Author: Walter De la Mare
Category: Childrens
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CHAPTER TWENTY
It was a quiet supper the three friends sat down to. Herbert satnarrowing his eyes over his thoughts, which, when the fancy took him, hescattered out upon the others' silence. Lawford apparently had not yetshaken himself free from the sorcery of the moonlight. His eyes shonedark and full like those of a child who has trespassed beyond its hourfor bed, and sits marvelling at reality in a waking dream.
Long after they had bidden each other good-night, long after Herberthad trodden on tiptoe with his candle past his closed door, Lawfordsat leaning on his arms at the open window, staring out across themotionless moonlit trees that seemed to stand like draped and dreamingpilgrims, come to the peace of their Nirvana at last beside the crashingmusic of the waters. And he himself, the self that never sleeps beneaththe tides and waves of consciousness, was listening, too, almost asunmovedly and unheedingly to the thoughts that clashed in conflictthrough his brain.
Why, in a strange transitory life was one the slave of these smallcares? What if even in that dark pit beneath, which seemed to whisperLethe to the tumultuous, swirling waters--what if there, too, weremerely a beginning again, and to seek a slumbering refuge there merely ablind and reiterated plunge into the heat and tumult of another day? Whowas that poor, dark, homeless ghoul, Sabathier? Who was this Helen of animpossible dream? Her face with its strange smile, her eyes with theirstill pity and rapt courage had taken hope away. 'Here's not your rest,'cried one insistent voice; 'she is the mystery that haunts day andnight, past all the changing of the restless hours. Chance has given youback eyes to see, a heart that can be broken. Chance and the stirringsof a long-gone life have torn down the veil age spins so thick and fast.Pride and ambition; what dull fools men are! Effort and duty, what dullfools men are!' He listened on and on to these phantom pleadings and tothe rather coarse old Lawford conscience grunting them mercilessly down,too weary even to try to rest.
Rooks at dawn came sweeping beneath the turquoise of the sky. He sawtheir sharp-beaked heads turn this way, that way, as they floated onoutspread wings across the misty world. Except for the hoarse roar ofthe water under the huge thin-leafed trees, not a sound was stirring.'One thing,' he seemed to hear himself mutter as he turned with a shiverfrom the morning air, 'it won't be for long. You can, at least, poordevil, wait the last act out.' If in this foolish hustling mob of theworld, hired anywhere and anywhen for the one poor dubious wage of apenny--if it was only his own small dull part to carry a mock spear,and shout huzza with the rest--there was nothing for it, he gruntedobstinately to himself, shout he would with the loudest.
He threw himself on to the bed with eyes so wearied with want of sleepit seemed they had lost their livelong skill in finding it. Not the echoof triumph nor even a sigh of relief stirred the torpor of his mind. Heknew vaguely that what had been the misery and madness of the last fewdays was gone. But the thought had no power to move him now. Sheila'sgood sense, and Mr Bethany's stubborn loyalty were alike old storiesthat had lost their savour and meaning. Gone, too, was the need for thatportentous family gathering that had sat so often in his fancy duringthese last few days around his dining-room table, discussing with futiledecorum the problem of how to hush him up, to muffle him down. Halfdreaming, half awake, he saw the familiar door slowly open and, like thetimely hero in a melodrama, his own figure appear before the strickenand astonished company. His eyes opened half-fearfully, and glanced upin the morning twilight. Their perplexity gave place to a quiet, almostvacant smile; the lids slowly closed again, and at last the lean handstwitched awhile in sleep.
Next morning he spent rummaging among the old books, dipping listlesslyhere and there as the tasteless fancy took him, while Herbert satwriting with serene face and lifted eyebrows at his open window. But theunfamiliar long S's, the close type, and the spelling of the musty oldbooks wearied eye and mind. What he read, too, however far-fetched,or lively, or sententious, or gross, seemed either to be of the sametexture as what had become his everyday experience, and so baffled himwith its nearness, or else was only the meaningless ramblings of an idlepen. And this, he thought to himself, looking covertly up at the spruceclear-cut profile at the window, this is what Herbert had called Life.
'Am I interrupting you, Herbert; are you very busy?' he asked at last,taking refuge on a chair in a far corner of the room.
'Bless me, no; not a bit--not a bit,' said Herbert amiably, laying downhis pen. 'I'm afraid the old leatherjackets have been boring you. It'sa habit this beastly reading; this gorge and glint and fever all atsecond-hand--purely a bad habit, like morphia, like laudanum. But oncein, you know there's no recovery Anyhow, I'm neck-deep, and to strugglewould be simply to drown.'
'I was only going to say how sorry I am for having left Sabathier athome.'
'My dear fellow--' began Herbert reassuringly.
'It was only because I wanted so very much to have your translation. Iget muddled up with other things groping through the dictionary.'
Herbert surveyed him critically. 'What exactly is your interest now,Lawford? You don't mean that my old "theory" has left any sting now?'
'No sting; oh no. I was only curious. But you yourself still think itreally, don't you?'
Herbert turned for a moment to the open window.
'I was simply trying then to find something to fit the facts as youexperienced them. But now that the facts have gone--and they have,haven't they?--exit, of course, my theory!'
'I see,' was the cryptic answer. 'And yet, Herbert,' Lawford solemnlybegan again, 'it has changed me; even in my way of thinking. When I shutmy eyes now--I only discovered it by chance--I see immediately facesquite strange to me; or places, sometimes thronged with people; and oncean old well with some one sitting in the shadow. I can't tell you howclearly, and yet it is all altogether different from a dream. Even whenI sit with my eyes open, I am conscious, as it were, of a kind of faint,colourless mirage. In the old days--I mean before Widderstone, whatI saw was only what I'd seen already. Nothing came uncalled for,unexplained. This makes the old life seem so blank; I did not know whatextraordinarily real things I was doing without. And whether for thatreason or another, I can't quite make out what in fact I did want then,and was always fretting and striving for. I can see no wisdom or purposein anything now but to get to one's journey's end as quickly and bravelyas one can. And even then, even if we do call life a journey, and deaththe inn we shall reach at last in the evening when it's over; that, too,I feel will be only as brief a stopping-place as any other inn wouldbe. Our experience here is so scanty and shallow--nothing more than themoment of the continual present. Surely that must go on, even if onedoes call it eternity. And so we shall all have to begin again. ProbablySabathier himself.... But there, what on earth are we, Herbert, when allis said? Who is it has--has done all this for us--what kind of self?And to what possible end? Is it that the clockwork has been wound up andmust still jolt on a while with jarring wheels? Will it never run down,do you think?'
Herbert smiled faintly, but made no answer.
'You see,' continued Lawford, in the same quiet, dispassionateundertone, 'I wouldn't mind if it was only myself. But there are so manyof us, so many selves, I mean; and they all seem to have a voice in thematter. What is the reality to this infernal dream?'
'The reality is, Lawford, that you are fretting your life out over thisrotten illusion. Be guided by me just this once. We'll go, all threeof us, a good ten-mile walk to-day, and thoroughly tire you out. Andto-night you shall sleep here--a really sound, refreshing sleep. Thento-morrow, whole and hale, back you shall go; honestly. It's onlyprofessional strong men should ask questions. Babes like you and me mustkeep to slops.'
So, though Lawford made no answer, it was agreed. Before noon the threeof them had set out on their walk across the fields. And after ramblingon just as caprice took them, past reddening blackberry bushes andcopses of hazel, and flaming beech, they sat down to spread out theirmeal on the slope of a hill, overlooking quiet ploughed fields andgrazing cattle. Herbert stretc
hed himself with his back to the earth,and his placid face to the pale vacant sky, while Lawford, even moredispirited after his walk, wandered up to the crest of the hill.
At the foot of the hill, upon the other side, lay a farm and itsout-buildings, and a pool of water beneath a group of elms. It wasvacant in the sunlight, and the water vividly green with a scum of weed.And about half a mile beyond stood a cluster of cottages and an oldtowered church. He gazed idly down, listening vaguely to the wailing ofa curlew flitting anxiously to and fro above the broken solitude ofits green hill. And it seemed as if a thin and dark cloud began to bequietly withdrawn from over his eyes. Hill and wailing cry and barn andwater faded out. And he was staring as if in an endless stillness at anopen window against which the sun was beating in a bristling torrent ofgold, while out of the garden beyond came the voice of some evening birdsinging with such an unspeakable ecstasy of grief it seemed it mustbe perched upon the confines of another world. The light gathered to aradiance almost intolerable, driving back with its raining beams somememory, forlorn, remorseless, remote. His body stood dark and senseless,rocking in the air on the hillside as if bereft of its spirit. Then hishands were drawn over his eyes. He turned unsteadily and made his way,as if through a thick, drizzling haze, slowly back.
'What is that--there?' he said almost menacingly, standing withbloodshot eyes looking down upon Herbert.
'"That!"--what?' said Herbert, glancing up startled from his book. 'Why,what's wrong, Lawford?'
'That,' said Lawford sullenly, yet with a faintly mournful cadence inhis voice; 'those fields and that old empty farm--that village overthere? Why did you bring me here?'
Grisel had not stirred. 'The village...'
'Ssh!' she said, catching her brother's sleeve; 'that's Detcham, yes,Detcham.'
Lawford turned wide vacant eyes on her. He shook his head and shuddered.'No, no; not Detcham. I know it; I know it; but it has gone out of mymind. Not Detcham; I've been there before; don't look at me. Horrible,horrible. It takes me back--I can't think. I stood there, trying,trying; it's all in a blur. Don't ask me--a dream.'
Grisel leaned forward and touched his hand. 'Don't think; don't eventry. Why should you? We can't; we MUSTN'T go back.'
Lawford, still gazing fixedly, turned again a darkened face towardsthe steep of the hill. 'I think, you know,' he said, stooping andwhispering, 'HE would know--the window and the sun and the singing. Andoh, of course it was too late. You understand--too late. And once... youcan't go back; oh no. You won't leave me? You see, if you go, it wouldonly be all. I could not be quite so alone. But Detcham--Detcham?perhaps you will not trust me--tell me? That was not the name.'He shuddered violently and turned dog-like beseeching eyes.'To-morrow--yes, to-morrow,' he said, 'I will promise anything if youwill not leave me now. Once--' But again the thread running so faintlythrough that inextricable maze of memory eluded him. 'So long as youwon't leave me now!' he implored her.
She was vainly trying to win back her composure, and could not answerhim at once....
In the evening after supper Grisel sat her guest down in front of a bigwood fire in the old book-room, where, staring into the playing flames,he could fall at peace into the almost motionless reverie which heseemed merely to harass and weary himself by trying to disperse. Sheopened the little piano at the far end of the room and played on andon as fancy led--Chopin and Beethoven, a fugue from Bach, and lovelyforlorn old English airs, till the music seemed not only a voicepersuading, pondering, and lamenting, but gathered about itself thehollow surge of the water and the darkness; wistful and clear, as thethoughts of a solitary child. Ever and again a log burnt through itsstrength, and falling amid sparks, stirred, like a restless animal, thestillness; or Herbert in his corner lifted his head to glance towardshis visitor, and to turn another page. At last the music, too, fellsilent, and Lawford stood up with his candle in his hand and eyed with astrange fixity brother and sister. His glance wandered slowly round thequiet flame-lit room.
'You won't,' he said, stooping towards them as if in extreme confidence,'you won't much notice? They come and go. I try not to--to speak. It'sthe only way through. It is not that I don't know they're only dreams.But if once the--the others thought there had been any tampering'--hetapped his forehead meaningly--'here: if once they thought that, itwould, you know, be quite over then. How could I prove...?' He turnedcautiously towards the door, and with laborious significance nodded hishead at them.
Herbert bent down and held out his long hands to the fire. 'Tampering,my dear chap: That's what the lump said to the leaven.'
'Yes, yes,' said Lawford, putting out his hand, 'but you know whatI mean, Herbert. Anything I tried to do then would be quite, quitehopeless. That would be poisoning the wells.'
They watched him out of the room, and listened till quite distinctly inthe still night-shaded house they heard his door gently close. Then, asif by consent, they turned and looked long and questioningly into eachother's faces.
'Then you are not afraid?' Herbert said quietly.
Grisel gazed steadily on, and almost imperceptibly shook her head.
'You mean?' he questioned her; but still he had again to read her answerin her eyes.
'Oh, very well, Grisel,' he said quietly, 'you know best,' and returnedonce more to his writing.
For an hour or two Lawford slept heavily, so heavily that when a littleafter midnight he awoke, with his face towards the uncurtained window,though for many minutes he lay brightly confronting all Orion, that fromblazing helm to flaming dog at heel filled high the glimmering square,he could not lift or stir his cold and leaden limbs. He rose at last andthrew off the burden of his bedclothes, and rested awhile, as if freedfrom the heaviness of an unrememberable nightmare. But so clear was hismind and so extraordinarily refreshed he seemed in body that sleep formany hours would not return again. And he spent almost all the remainderof the lagging darkness pacing softly to and fro; one face only beforehis eyes, the one sure thing, the one thing unattainable in a world ofphantoms.
Herbert waited on in vain for his guest next morning, and afterwandering up and down the mossy lawn at the back of the house, went offcheerfully at last alone for his dip. When he returned Lawford was inhis place at the breakfast-table. He sat on, moody and constrained,until even Herbert's haphazard talk trickled low.
'I fancy my sister is nursing a headache,' he said at last, 'but she'llbe down soon. And I'm afraid from the looks of you, Lawford, your nightwas not particularly restful.' He felt his way very heedfully. 'Perhapswe walked you a little too far yesterday. We are so used to trampingthat--' Lawford kept thoughtful eyes fixed on the deprecating face.
'I see what it is, Herbert--you are humouring me again. I havebeen wracking my brains in vain to remember what exactly DID happenyesterday. I feel as if it was all sunk oceans deep in sleep. I get sofar--and then I'm done. It won't give up a hint. But you really mustn'tthink I'm an invalid, or--or in my second childhood. The truth is,' headded, 'it's only my FIRST, come back again. But now that I've got sofar, now that I'm really better, I--' He broke off rather vacantly, asif afraid of his own confidence. 'I must be getting on,' he summedup with an effort, 'and that's the solemn fact. I keep on forgettingI'm--I'm a ratepayer!'
Herbert sat round in his chair. 'You see, Lawford, the very term islittle else than Double-Dutch to me. As a matter of fact Grisel sendsall my hush-money to the horrible people that do the cleaning up, asit were. I can't catch their drift. Government to me is merely thespectacle of the clever, or the specious, managing the dull. It dealsmerely with the physical, and just the fringe of consciousness. I am notjoking. I think I follow you. All I mean is that the obligations--mainlytepid, I take it--that are luring you back to the fold would be thevery ones that would scare me quickest off. The imagination, the appealfaded: we're dead.'
Lawford opened his mouth; 'TEMPORARILY tepid,' he at last all butcoughed out.
'Oh yes, of course,' said Herbert intelligently. 'Only temporarily. It'sthis beastly gregariousness that'
s the devil. The very thought of itundoes me--with an absolute shock of sheepishness. I suddenly realisemy human nakedness: that here we are, little better than naked animals,bleating behind our illusory wattles on the slopes of--of infinity.And nakedness, after all, is a wholesome thing to realize only when onethinks too much of one's clothes. I peer sometimes, feebly enough, outof my wool, and it seems to me that all these busybodies, all thesefact-devourers, all this news-reading rabble, are nothing brighter thanvery dull-witted children trying to play an imaginative game, much toodeep for their poor reasons. I don't mean that YOUR wanting to go homeis anything gregarious, but I do think THEIR insisting on your comingback at once might be. And I know you won't visit this stuff on me asanything more than just my "scum," as Grisel calls the fine flower of mymaiden meditations. All that I really want to say is that we should bothbe more than delighted if you'd stay just as long as it will not be abore for you to stay. Stay till you're heartily tired of us. Go backnow, if you MUST; tell them how much better you are. Bolt off to a nervespecialist. He'll say complete rest--change of scene, and all that. Theyall do. Instinct via intellect. And why not take your rest here? Weare such miserably dull company to one another it would be a greaterpleasure to have you with us than I can say. I mean it from the verybottom of my heart. Do!'
Lawford listened. 'I wish--,' he began, and stopped dead again. 'Anyhow,I'll go back. I am afraid, Herbert, I've been playing truant. It was allvery well while--To tell you the truth I can't think QUITE straight yet.But it won't last for ever. Besides--well, anyhow, I'll go back.'
'Right you are,' said Herbert, pretending to be cheerful. 'You can'texpect, you really can't, everything to come right straight away. Justhave patience. And now, let's go out and sit in the sun. They've mixedSeptember up with May.'
And about half an hour afterwards he glanced up from his book to findhis visitor fast asleep in his garden chair.
Grisel had taken her brother's place, with a little pile of needleworkbeside her on the grass, when Lawford again opened his eyes under therosy shade of a parasol. He watched her for a while, without speaking.
'How long have I been asleep?' he said at last.
She started and looked up from her needle.
'That depends on how long you have been awake,' she said, smiling. 'Mybrother tells me,' she went on, beginning to stitch, 'that you havemade up your mind to leave us to-day. Perhaps we are only flatteringourselves it has been a rest. But if it has--is that, do you think,quite wise?'
He leant forward and hid his face in his hands. 'It's because--it'sbecause it's the only "must" I can see.'
'But even "musts"--well, we have to be sure even of "musts," haven'twe? Are YOU?' She glanced up and for an instant their eyes met, and thefalling water seemed to be sounding out of a distance so remote it mightbe but the echo of a dream. She stooped once more over her work.
'Supposing,' he said very slowly, and almost as if speaking to himself,'supposing Sabathier--and you know he's merely like a friend now onemustn't be seen talking to--supposing he came back; what then?'
'Oh, but Sabathier's gone: he never really came. It was only a fancy--amood. It was only you--another you.'
'Who was that yesterday, then?'
She glanced at him swiftly and knew the question was but a venture.
'Yesterday?'
'Oh, very well,' he said fretfully, 'you too! But if he did, if he did,come really back: "prey" and all?'
'What is the riddle?' she said, taking a deep breath and facing himbrightly.
'Would MY "must" still be HIS?' The face he raised to her, as he leanedforward under the direct light of the sun, was so colourless, cadaverousand haggard, the thought crossed her mind that it did indeed seem littlemore than a shadowy mask that but one hour of darkness might dispel.
'You said, you know, we did win through. Why then should we be eventhinking of defeat now?'
'"We"!'
'Oh no, you!' she cried triumphantly.
'You do not answer my question.'
'Nor you mine! It WAS a glorious victory. Is there the ghost of a reasonwhy you should cast your mind back? Is there, now?'
'Only,' said Lawford, looking patiently up into her face, 'only becauseI love you': and listened in the silence to the words as one may watch abird that has escaped for ever and irrevocably out of its cage, steadilyflying on and on till lost to sight.
For an instant the grey eyes faltered. 'But that, surely,' she beganin a low voice, still steadily sewing, 'that was our compact lastnight--that you should let me help, that you should trust me just as youtrusted the mother years ago who came in the little cart with the shaggydusty pony to the homesick boy watching at the window. Perhaps,' sheadded, her fingers trembling, 'in this odd shuffle of souls and faces,I AM that mother, and most frightfully anxious you should not give in.Why, even because of the tiredness, even because the cause seems vain,you must still fight on--wouldn't she have said it? Surely there areprizes, a daughter, a career, no end! And even they gone--still the selfundimmed, undaunted, that took its drubbing like a man.'
'I know you know I'm all but crazed; you see this wretched mind alllittered and broken down; look at me like that, then. Forget even youhave befriended me and pretended--Why must I blunder on and on likethis? Oh, Grisel, my friend, my friend, if only you loved me!'
Tears clouded her eyes. She turned vaguely as if for a hiding-place.'We can't talk here. How mad the day is. Listen, listen! I do--I do loveyou--mother and woman and friend--from the very moment you came. It'sall so clear, so clear: that, and your miserable "must," my friend.Come, we will go away by ourselves a little, and talk. That way. I'llmeet you by the gate.'