the look, and smiled his enormous fat smile.

  “What is accident one level of life no accident other level of life. You unnerstan’?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Perperek rapidly spread flour on a board. “Imagine we say there is here nice place—is good for eating in air—what you call eating in air?”

  “Do you mean a picnic?”

  “Picnic, yes! Is good this place for picnic—pretty ladies like it very much. But here is ants—many, many little ants—and pretty ladies do not like ants with picnic. So you say to servant to go do some things to kill many, many ants this place. So it happens. Many, many ants are killed and other little ants speak of terrible accident—famous terrible accident this is in ant world. Now you unnerstan’?”

  “Yes, I understand about the ants and the picnic place. But I don’t see how the argument applies to that plane this afternoon. That was an accident all right. You’re not going to tell me you believe the pilot deliberately contrived——”

  “No, no, no, no! Pilot has no part in this. Something different. We will not talk of it. Too many things to unnerstan’.” He was testing the frying onions with a fork. “But you ask about these suits­cases and I say we take them because we think something might happen—we do not know what. We try to warn hotel people——”

  “Yes, I remember Mr. Wayland saying that, and I wondered at the time what he meant. You warned them that something might happen——”

  “Is no use,” said Perperek dispassionately. “Is never use. Waste of talk. Imagine I say to you that you feel bad inside—too much tick-tock—so you make wrong move—then make worse moves—all bad. You listen when I warn? No never! You see?”

  “You’re probably right. I wouldn’t take any notice. By the way, you didn’t really mean I was feeling bad inside and so making wrong moves, did you?”

  “Yes. As you are, I think,” he replied indifferently. “Tick-tock. Bad feeling. Tick-tock. Wrong move. Tick-tock. Worse, worse. Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

  “What’s this tick-tock business?” demanded Raven­street, not repressing his irritation.

  “Wrong view of time.” And for a moment Perperek lost his twinkle and his smile and stared at him bleakly, making him feel he was suddenly looking at quite a different man. Then the twinkle and smile returned. “You like garlic?”

  “Yes, but not too much, please, Mr. Perperek.”

  “Not Mr. Perperek. We make a rule now. No sirs and misters—just Perperek, Marot, Wayland, Rav-en-street. Is a rule.”

  Ravenstreet agreed. He had meant to ask Perperek what this wrong view of time was but now decided against it: Perperek looked as if he did not intend to discuss such subjects. There was silence for a while.

  “I tell what you think,” Perperek suddenly an­nounced, leaving the stove and lighting a cigarette.

  “Go on, then.” Ravenstreet was dubious.

  “You think Wayland, Marot, Perperek, older than first look—old men have young feeling. Silly men. Talk together of vegetable foods or special costume or new rules of health. A pity. Could do something better—even fat Perperek. What you say?” And he looked quizzically through the smoke of his cigarette. He smoked little brown cigarettes and pulled at them furiously.

  “About right,” said Ravenstreet calmly. “But then you must have met all that before. I’d be more im­pressed if you told me how you knew something might happen to the White Horse.”

  “Is good this name. White horse belong to white magic. Good magician might ride white horse or give him to hero.” He took a final pull at his cigarette and the rather acrid smoke came rolling out. “You wonder what we are, Rav-en-street. I tell you. We are magicians.”

  “Magicians? What kind of magicians?”

  “Good magicians.” Perperek chuckled as he returned to his cooking. “White horse magicians. When you taste dinner you agree. Now no more questions. Is too busy with dinner. Pliz tell Marot and Wayland in half an hour perhaps dinner ready. You have good red wine—Bordeaux? I think we open two bottles, pliz.”

  The dinner when it finally arrived on the table, about an hour later, was excellent, far beyond anything Mrs. Wiverson could have contrived out of such odds and ends. Perperek had an unpronounceable name for his chief dish, a kind of goulash. It was very good indeed. Wayland and Marot ate and drank sparingly—they were obviously men of that sort—but Ravenstreet followed the example of Perperek himself, who dealt en­thusiastically with his own creations and did justice to the claret.

  When he had first brought them here, Ravenstreet had seen himself putting these three fellows at their ease, doing his best, he hoped, not to seem patronising. Now, at the dinner table, he was wondering how to put himself at ease with them. There was no danger of his appearing patronising; it was years since he had felt less important in any company. Wayland and Marot were polite, Perperek went out of his way to suggest a gregarious old clown; it was nothing they obviously said or did that diminished him in his own sight; but there it was, he felt like a schoolboy again, dining with three masters. To keep some sort of talk going, he made some brief references to his own background and affairs, made the usual general remarks about trade and foreign affairs, to all of which Wayland
and Marot listened with polite but remote attention and Perperek heard with a kind of twinkling derision. Ravenstreet could not help feeling like a child running in and out of a room to display his toys to adults thinking about other things. He knew that if he had announced that he had just been made head of the greatest industrial combine in Britain, they would have regarded him in exactly the same way. Which meant that either all three were quietly mad, entangled for the rest of their lives in some idiotic dream, or they were in fact saner and wiser than he was, looking at life from some standpoint he had not reached and might never arrive at. And surely, he told himself with some impatience, he could decide between these views, make up his mind about his own guests.

  “Fortunately,” said Wayland with a smile, “you are not a conceited man, Ravenstreet. If you thought you knew everything, you would have come at once to the wrong conclusion about us.”

  Ravenstreet could only stare at him. Had he involuntarily revealed his thoughts, spoken something aloud? He decided he hadn’t. There had been silence for the last minute or two; Wayland must have read his mind. Magicians?

  “Better for him he is not like that,” said Marot thoughtfully. “But for us—perhaps no.”

  “I think not, Marot,” said Wayland. “What do you think, Perperek?”

  “I think not. Already I say some things. Not much until we decide—but some things. It was all right, I felt.”

  Wayland nodded agreement, then turned to Raven­street. “I’m sorry. This isn’t polite, I know. And you are being extremely kind—we appreciate it. But we don’t meet often, we three, and we must take some very important decisions. Everything is more com­plicated than you can understand. And it would take too long to explain.”

  “I’m glad to have you here, gentlemen.” Ravenstreet looked round, smiling. “Naturally I’m curious, especially after certain things that Perperek said earlier. But I shan’t embarrass you or waste your time with questions. You must feel free to go ahead and not bother about me.”