Here Be Dragons

by Stella Gibbons

  Then he began to feel pity for these young people, none the less because when he held a conversation with one of them that lasted for more than a few sentences, he met a front of such impregnable self-satisfaction that he positively quailed before it. He had been like that once; in the land of Nevermore—which, now that he came in these days of midsummer while he was watching the distant spire, to think about it—neither hurt him so much to remember nor seemed so desirable to return to as it had formerly.

  He was in a country of the mind and feelings like the scored-up fields between the trenches which the chaps in the Great War had called No-Man’s-Land; neither longing to return to where he had come from, nor acutely anxious to press on, and if another comparison once occurred to him, seeing Anna sitting upright with The Pilgrim’s Progress held in front of her and her spectacles on the extreme edge of her nose, he dismissed it with a kind of jeering shame.

  He, Christian! What infinitely petty moods and fusses and vague feelings he had had to endure, in comparison with the Giant Despair and the fearful Apollyon. Yet, thinking afterwards while he was out on one of those strolls through the unalarming back streets to which Anna had recently persuaded him, he had to confess that, if he were honest with himself, he had looked the Giant in the eyes … ah, and had fallen down flat before him too; on his face; in the dust; in the bitter choking dust.

  Why?

  He could no more answer that question now than he could have answered it on the morning two years ago when the Spirit had been withdrawn from him, but could say now that he was no longer miserable. He pottered about, and he enjoyed his potterings, and he liked being nobody in particular and having nothing much to do; and one afternoon in the middle of August, while he was making his way cautiously down that precipitous flight of steps which leads from Christchurch to New End, having glanced without a pang or a thought as he passed it at the church itself and thinking at that moment, as it happened, of what Anna might possibly have provided for their tea, he was filled again with the Spirit; there without glory, or solemnity, or vision or sense of dedication or even of bestowal; just a sweetness, and an intensification of everything round about him. That was—and afterwards when he was alone again and thinking about it he smiled at the inadequacy of the word—all.

  The sweetness was such that it could be imagined a human creature would sacrifice, for the having of it again, and more especially if that intensification of the ordinary scene were to increase and go on, everything here that was loved and possessed; yet, even while he was thinking this, he knew that he would sacrifice nothing.

  There was no need to. He had done, or been tried, enough; and now his immediate business was to get himself safely down these steps and home to tea, because Anna would have it ready and perhaps be wondering where he had got to, and he wanted a cup. And, in some way that appeared to be unconnected with time, the surrounding landscape and what was within himself became ordinary once more.

  He went on cautiously climbing down, an ageing man with a red face in nondescript shabby clothes, mild and commonplace as one of the myriad harmless insects darting and hovering in the sunlight: an untroubled speck; safe, and tempered, and beloved.

  When, on an afternoon some days later, he began to make his way downhill through the streets due east towards where his countryman’s sense of direction told him that the church with the tower of red brick must stand, he was only doing so because this was what for some time now he had wanted to do, not because he felt it was his duty, although he supposed that it was that as well, now that he was healed.

  He pottered along briskly, and the hasty absent gesture with which he acknowledged a smile and bow of gracious condescension from a passing very small lady muffled against the July sunlight in a fur tippet, set up yet another black mark in Miss Lister’s private score book against the Church, although you would naturally expect anyone wicked enough to become an atheist to be rude to ladies as well.

  However, good came out of evil in that she spent a dramatic session marching in and out of the dozen or so small shops in Archers Lane and relating an account of her amiability and his stuck-up-ness to Mrs. Bodger, Mr. Watfill, that nice girl in Parke’s and the others.

  Martin, some half-an-hour later, found himself staring up at the tower for which he had been searching. The streets were full of children loitering and calling on their way home from school; the day had clouded over, but pleasantly, and pigeons and starlings were floating about the windows and orifices with which the tower was pierced. The grey light was clear and warm. Some workmen were sitting over their tea in the small churchyard littered with buckets and mounds of cement and beams, and he went up to them.

  “Saint Saviour’s, sorr.” The voice was Irish and so was the colour and shadowing of the eyes. “Yes, we’ve been refacing the tower. It was bombed, and the church has been closed for nearly twelve years.”

  “Opened last Sunday fortnight,” said another man, “and it was too much for the verger, it was. The excitement took ’im off. He’s dead.” There were lurking grins on the gay hard young faces, which did not belong to what Martin would have called decent working men. He was turning away, thinking that he would just go in for a moment and find out if his prayers felt any different when uttered there, as well, when the Irishman said that the Vicar was just inside taking a look around, if the gentleman wanted to see the church.

  Inside it was dim, lofty, dusty and silent. There were dark old pictures, and a strong smell of plaster, and the eagle on the lectern glittered like fire. The altar was covered with a dust-sheet, but the Lady Chapel was a bower of roses. A middle-aged man was coming slowly down the nave with his hands linked behind the back of his cassock. When he saw Martin, he smiled.

  The smile did not become less when he heard Martin, after some remarks about the re-facing of the tower which were unconsciously touched with a recent professionalism, saying eagerly that he understood they had recently suffered a loss in the death of their verger and would the Vicar be prepared to consider himself as a candidate for the vacant post; in fact, it showed what on a lay countenance would have been greedy surprise, but when, realizing with strong satisfaction, while wondering what on earth Anna was going to say, that he was going to be accepted, Martin hurried on with—“Perhaps I ought to tell you before you come to any decision that I was in Orders myself until two years ago,” it vanished, and the Vicar said “Oh.”

  “I suppose that makes a difference?”

  Martin told himself that he did not mind if he were turned down. But how he was longing to get to work in a church again! The mere plastery, chill smell in here had made him anxious to begin.

  “Well … you see, the trouble is that it might be … but shall we have a chat about it? Let’s go into the vestry; it gets the sun about this time in the afternoon.”

  When Martin came out settling his hat on to his head three-quarters of an hour later, he could congratulate himself on nothing more than having brought back to the Reverend Denis Mollison’s face the smile which anticipation of hearing a sordid story had banished. The lamb within the fold and the one outside had parted cordially enough, but Martin had had it firmly explained to him that the presence among the tiny congregation at Saint Saviour’s of a verger who had formerly been a priest could be embarrassing.

  They were simple people; practical, everyday Christians to whom theological speculation and the niceties of spiritual crisis were likely—Mr. Mollison did not think that any of them had so far come up against either—to prove very suspect indeed. It often required, unfortunately, a certain worldly experience to make people tolerant of misfortune, unless its crushingly undeserved quality was clear and plain. Mr. Mollison hesitated. Then he said with increased gentleness that he feared most of them would take the point of view that Mr. Sely’s own Bishop had ‘thought it right’ to advise him to leave the Church. That would prejudice the older ones among them against their new verger; while the very few youngsters who worshipped there might—he smiled—welcom
e ‘a—a relish with their tea.’

  Martin smiled too, although something more than dislike of being described as a tea-time relish prevented him from quite seeing the joke. He got up, dusting the fine film of plaster from his clothes. Mr. Mollison, escorting him to the little door opening on to the yard where a new crucifix of yellow wood cast its shadow on the dust, promised to write to him giving his final decision when he had thought things over.

  As Martin climbed back through the crowded streets of old white houses marred by the glaring smiles of advertisements to Hampstead, he was telling himself that he did not care what that decision might be, because now he was healed and filled again, although nothing remained of his earlier experience except the memory of it. But he did know how far he had come from the misery of two years ago.

  It looked as though God intended to manifest Himself to Martin Sely by the sense of His Absence. Well, that had been experienced by other people (Martin had done a little casual dipping into the Theology section at the Public Library which had not helped much), and if that was God’s Will it must be accepted. And it looked—the thought was cautious and tentative but it was thankful—as though Martin Sely were going to be able to accept God’s Will with more than patience; there was the possibility of joy.

  He paused at the top of a hilly street, panting slightly, to rest for a moment. He wanted to be the Verger at Saint Saviour’s, but if God did not want him to be, then he would be happy in giving up his own wanting for God’s.

  The man, full of grace, went slowly on up the hill.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “SO ALL DAY LONG THE NOISE OF BATTLE ROLL’D”

  “BUT I’M LIKING it, truly, Nell. It’s lovely here; look at those poppets of ducks. What did you say this little park is called?”

  “Waterlow Park. It was given to Highgate by Sir William Waterlow (that’s him, over there, in the frock-coat and the beard). He was Mayor of London at one time.”

  Elizabeth glanced at the statue which Nell had indicated, and remarked that it was being an afternoon for statues, wasn’t it?

  The occasion was a party of pleasure, arranged to take place some days after the events just recorded, by John, who had shown throughout his discussion of the plans with Nell a casualness that had aroused her suspicions.

  The participators in the excursion to Kenwood House, with the object of viewing the paintings of Angelica Kauffmann there displayed, were to be Nell, Elizabeth, Benedict and the impresario himself: and he had concluded his instructions by telling Nell that she must first take Elizabeth to see a statue lying forgotten in a ruined conservatory at Waterlow Park, which he called the White Nymph.

  “But Highgate’s miles out of our way, if Liz is coming to lunch with us first.”

  “Don’t be so lazy, Nello. I want you to see the White Nymph. They have pulled down my old conservatory and are building something in mud-coloured bricks on the site which may be either kraals for the Jamaicans or a comfort station; it is too early to tell; but I love the White Nymph and I want you to see her before they take her away. You can walk over there after lunch and take the little 210 bus to Kenwood House.”

  So Elizabeth and Nell, having descended a dry secluded path shaded by trees and embowered in shrubs, and peered wonderingly in through a broken window at the fair spray-white sea-maiden lying on a marble plinth amidst ferns sprouting from the cracked floor, with the airy frame of the glassless conservatory for her roof, were now on their way to catch the single-decker which runs along Hampstead Lane to Kenwood House.

  Elizabeth’s doubts as to whether the work which she had just seen was really Art were pleasantly mingled with looking forward to meeting a clever poet, whom she already pitied because he was suffering in the power of an appalling girl.

  The bus bounded along the wide, leafy ‘select’ road, whence blue glimpses of distant Hertfordshire patched with the pink of building estates could be seen between the mansions of rich Jewish families, and then it bounced to a standstill outside the lodge of Kenwood House. A few passengers alighted, and John, wearing clothes less noticeable than was customary with him, advanced leisurely to meet the girls out of the shade of Kenwood’s great trees.

  “Hasn’t Benedict come?” Nell demanded, when the greetings were over. Her suspicions were increasing.

  “He’s wandering about inside,” was the soothing reply, “let’s go in, shall we? Well,” to Elizabeth, “did you like my White Nymph?”

  “I thought she was charming, but of course you can’t call the poor poppet a work of art, can you? and as for that peculiar seagull hovering over her on a sort of marble stick …”

  “No more peculiar, surely, than the birds executed (what an appropriate word) by Picasso?”

  “Picasso is tremendous.” Elizabeth’s tone was light but final, and before John quite realized what was happening the conversation was running smoothly along quite other lines.

  He was gratified to have his estimate of ‘the managing puss’ confirmed, but it settled him in his dislike of her; it seemed, if the plan were to succeed, that Benedict would be in a position to estimate the respective advantages of frying-pan and fire. But that had ceased to trouble John.

  As they passed through the shrubberies which mask the great front and forecourt of the house, he was enlarging on his good fortune at collecting all his party together when some of them (a dig at Nell, who was still being unco-operative) worked at such uncivilized hours, and for once his elaborate air concealed something more than detached interest in the behaviour of those who were with him; he was excited. He kept his expression as serene as he could, but a distinct impression that the cat had got at the cream nevertheless seeped through. Nell had glanced at him more than once as she wondered why, and the next moment she knew.

  He went ahead of them through the door into the long, low and spacious hall which begins the mansion. There, standing in silence under the ceiling gaily circled with painted blossoms and vines, was Benedict—and with him Gardis.

  She was very much with him; she was standing so close to him that her ragged sweater and closely-fitting jeans of tartan cloth almost touched his side, and, while agitation hovered above the pair almost visibly, Benedict’s passion was wretchedness as plainly as Gardis’s was anger. Both were so lost in what was happening to them that when John addressed them they did turn round, but only to look at him for a moment without answering.

  Benedict’s face was a greenish-white colour. Elizabeth, looking into it with the calm courtesy of a girl awaiting the presentation of a young man, thought: Gosh. Poor him. Hounds are pretty nearly up with the fox.

  “Hullo. Here we are” (Nell, furious at this totally unexpected addition to the party, thought that John was sounding fatuous on purpose), “and Nell’s brought Elizabeth … you don’t know each other, do you?” to Benedict, who turned slowly and looked at her, “Gardis Randolph …” he continued, “and that completes us.” He continued to keep exultation out of his voice by remembering that only the first stage of the plan had been brought off.

  When the usual murmurs had been uttered, and at John’s suggestion and under his leadership they were all silently mounting the stairs to the upper rooms where Angelica Kauffman’s paintings were displayed, Nell saw Gardis suddenly put hands up to her head, then give it a backward shake.

  Down fell the hair. It was exactly the cry ‘Seconds out of the ring!’ translated into a gesture, and Nell noticed that John saw it too, for he just flickered a glance at Gardis while he was brightly drawing the company’s attention to a self-portrait of Angelica hanging at the top of the stairs.

  Elizabeth was also regarding the loosened locks, with no more than well-bred interest, but Nell hoped that her own wish for a warm relationship to grow up between Liz and Ben, which she now felt free to indulge because their meeting had not been brought about by herself, might not be spoiled by any liking of Elizabeth’s for Gardis. Tart-ery, shared at secondhand, might be the fascination there, and, if she liked Gardis, Liz
would not poach on a friend’s preserves.

  Or would she not?

  Nell glanced at her, but the fair round face was giving nothing away.

  While she made her first conscientious inspection of a canvas whose maiden in classic draperies with hair of a distinctive golden-brown displayed most of the qualities pertaining to the maidens and maidenly-looking youths in the other paintings, she was beginning to think that something serious must be afoot; otherwise John would not have laid out a shilling upon the catalogue which he was showing to Elizabeth. In a moment she saw him, out of the corner of her eye, distract Benedict from a pitiful attempt to look with interest at the paintings by asking his opinion about something, while Elizabeth offered her’s from the other side. Then they all, even Benedict, laughed, and moved on together.

  So that was it. Match-making, now.

  Oh, well. At least he was not after Elizabeth for himself. And—except that he did so love plotting and running other people’s affairs—it showed a kind thought for his friend.

  The shining narrow boards of the floor creaked behind her, and she turned to see Gardis crossing the room. The clouded light poured down on the darkness of her face and hair and clothes; and probably it had never, since the house was built in the eighteenth century, shone through those windows on so fierce a version of the young Incroyable who always follows, with desperate steps, on the wreckage left by any revolution.

  “How are we doing?” Gardis said.

  Nell had an odd fleeting impression that she was being asked for help. She did not feel like giving any.

  “The pictures? I think they’re rather pretty.”