THE MEETING PLACE

by MARY HOCKING

  The rain lasted for many hours and when it dwindled to spasmodic pattering, they crawled up the bank. Around them the wood steamed and stank. Joan sat shivering on a charred stump. As she tried to dry herself it occurred to her that she could not go back for a change of clothing.

  ‘I can never go back,’ she said, speaking aloud at the wonder of it.

  II

  Rhoda Tresham experienced the dreaded heat of fever. It did not, fortunately, cause her body to shake; the effect was in her mind, which was ablaze with light. In the past such experiences had led inevitably to a crippling headache. She waited in dread, not daring to move. Mercifully, the headache did not come, but the sense of violent heat persisted. As she lay still beside Edward, praying she might not wake him, she feared that in the morning she would find herself to have been blinded by the intensity of light behind her eyeballs. Many times during her marriage she had lain imposing stillness on her body for fear of arousing Edward, whose anxiety was a heavier burden than her illnesses. This often led to a bout of sickness. She prayed she might not be sick tonight. Her mouth was so dry she could scarcely swallow, but she dared not reach out for the water container that stood on the little cabinet beside the bed. She sometimes wondered whether her indispositions might not have passed more quickly had she not been driven to conceal them.

  When at last morning came, she turned away from its enquiring light and pretended to sleep, fearing the effect her ravaged face must have on her husband. It was a surprise when, after he had gone downstairs, she opened her eyes and found the room presented to her, neat and orderly, in sharp focus. The face that looked back at her from the mirror showed no sign of the night’s searing; in fact, if anything, there was less colour in her cheeks than usual. The violet eyes were clear, though underlined with shadow; this she could pass off, could make use of even by insisting on the outing she had planned yesterday in response to Edward’s suggestion of an expedition to the town where he wished to visit a museum recently opened.

  ‘While you are at the museum,’ she had said, ‘I would like to visit the school of which Mr Jory is so proud. I think it only polite that we should show an interest.’

  The Reverend Jory was as convinced of the importance of education as was Rhoda – ‘only my interest is in the needs of the poor who have no opportunity to better themselves,’ he had said; a remark that had shocked Edward, who feared the effects of education on the poor for the very reason that it might encourage them to better themselves.

  Rhoda poured water into the glass and drank. Her throat was still parched and it took another glass to slake her thirst. This apart, she felt ready for the day, if a little shaky mentally.

  At breakfast, Edward made his disapproval of ‘this venture of Jory’s’ apparent.

  ‘The venture is a joint one,’ Rhoda pointed out, ‘since the money was provided by Sir James Meredith whom you have always regarded as a great benefactor of this area and whose politics you so admire. And it is not so far to West Bentham as the journey to the town, which I should find tiring.’

  Edward acquiesced in her plan as he often did when he saw that it meant much to her, though he could never refrain from registering the pain it caused him when they differed. Rhoda felt a certain uneasiness that was not occasioned by his pain so much as a troubling awareness that she had been less than straightforward, not only with her husband, but with herself.

  After he had ridden away, she announced her intention of walking to the school. Her cousin, Eleanor, aware that Edward had entrusted Rhoda to her care on the assumption that she would take the trap, protested, ‘ ’Tis much too far.’

  ‘It is only a matter of seven miles in all,’ Rhoda replied. ‘You would think nothing of a walk twice as long.’

  ‘I am sure that had we told him, Mr Jory would have been pleased . . .’

  ‘I do not wish to put Mr Jory to trouble on my account. I simply wish to see the school,’ Rhoda answered haughtily.

  Later, making preparations in her room, she remembered the bedroom in which she and her sisters had slept as children, how cramped it had been, and guessed that Harold and Eleanor had moved into that room in order to accommodate herself and Edward in greater comfort. She felt shamed by the generosity of their hospitality.

  She went down to the kitchen, where Eleanor was issuing instructions, looking as flustered as if she were to be absent for a week instead of a matter of hours.

  ‘Might I have a word with you, cousin.’ Rhoda was all meekness now.

  Eleanor followed her into the hall, worried by the possibility of further demands.

  ‘My dear Eleanor, I am so sorry. In my eagerness I have been very selfish. It is asking altogether too much to expect you to accompany me. I shall be happy to go on my own. Indeed, I am not very good company of late and shall probably do much better on my own.’

  But too much had now been set in motion for Eleanor to call a halt; it was quite beyond her to think of what must be undone were she to change her plans.

  So it was they set out.

  ‘The way across the moor is the most direct,’ Eleanor said. ‘If we follow the path by the river it will be easier but it will take twice as long.’

  ‘I should much prefer the moorland walk.’

  They took a stony path that climbed between banks of velvet brown bracken. A kestrel wheeled overhead and a few long-horned sheep cropped the turf around a twisted, wind-torn tree. Above, the sky was grey-washed, with the faintest pink in the underbelly of cloud. Rhoda breathed deeply, the isolation coming to her as a benison. After the fever of the night, this uncluttered expanse cleared her mind and refreshed her spirit; just as she had told Edward it would, she thought, essaying a little self-justification.

  Gradually, as they climbed, the land to the east began to flatten out into a great stretch of tussock grass with here and there water gleaming in peaty hollows. On the other side, there was a steep fall to a narrow valley, a sullen, brooding place.

  Eleanor remained quiet, not wishing to intrude on her cousin’s thoughts. Rhoda seemed to her to be ‘very deep’, a description she bestowed on any person who dipped into the mind before speaking and was sparing in what was brought forth. Eventually, it was Rhoda who spoke, pointing to a few cottages that hung high above the valley.

  ‘Why would people live in this lonely place? One shepherd’s cottage, I could understand, but there must be three, if not four, dwellings there.’

  Eleanor stopped in her tracks like a horse confronted by danger. ‘Oh, my dear soul! I should ’a thought.’

  Rhoda, imagining some household task not covered by instructions, clenched her hands and resigned herself to disappointment. ‘Would you like us to go back?’

  Eleanor was looking at the cottages, the roofs of which were not far below where they stood. ‘ ’Tis little use now, since we’ve come upon it.’

  Rhoda, coming to stand beside her, saw far below slate-grey water and a huddle of men around a tower-like structure with a tall chimney to one side.

  ‘The mine!’ she exclaimed. ‘But Edward told me that man probably lied to claim the reward.’

  ‘They’ll not give him the money till they find the body. He’d know that – he’s fly, Jem Harker.’ They stood for a few moments watching the activity beneath them. Eleanor said, ‘I reckon that if he says he saw Jarvis up here that night, that’s the truth of it.’

  ‘What was he doing himself?’

  ‘Bit o’ poaching, that’ll be why he didn’t come forward till they offered a reward.’

  ‘But what are they doing now?’

  ‘Didn’t Edward tell you? The mine’s been closed for some years; there’s a lot of water down there. They’ve sent for a diver from way over t’other side o’ the county.’ She began to cry. ‘Oh, ’tis a judgement on me.’

  ‘Eleanor, how can you possibly say that?’

  But the more Rhoda tried to console her, the more wild Eleanor’s protestations became. Rhoda, at a loss to know how to handle the situat
ion in which she now found herself, was relieved to see a man and a woman standing outside one of the cottages.

  ‘Come,’ she said. ‘I am sure these good people will let you rest for a few minutes in their home.’

  The cottagers were startled by the sudden descent of the two ladies and only with some reluctance led them into the sitting room. Although the cottage itself was not mean in comparison with agricultural dwellings, it had lapsed into a state of decay. It distressed Rhoda to see the squalor to which these people had been condemned. From the little that the man said in answer to her enquiries she gathered that when the mine closed the area had been abandoned by the mining company, but this couple, who had run out of energy or hope, had stayed on. They had come from Wales and said there was nothing for them back there. He picked up whatever work he could and mumbled something about ‘over to the blacksmith’. The woman spoke little and cast constant glances out of the window. They both seemed fearful, not knowing what this sudden activity might mean for them, as though by their very existence here they had been discovered in wrongdoing.

  When they heard the sound of voices coming nearer, the rattle of falling stones as men came up the steep slope, Rhoda herself suffered acutely the feeling of wrongdoing. This was a terrible moment, something on which she should never have intruded, making herself an embarrassment to all. The expression on the face of the constable who came into the cottage expressed that embarrassment only too clearly. He stopped, his head thrust forward as he bent to cross the threshold, staring at the two ladies; water dripped on to his boots from a bundle he carried in his arms, a bundle clumsily tied up in tarpaulin.

  Eleanor was sick, and only years of schooling her body for Edward’s sake enabled Rhoda to fight back the bile that rose in her throat. Beyond the door she heard Jory’s voice, ‘What is it, man?’ The constable moved forward with his burden and the moment that Rhoda would have given almost anything to be spared was upon her. She had no idea which of the many emotions struggling within her – horror, contempt at her own weakness, a plea for forgiveness – registered in her eyes. In Jory’s eyes she saw the shock of recognition, as though the whole complex of her emotions had been revealed to him. She felt herself known as never before.

  The constable had recovered himself. ‘I need a cupboard, or a room with a good strong lock. This’ll have to wait here until we fetch the magistrate and Doctor Burton. And no one bain’t to go near it.’ He followed the miner into the back of the cottage, where his voice could be heard giving further instructions.

  Rhoda said to Jory, ‘We were out for a walk . . . we had no idea until we saw the mine below us.’

  The words were of no significance; she was beyond the orderliness of words. If Jory replied she was not aware of it; her mind seemed incapable of interpreting the signals her body was receiving. There were other men in the room now, including the diver, who was ill as much from the fumes in the mine as from his discovery. The miner’s wife was attempting to minister to him and to Eleanor. The matter of brewing tea seemed suddenly to assume an importance out of all proportion to other events, and Jory moved to the kettle on the hob while Rhoda went into the scullery in search of crockery.

  ‘This is a terrible thing for you to venture upon,’ Jory said when he joined her. His face was a muddy colour, the nearest it would come to pallor; there was purple beneath his eyes and blue around his chin.

  ‘You are sure . . .?’

  ‘Yes. We opened the sack.’

  She gave a little gasp and he turned to her. A pulse beat in her throat, like something trapped beneath the skin. He remembered the sensation he had had as a child, holding a trapped bird in his hands, the tenderness it had aroused in him. He put out a hand and touched her shoulder and the bird fluttered within his own body.

  She said, her voice shaking, ‘I shouldn’t have come here, it was wrong of me . . .’

  The miner’s wife came in, supporting Eleanor, who wanted to wash her face and hands.

  The tea was strong with a brackish taste. Rhoda could drink only a little, but Eleanor appeared somewhat revived by it, although still tearful. It was obviously advisable to get her away and Jory said he would walk back to the farm with them.

  ‘We shall do perfectly well now,’ Rhoda assured him. ‘And you are needed here.’

  ‘There is nothing for any of us to do here until the doctor and the magistrate come, and I shall be back by then. ‘As he saw that she regarded this as an imposition on him, he added, ‘And to be truthful, a good walk and fresh air will not come amiss.’

  The awkwardness between them made conversation difficult, but they were relieved of the necessity to make an effort by Eleanor, who engaged the parson’s attention, still wretched with guilt. ‘I was angry with him because he owed Mrs Tibbs money for the child’s keep.’

  ‘That’s natural enough, it was a great burden on Mrs Tibbs, having Jarvis and the child lodging there.’

  ‘But no matter that she grumbled mightily she could never speak really sharp to him, and I don’t suffer that way.’

  ‘Jarvis needs someone to speak sharply to him, it is the only way to get anything into his head.’

  ‘Not that I care about him; they can string ’m up the moment they lay hands on ’m, for all I care. But I can’t bear to think o’ that little one. I can see her now, so proud in her little pinafore that Mrs Tibbs made for ’er.’ She began to cry vigorously. ‘No one had ever been kind to that little mite afore.’

  Jory said, ‘Hers was certainly a harsh life.’ There was a reserve in his manner and Rhoda thought he was not naturally sympathetic to weakness in women. She said to Eleanor:

  ‘When we get back and you have had time to recover yourself, we will visit Mrs Tibbs. She will need all your kindness at this time.’

  Jory looked past the two women, out to the moor, and Rhoda saw sadness of a different order in his face and realised it was this extra dimension of sorrow rather than lack of sympathy that separated him from Eleanor. His eyes seemed to seek for some distinguishing feature out there on the featureless moor, and she thought that he was not only sad, but baffled.

  Eleanor, calmed by Rhoda’s suggestion of a visit to Mrs Tibbs, now walked with the brisk determination of one who has a duty to perform.

  ‘The pace is not too much for you?’ Jory asked Rhoda after a while.

  ‘I like nothing better.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I think we should stop for a moment – it is the one place on this path where you can glimpse the Highstone.’

  It took more than a moment before she could see the stone like a thumb print on the sky. There must have been many better viewing points, but the pause was welcome although she would not have admitted it, and she listened gratefully to his discourse on the probable significance of these ancient monuments. Edward would have insisted on underlining her weakness, yet Jory, so forceful and passionate in comparison, affected not to notice it while creating this opportunity for rest. She had heard that his wife had died in childbirth and that the child had not survived. How sad it was that a man who could exhibit such surprising consideration should find himself alone; the more tender instincts, in a man as strong as Jory, could so easily be blunted for want of use.

  ‘And now you know all about menhirs.’ He was aware of her inattention and was looking at her in amusement. This gentle teasing gave her a thrill of excitement, not only for its intimacy, but because his risking it seemed to suggest that he perceived hers to be a more robust nature than most people imagined.

  But the moment of lightness passed as they neared the farm and, each in their own way, thought of what awaited Jory on his return to the miner’s cottage.

  ‘Their lives must have been very different from ours, their circumstances so unbelievably harsh,’ Rhoda said, as she and Eleanor crossed the farmyard. She was thinking of the people who had raised the menhir. ‘But then, their problems were not so particular. Or is it that we simplify the feelings of people of other ages than our own?’
/>   III

  In her dream, Clarice seemed to be surrounded by fiery heat and she knew it was that very hot summer in the early 1960s. ‘I must breathe deeply,’ she told herself. Gradually, the deep breathing produced an almost hypnotic effect. Summer eased into autumn and the heat seemed to relax its grip.

  It was a calm, early autumn day. Occasionally brown leaves fluttered past the window, but the great beech tree still shone golden in that same sunlight that slanted on the wall opposite Clarice’s desk. The desk, of modest proportions, was not in the centre of the room but occupied one corner; Clarice did not like to be dominated by paperwork. The room was high-ceilinged and spacious; its dignity and the pleasant autumnal scene beyond the window gave a feeling of harmony and acceptance. Clarice, who did not consider herself yet to be in the autumn of her life, even if high summer had passed, thought that she might come to be settled in this post. Sometimes, when she was particularly alive to the impossibility of awakening the vacuously pretty faces that turned to her at school assembly like so many cosseted pussycats, she was aware of compromising herself, of a failure in communication, a sense of a gift withheld. But the awareness lessened as the years passed. Perhaps her restless nature was changing and the time had come to put her ambitions as a painter to one side. She might even grow into one of the great headmistresses. At least, if she couldn’t do that, she would become patient with her lot, willing to cultivate her garden; she would put on weight, move, ponderous with wisdom, become wrinkled and benign.