Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

Lukretia took some calming down. She said she had very little idea of what had caused her to shriek out like that, it had been too dark in her dream, but she knew it was something awful, something loathsome. I said it was over whatever it was, and she said it wasn’t, and then — I must get this part down as near as possible verbatim , because although I don’t understand it I know it’s important.

She said, ‘Will you do something for me?’

I said, ‘Anything I can.’

‘Will you pray to God and tell Him I thank Him for sending you to me? Because I’ve no doubt that He did. I thought He had abandoned me for ever, but now I see He hadn’t after all. Tell Him that, too. You will, won’t you?’

‘Of course I will,’ I said, ‘but wouldn’t it be better if you told Him yourself?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘but in my state prayer is ineffective.’

‘In your state? What state?’

‘Of absolute sin.’

‘Can’t you confess it?’ I asked, I hope as gently as I intended.

‘The father won’t hear me. We… there was a quarrel.’

‘Then go to another father.’

She shook her head; she had a funny look I couldn’t make out. ‘Please do as I ask.’

‘Gladly.’

‘Promise me, Stephen.’

‘I promise.’

‘I’m going to hold you to it.’

When I slept again I didn’t dream at all. For the experience I did have I can find no word; perhaps you know one. I was awoken by the sound of an enormous bell from somewhere overhead, somewhere quite near, still dying away as I listened. Lukretia hadn’t stirred, I could readily see. But how could I see it so readily? Because the room had grown lighter. How? With light from outside, through the chinks between the heavy curtains, bright light. But that wasn’t possible. We all carry a reasonably efficient clock in our head, and mine told me that it should still be dark out there. With my thoughts wandering slowly from festive illuminations to forest fires I put on a thick wrap of blanket-cloth (which I was soon to be mightily glad of) and hurried to the window. As I reached it the bell tolled again with an abruptness that made me blink. I pulled a corner of curtain aside and looked out.

What I saw (and I saw it, I wasn’t drunk, I wasn’t mad, and I certainly wasn’t dreaming, I knew that as a normal waking man always knows it) — what I saw was the funeral procession of Baron Aleku Valvazor in 1891. No one who had seen the picture in the room next door could have been in the slightest doubt. Everything and everybody was there, the old priest, the young priest, the coffin on an odd-looking waggon drawn by six men pulling ornamental ropes, the family and friends, the more prosperous farmers and yeomen in their characteristic brimless hats, the peasants, all on a rather blustery, chilly February or March afternoon nearly thirty-four years ago. I could also see several figures that I was nearly sure weren’t in the painting, like the one who must have been the artist himself furiously at work, an assistant at his side. And like Lukretia, clad in black, standing with bowed head near the entrance to the tomb and then suddenly glancing up and, as I recognized her, looking me straight in the eye.

I say I recognized her; she must have been nearly a hundred yards away, or quite that, but the light though not perfect was good enough and I had caught not so much any lineament as, more distinctively, a tilt of the neck that, after those few hours, I now knew well. But of course I thought of none of this at the time. Instinct made me turn away towards where I had left Lukretia and there was nothing, not only was she not there but the bed, the dressing-table, the pier-glass, the pictures, the sculptures, the brasses were all not there, nothing was there but stone walls and floor, the floor whose chill now struck through to my bare feet. I turned back to the window and there was nothing there either, just uncurtained panes and starlight and approaching dawn. Would you have lingered? Shivering and gasping with more than cold I was out of that grim spot pretty smartly, I can tell you, but finding my way back to the countess’s room or to my own was a different kind of task. I wandered up and down the great staircases and along the twisting corridors for anything up to half an hour. By then I was very cold indeed. In the end I rounded a corner and almost walked into Macneil, who was dressed for the outdoors, indeed for the saddle. He gave me a look of surprise and suspicion.

‘Where have you been, Mr Hillier?’ he asked. His tone was almost accusing.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

After another look at me his manner softened a trifle and he said, ‘Have you been sleepwalking?’

‘I don’t know that either. I found myself in a room I’ve no memory of entering. Perhaps I did sleepwalk.’

‘What sort of room?’ he asked gently.

‘It was empty.’

‘Completely empty?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Now I mustn’t keep you standing here on this chilly floor. The countess sends you her apologies.’

‘Apologies?’ I said. ‘What for?’ I dare say I sounded rather stupid; it was how I felt.

‘She received a message to say that her old nurse was dying and was asking to see her, and so she hurried off. As she would. It’s a fair drive, nearly to the border of the province. I’d expect her back some time in the afternoon. And now I must speed you on your way before you catch your death of cold. Down to the end there, Mr Hillier, turn left, and your room’s in front of you. I hope to see you later if you feel well enough.’ And he turned his back and went.

After a couple of hours in a warm bed, a comfortable bath and a large breakfast of scrambled eggs with strips of smoked mutton, hot rolls with quince jam and scalding coffee, I felt — well, still puzzled and wary, but I had got over the painful bewilderment that had gripped me earlier. I had another look at that picture of the funeral, and was more than ever sure I had seen what it portrayed, had not in any sense been dreaming. Next, a visit to the library, high-ceilinged and of ecclesiastical atmosphere, Macneil the complete professional in leather cap and taped-on cuffs, and informative. Much of interest, a few surprises, selective list enclosed. He (Macneil) was very proud, and with reason, of their Codex Palatine, which it seems no less a person than Dietrich Dittersdorf came all the way from Budapest some months ago to consult. I should have loved to hear more of all this, but you’ll understand I had a more pressing concern. When I had duly admired the Codex, I broached the matter.

‘Tell me, Mr Macneil,’ I said, ‘it was in 1891, was it not, that Baron Aleku was buried?’

‘Indeed,’ he replied; ‘25th February 1891, Ash Wednesday.’

‘It seems to have stuck in your mind.’

‘Odd how these things do.’ He was smiling that smile of his. ‘I was there, of course.’

I won’t pretend I showed I was ready for that. I must have gaped. ‘Were you, by George!’ I said before I knew it. ‘I hadn’t quite realized you’d been in these parts for so long’ — though you remember I had heard about it from Lukretia. ‘Perhaps you can tell me which members of the family were also present. Out of interest.’

He was grinning now. ‘You’ve been looking at that painting in the countess’s sitting-room, haven’t you, Mr Hillier?’

‘Yes, a fascinating piece.’

‘Oh, do you think so? I’ve always found it rather ordinary. However. Yes, there was the countess dowager and her sister, Count Zoltan and Countess Elizabeth, their three sons, of whom the eldest was to be the present countess’s father, Baron… Baron Horvath on the dowager’s side and Baroness… it’s gone, and the Rumanian cousins, those were the…’