Читать книгу The Smuggler's Cave - George A. Birmingham - Страница 6

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"While I'm making the pancakes," said Mrs. Eames, as they crossed the green where the nets and geese were, "you might give Timothy a bit of a talking to; stir him up, you know. I'm always trying to, but I've never succeeded in the least. A word or two from you——"

"I do not think it at all likely that I should influence him," said Sir Evelyn stiffly.

He had no idea of taking on the task of stimulating into activity a lazy country vicar. That was what the Rev. Timothy Eames seemed to be.

"Oh, but you could," said Mrs. Eames. "Force of good example, you know. Tell him you're writing a book, and then, very likely, he'll write one too. He could if he chose. I was sitting beside a Dean once at tea—not quite a first-rate Dean, but still fairly important—and I heard him say to another Dean that there is a corner to be made in the Christological heresies, if anyone cared to seize the chance. I remembered that and told Timothy afterwards, hoping that he might go in for it."

"Might make a corner?"

"Exactly. Just what you're doing, you know. I don't say Christological heresies are as good as smugglers. They're not. But a corner is a corner whatever it's in. My idea was that Timothy might dart in before anyone else tumbled to the chance, and corner those heretics. I know he can read Greek, for I've seen him do it, and so far as I can make out that's the only qualification required. Do try and persuade him, won't you?"

"I'm afraid——"

"You needn't be," said Mrs. Eames. "Timothy won't resent anything you say. He isn't the kind of man who resents good advice. I give him lots and lots, and he's never even annoyed. He simply lies down under it. Such a pity, when he really can read Greek, a thing very few can do."

They passed through the gateway of the vicarage—the gate itself had long ago decayed away—and walked up an ill-kept drive. They found the vicar seated on a rickety chair in front of the house. He had a book in his hand, perhaps a Greek book, but instead of reading it he was gazing at the sea with mild, watery eyes. He stood up as his wife and Sir Evelyn approached, and showed himself to be a tall, gaunt man. He rose slowly to an incredible height, and then seemed to shrink again as he relapsed into his habitual stoop. Mrs. Eames was fluent and explanatory in her introduction.

"This is Sir Evelyn Dent," she said, "and he has come to luncheon. He was a very eminent Cabinet Minister until the Government was hoofed out, which wasn't his fault, and happens to all Governments sooner or later. What do you think Sir Evelyn did then, Timothy? He sat straight down to historical research of the most abstruse kind. There's an example for you! Now, Sir Evelyn, you talk to him about Christological heresies while I go and make the pancakes. You'll hardly believe it, but I've put the advantages of that corner of the Dean's before him dozens of times and he hasn't done a thing yet, not even ragged a Monophysite, though that must be an easy enough thing for anyone who knows Greek."

She ran into the house, leaving two embarrassed men behind her. Sir Evelyn, though a man of the world and practised in dealing with awkward situations, stood tongue-tied. The vicar, sighing gently, looked at his visitor, apparently waiting for the scolding which he felt he deserved. It was he who first broke the silence.

"Do you find the Christological controversies really interesting?" he asked mildly.

"Interesting!" Sir Evelyn was a little irritable. "Good heavens, no! I don't even know what Christological controversies are. I never heard of them till Mrs. Eames mentioned them to me ten minutes ago."

"Oh," said the vicar. "I thought Agatha said that you and some Dean were going into the subject together. I must have been mistaken. But I'm often mistaken, in fact—generally, especially about things Agatha says. She will talk fast and jump about from one thing to another."

"My subject," said Sir Evelyn, beginning to recover himself, "is Eighteenth Century Smuggling."

"And is that interesting? But, of course, it must be to you, or you wouldn't take it up. I suppose that any subject would be interesting if only one succeeded in getting started, even the Christological heresies. But we needn't talk about them, at least not until Agatha comes back. Indeed we needn't even then unless we want to. She will do all the talking necessary. So restful for us. Don't you think so?"

Sir Evelyn did not. He liked talking, and held the view, taken by St. Paul, that women ought to keep silence. They are at their best when listening, respectfully, to what men like Sir Evelyn have to say.

"The Hailey Compton cave," he began, as if delivering a public lecture, "which I came here to-day to investigate, was undoubtedly much used by smugglers. Its situation, close to a remote village difficult of access, rendered it peculiarly suitable for their lawless trade. Its great size and the ease with which it can be approached from the sea at high tide, help to mark it out as one of the places...."

Long before he had finished what he had to say about the Hailey Compton cave Mrs. Eames came from the house again.

"So lucky," she said. "I found Gladys's aunt in the kitchen, so I just scrambled the eggs and left her to make the pancakes. I expect she can all right. Anyhow, she'll be better than Gladys, and quite as good as me. She has nine children, so she must be able to make pancakes. What I mean to say is that a woman who can bring up nine children can do anything. And now, Sir Evelyn, do tell me all about London. Timothy, darling, get a couple more chairs, and we'll all sit down and be comfortable. We can't have lunch till the pancakes are ready and Gladys has fetched the beer."

The vicar, who seemed obedient in most things though rebellious over the Christological heresies, shambled into the house in search of chairs.

"I'm just longing," said Mrs. Eames, "to hear all about the latest music and art. I really live for music though, of course, I never hear any, and I worship——" She looked round and saw that her husband had not yet come out of the house. "Timothy isn't here, so I don't mind saying that I worship the theatre. I hope you don't think it very wrong of me to say 'worship,' on account of the second commandment, and me being a clergyman's wife. Though, of course, the theatre isn't a graven or molten image, is it? Still, Timothy mightn't quite like my saying it, although it's true. Now what do you think about that, Sir Evelyn?"

Sir Evelyn evaded the point, a thing which his long practice in politics enabled him to do without any difficulty. He did not feel equal to deciding whether the second commandment forbids the worship of the theatre.

"I'm afraid," he said, "that you have not much chance of indulging your taste for the drama down here."

"Oh, but I have," said Mrs. Eames. "Timothy says I indulge it too much. But I always tell him something must be done for the good of the parish, and as he won't, I do. The year before last we had 'Macbeth,' acted entirely by the village people. I do think Shakespeare is so educative, don't you? Last year we had 'Othello,' and now we're getting up 'Hamlet.' Oh, here's Timothy coming back with some chairs. Now we'll be able to sit down and listen to you, Sir Evelyn. I always say that the greatest pleasure in life is hearing a clever man talk, a really clever man. Timothy, darling, Sir Evelyn thinks that we never have any plays here. But we do, don't we?"

The vicar, shambling along with two chairs dragged behind him, stopped when appealed to.

"Plays!" he said. "Oh, yes, certainly. Almost too many of them."

"I always think," said Mrs. Eames, "that Shakespeare is so much better done in the open air by simple country people. More Elizabethan in spirit. I'm sure you agree with me about that."

"I should have supposed," said Sir Evelyn, a little stiffly, "that it would have been difficult to get a satisfactory local Hamlet."

"Not a bit," said Mrs. Eames. "There's a man here called Hinton, the landlord of the inn—but you've seen him, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm sure you agree with me," said Mrs. Eames, "that he's a perfect natural Hamlet—figure, manner, face, voice, everything. You ought to see him in the grave-digger scene—and you shall. This isn't the regular day for rehearsals, but we'll have one after lunch. I'll send Gladys round to tell everyone. It'll be so good for us all to hear what you have to say. I'm doing the Queen, Hamlet's mother, you know. I'd have liked to do Ophelia; but that was scarcely possible with my figure."

She sat down abruptly on a low deck chair which the vicar had dragged out. Her skirt was a barely sufficient covering when she stood up. It was very insufficient when she sat down in a low chair. She was conscious of that but not at all embarrassed.

"You simply couldn't have an Ophelia with legs like those," she said.

Sir Evelyn agreed with her, but was not obliged to say so, for Gladys's aunt put her head out of the kitchen window and shouted that luncheon was ready.

"Has Gladys come back with the beer?" said Mrs. Eames.

The aunt said she was at that moment coming in through the back door with a jug in her hand.

"I do hope it'll turn out that Gladys's aunt can make pancakes," said Mrs. Eames as they went into the house. "Gladys can't. But these things don't always run in families, which is a pity. If I could write for the papers like Beth—she is my niece, Sir Evelyn, not Timothy's—we might be quite rich. But I can't; which just shows that there's not so much in heredity as some people say, and proves that Gladys's aunt may be able to make pancakes. Anyhow, let's try."

Gladys, a failure as a cook and unwilling to make beds, appeared to be quite incompetent as a parlourmaid. Mrs. Eames was obliged to run round the table with plates and dishes, while Gladys, grinning foolishly, followed her with the beer. This gave Sir Evelyn a chance of resuming the monologue about smugglers' caves which had been interrupted by Mrs. Eames.

"There are," he said, "several hundred so-called smugglers' caves on the south coast of England. Few of them, perhaps not more than eighty or ninety altogether, were actually ever used for the storing of contraband goods. All the rest are spurious, advertised by the local hotel-keepers and railway companies as attractions to the trippers. They are rapidly becoming popular features of our watering-places. Picnic parties throng them. Campers pitch tents in their vicinity."

The vicar, who was drooping slowly at the head of the table, sighed. The thought of picnic parties swarming into the Hailey Compton cave filled him with horror. Mrs. Eames became interested. She was hovering over the cold lamb with a carving knife in her hand. She paused to consider a splendid prospect. Crowds of trippers, if they could be attracted to Hailey Compton, would provide audiences for her plays, and audiences were so far just what the plays lacked. A vision of Hailey Compton as a sort of Shakespearean Ober-Ammergau, floated through her mind.

"The claims of your cave," Sir Evelyn went on, bowing politely to the vicar, "can certainly be substantiated at the bar of history."

A man gains this advantage by being an experienced public speaker. He is able to use phrases like "Substantiated at the bar of history" without suffering, though not, of course, without causing suffering to others. The ordinary speech of an experienced politician contains hundreds of similar phrases; and in his use of them he is like a surgeon who can do the most disgusting things to the human body without the slightest feeling of nausea because he has become thoroughly accustomed to doing them. In the same way a Cabinet Minister can use phrases, not only without self-contempt, but even with a glow of satisfaction, which make other men sick. How splendid it must be to be able to say "The answer is in the negative" without vomiting!

"Timothy," said Mrs. Eames while Sir Evelyn had his mouth full of scrambled egg, "why hasn't our cave been advertised? I'm always telling you that something ought to be done for the parish. As vicar you're simply bound to do something. Here's a splendid opportunity for you. Advertise the cave."

Sir Evelyn held up his hand in gentle but firm protest against Mrs. Eames's interruptions. He still had a great deal to say and he meant to say it all. It was a contest for the privilege of talking, and Sir Evelyn's steady flow of words reduced Mrs. Eames to silence for a time.

Perhaps mere persistence would not have won the victory. Sir Evelyn was more than persevering and monotonous. He was interesting and showed that he possessed a gift for picturesque description. Having proved that the Hailey Compton cave really had been used by smugglers, he went on to give an account, imaginary but based on laboriously studied facts, of the landing of a cargo of contraband goods.

He did it so well that even the vicar was slightly interested. Mrs. Eames, who might have sat down and eaten her luncheon, stood with a dish of potatoes in her hand, thrilled. Even Gladys stopped clattering plates together on the sideboard. Sir Evelyn, like all good talkers, responded to the sympathy of his audience. He spoke better than he ever remembered speaking before.

A dark autumn night. A sighing wind. The hoarse roar of sullen waves dragging at the stones on the beach. A watcher on the tower of the church. The flash of a light far out at sea. A flare on the church tower, subsiding, flaming up again. Glimmering lights in cottage windows. The trampling of heavily booted feet across the beach. The glowing of lanterns. A gathering of dim figures under the arch of the cave, the sharp rattle of horsehoofs on the stony path which led down the cliff to the village. (Sir Evelyn's own experiences earlier in the day helped him to realise what that descent was like.) A gathering of led pack horses, whinnying and neighing, on the short grass where now the nets are spread. The continuous flashing of a ship's light near at hand. Answering flashes from the mouth of the cave. All the while the hollow booming of the sea. (Sir Evelyn had a good voice, resonant and thrilling like the tones of a 'cello and he was telling his story well.) The appearance of blacker shadows, huge, menacing, against the blackness of the night—the great sails of the lugger. The rattle of blocks and the whining of running ropes. Muttered orders. The slow in-gliding of the boat. The making fast of mooring ropes.

This was part of one of the few chapters in Sir Evelyn's book which was already written. He had worked at it so long and revised it so often that he knew it off by heart. He thought it a fine piece of writing, and it certainly seemed good to his audience. Perhaps it is only because they despise their audiences that our statesmen talk stale jargon in Parliament and on platforms. When they sit down to write, hoping to be read by intelligent men and women, they are very often capable of producing good English.