Читать книгу The Man Who Went Back - Warwick Deeping - Страница 9

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It was very dark in the valley. The suddenness of the nightfall was such that had I not found the sunken lane before the afterglow had faded, I should have been lost. Moreover, the darkness and the silence had a strange effect upon me. They seemed to bring me up against the mystery of things, and to translate the essential self in me into the past, and to withdraw it from what I knew as the present. This velvet blackness, and the bosky foliage, and the smell of the woods, and this utter silence! I was not listening for trains or cars, or for any twentieth-century sound. I was a more elemental creature who had escaped death by the narrowest of margins; I was in wild, dark country, listening, every fibre of me taut. I remember pausing under a great shaggy holly, and putting to myself that catastrophic question: Was I dead or alive? Was I, in fact, Pellias, and that other world the illusion? Had I, a Roman Briton, dreamed a fantastic dream of grotesque machines, of contraptions that flew in the air, of men in queer clothes, of a monstrous world that was, as yet, unborn?

Also, I was oppressed by a sense of tragedy, by a feeling that I was involved in happenings that were beyond my control. I was at the mercy of nature, nature as it expressed itself bloodily in the urge to kill. Had I not felt that urge? But in the darkness and the silence of this lane I was the hunted creature, not the hunter. I gripped my spear. Yet I could not help thinking how history reproduced itself. In that modern world we young folk had felt ourselves living under the edge of a catastrophe, of a sky black with menace, of roaring planes and death raining upon the nice order of our little lives. Nothing had seemed calculable. All life was soured by that eternal “If.” “We will try Scotland for our holiday, if——” or “If the war doesn’t come——” Always, sensationalism, headlines, the nine o’clock news on the wireless. A.R.P. Fear, hatred, worry! That babbling little beast Goebbels! Russia. Chaos hanging over one by a thread! How like was the pattern in this island world into which I had been translated. Beauty, order, peace, crops and herds, farmsteads, orchards, and into it spilling this savagery, this wolf spirit, slaying, destroying, fouling. Was the higher order always to fall before the lower? Was the planned violence of Totalitarianism any better than the savagery of these other Teutons? Did the wheel always turn and find itself crushing our dreams in muck and blood? I felt suddenly drawn to that old man in the valley down yonder whose white head was confronting the same tragedy. I could divine his love of order, his cultured humanism, his civilized artistry, all threatened by this savagery, this rush of wild men who came to destroy all that he and his forbears had created. He had no machine-guns with which to counter them. Their silly, slashing swords were more potent than all his philosophy. And in such a tragedy was not the humane and cultured spirit at a horrible disadvantage? There might be nothing but blood and tears.

I was nearing the bottom of the valley, and its silence and darkness troubled me. Surely there should be lights here, or had Honey Valley experienced a sudden exodus like that which I had watched a few hours ago? Had the Saxons come and left blood and a great silence behind them? That horror shocked me. I seemed to see Meona looking out from the portico of the temple on Farley Heath, or driving her white horses in the chariot, and I was torn by compassion and anger. Arrogant she might be, turbulent and impetuous and proud, but the thought of her being savaged by those brutes moved me to sudden primitive nausea. Yes, I was very much man. Her scorn had scourged me, but as I groped my way down that tunnel of a lane I realized that her sleek but vibrant youth had scourged me in other ways. If I was ready to fight for anything I was ready to fight for the tormenting tenderness of this black and white Roman girl. This may sound very blah and boyish, but I gather that some supercilious and epigrammatic negation in trousers has no great social value when throats are cut and women are ravished, and houses go up in flames.

I passed the farm where the dog had barked at me, and it was lightless and silent, and its silence quickened my forebodings. My feet were hurting me rather badly, but I broke into a trot, for the lane became less of a black tunnel as it approached the bottom of the valley. But what if the Saxons were down yonder? I came to the valley road, and stopped to listen, leaning on my spear. The only sound I could hear was the stream making a faint, moist pother among the water-weeds. I could see no lights. Well, caution was the thing, though I was feeling strung-up, and almost eager for violence. I suppose some solitary sentry might feel as I did, when in the darkness and the silence, some unseen yet sensed danger got upon his nerves. I stalked slowly down the road, holding my spear ready, eyes and ears on the alert. I passed a dim, lightless, voiceless cottage, and then another. I began to think that the place had been abandoned.

I crept on, and then I saw a light ahead of me, a mere chink of light. It was where the house of Aurelius should stand. The wooded hills seemed ready to roll in like great waves and engulf the valley. The white walls of the house became visible in the darkness. I reached the high wall of the enclosure. Now, I could hear a queer, murmuring sound that was not the sound made by running water. What was it? I flattened myself against the wall and listened. It was like the sound of many people whispering together, a kind of startled crepusculation such as a wood makes when a little breeze ruffles the leaves in the silence of the night. Somehow, it suggested fear, horror, human shudderings. I crept further along the wall, and found myself at the courtyard gate. It was shut and barred.

The queer murmuring had ceased. There was silence, a stark, listening silence. Had I been heard? Was that courtyard full of people who were listening for any sound that might betray the stealthy approach of an enemy? I stood by the gate, holding my breath. I must have been standing there for fully a minute when another sound broke the stillness, the sudden whimpering of a very small child, a whimpering that enlarged itself into a vigorous howling. I heard a woman’s voice trying to still and soothe the child.

This little human hullaballoo brought me back to solid earth. I hammered on the gate and shouted.

“Hallo, there, hallo.”

A man’s voice answered me.

“Who’s there?”

“Pellias.”

They opened the gate, but only a crack, and the point of a spear showed as well as a dim face.

“Alone?”

“Yes. Who should I be with?”

They opened the gate and pulled me in. I heard the gate slammed behind me, and the bar banged into place. Two men were holding me. Another shoved his face close up against mine. He had a foul breath. These fellows seemed to have the jitters.

“Is it you, you white-livered rat?”

“You’re talking.”

“Yah, in such devil’s darkness one can’t see a face.”

I was resenting being held, and the contemptuous roughness of their welcome.

“Bring a lantern if you doubt it. Why all this fear?”

That angered them.

“Fear! You are a pretty one to talk of fear.”

There was the sound of someone spitting.

“If it is the spunkless pup, let us put him out again. Pellias brings bad luck.”

I lost my temper, and I shook them off.

“Where is my lord? I have news for him.”

“Good news, I guess!”

“Yes. Take me to my lord.”

They tried to crowd round me, but I pricked one of them with my spear, and he cursed me.

“God rot you.”

“Well, mend your manners.”

But they did seem to realize that I was somehow man, and not to be jostled as they pleased, and I think they were in such a state of nerves that any show of spirit impressed them. I walked forward from the gate, but I had not taken three steps before I trod on something, a leg. The owner winced, and a woman’s voice shrilled at me. Must I go stepping on people? Then, in the dim light, I discovered that the courtyard was full of people, lying and squatting, dark lumps of humanity huddled about the water cistern. Refugees? Had the whole village taken shelter for the night behind these walls? It was so.

I picked my way up to the great house, the men followed me. A man was sitting on the loggia steps with a spear across his knees. He was dozing, but he woke up with a gasp and a start when I touched him with the butt of my spear.

“Who’s that? Hold off.”

How jumpy all these people were! I saw the whites of his eyes shining. His face looked vaguely bleached and haggard in the darkness.

“It’s brave Pellias come in,” said a voice.

I turned on the voice.

“You mend your manners. I wish to speak, at once, with my lord.”

The man with the spear was unsteady on his feet, and seemed to be drunk with weariness, but he laughed, and strangely enough his laughter made me recognize him.

“Festus.”

“Yes, Festus, my lad. We seem to be treading on thorns here. I’ll take you in. Come.”

The house was as dark as the courtyard, and I began to understand this darkness, for, to be without lights was to share the darkness of the valley, and to mask and cloak yourself against beasts that were on the prowl. I saw a slit of light at the end of the corridor, a V-shaped slit between the folds of the curtains. Our footsteps seemed to echo in this silent, breathless house. It was Festus who drew back the curtain.

“Pellias, master.”

I heard a voice say: “Let Pellias enter.”

I felt Festus’s hand upon my shoulders, and it was a comradely hand. Festus was good for such a crisis, a man who could raise a laugh in the face of it, though he was ready to fall asleep on his feet. I stepped into the summer-room, and he let the curtain drop behind me. This great room seemed all shadows. A solitary light was burning, a small oil lamp set on a bracket in the recess where the household gods had their sanctuary. Aurelius was sitting in his chair, facing the figures of his gods. His hair stood out like a white fringe. I saw Meona half crouching on a window-seat by one of the lattices that was not shuttered up against the night. Her eyes looked like black hollows in a mask of ivory.

Aurelius did not turn his head or move.

“So, you have come back, my son.”

I knew that Meona was watching me and those huge dark eyes of hers bothered me. The trouble with the modern mind is that it can never shed its self-scrutiny, or cease from wondering how it may shape in the world of the self-conscious. I stood up straight, with the butt of my spear on the ground, and my two hands gripping the handle just below the head. Was I adopting the pose of the Roman sentinel keeping his post while Vesuvius rained death upon Pompeii?

“I have news, lord.”

The old man did not seem to hear me. He might have been deaf, or deaf to mere empty sound of my voice, or so sunk in profound thought that nothing I could say would rouse him. After all, what was I? A ghost out of the future, and maybe he was afraid of this ghost. I stood and waited, feeling Meona’s eyes watching me. The lamp-flame flickered, and the faces of the gods seemed to pull grimaces.

I heard a voice crying in the night: “There is death in the land.” It was a woman’s voice, shrill and abrupt with anguish. The still night shuddered. I felt myself stiffen, and looking at Meona I saw her sitting rigid, her hands gripping the edge of the seat. The weight of her body seemed to be carried by those two tense white arms.

Her voice came in a whisper that was almost a hiss.

“Is there nothing, no vengeance, no strength in the land?”

I stood and stared at her and the man in me was fiercely moved by that sound that seemed drawn from her like a jet of blood. But Aurelius had come out of his stupor. He rose slowly from his chair, saluted his gods and turned to face me. Never had I seen a man so aged in so short a time. His face had fallen in; he looked shrunken; his whole body was tremulous with the tremblings of sudden senility.

“We have seen death, my son.”

I suppose my face was vacant, for he looked at me steadfastly for a second or two, and then made a sign to his daughter.

“I would speak with Pellias alone.”

But she came swiftly across the room, and putting her arm about him, raised her face to me defiantly.

“I can bear what men can bear.”

“You have borne enough, child.”

“I will not leave you.”

She must have felt his old tremblings and been wounded by them. She seemed to press her young body against his, and buttress him with the fierce, slim pillar of her body. Her face had changed. It seemed to me a different face, so different that I could not help staring at it. Her mouth looked bigger, her lips fuller, and the oval of its shape broader from cheekbone to cheekbone. The dark eyes were not flashing pebbles, but more like dewy, luscious fruit. I would have said that her face had a sudden, mysterious ripeness, that mature richness which comes of deep emotion.

Even her voice and her words were different.

“We, we are young, Pellias. We should be able to dare and to fight.”

Something seemed to happen to me in those three seconds. She was speaking to me as to an equal, as man, as one who had blood in him and courage. She was alive, vibrant and passionate, and I too was alive. I felt a kind of singing in my ears, and my heart beat hard and fast.

I said: “Something has happened. All those people out yonder.”

She nodded at me, and then inclined her head towards her father’s chair. I understood her. I turned the chair so that Aurelius could sit in it without facing that little flickering lamp and the vague and inconstant faces of his twilight gods. Both his gods and his world were chaos, and he was a very old man. She made him sit in his chair, and standing behind it, and leaning over the carved back, she let a hand rest upon his head.

She said: “Be silent, Father,” and to me: “I will tell you.”

Her gentleness both surprised and won me, for her young compassion was so contrasted with her pride, and with my memory of the young women of my time who appeared to regard old men, and fathers in particular, as tiresome and superfluous old fools. Parents should be seen but not heard. I saw that Aurelius’s eyes had closed themselves. He lay back and listened, while her fingers played softly with his hair.

“It was to Collis Alba that we drove. Three miles from the place, where the wooden bridge carries the Regnum road over the river, we met—these people.”

She paused, and stared at the wall behind me, as though compelling herself to confront some horror.

“Women and children, and old men. Aquila had sent them away. He and his men had thought to hold the villa and beat off those savages. They had been seen on the hills by his scouts. We drove on. We had crossed the bridge when we saw smoke rising. Again, we drove on, Festus riding ahead. In a little while Festus came back to us. He was very white and grim. He would have stopped us. But one must see, one must know, one must not shirk things. We came to Collis Alba. It was burning. The courtyard gates were broken. Again, Festus would have stayed us there. We,” and she faltered for a moment, bit her lips, and went on: “Dead men and blood, and Aquila’s head planted in a pot of flowers by the cistern. Death, and silence and flames. We came away.”

Her hand rested motionless upon the old man’s head. She stared beyond me at the wall, as though her eyes were still full of all that horror. Then, she gave a little jerk of the head and shoulders, and seemed to come back to life, and to a confrontation of the tragic things that threatened all of us.

“One must think, think, decide.”

She looked at me as though even Pellias the coward might have some significance on such a night as this. I felt that she was tortured, torn, distracted. Should this house and the valley and its good life be abandoned, or should we dare to stay and fight it out?

I said: “I too have seen those savages. They set the white house over the hills on fire. The people had fled.”

Her eyes gleamed out at me.

“Constantine’s house! Ye gods! Are the wretches everywhere?”

I saw the old man’s eyes open.

“Raiding parties. How many were there of them, my son?”

“Perhaps fifty.”

“Wolf packs. Ah, for a single cohort of trained men. That may be our undoing. We are not ready. We are attacked and beaten in detail. There cannot be so many of those fellows, but they are fighting-men.”

I was leaning heavily on my spear.

“Are there no soldiers in Britain?”

He gave me a quick, warning look.

“Pontius of Pontes has raised a body of horse. If only we and the Aquilas and such men as Constantine could have joined strength.”

“Can we not rouse the country?”

He straightened in his chair.

“Someone to lead, someone with courage and a voice. But what now? Do we go or stay?”

My eyes met Meona’s, and I was a new man.

“Let us send the women and children away, and stand. Let someone ride and gather people to us. If someone stands we shall be a rallying point. Surely we could hold this house?”

My lord looked at me steadfastly.

“That is how a man should speak, my son. The women and children shall go. But who shall be our torch-bearer?”

I saw Meona’s face blaze.

“Why not I? Surely, men will listen to a woman, or be shamed. I will go.”

“The hazard is too great.”

“We must dare it. I’ll drive to Pontes. I’ll——”

Her eyes were on me, and I was man.

“Give me leave to go, too, lord. Let Festus and the others hold this house. We must get help.”

I saw Meona smile at me, and her smile was an enigma. Did she think I was still a coward, and being brave in flight? I changed my mind suddenly.

“No, let Festus go. I will stay.”

There was silence for a moment. Her great black eyes were studying me.

“No, Festus shall stay. I will take Pellias with me.”