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 masterbrains 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 the urge of life which God has given each one of us. The N.I.C.E. 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 landlords had sold their shop or their allotment to the N.I.C.E. ? 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.
“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 cobwebspinning 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 had gone out. It doesn’t make sense to expect these poor old bobbies to deal with an ENGINEERED RIOT. Last night the N.I.C.E. 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 backbiting the N.I.C.E. 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 N.I.C.E. 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 Ts and dotted the Is, and likes the look of his work, he does not wish it to be committed to the waste-paper 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 N.I.C.E.-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 N.I.C.E. depending on him, and nobody ever again having the least right to consider him a nonentity or cipher.
V
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 stone 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 t 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 curtsey 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 th
e 10.23 train. She came to a place where a big car was standing beside the pavement, an N.I.C.E. 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 farther 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 is, how remote the horizon.
Seven
THE PENDRAGON
I
Before she reached the door in the wall Jane met Mr. Denniston and he guided her into the Manor, not by that door but by the main gate which opened on the same road a few hundred yards farther on. She told him her story as they walked. In his company she had that curious sensation which most married people know of being with someone whom (for the final but wholly mysterious reason) one could never have married but who is nevertheless more of one’s own world than the person one has married in fact. As they entered the house they met Mrs. Maggs.
“What? Mrs. Studdock! Fancy!” said Mrs. Maggs.
“Yes, Ivy,” said Denniston, “and bringing great news. Things are beginning to move. We must see Grace at once. And is MacPhee about?”
“He’s out gardening hours ago,” said Mrs. Maggs.
“And Dr. Dimble’s gone into College. And Camilla’s in the kitchen. Shall I send her along?”
“Yes, do. And if you can prevent Mr. Bultitude from butting in--”
“That’s right. I’ll keep him out of mischief all right. You’d like a cup of tea, Mrs. Studdock, wouldn’t you? Coming by train and all that.”
A few minutes later Jane found herself once more in Grace Ironwood’s room. Miss Ironwood and the Dennistons all sat facing her so that she felt as if she were the candidate in a viva voce examination. And when Ivy Maggs brought in the tea she did not go away again, but sat down as if she also were one of the examiners.
“Now!” said Camilla, her eyes and nostrils widened with a sort of fresh mental hunger-it was too concentrated to be called excitement.
Jane glanced round the room.
“You need not mind Ivy, young lady,” said Miss Ironwood. “She is one of our company.”
There was a pause. “We have your letter of the 10th,” continued Miss Ironwood, “describing your dream of the man with the pointed beard sitting making notes in your bedroom. Perhaps I ought to tell you that he wasn’t really there: at least, the Director does not think it possible. But he was really studying you. He was getting information about you from some other source which, unfortunately, was not visible to you in the dream.”
“Will you tell us, if you don’t mind,” said Mr. Denniston, “what you were telling me as we came along.”
Jane told them about the dream of the corpse (if it was a corpse) in the dark place and how she had met the bearded man that morning in Market Street: and at once she was aware of having created intense interest.
“Fancy!” said Ivy Maggs. “So we were right about Bragdon Wood!” said Camilla. “It is really Belbury,” said her husband. “But in that case, where does Alcasan come in?”
“Excuse me,” said Miss Ironwood in her level voice, and the others became instantly silent. “We must not discuss the matter here. Mrs. Studdock has not yet joined us.”
“Am I to be told nothing?” asked Jane.
“Young lady,” said Miss Ironwood, “you must excuse me. It would not be wise at the moment indeed, we are not at liberty to do so. Will you allow me to ask you two more questions?”
“If you like,” said Jane, a little sulkily but only a very little. The presence of Camilla and Camilla’s husband somehow put her on her best behaviour.
Miss Ironwood had opened a drawer and for a few moments there was silence while she hunted in it. Then she handed a photograph across to Jane and asked,
“Do you recognise that person?”
“Yes,” said Jane in a low voice, “that is the man I dreamed of and the man I saw this morning in Edgestow.”
It was a good photograph and beneath it was the name Augustus Frost, with a few other details which Jane did not at the moment take in.
“In the second place,” continued Miss Ironwood holding out her hand for Jane to return the photograph, “are you prepared to see the Director . . . now?”
“Well-yes, if you like.”
“In that case, Arthur,” said Miss Ironwood to Denniston, “you had better go and tell him what we have just heard and find out if he is well enough to meet Mrs. Studdock.”
Denniston at once rose.
“In the meantime,” said Miss Ironwood, “I would like a word with Mrs. Studdock alone.” At this the others rose also and preceded Denniston out of the room. A very large cat which Jane had not noticed before jumped up and occupied the chair which Ivy Maggs had just vacated.
“I have very little doubt,” said Miss Ironwood, “that the Director will see you.”
Jane said nothing.
“And at that interview,” continued the other, “you will, I presume, be called upon to make a final decision.”
Jane gave a little cough which had no other purpose than to dispel a certain air of unwelcome solemnity which seemed to have settled on the room as soon as she and Miss Ironwood were left alone.
“There are also certain things,” said Miss Ironwood, “which you ought to know about the Director before you see him. He will appear to you, Mrs. Studdock, to be a very young man: younger than yourself. You will please understand that this
is not the case. He is nearer fifty than forty. He is a man of very great experience, who has travelled where no other human being ever travelled before and mixed in societies of which you and I have no conception.”
“That is very interesting,” said Jane, though displaying no interest.
“And thirdly,” said Miss Ironwood, “I must ask you to remember that he is often in great pain. Whatever decision you come to, I trust you will not say or do anything that may put an unnecessary strain upon him.”
“If Mr. Fisher-King is not well enough to see visitors . . . ,” said Jane vaguely.
“You must excuse me,” said Miss Ironwood, “for impressing these points upon you. I am a doctor, and I am the only doctor in our company. I am therefore responsible for protecting him as far as I can. If you will now come with me I will show you to the Blue Room.”
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