Francis Brett Young

“ Next morning Eva wakened to a sound that was peculiar in its blending of the strange and the familiar. The sky hung grey above them, but the air was full of innumerable bird-song, so clear and thrilling in its slenderness that she could almost have imagined that she was waking to a morning in the first ecstasy of spring in her own home on the edge of the Forest of Wyre. She had never heard anything like that at Luguru. In the garden at the mission she had grown accustomed to the harsh note of the pied shrikes, a numerous and truculent tribe which makes its living on the smaller birds. ”

“ All the morning Eva lay in a long chair within the shade of the banda in the garden under the sisal hedge. There was no sun, but the light which beat down from the white-hot sky seemed somehow less bearable than sunlight. Little by little she had realised her idea of turning this grass hut into a sanctuary for herself, and though the thatching of the reeds gave her less protection from the sky than the roof of the house would have done, she was so far in love with this privacy that she preferred to lie there. ”

“ One Friday afternoon in the middle of March she asked Considine to let Arthur drive her into Dartmouth. The day was so mild that they chose the high-road that skirts the edge of Start Bay. There was a feeling of holiday in the air, for the sea beneath them was of a pale and shimmering blue like a stone blazing with imprisoned light or a butterfly's wing. On the road they met a long procession of carriers' vans heaped high with shopping baskets, and the happy faces of country people stared at them from under the hoods. ”

“ The drowsiness of summer had passed and a new restlessness seized him. He could not be contented with this peaceful static existence into which he found himself sinking. The silence of Mary Malpas lay on him like a heavy spell. He had rested enough and could no longer be contented to drowse before the fire with a child in his arms. The peace of Wolfpits could tempt him no longer when the chill autumn air stimulated him to action and the natural violence of youth. He felt that what he wanted was the society of men and the pursuits of manliness. ”

“ Suddenly the crowd was parted by the arrival of a new body. It was a phalanx of university students who had dragged an immense beam of oak from the debris of the dismantled slum and were hurling it forward as a battering ram against one of the principal doors. Edwin could see amongst them the towering shoulders of W.G., and the mouth of the elder Wade, the hero of the hansom cab, wide open and yelling. It seemed as though the savagery of the crowd had reached its height: they tore a way through it, trampling the fallen as they went. ”

“ A length of white-washed stoep supported on slender pillars faced her, and from the stoep a flight of wide steps descended to the sandy path over which she had climbed out of the forest. There was no fence or boma to mark the transition from the desert to the sown; so that the House of the Moon was really set like any Waluguru village in a sudden clearing of the forest; and this seemed strange to Eva, for she had imagined that the house of Godovius would be more in keeping with his wealth and power. She had expected to find a garden carefully tended, an oasis of urbanity and fragrance. ”

“ It was difficult to believe that they had emerged a little below the crest of the hills, for the precipitous wall behind them rose magnificently black into the mist with fleeces of cloud entangled in its surface like wisps of wool in a winter hedge. Beneath their feet a lake of white vapour hid the trough of the Teme valley lapping the bases of other wooded hills. Nothing could they see but dark masses of trees thrown into fantastic folds and pinnacles by the shapes of the hills that carried them: an amphitheatre of savage stone fleeced with unending woods. ‘That’s Wales,’ said Mick. ”

“ The patient fell into an uneasy doze. The midwife nodded in her chair, snatching up her head with a conscious jerk whenever it lolled over her fat bosom. The smelly oil-lamp on the mantelpiece gave an occasional sputter when a drop of water was sucked up into the wick. In the room below the excited talk had petered out and only a sound of soft snoring was heard, like the breathing of cows in a byre.
Edwin thought of many things. It seemed to him that his mind burned clear as frosty starlight lighting forgotten memories of his childhood. He thought of his own mother. ”

“ Roscarna stood before them, the ghost of a great house with many solemn windows for eyes. It looked blank, uninhabited, lifeless. Between the house and the river moonlight smoothed the lawns. The moon made that cold stone phantom imponderable, a grey mirage. Radway could not believe, for a moment, that it was real; but the sense of Gabrielle's cold cheek against his lips, her fingers twined in his, and her soft, unhurried breathing recalled him, telling him that he was a lover, awake and alive. ”

“ In the gloom of the evening, when the sun which bathed the hills in amber light could no longer penetrate the thick curtains of the forest, when the thin song of innumerable mosquitoes thrilled the air and the liquid trilling of frogs arose from every creek and cranny of the swamp, he would leave them and set out for the mission with a sense of exaltation in the work accomplished and horrors overpast. The mere physical relief of emerging into the open air of the thin bush, scattered with slades of waving grasses in which herds of game were grazing, coloured his mood. ”

“ On the first two or three Saturdays of the football season Edwin had come home late, to find Mr. Ingleby growing cold over the embers of a fire in the dining-room, sleepy but intensely serious, and his tired eyes had examined Edwin so closely that he felt embarrassed, being certain that his face must bear signs of a number of enormities that he had never dreamed of committing. It was the same, unreasonable feeling of guilt that he had experienced at St. Luke’s in the middle of Mr. Leeming’s pitched battle for purity, and the sensation was so strong that he felt it useless to try and hide it. ”

“ The Gunner used to chaff her as she stood there. He had done enough lovemaking in his young days and now his only attitude towards women was one of jovial cynicism. No doubt the foreman thought that Susie stayed because she enjoyed his teasing; but Abner knew better. He knew it was himself, not Eve, that Susie was watching. Between them, unseen by the other, the air was charged with potential passion like the sky of a hot night, placid and slumberous yet ready to burst into lightning. He could laugh at Gunner Eve, this dry old man who vainly imagined that he was pleasing her fancy. ”

“ Autumn swept over the countryside. Mists rising from the Corrib at dawn lapped the feet of the hills on which Clonderriff stood, mingling, at last, with the melancholy vapour of white fog rolling in from sea. Leaves began to fall in the parsonage garden, and the lawn was frosted at daybreak with cold dew. The hint of chilliness in the air only stimulated Considine to fresh energies, sending him out on long tramps with his gun. He seemed to think it strange that Gabrielle, in her new state, should hate the sight, and above all, the sound of firearms. ”

“ The morning grew more beautiful. In some strange way its beauty seemed to have got into his blood; for he tingled with a kind of mild ecstasy which he couldn’t help feeling unsuitable—almost irreverent, to the tragic occasion. There was adventure in it and the added charm of the unexpected. He was going home. Surely it was reasonable enough to be excited at such a prospect as that, to smell the fine summer scents that were so different in a midland shire; to see the gorse ablaze on Pen Beacon and Uffdown and the green glades of the old Mercian wood. ”

“ No one would have believed that any rain had lately fallen; for the bush was full of dry and brittle sound; the leaves of the undergrowth were of the same ashen hue; the straggling candelabra cactus stood as withered as if they were dying of drought; the hornbills were calling on every side. Only on the higher mountain slopes, where the grassland had been burnt to a shade of pale amber, a sudden and surprising flush of the most tender green appeared, as transitory, alas! as it was beautiful.
There could have been no more lovely or affecting augury for James’ return to work. ”

“ Elder blossoms and slender umbels of parsley flower gleamed like dull ivory. Light, and more light came welling over the world. When Abner had reached the plank bridge over the Stour where Susan first had kissed him, the edge of the woodland rose up black beyond the stream, the water gleamed beneath the alders, and the hills, that had lain folded in night, lifted their heads. Now the birds were silent. Only the larks still sang. Walking behind the ecstatic Tiger through a green lane in Uffdown Wood, Abner saw the peak of Pen Beacon before him smitten with fire. ”

“ Payne was too surely a woman of feeling ever to have betrayed her confidence. Under that wasting moon they loved, and I know nothing, but that it must have been strange for the empty shell of Roscarna, that tragic theatre, to reawaken to such a vivid and youthful passion. The world was theirs, and nobody heeded them, unless it were Biddy Joyce, a creature whose whole life was coloured by shadowy premonitions.
Gabrielle could not bear that he should leave her, but Radway's plans for the immediate future had been made without reckoning for anything as momentous as this love-affair. ”

“ Even so this welter of the Waluguru boiled and sweated; and to add to the fantastic horror of the scene, which resembled some ancient picture of a corner in hell, the flames in the central kiln crackled and flared, casting immense shadows from the black forms which leapt around them, flinging tongues of light to search the dark sky and lighten the swaying crowns of the forest trees. Sometimes, in this upper darkness, the vagrant lights would pick out the wings of pale birds that fluttered there. These were the doves which had nested within crevices of the walls. ”

“ At the side of the Royal Oak, on Saturday afternoons, the entrance to the football ground swarmed with black coats; and the crowd of small boys, of whom Abner made one, peering through cracks in the match-board palings could see nothing but the backs of other black coats, or perhaps, above the tilted heads of the spectators, the sphere of a football leaping gaily into the dreary gray that passes for heaven in a black-country winter. ”

“ The problem of the wards was graver, being no less than the balance of life and death. In the achievements of L.M.’s scalpel, he saw the highest attainment of which surgery was capable. In a hundred cases offhand he could say to himself that but for Lloyd Moore’s skill the patient would have died, and when he saw the fragile figure of the surgeon with his pale face and burning eyes enter the theatre, Edwin would think of him as a man worn thin by wrestling with death . . . death in its most cruel and invincible moods. ”

“ The river water was so low as to be unfishable, but in the string of lakelets below Loughannilaun Radway landed half a dozen sea-trout with Gabrielle, who knew the stones in every pool, as ghillie. In the divine relaxation of their love-making they were not inclined for strenuous exercise; but when evening fell, and the sky cooled, they would wander abroad together by the lake and through the woodlands or lie dreaming, side by side, in the deep heather. ”

“ They sat there for a long time together, speaking in whispers, as if they were afraid of waking James, although, in fact, they were most anxious that he should wake. It was a very strange night for M‘Crae. Removed at last from the gloom of the banda, it seemed to him that he had never really seen Eva before. In this light and spacious room she was quite a different creature from the gentle presence which had haunted his prison; endowed, in some way, with a more beautiful freedom of movement . . . more alive. More hopelessly unattainable. ”

“ Abner plunged on through the wood. He knew that he was running for his life. It was good to be running for his life. He went on crashing through the undergrowth of the wood battling with back-springing saplings, torn with briers, laughing, curiously, wildly exultant. He did not stop to think that he had lost touch with the others. In an affair of this kind each must look to himself. He only knew that he had escaped out of the mouth of danger. His head spun with the elation of his heart pumping blood into his brain. ”

“ The Halesby Road, with its streaming traffic, shared the same transfiguration. The speed and strength of the horses enthralled him; the faces of men and women walking homeward from their work in the city seemed triumphantly happy; the smooth wood-pavement, polished by the rolling of innumerable wheels, shone like a street in heaven. It seemed to Edwin as if the whole world had somehow been uplifted by a secret knowledge of his own experience. A night of wonder. . . .
“Well, what is the young woman’s name?” asked Boyce, when he returned to Easy Row. ”

“ Here, even in their more frequent sunshine, the air lay dead, ebbing like a sluggish river, from Dartmoor to the sea. In winter the county families went to sleep like dormice, so that no strange-calling conveyances passed the lodge-gates at Lapton, and the life of Gabrielle was like that of those sad roses that lingered on the south wall beneath her bedroom window in a state that was neither life nor death. If she had shared Considine's interest in his profession things might have been different. ”

“ They halted there for a moment, and Eva bathed her face, her arms and her bruised feet. In all her life she had never known water so wonderful; but they could not linger there, for already the sky was beginning to darken. So at length they came to the edge of the bush, and saw beneath them the valley in which the railway ran, an ordered green plantation of rubber, some fields of sisal, a cluster of homely, white-washed houses, and a little compound in which stood a group of paw-paw trees burdened with gourdlike fruit. ”

“ In this way there began a series of midnight adventures that were a great joy to Abner and an even greater to George’s dog, who asked nothing better in her sport than the help of human allies. On these nights of misty moonlight the secret beauty of the country-side smote on Abner’s heart though he knew nothing of it but that he was happy. In the daytime the land was dead and nothing lived in it but he and his fellow men, but when evening came the hills, the woodlands, the rivers and the upland wastes of heather tingled with life. ”

“ The atmosphere of luxurious indolence grew so heavy that it became too great an effort to think of carrying the rugs and deck-chairs back to the studies; and when Douglas had left them to keep an appointment with Griffin, Widdup and Edwin sat on till the meadows swam with soft golden light, till the tops of the pyramidal lime-trees became the colour of their blossoms, and the sun cast long shadows upon the yellow fields. ”

“ I sat there until the sun had set, and on the remotest horizon the shadow of Kilimanjaro, a hundred miles away, rose against the sky. I sat there till it grew dark, and the great plains faded from me, thinking of the three men who died at Luguru: of James the martyr predestinate; of Godovius consumed in the flames which he had kindled; of M‘Crae whom Eva Burwarton had loved. It was very still. All the shallow life of Nairobi might have been as far away as the great mountain’s filmy shadow. And then, when I turned to make my way back in the darkness to the club, a sudden sound startled me. ”

“ Martin had been quite right. He didn’t look in the least like a dead man. He did not look like a man at all: only a pathetic, tanned skeleton with tight-drawn sinews and toughened skin: a dried mummy, from which all the contours of humanity had shrunk away. It wasn’t so bad after all. The picture that Edwin’s imagination had anticipated, that of a crude and horrible human shambles, was not here. No . . . the idea of humanity was too remote to be in the least insistent. For a moment, in spite of this consolation, Edwin went pale. Martin noticed it. ”

“ He walked fast, impelled by an unconscious energy, and all the time one dominant thought possessed his brain. ‘Curse women! Curse all women! Curse the bloody lot of them!’
He passed through Chapel Green and Mainstone, dead villages both. Not a light in their windows. As dead as Wolfpits. The poplar under which he had trysted with Susie hung above him. The moonlight broke in ripples on its lofty crown. He saw nothing at all, heard nothing but the steady rhythm of his feet and the monotonous burden of words in his brain. ”

“ But in this new and delightful atmosphere Eva could afford to laugh at her fancies. There were so many pleasant things to be done, and as the sun rose that vast, smiling country unfolded around her with a suggestion of spaciousness and warmth and leisure. A land of infinite promise in which the very simplicity of life’s demands should make one immune from the menace of discontent: where, for a little labour, the rich soil should give great recompense. ”

“ Their turf was silvered still with a fine dew that made it even paler than a chalk down should be. Fold beyond beautiful fold they stretched before him. The woody belts of beech and pine lay veiled in milky mist, and the air which moved to meet him, as it seemed, over that expanse of breathing grass, was of an intoxicating coolness and sweetness which went to his head and made him want to shout or sing. The spring of a summer morning in the spring of life! It was all wrong. Surely no awful devastation of death could overshadow such an ecstasy of physical happiness? ”

“ There could never be any peace in the house till he died. Rather than submit to such a humiliation she would cut herself free from The Dyke and share Abner’s life. Love in a cottage with a vengeance! But did he love her? She had no real reason to believe it. And did she love him? She could not say. Better, far better, cling to the certainties, whatever they might be.
‘We’ll say no more about it,’ said Mr Prosser. ‘Let bygones be bygones, eh?’
She nodded her head slowly at the fire. A piece of the shattered decanter that had escaped her brush suddenly caught a gleam of light. ”