Ripeness is All
Page 30
‘But I took the first opportunity to ask Cecilia if she knew anything about them. She turned pale immediately. I questioned her closely. She couldn’t meet my eyes. I repeated my questions, I was absolutely pitiless, and at last I forced her to confess.
‘It was a plot to kill Harington. One of the men was her brother, and she herself, at a given signal, was to enter the room and fire the fatal shot. Neither of the men with Harington had weapons of any kind, knowing, of course, they would be searched before going in. Well, I was faced with a very unpleasant duty, but I didn’t shirk it, not for a moment. I said to her, “You must consider yourself under arrest,” and I stood up and prepared to escort her from the hotel. – We were lunching at the Tokatlian: I forgot to tell you that.
‘But Cecilia put her hand on my arm and said, “You cannot leave this hotel alive. Sit down at once, or that waiter …” I turned to see a waiter standing immediately behind me. One hand was hidden in his coat. He also was an Armenian.
‘I sat down again, and asked Cecilia for an explanation. She said there were two of her accomplices outside the hotel with orders to kill anyone who tried to follow her. And if I attempted to send a message, or otherwise draw attention to my predicament, the Armenian waiter would instantly stab me in the back. She herself, she said, would leave the hotel at a quarter past two, and proceed to fulfil her mission. She told me I was the only man in the world she had ever loved, but she loved her country more. Her strength of character was as remarkable as her beauty.
‘This, then, was the situation. I couldn’t leave the hotel alive, and I was no use to anyone as a corpse; nor could I send a message to warn Harington of his danger. Obviously, therefore, there was only one thing to be done: I had to prevent Cecilia from keeping her fatal appointment! But how? That was the problem. I couldn’t use force to restrain her, or the Armenian waiter would have come into action. I couldn’t persuade her to drink too much, because she wouldn’t drink anything at all. What was I to do?
‘I looked at my watch and saw it was still only ten minutes to two. I had twenty-five minutes’ grace. With a great effort I concealed all signs of dismay, and began to talk to her. At first she could not understand me. She saw me looking cheerful, she heard me talking light-heartedly. It was incomprehensible. She suspected a trap. She was sullen, she would not respond. But by and by, half against her will, she listened to a certain story. She was captured, she was enthralled by it. At a quarter past two, oblivious of time, she was hanging on my words, intent on every phrase, lost in the excitement of my narrative. I doubled and redoubled my efforts. I used every art to maintain her attention. I hypnotized her with sentences. I wove a noose of words round her. She couldn’t escape! I deliberately set out to enchant her, and I succeeded. Talking without a break for another forty-five minutes I held her there, forgetful of everything but my ceaseless flow of stories, each leading to another, every one more exciting than the last. She was powerless, she was my slave, she was my audience for evermore, had I had the strength to continue. But at three o’clock my voice broke. I made a desperate effort to control it, and fell to the floor in a dead faint.
‘But Harington was safe! He had granted an audience of fifteen minutes only, and the conspirators, after waiting in vain for their accomplice, and concocting some wretched story that wouldn’t deceive a child, had gone away bitterly disappointed. The plot was foiled, war was averted, and Harington was safe! That was all I cared about when I returned to consciousness. I forgot my long-drawn anxiety, my great effort, my consequent exhaustion. I scarcely even regretted the loss – the temporary loss – of my voice. I had succeeded in these great objects, and that was reward enough.’
For some time after the conclusion of the story, Stephen and Wilfrid sat without saying a word. The spell of the narrative still lay upon them.
Then Stephen asked, ‘Why didn’t the Armenian waiter interrupt you and remind Cecilia that it was getting late?’
‘He didn’t know it was getting late,’ said Arthur. ‘He also was listening to me.’
‘What were the stories you told her?’ asked Wilfrid.
‘I told her several,’ said Arthur, ‘and I threw in quite a lot of general conversation as well. One of the stories, I remember, was rather unusual, because, quite incidentally, it revealed the identity of the Unknown Soldier. I think it might interest you …’
‘No,’ said Stephen, ‘not now, Arthur. Tell us some other day. But not now. It’s time we were going home.’
Wilfrid said earnestly, ‘You ought to write your autobiography, Arthur. It would make a wonderful book.’
Arthur shook his head. ‘I’m not a literary man, like you fellows. I’m just a simple soldier. And we soldiers aren’t much good with a pen, you know.’
‘I’m sure you could do it if you tried,’ said Wilfrid.
‘It’s getting late,’ said Stephen. ‘Come along, Wilfrid. Good-bye, Arthur. Thanks very much for the gin.’
‘And for the lovely story,’ said Wilfrid.
For some time, rapt in thought, Arthur remained by the rockery. He was thinking, and thinking ever more kindly, of Wilfrid’s suggestion. ‘Why not?’ he said at last. ‘I could write it under a nom de guerre, to save awkward questions. I might even pretend it was a work of fiction. And as Wilfrid said, it would make a wonderful story.’
With sudden decision he took a tumbler and a new bottle of gin from the rockery cellar, and returned to the house. He had turned rebel against gardening, he would rebel against prohibition too. He set the bottle on a desk, took a sheaf of Daisy’s best notepaper, and began to write. The words flowed from him. His creation rivalled the spawning salmon. He saw a new world unfold its countries and its seas before him. As Drake, in the branches of the great tree on the Isthmus, beheld green savannas and virgin ocean, and cloud-capped mountains, so Arthur descried new growths of imagination, a sea for all his fictive argosies, and the high snow-peaks of fantasy. He had found his vocation.
A Note on the Author
Eric Linklater was born in 1899 in Penarth, Wales. He was educated in Aberdeen, and was initially interested in studying medicine; he later switched his focus to journalism, and became a full-time writer in the 1930’s. During his career, Linklater served as a journalist in India, a commander of a wartime fortress in the Orkney Islands, and rector of Aberdeen University. He authored more than twenty novels for adults and children, in addition to writing short stories, travel pieces, and military histories, among other works.
Discover books by Eric Linklater published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/EricLinklater
A Man over Forty
A Spell for Old Bones
A Terrible Freedom
Juan in China
Ripeness Is All
The Crusader’s Key
The Dark of Summer
The Goose Girl and Other Stories
The Impregnable Women
The Merry Muse
The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea
For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been
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references to missing images.
This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Reader
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First published in Great Britain 1935 by Jonathan Cape Ltd
Copyright © 1935 Eric Linklater
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eISBN: 9781448211029
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