Dymock smiled in his mustache. "You’ve been talking to Connie Bailey, is that it? She told you her imaginings?”
"Well,” said Thunstone, "she has mentioned something.”
Dymock’s smile vanished. "I could wish for her sake that she didn’t have those dreams or visions or whatever they are. She worries Mrs. Fothergill, too. I can’t think that such fancies are good for her.”
"Then you don’t believe in them,” said Thunstone.
"My training is to believe in facts, sir,” replied Dymock. "She thinks she sees these things at night, but I know I don’t see them. And I’m concerned for her. I’ve never said so much in the subject to anyone before, and I trust you not to repeat our conversation to her.”
"Naturally I won’t. But let me ask you, how do you explain dizziness on that bridge over Congdon Mire, and why it’s apt to happen at the time of turning the Dream Rock?”
"I don’t explain it,” said Dymock flatly. "That’s something that awaits explanation. Perhaps a psychologist could help there, but I’m no psychologist, only a policeman. And that can be quite a line of work.”
"I’m sure of that,” said Thunstone.
They took leave of each other. Thunstone headed on toward St. Jude’s. He saw David Gates on the lawn, scratching with a hoe around some rose bushes. He turned in at the walk and approached the curate.
"Ah, Mr. Thunstone,” said Gates, straightening up, the hoe in his heavy hand. "You see, I do my own gardening here.”
"Those roses are beautiful,” said Thunstone. "I wouldn’t have bothered you, but questions keep rising about this little hamlet of Claines.”
“Questions?”
“For one,” said Thunstone, “how did you sleep last night?” “Why, fairly well. I lay for a while and thought about a point or two in my sermon tomorrow, matters of emphasis.”
“You lay in the dark?” asked Thunstone.
“Naturally I did. I find that thinking in the dark is often profitable.”
“And did you have any peculiar sensations?” was Thunstone’s next question.
Gates laughed at that, quietly but loftily. “You wonder if the approach of the turning of the Dream Stone affects my imagination. No, sir, not in the least. I leave that to one or two residents here subject to illusion, and I take it you’ve talked to them.”
“I’ve talked to Constance Bailey,” said Thunstone.
“Constance Bailey,” Gates said the name after him. “Now, there’s an unhappy young woman who lets her fancies run away with her. I’ve tried to reason with her, not very successfully. Once or twice, I’ve wondered if she weren’t in the habit of taking some sort of harmful drug. Frankly, Mr. Thunstone, I see nothing in her extravagances of talk, and I’ve been glad that lately she hasn’t come to me with them.” “I must say that I rather like her,” said Thunstone. “She works for Mrs. Fothergill, and she’s helpful and mannerly. But another thing interests me. It’s about the stream yonder, what’s called Congdon Mire.”
“That grimy flow?” Gates turned to look eastward in the direction of Congdon Mire. “I consider it a hazard to the health of this locality. I wish it could be drained.”
“Did you ever walk on the bridge there and feel a dizziness?” “Ah, so you’ve heard that superstition too? No, I’ve never felt any such thing. More imagination here and there, I should say, perhaps helped along by generous potations at one or other of our pubs here.” “I felt a dizziness there yesterday,” Thunstone told him. “I nearly fell in. And I hope you’ll believe that I hadn’t been drinking. I hear that that sensation comes at Congdon Mire at the time of the stone turning.”
“I deplore such superstitions,” vowed Gates. “If you come to church tomorrow, you’ll hear me say so in no uncertain terms.”
“I’ve said that I’d be there, and look forward to your sermon.”
Gates turned back to his roses, and Thunstone walked back again toward the center of town.
As he trudged along, a shout hailed him. It came from the yard of Chimney Pots.
Three figures stood there. Close to Trail Street, Hob Sayle tinkered with a lawn mower. Farther in on the grass stood Gram Ensley and Porrask, and Ensley waved vigorously for Thunstone to cross over and join them.
CHAPTER 9
Thunstone waited for a shabby light truck to pass, then hurried across busy Trail Street. Hob Sayle shoved his lawn mower along, not glancing up. Thunstone came to where Ensley and Porrask stood waiting.
Ensley wore the same jacket as yesterday, or perhaps another of the same cloth and cut. His necktie looked like those worn by the Brigade of Guards, and Thunstone wondered if he was entitled to wear it. Ensley smiled hospitably. Porrask, in stained denims, hunched his burly shoulders and lowered his eyes shyly.
"Mr. Thunstone, you've become a familiar sight on our street,” Ensley greeted him. "I hope you like it in Claines.”
“I'm beginning to feel acquainted here,” said Thunstone. "I said I'm beginning to feel it. It would take a long while to claim the whole feeling.”
He glanced at Porrask, who grunted noncommittally.
"I venture to trust you've forgiven Porrask here,” said Ensley. "I'm aware that he's sometimes gruff to strangers, but he says he knows you now.”
"And that's the truth, sir; there it is,” said Porrask, not happily. "No hard feelings, I 'ope, sir.”
"None on my part,” Thunstone assured him at once. "Meanwhile, Mr. Thunstone, have you been comfortable here?” inquired Ensley. "Did you rest well last night?”
"Oh, fairly well,” replied Thunstone. "After I got to sleep.” "Then you must have lain awake, I hazard.”
"I was awake, but I didn't lie there long,” said Thunstone. "I was up. I studied over some of the things you and I have talked about.
About Claines, for instance, and how it might date back, if we could arrive at dates, to the Stone Age."
He lounged on his cane to say that. Ensley eyed the cane and then eyed Thunstone.
‘The Old Stone Age," Ensley said, as though to correct him. “The Rough Stone Age, the Paleolithic. The age of man’s greatest advance. I’ve told you that I’ve been selfish enough to discourage any digs and explorations here by universities and government groups. Selfish, I say —I want to do my own assessments. I believe in clinging to ancient customs, ancient traditions. Without the past, what would the present be? That’s why I promote the annual refinishing of Old Thunder on the slope over there; that’s why I approve of the annual turning of the Dream Rock."
“The Dream Rock," said Thunstone after him. “Do you suppose the Dream Rock can give dreams in Claines?"
“What sort of dreams might you mean?" asked Ensley, almost sharply.
“Possibly dreams of those prehistoric times you’re talking about," said Thunstone.
Ensley looked at him searchingly. So did Porrask.
“Dreams, or perhaps visions," elaborated Thunstone. “Glimpses of what this place once was like, long ago."
Ensley still stared. “Have you had such dreams?" he almost prodded at Thunstone.
“I suppose I have, in a way. I find my imagination roused here. Perhaps talking with you has helped it along."
“Dreams," said Porrask, from where he stood apart. “I don’t dream any great lot, myself. Work ’ard in the day, sleep sound in the night. That’s been my way of it."
“I’ve heard a great psychologist say that we all dream," said Ensley, “and that those who say they don’t dream, only dream and forget that they’ve dreamed."
That sounded like one of his snubs for Porrask. Thunstone thought for a moment before speaking.
“Dreams are unsubstantial things," he said then. “But what if somebody dreamed of wandering among flowers, for instance, and dreamed that he picked a flower, and then woke up with the flower in his hand?”
Ensley started visibly. “Don't tell me you've woken up here with a flower in your hand.”
“No,” said Thunstone gently. “No flower.”
&n
bsp; He gazed up the long pitch of Sweepside. “Ever since you brought up the subject,” he said, “I’ve thought a great deal about the people who lived here back then, all those thousands of years back into the Paleolithic.”
“Ten thousand years ago,” nodded Ensley, and he seemed more calm. “It was ten thousand years ago, say the archaeologists, that Jericho was built. The first city, as far as research can establish.” “The Book of Genesis tells us that Cain built the first city, and named it Enoch after his son,” said Thunstone.
“Come, surely you're not a fundamentalist, are you? Well, maybe Enoch was another name for Jericho. Twenty-five hundred people lived in the beginning at Jericho, they estimate. But ten thousand years ago, there was a community living here, and maybe seventy-five people living in it.” Ensley gazed over the housetops of Claines. “They lived here and built houses. Wooden walls plastered with clay, and pitched roofs with thatches. Houses like that probably would look pretty much like home, even to the eyes of modems.”
“Do you suppose they farmed?” asked Thunstone. “Did they harvest grain? The people at Jericho seem to have done that.”
Ensley tossed his head, as though impatient at the question. “That was down in Asia Minor where it was warm. The Neolithic Age had begun there, with all its advances and alterations in culture. Up here, the Ice Age was receding, but it was still much colder than it is today. But even so, the people here were wise according to their lights.” “You sound as though you knew them,” said Thunstone.
“I've tried my best to know them. They were building toward what we mistakenly call civilization.”
“Amen to that,” said Thunstone. “I read a book some years ago, a collaboration as I remember, that referred all our modem knowledge to visitors from outer space. In one place, their book said outright that both the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon races were brutes.”
“Brutes?” snapped Ensley. “Just who were those authors?”
“I have to admit, I’ve forgotten.”
“Then you’ve well forgotten them,” pronounced Ensley. “We think we tower so high. We only stand on the shoulders of those wise ancient people, who began all our knowledge for us.”
“Amen,” agreed Thunstone again. “I go along with my friend Jean Stuart, who visited those Stone Age caves in France and Spain, where the cave paintings are.”
“Yes,” said Ensley, “you’ve mentioned her name, I remember.”
“She wrote frankly that she felt those cave dwellers had as great minds as we have today; that they must have been philosophers, rationalists, as well as fine artists. I’ve always wondered why we don’t find cave paintings like those, here in England.”
“Maybe such things haven’t been discovered as yet,” said Ensley, rather darkly. “At least, they’ve not been brought to public attention. The only recorded example I know of is in Wales, in a cave picturesquely called Bacon’s Hole, where there’s a sort of grid pattern of ten bars of bright red paint of some sort. Ten bars, one above the other. What would you make of that, Mr. Thunstone?”
“I’d be only guessing, but I’d say that whoever painted that pattern of bars understood the decimal system in mathematics. He’d seem to be recording in tens.”
“As in ten thousand years,” said Ensley, dreamily this time.
“You appear to like the number ten thousand,” ventured Thunstone.
“Maybe I do like it; it’s a good, solid, round number. I must say, I’m glad of your conversation whenever I have a chance at it. I’d judge that you have a considerable gift of perception. So few have that.”
“I think that Constance Bailey has something of perception,” Thunstone said.
“That little fraud doesn’t enter this discussion,” snapped Ensley. “Before I’m done, I hope to see her driven out of Claines, and her witch pretenses with her.”
Porrask heaved his shoulders again. Maybe he sighed.
“And you, Mr. Ensley,” Thunstone changed the subject. “Do you ever have the sort of dream or vision of the past we’ve been talking about?”
“See here, aren’t you tired of standing about in the yard?” asked Ensley suddenly. “Why don’t we go inside, you and I, and get on with our discussion? There’s a great deal we’d like to hear from each other.”
“Thanks, I’d like to, but I’m going to catch the bus to London,” said Thunstone, deciding even as he spoke.
“London?” repeated Ensley. “Surely you aren’t leaving Claines just now?”
“No, I expect to return sometime this evening.”
“Good, good,” said Ensley. He put a hand on Thunstone’s arm. “I’d be greatly disappointed if you left us and didn’t come back. Let me invite you to dinner tomorrow noon, here at Chimney Pots.” “I’ve promised to attend church at St. Jude’s tomorrow.” “That’s all right, but dinner after church. Shall we say one-thirty? There’s someone I want you to meet, and I think there’ll be things to interest you.”
“Why,” said Thunstone, “I’ll accept, and thank you very much.” He walked away. He knew that Ensley watched him as he went, and that Porrask watched, too.
At Mrs. Fothergill’s, he went upstairs to his room. Constance Bailey was there, tidying.
“I’m glad to see you,” he said quickly. “I’m going to be gone for a while—for some hours, at least—and I want to hide this.”
He went to the corner where he had leaned the stone-headed spear. “Could you keep it in your room?” he asked.
“Oh, I wouldn’t dare!” she cried, shaking her head so that her hair tossed. “That’s an evil thing, Mr. Thunstone; it’s a bad thing—” “Well then, we’ll hide it here, in the bed.”
The bed was already made. He swept back the coverlet and the top sheet and laid the spear flat on the bottom sheet, with its head tucked under the pillow. He drew the bedclothes over it, and Constance Bailey helped with hands that shook. When they had smoothed the coverlet down, nobody could have told that the spear was there. “Do you truly think you should?” she asked.
“I think I must; I don’t want anyone to know about it just yet. Now, good bye for the present.”
“Mr. Thunstone,” she said, her voice wretchedly shaking, “do you think you’re doing a good thing here, with so much danger around and about?”
“There’s always danger,” he said, “at every point in our lives.”
“But this,” she said, “this going back into the long ago, all among those savage people. What if you go back again and they kill you?”
“I hope they won’t, but what if they do?”
She seemed to sway before him, she almost staggered. “Aren’t you afraid of death, Mr. Thunstone?”
He looked at her. He smiled, and shook his big dark head.
“No,” he said, “I’m not. That doesn’t mean I want to die—if l wanted that, I’d be crazy. But I’m not afraid of death. Several times I’ve come close to death, and I was never afraid, not any of the times. Why, Connie? Are you afraid?”
“Yes, I am,” she whispered. “Thinking of it makes me run all cold inside. I don’t know what will happen after I’m dead. Maybe nothing will happen.”
“Maybe nothing will happen,” he repeated the words. “Of course, we don’t know. There are lots of promises about an afterlife, but we don’t know what they mean. But anyway, I’m not afraid of death. I can’t afford to be.”
She gazed at him as though she tried to comprehend.
“But what if there’s nothing?” she asked him after a moment.
“Then it will be like going to sleep, I suppose. And some of the happiest times I’ve known have been spent in sleep.”
“Then you’re not afraid,” she said, almost an accusation.
“No, by God, I’m not. There just isn’t any future in being afraid of death. So don’t you be afraid, either.” He turned toward the door. “Good bye,” he said again.
“Good bye,” she said again, as though saying it forever.
Cane in hand, he hurried downst
airs and across Trail Street to the Moonraven. Hawes lounged in the parking lot.
“Good morning, sir,” he said. “We don’t open till eleven.”
“I wondered when the next bus to London stopped here,” said Thunstone.
“Next bus to London? Ten-thirty, if it's on time, and most days it is.”
Thunstone glanced at his watch. It was just ten o'clock. “I'll have to telephone,” he said.
“Call box right there, in front of the post office,” Hawes told him, pointing.
Thunstone hurried to it. He fumbled out coins and rang a number at the University of London, the office of Leslie Spayte. A deeply drawling voice answered.
“Yes? Professor Spayte here.”
“This is John Thunstone. I'm glad I could catch you in your office, Professor.”
“I'm more or less always in my office, even on a Saturday. What can I do for you, Thunstone?”
“You can talk to me, and hear me talk. I'm catching the ten-thirty bus here in Claines. I should be there in two hours, as I figure.”
“Why not a spot of lunch?” asked Spayte. “Why not meet me at a pub where we've been together before, the Friend at Hand in Her- brand Street? Say one o'clock, or thereabouts?”
“Fine, that's one of my favorite pubs,” applauded Thunstone. “I wish we could have Philo Vickery along. He'd appreciate a few of the things I have to tell.”
“As it happens, I'd say we can have him,” drawled Spayte. “He was in here just now—full of wild surmises as usual, like stout Cortez's men silent upon a peak in Darien, though it must have been Balboa if they gazed on the Pacific. Even Keats could be wrong sometimes. Anyway, Vickery left to go to the bookstore, Dillon's. Seems that one of his nightmarish books is on sale there and he wonders how it's going. But he'll be coming back. If you can be at the Friend at Hand at one o'clock, I’ll just fetch him along.”
“Great. I'll see you.”
“I’ll count the minutes. All right, Thunstone.”
A click as Spayte hung up.
Thunstone went back to the door of the Moonraven. Hawes remarked that it was a fine day, but that last night's rain would be a help to the crops. He went on to say that he was glad for Thunstone to put Albert Porrask in his place the night before, that it would take Porrask months to get shirty again. When Thunstone guardedly mentioned the possibility of night visions at the time of the turning of Dream Rock, Hawes said that only Constance Bailey had clothheaded notions like that. The bus rolled in and stopped, and Thunstone got aboard and paid his fare to London.
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