Читать книгу The Man Who Went Back - Warwick Deeping - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Had all this happened before?

How had my poor ghost-brother Pellias responded to the challenge of his fate? Had he continued in cowardice, or had he discovered in that cowardice the spur of courage? A man is not always brave, or always a coward. Circumstance casts its spell, the web of happenings in which he may find himself.

But what of myself? If I was imprisoned in the body of another man in a dead-live dream-world, was I to play the man or the coward? Did I wish these dream-people to think well of me? Did I desire to shine, or be howled at and treated with savage scorn?

I walked round that walled garden, and looked at the sky and the woods, and those blue distances, and felt the thing we call romance stirring in my blood. What an adventure was this, no tame world, no catching of the inevitable train, no daily paper, no office-chair. What had one’s adventure been? Some car-scuffle with a week-end cad on the Portsmouth Road, and since I possessed some sense and decency the cad usually had had the best of it. He could do things which the sportsman in me could not do. Also, if one crashed because of a cad, one’s wife might suffer.

Yes, Lucy!

Had she suddenly grown dim to me? Was I forgetting? Would this Roman world prove to be reality, and my other life a dream? The old anguish stabbed me. My bowels yearned suddenly for all those other human contacts, people to whom I could talk, not ghosts who would not understand. This silence seemed too dreadful, too crushing. It was like being buried alive.

I went and sat on the seat under the arched yews, with my head in my hands.

How had that other Pellias answered the challenge?

Cut his throat, fallen upon a sword, hanged himself?

Was that my choice, silence in death, or silence in daring to live?

For the moment I could find no answer.

The answer was to be discovered for me, or thrust upon me as an emotional spasm. I was staring across the garden, when I saw that door open, and a figure appear. Meona! She was dressed in some saffron-coloured stuff, and her black and brilliant hair was loose upon her shoulders. It was plain to me that she thought herself alone in this walled place, though an old, round-backed man had come in by another door and was busy with a long-handled spade in a distant corner. It was like a modern French spade, a tool with a long handle. But my eyes were on Meona. She came up the broad path under the climbing vines, sometimes in the sunlight, sometimes in the shadow. Her face had a gentleness that I had not seen before, a beautiful, douce pallor. Her eyes looked larger, darker in the broad soft oval of her face, her mouth less of a hard red streak. She was looking up at the sky and the pattern of the vine leaves, and her young beauty wounded me. That haughty little nose of hers looked less cruel about the nostrils. But how impossible it is to describe a face, especially a face that is sensitive and swift, and so strangely significant as hers was. All I can say is that the exquisite outlines of her, her symmetry, her poise, the sharp sweet flavour of her colouring, the very way she moved, filled me with a kind of wounded sadness.

I stood up, and then she saw me. Never have I seen a face change its mood more swiftly. Her head went up, her eyes flashed, her nostrils seemed to swell. She looked at me as at something that was less than man, less than that lumpy old fellow digging over yonder. Her scorn stabbed me. I understood that in a wild world such as hers might be, a woman had no use for cowards.

“Who gave you leave to be here?”

I must have reddened up like a boy.

“My lord, your father.”

That might be news to her, but she stood as though waiting for some mean thing to remove itself. I was less than a flea-ridden cur. And I was angry, angry with the deep and urgent anger of primitive, male pride.

“You do me no justice, Meona.”

When I spoke her name she gave me such a lift of the head, and a look of such devastating scorn that I knew my place. That vulgar phrase “Hoity-toity” flashed into my consciousness. One might have said to a modern wench: “Cut it out, old thing, cut out the pose and the Dietrich business.” But my lady was not a modern wench, nor was I a lad in sloppy grey bags and a coloured pullover. Her prides and her scorns were actual and vivid, and so would her passion be, like lightning or the rush of rain, or the wind sweeping the tree-tops. I was her father’s servant, and a sorry and a futile one at that. I had no honour in her eyes, not even the honour of crude courage.

I stood aside, and she swept into the arbour and sat down, and since I did not immediately remove myself, she looked at me steadfastly and with a sharp serenity that left me in no doubt as to my duty. This garden was no place for me while she chose to walk or sit in it. Had I been toiling with a spade, like the old gardener over yonder, she might have tolerated me, but as it was I was a poor, spunkless lout who did not know his place. And I had rather fancied myself in my new tunic and cloak and girdle.

She said: “It would seem, fellow, that you have forgotten many things.”

Fellow! I felt furiously hot about the ears, but her natural scorn was too much for me. Her eyes said: “Remember to go,” and I went, and tried to do it with dignity, though I imagine that my reactions were of no more interest to her than the flutterings of a sparrow.

I got back into my cell, and shut myself in, and wondered what her response would have been had I broken my promise to her father, and told her the incredible truth.

Damn it, I was moved to go back and tell her the truth. And what would she have thought? That I was completely and insolently out of my senses?

I am ashamed to say that her stabbing scorn pushed me into a mood of agonized self-pity. I did not see red for long, but pale primrose. That a creature so indubitably lovely and untouchable as she was should regard me as less than man, and not even as a valued lackey, threw me into such desperate petulance that I did not ask myself how else she could regard me. What had that damned fellow Pellias done to deserve even her tolerance? I sat on my bed and hated my Roman self and her, this black-eyed young tigress to whom I was less than a sheep. I wanted to be back in my own world, oh, terribly so. If I could only turn that mysterious corner and find myself in the 5.37 from Waterloo, reading the Evening Standard, and the last example of egregious Fascist insolence. No, not even that. The Wimbledon results would be more familiar and soothing. I simply was not up to the standard of this haughty and wounded young woman, the daughter of a Romano-British petty noble, and for the moment I was as bitter an example of the inferiority complex as any little raging Red.

How long I sat there I do not know, but someone, a servant, came to my door and told me that dinner was served. Good God, was I expected to sit at her father’s table with her, and bear her silent surprise and her scorn. She would not understand that her father and I shared a secret. No doubt she might think that the old gentleman had gone potty. But the servant was waiting, a little contemptuously so. If my lord chose to be foolishly magnanimous to his dead steward’s son, well, that might be the strange privilege of the gentry! I got off my bed, and followed the fellow along the corridor to the summer-room. An oak table stood by the south window, an oblong table. My lord’s chair was placed at the head of it, and he was sitting in it. Meona was standing by a chair on the right. I saw a vacant stool on the opposite side. That was to be my pillory.

There was a feeling of unrest in the room, and I imagine that there had been some high argument between Aurelius and his daughter. Probably she had scorned the idea of sitting down with the agent’s son when that person was so poor a specimen of the fighting-man, and after she had shown him the height of her pride. Possibly, my lord had been reasoning with her, describing me as a man sick of soul who was deserving of compassion. My lord smiled at me and waved me to my stool. Meona took her chair, and did not so much as look at me. In truth, through all that dreadful meal she looked past me and over me with a calmness and a contempt that were complete.

I felt like a lout, and I blurted like one.

“I see, sir, you use Castor ware.”

Castor ware it was, and I had recognized it, and the pattern of animals with big eyes, and slim flowing bodies. My lord lifted me out of that indiscreet venture, while I was bothered about my table manners. We were provided with little silver-handled knives and tiny two-pronged forks. So, one did not use one’s fingers!

“I see that you are beginning to remember, my son.”

I glanced at Meona’s face, and its utter aloofness challenged me. Could I not show myself as a somewhat responsible person, a grown man capable of confronting the very terrible threat that hung over their world? The manservant who had brought me from my room, served us from a little side-table, which, I gather, was carried in from the kitchen.

“Wine or beer, sir?”

I chose wine, and red wine was poured into a glass beaker. My lord was watching me, and I was watching how he dealt with his food, cooked meat and a green vegetable like spinach, and a brownish bread. I reminded myself that potatoes were confined to that as yet undiscovered New World. I felt that I ought to make conversation, for the silence was smothering.

“Is there any news, sir?”

My lord gave me a sharp look. There was a warning in it, and to cover the lapse, I raised my beaker and drank. The wine was good, though a little sweet as though it had been treated with honey. The silence continued. And then I heard a horn blown, and the clatter of a horse’s hoofs on the stones of the courtyard. With one swift movement, Meona rose from her chair and crossed to the window.

“Festus is back from Pons Albus.”

Aurelius looked at me steadily behind his daughter’s back, and shook his great white head at me, but if this was a reprimand, it was a kind one. His very wise eyes seemed to say to me: “There is more virtue in silence than in speech. Silence can answer every question. Silence can be both armour and a cloak.” I felt very small and futile, like a junior clerk sitting at a managing director’s table, who, in trying to show that he was not self-conscious, had blurted himself into profound foolishness. Yes, silence was the thing. Meanwhile, Meona, without waiting for her father’s word, had given her orders to those in the courtyard. “Send Festus in.” This young woman carried life swiftly on her imperious, confident shoulders.

She returned to her chair, and for the first time she glanced at me directly. It was the look one gave to a person who was superfluous, and who might be crassly insensitive as to that superfluity. I pushed back my stool, as though to rise and leave them, but my lord said quietly and with authority: “Stay where you are.”

The man Festus came into the room. He was a very dark man, about my own age, with an alert, lean face, and humorous eyes. He was dusty and hot, and wearing harness, and breastplate and greaves and a kind of leather tunic. A sword was belted to him. I liked the look of Festus. I thought him a fine, well-tempered figure of a man, taut and tall and lean and mordant, such a man as I might wish to be, and carrying arms and carrying them as though he could use them. He was wearing a peaked leather cap, rather like a jockey’s. He saluted Aurelius.

“Well, what news, Festus?”

“Pons Albus lost seven men, lord. I had a talk with their dux. He said that the men of Londinium left them in the lurch.”

“Paltry fellows. Any news of the savages?”

“No, lord. Pons Albus sent two horsemen along the Ridgeway this morning. They rode as far as Cæsar’s Head. No smoke, no sign of the barbarians.”

Aurelius nodded his white head.

“In what strength were they? My fellows talk of thousands.”

“Hundreds, lord, but very fierce and strong. One of our scouts rode round their host. He said that there were women and wagons in the rear.”

That, I gathered, was grave news. This was no mere raid, but an advance in force to take land and hold it.

“Which way will they march, Festus?”

“Maybe along the Ridgeway, lord. Or they may come along the river, or if they strike the great road, turn away towards Regnum. Londinium is too strong for them.”

“We must watch, Festus, keep scouts on the hills. If our neighbours will gather we may hold them off.”

I noticed that Festus kept looking at me with curiosity. I suppose that he had heard my story, and yet his glances were not unfriendly. I had behaved like a coward, and maybe to him I looked stouter than my reputation.

It was Meona who spoke next.

“Let someone ride to Londinium and see what their spirit is. I will go, if Festus will ride with me.”

Her father shook his head.

“No. I will have out my chariot and drive to speak with the Aquilas and Pontius of Pontes. We must act together if our country-side is to be saved.”

Much of this was mere gibberish to me, though it might be grim gibberish, and devastatingly significant to these dwellers in Surrey. I could suppose that the Saxons had conquered Kent, and had established themselves there, and were now pushing forward into Surrey, Middlesex and Sussex. I had read of the storming of Anderida and the slaughter of the Britons therein, but my dates were as confused as my emotions. Someone had written of London as a city holding out like a citadel, while the barbarians pushed past it into Surrey and Berkshire, and that London in its death-rattle was a deserted place. And what of Christianity? I had supposed that Britain was Christian, but as yet I had seen no sign of the Cross. What of Pelagius, that gentle heretic?

Festus went out to order my lord’s chariot. I was to learn that Festus was a farmer and a breeder of horses on the Downs above what was to be Guildford. I was feeling dreadfully out of things, but I sat glued to my stool. I could suppose that good manners would not permit me to rise before my lord.

Meona was standing by the window, perhaps wishing that she was a man and suffered to ride out armed against these invaders. She looked fierce, frustrated, petulant.

“I go with you in the chariot. I can handle the horses.”

I had no doubt that she could, and her father did not gainsay her.

“Festus will ride with us.”

“Ah, he is a man.”

Did she turn her head and look at me? I sat there, not knowing what to do with my face or my hands. My lord rose from his chair, and took pity on me.

“Rest that head of yours, Pellias.”

I rose and walked to the door. I wanted to be alone, even with my loneliness, and yet I wanted to see that chariot, with Meona handling the reins.

I went out into the corridor, and the old man followed me.

“Patience, my son.”

There was a stone bench in the corridor, and I flopped down on it and put my head in my hands. I wanted to escape. I wanted to follow a last desperate impulse that took control and swept me along. If I could see my own country might not this dream-horror pass? If I found myself in that little familiar corner, might not everything come back to me?

Aurelius laid his hand on my head.

“Is your soul lost, my son?”

I shivered. I raised my face.

“Lord, let me go for a few hours. In my world I lived over beyond those hills. I would go and look and search.”

He eyed me steadfastly, compassionately.

“Go, my son, if your spirit is in darkness. But, if——”

I pulled myself together.

“If it has all gone, I will come back.”

I made him that promise, praying that I should not have to keep it. Anything and everything might happen if I could see the old Wey and those familiar fields and scraps of heath. Yes, the Brooklands woods, and Vickers, and the grey spire of Weybridge church, and my own little white house, and aeroplanes flying overhead.

He patted me on the shoulder.

“Well, go, my son. But, remember, danger is abroad.”

Danger! What did I care? I was mad to go, and try to stagger back into the future.

But I wanted to see them sally. I sneaked back into the summer-room and stood at the window. The chariot was waiting in the courtyard with a couple of white horses harnessed to the pole. It made me think of an old-fashioned dog-cart set low between the wheels, which had carved spokes painted white and blue. The hubs were gilded. It was certainly a luxury machine, its dash-board painted yellow, and its broad seat padded with leather. Reins and harness were of red leather, and fitted to the dash-board was a long, trumpet-shaped basket in which were a bow, arrows, and a hunting-spear. The chariot had neither springs nor mud-guards, and you entered it by a little side door fitted into the body.

Festus and two other fellows were mounted and ready. They carried spears and wore swords. I’ll confess there was a part of me that envied Festus on his great black horse. Festus was a fighting-man, and I less than a camp-follower. I saw Meona come down the steps. She was wearing a Phrygian cap and a soft, green leather jerkin buttoned tight to her throat. She carried a whip. My God, she could handle other kinds of whips! My lord followed her, helping himself with his stick. Meona took charge of the chariot. She did not sit, but stood to her work like a charioteer, and she made me think of a figure of Winged Victory. Aurelius took his seat. The white horses needed no urge from the crack of the short-handled whip, for they felt the spirit of the girl whose hands held the reins. Festus and his men turned their horses and rode out through the gateway. The blue and white wheels revolved, and Meona, leaning back with her weight on the reins, checked the impatience of those two beasts as the chariot made for the gate. Then, the wall hid them from my eyes, but they came into view again a little way down the valley, where the mill stood among willows and poplars. Festus and his men were cantering, and Meona had given the white horses their heads. I saw dust flying, and the chariot bumping and rolling, its yellow hubs flashing. That fierce young woman was a speed-merchant, and I wondered how her father felt about her chariot-charge. Was he holding to the seat, and pressing his feet against the floor-boards? But I was to learn that my lord could be as impetuous and fear-free as his daughter, with a white head that was, perhaps, a little cooler than her black one.