The Shadow and the Peak

by Richard Mason

Duffield was now sitting on a chair near the blackboard. He had wiped a space on the board right across Morgan’s map and filled it with the injunction, “NO RAGGING ABOUT.” He had used the red chalk with which Morgan had drawn his menacing zigzags.

  Morgan was sitting in another part of the library, pretending to read a book by one of the lamps. He was sulking. He had regarded the storm as his domain, if not actually his invention, and had visualized everybody turning to him, when it came, as the natural leader. Now that Duffield had usurped his leadership and destroyed his map into the bargain, there was nothing left but to pretend that there was no storm at all. He might have been deaf to the tumultuous fury raging outside. When something crashed against a shutter, sending a spasm of alarm through the room, he only raised his eyebrows in puzzlement for a moment, as if wondering why everyone had suddenly sat up.

  Only a few of the children were really frightened: amongst them Rosemary, who had always gone into a trance of terror during even minor storms of thunder and lightning. Now she had turned deathly pale, and was sitting bolt upright on her mattress. The others were still in a state of pleasurable excitement. They had looked forward to the storm, and at last it had come, and only Duffield’s tyrannical presence kept them from the larks that were a potential of this sort of upset in the general routine.

  Douglas was sitting at his desk at the end of the room, impatiently smoking cigarettes while he waited for Pawley to finish interviewing Joe. He had now been waiting over half an hour—ever since Joe had turned up at the Great House from his small hut below the farm, with his whole family linked together on a rope. Pawley had insisted on carrying out the interrogation single-handed—he thought he had a better chance of finding out the truth. So far it had been impossible to verify what had happened by other means. Mrs. Morgan had hardly been in a state to bandage a cut finger, never mind to handle Silvia. She had been fortifying herself with thimble-fuls all day, as a result of her husband’s forecast, but nevertheless the storm had scared her out of her wits. Now Mrs. Pawley had gone in to see Silvia. She was not likely to have much more success.

  Douglas couldn’t make up his mind whether anything serious had happened or not. At first he had doubted it­—he had supposed that once Silvia got over her hysteria, they would find out that it had all been sheer invention. But Silvia’s hysteria had passed off, only to leave her practically dumb with fright. She could say nothing except that now she would have a baby. The fear was genuine enough—it was right there in her eyes. And then Douglas had remembered disturbingly that Joe had not been at the garage when he had gone there to look. He had not been up at the Great House, or at the lighting-plant either—and it was most unlike Joe to absent himself when he was supposed to be on duty. But for that matter it was unlike Joe to go running off into the jungle with little girls . . .

  Joe was happily married. He was only in his middle twenties, but he had a wife and six or seven children, and his wife was his real wife—which was more than could be said of most of the so-called wives of Jamaican peasants. He had been married to her, after the third or fourth child, by a real minister in a real church. He never got tired of describing the ceremony. Douglas had always liked him, and he would have laughed at anyone who had suggested that Joe was the sort of person to go running after children. He remembered that he had, in fact, laughed at Mrs. Pawley at the staff meeting when she had spoken of Joe lifting girls up the clay bank. It had been during the period of Mrs. Pawley’s hostility. He had supposed that she was inventing or exaggerating the story to annoy him. Afterwards he had followed Pawley’s instructions and warned Joe not to touch any of the girls; but he hadn’t taken the matter seriously—and nor had he thought anything of Silvia’s recent visits to the garage to learn unofficially how to drive a car. Quite obviously the initiative for whatever had happened this evening had come from Silvia. But that was not going to excuse Joe in a courtroom. And nor was it going to relieve Douglas himself of the ultimate responsibility . . .

  He lit another cigarette, glancing uneasily at the door. Outside the wind screamed and thundered, battering at the shutters and then retiring, and then returning with fresh fury to batter them again. Sometimes a rumble went through the Great House, like the rumble in a house where trains pass below; and once the whole building seemed to rock. All the children sat up.

  John said, “Mr. Lockwood, do you think my tree-house will be all right?” He had placed his mattress close to Douglas’s desk.

  “It’s probably getting badly knocked about.”

  “Might it blow away altogether?”

  “It might,” Douglas said. “But that will give you something to do next term—you can build a new one.”

  “You don’t think the Great House could blow down, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. It must have stood up to hundreds of hurricanes since it was built.”

  John was silent for a while. Then he said:

  “Mr. Lockwood—you’re not frightened, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You look it rather. Or are you just thinking?”

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “What about?”

  “About what would happen if the wind blew us all away in the Great House, and we had to spend the rest of our lives together whirling round in space.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if I had to spend the rest of my life with you,” John said. “There’s nobody else I’d like to spend it with, though—not all of it.”

  “You’d grow extremely tired of me,” Douglas said.

  “I wouldn’t.” He was kneeling on the mattress and resting his chin on his hands on the desk. His brown eyes regarded Douglas unwaveringly. “Do you know what I decided the other day? Even though this is a special school, where we can do almost what we want, I’d hate it if you weren’t here.”

  “Nonsense,” Douglas said, looking away. It was the first time that he had ever had to avoid a child’s eyes.

  “It isn’t nonsense. And do you remember when I thought I had leprosy? I felt like killing myself. I probably should have done if it hadn’t been for you.”

  Douglas didn’t know what to say except to go on repeating “Nonsense.” He had been intending to tell John that he was leaving the school, but now he couldn’t bring him­self to do it. Fortunately at that moment Pawley’s beard appeared round the door. He was holding a paraffin lamp, and the light caught his spectacles and they goggled at Douglas. Douglas went over to him.

  Outside the door Pawley said:

  “You’d better bring Morgan and Duffield. I’ll talk to you all.” His voice sounded rather weak, and he was looking haggard.

  “What did Joe say?” Douglas asked.

  “I’d rather you fetched the others first,” Pawley said. “You can come into the dining-room.”

  Morgan came along in sulky silence, but Duffield was quite enjoying the occasion, with its opportunities for sarcasm.

  “Well, Pawley’s been asking for it,” he said, as they crossed the corridor. “I suppose he’s now going to pat the girl on the back and congratulate her for getting rid of her inhibitions.”

  “We don’t know what happened yet,” Douglas said.

  “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

  Pawley was waiting for them in the dining-room.

  “Well, is everything all right in the library?” he asked. “We mustn’t forget that we’ve other responsibilities besides Silvia.”

  “It’s all right now,” Duffield said. “But I’ll give no guarantee that they won’t all bolt off and start having fun and games in the bushes the moment my back’s turned.”

  “I’m sure that won’t happen, Duffield,” Pawley said. He had been particularly nice to Duffield ever since the incident of Alan and the slipper. “You’ve been doing a splendid job of work this evening—splendid.”

  He put his lamp on the table and sat down, motionin
g them to arrange themselves round him. When they were settled, he let his hands fall on the desk with a gesture of resigned despair, looking at them each in turn. Then he said: “Well, gentlemen, prepare for the worst. I’m sorry to tell you that Joe has admitted it.”

  Joe had not admitted it—not, at any rate, to anything like the extent that Pawley made out. Pawley regarded Joe’s evident alarm as an admission in itself. But it wasn’t surprising that he should have looked pretty scared in view of the crime of which he was suspected.

  He had begun by denying that he had seen Silvia that afternoon at all, but Pawley’s skilful interrogation (so Pawley had implied) had finally broken him down. He had then explained that while he was working in the garage Silvia had come running in to tell him that she had just discovered a rare orchid in the jungle. It was a tree-orchid, growing out of her reach. She wanted him to pick it for her, so that she could present it as a surprise to Mr. Pawley. Joe told her that he was too busy, and anyhow he was not supposed to leave the garage; but Silvia went on wheedling, and at length resorted to threats. She said that unless he came with her, she would tell Pawley some dreadful story about him that would get him the sack. After that Joe reluctantly agreed to go. He had already noticed something peculiar in Silvia’s manner; and when they had gone about a quarter of a mile from the road, she suddenly stopped and admitted that there wasn’t an orchid after all. She had brought him there to tell him a secret: that she was in love with him. She told him to kiss her. When Joe laughingly refused, she began to threaten him again: if he didn’t do what she wanted, she would run back to the school screaming, and report that he had forced her to go into the jungle and had kissed her against her will. Joe was already feeling frightened—she had deceived him about the distance she was taking him into the jungle, and by now his absence might have been noticed at the garage—and he kissed her perfunctorily to avoid further trouble. Silvia then sat down, looking quite satisfied but more peculiar than ever. She seemed to have forgotten that he was there. He turned away thankfully, and hurried back by himself to the school. It was ten to six when he reached the garage again. At six o’clock, when his duty finished, he went off to his hut down the hill.

  When Pawley arrived at the end of this account, he sat back in his chair and said:

  “Well, gentlemen, there you have Joe’s story. I’m sure you’ll all have drawn the same conclusion as myself.”

  Duffield said, “It’s a wonder he didn’t make a bolt for it. Still, you never can tell how these blacks are going to behave. I suppose he didn’t have the gumption to know he was going to be found out.”

  “Of course it’s happened at the worst possible time, when we can’t get hold of a doctor,” Pawley said. “I don’t know whether my wife will be able to do anything. She’s in there now. But I’m afraid Silvia gave her rather a cold reception—she’s taken a dislike to her ever since that little incident in the dining-room.” He smiled painfully at Douglas. “Well, Lockwood, it was you that persuaded me to let Silvia stay at the school—you remember, after that petrol business, when I was all for getting rid of her. I hope you’re not beginning to feel you made a mistake.”

  He might have expected something like that from Pawley but it wasn’t worth arguing about now.

  “It might have been a mistake,” he said. “But not because she’s been raped. I don’t think she has. I think Joe’s story is substantially true.”

  “I only wish you could convince me of it,” Pawley said, managing a strained grin.

  “In the first place, I doubt if Joe could have invented that story,” Douglas said. “Silvia must have persuaded him to go into the jungle, and she probably hit on the idea of the orchid because we were discussing orchids in class the other day.”

  “We needn’t bother our heads about who was responsible for organizing the expedition,” Pawley said. “We’re only concerned with its outcome.”

  “I think the whole of Joe’s story rings true,” Douglas said. “Silvia is perfectly capable of behaving like that. The threats she made were typical.”

  “I’ve no doubt of it, Lockwood,” Pawley said. “But I take it Silvia knew the facts of life?”

  “She did in theory.”

  “Then if Joe’s story was true, she could hardly believe she was in a position to have a baby.”

  “Nevertheless I think she does believe it.”

  “Well then . . .” He spread out his hands as if there was nothing more to be said.

  Douglas said, “Even when she was in a normal state she was capable of believing all kinds of things that weren’t true. In a state of hysteria like that, I’m only surprised she needed a kiss to convince herself she was pregnant. Personally I’m very relieved to hear Joe’s story. I was terrified that she’d persuaded him to go the whole hog. Now I don’t think she did.”

  There was no need to argue that point any further, or go into the details of why Silvia had run off to Joe in the first place, because just then Mrs. Pawley came into the dining­ room. Pawley looked up at her and said:

  “Ah, Joan . . . !”

  “I suppose Rex still hasn’t turned up?” Mrs. Pawley said. Rex had been missing since the beginning of the storm. She had been more upset about him than about Silvia. “You haven’t heard him trying to get in, have you?”

  Pawley said, “Joan, I think that perhaps the matter we have just been discussing is of more immediate importance . . .”

  “You’re not still worrying over Silvia?” Mrs. Pawley said impatiently. “There’s nothing in the least wrong with the girl.”

  Pawley goggled. “You mean . . . ?”

  “I’ve had dreadful difficulty with her, but she’s settled down at last. Obviously she’s made up the whole story. I suppose she’s just doing it to cause trouble again.”

  “She doesn’t still think she’s going to have a baby?”

  “She says she does. But don’t take any notice of that. It’s not the first time she’s told a lie and it’s not likely to be the last.”

  Pawley turned back to Douglas.

  “Well, Lockwood, it looks as though you were right. There’s no need for me to say I’m not at all sorry. We can all breathe again.” He beamed, feeling for his pipe. While he was stuffing the tobacco into the pipe, he looked round at them all and said, “I didn’t like to tell you before, gentlemen, but if the worst had been true it would have meant disaster for us all. I should have had to give up the school.”

  Nobody looked quite so distressed about that as Pawley had obviously expected. Douglas was feeling too relieved about Silvia to register any other emotion, and Morgan was still lost in silent gloom, and Duffield just said:

  “I suppose a blighted kissing party in the jungle isn’t going to hurt anyone. We could have them on the time-table next term. What about every Wednesday afternoon?”

  A bed had been made up for Silvia on the table in the common-room. It was next to the library. There was no point in knocking on the door with the noise of the wind, so Douglas went straight in.

  Silvia was lying under a blanket, perfectly still. Mrs. Morgan was sitting with her back to the door on an upright wooden chair, which looked absurdly small under her bulging figure. Her fingers were pressed into her ears. She had not heard Douglas enter, and as she caught sight of him she gave a startled shriek and clutched her breasts and closed her eyes. He thought for a moment that she had passed out altogether, but presently she began to recover.

  “It’s this storm,” she said. “It’s terrible. Oh dear, it’s really terrible.”

  “I came in to see Silvia,” he said. He noticed her breath smelt of rum. Her hair was untidy, and her face red and distraught.

  “The noise is so terrible,” she said. “It sounds as if the house is blowing down. My husband says it couldn’t, but it’s what it sounds like.”

  “It’s quite safe,” he said.

  “I’m
glad you’ve come, anyhow,” she said. “I’d like to go upstairs for a minute.”

  She waddled off, probably to reinforce herself with another thimbleful. Douglas went across to the table. Silvia was wide awake. Her face was white and her eyes staring, but he could see that it was not the storm that was frightening her.

  “You’re all right now, Silvia,” he said.

  She stared at him as if at a stranger, without friendship or hate, with nothing in her eyes but the inward terror.

  “I’m going to have a baby,” she said. She might have been talking to herself.

  “No, you’re not,” he said. “You don’t have babies as easily as all that—not just by being kissed.”

  “I know how you have them,” she said. “I know what you have to do. I did it on purpose.”

  “You only imagined it,” he said. “You remember what a good imagination you always had?”

  She shook her head faintly, the expression in her eyes unchanged. She was very small and frightened, and she was only a child. He had never seen her look such a child; and now he saw her like this he realized all at once that his attitude towards her had often presupposed an awareness beyond her years. He had seen her as she wanted to be seen, almost as a woman; but she had only been a child dressing-up. She had been a child that played at being adult until it tripped over and bumped its head, when in pain and fright it forgot the pretence. The dressing-up had taken him in. He had never begun to understand her.

  “You’ve nothing to worry about,” he said. “We shall look after you.”

  The wind exploded again outside, and there was another crash against the shutter, probably the branch of a tree. Silvia didn’t seem to hear it.

  “It’ll be a black baby,” she said. “It’ll be a nigger.”

  Shortly before midnight the wind stopped. It stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and there was silence—silence that muffled them in the luxury of velvet.

  Some of the children had gone to sleep, and at the sound of the silence they woke up and stared round the room with bewildered, suspicious eyes. At first this was almost as frightening as the noise: it was as if the house had been blown away and was floating in space, for there was nothing but the silence of space outside.