Wood and Stone

by John Cowper Powys

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE GRANARY

  LUKE persuaded Mr. Quincunx to stay with him for the station-master’s Sunday dinner, and to stroll with him down to the churchyard in the afternoon to decide, in consultation with the sexton, upon the most suitable spot for his brother’s interment. The stone-carver was resolved that this spot should be removed as far as possible from the grave of their parents, and the impiety of this resolution was justified by the fact that Gideon’s tomb was crowded on both sides by less aggressive sleepers.

  They finally selected a remote place under the southern wall, at the point where the long shadow of the tower, in the late afternoon, flung its clear-outlined battlements on the waving grass.

  Luke continued to be entirely pleased with Mr. Quincunx’s tact and sympathy. He felt he could not have secured a better companion for this task of selecting the final resting-place of the brother of his soul. “Curse these fools,” he thought, “who rail against this excellent man!” What mattered it, after all, that the fellow hated what the world calls “work,” and loved a peaceful life removed from distraction?

  The noble attributes of humour, of imagination, of intelligence,—how much more important they were, and conducive to the general human happiness, than the mere power of making money! Compared with the delicious twists and diverting convolutions in Mr. Quincunx’s extraordinary brain, how dull, how insipid, seemed such worldly cleverness!

  The death of his brother had had the effect of throwing these things into a new perspective. The Machiavellian astuteness, which, in himself, in Romer, in Mr. Taxater, and in many others, he had, until now, regarded as of supreme, value in the conduct of life, seemed to him, as he regretfully bade the recluse farewell and retraced his steps, far less, essential, far less important, than this imaginative sensitiveness to the astounding spectacle of the world.

  He fancied he discerned in front of him, as he left the churchyard, the well-known figure of his newly affianced Annie, and he made a detour through the lane, to avoid her. He felt at that moment as though nothing in the universe were interesting or important except the sympathetic conversation of the friends of one’s natural choice—persons of that small, that fatally small circle, from which just now the centre seemed to have dropped out!

  Girls were a distraction, a pastime, a lure, an intoxication; but a shock like this, casting one back upon life’s essential verities, threw even lust itself into the limbo of irrelevant things. All his recent preoccupation with the love of women seemed to him now, as though, in place of dreaming over the mystery of the great tide of life, hand in hand with initiated comrades, he were called upon to go launching little paper-boats on its surface, full of fretful anxiety as to whether they sank or floated.

  Weighed down by the hopeless misery of his loss, he made his way slowly back to the station-master’s house, too absorbed in his grief to speak to anyone.

  After tea he became so wretched and lonely, that he decided to walk over to Hullaway on the chance of getting another glimpse of Witch-Bessie. Even the sympathy of the station-master’s wife got on his nerves and the romping of the children fretted and chafed him.

  He walked fast, swinging his stick and keeping his eyes on the ground, his heart empty and desolate. He followed the very path by which Gladys and he, some few short weeks before, had returned in the track of their two friends, from the Hullaway stocks.

  Arriving at the village green, with its pond, its elms, its raised pavement, and its groups of Sunday loiterers, he turned into the churchyard. As we have noted many times ere now, the appealing silence of these places of the dead had an invincible charm for him. It was perhaps a morbid tendency inherited from his mother, or, on the other hand, it may have been a pure aesthetic whim of his own, that led him, with so magnetic an attraction, towards these oases of mute patience, in the midst of the diurnal activities; but whatever the spell was, Luke had never found more relief in obeying it than he did at this present hour.

  He sat down in their favourite corner and looked with interest at the various newly-blown wild-flowers, which a few weeks’ lapse had brought to light. How well he loved the pungent stringy stalks, the grey leaves, the flat sturdy flowers of the “achillea” or “yarrow”! Perhaps, above all the late summer blooms, he preferred these—finding, in their very coarseness of texture and toughness of stem, something that reassured and fortified. They were so bitter in their herbal fragrance, so astringent in the tang of their pungent taste, that they suggested to him the kind of tonic cynicism, the sort of humorous courage and gay disdain, with which it was his constant hope to come at last to accept life.

  It pleased him, above all when he found these plants tinged with a delicious pink, as though the juice of raspberries had been squeezed over them, and it was precisely this tint he noticed now in a large clump of them, growing on the sun-warmed grave of a certain Hugh and Constance Foley, former occupants of the old Manor House behind him.

  He wondered if this long-buried Hugh—a mysterious and shadowy figure, about whom James and he had often woven fantastic histories—had felt as forlorn as he felt now, when he lost his Constance. Could a Constance, or an Annie, or a Phyllis, ever leave quite the void behind them such as now ached and throbbed within him? Yes, he supposed so. Men planted their heart’s loves in many various soils, and when the hand of fate tugged them away, it mattered little whether it was chalk, or sand, or loam, that clung about the roots!

  He looked long and long at the sunlit mounds, over which the tombstones leaned at every conceivable angle and upon which some had actually fallen prostrate. These neglected monuments, and these tall uncut grasses and flowers, had always seemed to him preferable to the trim neatness of an enclosure like that of Athelston, which resembled the lawn of a gentleman’s house.

  James had often disputed with him on this point, arguing, in a spirit of surly contradiction, in favour of the wondrous effect of those red Athelston roses hanging over clear-mown turf. The diverse suggestiveness of graveyards was one of the brother’s best-loved topics, and innumerable cigarettes had they both consumed, weighing this subject, on this very spot.

  Once more the hideous finality of the thing pierced the heart of Luke with a devastating pang. On Wednesday next,—that is, after the lapse of two brief days,—he would bid farewell, for ever and ever and ever, to the human companion with whom he had shared all he cared for in life!

  He remembered a little quarrel he once had with James, long ago, in this very place, and how it had been the elder and not the younger who had made the first overtures of reconciliation, and how James had given him an old pair of silver links,—he was wearing them at that moment!—as a kind of peace-offering. He recollected what a happy evening they had spent together after that event, and how they had read “Thus spake Zarathustra” in the old formidable English translation—the mere largeness of the volume answering to the largeness of the philosopher’s thought.

  Never again would they two “take on them,” in the sweet Shakespearean phrase, “the mystery of things, as though they were God’s spies.”

  Luke set himself to recall, one by one, innumerable little incidents of their life together. He remembered various occasions in which, partly out of pure contrariness, but partly also out of a certain instinctive bias in his blood, he had defended their father against his brother’s attacks. He recalled one strange conversation they had had, under the withy-stumps of Badger’s Bottom, as they returned through the dusk of a November day, from a long walk over the southern hills. It had to do with the appearance of a cloud-swept crescent moon above the Auber woods.

  James had maintained that were he a pagan of the extinct polytheistic faith, he would have worshipped the moon, and willingly offered her, night by night,—he used the pious syllables of the great hedonist,—her glittering wax tapers upon the sacred wheaten cake. Luke, on the contrary, had sworn that the sun, and no lesser power, was the god of his idolatry, and he imagined himself in place of his brother’s wax candle
s, pouring forth, morning by morning, a rich libation of gold wine to that bright lord of life.

  This instinctive division of taste between the two, had led, over and over again, to all manner of friendly dissension.

  Luke recalled how often he had rallied James upon his habit of drifting into what the younger brother pertinently described as a “translunar mood.” He was “translunar” enough now, at any rate; but now it was in honour of that other “lady of the night,” of that dreadful “double” of his moon-goddess—the dark pomegranate-bearer—that the candles must be lit!

  Luke revived in his mind, as he watched the slow-shifting shadows move from grave to grave, all those indescribable “little things” of their every-day life together, the loss of which seemed perhaps worst of all. He recalled how on gusty December evenings they would plod homeward from some Saturday afternoon’s excursion to Yeoborough, and how the cheerful firelight from the station-master’s house would greet them as they crossed the railway.

  So closely had their thoughts and sensations grown together, that there were many little poignant memories, out of the woven texture of which he found himself quite unable to disentangle the imaginative threads that were due to his brother, from such as were the evocation of his own temperament.

  One such concentrated moment, of exquisite memory, he associated with an old farm-house on the edge of the road leading from Hullaway to Rogerstown. This road,—a forlorn enough highway of Roman origin, dividing a level plain of desolate rain-flooded meadows,—was one of their favourite haunts. “Halfway House,” as the farm-dwelling was called, especially appealed to them, because of its romantic and melancholy isolation.

  Luke remembered how he had paused with his brother one clear frosty afternoon when the puddles by the road-side were criss-crossed by little broken stars of fresh-formed ice, and had imagined how they would feel if such a place belonged to them by hereditary birthright, what they would feel were they even now returning there, between the tall evergreens at the gate, to spend a long evening over a log fire, with mulled claret on the hob, and cards and books on the table, and a great white Persian cat,—this was James’ interpolation!—purring softly, and rubbing its silky sides against Chinese vases full of rose-leaves.

  Strange journeys his mind took, that long unforgettable afternoon,—the first of his life spent without his brother! He saw before him, at one moment, a little desolate wooden pier, broken by waves and weather, somewhere on the Weymouth coast. The indescribable pathos of things outworn and done with, of things abandoned by man and ill-used by nature, had given to this derelict pile of drift-wood a curious prominence in his House of Memory. He remembered the look with which James had regarded it, and how the wind had whistled through it and how they had tried in vain to light their cigarettes under its shelter.

  At another moment his mind swung back to the daily routine in their pleasant lodging. He recalled certain spring mornings when they had risen together at dawn and had crept stealthily out, for fear of waking their landlady. He vividly remembered the peculiar smell of moss and primroses with which the air seemed full on one of these occasions.

  The place Luke had chosen for summoning up all these ghosts of the past held him with such a spell that he permitted the church-bells to ring and the little congregation to assemble for the evening service without moving or stirring. “Hugh and Constance Foley” he kept repeating to himself, as the priest’s voice, within the sacred building, intoned the prayers. The sentiment of the plaintive hymn with which the service closed,—he hardly moved or stirred for the brief hour of the liturgy’s progress,—brought tears, the first he had shed since his brother’s death, to this wanton faun’s eyes. What is there, he thought, in these wistful tunes, and impossible, too-sweet words, that must needs hit the most cynical of sceptics?

  He let the people shuffle out and drift away, and the grey-haired parson and his silk-gowned wife follow them and vanish, and still he did not stir. For some half-an-hour longer he remained in the same position, his chin upon his knees, staring gloomily in front of him. He was still seated so, when, to the eyes of an observer posted on the top of the tower, two persons, the first a woman and the second a man, would have been observed approaching, by a rarely-traversed field-path, the side of the enclosure most remote from Hullaway Green.

  The path upon which these figures advanced was interrupted at certain intervals by tall elm-trees, and it would have been clear to our imaginary watcher upon the tower that the second of the two was glad enough of the shelter of these trees, of which it was evident he intended to make use, did the first figure turn and glance backward.

  Had such a sentinel been possessed of local knowledge he would have had no difficulty in recognizing the first of these persons as Gladys Romer and the second as Mr. Clavering.

  Gladys had, in fact, gone alone to the evening service, on the ground of celebrating the close of her baptismal day. Immediately after the service she had slipped off down the street leading to the railroad, directing her steps towards Hullaway, whither a sure instinct told her Luke had wandered.

  She was still in sight, having got no further than the entrance to Splash Lane, when Clavering, who had changed his surplice with lightning rapidity, issued forth into the street. In a flash he remarked the direction of her steps, and impelled by an impulse of mad jealousy, began blindly following her.

  Not a few heads were inquisitively turned, and not a few whispering comments were exchanged, as first the squire’s daughter, and then the young clergyman, made their way through the street.

  As soon as Gladys had crossed the railroad and struck out at a sharp pace up the slope of the meadow Clavering realized that wherever she intended to go it was not to the house in which lay James Andersen. Torn with intolerable jealousy, and anxious, at all risks, to satisfy his mind, one way or the other, as to her relations with Luke, he deliberately decided to follow the girl to whatever hoped-for encounter, or carefully plotted assignation, she was now directing her steps. How true, how exactly true, to his interpretation of Luke’s character, was this astutely arranged meeting, on the very day after his brother’s death!

  At the top of the station-field Gladys paused for a moment, and, turning round, contemplated the little dwelling which was now a house of the dead.

  Luckily for Mr. Clavering, this movement of hers coincided with his arrival at the thick-set hedge separating the field from the metal track. He waited at the turn-stile until, her abstraction over, she passed into the lane.

  All the way to Hullaway Mr. Clavering followed her, hurriedly concealing himself when there seemed the least danger of discovery, and at certain critical moments making slight deviations from the direct pursuit.

  As she drew near the churchyard the girl showed evident signs of nervousness and apprehension, walking more slowly, and looking about her, and sometimes even pausing as if to take breath and collect, her thoughts.

  It was fortunate for her pursuer at this final moment of the chase that the row of colossal elms, of which mention has been made, interposed themselves between the two. Clavering was thus able to approach quite close to the girl before she reached her destination, for, making use of these rugged trunks, as an Indian scout might have done, he was almost within touch of her by the time she clambered over the railings.

  The savage bite of insane jealousy drove from the poor priest’s head any thought of how grotesque he must have appeared,—could any eyes but those of field-mice and starlings have observed him,—with his shiny black frock-coat and broad-brimmed hat, peeping and spying in the track of this fair young person.

  With a countenance convulsed with helpless fury he watched the girl walk slowly and timidly up to Luke’s side, and saw the stone-carver recognize her and rise to greet her. He could not catch their words, though he strained his ears to do so, but their gestures and attitudes were quite distinguishable.

  It was, indeed, little wonder that the agitated priest could not overhear what Gladys said, for the ext
reme nervousness under which she laboured made her first utterances so broken and low that even her interlocutor could scarcely follow them.

  She laid a pleading hand on Luke’s arm. “I was unhappy,” she murmured, “I was unhappy, and I wanted to tell you. I’ve been thinking about you all day. I heard of his death quite early in the morning. Luke,—you’re not angry with me any more, are you? I’d have done anything that this shouldn’t have happened!”

  Luke looked at her searchingly, but made, at the same time, an impatient movement of his arm, so that the hand she had placed upon his sleeve fell to her side.

  “Let’s get away from here, Luke,” she implored; “anywhere,—across the fields,—I told them at home I might go for a walk after church. It’ll be all right. No one will know.”

  “Across the fields—eh?” replied the stone-carver. “Well—I don’t mind. What do you say to a walk to Rogerstown? I haven’t been there since I went with James, and there’ll be a moon to get home by.” He looked at her intently, with a certain bitter humour lurking in the curve of his lips.

  Under ordinary circumstances it was with the utmost difficulty that Gladys could be persuaded to walk anywhere. Her lethargic nature detested that kind of exercise. He was amazed at the alacrity with which she accepted the offer.

  Her eyes quite lit up. “I’d love that, Luke, I’d simply love it!” she cried eagerly. “Let’s start! I’ll walk as fast as you like—and I don’t care how late we are!”

  They moved out of the churchyard together, by the gate opening on the green.

  Luke was interested, but not in the least touched, by the girl’s chastened and submissive manner. His suggestion about Rogerstown was really more of a sort of test than anything else, to see just how far this clinging passivity of hers would really go.

  As they followed the lane leading out of one of the side-alleys of the village towards the Roman Road, the stone-carver could not help indulging in a certain amount of silent psychological analysis in regard to this change of heart in his fair mistress. He seemed to get a vision of the great world-passions, sweeping at random through the universe, and bending the most obsinate wills to their caprice.