That Hideous Strength (Space Trilogy 3)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

VENUS AT ST.- ANNE'S

DAYLIGHT came with no visible sunrise as Mark was climbing to the highest ground in his journey. The snow-shower was just then coming to its end in a flurry of larger and slower flakes. A big lorry, looking black and warm in that landscape, overtook him. The man put out his head. "Going Birmingham way, mate?" he asked.

"Roughly," said Mark. "At least I'm going to St. Anne's."

"Where's that, then?" said the driver.

"Up on the hill behind Pennington," said Mark.

"Ah," said the man, "I could take you to the corner. Save you a bit." Mark got in beside him.

It was mid-morning when the man dropped him at a corner beside a little country hotel. The snow had all lain, and there was more in the sky, and the day was extremely silent. Mark went into the little hotel and found a kind elderly landlady. He had a hot bath and a capital breakfast, and then went to sleep in a chair before a roaring fire. He did not wake till about four. "I suppose I must get on soon," he said to himself.

His slight reluctance to do so did not proceed from weariness-he felt, indeed, perfectly rested and better than he had felt for several weeks-but from a sort of shyness. He was going to see Jane: and Denniston: and (probably) the Dimbles as well. In fact, he was going to see Jane in what he now felt to be her proper world. But not his. Everything about them was different. They could not even fling themselves into chairs without suggesting by the very posture of their limbs a certain lordliness, a leonine indolence. There was elbow-room in their lives, as there had never been in his. They were Hearts: he was only a Spade. Still, he must be getting on. ... Of course, Jane was a Heart. He must give her her freedom. It would be quite unjust to think that his love for her had been basely sensual. Love, Plato says, is the son of Want. Mark's body knew better than his mind had known till recently, and even his sensual desires were the true index of something which he lacked and Jane had to give. When she had first crossed the dry and dusty world which his mind inhabited she had been like a spring shower; in opening himself to it he had not been mistaken. He had gone wrong only in assuming that marriage, by itself, gave him either power or title to appropriate that freshness. As he now saw, one might as well have thought one could buy a sunset by buying the field from which one had seen it. He rang the bell and asked for his bill.

That same afternoon Mother Dimble and the three girls were upstairs in the big room which occupied nearly the whole top floor of one wing at the Manor, and which the Director called the Wardrobe. If you had glanced in you would have thought for one moment that they were not in a room at all but in some kind of forest-a tropical forest glowing with bright colours. In fact, they were standing amidst a collection of robes of state-dozens of robes which hung, each separate, from its little pillar of wood.

"That would do beautifully for you, Ivy," said Mother Dimble, lifting with one hand the folds of a vividly green mantle over which thin twists and spirals of gold played in a festive pattern. "Come, Ivy," she continued, " don't you like it? You're not still fretting about Tom, are you? Hasn't the Director told you he'll be here to-night or tomorrow midday at the latest?"

Ivy looked at her with troubled eyes. "Tisn't that," she said. "Where'll the Director himself be?"

"But you can't want him to stay, Ivy," said Camilla, " not in continual pain. And his work will be done - if all goes well at Edgestow."

"He has longed to go back to Perelandra," said Mother Dimble. "He's-sort of home-sick. Always, always . . . I could see it in his eyes."

"Will that Merlin man come back here?" asked Ivy. "I don't think so," said Jane. "I don't think either he or the Director expected him to. And then my dream last night. It looked as if he was on fire ... I don't mean burning, you know, but light-all sorts of lights in the most curious colours shooting out of him and running up and down him. That was the last thing I saw: Merlin standing there like a kind of pillar and all those dreadful things happening all round him. And you could see in his face that he was a man used up to the last drop-that he'd fall to pieces the moment the powers let him go."

"We're not getting on with choosing our dresses for to-night."

"What is it made of?" said Camilla, fingering and then smelling the green mantle. It was a question worth asking. It was not in the least transparent, yet all sorts of lights and shades dwelled in its rippling folds, and it flowed through Camilla's hands like a waterfall. Ivy became interested.

"Gor!" she said, "however much a yard would it be?"

"There," said Mother Dimble as she draped it skilfully round Ivy. Then she said, "Oh!" in genuine amazement. All three stood back from Ivy, staring at her with delight. The commonplace had not exactly gone from her form and face: the robes had taken it up, as a great composer takes up a folk-tune and tosses it like a ball through his symphony and makes of it a marvel, yet leaves it still itself. A "pert fairy" or "dapper elf", a small though perfect sprightliness, stood before them: but still recognisably Ivy Maggs.

"Isn't that like a man!" exclaimed Mrs. Dimble. "There's not a mirror in the room."

"I don't believe we were meant to see ourselves," said Jane. "He said something about being mirrors enough to one another."

"I would just like to see what I'm like at the back," said Ivy.

"Now, Camilla," said Mother Dimble, " there's no puzzle about you. This is obviously your one."

"Oh, do you think that one?" said Camilla.

"Yes, of course," said Jane.

"You'll look ever so nice in that," said Ivy.

It was a long slender thing which looked like steel in colour, though it was soft as foam to the touch. It wrapped itself close about her loins and flowed out in a glancing train at her heels. "Like a mermaid," thought Jane: and then "Like a Valkyrie."

"I'm afraid," said Mother Dimble, " you must wear a coronet with that one."

"Wouldn't that be rather . . .?"

But Mother Dimble was already setting it on her head. That reverence (it need have nothing to do with money value) which nearly all women feel for jewellery hushed three of them for a moment. There were, perhaps, no such diamonds in England. The splendour was fabulous, preposterous.

"What are you all staring at?" asked Camilla, who had seen but one flash as the crown was raised in Mrs. Dimble's hands and did not know that she stood " like starlight, in the spoils of provinces ".

"Treasure of Logres, dears, treasure of Logres," said Mrs. Dimble. "Perhaps from beyond the Moon or before the flood. Now, Jane."

Jane could see nothing specially appropriate in the robe which the others agreed in putting on her. But when she saw the others all clap their hands, she submitted. Indeed, it did not now occur to her to do otherwise, and the whole matter was forgotten a moment later in the excitement of choosing a robe for Mother Dimble.

"Something quiet," she said. "I'm an old woman, and I don't want to be ridiculous."

"This wouldn't do at all," said Camilla, walking down the long row of hanging splendours, herself like a meteor as she passed. "That's lovely," she said, "but not for you. And oh!-look at that."

"Here! Oh, do come and look! Come here," cried Ivy.

"Oh! Yes, yes, indeed," said Jane.

"Certainly," said Camilla. "Put it on. Mother Dimble," said Ivy. "You know you got to."It was of that almost tyrannous flame colour which Jane had seen in her vision down in the lodge, but differently cut, with fur about the great copper brooch that clasped the throat, with long sleeves and hangings from them. And there went with it a many-cornered cap. And they had no sooner clasped the robe than all were astonished. For now this provincial wife, this respectable and barren woman with grey hair and double chin, stood before them, not to be mistaken, as a kind of priestess or sybil, the servant of some prehistoric goddess of fertility- an old tribal matriarch, mother of mothers, grave, formidable, and august. A long staff, curiously carved as if a snake twined up it, was apparently part of the costume: they put it in her hand.

"Am I awful?" said Mother Dimble, looking in turn at the three silent faces.