The Penguin Book of the British Short Story Page 38

  Clarinda could not see that Mr Appleby, with whom she had been talking before Mrs Pagani’s arrival, was doing anything much out of the ordinary. He seemed simply to be telling stories to two or three other guests, who admittedly seemed less interested than he was. But Clarinda was unaccustomed to making twelve or fifteen intimate acquaintances for life en bloc; and all coming within the, at best, uncertain category of friends’ friends.

  Again Mrs Pagani had drained her glass. ‘I must be going. I only looked in for a minute. I have a lot to do tonight.’ She rose and held out her hand. ‘Tomorrow then?’

  ‘Thank you very much, but I’m not quite sure. I expect Mr and Mrs Carstairs have some plans for me.’

  Mrs Pagani looked her in the eyes, then nodded. ‘Yes. You mustn’t quarrel with them. That’s very important. Well: come if you can.’

  ‘Thank you, I’d like to.’

  Mrs Pagani was resuming her expensive sable coat, and saying good-bye to Mrs Carstairs.

  ‘You’ve nothing to worry about,’ Clarinda heard her say, ‘Dudley’s chosen well.’

  ‘Darling.’ It was Dudley standing behind Clarinda’s chair. He kissed the top of her head. ‘Don’t mind her. She’s far round the bend, of course, but good-hearted at bottom. Anyway she’s the only one of her kind in the village. Pots of money too.’

  ‘What makes you think that, Dudley?’ asked the marzipan voice of Mr Appleby. Conversation about Mrs Pagani was now general.

  ‘Couldn’t behave as she does if she hadn’t, Mr Appleby,’ replied Dudley.

  That seemed to be the consensus of opinion.

  When everyone had gone, they listened to the radio. Then they had supper, and Clarinda was permitted, after strenuous application, to participate in the washing up. As they retired in a warm mist of gently affectionate demonstrativeness, the thought crossed Clarinda’s mind that she might like to sleep with Dudley. It was still not an urgent wish, only a thought; but in Dudley there was no evidence that it was even a thought. For him the fateful outer wall of the fortress had been successfully battered down after a long siege; the course of time would bring the later degrees of capitulation.

  The next morning Clarinda had to admit to herself that she was very depressed. As she lay in bed watching wisps of late-autumn fog drift and swirl past her window, she felt that inside the house was a warm and cosy emptiness in which she was about to be lost. She saw herself, her real self, for ever suspended in blackness, howling in the lonely dark, miserable and unheard; while her other, outer self went smiling through an endless purposeless routine of love for and compliance with a family and a community of friends which, however excellent, were exceedingly unlike her, in some way that she did not fully understand. Elizabeth might bill and coo about the theatre, but it could hardly be said that any one of them had a sense of drama. They lived in the depths of the country, but had no idea of the wilderness. They were constantly together, but knew one another too well to be able to converse. Individuality had been eroded from all of them by the tides of common sentiment. Love me, said Dudley in effect, his eyes softly glowing; love mine. His London personality seemed merely a bait with which to entice her into the capacious family lobster pot. Mrs Pagani was certainly different from the rest of them; but Clarinda was far from sure that Mrs Pagani was her idea of an ally.

  Then she got up, turned on the big electric heater, and felt that her thoughts had been the morbid product of lying too long abed. Moreover, the flying swathes of fog were most beautiful. She stood in her nightdress by the window looking at them; with the heater behind her sending ripples of warmth up her back. It was an old sash window with the original well-proportioned glazing bars. The new white paint covered numerous under-currents in the surface of earlier coats. Clarinda liked such details in the house; always kept neat and spruce, like an old dandy whom people still cared about.

  But from breakfast onwards her spirits once more began to sink. One trouble was that the Carstairs family, in fact, had no plans for her whatever, and nor had Dudley individually. There was a half-hearted suggestion of church, which no one seemed wishful to keep alive; and after that a sequence of minor interruptions and involved jobs which Clarinda felt could be much better organised, but which everyone else seemed quietly to enjoy as they were. The whole family, Dudley included, seemed to like even the most pointless chores simply because they were being undertaken collectively. The four of them did all they could to give Clarinda a place in the various undertakings; and Clarinda hated the perverse barrier which seemed more and more to isolate her from their kindness. But when by the middle of the afternoon (Sunday luncheon was a substantial reaping of the morning’s seedtime) no one had even suggested a walk, she did something precipitate. Without speaking to Dudley, who was helping his father in the garden, she went up to her bedroom, changed into a pair of trousers and a sweater, donned her mackintosh, wrote on the inside of a cigarette box ‘Gone for a walk. Back soon’, and quietly left the house.

  The swathes of fog were still sweeping before the wind, but, though damp, it was not a cold wind nor unfriendly. Immediately she was away from the house, Clarinda felt alive again. After walking a few hundred yards rather furtively, she ascended a roadside bank from which the grass had recently been sickled, and looked about her. She was looking for the church; and when, through a break in the mist, she saw the battlemented top of the yellow stone tower, with a jutting gargoyle at each corner, she knew which way she would go. She turned her back on the church, and walked away from the few cottages which made up the village. Mrs Pagani had possibly served a purpose as serio-comic relief the previous evening, but Clarinda had no wish to enlarge the acquaintanceship.

  The patches of cloud and fog drifted and lifted, making constant changes of scene. There was no hope of sunshine, but the mist was uncharged with smoke, and served to melt the sharp air of winter and to enclose Clarinda with an advancing tent of invisibility. Other than Clarinda’s light, quick step on the granite chips of the old-fashioned narrow road, the only sound was the dripping of water from the trees, the hedges, the occasional gates. At the tip of every leaf was a fat pearl about to drop and vanish. Clarinda realised that her hair was becoming damp. She bundled it on to the top of her head, soaking her hands in the process; then drew a long black scarf from her mackintosh pocket, and twisted it into a tight turban. The road seemed to be lined with dripping trees, which appeared dimly one at a time, grew into a fullness of detail which had seemed impossible a minute before, and then dissolved away, even from the backward glance; but the air also was itself heavy with soft wetness. Soft and wet, but good on the face … ‘Let there be wet,’ quoted Clarinda to herself in her clear gentle voice. ‘Oh let there be wet.’

  She had seen no one in the village, and if there were animals in the fields, the mist cut off sight and hearing of them. Clarinda was aware that she might have some difficult personal problems almost immediately ahead of her; but she thought nothing of them as the renewal of contact with the country, the adventurous loneliness of her walk, suffused her with their first freshness. Out of the mist advanced a small square notice-board, lopsided on top of a sloping wooden pole: ‘No Rite of Way,’ read Clarinda. ‘Persons Proceed Beyond This Point By Favour Only.’

  It was perhaps an unusual announcement, and not made more convincing by the misspelling, and by the crudeness of the erection; but Clarinda had heard of landowners who close gates on one day each year in order to prevent the establishment of an easement, and there seemed to be no change whatever in the nature or surface of the road, at least in the short distance ahead which was visible. Clarinda continued her walk.

  No one, however, is entirely unaffected, either towards carefulness, or towards challenge, by passing such a notice; and in due course Clarinda realised that she was walking more slowly. Then she perceived that the road itself had for some time been rising slightly but continuously. It also seemed narrower, and the hedges higher. Clarinda stopped and looked at her watch. Despite the muffling
mist, she could hear its ticking with extreme clarity, so silent were the hidden pastures around her. It had been something before three o’clock when she had crept out of the house; it was now something after half past. She had possibly another hour of daylight. If she went on for a quarter of that hour, there would be as much time in which to return as she had taken upon the outward journey, and the way back was along a known road, and one which inclined downhill. Moreover, there had not been a single cross-roads or doubtful turning. And in any case Clarinda liked walking in the dark. Certainly neither her mind nor her stomach was inclined to a cosy crumpet tea with the Carstairs family, or to a further session bound, like Catherine upon her wheel, to the mark of interrogation which Dudley remained for her. Again, therefore, she continued her walk.

  The gradient increased, but the trees came more quickly, imperceptibly losing, tree by tree, the moment of clear detail which had previously characterised each of them. The road had begun to wind steeply upwards through a wood. Now the hedges, lately so high, had ceased, but the road, although the antique metalling seemed more and more lost in the damp loamy soil, remained distinct. Intermittently, the going had become a little muddy, but the softness underfoot made a change from the angular granite. The trees had now become dim and uniform shapes which passed so quickly and monotonously that sometimes they seemed almost to move, as in a very early cinematograph.

  Then, unmistakably, something else was moving. From among the tall, thin trees, and out of the veiling mist, came a small animal. It crossed the track ten or twelve feet in front of Clarinda, and disappeared again almost at once. It neither walked nor ran, but slowly ambled. It was not quite silent, but the atmosphere made the sound of its passage seem insufficient; it whispered and sighed its way through the undergrowth. Clarinda could not think what animal it was. Probably a dog which the mist had misshaped. She checked for a moment, then went on.

  Swiftly and momentarily the mist cleared a larger area around her, as she had seen it do several times before. She could see many trees, and could now perceive also that they were beeches. Dotted about the bare earth which surrounds beech trees even in a thick wood were many more of the animals. They were pigs.

  Each of the pigs seemed very intent about its business, softly snuffling after unknown sweets in the naked soil. None grunted or squeaked; but the dead, brown-paper leaves rustled slightly as the herd rooted. The pigs were on both sides of the track, and again Clarinda hesitated briefly before advancing through the midst of them.

  At first they took no notice of her, perhaps, she thought, unafraid of man because little knowing him; and the tent of mist, temporarily a marquee, advanced with her on to the wooded heights ahead. Then, most unexpectedly, there came from the obscurity thirty yards away on Clarinda’s right a shattering animal shriek, short but so loud and high as to pain the ear. All the pigs looked up, stood motionless for a second, then massed together in the direction the sound had come from, some of them crossing the track behind and ahead of her for the purpose. Again they stood, an indistinct agglomeration on the edge of the mist; then suddenly swept back the way they had come. The whole herd, packed tightly together, charged across the track and disappeared into the mist on the left. The pigs had passed no more than five or six feet in front of Clarinda; who was able to observe that in the very middle of the throng was a creature much larger than the rest, a bristling, long-snouted boar, with large curving bluish-white tusks. He it was, she suspected, that had cried from the enveloping mist. She had never before seen such a creature, and was slightly alarmed.

  The scampering flight of the pigs could be heard for a few seconds after the fog had surrounded them. Then the wood was silent again. It was as if the pigs had been the last creatures left alive in it. The fog had now closed up again, scudding across the track on a wind which seemed colder and stronger than it had been in the village at the beginning of Clarinda’s walk. But the track was now rising steeply, and the extra exertion kept her warm. The long-drawn-out winter dusk must have begun, because not until she was right upon them did Clarinda notice two figures on the path.

  They were children. They did not seem to be either ascending or descending, but to be quietly waiting by the side of the track for someone to pass. They were identically dressed in one-piece waterproof garments, like small, trim diving suits, bright blue in colour, and provided with hoods. One child had its hood over its head, but the other was bareheaded and displayed a curly mass of silky flaxen hair, much the colour of Clarinda’s own in childhood. The bareheaded child had blue eyes very widely spaced, and a pale skin. The face of the other child was shadowed by its hood, and from Clarinda’s altitude amounted to little more than a long red mouth. Both children, Clarinda noticed, had long red mouths. She was unable to determine their sex.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the bareheaded child, very politely. Clarinda decided it was a girl. The girl spoke well.

  Clarinda stopped.

  The little girl smiled charmingly. ‘Have you seen the pigs?’ She spoke as if the pigs were a matter of common interest to them, and automatically identifiable; as if a straggler from a hunt had asked, Had she seen the hounds?

  ‘Yes,’ said Clarinda. ‘Are they your pigs?’

  ‘How long ago?’ asked the child, with a child’s disregard of side issues.

  ‘About five minutes ago.’ Clarinda looked at her watch. Quarter to four. Time to go back. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m afraid I frightened them.’

  ‘Silly old pigs,’ said the child, fortunately taking Clarinda’s side. ‘Which way did they go? This way? Or that way?’ She indicated up the hill or down. Clarinda thought that she was about eight.

  ‘That way, I’m afraid,’ said Clarinda, pointing vaguely into the mist. ‘I hope they’ll not get lost in the fog.’

  ‘There’s always a fog,’ said the child.

  Clarinda let that one go.

  ‘What happens if I get to the top?’ she asked.

  The hooded child, who had said nothing, suddenly made an odd movement. It raised one foot and stamped on the ground. It was as if its whole small body were swept by a spasm. The movement reminded Clarinda of an animal which had been startled and pawed the earth: a large animal, moreover. In the child seemed to be a disproportionate strength. Clarinda was really frightened by it.

  ‘There’s a lovely view some days,’ said the bareheaded child helpfully.

  ‘Not much good this evening.’

  The child shook its head, smiling politely. The hooded child snatched at the bareheaded child’s sleeve and pulled it sharply.

  ‘There’s a maze.’ The bareheaded child was showing off slightly but meaning to help also.

  ‘What kind of maze? With hedges? I don’t believe it.’ To Clarinda a maze meant Hampton Court.

  ‘An ordinary maze. You have to look for it though.’

  ‘How far away?’

  ‘Quite near.’

  ‘Where do I look?’ Clearly the child was speaking the truth, and Clarinda was interested.

  ‘In among the bushes. There’s a little path.’

  Clarinda noticed that the second child had cocked up its head and was looking at her. It seemed to have sharp, sallow features, and big eyes. In its hood it was not unlike a falcon.

  ‘Shall I get lost in the maze?’

  The bareheaded child appeared unable to understand this question and looked at Clarinda disappointedly.

  ‘Well that’s up to me,’ said Clarinda, coming to the rescue.

  The child nodded. She had still not understood. ‘Thank you for telling us about the pigs.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me about the maze.’

  The little girl smiled her pretty smile. Really I never saw such a beautiful child, thought Clarinda. The children departed quickly down the hill. In a moment they had vanished.

  Clarinda again looked at her watch. Three-fifty. She decided that she would give fifteen minutes to looking for the child’s maze, and that even then she would be back soon after five
.

  Before long she reached a gate. It was at the edge of the wood and the end of the track. Outside the wood was short, downlike grass, mossy with moisture. Clarinda’s feet sank into it, as into very soft rubber. There were frequent, irregularly placed clumps of thorny scrub, and no sign of even the sketchiest path. The wind was still growing chillier, and the mist was darkening all the time. Clarinda had not gone fifty yards from the gate when she decided to return. The question of whether or not it would be worth looking for the maze did not arise. On top of the hill it would be easy to lose oneself without entering a maze.

  In the dim light she perceived that a man was leaning against the gate and facing her. He had red curly hair which had receded slightly at the sides, and a prominent nose. He wore pale-hued riding breeches and dark boots. Across his shoulders was a fur cape, which Clarinda vaguely connected with the idea of aviation. As Clarinda approached, he neither spoke nor moved. She saw that in his right hand he held a long thick shepherd’s crook. It was black, and reached from the ground to his shoulder.

  Clarinda put her hand on the wooden drawbar of the gate. She assumed that this action would make the man move. But he continued leaning on the gate and regarding her. If she opened the gate, he would fall.

  ‘I want to go through.’ It was not an occasion for undue politeness.

  Without change of expression, the man swiftly placed his left hand on the other end of the drawbar. Clarinda pushed at it, but it would not give. Not given to panic, Clarinda momentarily considered the situation, and began to climb the gate.

  ‘Hullo,’ said a voice behind her. ‘Rufo! What do you suppose you’re doing?’ Unmistakably it was the voice of Mrs Pagani.