That Hideous Strength Page 10

  “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. Here’s Shillingbridge, ten miles north of the town. It’s to be diverted there 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.

  “What would Edgestow be without the river?”

  “We’ve got the university by the short hairs,” said Cosser. “You needn’t worry about that. Anyway it’s not our job. The point is that the new Wynd must come right through Cure Hardy. Now look at your contours. Cure Hardy is in this narrow little valley. Eh? Oh, you’ve been there, have you? That makes it all the easier. I don’t know these parts myself. Well, the idea is to dam the valley at the southern end and make a big reservoir. You’ll need a new water supply for Edgestow now that it’s to be the second city in the country.”

  “But what happens to Cure Hardy?”

  “That’s another advantage. We build a new model village (it’s to be called Jules Hardy or Wither Hardy) four miles away. Over here, on the railway.”

  “I say, you know, there’ll be the devil of a stink about this. Cure Hardy is famous. It’s a beauty spot. There are the sixteenth-century almshouses, and a Norman church, and all that.”

  “Exactly. 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 to-day. It ought to be pretty easy. If it’s a beauty spot, you can bet it’s insanitary. That’s the first point to stress. Then we’ve got to get out some facts about the population. I think you’ll find it consists almost entirely of the two most undesirable elements-small rentiers and agricultural labourers.”

  “The small rentier is a bad element, I agree,” said ’Mark. “I suppose the agricultural labourer is more controversial.”

  “The Institute doesn’t approve of him. He’s a very recalcitrant element in a planned community, and he’s always backward. We’re not going in for English agriculture. So, you see, all we have to do is to verify a few facts. Otherwise the report writes itself.”

  Mark was silent for a moment or two.

  “That’s easy enough,” he said. “But before I get down to it I’d just like to be a bit clearer about my own position. Oughtn’t I to go and see Steele? I don’t fancy settling down to work in this department if he doesn’t want to have me.”

  “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, as he seems to be doing for the moment. For another, Steele is rather a dangerous man. If you just go quietly on with the job, he may get used to you in the end: but if you go and see him it might lead to a bust up. There’s another thing, too.” Cosser paused, picked his nose thoughtfully, and proceeded. “Between ourselves, I don’t think things can go on indefinitely in this department in the way they are at present.”

  The excellent training which Mark had had at Bracton enabled him to understand this. Cosser was hoping to get Steele out of the department altogether. He thought he saw the whole situation. Steele was dangerous while he lasted, but he might not last.

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

  “The great thing here,” said Cosser, “is never to quarrel with anyone. I hate quarrels myself. I can get on with anybody-s long as the work gets done.”

  “Of course,” said Mark. “By the way, if we go to Cure Hardy to-morrow 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. He might find out whether he were actually under orders from Cosser. If Cosser said “you can’t do that” he would at least know where he stood. If Cosser said that Mark couldn’t be spared, that would be better still. Or Cosser might reply that he’d better consult the D.D. That also would have made Mark feel surer of his position. 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.

  It took them the rest of the day, so that Cosser and he came in to dinner late and without dressing. This gave Mark a most agreeable sensation. And he enjoyed the meal, too. Although he was among men he had not met before, he seemed to know everyone within the first five minutes and to be joining naturally in the conversation. He was learning how to talk their shop.

  “How lovely it is!” said Mark to himself next morning as the car left the main road at Duke’s Eaton and began descending the bumpy little lane into the long valley where Cure Hardy lay. Mark was not as a rule very sensitive to beauty: but Jane, and his love for Jane, had already awakened him a little in this respect. Perhaps the winter morning sunlight affected him all the more because he had never been taught to regard it as specially beautiful and it therefore worked on his senses without interference. The earth and sky had the look of things recently washed. The brown fields looked as if they would be good to eat, and those in grass set off the curves of the little hills as close-clipped hair sets off the body of a horse. The sky looked farther away than usual, but also clearer, so that the long, slender streaks of cloud (dark slate colour against the pale blue) had edges as clear as if they were cut out of cardboard. Every little copse was black and bristling as a hairbrush, and when the car stopped in Cure Hardy itself the silence that followed the turning-off of the engine was filled with the noise of rooks that seemed to be calling

  “Wake! Wake!”

  “Bloody awful noise those birds make,” said Cosser.

  “Got your map? Now . . .” He plunged at once into business.

  They walked about that village for two hours and saw with their own eyes all the abuses and anachronisms they came to destroy. They saw the recalcitrant and backward labourer and heard his views on the weather. They met the wastefully supported pauper in the person of an old man shuffling across the courtyard of the alms-houses to fill a kettle, and the elderly rentier (to make matters worse she had a fat old dog with her) in earnest conversation with the postman. It made Mark feel as if he were on a holiday, for it was only on holidays that he had ever wandered about an English village. For that reason he felt pleasure in it. It did not quite escape him that the face of the backward labourer was rather more interesting than Cosser’s and his voice a great deal more pleasing to the ear. The resemblance between the elderly rentier and Aunt Gilly (when had he last thought of her? Good Lord, that took one back . . .) did make him understand how it was possible to like that kind of person. All this did not in the least influence his sociological convictions. Even if he had been free from Belbury and wholly unambitious, it could not have done so, for his education had had the curious 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. Though he had never noticed it himself, he had a great reluctance, in his work, ever to use such words as “man” or “woman.” He preferred to write about “vocational group,” “elements,” “classes,” and “populations”: for, in his own way, he believed as firmly as any mystic in the superior reality of the things that are not seen.

  And yet he could not help rather liking this village. When, at one o’clock, he persuaded Cosser to turn into the Two Bells, he even said so. They had both brought sandwiches with them, but Mark felt he would like a pint of beer. In the Two Bells it was very warm and dark, for the window was small. Two labourers (no doubt recalcitrant and backward) were sitting with earthenware mugs at their elbo
ws, munching very thick sandwiches, and a third was standing up at the counter conducting a conversation with the landlord.

  “No beer for me, thanks,” said Cosser, “and we don’t want to muck about here too long. What were you saying?”

  “I was saying that on a fine morning there is something rather attractive about a place like this, in spite of all its obvious absurdities.”

  “Yes, it is a fine morning. Makes a real difference to one’s health, a bit of sunlight.”

  “I was thinking of the place.”

  “You mean this?” said Cosser, glancing round the room. “I should have thought it was just the sort of thing we wanted to get rid of. No sunlight, no ventilation. Haven’t much use for alcohol myself (read the Miller Report), but if people have got to have their stimulants, I’d like to see them administered in a more hygienic way.”

  “I don’t know that the stimulant is quite the whole point “. said Mark, looking at his beer. The whole scene was reminding him of drinks and talks long ago-of laughter and arguments in undergraduate days. Somehow one had made friends more easily then. He wondered what had become of all that set-of Carey and Wadsden and Denniston, who had so nearly go this own Fellowship.

  “Don’t know, I’m sure,” said Cosser, in answer to his last remark. “Nutrition isn’t my subject. You’d want to ask Stock about that.”

  “What I’m really thinking about,” said Mark, “is not this pub, but the whole village. Of course you’re quite right: that sort of thing has got to go. But it had its pleasant side. We’ll have to be careful that whatever we’re building up in its place will really be able to beat it on all levels-not merely in efficiency.”

  “Oh, architecture and all that,” said Cosser. “Well, that’s hardly my line, you know. That’s more for someone like Wither. Have you nearly finished?”

  All at once it came over Mark what a terrible bore this little man was, and in the same moment he felt utterly sick of the N.I.C.E. But he reminded himself that one could not expect to be in the interesting set at once; there would be better things later on. Anyway, he had not burnt his boats. Perhaps he would chuck up the whole thing and go back to Bracton in a day or two. But not at once. It would be only sensible to hang on for a bit and see how things shaped.

  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 quite misunderstand him if you think he was consciously inventing a lie. Almost involuntarily, as the picture of himself entering the flat, and of Jane’s questioning face, arose in his mind, there arose also the imagination of his own voice answering her, hitting off the salient features of Belbury in amusing, confident phrases. This imaginary speech of his own gradually drove out of his mind the real experiences he had undergone. Those real experiences of misgiving and of uneasiness, indeed, quickened his desire to cut a good figure in the eyes of his wife. Almost without noticing it, he had decided not to mention the affair of Cure Hardy; Jane cared for old buildings and all that sort of thing. As a result, when Jane, who was at that moment drawing the curtains, heard the door opening and looked round and saw Mark, she saw a rather breezy and buoyant Mark. Yes, he was almost sure he’d got the job. The salary wasn’t absolutely fixed, but he’d be going into that to-morrow. It was a very funny place: he’d explain all that later. But he had already got on to the real people there. Wither and Miss Hardcastle were the ones that mattered. “I must tell you about the Hardcastle woman,” he said, “she’s quite incredible.”

  Jane had to decide what she would say to Mark much more quickly than he had decided what he would say to her. And she 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. There was a vagueness about all the details. 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 No, of course not, and went on. She listened only with half her mind. She knew he often had rather grandiose ideas, and from something in his face she divined that during his absence he had been drinking much more than he usually did. And so, all evening the male bird displayed his plumage and the female played her part and asked questions and laughed and feigned more interest than she felt. Both were young, and if neither loved very much each was still anxious to be admired.

  VII

  That evening the Fellows of Bracton sat in Common Room over their wine and dessert. They had given up dressing for dinner, as an economy during the war and not yet resumed the practice, so that their sports coats and cardigans struck a somewhat discordant note against the dark Jacobean panels, the candle-light, and the silver of many different periods. 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. It was in Lady Alice, on the ground floor beneath the soler, and the windows at its eastern end looked out on the river and on Bragdon Wood, across a little terrace where the Fellows were in the habit of taking their dessert on summer evenings. At this hour and season these windows were of course shut and curtained. And 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. Saeva sonare verbera, tum stridor ferri tractaegue catenae, as Glossop, sitting on the far side of the fire, had observed to Jewel. For 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 noise and steel and concrete was already going on apace. Several members even of the Progressive Element-those who had rooms on this side of College-had already been grumbling about it. Curry himself had been a little surprised by the form which his dream had taken now that it was a reality, but he 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. “He sent me a message through a high official to tell me to let the College know.”

  “When will he send a formal resignation?”

  “Haven’t an earthly! Like all these youngsters he’s very casual about these things. As a matter of fact, the longer he delays the better.”

  “You mean it gives us a chance to look about us?”

  “Quite. You see, nothing need come before the College till he writes. One wants to have the whole question of his successor taped before that.”

  “Obviously. That is most important. Once you present an open question to all these people who don’t understand the field and don’t know their own minds you may get anything happening.”

  “Exactly. That’s what we want to avoid. The only way to manage a place like this is to produce your candidate-bring the rabbit out of the hat-two minutes after you’ve announced the vacancy.”

  “We must begin thinking about it at once.”

  “Does his successor have to be a sociologist? I mean is the Fellowship tied to the subject?”

  “Oh, not in the least. It’s one of those Paston Fellowships. Why? Had you any subject in mind?”

  “It’s a long time since we had anyone in politics.”

  “Um . . . yes. There’s still a considerable prejudice against politics as an academic subject. I say, Feverstone, oughtn’t we to give this new subject a leg up?”

  “What new subject?”

  “Pragmatometry.”

  “Well, now, it’s funny you should say that, because the man I was beginning to think of is a politician who has also been going i
n a good deal for pragmatometry. One could call it a fellowship in social pragmatometry, or something like that.”

  “Who is the man?”

  “Laird-from Leicester, Cambridge.”

  It was automatic for Curry to look very thoughtful, though he had never heard of Laird, and to say “Ah, Laird. Just remind me of the details of his academic career.”

  “Well,” said Feverstone, “as you remember, he was in bad health at the time of his finals, and came rather a cropper. The Cambridge examining is so bad nowadays that one hardly counts that. Everyone knew he was one of the most brilliant men of his year. He was president of the Sphinxes and used to edit The Adult. David Laird, you know.”

  “Yes, to be sure. David Laird. But I say, Dick.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m not quite happy about his bad degree. Of course I don’t attach a superstitious value to examination results any more than you do. Still . . . we have made one or two unfortunate elections lately.” Almost involuntarily as he said this, Curry glanced across the room to where Pelham sat-Pelham with his little button-like mouth and his pudding face. Pelham was a sound man: but even Curry found it difficult to remember anything that Pelham had ever done or said.

  “Yes, I know,” said Feverstone, “but even our worst elections aren’t quite so dim as those the College makes when we leave it to itself.”

  Perhaps because the intolerable noise had frayed his nerves, Curry felt a momentary doubt about the “dimness “of these outsiders. He had dined recently at Northumberland and found Telford dining there the same night. The contrast between the alert and witty Telford whom everyone at Northumberland seemed to know, whom everyone listened to, and the “dim” Telford in Bracton Common Room had perplexed him. Could it be that the silences of all these “outsiders” in his own college, their monosyllabic replies when he condescended and their blank faces when he assumed his confidential manner, had an explanation which had never occurred to him? The fantastic suggestion that he, Curry, might be a bore, passed through his mind so swiftly that a second later he had forgotten it forever. The much less painful suggestion that these traditionalists and research beetles affected to look down on him was retained. But Feverstone was shouting at him again.