Come Away, Death

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Because you were helping to bring the statue of Iacchus by road,’ remarked Mrs Bradley. ‘If the ship was a sign, then other signs must follow. But if it was a joke, or a fishing boat, or something belonging to a carnival, a pageant of the Greek navy, then, my dear Rudri, you have nothing to grieve about. Nothing to grieve about either way,” she added, driving the point home.

  Sir Rudri accepted this opinion with a grunt. The scene was now a picturesque one. The torches of the Mystae, as Sir Rudri had begun to call his followers and himself, lighted the rather squalid yet not unimpressive landscape with a ruddy glow which deepened the colour on the faces and bare arms of the pilgrims to a dark tan, and made of their eye-sockets shadowy pools of blood. Shadows were flung on the bare ground – bizarre, unusual shadows, at the sight of which the imaginative Cathleen glanced round fearfully, as though to ascertain by what strange and fiendish agency they were occasioned. Even the little boys drew close to their elders, and Megan said, in a cheerful though rather high voice:

  ‘I say! It does get rather convincing, doesn’t it?’

  Sir Rudri concurred in this view.

  ‘I think we’ve done very well so far,’ he said. Little showers of sparks from his torch kept blowing over the heads of those on his left, for the breeze which had carried the mystic ship on its wings had not died down. ‘And now,’ he added, ‘all those who desire to celebrate the Mysteries with us, onward to the Hall.’

  This was the cue for the little boys. First Ivor and then Kenneth lifted a treble voice, which quavered slightly – whether from nervousness or by reason of suppressed amusement it was difficult to determine – and, in what is now accepted in England as the language of ancient Greece, bade the profane depart. Armstrong, who had received previously his orders from Sir Rudri, walked off towards the road, where, on a level patch of ground inside the gates which gave admittance to the ruins, the sleeping-bags had been laid out for those who were to occupy them.

  The statue of Iacchus, representing a young man garlanded and holding a torch in his hand (which hand had been closed by the wood-carver to the shape of a candle-socket), had been placed in position to face the worshippers as they occupied the galleried seats of the Hall. Sir Rudri, in the presence of his son, of Ronald Dick, and of Alexander Currie, solemnly lighted the torch held out by the god, and chanted a kind of litany as he did so.

  Cathleen, Megan, and Mrs Bradley went off with the boys towards the sleeping-bags. The children, intrigued by the camp-like atmosphere, were soon in their bags, except for Stewart, who waited until Mrs Bradley had placed her bag near the wall so that she could sit down on it and rest her back against the stones, and then came over quietly and seated himself beside her. Megan and Cathleen, thoroughly distrusting the sleeping apparatus, had placed their bags side by side, and lay not in but on them, their arms round one another for warmth and reassurance.

  Stewart, hugging his knees, suddenly spoke:

  ‘The wind’s veered. Do you notice?’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed, child.’

  ‘We should see that ship come back, if it weren’t so beastly dark.’

  ‘She may not come back, child.’

  ‘I rather think she will.’

  ‘I wonder why you say that?’

  ‘Well, you know the rag we planned. Don’t you think some ass may have overheard it and taken up the idea? Somebody older, with money.’

  ‘What are you telling me, child?’

  ‘Nothing, really. I just thought that the ship turning up like that seemed queer, after what we’d planned.’

  ‘Tell me all,’ said Mrs Bradley firmly.

  ‘I don’t know. But Cathleen’s scared stiff of something. That’s obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘I know. And I know the reason.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stewart, lowering his voice, ‘I know what you mean, and it’s going to wreck the whole holiday. She is a silly ass. When we were in Edinburgh there was a chap, but old Currie couldn’t stick him.’

  ‘I see. You’re telling me that Cathleen’s young man has followed her to Greece?’

  ‘Came on the same ship. I spotted him at once. I spent most of the time in the engine-room, and I saw him the third day out. I didn’t let on, though. He’s at the University, and his people have a bit of a farm. They came from Barra, but they don’t live there any more. He works most vacs. to get his keep and a bit towards his fees – they’re frightfully poor, but he’s an awfully good chap, and he’s got an uncle in Canada who’s going to leave him some money.’

  ‘Where are you leading me, Stewart?’

  ‘Well, I think this chap follows us about, and I know that Cathleen met him once in Athens in that rather slummy market where the fruit is sold.’

  ‘Does Megan know?’

  ‘Sure to. Girls always tell each other everything.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right. But I doubt whether Cathleen is alarmed because of the young man. I think there is something else.’

  ‘You don’t mean about us being thirteen, or anything?’

  ‘It is difficult to say. Go to bed, child.’ Stewart got up.

  ‘Good night,’ he said. But before he left Mrs Bradley, Megan came up and said:

  ‘I say, there’s something funny going on. Look! Can you see! Up high against the rock! That’s got no business there! The beasts! They’ll ruin father’s experiment, messing about like that!’

  Stewart gave Mrs Bradley his hand to help her up, so she got to her feet, and began to walk towards the Hall. The Mystae, obeying Sir Rudri’s instructions, were wandering all over the ruins with their torches, and in the Hall the only light left burning was the torch in the hand of Iacchus. Keeping to the right throughout the secret scramble, and dodging the Mystae every time they came near, Stewart led Mrs Bradley up on to the ruins and along behind the seats which later on would be occupied by the Mystae. Above the Hall of the Mysteries had stood the acropolis of Eleusis in the days before the small city was dominated by Athens, and the natural rock stood unchanged, although the Temple of Demeter below it was almost gone.

  ‘Look!’ he whispered. But their progress had not gone unnoticed. Sir Rudri, behind them, said sharply:

  ‘What on earth are you doing? You’ll spoil my experiment, Beatrice.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Mrs Bradley answered. She had seen what Megan had sent them to see. ‘Look what the ship carried, Rudri.’

  ‘What? Where?’

  Against the dark background was a suspicion of dim whiteness. Mrs Bradley, who usually carried a small electric torch, brought it out and switched it on and held it in front of her, pointing at the whiteness with a claw-like yellow hand.

  ‘I thought you placed the statue of Iacchus in the Hall of Mysteries,’ she said. Sir Rudri, with an exclamation, held up the torch he carried. The white dim form on the acropolis, shut in on three sides because of a natural fissure of the rock in which it stood, was revealed as a second statue. It was dead-white, like wood that had been plastered, and was that of a young man, crowned and garlanded. In his hand was an unlighted torch. The torch of the other Iacchus burned, plainly to be seen, below them in the roofless Hall of the Mysteries.

  Sir Rudri stretched out his arms, then kissed his hand to the god, and with his own torch lighted the torch in his hand. Then he leapt, at risk of his neck, down the rock-hewn steps, and cried to the others to come up.

  The Mystae, consisting of Alexander Currie, Gelert, Dick, and Dmitri, tired of their aimless wanderings with the torches, swarmed up the seats towards him, pleased to have a diversion. At the sight of the second Iacchus, a buzz of excited conversation filled the air.

  ‘At the gate, something’s happened,’ said Megan to Cathleen. ‘You don’t think they’ve spotted Ian, by any chance?’

  ‘I say, something’s broken loose,’ said Kenneth to Ivor. ‘I thought there was something up when Mrs Bradley and Stewart hopped it like that.’

  Boys and maidens stood up and ran towards the ruins. Just afte
r they arrived upon the scene to hear Sir Rudri frantically appealing for silence, there was a sudden gasping cry from Alexander Currie, and a tinkling sound on the stones. Mrs Bradley stooped quickly – she was standing next to him – and handed him back what had fallen from his hand.

  ‘But what was he doing?’ asked Stewart in a loud, excited whisper, of his neighbour Ivor.

  ‘Sticking his penknife into the statue’s bum,’ Ivor accurately answered.

  ‘There’s something fishy going on,’ said Kenneth in a slightly louder whisper.

  ‘People shouldn’t carve names on statues,’ said Stewart in clear, severe tones.

  ‘The whole thing’s weird,’ said Ronald Dick, who had his own reasons for suspecting a practical joke, but did not like to put his suspicion into words.

  ‘Get along, get along, get along, all those who have no business here! You’ll spoil the whole thing,’ said Sir Rudri, at last making his voice effective. ‘We shall all know more about it in the morning.’

  Shepherded by Mrs Bradley, and accompanied by Megan and Cathleen, the little boys, still talking, returned to their base near the gate. When they had all been put into their sleeping-bags, and were happily engaged in spirited argument, Mrs Bradley went across to bid the girls good night. But Megan was there alone, and Cathleen was nowhere to be found, nor could Megan answer questions about her.

  ‘She was scared when Mr Currie dropped his penknife,’ Megan said. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if she’s sneaked back to the Hall to stay with him.’

  It seemed a possible but not a likely explanation. The Mystae they had left in front of the second statue of Iacchus in hot discussion and far-reaching argument. Even from where she stood beside Sir Rudri’s daughter, Mrs Bradley could hear his excited tones, whilst Alexander Currie’s machine-gun rattle of ‘Rubbish! Rubbish!’ could be plainly heard at every interval in Sir Rudri’s long harangue.

  ‘Nevertheless, Alexander, I defy you to deny that the more one thinks about it, the more odd it becomes,’ Sir Rudri could be heard to say at last.

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Alexander Currie, his loud voice coming clearly down the slope from the ruins to the gate.

  ‘I think it is some youth who is in love with one of the girls,’ ventured the nervous, spectacled Dick, blurting out his thought with a sudden completeness which startled Mrs Bradley, fresh from hearing Stewart’s revelations. Thinking of Stewart, she became aware again of all three of the little boys, who, with their heads protruding comically from their sleeping-bags in a way which reminded her of people who had fallen over in a sack-race, were still in excited conversation. She had switched on her torch again to flash it about for Cathleen.

  ‘But it says so in Wisden,’ said Ivor.

  ‘I bet the Australians don’t read Wisden, you ass.’

  ‘I bet the Australians can’t read.’

  ‘Of course they can read! I bet you Bradman can read.’

  ‘Well, reading’s not cricket, is it?’

  ‘Well, who said it was?’

  ‘Well, you just said —’

  ‘No, I didn’t, you liar.’

  ‘Don’t be a liar, you ass.’

  At this moment Cathleen walked into the circle of light cast on the ground by Mrs Bradley’s torch. Without a word to any of them she walked to her sack – Mrs Bradley lighting her steps – lay down on it and suddenly began to cry.

  ‘Cath!’ said Megan. ‘Stop that!’ She lay on her own sack beside her. Mrs Bradley gazed at their humped forms benevolently, went across to her own place, sat down on her sack, and rested her back against the wall. Suddenly there loomed up before her the chunky body of Dish, on self-appointed sentry-go for the camp.

  ‘All well, mam?’

  ‘All well, Dish.’

  The sentry marched away. The darkness closed down save where the torches of the Mystae, and the torches of the gods, still kept the night awake and consumed themselves, smoking and flaring.

  2

  Ivor had turned his sleeping-bag so that he was facing towards the Hall of the Mysteries. Long after everyone else was still, he wriggled and fidgeted, watching the glow of the torches held by the two statues of Iacchus and wondering whether anything was happening. He was an imaginative boy, and although in public he affected to despise his father’s theories – taking his cue in this from his elder brother and his sister – in private he half-hoped, half-dreaded, that something would come of all the preparations.

  The second statue of Iacchus had promised well, but the high spot had been, he considered, the curious behaviour of Alexander Currie, and the even more curious behaviour of Mrs Bradley. Why, he wondered, had she taken upon herself so instantly the responsibility of jerking the penknife from Mr Currie’s hand to protect the statue from injury?

  Now, as he lay sleepless and uncomfortable in his sack, with the dark night around him and the murmuring wind in the dark trees near at hand, and, not far distant to the southward, the ever-murmuring sea, he feared the second Iacchus, which in some mysterious way had got itself on to the acropolis of Eleusis. He felt that it had demanded, as it were, a share of the worship of the Mystae.

  Then the obvious solution occurred to him; he perceived why Alexander Currie had wanted to test the statue with his penknife. The second Iacchus was no statue, but a man! Ivor stared, enthralled, at the sky, and then looked, resentfully, to where he could see his sleeping companions darkly huddled on the ground. Quietly he reared himself up and counted the sacks. As he did so one of them stirred. From it crawled Cathleen Currie. Without a sound she began to creep away on all fours, up towards the sacred Hall of the Mysteries.

  Although intrigued, Ivor was still nervous. He longed to follow her, for he supposed that she was on her way to some vantage point from which she would be able to see the Mystae and know all that was going on – if anything was going on. From the silence it seemed unlikely that anything, so far, had happened, but then, he reminded himself, even the second Iacchus had come to Eleusis in silence. Suddenly an owl hooted.

  He lay for a while and pondered. At last he could bear his curiosity no longer. He crawled out of his bag, put on his sandals, and began to move off in the direction which Cathleen had taken.

  He could not see where he was going. The night was now pitch-dark, although the dawn was less than two hours off. From somewhere near at hand – from the cypresses which so oddly mixed themselves up with the factory chimneys of the town – again he could hear the hooting of an owl. The cry was answered. Ivor, thrilled, immediately recognized that no owl was calling, but that the cries were from human beings.

  Just then he reached a vantage point from which he could look down upon the Mystae, who, still faintly lighted – this time by a small lantern placed before them in the ground, for the torch of Iacchus and their own torches were burnt down to the sockets and had had to be stamped out – were seated patiently or irritably (according to their natures and the degree of their enthusiasm for the business in hand) in a wide semi-circle opposite the first statue. With his hair pricking on his neck, Ivor waited and listened, but the human owls called no more, and nothing appeared to be happening in the Hall, so he crawled upwards and onwards towards the niche where the second statue had been discovered.

  Believing what he now believed, he was not at all surprised to find it gone. Cautiously and bravely, he felt carefully all round the four-foot niche, but his hand encountered nothing but bare rock. On the ground his fingers came in contact with the stump of the burnt-out torch. Suddenly, from the seashore, he heard a faint cry of alarm.

  Below him in the Hall, the Mystae suddenly broke into chanting, Sir Rudri’s deep bass and Alexander Currie’s baritone forming a not disagreeable background to Ronald Dick’s beautiful tenor voice and clearly enunciated words – the dirge-like tones came upwards to the ears of the boy like the mystic smell of incense. This, too, was soon wafted towards him. Sir Rudri was playing his last card.

  Ivor listened a moment, sniffed the air, and then, feeling sudden
ly protected by the proximity of the worshippers, crawled on, beyond the point where they were sitting, and made his stealthy way towards the sea. Suddenly he stumbled. A stone slid from beneath his sandalled foot. A startled voice – a man’s voice – said, ‘What’s that?’ A girl’s voice stifled a gasped exclamation of fear. As though determined to surprise and startle them thoroughly, Ivor completely lost his footing, and half-sliding, half-rolling, he began to descend the slope.

  At the noise he made the circle of the Mystae broke up as though at a signal, Sir Rudri crying, ‘A manifestation! Be careful! Don’t crowd! Don’t crowd!’ Alexander Currie more sceptically saying, ‘Damn kids! Mistake to have brought them!’

  As it happened both had justification for what they said. Having picked up Ivor and cursed him, they heard, still farther down the slope, the sound of scurrying feet.

  ‘Who’s there? Is that another of you young devils?’ Alexander Currie bellowed. Suddenly up flared a torch, and by its light they could see a figure in white in the middle of the roofless Hall. ‘Stand still,’ said Sir Rudri to his party. ‘Are we all here? Dick? Alexander, Gelert, Dmitri?’

  All were there. Sir Rudri flung wide his arms. The running figure came to a halt. It seemed to be looking towards them. Then it lifted a bare arm, red in the torchlight, beckoning them to follow. Scrambling, sliding, risking their limbs and their necks, the Mystae descended towards him, but as soon as Gelert, the first of them, was within ten yards, the second Iacchus – there was no doubt in any of their minds that such the stranger was – doubled back on his tracks, and, leaping and prancing as he ran, so that he seemed to be treading the pagan measure of some erotic dance, he disappeared in the direction of the sea.

  Ivor, who had kept as close as he could to his strangely athletic elders, stood still beside his brother. The night, without the guiding will o’ the wisp of the flaring torch of Iacchus, seemed suddenly dreadfully dark. Ivor crept close to Gelert and felt for his brother’s sleeve. He remembered, however, the original purpose of his journey.