Роберт Шеррифф - The Hopkins Manuscript

For my own part I was conscious of an indescribable joy. The telescope scheme had not collapsed into financial chaos. It had not even been mentioned and my fortune and prestige were untouched. I found myself telling a complete stranger that the chicken in the sandwiches had come from my estate – my estate! – still mine! For no particular reason the man threw back his head and laughed with such abandon that he revealed his plate of false teeth in greater detail than he had probably ever done to any living person except his dentist. But now and then a little shaft of terror shot through the glow of my exultation – as a man drunk with champagne might feel for a second a drink-dulled abscess in his cheek. For a fleeting second I realised that my friend’s false teeth would look very much the same as the pupils of my eyes when they all revolved together as the dust of a destroyed world. There was something macabre about this babble – a dance of death. I shuddered, gulped some scalding coffee, swallowed a piece of buttered scone and laughed out loud although nobody had said anything to me. Nobody noticed. It seemed quite normal and I felt in no way embarrassed.

Finding myself beside Humphrey Tugwall, our Secretary, I took the opportunity of enquiring how the new telescope and observatory were getting on. He said: ‘Swimmingly! – swimmingly!’ and pushed through the crowd with an imbecile smile fixed on a top corner of the room.

Everybody squeezed about in the crowded space as if the friction of jostling shoulders struck new sparks of courage. Eight o’clock chimed but not a man gave sign of leaving. Generally by eight o’clock the refreshment-room was deserted, everyone having hurried away for home, but it seemed this evening as if none of us desired to break the queer spell of herd-like courage. None of us desired to be the first to go down those steep, narrow steps into a world made strange and lonely to us through the secret that we must not share with it.

The coffee urn was empty and Mrs Ayling, bewildered beyond doubt by the unusual demand, stood behind her bar, shaking her head as members squeezed up and presented their cups for more. But although there had been a fierce demand for coffee I noticed several plates of untouched, neglected cakes – principally of the puffy, ‘éclair’ type that need calmness and deliberation in their consumption.

And then at last came a sudden dropping away of the staccato sound of voices: it turned into a drone that reminded me of a gramophone record running down: it revealed with brutal clearness how artificial it all had been.

The reason for this sudden change was the appearance of the President from the committee-room in his hat, smartly-tied silk muffler and overcoat. He gave me a friendly smile as he passed me, and at the door he turned and waved a gay farewell.

‘Goodnight, gentlemen! – until Thursday week!’

There was a chorus of farewell that expressed the depth of our feeling for the calm, courteous man who had set us such a fine example. There was a moment of embarrassed silence: a few members attempted to revive the conversation and gaiety, but the falseness of it was too pitiful for words. We fell back to a cold bedrock of silence and began to gather up our hats and coats.

In the cloakroom I noticed a new and quite unusual regard for one another. Normally we would all jostle in, and if another hat were dislodged with ours we would not always feel obliged to pick it up. Tonight all kept saying: ‘After you. No – no! You first!’ Everybody helped each other to find umbrellas and complete strangers helped each other on with their coats. I liked this unconscious friendliness far more than the unhealthy heartiness of the coffee-and-cakes period. There was something genuine about it: a tiny signpost towards the nobility that springs from a common peril.

At the street door a member asked which way I was going, and when I said ‘to Waterloo’ he offered me a lift although his route lay north. I thanked him but declined, for now that it was over I wanted to be alone. Had I realised the desolate solitude I was to feel in those crowded London streets I should have accepted the offered lift to secure for a few moments longer the fellowship of one who shared the Secret.

I was bewildered by the blaze of traffic and the surge of people. It was just upon eight-thirty and the theatre rush was at its height. As I stood watching those hurrying, smartly-dressed people I could not resist a smile. How colossally important was this trivial little round of amusement to a world of unsuspecting, ignorant people: how different they would be if they knew what I knew!

A young man paused beside me with an attractive fair-haired girl upon his arm. As they stood waiting for the traffic to allow them to cross the road the young man glanced up at the clear black sky, then down at his companion with a smile.

‘Gorgeous night,’ he said. ‘Hunter’s Moon.’

Suddenly I had a horrible impulse to laugh: to take him by the arm and say: ‘Yes! – it is hunting the earth! – and the kill will be in the fields of eternity!’

It was upon the tip of my tongue to say it and only with an effort could I choke myself to silence. I, a tiny speck of humanity, had it in my power to evoke a world panic! I struggled with a devilish temptation to become at one stroke a figure famous in history as the man who told the world of its impending fate!

But my better feelings took possession of me: I remembered my solemn vow: I suffered the young man and his fair companion to pass on to their fool’s paradise and took the steep road down to Hungerford Bridge.

The bridge was almost deserted at this hour. The city workers had long since crossed and taken their trains for home. Halfway over I paused in an alcove above one of the buttresses and stood for a long while gazing at that lovely, moonlit panorama of London with the sullen river oiling its silent way to the sea.

The great sweep of lights upon the Embankment gave enchantment to the dark, ghostly buildings that loomed above the fringing trees: the sounds of traffic were lulled to a sleepy murmur and the foot taps of the little ant-like stream of people were muffled by the distance.

I looked up at the moon. Its stupid, placid face was cocked to one side in an expression of mild desire. There was no menace in it: no hint of the awful thing that was to happen in the spring of the coming year. The 3rd of May! – I pictured my meadow spangled with spring flowers – I saw them dancing in the wind – a great ear-splitting roar – and eternal darkness.

I gripped the parapet of the bridge, for my whole body was quivering. Seven months of waiting! – too ghastly for the human brain to bear! I looked down at the river – at the silver beam that sparkled and danced across it towards the setting moon. There was no one in sight: it would be an easy thing to slip over into that friendly river. I had paddled too often along its friendly stream – picnicked too often in its quiet backwaters to be afraid of it. I would go swirling up that moonlit path: I would challenge the moon by going up to meet it!

I would be hurting no one. Mrs Buller, my housekeeper, would wonder for a bit and tell the police, and my uncle at Notting Hill would inherit my little fortune. No one would grieve my loss, and I would save myself the aching terror of seven months of living death.

I had all but made up my mind: I was about to climb onto the parapet when by chance I turned my head and saw through the girders of the railway bridge the great floodlit face of Big Ben. Slowly it began to strike the hour of nine, and as its deep note floated down the river I saw the big shadow-haunted building beneath it – I saw the Members of the House of Commons – all sharers of the Secret – all calmly carrying on the business of State without a flicker of hesitation.