John Powys - Ducdame

This smile of Cousin Ann’s was whimsically penitent, full of the deprecating cajolery of a child. She put her hands on Rook’s shoulders and kissed him on the forehead.

“I couldn’t help it, my dear,” she said. “I was alone in the house with him and he teased me and teased me. I was doing what you told me — making a list of the things — but he wouldn’t let me alone. He must have heard those people talking about us. I was feeling upset and I lost my temper. I hit him. It was dreadful of me; but that’s what I did. I hit him! And after that he wouldn’t go away but kept peeping at me through that hole in the wall. It was awful, Rook! It was like a nightmare. I kept dragging him away from that hole and pushing him downstairs. But he’s so strong. He always came back, and then kept jeering at me. But you’ve locked him out now, have you? Oh, I am so glad!” And she sucked in her breath with a little gurgling sibilance, as if it were all she could do not to burst into a fit of unnatural laughter.

Her mood touched Rook’s heart more than she realized. He had always associated her with such complete independence that to see her in this agitated state struck home at him through all his defences.

The vague intention which had formulated itself in his mind at the moment when he saw the word “Gorm” on the signpost now hardened into a definite resolution.

“Get your things on quickly, my dear,” he said. “I’m going to take you with me to Tollminster.”

More passive and docile than she had ever been in her life, Cousin Ann allowed herself to be led down the stairs, hurried along the little garden path‚ and lifted into the cart. Rook placed her between himself and Mr. Twiney, and as they rattled through the muddy lanes and through the gathering spring twilight the girl abandoned herself without restraint to a delicious wave of voluptuous contentment which cradled and rocked her and obliterated all doubt and responsibility.

She had fallen into a kind of trance wherein all objects lost their substantiality and became porous and dream-like, when the lighted lamps of the cheerful High Street and the rough cobblestones of the inn yard made her realize that they had reached Tollminster.

Rook gave orders to Peter Twiney to meet them in that same inn yard later in the evening, and he and Cousin Ann made their way through the narrow old-fashioned streets to the lodging of his friend the curate.

The closing of spring days in an ancient country town has a glamour about it of a quality more delicate and penetrating than anything that can be reached in the leafiest and remotest solitudes. The sense of the open roads stretching out from the lighted thoroughfares into the embalmed darkness; the fragrance of lilac bushes from invisible walled gardens; the emerging of the impression of new-leafed greenness from behind the moss-covered gates of church precincts and almshouse precincts; the twilit presence of newly planted pansies and primulas in old Georgian window frames; all these things together, mingled with sudden breaths of mud-scented coolness coming up from river banks, where the great moist marigold buds are swelling and swelling in the darkness, give to the streets of such a town an enchantment that has the power to summon up and embody the rarest memories of our race consciousness.

The curate of Saint Mark’s Church received his visitors with undissembled delight. Full of a youthful idolatry for the Squire of Ashover, in which a natural and innocent snobbishness mingled with a quaint personal hero worship‚ the young clergyman was quick enough to catch every emotional nuance of this unexpected visit.

“I’m proud to be the one to launch you,” he kept repeating‚ as he dragged them out again, up Antiger Street, up South Street, until they reached the necessary office.

The place was closed; but the energetic curate, with his knowledge of local ways, was able to follow up the official trail to such excellent effect that when they returned to his lodging the desired special license was safe in Rook’s possession.

What followed was even more dream-like to Lady Ann’s irresponsible and reckless mood than was their drive through the muddy lanes. Mr. Tishmarsh rummaged up his sexton and his verger as witnesses; opened the little postern-gate of the dark Henry the Seventh church with his own private key, slipped on his vestments in the easy familiar manner of a disciple of the Bishop of Oxford, repeated his nervous formula: “I’m proud to be able to launch you!” so unconsciously that it struck the girl as falling into a sort of allotted rhythm amid the austere hieratic injunctions of the fatal service, and finally made them write their names in the parchment-bound book as man and wife, leaving both of them with a queer impression in their minds that they had been hypnotized by a romantic schoolboy.

“Couldn’t have been worked like this for any one but you, Mr. Ashover,” remarked the exultant little cleric as he escorted them toward the yard of the Red Lion. “Nor for any woman but yourself, Lady Ashover!” he hurried to add, fumbling in his confusion over the bride’s new name.

Rook was exceedingly anxious to shake off the little man before they encountered their driver’s inquisitive sympathy, but Mr. Tishmarsh had at least this in common with his professional enemy the Devil that, when once he had been made use of, it was not easy to get out of his clutches.

“I must help you into your vehicle, Lady Ashover,” the youth announced. “That’s only my right, isn’t it, as I was the one to launch you?”

Rook found himself damning the kind little priest in his heart with vindictive fury out of all proportion to the slight occasion. His nerves, now the drastic step had actually been taken, were feeling the effects of the unnatural tension of this long day.

They were off at last, but not before Mr. Peter Twiney had thrown a most quizzical and knowing leer in the direction of the curate of Saint Mark’s, left bare-headed and excited among the staring ostlers of the Red Lion.

It was nearly eleven o’clock when they reached Ashover House. Rook made Mr. Twiney drive round to the back door, so as not to disturb any one; but it soon appeared that this familiar precaution was, for once in the history of that quiet dwelling, ironically unnecessary.

The whole house was stirring with lights and voices and emotional confusion.

Pandie met them in the doorway; and not only Mr. Twiney, but also, it appeared, his long-necked horse as well, listened with an attention that suggested one of the rarest dramatic sensations in two blameless lives, while the white-faced servant, her apron and cap awry, and her hands waving in the air like the flappers of an unhappy penguin, explained that Miss Page had runned away unbeknown to any one; that in her own opinion, she had drownded herself in Saunders’ Hole; while in the opinion of Mrs. Vabbin she had been kidnapped and ravaged by them murdering gippoos.

IT WAS almost as if the momentous event that had happened to Cousin Ann — that secret victory of the Ashover dust under the chancel floor — had laid a paralyzing finger upon the life-hating pen of William Hastings.

Nell awoke late on the morning after the events just described, awoke with a mysterious sense of some great load having been lifted from her life during her sleep. To her surprise she found a note from her husband‚ fixed to the pincushion in front of her looking-glass, tellingher that he had had his breakfast and had gone off for the day to Bishop’s Forley.

She knew why this had happened. A celebrated theologian from Germany, one of the few modern thinkers whose writings interested this lonely nihilist, had come to stay with an ex-priest there; and it was at the invitation of this man that Hastings had gone.