John Powys - Rodmoor

“It’s absurd,” he muttered, “it’s all absurd. I feel as if the whole thing were a kind of devilish dream. Yes, the whole thing! It’s all because I’ve got nothing to do but walk up and down these damned sands!”

Baltazar watched him with a serene smile, his soft chin supported by his feminine fingers and his fair, curly head tilted a little on one side.

“But you know, mon enfant,” he threw in with a teasing caress in his voice, “you know very well you’re the last person to talk of work. It was work that did for you in America. You don’t want to start that over again, do you?”

Adrian stood still and glared at him.

“Do you think I’m going to let that —as you call it — finish me forever? My life’s only begun. In London it was different. By God! I wish I’d stayed in London! Nance feels just the same. I know she does. She’ll have to get something, too, or we shall both go mad. It’s this cursed sea of yours! I’ve a good mind to marry her, out of hand, and clear off. We’d find something — somewhere — anywhere — to keep body and soul together.”

“Why did you come to us at all, my dear, if you find us so dreadful?” laughed Baltazar, bending down to tie his shoe-string and pull up more tightly one of his silk socks.

Adrian made no answer but continued his ferocious pacing of the room.

“You’ll knock something over if you’re not careful,” protested his friend, shrugging his shoulders. “You’re the most troublesome fellow. You accept a person’s offer and make no end of a fuss over it, and then a couple of weeks later you roar like a bull and send us all to the devil. What’s the matter with us? What’s the matter with the place? Why can’t you and your precious Nance behave like ordinary people and make love to one another and be happy? She’s got all her time to herself and you’ve got all your time to yourself. Why can’t you enjoy yourselves and collect seaweed or starfish or something?”

Adrian paused in his savage prowl for the second time.

“It’s your confounded sea that’s at the bottom of it,” he shouted. “It gets on her nerves and it gets on mine. Little Linda was perfectly right to be scared of it.”

“I fancied,” drawled the other, selecting a cigarette from an enamelled box and turning up the lamp, “you found little Linda’s fears rather engaging than otherwise.

“It works upon us,” Sorio went on, heedless of the interruption, “it works upon us in some damnable kind of way! Nance says she hears it in her sleep. I’m sure I do. I hear it without a moment’s cessation. Listen to the thing now— shish, shish, shish, shish! Why can’t it make some other noise? Why can’t it stop altogether? It makes me long for the whole damned farce to end. It annoys me, Tassar, it annoys me!”

“Sorry you find the elements so trying, Adriano,” replied the other languidly, “but I really don’t know what I can do to help you — I can only advise you to keep out of Philippa’s way. She’s an element more troublesome than any of them.”

“Tassar!” shouted the enraged man in a burst of fury, “if you don’t stop dragging Philippa in, I’ll murder you! What’s Philippa to me? I hate her — do you hear? I hate the very sound of her name!”

“Her name?” murmured Stork, meditatively, “her name? Oh, I think you’re quite wrong to hate that. Her name suggests all sorts of interesting things. Her name has quite a historic sound. It’s mediæval in colour and Greek in form. It makes me think of Euripides.”

“This whole damned Rodmoor of yours,” moaned Adrian, “gets too much for me. Where on earth else, could a man find it so hard to collect his thoughts and look at things as they are? There’s something here which works upon the mind, Tassar, something which works upon the mind.”

“What’s working on your mind, my friend,” laughed Baltazar Stork, “is not anything so vague as dreams or anything so simple as the sea. It’s just the quite definite but somewhat complicated business of managing two love affairs at the same time! I’m sorry for you, little Adrian, I’m extremely sorry for you. It’s a situation not unknown in the history of the world, in fact, it might be called quite common. But I’m afraid that doesn’t make it any pleasanter for you. However, it can be dealt with, with a little skill, Adrian, with just a little skill!”

The man accused in this teasing manner turned furiously round, an angry outburst of blind protest trembling on his tongue. At that moment there was a low knock at the outer door. Baltazar jumped to his feet. “That must be Raughty,” he cried. “I begged him to come round to-night. I so longed for you to meet him.” He hastened out and admitted the visitor with a cordial welcome. After a momentary pause and a good deal of shuffling — for Dr. Raughty was careful to wear not only an overcoat but also goloshes and even gaiters when the weather was inclement — the two men entered the room and Stork began an elaborate introduction.

“Dr. Fingal Raughty,” he said, “Mr. Adria—” but to his astonishment Sorio intervened, “The Doctor and I have already become quite well acquainted,” he remarked, shaking the visitor vigorously by the hand. “I’m afraid I wasn’t as polite as I ought to have been on that occasion,” he went on, speaking in an unnaturally loud voice and with a forced laugh, “but the Doctor will forgive me. The Doctor I’m sure will make allowances.”

Dr. Raughty gave him a quick glance, at once friendly and ironical, and then he turned to Stork. “Mother Lorman’s dead,” he remarked with a little sigh, “dead at last. She was ninety-seven and had thirty grandchildren. She gurgled in her throat at the last with a noise like a nightingale when its voice breaks in June. I prefer deaths of this kind to any other, but they’re all pitiful.”

“Nance tells me you were present at old Doorm’s death, Doctor,” said Adrian while their host moved off to the kitchen to secure glasses and refreshment.

The Doctor nodded. “I measured that fellow’s skull,” he remarked gravely. “It was asymmetrical and very curiously so. The interesting thing is that there exists in this part of the coast a definite tradition of malformed skulls. They recur in nearly all the old families. Brand Renshaw is a splendid example. His skull ought to be given to a museum. It is beautiful, quite beautiful, in the anterior lobes.”

Baltazar returned carrying a tray. The eyes of Dr. Raughty gleamed with a mellow warmth. “Nutmeg,” he remarked, approaching the tray and touching every object upon it lightly and reverently. “Nutmeg, lemon, hot water, gin— and brandy! It’s an admirable choice and profoundly adapted to the occasion. May I put the hot water on the hob until we’re ready for it?”

While Baltazar once more withdrew from the scene, Dr. Raughty remarked, gravely and irritably, to Sorio that it was a mistake to substitute brandy for rum. “He does it because he can’t get the best rum, but it’s a ridiculous thing to do. Any rum is better than no rum when it’s a question of punch-making. Are you with me in this, Mr. Sorio?”

Adrian expressed such complete and emphatic agreement that for the moment the Doctor seemed almost embarrassed.

On Baltazar’s return to the room, however, he hazarded another suggestion. “What about having the kettle itself brought in here?”

Stork looked at him without speaking and placed on the table a small plate of macaroons. The Doctor glanced whimsically at Sorio and, helping himself from the little plate, muttered in a low voice after he had nibbled the edge of a biscuit, “Yes, these seem perfectly up to par to-day.”