The Road from the Monument

by Storm Jameson

  Chapter Eighteen

  Alone, Gregory leaned against a table, supporting himself on his hands, his mind in a disorder which, slowly, as he stood there, settled into furious astonishment. What have I been doing all these months? he asked himself. How did I get to this point of… futility?

  Never, never since the moment when, a young writer, a young provincial in London, he found himself easily at home in Arthur Blount’s world, had he doubted his safety in it. For the first time, he felt insecure, isolated. I’m not ‘one of us,’ he thought mockingly, and they have always known it…. They had the long faces, at once feminine and hard, of his wife and her brother. For the first time, too, he had caught a glimpse, only a glimpse, but it chilled him, of a quality he had never suspected in his brother-in-law — more an absence than a quality, as though his detachment, his gentle scepticism, his subtlety and wisdom had very slightly shifted, to expose — what? If he had stretched his hand out to the other man and encountered only an icy vacancy, he would have felt less shocked.

  He became conscious of pain in his finger-tips where they pressed the brass rim of the table. Forcing himself to recall all the good reasons he had for being fond of Arthur, he thought: No, no, I know him too well, I can rely on him…. Before he could prevent it, the cretinous story he had spun to console himself and deceive Arthur rose derisively in his mind. He felt sick with rage and contempt. Idiot, he said to himself, lamentable idiot: you slept with her…. What shamed him was the imbecility of the story — exposed to Arthur, of all men.

  I may, he thought slowly, it’s possible, be finished.

  The darkness in his mind sheltered other threats, oddly more tormenting. The inner distrust and uncertainty. I seem to be capable of anything, he thought: anything mean, vile, futile. Why, when Lambert told me that the girl had been in the office, did I lie to him about her? And before that, what made me treat her with a brutal silliness? Why did I ignore her letter?… If, at the beginning of all this, he had behaved with only ordinary kindness and common sense, he would have saved himself. If he had acted on her letter, decently, instead of tearing it up…. Destroying it was the first of his false moves, the first step into a morass of mistakes, lies, treachery.

  Why? With a growing stupefaction he repeated: Why? In God’s name, why? Why did I do it?

  The moment when he heard the girl’s voice, with its thin common tones, in the doorway of his house, had been a moment of panic fear. The fear of being caught out in a socially disgraceful act? Not only that. Something had given way in him then — as though the man he had become, the man at home in an aristocratic society, the dedicated highly cultivated writer, the intellectually convinced Christian (not for him the Christian simplicities of a Paul Gate) had a flaw in him — certain to crack open under strain. Perhaps because he was after all nothing more, no stronger, than a superb poseur…. Noy he thought savagely, no. What I’ve made of myself is not a pose, not bogus. It is my real self, the self I willed — therefore real…. This elegant real self housed another which had had no trouble at all in betraying it in Nice. And had betrayed it again, infinitely more squalidly, when he pretended not to know the humiliated child staring at him from the doorway. And again when he lied to Lambert.

  Suddenly, in his hell of self-contempt and confusion he remembered his father, in one of the rare moments when he wanted to talk, describing a winter spent in the cold and darkness of the Arctic: his ship, and another, two small tramp steamers, had left Archangel a few days too late and were trapped in the ice; there, in the immense black Arctic night, they waited for the end of winter, knowing that when the ice started to break it might crush them, like a hammer crushing an eggshell: his father’s ship was lucky; the other, when the light began coming, had vanished — some time during the winter she had gone down, unheard, unseen. He had found the story horrible, because of the men sinking in darkness, and had managed to forget it — until this moment when, climbing through his dismay, confusion, impotence, fear, it rose again to the surface.

  He shuddered and sat down, covering his face with his hands.

  He had reached the bottom of his despair and could only rally. He thought: I’m not finished, I can still save myself.

  What after all did Lambert know? He might, with that cynical astuteness and horse-sense of his, guess…. I may at some moment have given myself away to him…. But he could not be certain: he had no proof, of any sort. He could surely be silenced, bought off, placated — easily?… For the rest of my life, he thought, flinching.

  An access of energy seized him. And vanished as suddenly as it had come, leaving him empty…. What good will any of that be? It won’t do me any good. It won’t tell me why I’m dishonest, a liar, capable, to save myself trouble, of throwing away the most elementary decencies between one human being and another. It won’t excuse me. It won’t tell me the one thing I must know….

  He stood up, and went blindly to a window. At the other side of the road, not far away, was a long stone drinking trough, its ruffled surface reflecting the branches of trees and their young leaves: for the first of many times he must have looked at it, he noticed that it was double; there was a trough under the trough, nearly at the level of the pavement, low enough for any creature, the smallest, to reach it and drink. He stared at it for a long time. For some reason he couldn’t pin down, it struck him as significant, as though it must mean something — to him — that there was water within reach of the lowest.

  He turned away. Any creature, he thought mockingly. Even Gregory Mott. But what is he?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Three days later, when he saw Canon Pulmer coming into his room in Rutley House, he had still not decided to ask his advice. He had thought about doing it. Who, if not a priest, could advise him — and this priest, who had known him so many years and was his friend and admired him? (Admired the Gregory Mott he knew.) Before what other human being could he strip himself with this certainty of being understood and helped? He watched Pulmer settle himself in a chair with the youthful negligence that went so oddly with his broad body and finely tranquil face. He had come to collect his preface, and when Gregory handed it to him he held it as though it were an infant.

  ‘I can never tell you,’ he said warmly, ‘how grateful I am to you for this. You’re making all the difference to my modest little book’s chances.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Gregory.

  Pulmer laughed. ‘I don’t wonder. I know.’

  Gregory came to his decision then, abruptly. There was a little malice in it. Let Pulmer see what sort of man had written a preface commending him. And now needed his priestly help.

  ‘ If you hadn’t come here today, I should have come to see you in Oxford. To get your advice. Have you time to listen?’

  ‘All the time in the world, my dear Gregory,’ said Pulmer, smiling.

  He was known in Oxford for the indulgent understanding of human weakness with which he tempered his authority. Not long since, Gregory would have avoided the authority; he wanted it now.

  He had meant to be strictly honest — and simple and humble — and after the first words he began to give his story a turn for the better and to put himself in the kindest light: his pity for the young woman, his impulse to be generously kind to a little nobody, the essential innocence of the whole affair. He knew what he was doing — and went on doing it. At the same time he watched intently to see what effect he was making. He caught the flicker of physical disgust on Pulmer’s face — as if he had brushed against a piece of filthy linen — before the priest could wipe it off. He wiped it off instantly, but Gregory had seen it. It ought not, he knew, to humiliate him, but it did: he forced out a last word or two, and stopped. With an impulse to make things easier for Pulmer, he said,

  ‘I won’t talk to you about it any more now. Some other time. More suitable. Forgive me for throwing it at you in this way.’

  Pulmer looked at him with the greatest kindness. ‘No, no, let’s try to see the way through this — to
what you can do.’

  Gregory’s only wish now was to get rid of him. With a pretence of warmth, he said, ‘I’ll come and see you in Oxford.’

  He saw Pulmer hesitate, then decide that he must not let the fish slip through his net.

  ‘My dear fellow, I can’t leave you to try to deal with this alone. You need help, or you wouldn’t have asked for it. Let’s consider the, ah, practical consequences first. Then — you’ll find that your… the loss of self-esteem you must be feeling, which can’t help clouding your judgement—’

  Gregory interrupted him politely. ‘Let me talk to you later.’

  Pulmer made another effort to break through to him. ‘Who knows about this?’

  ‘Arthur. Lambert Corry.’

  ‘ Corry? What has he got to do with it?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing directly.’ Gregory smiled. ‘I haven’t been asking his advice. He discovered part of the story by chance, and has been very busy putting the rest of it together — and telling me what I ought to do.’

  Pulmer frowned. ‘Can you count on his discretion?’

  ‘His —? I’m not sure that I know what you mean.’

  The barely perceptible look of displeasure on Pulmer’s face was followed by one of anxiety. ‘No conceivable good, and a great deal of harm, would be done if there were even a whisper of talk. I hope that Corry — to be frank, I didn’t take to him when we met in your house — understands that.’ He hesitated and said delicately, ‘I mean, on the very highest level. Is he, your friend Corry, the sort of man to realise that the arguments for discretion are spiritual ones? And not, not, mere expedience.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Would you like me to talk to him?’

  ‘On the highest level?’ asked Gregory. It was precisely — given an authoritarian dress, a cassock in fact—the advice Arthur had given him. A feeling of disappointment and dejection — puerile and even silly, he mocked himself — overwhelmed him. It was natural for this priest to want, first of all, to save him from a disastrous scandal. Sensible, kind, natural — but who goes to a priest to be saved trouble?… Impulsively, without the faintest intention of saying it, he stammered, ‘Forgive me, I don’t mean to be ironical. But… any prudent discreet sensible thing that I do now will have for its result the bolstering up of a — possibly bogus — reputation. Is that all you want me to do?’

  ‘You don’t,’ Pulmer said quietly, ‘need me to tell you to do everything you can for the young woman.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That first. And then—’

  Gregory cut him short. ‘Surely I ought to do more than pay out money?’ In spite of himself, his voice became mocking. ‘I don’t need — from you — a lesson in tactics. Arthur — Lambert Corry — my own common sense — can give me that. What I wanted…’ Ashamed, he checked himself. What right, he thought, have I to criticise him? What do I want from him? Comfort? Absolution? ‘Any man…’ he said, and stopped again.

  Pulmer was looking at him with a great deal of anxiety, and a trace of consternation. He said slowly, ‘My dear fellow, you’re not any man, you’re the writer Gregory Mott, the man whose books, belief, spiritual life, faith, have made their impression on I don’t know how many people. The young men I see every day….’

  ‘My spiritual life is a lie,’ Gregory said.

  The gleam of desperate humour in his eyes startled Pulmer. He wondered for a moment whether he had to do with a man determined to get himself talked about at all costs. The idea shocked him: it had never crossed his mind that, just possibly, Gregory was unbalanced — as so many writers are. He felt a terrible grief at the thought of the harm that would be done by some sort of public confession and breast-beating. No, no, he can’t intend that, he thought.

  ‘The men and women, the young men, who have been influenced by you, who respect you and look up to you, might be seriously damaged by any scandal.’

  ‘By the truth?’

  ‘So many of them are not much wiser than children,’ the priest said. ‘You don’t tell a child a truth that would injure it.’

  ‘You feel they should go on looking up trustfully to a lie?’ said Gregory.

  Pulmer gave him a look almost of pity. ‘Try to believe that you’re responsible for more than your — your own peace of mind. It is impossible but that offences will come; but woe unto him through whom they come. You haven’t overlooked that, have you?’

  ‘You’re asking me,’ Gregory said, with the same disconcerting flicker of mockery across his fine lips, ‘to keep a useful lie alive.’

  ‘What right have you to destroy a single person’s faith?’ Pulmer said with anguish. ‘Even one very young or humble faith, not strong enough yet to stand the cold…. Put it on what is perhaps a lower level — you yourself have talked of the social need for belief….’

  Is he worried about the social value of his preface? Gregory thought. ‘Yes. I used to talk about that.’

  ‘It’s still true.’

  ‘Maybe. But not very important.’

  ‘Not so important as the need not to offend one of these little ones, but…’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ Gregory said. Only a wilfully obtuse man could have missed the anguished sincerity behind Pulmer’s subtleties, and he was ashamed of his irony. ‘I don’t want — if I can help it — to make things difficult for you.’

  Pulmer was silent. He spoke with a hesitant simplicity, not very like himself. ‘Don’t think that I’m trying to make light of your — your unhappiness. If I could ease that I would.’

  Gregory looked at him with warmth. ‘Even at the cost of allowing me to offend… something?’ He leaned forward. ‘Tell me what to do.’

  A longer silence. He waited, with patience and a little confidence, for Pulmer’s answer. He was ready for anything — except another warning against giving offence.

  Pulmer said, ‘You must make every restitution you can to the young woman.’ He frowned. ‘As for Mr. Corry — your own tact will guide you in dealing with him. It shouldn’t be hard: he struck me as a shrewd sensible fellow, with a sharp eye to his own future.’

  For a moment Gregory felt only a sadness that he himself knew to be absurd. He smiled. ‘Yes. Tact. Tact and restitution. Restitution and tact…. That really is all I need do?’

  ‘You must pray,’ Pulmer said.

  ‘To whom?’

  Pulmer looked at him with a friendliness in which there was surprise and a little severity. ‘You’re not a child, you don’t believe only as a child or a simple person; you believe as an intelligent man, with all your intellect—’

  ‘Who shall I pray to?’ Gregory asked again. He frowned.

  His desk telephone rang. He listened and said,

  ‘Forgive me. I have an appointment, the man is here now; I’m afraid I can’t keep him waiting.’

  My fault he didn’t tell me what I want to know, he thought. I didn’t ask the right questions.

  Chapter Twenty

  The next morning, as he came into his room in Rutley House, Lambert’s wife rang up to tell him that Lambert was ill, he had a temperature, it was influenza, he was really ill, not just a bad cold or wanting a break, influenza…. He interrupted her. ‘I’m sorry, Penny. Very sorry. Tell him not to worry about anything here, won’t you?’

  The cold nervous voice started again. ‘You’ll have to do without him. It’s a hundred and two. His temperature. I daresay it will be a month before he’s fit. He’s been overworking. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ he said gently.

  ‘You’ll just have to do without him,’ she repeated.

  Why does she dislike me so much? he wondered idly. It was unimportant. ‘Tell him to stay at home until he’s completely well.’

  ‘Trust me for that,’ Penny said acidly. She rang off.

  A month. Time, plenty of time to put everything in order.

  What you must do, he told himself quietly, is to go back to where it started: to the moment when you clo
sed the door of that abominable boarding-house on yourself and that girl and… He was seized by a feeling of confusion and sickness, as if a void had opened at his feet. Not now, he thought dully, this isn’t the place or the time. Later.

  The letters that Diana had opened and arranged in order of their urgency were lying near his hand on the table. He took one up and began reading.

  His reprieve did not last a month. One day at the end of the third week Lambert telephoned that he was fit for work, and would be in the office again next day. ‘But there is a personal matter I want to discuss with you, old boy. Can I — if I drop in this evening to see you at home — can you spare a few minutes?’

  The heavy-footed discretion in his voice made Gregory smile. ‘What time would you like to come?’

  ‘Is five o’clock too early?’

  ‘No. I can be at home then.’

  He was less amused than his tone was meant to imply, and when he had Lambert in front of him, his slack body and lean jaunty face excreting friendliness and complicity, he felt only impatience.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Splendid,’ said Lambert. ‘Never fitter.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I thought you’d rather see me here,’ Lambert said, smiling.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Haven’t you anything to tell me, old boy?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Why — ’ running over with benevolence — ’what have you done about the young woman?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Gregory said.

  ‘Oh, come, come now, you haven’t, don’t tell me, been so unforgiveably careless. What are you going——’

  ‘If it’s the only thing you want to discuss, let’s drop it now. It doesn’t concern you.’

  ‘Ah, but it does,’ Lambert said with reproach. ‘It concerns any of your friends. I can’t take it lightly — I’ve been thinking about it a great deal while I’ve been at home, more anxiously than you give me credit for.’