Wood and Stone

by John Cowper Powys

  “So this is the pagan thing,” thought the poor priest, “that it is my duty to initiate into the religion of sacrifice!”

  He could not prevent the passing through his brain of a grotesque and fantastic vision in which he saw himself, like a second hermit of the Thebaid, leading this equivocal modern Thais to the waters of Jordan. Certainly the association of such a mocking white-armed darling of errant gods with the ceremony of confirmation was an image somewhat difficult to embrace! The impatient artist, apologizing profusely to the embarrassed visitor, soon dragged off his model to her couch on the platform, and it fell to the lot of the infatuated priest to subside in paralyzed helplessness, on a modest seat at the back of the room. What thoughts, what wild unpermitted thoughts, chased one another in strange procession through his soul, as he stared at the beautiful heathen figure thus presented to his gaze!

  The movements of the artist, the heavy stream of sunlight falling aslant the room, the sweet exotic smells borne in from the window opening on the conservatory, seemed all to float and waver about him, as though they were things felt by a deep-sea diver beneath a weight of humming waters. He gave himself up completely to what that moment brought.

  Faith, piety, sacrifice, devotion, became for him mere words and phrases—broken, fragmentary, unmeaning—sounds heard in the shadow-land of sleep, vague and indistinct like the murmur of drowned bells under a brimming tide.

  It may well be believed that the languorously reclining model was not in the least oblivious to the effect she produced. This was, indeed, one of Gladys’ supreme moments, and she let no single drop of its honeyed distillation pass undrained. She permitted her heavy-lidded blue eyes, suffused with a soft dreamy mist, to rest tenderly on her impassioned lover; and as if in response to the desperate longing in his look, a light-fluttering, half-wistful smile crossed her parted lips, like a ripple upon a shadowy stream.

  The girl’s vivid consciousness of the ecstasy of power was indeed, in spite of her apparent lethargic passivity, never more insanely aroused. Lurking beneath the dreamy sweetness of the look with which she responded to Clavering’s magnetized gaze, were furtive depths of Circean remorselessness. Under her gentian-blue robe her youthful breast trembled with exultant pleasure, and she felt as though, with every delicious breath she drew, she were drinking to the dregs the very wine of the immortals.

  “I must give Mr. Clavering some strawberries!” she suddenly cried, jumping to her feet, and breaking both the emotional and the aesthetic spell as if they were gossamer-threads. “He looks bored and tired.”

  In vain the disconcerted artist uttered an imploring groan of dismay, as thus, at the critical moment, his model betrayed him. In vain the bewildered priest professed his complete innocence of any wish for strawberries.

  The wayward girl clambered once more through the conservatory window, at the risk of spoiling her Olympian attire, and returning with a handful of fruit, tripped coquettishly up to both of them in turn and insisted on their dividing the spoil.

  Had either of the two men been in a mood for classical reminiscences, the famous image of Circe feeding her transformed lovers might have been irresistibly evoked. They were all three thus occupied,—the girl in the highest spirits, and both men feeling a little sulky and embarrassed, when, to the general consternation, the door began slowly to open, and a withered female figure, clad in a ragged shawl and a still more dilapidated skirt made its entry into the room.

  “Why, it’s Witch-Bessie!” cried Gladys, involuntarily clutching at Clavering’s arm. “Wicked old thing! She gave me quite a start. Well, Bessie, what do you want here? Don’t you know the way to the back door? You mustn’t come round to the front like this. What do you want?”

  Each of the model’s companions made a characteristic movement. Dangelis began feeling in his pocket for some suitable coin, and Clavering raised his hand with an half-reproachful, half-conciliatory, and altogether pastoral gesture, as if at the same time threatening and welcoming a lost sheep of his flock.

  But Witch-Bessie had only eyes for Gladys. She stared in petrified amazement at the gentian-blue robe and the boyish sandals.

  “Send her away!” whispered the girl to Mr. Clavering. “Tell her to go to the back door. They’ll give her food and things there.”

  The cadaverous stare of the old woman relaxed at last. Fixing her colourless eyes on the two men, and pointing at Gladys with her skinny hand, she cried, in a shrill, querulous voice, that rang unpleasantly through the studio, “What be she then, touzled up in like of this? What be she then, with her Jezebel face and her shameless looks? Round to back door, is it, ’ee ’d have me sent? I do know who you be, well enough, Master Clavering, and I do guess this gentleman be him as they say does bide here; but what be she, tricketed up in them outlandish clothes, like a Gypoo from Roger-town Fair? Be she Miss Gladys Romer, or baint she?”

  “Come, Bessie,” said Clavering in propitiatory tone. “Do as the young lady says and go round to the back. I’ll go with you if you like. I expect they’ll have plenty of scraps for you in that big kitchen.”

  He laid his hand on the old woman’s shoulder and tried to usher her out. But she turned on him angrily. “Scraps!” she cried. “Scraps thee own self! What does the like of a pair of gentlemen such as ye be, flitter-mousing and flandering round, with a hussy like she?”

  She turned furiously upon Gladys, waving aside with a snort of contempt the silver coin which Dangelis, with a vague notion that “typical English beggars” should be cajoled with gifts, sought to press into her hand.

  “’Twas to speak a bit of my mind to ’ee, not to beg at your blarsted back door that I did come this fine morning! Us that do travel by night and by day hears precious strange things sometimes. What for, my fine lady, did ye go and swear to policeman Frank, down in Nevilton, that ’twas I took your God-darned pigeons? Your dad may be a swinking magistrate, what can send poor folks to gaol for snaring rabbities, or putting a partridge in the pot to make the cabbage tasty, but what right does that give a hussy like thee to send policeman Frank swearing he’ll lock up old Bessie? It don’t suit wi’ I, this kind of flummery; so I do tell ’ee plain and straight. It don’t suit wi’ I!”

  “Come, clear out of this, my good woman!” cried the indignant clergyman, seizing the trembling old creature by the arm.

  “Don’t hurt her! Don’t hurt her!” exclaimed Gladys. “She’ll put the evil eye on me. She did it to Nance Purvis and she’s been mad ever since.”

  “It’s a lie!” whimpered the old woman, struggling feebly as Clavering pulled her towards the door.

  “It’s your own dad and Nance’s dad with their ugly ways what have driven that poor lass moon-crazy. Mark Purvis do whip her with withy sticks—all the country knows it. Darn ’ee, for a black devil’s spawn, and no blessed minister, pulling and harrying an old woman!”

  This last ejaculation was addressed to the furious Mr. Clavering, who was now thrusting her by bodily force through the open door. With one final effort Witch-Bessie broke loose from him and turned on the threshold. “Ye shall have the evil eye, since ye’ve called for it,” she shrieked, making a wild gesture in the air, in the direction of the shrinking Ariadne. “And what if I let these two gentlemen know with whom it was ye were out walking the other night? I did see ’ee, and I do know what I did see! I’m a pigeon-stealer am I, ye flaunting flandering Gypoo? Let me tell these dear gentlemen how as—” Her voice died suddenly away in an incoherent splutter, as the vicar of Nevilton, with his hand upon her mouth, swung her out of the door.

  Gladys sank down upon a chair pale and trembling.

  As soon, however, as the old woman’s departure seemed final, she began to recover her equanimity. She gave vent to a rather forced and uneasy laugh. “Silly old thing!” she exclaimed. “This comes of mother’s getting rid of the dogs. She never used to come here when we had the dogs. They scented her out in a minute. I wish we had them now to let loose at her! They’d make her skip.”

/>   “I do hope, my dear child,” said Dangelis anxiously, “that she has not really frightened you? What a terrible old creature! I’ve always longed to see a typical English witch, but bless my heart if I want to see another!”

  “She’s gone now,” announced Mr. Clavering, returning hot and breathless. “I saw her half-way down the drive. She’ll be out of sight directly. I expect you don’t want to see any more of her, else, if you come out here a step or two, you can see her slinking away.”

  Gladys thanked him warmly for his energetic defence of her, but denied having the least wish to witness her enemy’s retreat.

  “It must be getting near lunch time,” she said. “If you don’t mind waiting a moment, I’ll change my dress.” And she tripped off behind the screens.

  CHAPTER XII

  AUBER LAKE

  THE presence of Ralph Dangelis in Nevilton House had altered, in more than one respect, the relations between Gladys and her cousin.

  The girls saw much less of each other, and Lacrima was left comparatively at liberty to follow her own devices.

  On several occasions, however, when they were all three together, it chanced that the American had made himself extremely agreeable to the younger girl, even going so far as to take her part, quite energetically, in certain lively discussions. These occasions were not forgotten by Gladys, and she hated the Italian with a hatred more deep-rooted than ever.

  As soon as her first interest in the American’s society began to pall a little, she cast about in her mind for some further way of causing discomfort and agitation to the object of her hatred.

  Only those who have taken the trouble to watch carefully what might be called the “magnetic antagonism,” between feminine animals condemned to live in close relations with one another, will understand the full intensity of what this young person felt. It was not necessarily a sign of any abnormal morbidity in our fair-haired friend.

  For a man in whom one is interested, even though such interest be mild and casual, to show a definite tendency to take sides against one, on behalf of one’s friend, is a sufficient justification,—at least so nature seems to indicate—for the awakening in one’s heart of an intense desire for revenge. Such desire is often aroused in the most well-constituted temperaments among us, and in this case it might be said that the sound physical nerves of the daughter of the Romers craved the satisfaction of such an impulse with the same stolid persistence as her flesh and blood craved for air and sun. But how to achieve it? What new and elaborate humiliation to devise for this irritating partner of her days?

  The bathing episode was beginning to lose its piquancy. Custom, with its kindly obliviousness, had already considerably modified Lacrima’s fears, and there had ceased to be for Gladys any further pleasure in displaying her aquarian agility before a companion so occupied with the beauty of lawn and garden at that magical hour.

  Fate, however, partial, as it often is, to such patient tenacity of emotion, let fall at last, at her very feet, the opportunity she craved.

  She had just begun to experience that miserable sensation, so sickeningly oppressive to a happy disposition, of hating where she could not hurt, when, one evening, news was brought to the house by Mark Purvis the game-keeper that a wandering flock of wild-geese had taken up its temporary abode amid the reeds of Auber Lake. Mr. Romer himself soon brought confirmation of this fact.

  The birds appeared to leave the place during the day and fly far westward, possibly as far as the marshes of Sedgemoor, but they always returned at night-fall to this new tarrying ground.

  The very evening of this exciting discovery, Gladys’ active mind formulated a thrilling and absorbing project, which she positively trembled with longing to communicate to Lacrima. She found the long dinner that night, and the subsequent chatter with Dangelis on the terrace, almost too tedious to be endured; and it was at an unusually early hour that she surprised her cousin by joining her in her room.

  The Pariah was seated at her mirror, wearily reducing to order her entangled curls, when Gladys entered. She looked very fragile in her white bodice and the little uplifted arms, that the mirror reflected, showed unnaturally long and thin. When one hates a person with the sort of massive hatred such as, at that time, beat sullenly under Gladys’ rounded bosom, every little physical characteristic in the object of our emotion is an added incentive to our revengeful purpose.

  This Saturnian planetary law is unfortunately not confined to antipathies between persons of the same sex. Sometimes the most unhappy results have been known to spring from the manner in which one or another, even of two lovers, has lifted chin or head, or moved characteristically across a room.

  Thus it were almost impossible to exaggerate the loathing with which this high-spirited girl contemplated the pale oval face and slender swaying arms of her friend, as full of her new project she flung herself into her favourite arm chair and met Lacrima’s frightened eyes in the gilded Georgian mirror. She began her attack with elaborate feline obliquity.

  “They say Mark Purvis’ crazy daughter has been giving trouble again. He was up this morning, talking to father about it.”

  “Why don’t you send her away?” said the Italian, without turning round.

  “Send her away? She has to do all the house-work down there! Mark has no one else, you know, and the poor man does not want the expense of hiring a woman.”

  “Isn’t it rather a lonely place for a child like that?”

  “Lonely? I should think it is lonely! But what would you have? Somebody must keep that cottage clean; and its just as well a wretched mad girl, of no use to anyone, should do it, as that a sound person should lose her wits in such a god-forsaken spot!”

  “What does she do at—at these times? Is she violent?”

  “Oh, she gets out in the night and roams about the woods. She was once found up to her knees in the water. No, she isn’t exactly violent. But she is a great nuisance.”

  “It must be terrible for her father!”

  “Well—in a way it does bother him. But he is not the man to stand much nonsense.”

  “I hope he is kind to her.”

  Gladys laughed. “What a soft-hearted darling you are! I expect he finds sometimes that you can’t manage mad people, any more than you can manage children, without using the stick. But I fancy, on the whole, he doesn’t treat her badly. He’s a fairly good-natured man.”

  The Pariah sighed. “I think Mr. Romer ought to send her away at once to some kind of home, and pay someone to take her place.”

  “I daresay you do! If you had your way, father wouldn’t have a penny left in the bank.”

  The Pariah rose from her seat, crossed over to the window, and looked out into the sultry night. What a world this was! All the gentle and troubled beings in it seemed over-ridden by gigantic merciless wheels!

  A little awed, in spite of herself, by the solemnity of her companion, Gladys sought to bring her back out of this translunar mood by capricious playfulness. She stretched herself out at full length in her low chair, and calling the girl to her side, began caressing her, pulling her down at last upon her lap.

  “Guess what has happened!” she murmured softly, as the quick beating of the Pariah’s heart communicated itself to her, and made her own still harder.

  “Oh, I know its something I shan’t like, something that I shall dread!” cried the younger girl, making a feeble effort to escape.

  “Shall I tell you what it is?” Gladys went on, easily overcoming this slight movement. “You know, don’t you, that there’s a flock of wild-geese settled on the island in the middle of Auber Lake? Well! I have got a lovely plan. I’ve never yet seen those birds, because they don’t come back till the evening. What you and I are going to do, darling, is to slip away out of the house, next time Mr. Dangelis goes to see that friend of yours, and make straight to Auber Lake! I’ve never been into those woods by night, and it’ll be extraordinarily thrilling to see what Auber Lake looks like with the moon gleaming on
it. And then we may be able to make the wild-geese rise, by throwing sticks or something, into the water. Oh, it’ll be simply lovely! Don’t you think so, darling? Aren’t you quite thrilled by the idea?”

  The Pariah liberated herself by a sudden effort and stood erect on the floor.

  “I think you are the wickedest girl that God ever made!” she said solemnly. And then, as the full implication of the proposed adventure grew upon her, she clasped her hands convulsively. “You cannot mean it!” she cried. “You cannot mean it! You are teasing me, Gladys. You are only saying it to tease me.”

  “Why, you’re not such a coward as all that!” her cousin replied. “Think what it must be for Nance Purvis, who always lives down there! I shouldn’t like to be more cowardly than a poor crazy labouring girl. We really ought to visit the place, once in a way, to see if these stories are true about her escaping out of the house. One can never tell from what Mark says. He may have been drinking and imagining it all.”

  Lacrima turned away and began rapidly undressing. Without a word she arranged the books on her table, moving about like a person in a trance, and without a word she slipped into bed and turned her face to the wall.

  Gladys smiled, stretched herself luxuriously, and continued speaking.

  “Auber Lake by moon-light would well be worth a night walk. You know it’s supposed to be the most romantic spot in Somersetshire? They say it’s incredibly old. Some people think it was used in prehistoric times by the druids as a place of worship. The villagers never dare to go near it after dark. They say that very curious noises are heard there. But of course that may only be the mad—”

  She was not allowed to go on. The silent figure in the bed suddenly sat straight up, with wide-staring eyes fixed upon her, and said slowly and solemnly, “If I come with you to this place, will you faithfully promise me that your father will send that girl into a home?”

  Gladys was so surprised by this unexpected utterance that she made an inarticulate gasping noise in her throat.