‘No. We’re still moving–oh!!’–once more a violent shock hit them. It was worse than the last one. For nearly a minute everything seemed to be rocking and rattling.
‘This is outrageous,’ exclaimed the well-informed man, once more opening the window. This time he was more fortunate. A dark figure waving a lantern was walking past beneath him.
‘Hi! Porter! Guard!’ he bellowed.
‘It’s all right, ladies and gentlemen, it’s all right, keep your seats,’ shouted the dark figure, marching past and ignoring him.
‘There’s no good letting all that cold air in, Sir,’ said the passenger next to the window.
‘There’s some sort of light ahead,’ said the well-informed man.
‘Signal against us?’ asked another.
‘No. Not a bit like that. The whole sky’s lit up. Like a fire, or like searchlights.’
‘I don’t care what it’s like,’ said the chilly man. ‘If only–oh!’
Another shock. And then, far away in the darkness, vague disastrous noise. The train began to move again, still slowly, as if it were groping its way.
‘I’ll make a row about this,’ said the well-informed man. ‘It’s a scandal.’
About half an hour later the lighted platform of Sterk slowly loomed alongside.
‘Station Announcer calling,’ said a voice. ‘Please keep your seats for an important announcement. Slight earthquake shock and floods have rendered the line to Edgestow impassable. No details available. Passengers for Edgestow are advised…’
The well-informed man, who was Curry, got out. Such a man always knows all the officials on a railway and in a few minutes he was standing by the fire in the ticket collector’s office getting a further and private report of the disaster.
‘Well, we don’t exactly know yet, Mr Curry,’ said the man. ‘There’s been nothing coming through for about an hour. It’s very bad, you know. They’re putting the best face on it they can. There’s never been an earthquake like it in England from what I can hear. And there’s the floods too. No, Sir, I’m afraid you’ll find nothing of Bracton College. All that part of the town went almost at once. It began there, I understand. I don’t know what the casualties’ll be. I’m glad I got my old Dad out last week.’
Curry always in later years regarded this as one of the turning points of his life. He had not up till then been a religious man. But the word that now instantly came into his mind was ‘Providential’. You couldn’t really look at it any other way. He’d been within an ace of taking the earlier train; and if he had…why he’d have been a dead man by now. It made one think. The whole College wiped out! It would have to be rebuilt. There’d be a complete (or almost complete) new set of Fellows, a new Warden. It was Providential again that some responsible person should have been spared to deal with such a tremendous crisis. There couldn’t be an ordinary election, of course. The College Visitor (who was the Lord Chancellor) would probably have to appoint a new Warden and then, in collaboration with him, a nucleus of new Fellows. The more he thought of it the more fully Curry realised that the whole shaping of the future College rested with the sole survivor. It was almost like being a second founder. Providential–providential. He saw already in imagination the portrait of that second founder in the new-built Hall, his statue in the new-built quadrangle, the long, long chapter consecrated to him in the College History. All this time, without the least hypocrisy, habit and instinct had given his shoulders just such a droop, his eyes such a solemn sternness, his brow such a noble gravity, as a man of good feeling might be expected to exhibit on hearing such news. The ticket-collector was greatly edified. ‘You could see he felt it bad,’ as he said afterwards. ‘But he could take it. He’s a fine old chap.’
‘When is the next train to London?’ asked Curry. ‘I must be in town first thing tomorrow morning.’
Ivy Maggs, it will be remembered, had left the dining room for the purpose of attending to Mr Bultitude’s comfort. It therefore surprised everyone when she returned in less than a minute with a wild expression on her face.
‘Oh, come quick, someone. Come quick!’ she gasped. ‘There’s a bear in the kitchen.’
‘A bear, Ivy?’ said the Director. ‘But, of course–’ ‘Oh, I don’t mean Mr Bultitude, Sir. There’s a strange bear; another one.’
‘Indeed!’
‘And it’s eaten up all what was left of the goose and half the ham and all the junket and now it’s lying along the table eating everything as it goes along and wriggling from one dish to another and a breaking all the crockery. Oh, do come quick! There’ll be nothing left.’
‘And what line is Mr Bultitude taking about all this, Ivy?’ asked Ransom.
‘Well, that’s what I want someone to come and see. He’s carrying on something dreadful, Sir. I never seen anything like it. First of all he just stood lifting up his legs in a funny way as if he thought he could dance, which we all know he can’t. But now he’s got up on the dresser on his hind legs and there he’s kind of bobbing up and down, making the awfullest noise –squeaking like–and he’s put one foot into the plum pudding already and he’s got his head all mixed up in the string of onions and I can’t do nothing with him, really I can’t.’
‘This is very odd behaviour for Mr Bultitude. You don’t think, my dear, that the stranger might be a she bear?’
‘Oh, don’t say that, Sir!’ exclaimed Ivy with extreme dismay.
‘I think that’s the truth, Ivy. I strongly suspect that this is the future Mrs Bultitude.’
‘It’ll be the present Mrs Bultitude if we sit here talking about it much longer,’ said MacPhee, rising to his feet.
‘Oh, dear, what shall we do?’ said Ivy.
‘I am sure Mr Bultitude is quite equal to the situation,’ replied the Director. ‘At present, the lady is refreshing herself. Sine Cerere et Baccho, Dimble. We can trust them to manage their own affairs.’
‘No doubt, no doubt,’ said MacPhee. ‘But not in our kitchen.’
‘Ivy, my dear,’ said Ransom. ‘You must be very firm. Go into the kitchen and tell the strange bear I want to see her. You wouldn’t be afraid, would you?’
‘Afraid? Not me. I’ll show her who’s the Director here. Not that it isn’t only natural for her.’
‘What’s the matter with that jackdaw?’ said Dr Dimble.
‘I think it’s trying to get out,’ said Denniston. ‘Shall I open the window?’
‘It’s warm enough to have the window open anyway,’ said the Director. And as the window was opened Baron Corvo hopped out and there was a scuffle and a chattering just outside.
‘Another love affair,’ said Mrs Dimble. ‘It sounds as if Jack had found a Jill…What a delicious night!’ she added. For as the curtain swelled and lifted over the open window all the freshness of a midsummer night seemed to be blowing into the room. At that moment, a little further off, came a sound of whinneying.
‘Hullo!’ said Denniston, ‘the old mare is excited too.’
‘Sh! Listen!’ said Jane.
‘That’s a different horse,’ said Denniston.
‘It’s a stallion,’ said Camilla.
‘This,’ said MacPhee with great emphasis, ‘is becoming indecent.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Ransom, ‘decent, in the old sense, decens, fitting, is just what it is. Venus herself is over St Anne’s.’
‘She comes more near the Earth than she was wont,’ quoted Dimble, ‘to make men mad.’
‘She is nearer than any astronomer knows,’ said Ransom. ‘The work at Edgestow is done, the other gods have withdrawn. She waits still and when she returns to her sphere I will ride with her.’
Suddenly, in the semi-darkness Mrs Dimble’s voice cried sharply, ‘Look out! Look out! Cecil! I’m sorry. I can’t stand bats. They’ll get in my hair!’ Cheep cheep went the voices of the two bats as they flickered to and fro above the candles. Because of their shadows they seemed to be four bats instead of two.
‘You’d
better go, Margaret,’ said the Director. ‘You and Cecil had better both go. I shall be gone very soon now. There is no need of long good-byes.’
‘I really think I must go,’ said Mother Dimble. ‘I can’t stand bats.’
‘Comfort Margaret, Cecil,’ said Ransom. ‘No. Do not stay. I’m not dying. Seeing people off is always folly. It’s neither good mirth nor good sorrow.’
‘You mean us to go, Sir?’ said Dimble.
‘Go, my dear friends. Urendi Maleldil.’
He laid his hands on their heads; Cecil gave his arm to his wife and they went.
‘Here she is, Sir,’ said Ivy Maggs re-entering the room a moment later, flushed and radiant. A bear waddled at her side, its muzzle white with junket and its cheeks sticky with gooseberry jam. ‘And–oh, Sir,’ she added.
‘What is it, Ivy?’ said the Director.
‘Please, Sir, it’s poor Tom. It’s my husband. And if you don’t mind–’
‘You’ve given him something to eat and drink, I hope?’
‘Well, yes, I have. There wouldn’t have been nothing if those bears had been there much longer.’
‘What has Tom got, Ivy?’
‘I gave him the cold pie and the pickles (he always was a great one for pickles) and the end of the cheese and a bottle of stout, and I’ve put the kettle on so as we can make ourselves–so as he can make himself a nice cup of tea. And he’s enjoying it ever so, Sir, and he said would you mind him not coming up to say how d’you do because he never was much of a one for company, if you take my meaning.’
All this time the strange bear had been standing perfectly still with its eyes fixed on the Director. Now he laid his hand on its flat head. ‘Urendi Maleldil,’ he said. ‘You are a good bear. Go to your mate–but here he is,’ for at that moment the door which was already a little ajar was pushed further open to admit the inquiring and slightly anxious face of Mr Bultitude. ‘Take her, Bultitude. But not in the house. Jane, open the other window, the French Window. It is like a night in July.’ The window swung open and the two bears went blundering out into the warmth and the wetness. Everyone noticed how light it had become.
‘Are those birds all daft that they’re singing at quarter to twelve?’ asked MacPhee.
‘No,’ said Ransom. ‘They are sane. Now, Ivy, you want to go and talk to Tom. Mother Dimble has put you both in the little room half way up the stairs, not in the lodge after all.’
‘Oh, Sir,’ said Ivy and stopped. The Director leaned forward and laid his hand on her head. ‘Of course, you want to go,’ he said. ‘Why, he’s hardly had time to see you in your new dress yet. Have you no kisses to give him?’ he said and kissed her. ‘Then give him mine, which are not mine but by derivation. Don’t cry. You are a good woman. Go and heal this man. Urendi Maleldil– we shall meet again.’
‘What’s all yon squealing and squeaking?’ said MacPhee. ‘I hope it’s not the pigs got loose. For I tell you there’s already as much carrying on about this house and garden as I can stand.’
‘I think it’s hedgehogs,’ said Grace Ironwood.
‘That last sound was somewhere in the house,’ said Jane.
‘Listen!’ said the Director, and for a short time all were still. Then his face relaxed into a smile. ‘It’s my friends behind the wainscot,’ he said. ‘There are revels there too–
So geht es in Snützepützhäusel
Da singen und tanzen die Mäusel!
‘I suppose,’ said MacPhee drily, producing his snuff-box from under the ash-coloured and slightly monastic-looking robe in which, contrary to his judgment, the others had seen fit to clothe him, ‘I suppose we may think ourselves lucky that no giraffes, hippopotami, elephants, or the like have seen fit to–God almighty, what’s that?’ For as he spoke a long grey flexible tube came in between the swaying curtains and, passing over MacPhee’s shoulder, helped itself to a bunch of bananas.
‘In the name of Hell where’s all them beasts coming from?’ he said.
‘They are the liberated prisoners from Belbury,’ said the Director. ‘She comes more near the Earth than she was wont to– to make Earth sane. Perelandra is all about us and Man is no longer isolated. We are now as we ought to be–between the angels who are our elder brothers and the beasts who are our jesters, servants and playfellows.’
Whatever MacPhee was attempting to say in reply was drowned by an earsplitting noise from beyond the window.
‘Elephants! Two of them,’ said Jane weakly. ‘Oh, the celery! And the rose beds!’
‘By your leave, Mr Director,’ said MacPhee sternly. ‘I’ll just draw these curtains. You seem to forget there are ladies present.’
‘No,’ said Grace Ironwood in a voice as strong as his. ‘There will be nothing unfit for anyone to see. Draw them wider. How light it is! Brighter than moonlight: almost brighter than day. A great dome of light stands over the whole garden. Look! The elephants are dancing. How high they lift their feet. And they go round and round. And oh, look!–how they lift their trunks. And how ceremonial they are. It is like a minuet of giants. They are not like the other animals. They are a sort of good daemons.’
‘They are moving away,’ said Camilla.
‘They will be as private as human lovers,’ said the Director. ‘They are not common beasts.’
‘I think,’ said MacPhee, ‘I’ll away down to my office and cast some accounts. I’d feel easier in my mind if I were inside and the door locked before any crocodiles or kangaroos start courting in the middle of all my files. There’d better be one man about the place keep his head this night for the rest of you are clean daft. Good night, ladies.’
‘Good-bye, MacPhee,’ said Ransom.
‘No, no,’ said MacPhee, standing well back, but extending his hand. ‘You’ll speak none of your blessings over me. If ever I take to religion, it won’t be your kind. My uncle was Moderator of the General Assembly. But there’s my hand. What you and I have seen together…but no matter for that. And I’ll say this, Dr Ransom, that with all your faults (and there’s no man alive knows them better than myself), you are the best man, taking you by and large, that ever I knew or heard of. You are… you and I…but there are the ladies crying. I don’t rightly know what I was going to say. I’m away this minute. Why would a man want to lengthen it? God bless you, Dr Ransom. Ladies, I’ll wish you a good night.’
‘Open all the windows,’ said Ransom. ‘The vessel in which I must ride is now almost within the air of this World.’
‘It is growing brighter every minute,’ said Denniston.
‘Can we be with you to the very end?’ said Jane.
‘Child,’ said the Director, ‘you should not stay till then.’
‘Why, Sir?’
‘You are waited for.’
‘Me, Sir?’
‘Yes. Your husband is waiting for you in the Lodge. It was your own marriage chamber that you prepared. Should you not go to him?’
‘Must I go now?’
‘If you leave the decision with me, it is now that I would send you.’
‘Then I will go, Sir. But–but–am I a bear or a hedgehog?’
‘More. But not less. Go in obedience and you will find love. You will have no more dreams. Have children instead. Urendi Maleldil.’
Long before he reached St Anne’s, Mark had come to realise that either he himself or else the world about him, was in a very strange condition. The journey took him longer than he expected, but that was perhaps fully accounted for by one or two mistakes that he made. Much harder to explain was the horror of light to the west, over Edgestow, and the throbbings and bouncings of the Earth. Then came a sudden warmth and the torrents of melted snow rolling down the hillside. Everything became a mist; and then, as the lights in the west vanished, this mist grew softly luminous in a different place–above him, as though the light rested on St Anne’s. And all the time he had the curious impression that things of very diverse shapes and sizes were slipping past him in the haze–animals, he thought. Perhaps it
was all a dream; or perhaps it was the end of the world; or perhaps he was dead. But in spite of all perplexities, he was conscious of extreme well-being. His mind was ill at ease, but as for his body–health and youth and pleasure and longing seemed to be blowing towards him from the cloudy light upon the hill. He never doubted that he must keep on.
His mind was not at ease. He knew that he was going to meet Jane, and something was beginning to happen to him which ought to have happened to him far earlier. That same laboratory outlook upon love which had forestalled in Jane the humility of a wife, had equally forestalled in him, during what passed for courtship, the humility of a lover. Or if there had ever arisen in him at some wiser moment the sense of ‘Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear,’ he had put it away from him. False theories, at once prosaic and fanciful, had made it seem to him a mood frousty, unrealistic and outmoded. Now, belated, after all favours had been conceded, the unexpected misgiving was coming over him. He tried to shake it off. They were married, weren’t they? And they were sensible, modern people? What could be more natural, more ordinary?
But then, certain moments of unforgettable failure in their short married life rose in his imagination. He had thought often enough of what he called Jane’s ‘moods’. This time at last he thought of his own clumsy importunity. And the thought would not go away. Inch by inch, all the lout and clown and clod-hopper in him was revealed to his own reluctant inspection; the coarse, male boor with horny hands and hobnailed shoes and beefsteak jaw, not rushing in–for that can be carried off–but blundering, sauntering, stumping in where great lovers, knights and poets, would have feared to tread. An image of Jane’s skin, so smooth, so white (or so he now imagined it) that a child’s kiss might make a mark on it, floated before him. How had he dared? Her driven snow, her music, her sacrosanctity, the very style of all her movements…how had he dared? And dared too with no sense of daring, nonchalantly, in careless stupidity! The very thoughts that crossed her face from moment to moment, all of them beyond his reach, made (had he but had the wit to see it) a hedge about her which such as he should never have had the temerity to pass. Yes, yes–of course, it was she who had allowed him to pass it: perhaps in luckless, misunderstanding pity. And he had taken blackguardly advantage of that noble error in her judgment; had behaved as if here native to that fenced garden and even its natural possessor.
All this, which should have been uneasy joy, was torment to him, for it came too late. He was discovering the hedge after he had plucked the