Clive Lewis - That Hideous Strength

Shortly after breakfast came Miss Ironwood. She examined and dressed the burns, which were not serious.

“You can get up in the afternoon, if you like, Mrs. Studdock,” she said. “I should just take a quiet day till then. What would you like to read? There’s a pretty large library.”

“I’d like the Curdie books, please,” said Jane, “and Mansfield Park and Shakespeare’s Sonnets.”

Having thus been provided with reading matter for several hours, she very comfortably went to sleep again.

When Mrs. Maggs looked in at about four o’clock to see if Jane was awake, Jane said she would like to get up.

“All right, Mrs. Studdock,” said Mrs. Maggs, “just as you like. I’ll bring you along a nice cup of tea in a minute and then I’ll get the bathroom ready for you. There’s a bathroom next door almost, only I’ll have to get that Mr. Bultitude out of it. He’s that lazy, and he will go in and sit there all day when it’s cold weather.”

As soon as Mrs. Maggs had gone, however, Jane decided to get up. She felt that her social abilities were quite equal to dealing with the eccentric Mr. Bultitude, and she did not want to waste any more time in bed. She had an idea that if once she were “up and about” all sorts of pleasant and interesting things might happen. Accordingly she put on her coat, took her towel, and proceeded to explore; and that was why Mrs. Maggs, coming upstairs with the tea a moment later, heard a suppressed shriek and saw Jane emerge from the bathroom with a white face and slam the door behind her.

“Oh dear!” said Mrs. Maggs, bursting into laughter.

“I ought to have told you. Never mind. I’ll soon have him out of that.” She set the tea-tray down on the passage floor and turned to the bathroom.

“Is it safe?” asked Jane.

“Oh yes, he’s safe alright,” said Mrs. Maggs. “But he’s not that easy to shift. Not for you or me, Mrs. Studdock. Of course if it was Miss Ironwood or the Director it would be another matter.” With that she opened the bathroom door. Inside, sitting up on its hunkers beside the bath and occupying most of the room, was a great, snuffly, wheezy, beady-eyed, loose-skinned, gor- bellied brown bear, which, after a great many reproaches, appeals, exhortations, pushes, and blows from Mrs. Maggs, heaved up its enormous bulk and came very slowly out into the passage.

“Why don’t you go out and take some exercise that lovely afternoon, you great lazy thing?” said Mrs. Maggs.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sitting there getting in everyone’s way. Don’t be frightened, Mrs. Studdock. He’s as tame as tame. He’ll let you stroke him. Go on Mr. Bultitude. Go and say how do you do to the lady.”

Jane extended a hesitant and unconvincing hand to touch the animal’s back, but Mr. Bultitude was sulking and without a glance at Jane continued his slow walk along the passage to a point about ten yards away where he quite suddenly sat down. The tea things rattled at Jane’s feet, and everyone on the floor below must have known that Mr. Bultitude had sat down.

“Is it really safe to have a creature like that loose about the house?” said Jane.

“Mrs. Studdock,” said Ivy Maggs with some solemnity, “if the Director wanted to have a tiger about the house it would be safe. That’s the way he has with animals. There isn’t a creature in the place that would go for another or for us once he’s had his little talk with them. Just the same as he does with us. You’ll see.”

“If you would put the tea in my room . . .” said Jane rather coldly, and went into the bathroom.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Maggs, standing in the open doorway, “you might have had your bath with Mr. Bultitude sitting there beside you-though he’s that big and that human I don’t somehow feel it would be Nice myself.”

Jane made to shut the door.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, then,” said Mrs. Maggs without moving.

“Thank you,” said Jane.

“Sure you got everything you want?” said Mrs. Maggs.

“Quite sure,” said Jane.

“Well, I’ll be getting along, then,” said Mrs. Maggs turning as if to go, but almost instantly turning back again to say, “You’ll find us in the kitchen, I expect, Mother Dimble and me and the rest.”

“Is Mrs. Dimble staying in the house?” asked Jane with a slight emphasis on the Mrs.

“Mother Dimble we all call her here,” said Mrs. Maggs.

“And I’m sure she won’t mind you doing the same. You’ll get used to our ways in a day or two, I’m sure. It’s a funny house really, when you come to think of it. Well, I’ll be getting along, then. Don’t take too long or your tea won’t be worth drinking. But I dare say you’d better not have a bath, not with those nasty places on your chest. Got all you want?”

When Jane had washed and had tea and dressed herself with as much care as strange hairbrushes and a strange mirror allowed, she set out to look for the inhabited rooms. She passed down one long passage, through that silence which is not quite like any other in the world-the silence upstairs, in a big house, on a winter afternoon. Presently she came to a place where two passages met, and here the silence was broken by a faint irregular noise . . . pob . . . pob . . . pob . . . pob. Looking to her right she saw the explanation, for where the passage ended in a bay window stood Mr. Bultitude, this time on his hind legs, meditatively boxing a punch-ball. Jane chose the way to her left and came to a gallery whence she looked down the staircase into a large hall where daylight mixed with firelight. On the same level with herself, but only to be reached by descending to a landing and ascending again, were shadowy regions which she recognised as leading to the Director’s room. A sort of solemnity seemed to her to emanate from them and she went down into the hall almost on tiptoes, and now, for the first time, her memory of that last and curious experience in the blue room came back to her with a weight which even the thought of the Director himself could not counteract. When she reached the hall she saw at once where the back premises of the house must lie-down two steps and along a paved passage, past a stuffed pike in a glass case and then past a grandfather clock, and then, guided by voices and other sounds, to the kitchen itself.

A wide, open hearth glowing with burning wood lit up the comfortable form of Mrs. Dimble who was seated in a kitchen chair at one side of it, apparently, from the basin in her lap and other indications on a table beside her, engaged in preparing vegetables. Mrs. Maggs and Camilla were doing something at a stove-the hearth was apparently not used for cooking-and in a doorway, which doubtless led to the scullery, a tall grizzle-headed man, who wore gum-boots and seemed to have just come from the garden, was drying his hands.

“Come in, Jane,” said Mother Dimble. “We’re not expecting you to do any work to-day. Come and sit on the other side of the fire and talk to me. This is Mr. MacPhee-who has no right to be here, but he’d better be introduced to you.”

Mr. MacPhee, having finished the drying process and carefully hung the towel behind the door, advanced rather ceremoniously and shook hands with Jane. His own hand was very large and coarse in texture, and he had a shrewd hard-featured face.

“I am very glad to see you, Mrs. Studdock,” he said in what Jane took to be a Scotch accent, though it was really that of an Ulsterman.

“Don’t believe a word he says, Jane,” said Mother Dimble. “He’s your prime enemy in this house. He doesn’t believe in your dreams.”

“Mrs. Dimble,” said MacPhee, “I have repeatedly explained to you the distinction between a personal feeling of confidence and a logical satisfaction of the claims of evidence. The one is a psychological event “