That Hideous Strength Page 9

  Jane found Mother Dimble an embarrassing person to share a room with because she said prayers. It was quite extraordinary, Jane thought, how this put one out. One didn’t know where to look, and it was so difficult to talk naturally again for several minutes after Mrs. Dimble had risen from her knees.

  II

  “Are you awake now?” said Mrs. Dimble’s voice, quietly, in the middle of the night.

  “Yes,” said Jane. “I’m so sorry. Did I wake you up? Was I shouting?”

  “Yes. You were shouting out about someone being hit on the head.”

  “I saw them killing a man . . . a man in a big car driving along a country road. Then he came to a crossroads and turned off to the right past some trees, and there was someone standing in the middle of the road waving a light to stop him. I couldn’t hear what they said; I was too far away. They must have persuaded him to get out of the car somehow, and there he was talking to one of them. The light fell full on his face. He wasn’t the same old man I saw in my other dream. He hadn’t a beard, only a moustache. And he had a very quick, kind of proud, way. He didn’t like what the man said to him and presently he put up his fists and knocked him down. Another man behind him tried to hit him on the head with something, but the old man was too quick and turned round in time. Then it was rather horrible, but rather fine. There were three of them at him and he was fighting them all. I’ve read about that kind of thing in books, but I never realised how one would feel about it. Of course they got him in the end. They beat his head about terribly with the things in their hands. They were quite cool about it and stooped down to examine him and make sure he was really dead. The light from the lantern seemed all funny. It looked as if it made long uprights of light-sort of rods-all round the place. But perhaps I was waking up by then. No thanks, I’m all right. It was horrid, of course, but I m not really frightened . . . not the way I would have been before. I’m more sorry for the old man.”

  “You feel you can go to sleep again?”

  “Oh rather! Is your headache better, Mrs. Dimble?”

  “Quite gone, thank you. Good night.”

  III

  “Without a doubt,” thought Mark, “this must be the Mad Parson that Bill the Blizzard was talking of.” The committee at Belbury did not meet till 10.30, and ever since breakfast he had been walking with the Reverend Straik in the garden, despite the raw and misty weather of the morning. At the very moment when the man had first buttonholed him, the threadbare clothes and clumsy boots, the frayed clerical collar, the dark, lean, tragic face, gashed and ill-shaved and seamed, and the bitter sincerity of his manner, had struck a discordant note. It was not a type Mark had expected to meet in the N.I.C.E.

  “Do not imagine,” said Mr. Straik, “that I indulge in any dreams of carrying out our programme without violence. There will be resistance. They will gnaw their tongues and not repent. We are not to be deterred. We face these disorders with a firmness which will lead traducers to say that we have desired them. Let them say so. In a sense we have. It is no part of our witness to preserve that organisation of ordered sin which is called Society. To that organisation the message which we have to deliver is a message of absolute despair.”

  “Now that is what I meant,” said Mark, “when I said that your point of view and mine must, in the long run, be incompatible. The preservation, which involves the thorough planning, of society is just precisely the end I have in view. I do not think there is or can be any other end. The problem is quite different for you because you look forward to something else, something better than human society, in some other world.”

  “With every thought and vibration of my heart, with every drop of my blood,” said Mr. Straik, “I repudiate that damnable doctrine. That is precisely the subterfuge by which the World, the organisation and body of Death, has sidetracked and emasculated the teaching of Jesus, and turned into priestcraft and mysticism the plain demand of the Lord for righteousness and judgement here and now. The Kingdom of God is to be realised here-in this world. And it will be. At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. In that name I dissociate myself completely from all the organised religion that has yet been seen in the world.”

  And at the name of Jesus, Mark, who would have lectured on abortion or perversion to an audience of young women without a qualm, felt himself so embarrassed that he knew his cheeks were slightly reddening; and he became so angry with himself and Mr. Straik at this discovery that they then proceeded to redden very much indeed. This was exactly the kind of conversation he could not endure; and never since the well-remembered misery of scripture lessons at school had he felt so uncomfortable. He muttered something about his ignorance of theology.

  “Theology! “said Mr. Straik with profound contempt. “It’s not theology I’m talking about, young man, but the Lord Jesus. Theology is talk-eyewash-a smoke screen; a game for rich men. It wasn’t in lecture rooms I found the Lord Jesus. It was in the coal pits, and beside the coffin of my daughter. If they think that theology is a sort of cotton wool which will keep them safe in the great and terrible day, they’ll find their mistake. For, mark my words, this thing is going to happen. The Kingdom is going to arrive in this world; in this country. The powers of science are an instrument. An irresistible instrument, as all of us in the N.I.C.E. know. And why are they an irresistible instrument?”

  “Because science is based on observation,” suggested Mark.

  “They are an irresistible instrument,” shouted Straik, “because they are an instrument in His hand. An instrument of judgement as well as of healing. That is what I couldn’t get any of the churches to see. They are blinded. Blinded by their filthy rags of humanism, their culture and humanitarianism and liberalism, as well as by their sins, or what they think their sins, though they are really the least sinful thing about them. That is why I have come to stand alone, a poor, weak, unworthy old man, but the only prophet left. I knew that He was coming in power. And therefore, where we see power, we see the sign of His coming. And that is why I find myself joining with profligates and materialists and anyone else who is really ready to expedite the coming. The feeblest of these people here has the tragic sense of life, the ruthlessness, the total commitment, the readiness to sacrifice all merely human values, which I could not find amid all the nauseating cant of the organised religions.”

  “You mean, do you,” said Mark, “that as far as immediate practice is concerned, there are no limits to your co-operation with the programme?”

  “Sweep away all idea of co-operation!” said the other.

  “Does clay co-operate with the potter? Did Cyrus co-operate with the Lord? These people will be used. I shall be used too. Instruments. Vehicles. But here comes the point that concerns you, young man. You have no choice whether you will be used or not. There is no turning back once you have set your hand to the plough. No one goes out of the N.I.C.E. Those who try to turn back will perish in the wilderness. But the question is whether you are content to be one of the instruments which is thrown aside when it has served His turn-one which, having executed judgement on others, is reserved for judgement itself or will you be among those who enter on the inheritance? For it’s all true, you know. It is the saints who are going to inherit the earth-here in England, perhaps within the next twelve months-the saints and no one else. Know you not that we shall judge angels?” Then, suddenly, lowering his voice, Straik added, “The real resurrection is even now taking place. The real life everlasting. Here in this world. You will see it.”

  “I say,” said Mark, “it’s nearly twenty past. Oughtn’t we to be going to the committee?”

  Straik turned with him in silence. Partly to avoid further conversation along the same lines, and partly because he really wanted to know the answer, Mark said presently, “A rather annoying thing has happened. I’ve lost my wallet. There wasn’t much money in it: only about three pounds. But there were letters and things, and it’s a nuisance. Ought I to tell someone about it?”

  “You could tell t
he steward,” said Straik.

  IV

  The committee sat for about two hours and the Deputy Director was in the chair. His method of conducting business was slow and involved, and to Mark, with his Bracton experience to guide him, it soon became obvious that the real work of the N.I.C.E. must go on somewhere else. This, indeed, was what he had expected, and he was too reasonable to suppose that he should find himself, at this early stage, in the Inner Ring or whatever at Belbury corresponded to the Progressive Element at Bracton. But he hoped he would not be kept marking time on phantom committees for too long. This morning the business mainly concerned the details of the work which had already been begun at Edgestow. The N.I.C.E. had apparently won some sort of victory which gave it the right to pull down the little Norman Church at the corner.

  “The usual objections were, of course, tabled,” said Wither. Mark who was not interested in architecture and who did not know the other side of the Wynd nearly so well as his wife, allowed his attention to wander. It was only at the end of the meeting that Wither opened a much more sensational subject. He believed that most of those present had already heard (“Why do chairmen always begin that way?” thought Mark) the very distressing piece of news which it was, nevertheless, his duty now to communicate to them in a semi-official manner. He was referring, of course, to the murder of Mr. William Hingest. As far as Mark could discover from the chairman’s tortuous and allusive narrative, Bill the Blizzard had been discovered with his head beaten in by some blunt instrument, lying near his car in Potter’s Lane at about four o’clock that morning. He had been dead for several hours. Mr. Wither ventured to suppose that it would be a melancholy pleasure to the committee to know that N.I.C.E. police had been on the scene of the crime before five, and that neither the local authorities nor Scotland Yard were making any objections to the fullest collaboration. He felt that if the occasion were more appropriate he would have welcomed a motion for some expression of the gratitude they must all feel to Miss Hardcastle and possibly of congratulations to her on the smooth interaction between her own forces and those of the state. This was a most gratifying feature in the sad story and, he suggested, a good omen for the future. Some decently subdued applause went round the table at this. Mr. Wither then proceeded to speak at some length about the dead man. They had all much regretted Mr. Hingest’s resolution to withdraw from the N.I.C.E . . . while fully appreciating his motives; they had all felt that this official severance would not in the least alter the cordial relations which existed between the deceased and almost all-he thought he could even say all without exception-of his former colleagues in the Institute. The obituary (in Raleigh’s fine phrase) was an instrument which the Deputy Director’s talents well fitted him to play, and he spoke at great length. He concluded by suggesting that they should all stand in silence for one minute as a token of respect for the memory of William Hingest.

  And they did-a world-without-end minute in which odd creakings and breathings became audible, and behind the mask of each glazed and tight-lipped face, shy, irrelevant thoughts of this and that came creeping out as birds and mice creep out again in the clearing of a wood when the picnickers have gone, and everyone silently assured himself that he, at least, was not being morbid and not thinking about death.

  Then there was a stir and a bustle and the committee broke up.

  V

  The whole process of getting up and doing the “morning jobs” was more cheerful, Jane found, because she had Mrs. Dimble with her. Mark often helped: but as he always took the view-and Jane could feel it even if he did not express it in words-that “anything would do” and that Jane made a lot of unnecessary work and that men could keep house with a tithe of the fuss and trouble which women made about it, Mark’s help was one of the commonest causes of quarrels between them. Mrs. Dimble, on the other hand, fell in with her ways. It was a bright sunny morning, and as they sat down to breakfast in the kitchen Jane was feeling bright herself. During the night her mind had evolved a comfortable theory that the mere fact of having seen Miss Ironwood and “had it all out” would probably stop the dreams altogether. The episode would be closed. And now-there was all the exciting possibility of Mark’s new job to look forward to. She began to see pictures in her mind.

  Mrs. Dimble was anxious to know what had happened to Jane at St. Anne’s and when she was going there again. Jane answered evasively on the first question and Mrs. Dimble was too polite to press it. As to the second, Jane thought she wouldn’t “bother” Miss Ironwood again, or wouldn’t “bother” any further about the dreams.

  She said she had been “silly” but felt sure she’d be all right now. And she glanced at the clock and wondered why Mrs. Maggs hadn’t yet turned up.

  “My dear, I’m afraid you’ve lost Ivy Maggs,” said Mrs. Dimble. “Didn’t I tell you they’d taken her house too? I thought you’d understand she wouldn’t be coming to you in future. You see there’s nowhere for her to live in Edgestow.”

  “Bother!” said Jane: and added, without much interest in the reply, “What is she doing, do you know?”

  “She’s gone out to St. Anne’s.”

  “Has she got friends there?”

  “She’s gone to the Manor, along with Cecil and me.”

  “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 to do a little shopping 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. His manner was always important and his tone always vaguely confidential, but this morning they seemed more so than usual.

  “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. Nor were they, this time, feigned. He told her that Mr. Hingest had been murdered, some time during the night or in the small hours of that morning. The body had been found lying beside his car, in Potter’s Lane, badly beaten about the head. He had been driving from Belbury to Edgestow. Curry was at the moment hastening back to College to talk to the warden about it: he had just been at the police station. One saw that the murder 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. She had met him only once and she had accepted from Mark the view that he was a disagreeable old man and rather a snob. But the certainty that she herself in her dream had witnessed a real murder shattered at one blow 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. The bright, narrow little life which she had supposed to live was being irremediably broken into. Windows into huge, dark landscapes were opening on every side and she was powerless to shut them. 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. This Manor at St. Anne’s-this “kind of company “-was “mixed up in it.” 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. And the thing was so preposterous! The sort of thing which, according to all the authorities she had hitherto accepted, could not really happen.

  VI

  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 o
ut a report about Cure Hardy.”

  Mark was very relieved to hear of a job. But he was a little on his dignity, not having liked Cosser much when he had met him yesterday, and he answered:

  “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 talking in the hall and Mark noticed Wither pacing thoughtfully towards them. “Wouldn’t it be as well to speak to him and get the whole thing thrashed out?” 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, though he said nothing, apparently thought the same, and so Mark followed him up to an office on the third floor.