“No such star. I failed to get a degree.”
“Then I’m afraid I have to say that there’s another charge. Wasting money that might have been spent on your fellow men. That matters, you know. I shall have to inform the court.”
“I didn’t even sit for my degree. I had to leave Oxford. I had to go down. It was circumstances.”
“In that case, the provisions require that you applied for full-time work as a Merry Andrew. It’s not an easy life, master, I admit, but there it is. It’s the law. It always will be. You can count on that. It’s obvious.”
“You don’t seem to realize that at the time I could read and write and split hairs and reap where I’d sown. I was as half-qualified as anyone.”
“It’s not for me to realize one thing. Now is it, master? I can safely leave that sort of thing to you. But, strictly off the record, I should put it like this: I should observe it’s not much use having all that fancy stuff at your free disposal, unless you use it to cheer people up, and full time too, in accordance with our common nature.”
“Most people are quite young when they leave a university, you know. They’re often pretty ignorant.”
“No doubt, master, but no one can say that lasts long, least of all a gentleman like yourself. Why, you don’t look more than twenty-one or twenty-two at this moment. What exactly did you do next? That’s the question, master. I ought to warn you that the court will want full details. They’re entitled to demand the inside and outside of everything, and that’s only the start of it. So what happened then?”
“I skipped and quipped and ripped. What do you suppose I did? I never entered a bed for years, good or bad. If that’s not full time, then the law’s an ass.”
“Properly speaking, master, the law is more like a veil. Like the veil of the temple,” said the Seneschal gravely. “You get to see that when you’ve been in the law’s service for a long lifetime.”
“A thousand years, perhaps?” ventured Aylwin-Scott. It was high time for him to take the initiative; though he must do it without sounding pert.
“Give or take a few double centuries, maybe,” said the Seneschal, possibly meeting him halfway, as a man can sometimes do when he is secure within himself and within his worldly position. “But a full grown adult is expected to feed and clothe his own wife and tiny toddlers,” the Seneschal continued, bringing the converse back to the starting-point.
“I lost the proper use of my eyes and ears, and of my arms and legs too, and of my brain and teeth, and of my spleen and pancreas.”
“Did you submit yourself to the infirmary?”
“You can see that I did. That’s why I’m as I am now.”
“They can only give you the full treatment. It’s useless to expect more. In fact, it’s a sacrilege.”
But Aylwin-Scott was staring at him. “We’ve met before, I think.”
Quite clearly, he could see the brute coming up the crazy path (crazy concrete) from the dropped gate—or foresee him doing so: in either case, as distinctly as if it were that present moment, treacherous as all other moments. He suspected, indeed he knew, that it had happened, or would happen, again and again. There could be no excluding the man. Nothing would keep him out.
“And we shall meet again, master,” the Seneschal confirmed. “It’s the penalty for expecting too much if I may speak more confidentially.”
“It was I who entered the Bower when Paul Tent was too afraid.”
“Positively, my master. Unquestionably. And where is Mr. Tent now? Lord Mayor of London for eighteen consecutive years, a peer of the United Kingdom, a Companion of Honour, and still with the best of his life well ahead of him.” The Seneschal smiled sentimentally. “Everyone loves Mr. Tent. Lord Ordnance, I should say. ’E knows every rule in the book.” The Seneschal was so moved by majority emotion that for the first time he had neglected an aspirate.
“He’s the best of chaps,” said Aylwin-Scott. “Well, in many ways. Just about my closest friend, in fact.”
“None better, master. Everyone agrees. You’ve read books, but you’re not what we call quick, or you’d know it had all been said before. That won’t excuse you when the time comes.”
“There is nothing for which I need to apologize,” affirmed Aylwin-Scott, stoutly, as he thought.
“It would make no difference if you did apologize, master. The court decides partly on the evidence, and you must admit it’s dead against you. How often have you stood properly in a queue, like the others? Why aren’t you wearing the correct socks? Can’t you speak to your own children in a language they can understand? What made you think you could get away with eyes like that once you were grown up? Evidence, that’s one thing the court asks for, and you seem to be dragging a wainload of it. You’re a heretic. You’re a lunatic. You’re enrolled with the Father of Lies. You’re moonstruck. It would be better for all of us if you had never been born.”
As the Seneschal was plainly working himself up into some other form of life, Aylwin-Scott made a further demand on his stock of worldly experience, however sketchy.
“Good man,” he said, and in very nearly the appropriate tone, “could you please tell me how far it is to the centre of the Bower?”
Through what could only be called an aperture (perhaps an alternative route, after all), emerged a page. Indeed there was even a small, alabaster door, which the page had opened from within. Aylwin-Scott had not observed the fitment, owing to the Seneschal’s demanding converse. Now he could see at a glance that the small elaborate carvings were incredibly beautiful: lovers caressing, and saints suffering; or possibly the reverse.
“That depends upon whether you are sleeping or waking,” said the page, who, though arrayed as a boy-page, was very obviously a girl-page.
“Which am I?” enquired Aylwin-Scott.
“Waking,” said the page. “It’s Saturday afternoon. Have you forgotten?”
“It’s just possible to fall asleep on a Saturday afternoon,” replied Aylwin-Scott with elegant sarcasm. “I’ve done it myself on several occasions.”
“Don’t you count upon that as a defence,” growled the Seneschal. “Now I’m warning you, master. Remember your deathbed.”
“Tell me about your deathbed, Michael,” cooed the page.
“You lack the time to listen, boy,” said the Seneschal. “Remember how long it went on. The people he cut off made a better end than he did. A cough, a prayer, and head-first into the ground. A blessing for them, really.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying all along,” cried Aylwin-Scott, by now more confident than pleading. “Death in battle is glorious ever.”
“Sir Michael!” piped the page in her small voice, and threw her arms tightly round him though, as her head hardly rose above his waist, it was his loins that she mainly encircled. He had never become entirely reconciled to his height being so absurdly above average.
“But, all the same, Michael, it’s very important to make a good end,” said the page, gurgling into Aylwin-Scott’s midriff.
“Tell me about it,” he managed to say, though talking made him feel slightly bilious, so close was her clasp. “Tell me how to do that.”
The page flung away from him. “Rosamund will tell you,” she said petulantly, and now with pink spots on her otherwise almost translucent cheeks.
“Then take me to Rosamund. How much further?”
“Life is what we make it,” put in the Seneschal. “It’s entirely up to us. I’ve told you already. You weren’t compelled to do anything wrong. You weren’t even hungry, though many are. You weren’t thinking of your children, though many do. You were educated. You were dishonest deliberately. You were picked and then rejected.”
For Aylwin-Scott, words such as these settled the matter. He knew very well who the Seneschal was: we may or may not love such a person, but we go badly astray without him. Not that what had been said was wholly true either; then or at any time, there was a quite enormous amount to be adduced on the othe
r side. There always is.
Further fortified by that last consideration, and with the little page twitting him, challenging him, Aylwin-Scott managed positively to glare at the rumbustious Seneschal. To his relief, though not astonishment, the Seneschal slowly turned into a series of hideous stone figures, partly human, partly not, and mostly as much above ordinary lifesize, as was the neglected hedge behind them, to say nothing of Aylwin-Scott himself.
Standing afar, the little page half-winked at him, and executed a pretty caper.
Over the hard, lumpy ground, he ran towards her, intending to gather her up.
But she skipped aside. “No,” she said. “You must remember Rosamund.” He knew that equivocal tone.
Again he ran, but she merely ran ahead of him, and much faster. Now she wore a little plumed cap, which he had not observed before. He marvelled that with the swiftness of her motion the cap did not fall off, and become defeathered.
Here was another of those long walks between high hedges, one-third dead and brown. The expert estimates of the Bower’s magnitude were proving characteristically void. Aylwin-Scott was well up in the debate as to whether it is better to derive knowledge imaginatively (even, sometimes, aesthetically) from books, or more casually from experience and adversity. This second long transit seemed virtually to range into the next county, though presumably the river ran between. Aylwin-Scott felt that he should latch on to that riparian aspect of local government topography.
“Come on!” called the little page. Her azure shirt managed to flash in the watery sun, as if it had been plumaged; otherwise so singularly absent, apart from one greying peacock.
Aylwin-Scott, however, saw no reason why he should continue especially to exert himself, since plainly he was not going to catch her in her present mood. On the other hand, he had no wish to suggest that he was in any way losing heart. He who enters the Bower must persevere to the centre of it, unless he be swept away, or willing to acknowledge himself a laggard. Aylwin-Scott would not cry Halt to his life for a long time yet. At the moment, a brisk walking pace seemed to him best adapted to all the circumstances he was informed of. The honeysuckle had never smelt more pungently.
Perhaps it was that very river he could all the time hear; the immemorial Isis, so dear to every swelling Oxford heart for more generations than a druid’s oak has rings. Certainly the sound was no longer to be described as rippling. By now the word might perhaps be rumbling. There seemed to be more water, and swifter and less constrained.
“Oh—do—come—on.”
“Stand still and I shall!”
She posed with legs far apart, a hand on each hip, and her eyes shadowed by the cap. She was staring straight at him, none the less; watching his minutest move, alert to dart ahead once more. Aylwin-Scott wondered what her name could be: Jocelyn, Amyas, Bosco Faucon? Perhaps Aylwin? It is what he would have called her, had she been his minion, instead of Rosamund’s. He, Michael; she, Aylwin.
But suddenly, and as in one way or another seemed the way of the place, his view of her was blotted out by the apparition of a stumbling ancient, who filled the entire area of view, though it was quite illogical that he should do so, as he was bent with malady. It was equally illogical that he should be able for a single moment to keep ahead of the lanky Aylwin-Scott, as he could move at all only by the use of implements, and, by a sober standard, should have been confined to bed and virtually forgotten, years before. None the less, the old man managed it over a surprising distance; partly, perhaps, because, this time, Aylwin-Scott had no particular will to overtake him, knowing, this time, perfectly well who he was, even though he could discern merely the threadbare back, and no vestige of the accepted but totally unacceptable face. Well, well, a promise is always at the same time a threat or curse; and now precisely the same measure, neither more nor less. By now, Aylwin-Scott also knew in advance that when the intruding duffer took himself off, the ever-elusive page would be gone about her business also.
The sound of the water would in any case have drowned her words unless her cherub lips had been at his very ear. It would have had to be his left ear too, because, as with many young men, one of his ears was greatly more useful than the other. He had found that out when (how few years ago?) the wolfhounds had sprung at him in the perilous orchard; quite noiselessly, as it had seemed to him at the time, preoccupied, as he was, and always would be.
So he was alone once more; apart from the tumbling water, which was company enough for any single individual. At this farther end of the second walk, the standard of maintenance was better. There were fewer dead growths in the high hedges, and fewer dingy parasites. Underfoot, the grass was greener and more diffuse; the ground more level, even a little softer.
Aylwin-Scott forced his neck back in order to look up at the empyrean. It proved perfectly possible to glimpse it when one had made the required effort. In Oxfordshire, especially, of course, in Oxford herself and her near vicinity, it is ever raining or expected to rain. When the sky is not grey and watery, it is yellow and watery; nor is the yellow a beautiful yellow. Thus it was, high above the Bower that afternoon. Much is ever perfectly normal and predictable.
At last there were even birds; both hedge-hoppers and love-charmers; and not, as yet, a kestrel in sight. The ravellings of the Bower probably disheartened the aerial carnivores and droppers.
All the same, owing to the water noise, not a trill could be heard. It was strange to watch birds, some magical, some habitual, all hopping and flittering without a squeak or throb.
Aylwin-Scott perfectly well realized that, in a sense, he had outlived himself, and had managed to emerge, in some shape or form, on the other side of his existence. All those near-doubles! Paul Tent himself could not seriously question the firm evidence. It was a feat on Aylwin-Scott’s part! And in a career which seemed unlikely to achieve all that much by mere worldly criteria. Of course there were no looking glasses to confirm one single thing.
But there was another of those corners ahead: blind turns, the officials (almost anywhere) would have called them; and, for the first time, all, truly all, was trimmed, edged, and smoothed. One could conceive of the Bower’s inmost dweller fully sustaining the centre only; exactly as the dweller in a castle or palace sustains only the core, and sadly resigns the rest to vicissitude and all fiscal evils.
Round the next corner strolled a creature that Aylwin-Scott had never seen before. It had ears with points; a wispy, tufted tail; and very light blue eyes; but it seemed to ignore him. It neither bristled nor nuzzled. Rather, it proceeded by the laws of heraldry. Aylwin-Scott knew a little about those laws too.
Holding its head high, the creature ambled away along the alley he had just traversed. He suspected that it saw, and in every way sensed, infinitely more than he could.
He turned the corner finally; and then another and another and another, and these so quickly that his head spun stupidly, and the sound of water had become not rippling, not rumbling even, but roaring.
Somehow he was standing and moving within an immense cascade, though there was nothing tactile beyond the unchanging Oxfordshire humidity upon his brow, neck, and girth.
Aylwin-Scott stood, stagnant, stunned.
For moments the noise was as shattering as birth itself, and then he was standing at the edge of a lawn the shape of a heart, or perhaps of a lyre, or perhaps of an Italian axe-head. Small pug-like dogs were dotted about, grazing; so that Aylwin-Scott apprehended at once what deficiency it was that led the dogs he had so far known occasionally to snuffle grass. Some of the pugs were ribboned; others belled. At the far end of the lawn was a pavilion. Aylwin-Scott was startled by its smallness. The attendance on the occupant could be scarcely more than notional. He walked onto the lawn.
The honeysuckle smell was gone; headachy in its intensity, far too much of a supposedly good thing. Here the smell was of the rampant roses on the trees and bushes; pure, elevating, ecstatic, akin to speech, Alas, Aylwin-Scott was hardly able to assimilate it,
owing to the distracting din, which had lessened only very little, since its crisis.
He placed his hands on his ears, shut his eyes tightly, and crumpled into himself. He knotted himself so that it looked as if he would have to be straightened by helpers.
But almost at once a hand fell gently on his shoulder. There was nothing left that he could offer in response. He could not even open his eyes.
The hand gently drew at him and made as if to shift and turn him. He realized that it was behind him that the other was standing.
Then the hand was lifted, there was a pause, and then there could be no doubt that the noise was diminishing; evenly and steadily.
Aylwin-Scott half-opened his eyes, or perhaps one of his eyes.
He saw ramifying mulberry trees, and a woman in a mulberry-coloured dress, who was going through the motions of drawing a heavy curtain which he could not see. As she dragged, the noise of the water was proportionately cut off; but, plainly the curtain was difficult to move, so that, in ordinary courtesy, Aylwin-Scott should have taken his hands from his ears and applied them to her aid.
When he did remove them, there was no noise at all, other than a single plop-plop from some other source, which the noise of the waterfall had previously drowned into absurdity.
Aylwin-Scott realized at once that it was the slow dripping of blood, not of water. He found it hard to decide how soft or loud it was. It was more remorseless than any clock, or imaginable clock.
The woman stood among the mulberry trees regarding him. It was hard to decide whether or not she was smiling. Though she was a beautiful shape, she looked older than Aylwin-Scott (with many romancers) had assumed: a woman, not a girl; eminently maternal, some might say. She was breathing a little hard after her exertion (but very beautifully, so that Aylwin-Scott’s heart plunged a little, youth that he was), and her arms now hung straight down her sides, with the palms of her hands towards him. It was almost as if she were an athlete who had momentarily stepped back in order to survey her opponent with a view to seeking a new advantage; but of course her mulberry-coloured form, of finest mulberry-tree silk, made that passing idea distinctly ridiculous.
The Late Breakfasters and Other Strange Stories Page 46
