by Forrest Reid
THE RETREAT
A book for everyone who can still see magic in boyhood and shadows of eternity; for whom the world does not seem smaller for seeing it with round eyes. If you fear that your sense of wonder is beginning to fade The Retreat should help revive it. There are things in it, such as the chapter describing the boys’ day by the sea, that are so full of delicate fun and insight into the hearts of young people that they touch one with an unbearable sense of loss.
THE RETREAT
or
The Machinations of
Henry
FORREST REID
“There’s tempest in the sky”
—The Three Little Kittens
First published by Faber and Faber 1936
TVM edition 2016
THE RETREAT
Happy those early days, when I
Shined in my angel-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first Love,
And looking back—at that short space—
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
When on some gilded cloud, or flower,
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity. . . .
—HENRY VAUGHAN
TO
KNOX
THE RETREAT
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
AN OLD man, clad from throat to silver-buckled shoes in a wide loose-sleeved black robe, stood at a window peering out into the darkness. His silken silver hair fell in one long smooth lock over a high narrow forehead; his face, minutely lined, was fine as a cameo, and his skin the colour of an ancient parchment. The ears were very slightly pointed, the nose strong and straight, the mouth small. The hand that grasped and held aside the black curtain was fine too, and though time had wrinkled it and revealed the blue veins running up into the wrist, it had not spoiled its shapeliness.
The old man looked frail and wasted, as if his body were no more than a dry transparent husk through which the flame of life shone bright but heatless. He was like one of those delicate skeleton leaves one finds in some sheltered hollow in the woods—desiccated, perfect in form, yet so fragile that when one holds it up against the sun the light shines through. His dark still eyes had a tranquillity of detached contemplation rather than of amiability, for beneath their abstraction glittered the latent energy of a cold and formidable will. “Tib—Tib——” he called. “Tibby—Tibby.” But the world outside was dark and frozen, the latticed window shut, and he called so softly that it was little more than a murmur. Then he let the curtain drop back soundlessly into its heavy folds, and returned to a carved high-backed chair by the hearth. . . .
It was late—very late—some hour between midnight and dawn and a strange, precarious silence filled the room. On a stool, blotted in the shadow of the chimney corner, with eyes that a moment ago had been closed in slumber, but were now glinting and watchful, sat a slim boy of twelve or thirteen, also dressed in black. He had fallen asleep there, he did not quite know when, but it must have been several hours ago, and he guessed that his master either thought he was asleep still, or more likely had forgotten him.
He was a peculiar old man: the boy had begun to fear him. What was he doing now for instance, and for what or whom was he waiting? Did he sit up every night like this, in that straight-backed chair, with its green threadbare velvet cushion? It would be better for him if he were to say his prayers and go to bed, for though by no means exceptionally pious himself, the boy had been brought up in the Catholic faith, and he remembered uneasily that since he had entered the old man’s service they had never once been to mass nor had a priest crossed their door. At first he had fancied that his master himself must be a kind of priest, but now he held another view. He was no priest—of the true church at any rate—nor was that mysterious sign of two interlocked triangles, drawn in gold on the white marble table, a Christian symbol. The boy comforted himself with the reflection that Tibby at least was gone, and the hope that he would never come back. . . .
He wished he had not fallen asleep, but that nearly always happened after he had been looking at the pictures in the black polished stone. He tried to remember the pictures, but he could not—he never could—and the stone itself was gone, locked up once more, he supposed, in the cabinet where his master kept it. He wished he had gone to bed, wished he could summon up energy to go now; but a kind of languor held him, mingled with curiosity and a vague expectancy, for surely his master was not sitting there in mere idleness, though what his purpose could be was hard to imagine. If it were not that no visitors ever came, the boy would have thought he was expecting a visitor now. And it might be that: it was just possible that the old man was not so solitary as he seemed to be. The boy slept soundly in a little room in the other wing of the house: if someone were to come in the night he would know nothing of it. Only, to crouch here forgotten was almost like hiding, almost like spying; perhaps he should make a movement, a sound. Yet he did neither. . . .
In the great bare room three of the four walls were hung with moth-riddled, perishing tapestries, at present only dimly visible even to the boy’s keen young eyes. The lamplight, he thought, must have grown weaker while he slept. It floated towards, but no longer quite reached, the outer edges of the room, so that the walls remained in an equivocal shadow that was neither light nor darkness. And next moment it seemed to him that the light was not so much failing as being thrust back by this shadow, which was condensing in certain places, and very slowly gaining ground. At the same time he became conscious that the temperature of the room had sunk, as if the windows had been stealthily opened to admit the icy air from outside. But he knew this could not be so—knew the windows were fast. Besides, the black velvet curtains which hung before them had never once stirred.
The old man’s head had begun to nod forward on his breast, but now abruptly he sat up. None too soon, it seemed, for the flame of the lamp had begun to wink ominously. Yet it must have been the cold which had aroused him, for his eyes had been shut. As he stood up his face was angry and impatient. He went to attend to the lamp, though what he did to it the boy could not see, because the old man’s back was turned to him. He could only see that his hands hovered about it and that when they lifted the flame lifted also. Then, still with his hands outstretched, he stepped forward slowly, muttering incomprehensible words, and the shadow retreated before him, and the darker cloudy patches melted away.
The boy was less surprised than he would have been some months ago, but he hurriedly drew a cross upon his breast and whispered a Latin prayer he had been taught. Once more the lamp burned brightly, and now, in the increased light, all the objects the room contained were clearly visible. They were not numerous—a few chairs, a cabinet whose tall black doors somehow suggested the wings of a sleeping bat, a tripod surmounted by an empty brazier, two tables, and some shelves of books. The floor was bare, and at one side of the immense open hearth stood what appeared to be a kind of furnace built of brick and surmounted by a cone. The larger of the tables was drawn between the windows. It was square and massive and littered with oddly shaped vessels of copper and crystal. On the smaller table, the white marble table in the centre of the room, there was nothing but the burning lamp.
The old man returned to the hearth and cast on more wood. As he did so the boy could see his lips moving, though they made no sound. The wood was dry and soon broke into a flame. Golden jets of light spurted beyond the radius of the lamplight, licking up against the tapestried walls, flickering
and darting, like the tongues of serpents. They had a curious effect, beautiful and fantastic, for at one moment there was only a veil of trembling shadow, and at the next a stiff and formal landscape peopled with ghostly figures leapt into view—all the more lifelike because the figures and the trees visibly moved. The boy, however, knew the origin of this movement, and that it was not of his master’s making. It was natural: he had seen it happening in the daytime. Every room in this crumbling half-dilapidated house was full of draughts, and it must be only such a draught now, passing between the wall and the hangings, which caused them to ripple and to swell.
Again he began to feel drowsy, and again he closed his eyes. Suddenly he opened them to find that he was alone. At once his sleepiness vanished. The lamp was still burning, but the fire had ceased to blaze and was sunk to a hot red glow. The boy had never been alone in this room before, and he glanced nervously about him with quick yet stealthy movements of his head. It was here that his master carried on his secret labours, and always when he left the room he locked the door behind him. The boy stepped swiftly across the floor, for the thought of being shut in was not pleasant, but the key was in the lock, so his master must be coming back. With that a spirit of inquisitiveness seized him: it was his chance to examine and explore, and he might never have another. The alchemical apparatus he did not dare to touch, but might there not be simpler instruments of magic—cloaks of darkness, flying broomsticks, wishing-caps—he knew not what? He had never seen the doors of the cabinet opened for more than a moment or two, when his master had opened them to get out the shining black stone. But in those moments his quick eyes had caught glimpses of the interior—of dried herbs and chafing dishes, of crystal phials and a rod of hazelwood that was perhaps a wand, of a sickle-shaped dagger and a sword. He knew the exact uses of none of these objects except the stone, but the cabinet was large and deep, its interior dusky enough to hide many secrets, there must be other things, and perhaps the purposes of some of them could be grasped. He resolved at any rate to take a peep, for this key too was in the lock. Nevertheless, when he tried the door, it would not open.
And all at once the boy was afraid. Why had he been left alone like this? Was it a trap? A minute ago he had felt bold, excited, adventurous; now he was abruptly transformed into a coward. He had heard no sound, nothing appeared to have happened, nothing was changed except himself. He still stood by the door of the cabinet, but he no longer thought of opening it. An icy presentiment of horror gripped coldly and woefully at his heart, his blood chilled, his breath stopped, for he knew with every nerve of his body that the visitor his master was expecting had arrived—had at that very moment entered the house. Only what visitor? He had no name, no identity, and he had given no warning of his approach. The boy stood paralyzed, listening intently. He listened, and presently it was as if every part of him had become merely one wide quivering ear. He heard now many faint sounds—sounds in remote closed rooms—sounds, in this room, that had hitherto been inaudible—the frost drawing patterns on the window pane, a spider weaving his web. . . .
And then he heard a louder sound—clear though still distant—knock—knock—knock in the lower part of the house. Knock—knock—knock—it was drawing nearer, it was mounting the stairs, it was at the end of the passage. The boy’s wide eyes were fixed in terror on the door. He might still have time to lock himself in, only he knew this would be useless: when the knocking reached it, the door would open slowly and inevitably, as to the Hand of Glory.
That last dreadful summons on the door itself would be worst of all. Better to avert it, better to go to meet it, and he sprang across the room and flung the door wide.
Instantly his fear was gone. He half laughed, half cried, in the sudden wonderful uprush of relief, as there stepped across the threshold no hideous phantom, but the loveliest little creature he had ever beheld. It was a deer—still far too young to have horns—with dark soft eyes and smooth dappled coat. And those four small delicate hoofs it must have been that had made the knocking which had so frightened him. It had sought him out, was actually in the room, bringing with it a kind of wild fragrance of the woods. It had come to look for him, this little messenger without a message, for as he put his arm round it and began to stroke it, it turned and they walked together down the dark passage and the darker stairs, and along another passage leading to a side door which stood ajar.
The boy pushed open the door; but the winter and the night were gone. Gone like a dream—gone and, almost before he had taken two steps, forgotten. The old man was forgotten, the room forgotten, the house forgotten. There was nothing—nothing but a world of gleaming sunshine—a world of cool green leaves and running water. . . .
* * *
Tom opened his eyes in the darkness. His heart was still thumping, but he had a feeling of gladness. It must be the middle of the night, he realized, or very early morning, for the tree whose leaves were brushing softly against the window pane was hardly distinguishable. As usual before getting into bed he had pulled up the blinds, always carefully drawn down by Mary, and now as he grew wider awake he stared out through the dim square of glass into a penumbral world. Not a sound could he hear except when the branches stooped to stroke the window. And then, soft and far, a rounded melodious note was repeated twice. It was the old grandfather’s clock in the hall conscientiously striking the hour, but Tom liked to fancy that it was calling to him, for it was a nice old clock, and he had persuaded himself that there was, if not an actual friendship, at least a sort of secret understanding between them. . . .
He had been dreaming, and he perfectly remembered his dream; but the strange thing was that though it had been pleasant and happy it seemed to have left a shadow on his mind. Had there been an earlier dream which he could not recall? He remembered trees, and sunlight dancing on a stream, and a deer. He had been in a kind of narrow valley with a stream flowing through it; and it was spring. But what had happened earlier? Or had anything happened? If not, why was he in a perspiration, and why had he kicked off his bedclothes as if he had been struggling against a nightmare? There had been something—something frightening—though it seemed silly to say so when it had left not a trace behind it. Unless this in itself were a trace! For there had been a series of similar awakenings—three at least he could remember in the past fortnight—and always that feeling of having escaped only just in time. But escaped from what? The merest hint, Tom thought, and the entire thing would come back to him; but that hint was withheld. When he tried to break through the intervening blank he could not, and the struggle was even physically painful, as though a band were being pressed tighter and tighter round his brain. It was as if he were pushing against a void, and the strain grew so acute that he felt as if a spring in his mind were on the point of snapping. The instant he relaxed his efforts he had a feeling of relief. He would not try to remember, and to dismiss the whole thing still further from his mind he sat up in bed and sang in imagination the tune of “Who is Sylvia?”
When he lay down again he still felt a little shaken and exhausted, but he turned on his side and shut his eyes. This was the right treatment, for very soon he felt comfortable and drowsy. Perhaps some day an instrument would be invented for recording people’s dreams. It did not seem to Tom at all impossible, nor even much more wonderful than when Mr. Holbrook put a black shining disk into a wooden box and presently Caruso, who was actually dead, began to sing to you. That, again, wasn’t very different from the Arabian Nights story of the fisherman who unsealed the stopper of a brass jar and released a genie who had been shut up in the jar ages ago by King Solomon. . . .
Tom must by now have been very drowsy indeed, for through his closed eyelids he saw a great dark camera, shrouded with mysterious black curtains or doors that were somehow like the wings of a sleeping bat, set there beside his pillow, waiting to photograph his dreams. He was just wondering if bats really could see dreams, and in that case if owls and cats could, when he heard a light scratching on the panel of
the door. He knew what that was in a moment, and after waiting till it came again slid out of bed. He opened the door and stopped on the threshold to tie the cord of his pyjamas, while faint little mews, scattered like grace notes through a rich purring, rose out of the darkness, and the black plump body of Henry rubbed and pressed against his legs.
Henry must have come to watch his dreams; but since he wouldn’t be able to talk about them afterwards, that wasn’t much use. It would have to be a person—a person with second sight, Tom decided, though he didn’t quite know what it was you actually saw when you had second sight. He knew that there was such a thing, however, because Mother’s grandfather had been “gifted” with it. It had always run in the Collet family, Mother said, and she ought to know, because she was a Collet herself. In fact, though when she had married Daddy she had been obliged to take his name and become a Barber, she still seemed to prefer being a Collet. Tom made these reflections standing spellbound like Apollonius of Tyana, though for a less protracted period; then, the meditation completed, he shut the door and hopped back into bed.
Next moment Henry was on the bed too, plucking with his front paws at the counterpane, and continuing to purr.
“Stop!” said Tom, for he knew Henry was pulling out threads—indeed he could hear him doing it—giving little picks that made a noise nearly as loud as raindrops. He was the most frightfully destructive cat, and had ruined Daddy’s leather arm-chair by stropping his claws on the back of it.
Henry stopped picking, but he continued to move about the bed until he had found a hollow that suited him. Then he curled himself up and began to purr again, but now much more softly. Tom lay listening to him. It was a queer sound, he thought, and Henry must make it somewhere at the back of his nose. Tom puckered up his own nose and tried, but it wasn’t very good. He could make a noise, but not that kind of warm, broken, comfortable noise. It was easier to mew, and indeed he could mew quite well, though Henry pretended not to recognize it. He mewed now, while from the garden outside came the first chirps and twitterings of early birds. The early worms, Tom supposed, would now be burrowing in all haste back into the tennis lawn. He mewed again, and there was no twittering. “I’ve frightened them,” he said for Henry’s benefit, but Henry did not reply.
