(1954) The Comforters

by Muriel Spark

  ‘Oh how frightful, oh how frightful!—’

  ‘The Baron has a kink,’ Laurence put in.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Caroline.

  ‘It does sound a far-fetched story,’ Helena said. ‘There’s nothing in it, you think?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Caroline said. ‘I should be surprised if he found Mervyn Hogarth at the Abbey. And more surprised if his suspicions were true.’

  ‘It would be dreadful if they were true,’ Helena said. ‘But why should Willi Stock be troubled if they were; does he intend to expose the man?’

  ‘No, he intends to write a monograph.’

  Caroline put the palms of her hands out to the sun to get them browned.

  ‘He thinks he is aloof from the subject of black magic, merely interested. Whereas he is passionately attracted to it. “My nature,”‘ she quoted, ‘“is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer’s hand. Pity me then… .”‘

  ‘Willi always has been eccentric,’ Helena remarked.

  ‘Part of his cultivated Englishness,’ said Laurence.

  ‘It will be interesting,’ Helena said, ‘to hear what he says when he comes back.’

  ‘Don’t mention what I’ve told you,’ Caroline said, ‘he’s touchy, poor Willi.’

  She felt a sweet pleasure in her words, ‘Poor Willi!’ They soothed her resentment of the Baron’s ‘Poor Caroline!’ with which he must have ended many an afternoon’s session at Charing Cross Road. Especially with Helena was she pleased to discredit the Baron. Sometimes Helena would inquire gently of Caroline if she was quite happy — nothing worrying her? From which Caroline was sensitive to assume that the Baron had been talking. In fact, Helena had discouraged the Baron’s gossip. One day in the early spring he had asked her plainly, ‘Is it all off between Laurence and Caroline?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. They are waiting.—’

  ‘For what? My dear, they are not chicks,’ said the Baron.

  ‘I suppose Caroline wants to get her book off her hands. But I don’t know their business at all really. I wish they would do something definite, but there it is.’

  ‘Caroline’s “book”,—’ he said; ‘do you mean the book she is writing or the one in which she lives?’

  ‘Now, Willi! Caroline is not a silly girl. She did have a little upset and imagined things, I know. And then there was the accident. But since that time she’s recovered wonderfully.’

  ‘My dear Helena, I do assure you that Caroline has been receiving communications from her Typing Spooks continuously since that time.’

  ‘Nonsense. Caroline is perfectly sane. What’s going to win the Lincoln, do you think, Willi?—’

  And so, occasionally, when Helena asked Caroline, ‘Quite happy now, dear?’ or ‘Nothing worrying you?’ Caroline would be unhappy and worrying about these inquiries.

  So, on the day of the picnic she was especially happy to discuss the Baron’s latest fantasy with Helena.

  ‘He must have built up a theory,’ said Helena, ‘on rumours and suspicions. I hate,’ she said with unusual force, ‘doubt and suspicion.’

  Caroline thought, ‘She is worried about Mrs Hogg. The affair in the car is pressing on her mind. Poor Helena! Perhaps she would not at all like to know things clearly.’

  Laurence lay listening to their voices, contentedly oblivious of what they said. He was too somnolent in the warmth of the sun to take part in the conversation and too enchanted by his sense of the summer day to waste it in sleep. He watched the movements of a young fat woman on a houseboat moored nearby. Every now and then she would disappear into the cabin to fetch something. First a bright scarf to protect her head from the sun. Then a cushion. Next she went below for so long a time, as it seemed to Laurence, that he thought she was never coming back. But she did emerge again, with a cup of tea. She drank it propped tubbily on the tiny bridge of the boat. Laurence spent his pleasurable idleness of long meaningless moments in following every sip. He wished the houseboat were his. He wondered where the man of the house could be, for he was sure there must be a man, referred to by Tubby as ‘my friend’. Laurence wished it were possible for him to go on lying drowsily by the river and at the same time to poke about in the cabin of the boat, to pry into the cooking arrangements, the bunks, the engine. A little rowing boat which lay alongside caught Laurence’s fancy.

  It came home to him that Caroline was saying, ‘I’ll start the kettle for tea.’

  She had lit the spirit stove when Helena said, ‘Thunder.’

  ‘No,’ said Laurence. ‘Couldn’t be. I was just thinking,’ he said, ‘we might be able to borrow that little boat and row over to the other side. —’

  ‘I thought I heard a rumble,’ Caroline said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s quarter past four,’ Helena said. ‘I wonder where Georgina has got to?’

  ‘Spirited away,’ said Laurence remarkably.

  Helena roused him to scout round for Georgina.

  ‘I’m sure it’s going to rain,’ she said.

  The sky had clouded, and in spite of Laurence’s protests the barking of distant thunder was undeniable.

  ‘The thunder’s miles away over the downs,’ Laurence said, ‘it will miss the valley.’ Nevertheless, he went off in search of Mrs Hogg, pausing on the way to look more closely at the houseboat. The plump girl had gone inside.

  Caroline and Helena started to move their rugs and tea-cups into the cars.

  ‘Even if we miss the storm,’ Helena said, ‘it will certainly set in to rain within the next ten minutes.—’

  Suddenly they caught sight of the Baron on the opposite bank. He shouted something, but he was too far from them to be heard. With his hands describing a circuit he conveyed that he was coming back by the bridge.

  ‘He’ll get soaked,’ Caroline said. ‘Poor Willi!’ But before he set off again she waved him to stop.

  ‘I’ll ask for the boat,’ she said, ‘and row him over.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ Helena said. ‘Sure you can manage it?’

  But Caroline, with Laurence’s raincoat over her shoulders, was away to the houseboat. The Baron stood perplexed for a moment. He saw Caroline bend down and knock at the little window. He understood the plan, then, and waited. In a few minutes Caroline signed to him that she had the owner’s permission to use the boat.

  The rain had started, but it was light and the river calm. Caroline reached him within a few moments. He climbed into the boat and took the oars from her.

  ‘I got a sight of Hogarth,’ he said immediately, ‘alias Hogg, but he was in disguise. Quite a different appearance from the man I saw conducting the Black Mass. In the circumstances I did not address him, it was too frightening.—’

  ‘How did you know it was Mervyn Hogarth, then?’

  ‘I asked one of the lay-brothers. He confirmed that Mervyn Hogarth was staying there, and pointed him out. They believe he is come to the Abbey for the fishing.’

  ‘What fishing?’

  ‘Apparently the Abbey rents out a strip of fishing ground. They put up the anglers in the Abbey,’ said the Baron. ‘Little do they know whom they are harbouring. Hogarth alias Hogg,’ he said.

  ‘I think you are mixed up, Willi.’ Caroline pulled the raincoat over her head and patted her hair beneath it. ‘The man at the Black Mass must have been a different Hogarth.’

  ‘Oh no, he was named Hogg. Hogarth is the daytime name. I know for a fact that Mervyn Hogarth was born Mervyn Hogg.’

  ‘The man at the Black Mass must have been a different Hogg.’

  ‘I have the whole picture, which you have not,’ the Baron said. ‘This afternoon, as I was leaving the Abbey grounds I saw the witch, Mrs Hogg, entering them. I turned back and followed her. I saw —actually saw, Caroline — Mrs Hogg approaching Hogarth. He was doing something to a fishing rod at the time. He recognized her of course. He looked very miserable. They exchanged a few words. Soon, he walked away and left her. The couple are clearly known to each
other.—’

  They had landed. Caroline thanked the woman while the Baron tied up the boat.

  ‘There’s no sign of Georgina,’ Helena said as they reached her car. ‘Laurence has been back and he’s gone off again to search for her. What a nuisance.’

  ‘She was over at the Abbey,’ said the Baron. ‘I left her there half an hour ago.’

  ‘How vexing. Well, we shall have to wait. Let’s try and continue some tea in the back of the car.’

  The thunder was still distant. The storm that was raging some miles away seemed unlikely to reach them, but now the rain was heavy.

  ‘Which way did Laurence go?’ the Baron said.

  ‘Towards the bridge.’

  ‘I’ll take his car and meet him. I daresay I shall pick up Mrs Hogg on her way back. She must be at the bridge by now.’

  He drove off. Every few minutes Helena poked her head out of the back window of her car. ‘I hope they don’t miss each other,’ she said, ‘Laurence only has his jacket. Oh, there’s Georgina!’

  Mrs Hogg was coming down to the riverside by a track through the trees on the opposite bank. She saw Helena and raised her hand in recognition.

  Helena made a frantic dumb-show at her. Mrs Hogg stood waiting and stupid-looking.

  ‘Caroline,’ said Helena, ‘be an angel.’

  ‘You want me to fetch her in the boat,’ Caroline stated.

  ‘Put the mac over your head, do.’ Helena was nervy. ‘We shall be kept waiting here for ages if she has to plod round by the bridge. It’s two miles each way. I’m dying to get home.’

  When Caroline did not reply, Helena seemed aware of having asked more than an ordinary favour.

  ‘I’ll go, dear,’ said Helena at once. ‘Give me the mac. I’m sure I can manage the boat.’

  Caroline was sure she couldn’t. She jumped out of the car and was off like someone taking a plunge against nature.

  In spite of the rain, with only a cardigan over her summer dress, Helena followed. She caught up Caroline at the houseboat, and added her gracious thanks to the owner. As Caroline unmoored she said, ‘This really is charitable, Caroline. Poor Georgina would be drenched if she had to walk round to cross the bridge.’

  Caroline gave her an amiable smile, for she was too proud to reveal her neurotic dread. Her dread was on account of a very small thing. She knew she would have to give Mrs Hogg a hand into the boat. The anticipation of this physical contact, her hand in Mrs Hogg’s only for a moment, horrified Caroline. It was a very small thing, but it was what she constitutionally dreaded.

  ‘Step down here, Mrs Hogg. On to that stone. Give me your hand. Take care, the river’s deep here.’

  The bank had grown muddy but there were several firm footholds. Caroline, standing astride in the boat, reached out and grasped Mrs Hogg’s hand firmly. Step there, now there. ‘I’m doing fine,’ Caroline thought, gripping the woman’s hand tightly in her own. She was filled with the consciousness of hand.

  Mrs Hogg had rubber-soled shoes which had picked up a good deal of mud. In spite of all her care she slipped on her heels, she tottered backwards with her hand still gripped in Caroline’s so that the boat rocked wildly. In an instant she was loudly in the water and Caroline, still grasping the hand by the first compulsive need to overcome her horror of it, went with her. Mrs Hogg lashed about her in a screaming panic. Caroline freed herself and gripped the side of the boat. But she was wrenched away, the woman’s hands were on her neck — ‘I can’t swim!’

  Caroline struck her in the face. ‘Hold on to my shoulders,’ she shouted. ‘I can swim.’ But the woman in her extremity was intent on Caroline’s throat. Caroline saw the little boat bobbing away downstream. Then her sight became blocked by one of Mrs Hogg’s great hands clawing across her eyes, the other hand tightening on her throat. Mrs Hogg’s body, and even legs, encompassed Caroline so that her arms were restricted. She knew then that if she could not free herself from Mrs Hogg they would both go under.

  They were under water and out of sight for a while. Helena said later that it was only a matter of seconds before Caroline’s head emerged. But in that space of time it was a long breath-holding contest between them. Caroline had practised underwater swimming. Not so, Mrs Hogg. The woman clung to Caroline’s throat until the last. It was not until Mrs Hogg opened her mouth finally to the inrush of water that her grip slackened and Caroline was free, her lungs aching for the breath of life. Mrs Hogg subsided away from her. God knows where she went.

  Caroline had the sense of being hauled along a bumpy surface, of being landed with a thud like a gasping fish, before she passed out.

  ‘Jolly good luck I had my friend here. I can’t swim myself.’

  Caroline lay in the bunk of the houseboat, without a sense or even a care of where she was. She recognized Helena, then the plump woman of the houseboat and a strange man who was taking off all his dripping wet clothes. Caroline had a sense of childhood, and she closed her eyes.

  ‘There was no sign of the other,’ the man was saying. ‘She’s had it. Any relation?’

  ‘No,’ said Helena’s voice.

  ‘She gave this one a rough time,’ said the man. ‘Just look at her face. I’ll bet she’s been trained to hold her breath under water. If she hadn’t, she—’d have had it too, this one.’

  The woman of the houseboat helped Caroline to sip from a warm beaker.

  ‘Have you anything to put on the scratches?’ That was Helena.

  Presently Caroline felt something soft being smoothed over her face and throat. Her neck was hurting. And again she was sipping something warm and sweet, her shoulders supported by Helena.

  The man said, ‘I had a look for the other, best I could. It’s deep in that spot. I daresay we’ll get the body. There was a tragedy five summers back and we got the body two days after.’

  Helena murmured, ‘You’ve been marvellous.’

  Before she went off to sleep, Caroline heard Laurence’s voice from somewhere outside, then the Baron’s, then Helena again, ‘Here they are with the doctor.’

  Sir Edwin Manders was making his autumn retreat. October 24th, the Feast of St Raphael the Archangel; he had arrived at the monastery during the afternoon in time for Benediction.

  The window of his room looked down on a green courtyard over which the leaves were scattering. Fixing his eye on this sunlit square of leaves and grass, he gave himself to think about his surprising family affairs.

  Usually when he was in retreat this man would give his time, under a spiritual director, to regarding the state of his soul. In the past few months he had been given cause to wonder if he did not make his retreats too frequently. Amazing things occurred at home; extraordinary events which he never heard of till later.

  ‘Why didn’t you inform me at the time, Helena?’

  ‘You were in retreat, Edwin.’

  He had misgivings then, about his retreats. He told his spiritual director. ‘I might have done better to spend the time at home. My family have had to cope with difficulties … my son … my brother … my mother-in-law … one of our old servants … I might have done better had I not made so many retreats.’

  ‘You might have done worse,’ said the shrewd old priest, and sounded as if he meant it. It was a humiliating thought, which in turn was good for the soul.

  ‘They manage admirably without me,’ Edwin Manders admitted. And so he was in retreat again. Really on this occasion he had not wanted to come. But Helena insisted. Ernest even, in his shy way, had said, ‘Someone has got to pray for us, Edwin.’ Laurence had said, ‘Cancel your autumn retreat? Oh you can’t do that,’ without giving any reasons. Caroline Rose had driven him to the station.

  For years he had felt drawn to the contemplative life. To partake more fully of it he had retired, all but nominally, from Manders’ Figs. Helena took pride in his frequent recourse to monasteries. In fact he was embarrassed at this moment to realize how effectively she had fostered the legend of his ‘certain sanctity’.
More and more he had felt attracted by the ascetic formalities. Only this autumn, in his hesitation before leaving home, did he feel he was being pushed into it.

  He had no more qualms after his arrival at the monastery. The charm began to work on him. His austere cell was like a drug. The rise and fall of plain-song from the Chapel invited him into its abiding pure world. The noiseless, timeless lay-brothers moved amenably about their business, causing Edwin Manders to feel pleasurably humble in the presence of this profound elect. The fact that there was a big upset going on in the monastic quarters of the buildings due to half the bedrooms being flooded by a burst pipe, that one of the lay-brothers was sick to death of his life, that the Abbot was worried about an overdraft, was mercifully concealed from Edwin at that moment. And so he was sufficiently unhampered by material distractions to see his spiritual temptation plain, which being so, he found it after all resistible, that luxurious nostalgia, that opium daze of devotion, for he knew, more or less, that he never would have made a religious. He gave his mind to reviewing his family affairs.

  There were two items in the embarrassing category, for both had reached the newspapers. He was in doubt which was the more distressing, Louisa Jepp’s case or Georgina Hogg’s. He decided, on the whole, Georgina’s. And for a good half-hour he concentrated on Georgina, now lodged, it was believed, in the mud of the Medway, for her body was never recovered. There was a piece in the London evening papers, mentioning by name Helena, Laurence, Caroline, Baron Stock, and the couple on the houseboat. There was an inquest. Poor Helena. In former days, he recalled, their name for Georgina in the household was Manders’ Mortification.

  As he heard afterwards, for he was in retreat at the time, Helena got Laurence to make inquiries for poor Mrs Hogg’s son. He turned out to be an unfortunate person. The father a bigamist. Helena dropped her inquiries as soon as she learned that Eleanor Hogarth was involved in the bigamy; innocently no doubt, but she was in partnership with his brother Ernest, another embarrassment… Helena hushed it up. Helena was marvellous.