Seventeen
VENUS AT ST ANNE’S
I
DAYLIGHT came with no visible sunrise as Mark was climbing to the highest ground in his journey. The white road, still virgin of human traffic, showed the footprints of here and there a bird and here and there a rabbit, for the snowshower was just then coming to its end in a flurry of larger and slower flakes. A big lorry, looking black and warm in that landscape, overtook him. The man put out his head. “Going Birmingham way, mate? “he asked.
“Roughly,” said Mark. “At least I’m going to St. Anne’s.”
“Where’s that, then?” said the driver.
“Up on the hill behind Pennington,” said Mark.
“Ah,” said the man, “I could take you to the corner. Save you a bit.”
Mark got in beside him.
It was mid-morning when the man dropped him at a corner beside a little country hotel. The snow had all lain and there was more in the sky and the day was extremely silent. Mark went into the little hotel and found a kind elderly landlady. He had a hot bath and a capital breakfast, and then went to sleep in a chair before a roaring fire. He did not wake till about four. He reckoned he was only a few miles from St. Anne’s, and decided to have tea before he set out. He had tea. At the landlady’s suggestion he had a boiled egg with his tea. Two shelves in the little sitting-room were filled with bound volumes of The Strand. In one of these he found a serial children’s story which he had begun to read as a child, but abandoned because his tenth birthday came when he was half way through it and he was ashamed to read it after that. Now, he chased it from volume to volume till he had finished it. It was good. The grown-up stories to which, after his tenth birthday, he had turned instead of it, now seemed to him, except for Sherlock Holmes, to be rubbish. “I suppose I must get on soon,” he said to himself.
His slight reluctance to do so did not proceed from weariness-he felt, indeed, perfectly rested and better than he had felt for several weeks-but from a sort of shyness. He was going to see Jane: and Denniston: and (probably) the Dimbles as well. In fact, he was going to see Jane in what he now felt to he her proper world. But not his. For he now thought that with all his lifelong eagerness to reach an inner circle he had chosen the wrong circle. Jane was where she belonged. He was going to be admitted only out of kindness, because Jane had been fool enough to marry him. He did not resent it, but he felt shy. He saw himself as this new circle must see him-as one more little vulgarian, just like the Steeles and the Cossers, dull, inconspicuous, frightened, calculating, cold. He wondered vaguely why he was like that. How did other people-people like Denniston or Dimble-find it so easy to saunter through the world with all their muscles relaxed and a careless eye roving the horizon, bubbling over with fancy and humour, sensitive to beauty, not continually on their guard and not needing to be? What was the secret of that fine, easy laughter which he could not by any efforts imitate? Everything about them was different. They could not even fling themselves into chairs without suggesting by the very posture of their limbs a certain lordliness, a leonine indolence. There was elbow-room in their lives, as there had never been in his. They were Hearts: he was only a Spade. Still, he must be getting on . . . Of course, Jane was a Heart. He must give her her freedom. It would be quite unjust to think that his love for her had been basely sensual. Love, Plato says, is the son of Want.
Mark’s body knew better than his mind had known till recently, and even his sensual desires were the true index of something which he lacked and Jane had to give. When she had first crossed the dry and dusty world which his mind inhabited she had been like a spring shower; in opening himself to it he had not been mistaken. He had gone wrong only in assuming that marriage, by itself, gave him either power or title to appropriate that freshness. As he now saw, one might as well have thought one could buy a sunset by buying the field from which one had seen it.
He rang the bell and asked for his bill.
II
That same afternoon Mother Dimble and the three girls were upstairs in the big room which occupied nearly the whole top floor of one wing at the Manor, and which the Director called the Wardrobe. If you had glanced in you would have thought for one moment that they were not in a room at all but in some kind of forest-a tropical forest glowing with bright colours. A second glance and you might have thought they were in one of those delightful upper rooms at a big shop where carpets standing on end and rich stuffs hanging from the roof make a kind of woven forest of their own. In fact, they were standing amidst a collection of robes of state-dozens of robes which hung, each separate, from its little pillar of wood.
“That would do beautifully for you, Ivy,” said Mother Dimble, lifting with one hand the fold of a vividly green mantle over which thin twists and spirals of gold played in a festive pattern. “Come, Ivy,” she continued, “don’t you like it? You’re not still fretting about Tom, are you? Hasn’t the Director told you he’ll be here to-night or to-morrow midday at the latest?”
Ivy looked at her with troubled eyes.
“Tisn’t that,” she said. “Where’ll the Director himself be?”
“But you can’t want him to stay, Ivy,” said Camilla, “not in continual pain. And his work will be done-if all goes well at Edgestow.”
“He has longed to go back to Perelandra,” said Mother Dimble. “He’s-sort of home-sick. Always, always . . . I could see it in his eyes.”
“Will that Merling man come back here?” asked Ivy.
“I don’t think so,” said Jane. “I don’t think either he or the Director expected him to. And then my dream last night. It looked as if he was on fire . . . I don’t mean burning, you know, but light-all sorts of lights in the most curious colours shooting out of him and running up and down him. That was the last thing I saw: Merlin standing there like a kind of pillar and all those dreadful things happening all round him. And you could see in his face that he was a man used up to the last drop, if you know what I mean-that he’d fall to pieces the moment the powers let him go.”
“We’re not getting on with choosing our dresses for to-night.”
“What is it made of?” said Camilla, fingering and then smelling the green mantle. It was a question worth asking. It was not in the least transparent, yet all sorts of lights and shades dwelled in its rippling folds, and it flowed through Camilla’s hands like a waterfall. Ivy became interested.
“Gor!” she said, “however much a yard would it be?”
“There,” said Mother Dimble as she draped it skilfully round Ivy. Then she said “Oh!” in genuine amazement. All three stood back from Ivy, staring at her with delight. The commonplace had not exactly gone from her form and face: the robe had taken it up, as a great composer takes up a folk-tune and tosses it like a ball through his symphony and makes of it a marvel, yet leaves it still itself.
A “pert fairy” or “dapper elf,” a small though perfect sprightliness, stood before them: but still recognisably Ivy Maggs.
“Isn’t that like a man!” exclaimed Mrs. Dimble.
“There’s not a mirror in the room.”
“I don’t believe we were meant to see ourselves “, said Jane. “He said something about being mirrors enough to one another.”
“I would just like to see what I’m like at the back “, said Ivy.
“Now, Camilla,” said Mother Dimble, “there’s no puzzle about you. This is obviously your one.”
“Oh, do you think that one?” said Camilla.
“Yes, of course,” said Jane.
“You’ll look ever so nice in that,” said Ivy. It was a long slender thing which looked like steel in colour, though it was soft as foam to the touch. It wrapped itself close about her loins and flowed out in a glancing train at her heels. “Like a mermaid,” thought Jane: and then “Like a Valkyrie.”
“I’m afraid,” said Mother Dimble, “you must wear a coronet with that one.”
“Wouldn’t that be rather . . . ?”
But Mother Dimble was
already setting it on her head. That reverence (it need have nothing to do with money value) which nearly all women feel for jewellery hushed three of them for a moment. There were, perhaps, no such diamonds in England. The splendour was fabulous, preposterous.
“What are you all staring at?” asked Camilla, who had seen but one flash as the crown was raised in Mrs. Dimble’s hands and did not know that she stood “like starlight, in the spoils of provinces.”
“Are they real?” said Ivy.
“Where did they come from, Mother Dimble?” asked Jane.
“Treasure of Logres, dears, treasure of Logres,” said Mrs. Dimble. “Perhaps from beyond the Moon or before the flood. Now, Jane.”
Jane could see nothing specially appropriate in the robe which the others agreed in putting on her. Blue was, indeed, her colour, but she thought of something a little more austere and dignified. Left to her own judgement, she would have called this a little “fussy.” But when she saw the others all clap their hands, she submitted. Indeed, it did not now occur to her to do otherwise, and the whole matter was forgotten a moment later in the excitement of choosing a robe for Mother Dimble.
“Something quiet,” she said. “I’m an old woman and I don’t want to be ridiculous.”
“This wouldn’t do at all,” said Camilla, walking down the long row of hanging splendours, herself like a meteor as she passed against that background of purple and gold and scarlet and soft snow and elusive opal, of fur, silk, velvet, taffeta, and brocade. “That’s lovely,” she said “but not for you. And oh!-look at that. But it wouldn’t do. I don’t see anything . . .”
“Here! Oh, do come and look! Come here,” cried Ivy, as if she were afraid her discovery would run away unless the others attended to it quickly.
“Oh! Yes, yes, indeed,” said Jane.
“Certainly,” said Camilla.
“Put it on, Mother Dimble,” said Ivy. “You know you got to.” It was of that almost tyrannous flame colour which Jane had seen in her vision down in the lodge, but differently cut, with fur about the great copper brooch that clasped the throat, with long sleeves and hangings from them. And there went with it a many-cornered cap. And they had no sooner clasped the robe than all were astonished, none more than Jane, though indeed she had had best reason to foresee the result. For now this provincial wife of a rather obscure scholar, this respectable and barren woman with grey hair and double chin, stood before her, not to be mistaken, as a kind of priestess or sybil, the servant of some prehistoric goddess of fertility-an old tribal matriarch, mother of mothers, grave, formidable, and august. A long staff, curiously carved as if a snake twined up it, was apparently part of the costume: they put it in her hand.
“Am I awful?” said Mother Dimble, looking in turn at the three silent faces.
“You look lovely,” said Ivy.
“It is exactly right,” said Camilla.
Jane took up the old lady’s hand and kissed it.
“Darling,” she said, “aweful, in the old sense, is just what you do look.”
“What are the men going to wear?” asked Camilla suddenly.
“They can’t very well go in fancy dress, can they?” said Ivy. “Not if they’re cooking and bringing things in and out all the time. And I must say if this is to be the last night and all I do think we ought to have done the dinner, anyway. Let them do as they like about the wine. And what they’ll do with that goose is more than I like to think, because I don’t believe that Mr. MacPhee ever roasted a bird in his life, whatever he says.”
“They can’t spoil the oysters, anyway,” said Camilla.
“That’s right,” said Ivy. “Nor the plum pudding, not really. Still, I’d like just to go down and take a look.”
“You’d better not,” said Jane with a laugh. “You know what he’s like when he’s in charge in the kitchen.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” said Ivy, almost, but not quite putting out her tongue. And in her present dress the gesture was not uncomely.
“You needn’t be in the least worried about the dinner, girls,” said Mother Dimble. “He will do it very well. Always provided he and my husband don’t get into a philosophical argument just when they ought to be dishing up. Let’s go and enjoy ourselves. How very warm it is in here.”
“’s lovely,” said Ivy.
At that moment the whole room shook from end to end.
“What on earth’s that?” said Jane.
“If the war was still on I’d have said it was a bomb,” said Ivy.
“Come and look,” said Camilla, who had regained her composure sooner than any of the others and was now at the window which looked west towards the valley of the Wynd. “Oh, look!” she said again. “No. It’s not fire. And it’s not searchlights. And it’s not forked lightning. Ugh! . . . there’s another shock. And there . . . Look at that. It’s as bright as day there beyond the church. What am I talking about, it’s only three o’clock. It’s brighter than day. And the heat!”
“It has begun,” said Mother Dimble.
III
At about the same time that morning when Mark had climbed into the lorry, Feverstone, not much hurt but a good deal shaken, climbed out of the stolen car. That car had ended its course upside down in a deep ditch, and Feverstone, always ready to look on the bright side, reflected as he extricated himself that things might have been worse-it might have been his own car. The snow was deep in the ditch and he was very wet. As he stood up and looked about him he saw that he was not alone. A tall and massive figure in a black cassock was before him, about five yards distant. Its back was towards him, and it was already walking steadily away. “Hi!” shouted Feverstone. The other turned and looked at him in silence for a second or two; then it resumed its walk. Feverstone felt at once that this was not the sort of man he would get on with-in fact he had never liked the look of anyone less. Nor could he, in his broken and soaking pumps, follow the four-mile-an-hour stride of those booted feet. He did not attempt it. The black figure came to a gate, there stopped and made a whinnying noise. He was apparently talking to a horse across the gate. Next moment (Feverstone did not quite see how it happened) the man was over the gate and on the horse’s back and off at a canter across a wide field that rose milk-white to the sky-line.
Feverstone had no idea where he was, but clearly the first thing to do was to reach a road. It took him much longer than he expected. It was not freezing now and deep puddles lay hidden beneath the snow in many places. At the bottom of the first hill he came to such a morass that he was driven to abandon the track of the Roman road and try striking across the fields. The decision was fatal. It kept him for two hours looking for gaps in hedges and trying to reach things that looked like roads from a distance but turned out to be nothing of the sort when one reached them. He had always hated the country and always hated weather, and he was not at any time fond of walking.
Near twelve o’clock he found a road with no signposts that led him an hour later into a main road. Here, thank heavens, there was a fair amount of traffic, both cars and pedestrians, all going one way. The first three cars took no notice of his signals. The fourth stopped. “Quick. In you get,” said the driver.
“Going to Edgestow?” asked Feverstone, his hand on the door.
“Good Lord, no!” said the other. “There’r Edgestow!” (and he pointed behind him)-“if you want to go there.” The man seemed surprised and considerably excited.
In the end there was nothing for it but walking. Every vehicle was going away from Edgestow, none going towards it. Feverstone was a little surprised. He knew all about the exodus (indeed, it had been part of his plan to clear the city as far as possible), but be had supposed it would be over by now. But all that afternoon as he splashed and slipped through the churned snow, the fugitives were still passing him. We have, naturally, hardly any first-hand evidence for what happened in Edgestow that afternoon and evening. But we have plenty of stories as to how so many people came to leave it at the last moment. They
filled the papers for weeks and lingered in private talks for months, and in the end became a joke. “No, I don’t want to hear how you got out of Edgestow” came to be a catch phrase. But behind all the exaggerations there remains the undoubted truth that a quite astonishing number of citizens left the town just in time. One had had a message from a dying father; another had decided quite suddenly, and he couldn’t just say why, to go and take a little holiday; another went because the pipes in his house had been burst by the frost and he thought he might as well go away till they were put right. Not a few had gone because of some trivial event which seemed to them an omen-a dream, a broken looking-glass, tea-leaves in a cup. Omens of a more ancient kind had also revived during this crisis. One had heard his donkey, another her cat, say “as clear as clear,” “Go away.” And hundreds were still leaving for the old reason-because their houses had been taken from them, their livelihood destroyed, and their liberties threatened by the Institutional Police.
It was at about four o’clock that Feverstone found himself flung on his face. That was the first shock. They continued, increasing in frequency, during the hours that followed-horrible shudderings, and soon heavings, of the earth, and a growing murmur of widespread subterranean noise. The temperature began to rise. Snow was disappearing in every direction and at times he was knee-deep in water. Haze from the melting snow filled the air. When he reached the brow of the last steep descent into Edgestow he could see nothing of the city: only fog through which extraordinary coruscations of light came up to him. Another shock sent him sprawling. He now decided not to go down: he would turn and follow the traffic-work over to the railway line and try to get to London. The picture of a steaming bath at his club, of himself on the fender of the smoking-room telling this whole story, rose in his mind. It would be something to have survived both Belbury and Bracton. He had survived a good many things in his day and believed in his luck.
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