That Hideous Strength

by Clive Staples Lewis

  “I think she’s right, sir,” said Denniston.

  “I say!” said Jane suddenly. “Look! Look! What’s that? Stop.”

  “I can’t see a white gate,” said Denniston.

  “Oh, it’s not that,” said Jane. “Look over there.”

  “I can’t see anything,” said Dimble.

  “Do you mean that light?” said Denniston.

  “Yes, of course, that’s the fire.”

  “What fire?”

  “It’s the light,” she said, “the fire in the hollow in the little wood. I’d forgotten all about it. Yes, I know: I never told Grace, or the Director. I’d forgotten that part of the dream till this moment. That was how it ended. It was the most important part really. That was where I found him-Merlin, you know. Sitting by a fire in a little wood. After I came out of the place underground. Oh, come quickly!”

  “What do you think, Arthur?” said Dimble.

  “I think we must go wherever Jane leads,” answered Denniston.

  “Oh, do hurry,” said Jane. “There’s a gate here. Quick! It’s only one field away.”

  All three of them crossed the road and opened the gate and went into the field. Dimble said nothing. He was inwardly reeling under the shock and shame of the immense and sickening fear which had surged up inside him. He had, perhaps, a clearer idea than the others of what sort of things might happen when they reached the place.

  Jane, as guide, went first, and Denniston beside her, giving her his arm and showing an occasional gleam of his torch on the rough ground. Dimble brought up the rear. No one was inclined to speak.

  The change from the road to the field was as if one had passed from a waking into a phantasmal world. Everything became darker, wetter, more incalculable. Each small descent felt as if you might be coming to the edge of a precipice. They were following a track beside a hedge; wet and prickly tentacles seemed to snatch at them as they went. Whenever Denniston used his torch, the things that appeared within the circle of its light-tufts of grass, ruts filled with water, draggled yellow leaves clinging to the wet blackness of many-angled twigs, and once the two greenish-yellow fires in the eyes of some small animal-had the air of being more commonplace than they ought to have been; as if, for that moment’s exposure they had assumed a disguise which they would shuffle off again the moment they were left alone. They looked curiously small, too; when the light vanished, the cold, noisy darkness seemed a huge thing.

  The fear which Dimble had felt from the first began to trickle into the minds of the others as they proceeded-like water coming into a ship from a slow leak. They realised that they had not really believed in Merlin till now. They had thought they were believing the Director in the kitchen; but they had been mistaken. The shock was still to take. Out here, with only the changing red light ahead and the black all round, one really began to accept as fact this tryst with something dead and yet not dead, something dug up, exhumed, from that dark pit of history which lies between the ancient Romans and the beginning of the English. “The Dark Ages” thought Dimble; how lightly one had read and written those words. But now they were going to step right into that Darkness. It was an age, not a man, that awaited them in the horrible little dingle.

  And suddenly all that Britain which had been so long familiar to him as a scholar rose up like a solid thing. He could see it all. Little dwindling cities where the light of Rome still rested-little Christian sites, Camalodunum, Kaerleon, Glastonbury-a church, a villa or two, a huddle of houses, an earthwork. And then, beginning scarcely a stone’s-throw beyond the gates, the wet tangled, endless woods, silted with the accumulated decay of autumns that had been dropping leaves since before Britain was an island; wolves slinking, beavers building, wide shallow marshes, dim horns and drummings, eyes in the thickets, eyes of men not only Pre-Roman but Pre-British, ancient creatures, unhappy and dispossessed, who became the elves and ogres and wood-wooses of the later tradition. But worse than the forests, the clearings. Little strongholds with unheard-of kings. Little colleges and covines of Druids. Houses whose mortar had been ritually mixed with babies’ blood. They had tried to do that to Merlin. And now all that age, horribly dislocated, wrenched out of its place in the time series and forced to come back and go through all its motions yet again with doubled monstrosity, was flowing towards them and would, in a few minutes, receive them into itself.

  Then came a check. They had walked right into a hedge. They wasted a minute, with the aid of the torch disentangling Jane’s hair. They had come to the end of a field. The light of the fire, which kept on growing stronger and weaker in fitful alternations, was hardly visible from here. There was nothing for it but to set to work and find a gap or a gate. They went a long way out of their course before they found one. It was a gate that would not open: and as the came down on the far side, after climbing it, they went ankle-deep into water. For a few minutes, plodding slightly uphill, they were out of sight of the fire and when it reappeared it was well away on their left and much farther off than any one had supposed.

  Hitherto Jane had scarcely attempted to think of what might lie before them. As they went on, the real meaning of that scene in the kitchen began to dawn on her. He had sent the men to bid good-bye to their wives. He had blessed them all. It was likely, then, that this-this stumbling walk on a wet night across a ploughed field-meant death. Death-the thing one had always heard of (like love), the thing the poets had written about. So this was how it was going to be. But that was not the main point. Jane was trying to see death in the new light of all she had heard since she left Edgestow. She had long ceased to feel any resentment at the Director’s tendency, as it were, to dispose of her-to give her, at one time or in one sense, to Mark, and in another to Maleldil; never, in any sense, to keep her for himself. She accepted that. And of Mark she did not think much, because to think of him increasingly aroused feelings of pity and guilt. But Maleldil. Up till now she had not thought of Maleldil either. She did not doubt that the eldils existed; nor did she doubt the existence of this stronger and more obscure being whom they obeyed . . . whom the Director obeyed, and through him the whole household, even MacPhee. If it had ever occurred to her to question whether all these things might be the reality behind what she had been taught at school as “religion,” she had put the thought aside. The distance between these alarming and operative realities and the memory, say, of fat Mrs. Dimble saying her prayers, was too wide. The things belonged, for her, to different worlds. On the one hand, terror of dreams, rapture of obedience, the tingling light and sound from under the Director’s door, and the great struggle against an imminent danger; on the other, the smell of pews, horrible lithographs of the Saviour (apparently seven feet high, with the face of a consumptive girl), the embarrassment of confirmation classes, the nervous affability of clergymen. But this time, if it was really to be death, the thought would not be put aside. Because, really, it now appeared that almost anything might be true. The world had already turned out to be so very unlike what she had expected. The old ring-fence had been smashed completely. One might be in for anything. Maleldil might be, quite simply and crudely, God. There might be a life after death: a Heaven: a Hell. The thought glowed in her mind for a second like a spark that has fallen on shavings, and then a second later, like those shavings, her whole mind was in a blaze-or with just enough left outside the blaze to utter some kind of protest. “But . . . this is unbearable. I ought to have been told.” It did not, at that moment, occur to her even to doubt that if such things existed they would be totally and unchangeably adverse to her.

  “Look out, Jane,” said Denniston. “That’s a tree.”

  “I-I think it’s a cow,” said Jane.

  “No. It’s a tree. Look. There’s another.”

  “Hush,” said Dimble. “This is Jane’s little wood. We are very close now.”

  The ground rose in front of them for about twenty yards and there made an edge against the firelight. They could see the wood quite clearly now, and also eac
h other’s faces, white and blinking.

  “I will go first,” said Dimble.

  “I envy you your nerve,” said Jane.

  “Hush,” said Dimble again.

  They walked slowly and quietly up to the edge and stopped. Below them a big fire of wood was burning at the bottom of a little dingle. There were bushes all about, whose changing shadows, as the flames rose and fell, made it difficult to see clearly. Beyond the fire there seemed to be some rude kind of tent made out of sacking, and Denniston thought he saw an upturned cart. In the foreground, between them and the fire, there was certainly a kettle.

  “Is there anyone here?” whispered Dimble to Denniston.

  “I don’t know. Wait a few seconds.”

  “Look!” said Jane suddenly. “There! When the flame blew aside.”

  “What?” said Dimble.

  “Didn’t you see him?”

  “I saw nothing.”

  “I thought I saw a man,” said Denniston.

  “I saw an ordinary tramp,” said Dimble. “I mean a man in modern clothes.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We must go down,” said Dimble.

  “Can one get down?” said Denniston.

  “Not this side,” said Dimble. “It looks as if a sort of path came into it over there to the right. We must go along the edge till we find the way down.”

  They had all been talking in low voices and the crackling of the fire was now the loudest sound, for the rain seemed to be stopping. Cautiously, like troops who fear the eye of the enemy, they began to skirt the lip of the hollow, stealing from tree to tree.

  “Stop!” whispered Jane suddenly.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s something moving.”

  “Where?”

  “In there. Quite close.”

  “I heard nothing.”

  “There’s nothing now.”

  “Let’s go on.”

  “Do you still think there’s something, Jane?”

  “It’s quiet now. There was something.”

  They made a few paces more.

  “St!” said Denniston. “Jane’s right. There is something.”

  “Shall I speak?” said Dimble.

  “Wait a moment,” said Denniston. “It’s just there. Look!-damn it, it’s only an old donkey!”

  “That’s what I said,” said Dimble. “The man’s a gypsy; a tinker or something. This is his donkey. Still, we must go down.”

  They proceeded. In a few moments they found themselves descending a rutted grassy path which wound about till the whole hollow opened before them; and now the fire was no longer between them and the tent. “There he is,” said Jane.

  “Can you see him?” said Dimble. “I haven’t got your eyes.

  “I can see him all right,” said Denniston. “It is a tramp. Can’t you see him Dimble? An old man with a ragged beard in what looks like the remains of a British warm and a pair of black trousers. Don’t you see his left foot, stuck out, and the toe a bit up in the air?”

  “That?” said Dimble. “I thought that was a log. But you’ve better eyes than I have. Did you really see a man, Arthur?”

  “Well, I thought I did, sir. But I’m not certain now. I think my eyes are getting tired. He’s sitting very still. If it is a man, he’s asleep.”

  “Or dead,” said Jane with a sudden shudder.

  “Well,” said Dimble, “we must go down.” And in less than a minute all three walked down into the dingle and past the fire. And there was the tent, and a few miserable attempts at bedding inside it, and a tin plate, and some matches on the ground, and the dottle of a pipe, but they could see no man.

  II

  “What I can’t understand, Wither,” said Fairy Hardcastle, “is why you don’t let me try my hand on the young pup. All these ideas of yours are so half hearted-keeping him on his toes about the murder, arresting him, leaving him all night in the cells to think it over. Why do you keep messing about with things that may work or may not?-when twenty minutes of my treatment would turn his mind inside out. I know the type.”

  Miss Hardcastle was talking, at about ten o’clock that same wet night, to the Deputy Director in his study. There was a third person present-Professor Frost.

  “I assure you, Miss Hardcastle,” said Wither, fixing his eyes not on her but on Frost’s forehead, “you need not doubt that your views on this, or any other matter, will always receive the fullest consideration. But if I may say so, this is one of those cases where-ah-any grave degree of coercive examination might defeat its own end.”

  “Why?” said the Fairy sulkily.

  “You must excuse me,” said Wither, “for reminding you-not, of course, that I assume you are neglecting the point, but simply on methodological grounds-it is so important to make everything clear-that we need the woman-I mean, that it would be of the greatest value to welcome Mrs. Studdock among us-chiefly on account of the remarkable psychical faculty she is said to possess. In using the word Psychical, I am not, you understand, committing myself to any particular theory.”

  “You mean these dreams?”

  “It is very doubtful,” said Wither, “what effect it might have on her if she were brought here under compulsion and then found her husband-ah-in the markedly, though no doubt temporarily, abnormal condition which we should have to anticipate as a result of your scientific methods of examination. One would run the risk of a profound emotional disturbance on her part. The faculty itself might disappear; at least for a long time.”

  “We have not yet had Major Hardcastle’s report” said Professor Frost quietly.

  “No good,” said the Fairy. “He was shadowed into Northumberland. Only three possible people left the College after him-Lancaster, Lyly, and Dimble. I put them in that order of probability. Lancaster is a Christian, and a very influential man. He’s in the Lower House of Convocation. He had a lot to do with the Repton Conference. He’s mixed up with several big clerical families. And he’s written a lot of books. He has a real stake in their side. Lyly is rather the same type, but less of an organiser. As you will remember, he did a great deal of harm on that reactionary commission about Education last year. Both these are dangerous men. They are the sort of people who get things done-natural leaders of the other party. Dimble is quite a different type. Except that he’s a Christian, there isn’t really much against him. He’s purely academic. I shouldn’t think his name is much known, except to other scholars in his own subject. Not the kind that would make a public man. Impractical . . . he’d be too full of scruples to be much use to them. The others know a thing or two. Lancaster particularly. In fact, he’s a man we could find room for on our own side if he held the right views.”

  “You should tell Major Hardcastle that we have access to most of these facts already,” said Professor Frost.

  “Perhaps,” said Wither, “in view of the late hour-we don’t wish to overtax your energies, Miss Hardcastle-we might go on to the more strictly narrative parts of your report.”

  “Well,” said the Fairy, “I had to follow all three. With the resources I had at the moment. You’ll realise young Studdock was seen setting off for Edgestow only by good luck. It was a bomb-shell. Half my people were already busy on the hospital affair. I just had to lay my hands on anyone I could get. I posted a sentry and had six others out of sight of the College, in plain clothes of course. As soon as Lancaster came out I told off the three best to keep him in sight. I’ve had a wire from them half an hour ago from London where Lancaster went off by train. We may be on to something there. Lyly gave the devil of a lot of trouble. He appeared to be calling on about fifteen different people in Edgestow. We’ve got them all noted-I sent the next two of my lads to deal with him. Dimble came out last. I would have sent my last man off to follow him, but a call came through at that moment from Captain O’Hara, who wanted another car. So I decided to let Dimble go for to-night and sent my man up with the one he had. Dimble ca
n be got any time. He comes into college pretty regularly every day; and he’s really a nonentity.”

  “I do not quite understand,” said Frost, “why you had no one inside the College to see what staircase Studdock went to.”

  “Because of your damned Emergency Commissioner,” said the Fairy. “We’re not allowed into colleges now, if you please. I said at the time that Feverstone was the wrong man. He’s trying to play on both sides. He’s for us against the town, but when it comes to us against the University he’s unreliable. Mark my words, Wither, you’ll have trouble with him yet.”

  Frost looked at the Deputy Director.

  “I am far from denying,” said Wither, “though without at all closing my mind to other possible explanations, that some of Lord Feverstone’s measures may have been injudicious. It would be inexpressibly painful to me to suppose that “

  “Need we keep Major Hardcastle?” said Frost.

  “Bless my soul!” said Wither. “How very right of you! I had almost forgotten, my dear lady, how tired you must be, and how very valuable your time is. We must try to save you for that particular kind of work in which you have shown yourself indispensable. You must not allow us to impose on your good nature. There is a lot of duller and more routine work which it is only reasonable that you should be spared.” He got up and held the door open for her.

  “You don’t think,” said she, “that I ought to let the boys have just a little go at Studdock? I mean, it seems so absurd to have all this trouble about getting an address.”

  And suddenly, as Wither stood with his hand on the door-handle, courtly, patient, and smiling, the whole expression faded out of his face. The pale lips, open wide enough to show his gums, the white curly head, the pouchy eyes, ceased to make up any single expression. Miss Hardcastle had the feeling that a mere mask of skin and flesh was staring at her. A moment later and she was gone.