Within, grass was growing over the drive and the park had sunk back towards the squalor of unmodified nature. Uprooted by past storms, dead trees lay rotting where they had fallen. On the boles of the living, great funguses grew like pale buns. The ornamental plantations had turned into little jungles, impenetrable with brambles. Perched on its knoll above the drive, the Grecian gazebo was in ruins. They rounded a curve and there was the house, Jacobean at on6 end, with strange accretions of nineteenth-century Gothic at the other. The yew hedges had grown up into high walls of shaggy greenery. The position of what had once been formal flower beds was marked by rich green circles of docks, oblongs and crescents of sow thistles and nettles. From the tufted grass of a long untended lawn emerged the tops of rusty croquet hoops.
Dr. Obispo stopped the car at the foot of the front steps and got out. As he did so, a little girl, perhaps eight or nine years old, darted out of a tunnel in the yew hedge. At the sight of the car and its occupants, the child halted, made a movement of retreat, then, reassured by a second glance, came forward.
“Look what I got,” she said in sub-standard Southern English, and held out, snout downwards, a gas mask half filled with primroses and dog’s mercury.
Gleefully, Dr. Obispo laughed. “The copsel” he cried. “You picked them in the copsel” He patted the child’s tow-coloured head. “What’s your name?”
“Millie,” the little girl answered; and then added, with a note of pride in her voice: “I ‘aven’t been somewhere for five days now.”
“Five days?”
Millie nodded triumphantly. “Granny says she’ll ‘ave to take me to the doctor.” She nodded again and smiled up at him with the expression of one who has just announced his forthcoming trip to Bali.
“Well, I think your Granny’s entirely right,” said Dr. Obispo. “Does your Granny live here?”
The child nodded affirmatively. “She’s in the kitchen,” she answered; and added irrelevantly. “She’s deaf.”
“And what about Lady Jane Hauberk?” Dr. Obispo went on. “Does she live here? And the other one—Lady Anne, isn’t that it?”
Again the child nodded. Then an expression of sly mischief appeared on her face, “Do you know what Lady Anne does?” she asked.
“What does she do?”
Millie beckoned to him to bend down so that she could put her mouth to his ear. “She makes noises in ’er stomick,” she whispered.
“You don’t say so!”
“Like birds singing,” the child added poetically. “She does it after lunch.”
Dr. Obispo patted the tow-coloured head again and said, “We’d like to see Lady Anne and Lady Jane.”
“See them?” the little girl repeated in a tone almost of alarm.
“Do you think you could go and ask your Granny to show us in?”
Millie shook her head. “She wouldn’t do it. Granny won’t let nobody come in. Some people came about these things.” She held up the gas mask. “Lady Jane, she got so angry I was frightened. But then she broke one of the lamps with her stick—you know, by mistake: bang! and the glass was all in bits, all over the floor. That made me laugh.”
“Good for you,” said Dr. Obispo. “Why shouldn’t we make you laugh again?”
The child looked at him suspiciously. “What do you mean?” Dr. Obispo assumed a conspiratorial expression and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I mean, you might let us in by one of the side doors, and we’d all walk on tiptoes, like this”—he gave a demonstration across the gravel. “And then we’d pop into the room where they’re sitting and give them a surprise. And then maybe Lady Jane will smash another lamp, and we’ll all laugh and laugh and laugh. What do you say to that?”
“Granny’d be awfully cross,” the child said dubiously.
“We won’t tell her you did it.”
“She’d find out.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” said Dr. Obispo confidently. Then, changing his tone, “Do you like candies?” he added.
The child looked at him blankly.
“Lovely candies?” he repeated voluptuously; then suddenly remembered that, in this damned country, candies weren’t called candies. What the hell did they call them? He remembered. “Lovely sweets!” He darted back to the car and returned with the expensive-looking box of chocolates that had been bought in case Virginia should feel hungry by the way. He opened the lid, let the child take one sniff, then closed it again. “Let us in,” he said, “and you can have them all.”
Five minutes later they were squeezing their way through an ogival French window at the nineteenth-century end of the house. Within, there was a twilight that smelt of dust and dry-rot and moth balls. Gradually, as the eyes became accustomed to the gloom, a draped billiard table emerged into view, a mantelpiece with a gilt clock, a bookshelf, containing the Waverly novels in crimson leather, and the eighth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a large brown painting representing the baptism of the future Edward VII, the heads of five or six stags. Hanging on the wall near the dooj was a map of the Crimea; little flags on pins marked the position of Sebastopol and the Alma.
Still carrying the flower-filled gas mask in one hand and with the forefinger of the other pressed to her lips, Millie led the way on tiptoes along a corridor, across a darkened drawing room, through a lobby, down an other passage. Then she halted and, waiting for Dr. Obispo to come up with her, pointed.
“That’s the door,” she whispered. “They’re in there.”
Without a word, Dr. Obispo handed her the box of chocolates; the child snatched it and, like an animal with a stolen tit-bit, slipped past Virginia and Mr. Stoyte, and hurried away down the dark passage to enjoy her prize in safety. Dr. Obispo watched her go, then turned to his companions.
There was a whispered consultation, and in the end, it was agreed that Dr. Obispo should go on alone.
He walked forward, quietly opened the door, slipped through and closed it behind him.
Outside, in the corridor, the Baby and Uncle Jo waited for what seemed to them hours. Then, all at once, there was a crescendo of confused noise which culminated in the sudden emergence of Dr. Obispo. He slammed the door, pushed a key into the lock and turned it.
An instant later, from within, the door handle was violently rattled, a shrill old voice cried, “How dare you?” Then an ebony cane delivered a series of peremptory raps and the voice almost screamed, “Give me back those keys. Give them back at once.”
Dr. Obispo put the key of the door in his pocket and came down the corridor beaming with satisfaction.
“The two god-damndest looking old hags you ever saw,” he said. “One on each side of the fire, like Queen Victoria and Queen Victoria.”
A second voice joined the first; the rattling and the rapping were redoubled.
“Bang away!” Dr. Obispo shouted derisively; then, pushing Mr. Stoyte with one hand and with the other giving the Baby a familiar little slap on the buttocks, “Come on,” he said. “Come on.”
“Come on where?” Mr. Stoyte asked in a tone of resentful bewilderment. He’d never been able to figure out what this damn fool expedition across the Atlantic was for—except of course to get away from the castle. Oh, yes, they’d had to get away from the castle. No question about that; in fact the only question was whether they’d ever be able to go back to it, after what had happened—whether they’d ever be able to bathe in that pool again, for example. Christ! when he thought of it . . .
But, then, why go to England? At this season? Why not Florida or Hawaii? But no; Obispo had insisted it must be England. Because of his work, because there might be something important to be found out there. Well, he couldn’t say no to Obispo—not now, not yet. And besides he couldn’t do without the man. His nerves, his digestion—all shot to pieces. And he couldn’t sleep without dope; he couldn’t pass a cop on the street without his heart missing a beat or two. And you could say, “God is love, there is no death,” till you were blue in the face; but it didn’t make any dif
ference. He was old, he was sick; death was coming closer and closer, and unless Obispo did something quick, unless he found out something soon . . .
In the dim corridor, Mr. Stoyte suddenly halted. “Obispo,” he said anxiously, while the Hauberk ladies hammered with ebony on the door of their prison, “Obispo, are you absolutely certain there’s no such thing as hell? Can you prove it?”
Dr. Obispo laughed. “Can you prove that the back side of the moon isn’t inhabited by green elephants?” he asked.
“No, but seriously . . .” Mr. Stoyte insisted, in anguish.
“Seriously,” Dr. Obispo gaily answered. “I can’t prove anything about any assertion that can’t be verified.” Mr. Stoyte and he had had this sort of conversation before. There was something, to his mind, exquisitely comic about chopping logic with the old man’s unreasoning terror.
The Baby listened in silence. She knew about hell; she knew what happened if you committed mortal sins—sins like letting it happen again, after you’d promised Our Lady that it wouldn’t. But Our Lady was so kind and so wonderful. And after all it had really been all that beast Sig’s fault. Her own intentions had been absolutely pure; and then Sig had come along and just made her break her word. Our Lady would understand. The awful thing was that it had happened again, when he hadn’t forced her. But even then it hadn’t really been her fault—because after all she’d been through that terrible experience; she wasn’t well; she . . .
“But do you think hell’s possible?” Mr. Stoyte began again.
“Everything is possible,” said Dr. Obispo cheerfully. He cocked an ear to listen to what the old hags were yelling back there behind the door.
“Do you think there’s one chance in a thousand it may be true? Or one in a million?”
Grinning, Dr. Obispo shrugged his shoulders. “Ask Pascal,” he suggested.
“Who’s Pascal?” Mr. Stoyte inquired, clutching despairingly at any and every straw.
“He’s dead,” Dr. Obispo positively shouted in his glee. “Dead as a door nail. And now, for God’s sake.” He seized Uncle Jo by the arm and fairly dragged him along the passage.
The terrible word reverberated through Mr. Stoyte’s imagination. “But I want to be certain,” he protested.
“Certain about what you can’t know!”
“There must be a way.”
“There isn’t. No way except dying and then seeing what happens. Where the hell is that child?” he added in another tone, and called, “Millie!”
Her face smeared with chocolate, the little girl popped up from behind an umbrella stand in the lobby. “Did you see ‘em?” she asked with her mouth full.
Dr. Obispo nodded. “They thought I was the Air Raid Precautions.”
“That’s it!” the child cried excitedly. “That was the one that made her break the lamp.”
“Come here, Millie,” Dr. Obispo commanded. The child came. “Where’s the door to the cellar?”
An expression of fear passed over Millie’s face. “It’s locked,” she answered.
Dr. Obispo nodded. “I know it,” he said. “But Lady Jane gave me the keys.” He pulled out of his pocket a ring on which were suspended three large keys.
“There’s bogies down there,” the child whispered.
“We don’t worry about bogies.”
“Granny says they’re awful,” Millie went on. “She says they’re something chronic.” Her voice broke into a whimper. “She says if I don’t go somewhere more regular-like, the bogies will come after me. But I can’t ‘elp it.” The tears began to glow. “It isn’t my fault.”
“Of course it isn’t,” said Dr. Obispo impatiently. “Nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Even constipation. But now I want you to show us the door of the cellar.”
Still in tears, Millie shook her head. “I’m frightened.”
“But you won’t have to go down into the cellar. Just show us where the door is, that’s all.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Won’t you be a nice little girl,” Dr. Obispo wheedled, “and take us to the dopr?”
Stubborn with fear, Millie continued to shake her head.
Dr. Obispo’s hand shot out and snatched the box of chocolates out of the child’s grasp. “If you don’t tell me, you won’t have any candies,” he said, and added, irritably, “sweets, I mean.”
Millie let out a scream of anguish and tried to get back at the box; but he held it high up, beyond her reach. “Only when you show us the door of the cellar,” he said; and to show that he was in earnest, he opened the box, took a handful of chocolates and popped them one after another into his mouth. “Aren’t they good!” he said, as he munched. “Aren’t they just wonderful! Do you know, I’m glad you won’t show us the door, because then I can eat them all.” He took another bite, made a grimace of ecstasy. “Ooh, goody, goody!” He smacked his lips. “Poor little Millie! She isn’t going to get any more of them.” He helped himself again.
“Oh, don’t, don’t!” the child entreated each time she saw one of the brown nuggets of bliss disappearing between Dr. Obispo’s jaws. Then a moment came when greed was stronger than fear. “I’ll show you where it is,” she screamed, like a victim succumbing to torture and promising to confess.
The effect was magical. Dr. Obispo replaced in the box the three chocolates he was still holding and closed the lid. “Come on,” he said, and held out his hand for the child to take.
“Give me the box,” she demanded.
Dr. Obispo, who understood the principles of diplomacy, shook his head. “Not till you’ve taken us to the door,” he said.
Millie hesitated for a moment; then, resigned to the hard necessity of keeping to her side of the bargain, took his hand.
Followed by Uncle Jo and the Baby, they made their way out of the lobby, back through the drawing-room, along the passage, past the map of the Crimea and across the billiard room, along another passage and into a large library. The red plush curtains were drawn; but a little light filtered between them. All round the room the brown and blue and crimson strata of classic literature ran up to within three feet of the high ceiling, and at regular intervals along the mahogany cornice stood busts of the illustrious dead. Millie pointed to Dante. “That’s Lady Jane,” she whispered confidentially.
“For Christ’s sake.” Mr. Stoyte broke out startlingly. “What’s the big idea? What the hell do you figure we’re doing?”
Dr. Obispo ignored him. “Where’s the door?” he asked.
The child pointed.
“What do you mean?” he started angrily to shout. Then he saw that what he had taken for just another section of the book-filled shelves was in fact a mere false front of wood and leather simulating thirty-three volumes of the Collected Sermons of Archbishop Stilling-fleet and (he recognized the Fifth Earl’s touch) the Complete Works, in seventy-seven volumes, of Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade. A key-hole revealed itself to a closer scrutiny.
“Give me my sweets,” the child demanded.
But Dr. Obispo was taking no risks, “Not till we see if the key fits.”
He tried and, at the second attempt, succeeded. “There you are.” He handed Millie her chocolates and at the same time opened the door. The child uttered a scream of terror and rushed away.
“What’s the big idea?” Mr. Stoyte repeated uneasily.
“The big idea,” said Dr. Obispo, as he looked down the flight of steps that descended, after a few feet, into an impenetrable darkness, “the big idea is that you may not have to find out whether there’s such a place as hell. Not yet awhile, that’s to say; not for a very long time maybe. Ah, thank God,” he added, “we shall have some light.”
Two old-fashioned bull’s-eye lanterns were standing on a shelf just inside the door. Dr. Obispo picked one of them up, shook it, held it to his nose. There was oil in it. He lit them both, handed one to Mr. Stoyte and, taking the other himself, led the way cautiously down the stairs.
A long descent; then a
circular chamber cut out of the yellow sandstone. There were four doorways. They chose one of them and passed, along a narrow corridor, into a second chamber with two more doorways. A blind alley first; then another flight of steps leading to a cave full of ancient refuse. There was no second issue; laboriously, with two wrong turnings on the way, they retraced their steps to the circular chamber from which they had started, and made trial of its second doorway. A flight of descending steps; a succession of small rooms. One of these had been plastered and upon its walls early eighteenth-century hands had scratched obscene graffiti. They hurried on, down another short flight of steps into a large square room with an air shaft leading at an angle through the rock to a tiny, far-away ellipse of white light. That was all. They turned back again. Mr. Stoyte began to swear; but the doctor insisted on going on. They tried the third doorway. A passage, a suite of three rooms. Two outlets from the last, one mounting, but walled up with masonry after a little way; the other descending to a corridor on a lower level. Thirty or forty feet brought them to an opening on the left. Dr. Obispo turned his lantern into it, and the light revealed a vaulted recess, at the end of which, on a stuccoed pedestal, stood a replica in marble of the Medici Venus.
“Well, I’m damned!” said Mr. Stoyte, and then, on second thought, was seized with a kind of panic. “How the hell did that get here, Obispo?” he said, running to catch up with the doctor.
Dr. Obispo did not answer, but hurried impatiently forward.
“It’s crazy,” Mr. Stoyte went on apprehensively, as he trotted behind the doctor. “It’s downright crazy. I tell you, I don’t like it.”
Dr. Obispo broke his silence. “We might see if we can get her for the Beverly Pantheon,” he said with a wolfish joviality. “Hullo, what’s this?” he added.
They emerged from the tunnel into a fair-sized room. At the centre of the room was a circular drum of masonry, with two iron uprights rising from either side of it, and a cross-piece, from which hung a pulley.
“The well!” said Dr. Obispo, remembering a passage in the Fifth Earl’s note-book.
He almost ran towards the tunnel on the further side of the room. Ten feet from the entrance, his progress was barred by a heavy, nail-studded oak door. Dr. Obispo took out his bunch of keys, chose at random and opened the door at the first trial. They were on the threshold of a small oblong chamber. His bull’s-eye revealed a second door on the opposite wall. He started at once towards it.
After Many a Summer Dies the Swan Page 27