‘I did,’ Lavina agreed.
‘Well, I think you might have succeeded in the sort of world we knew before the deluge. There, you would both have been protected from ever getting to know each other too well by a sort of veneer, or, if you like, a series of screens provided, by the many outside activities which would have occupied such a large portion of both your minds. But, as things are, you’ve been thrown too much together and you’ve seen each other much too clearly. You’re a very complex person and, for all your apparent faults, you’re spiritually on a far higher level than Sam. He’s a very simple person, really; so he naturally gravitates towards Margery who is his own type.’
Lavina regarded him thoughtfully for a moment from beneath eyelashes that half-veiled her eyes. ‘What you say is very interesting, Hemmingway, but why do you consider that I’m on a higher spiritual level than Sam or Margery? She’s a much more saintly person than I am.’
‘Not necessarily. She just accepts the dogmas she’s been taught; whereas you have your own code and never allow yourself to be influenced by accepted standards or by what other people may think. By that I don’t mean to imply that either of you is better than the other; only that if one regarded life as a school you would have to sit for your exams in a much higher form.’
‘How do you account for that?’
‘Because you’re what Buddhists call a “twice-born”. Sam and Margery are bound only by the conventions of the time in which they live; the simple rulings of the lower school. But the subconscious memory of past lives compels you to base your judgments on a broader yet more fearful conception of the Law. Their path is easy compared to yours because they only have to play the game as the modern world understands it; whereas you must sometimes appear to do wrong in order to do what you know inside yourself to be right. You either do the right thing regardless of opinion, or if you do the other you do it consciously, knowing quite well that sooner or later you’ll have to pay for your weakness.’
‘You certainly know a lot about me,’ she admitted; ‘because I am like that. But I’ve never had anyone tell me so before. Are you a “twice-born” too?’
‘Yes, I’ve lived many times before. I know that from having recognised places and people that I’d never seen before in this life. In some of those lives we must have met, too, because I felt that I knew you through and through the very moment I set eyes on you.’
‘It’s queer you should say that, because I felt something, too. When Sam introduced us and we stood looking at each other in your room at St. James’s Square it seemed as though time had ceased to exist for a moment and as though Sam and the room and everything were no longer there. I didn’t recognise you as anyone I’d ever met, but it was like a sudden warning that we had been brought together for some hidden purpose which might be supremely good or incredibly evil.’
‘That was probably a forewarning of the night we were to spend together on Burgh Heath under the influence of the comet. Both of us succumbed to evil then because both of us betrayed a trust and, although you may not realise it, that’s contributed very largely to breaking up your marriage with Sam.’
‘I don’t see that; since he doesn’t know anything about it.’
‘No. But it affected you to such an extent that it was weeks before you could get it out of your mind. Am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘I tried to help you all I could, and you fought desperately hard to behave as though nothing had happened. Your acting was good enough to prevent Sam from suspecting anything but you didn’t dare to remain alone with him for a moment longer than you had to; and in order to keep up an appearance of gaiety you let yourself go much more than you should have done with Derek.’
She laughed a little ruefully. ‘And I thought I’d hidden it all so cleverly. I think you must be the devil himself from the way you seem to have read my every thought. God! How I dreaded those little petting-parties with Sam down in the storeroom during the first weeks we were in the Ark. But go on. Now the butterfly is under the microscope, tell me a little more.’
‘There isn’t very much more to tell. If there had never been anything between us you would have continued to feel, as well as act, perfectly naturally. You would have sought Sam’s company instead of instinctively avoiding it. You would have made him, instead of Derek, fetch and carry for you and he would have enjoyed it. You would have occupied his mind to such an extent that he would never even have looked at Margery. So you were right in your premonition that meeting me might bring evil to you. Unfortunately there was no way in which I could repair the damage that I’d done.’
‘It wasn’t your fault any more than it was mine.’
‘It was my fault to the extent that, although I lied about it afterwards to make things easier for us both, the comet never really caused me to lose consciousness of what I was doing. I knew quite well that I could have brought you to your senses by slapping your face and that I ought to have done so; but I didn’t.’
‘Well, I lied, too, for the same reason. I don’t mind telling you now. I was never out of my senses and I knew all the time that by one word I could have stopped you; but there came a point when I felt that, whatever happened afterwards, it was worth it, so I deliberately let myself go.’
He nodded. ‘It was just the same with me.’
‘I get the same feeling sometimes with Derek,’ she confessed.
‘That’s hardly surprising. Your guilty conscience built up in your mind a complex adverse to Sam. Derek’s a good-looking chap, and propinquity can play the very devil with their feelings when two attractive, healthy people are thrown together a great deal. D’you think you would be happy with him?’
‘Yes; for a time, at least. Perhaps for a long time. But how does that square with your theory of types? Derek is even less complex than Sam or Margery.’
‘Perhaps. But in such a tie-up you would be the dominating partner. You know him so intimately that you could play on his every mood, like a pianist on the keyboard of a piano. It’s the easy way, and such unions are often very happy. There’s practically no mental strain at all, you see, because the senior partner runs the whole outfit, and providing they don’t hanker after spiritual companionship they get everything else they want with very little effort.’
‘It might not be a bad thing, then?’ said Lavina.
He laughed. ‘As you’re bone-lazy it might be a very good one!’
‘Am I lazy—in the real sense?’ she smiled.
‘No. You have one of the most active minds I’ve ever met, but, physically, you’d like a man who’d be prepared to wait on you hand and foot, wouldn’t you?’
‘I suppose I should.’
‘And Derek fills that bill admirably.’
‘Yes, but I’m not quite certain yet that I want him to. You see, life with Derek could be grand for a bit but he’s still to some extent an unknown quantity; whereas I know Sam’s worst points and his best. I can’t make up my mind whether to take a gamble on a new deal turning up trumps or to stick to something very fine; because, of course, I only have to lift my little finger to get Sam back.’
‘Yes,’ Hemmingway agreed, ‘and perhaps that might suit you best.’
29
INTO THE BLIZZARD
Lavina remained silent for a moment. Suddenly she shivered. Sitting there motionless had caused her to become very cold although she had not noticed it while they had been talking. She shook herself and stood up. ‘All you’ve said has been terribly interesting and it’s helped me a lot, much more than even you can realise. But I’m simply frozen. Let’s get upstairs now and warm ourselves by the fires.
That night she was unusually silent, but even Hemmingway, who guessed that she was preoccupied with their conversation of earlier in the day, could not tell whether her inclination was veering towards a definite understanding with Derek or a determination to recapture Sam.
On the eighth morning the blizzard had ceased, so they took to the road again. Their enfor
ced rest had made them the more eager to push on and after they had passed the roof-tops of Sittingbourne they made good going on a long, straight stretch of road, covering six miles before they halted at the village of Ospringe. They put up there for the night in the straw-filled loft of a high barn, there being no necessity for them to look for a house which might contain stores as they had renewed their supplies from the mansion outside Sittingbourne.
The next was a harder day as they lost their way while passing Faversham; but they found it again and accomplished another five miles, arriving late in the afternoon at Broughton Street. Snow had fallen again during the preceding night, and with that of the blizzard which had held them up for a day, it now buried all but the tallest houses to near their roofs; while the cottages and two-storeyed buildings were entirely submerged, only their gables being indicated by hillocks in the snow.
From Broughton Street they proceeded towards Canterbury, which was easily discernible in the distance as its Cathedral tower could still be seen dominating the almost buried city. When they were within a mile of it Gervaise called to Lavina to incline right, so that instead of entering its maze of roof-tops they would by-pass the city and pick up the road again on its southeastern side.
His idea very nearly proved their undoing as, half a mile farther on, Lavina led the party up a slope on to a flat plateau which appeared to consist of firm snow. It bore her weight and that of Margery who followed; but the sledge party had not advanced more than ten yards on to it before the crust of snow gave way.
The sledge plunged downwards and the men with it, who were buried up to their arm-pits. The plateau of snow concealed a closely planted orchard where air-pockets still remained beneath the branches of the trees. Fortunately none of them was injured and they soon scrambled out, but the heavy sledge was in a hole eight feet deep, and when they had succeeded in scraping away the snow that had fallen on it they found that its weight was too great for them to drag it out. They had to unpack most of their gear before they could lighten the sledge sufficiently to pull it up, and the misadventure delayed them for over an hour.
They were now so far from the highway that it seemed better to go on than to go back; but for the next half-mile, until they reached a row of roof-tops which indicated another road, Lavina had to test the snow-crust every few yards of the way by jumping on it with her ski-sticks. Once they got above the road again they were happier, and picking out their way between the lines of chimney-pots on the south-eastern outskirts of Canterbury they eventually succeeded in locating the Dover road once more.
Darkness was falling when they halted for their tenth night after leaving London, but their short cut had enabled them to place another seven miles of the way behind them. They slept in the attic of a road-side inn and, by combing the place, managed to add a few items to their stores.
On the eleventh day they again did well—seven more miles—but night and snow caught them on the open road, which was now so difficult to follow that, fearing to lose it, they were forced to bivouac in the open; and, although she kept face before the others, Lavina’s limbs ached so with the cold that once in her fur bag she cried herself to sleep.
The twelfth day was the worst they had so far experienced as the road was now almost untraceable and snow fell at intervals further delaying their progress. Although Lavina did her utmost to keep to the track there were many occasions when she led the party off it and the heavy sledge got ditched in the treacherous drifts which concealed deep culverts by the road-side. Half the day was spent in pulling the sledge out of holes and, although the whole party were exhausted when twilight came, they had only managed to do four miles. But they had good quarters for the night as Lavina led them to another inn which was standing at a crossroads with its slate roof still showing above the surface.
The thirteenth day was even worse. They lost the road entirely and the scattered houses along it gave no indication, from a distance, where it lay, as they were now snowed up to their chimney-pots. All the natural features of the land except its general contours had disappeared. Even tall trees, pylons and woods were concealed beneath one vast, white blanket which stretched away in a series of rolling slopes as far as the eye could see in every direction.
Sweating in their furs, pulling and shoving, the men laboured on, while the girls sought in vain for any landmark which might guide them. But at two o’clock in the afternoon Lavina gave a cry of joy and pointed ahead.
Following the direction she gave them they saw, rising to their left front, a steep hill crowned by a large white knob. In that locality, even in such a waste of snow, it could only be Dover Castle.
It was a long pull up the hill. With aching muscles the men dragged the sledge from snow-drift to snow-drift, but two hours later they were among the chimney-pots in the higher quarter of the town. No sign of its lower part remained, as the sea had risen to the same level as the Thames, burying its main street, harbour and dockyard deep below the icy surface.
They chose a row of chimney-pots on the slope above the town and, digging away the snow from round about them, soon discovered a broken skylight through which they were able to climb down into one of the houses. Utterly tired out, they forced themselves to break wood and get their braziers going. After they had made some coffee and eaten a little cold meat they crawled into their fur bags and fell into an exhausted sleep.
On exploring the house next morning they discovered it to be a fair-sized villa so they had reason to assume that the other buildings in the row were the same; and it was decided to break into all of them in order to collect as many stores as possible before attempting what must prove the most hazardous part of their expedition—the crossing of the Channel.
They were faced with twenty-one miles of frozen sea which they had to cross before they could hope to secure fresh supplies in Calais, and although they said nothing of their fears, they were dreading the journey.
Derek voiced a doubt that had occurred to them all when he suggested that with the ever-increasing depth of the snow all the houses in France might be so deeply buried when they got there that they would not be able to locate them, and that the wiser plan therefore might be to remain in Dover.
But Gervaise was unshakeable in his determination that they must push on. When the thaw came pestilence would strike Dover as well as London. It was vital, he said, that while there was breath left in their bodies they should continue their march until they reached not only the edge of the ice-pack but a land well beyond it to which the plague could not be wafted by the winds in the springtime.
‘But there will be dead bodies there as well,’ Derek argued. ‘I hadn’t thought of that before, but, now I have, it seems to me that our risk of dying from some ghastly infection will be just as great when we get there.’
‘No,’ Gervaise shook his grey head. ‘The bodies of the people in those lands are rotting in the sunshine as we sit here now, and the pestilence which they germinate will have been dissipated by the winds and flood waters long before we reach a suitable spot far from all risk of contamination in which to settle.’
That morning they divided themselves into couples and searched the whole row of villas, entering them, as they had the first, through their skylights. It was a grim and horrible business, as they found many drowned bodies of men, women and children who had remained cowering in their homes in preference to rushing out into the streets during those last moments in which the deluge had swept down upon them. But the foray resulted in a hoard of fresh supplies sufficient for Gervaise to decide that they might attempt to start the Channel crossing on the following day. In the afternoon they rested in order that they should be fresh and fit, when morning came, for their hazardous undertaking.
It had been decided to make an early start so as to take advantage of every moment of daylight, and at seven o’clock on the morning of September 3rd they set out from Dover. Behind them the great cliffs still stood out high above the ice-pack; before them stretched an apparently limitles
s plain of snow. The weather was favourable although intensely cold. Only a mild wind was blowing and the sun shone overhead in a blue sky.
Hour after hour they pressed forward, the men bending their backs to the weight of the sledge as they ploughed along on their broad snow-shoes, the girls cold but uncomplaining and determined. All topics of general conversation had been exhausted by now. During the last few days they had ceased singing on their marches; even Lavina’s joyous treble no longer quavered, small but tuneful, across the snow flats. Every breath was needed for the great effort they were making. They knew that if they could reach Calais a new lease of life would be granted to them, but if they were caught by a blizzard in mid-Channel their chances of survival would be very slender. Once in France they could lie up and rest if need be, but until they reached the coast they dared not spare themselves.
When they halted that night and set up their camp Gervaise was more than satisfied. Over the flat surface they had been able to make far better progress than in the preceding days and he estimated that they must have covered a good twelve miles. They spoke little over their evening meal, as they were very tired, but when they turned in they were immensely comforted by the thought that over half the crossing was accomplished.
The second day proved equally satisfactory until the early afternoon, when, having covered six miles, they came upon broken ground. That it was not land was certain, as they could see the cliffs to the south of Calais, now only about three miles distant. Hemmingway and Gervaise decided that the uneven surface was due to a strong wind having got up when the ice had been only partially formed in that area, and great chunks of it having been piled up on top of one another by the heaving sea.
After their splendid start in the morning Gervaise had hoped to camp above French soil that night but they were not destined to do so. To add to the difficulties of the broken terrain a strong wind began to blow, whirling from every eminence great puffs of powdered snow which loaded their clothing and penetrated the openings of their hoods until their faces were almost blue with cold. Margery had to have Sam’s help to stagger onward and the tears froze on Lavina’s cheeks as they ran from under her snow-goggles.
Sixty Days to Live Page 37
