That Hideous Strength (Space Trilogy 3)

"Do you mean she's got a job there?"

"Well, yes. I suppose it is a job."

Mrs. Dimble left at about eleven. She also, it appeared, was going to St. Anne's, but was first to meet her husband and lunch with him at Northumberland. Jane walked down to the town with her and they parted at the bottom of Market Street. It was just after this that Jane met Mr. Curry.

"Have you heard the news, Mrs. Studdock?" said Curry.

"No. What's wrong?" said Jane. She thought Mr. Curry a pompous fool and Mark a fool for being impressed by him. But as soon as Curry began speaking her face showed all the wonder and consternation he could have wished. The murder of Hingest had already become Curry's property. The "matter" was, in some indefinable sense, "in his hands", and he was heavy with responsibility. At another time Jane would have found this amusing. She escaped from him as soon as possible and went into Blackie's for a cup of coffee. She felt she must sit down.

The death of Hingest in itself meant nothing to her. But the certainty that she herself in her dream had witnessed a real murder shattered the consoling pretences with which she had begun the morning. It came over her with sickening clarity that the affair of her dreams, far from being ended, was only beginning. It would drive her mad, she thought, to face it alone. The other alternative was to go back to Miss Ironwood. But that seemed to be only a way of going deeper into all this darkness. She didn't want to get drawn in. It was unfair. It wasn't as if she had asked much of life. All she wanted was to be left alone.

Cosser-the freckle-faced man with the little wisp of black moustache-approached Mark as he was coming away from the committee.

"You and I have a job to do," he said. "Got to get out a report about Cure Hardy."

Mark was very relieved to hear of a job. But he was a little on his dignity.

"Does that mean I am to be in Steele's department after all?"

"That's right," said Cosser.

"The reason I ask," said Mark, "is that neither he nor you seemed particularly keen on having me. I don't want to push myself in, you know. I don't need to stay at the N.I.C.E. at all if it comes to that."

"Well, don't start talking about it here," said Cosser. "Come upstairs."

They were in the hall and Mark noticed Wither pacing thoughtfully towards them. "Wouldn't it be as well to speak to him?" he suggested. But the Deputy Director, after coming within ten feet of them, had turned in another direction. He was humming to himself under his breath and seemed so deep in thought that Mark felt the moment unsuitable for an interview. Cosser apparently thought the same, and Mark followed him up to an office on the third floor.

"It's about the village of Cure Hardy," said Cosser, when they were seated. "You see, all that land at Bragdon Wood is going to be little better than a swamp once they get to work. Why the hell we wanted to go there I don't know. Anyway, the latest plan is to divert the Wynd: block up the old channel through Edgestow altogether. Look. It's to be diverted and brought down an artificial channel-here, to the east, where the blue line is-and rejoin the old bed down here."

"The university will hardly agree to that," said Mark.

"We've got the university by the short hairs," said Cosser. "The point is that the new Wynd must come right through Cure Hardy in this narrow little valley. The idea is to dam the valley at the southern end and-make a big reservoir."

"But what happens to Cure Hardy?"

"That's another advantage. We build a new model village four miles away."

"I say, there'll be the devil of a stink about this. Cure Hardy is famous. It's a beauty spot."

"That's where you and I come in. We've got to make a report on Cure Hardy. We'll run out and have a look round to-morrow, but we can write most of the report today. It ought to be pretty easy. If it's a beauty spot, you can bet it's insanitary. Then we've got to get out some facts about the population. I think you'll find it consists chiefly of undesirable elements-small rentiers and agricultural labourers."

"That's easy enough," said Mark, "but before I get down to it I'd like to be a bit clearer about my position. Oughtn't I to go and see Steele?"

"I wouldn't do that," said Cosser.

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, Steele can't prevent you if the D.D. backs you up. For another, Steele is rather a dangerous man. There's another thing, too. I don't think things can go on in this department in the way they are at present."

Mark understood. Cosser was hoping to get Steele out of the department altogether.

"I got the impression," said Mark, "that you and Steele hit it off together rather well."

"The great thing here," said Cosser, "is never to quarrel with anyone."

"Of course," said Mark. "By the way, if-we go to Cure Hardy tomorrow I might as well run in to Edgestow and spend the night at home."

For Mark a good deal hung on the answer to this. But Cosser merely said, "Oh," leaving Mark in doubt whether no one needed leave of absence or whether Mark was not sufficiently established as a member of the Institute for his absence to be of any consequence. Then they went to work on their report.

Next day they drove to Cure Hardy, and walked about the village for two hours and saw all the abuses and anachronisms they came to destroy. They saw the backward labourer and heard his views on the weather. They met the wastefully supported pauper shuffling across the courtyard of the alms-houses to fill a kettle, and the elderly rentier in conversation with the postman. It did not quite escape Mark that the face of the labourer was rather more interesting than Cosser's and his voice a great deal more pleasing to the ear. But all this did not influence his sociological convictions, for his education had had the effect of making things that he read and wrote more real to him than things he saw. Statistics about agricultural labourers were the substance: any real ditcher, ploughman, or farmer's boy, was the shadow. In his own way, he believed as firmly as any mystic in the superior reality of the things that are not seen.

On their way back Cosser dropped him near Edgestow station, and as he walked home Mark began to think of what he would say to Jane about Belbury. You will misunderstand him if you think he was consciously inventing a lie; his misgiving and uneasiness quickened his desire to cut a good figure in the eyes of his wife. Almost without noticing it, he decided not to mention Cure Hardy; Jane cared for old buildings and all that sort of thing. When Jane heard the door opening and looked round and saw Mark, she saw a rather breezy Mark. Yes, he was almost sure he'd got the job. The salary wasn't fixed, but he'd be going into that to-morrow. But he had already got on to the real people there.

Jane decided to tell him nothing about the dreams or St. Anne's. Men hated women who had things wrong with them, specially queer, unusual things. Her resolution was easily kept, for Mark full of his own story, asked her no questions. She was not, perhaps, entirely convinced by what he said. Very early in the conversation she said in a sharp, frightened voice (she had no idea how he disliked that voice), "Mark, you haven't given up your Fellowship at Bracton?" He said of course not, and went on.

That evening the Fellows of Bracton sat in Common Room over their wine and dessert. Feverstone and Curry were sitting together. Until that night for about three hundred years this Common Room had been one of the pleasant quiet places of England, and at this hour and season the windows were, of course, shut and curtained. But from beyond them came such noises as had never been heard in that room before-shouts and curses and the sound of lorries heavily drumming past or harshly changing gear, rattling of chains, drumming of mechanical drills, clanging of iron, whistles, thuddings, and an all-pervasive vibration. Beyond those windows, scarcely thirty yards away on the other side of the Wynd, the conversion of an ancient woodland into an inferno of mud and steel and concrete was already going on. Several members even of the Progressive Element had already been grumbling about it. Curry was doing his best to brazen it out, and though his conversation with Feverstone had to be conducted at the top of their voices, he made no allusion to this inconvenience.

"It's quite definite, then," he bawled, "that young Studdock is not coming back?"

"Oh, quite," shouted Feverstone. "When will he send a formal resignation?"