“Warm inside and out. Carston, you’re sound on grog.
Picus came down, flushed and transparent, and asked him for some. He found that he could not say ‘Help yourself,’ forced to wait on him.
“Let’s dance,” said Scylla; and they danced together, the six of them, but Picus infinitely the best. One of the little things he could do, but not one with Scylla, who moved about with her brother, limbs of the same tree.
There were only five glasses when they all wanted drinks—Picus came over with the cup for Clarence to fill with whiskey and soda. “I don’t mind using the ash-tray,” he said; and Carston heard through the jazz and the slackening rain a voice which might have been a woman’s or a man’s: “He doesn’t mind using the cup of the Sanc-Grail for whiskey and soda,” and another voice, which might have been a man’s or a woman’s: “He doesn’t mind using for a whisky and soda, the cup we use for an ash-tray, the cup of the Sanc-Grail.”
The last of the lightning winked at them, the rain turned to a sweet shower, an after-thought.
What’ll I do? the gramophone was saying: What’ll I do, what’ll I do? Make love to Scylla, thought Carston. Hadn’t they ever thought of that? Shew then that they had among them a living cup. He remembered the new records he had brought them from London, and went upstairs to fetch them. Outside Picus’s door he remembered. They were making a noise downstairs. He could look in. More Scylla. A whip-up for senses which were, perhaps, older than theirs. Not refreshed—he thought of it with a sneer—by memories and the past. They should create his memories for him.
He fetched the records, and, a little elated by drink, opened the door of Picus’s room. The draught from the window made his candle stream. He saved it and looked. There was no statuette. Even the broken pieces had been cleared away. His light under control, he looked round. Clothes in exquisite order, chaste, ivory dressing things in rows. Scent bottles with a silver strainer, a hollowed bunch of grapes. Nothing to read. Like Ross there. The other went about weighted with books. Something to read. Somebody’s book on early church vessels. So Picus had a rationalist mind? Not much read. Time to go.
Below, he was greeted with cheers.
Airs went to his head.
“Will there be a moon, soon?” he asked Ross—“after the storm, I mean?”
“Sorry; she’s over. To do her tricks, I mean. Aldebaran’s very bright just now.”
Damn the stars. I know starlight. And the penalty. Leave the stars to them. Carston turned a disk: “I think you’ll like this. Not come to London yet.”
They did. Incarnated him responsible for O Lady be good, as for everything else in America. Scylla, dancing with him, smiled as he sang I’ve been so awfully misunderstood, with candour, with friendship, with something spilt over from a reserve of joy. He derided the men because not one of them knew what she was, because an American would discover a treasure worth a hundred Sanc-Grails. There was Picus dancing about like a marsh-bird courting, with an old cup on his head. Up and down and sideways, and never a drop spilt. Tilted his head sideways and caught it as it fell, and it was empty all the time. “Now I call that cheating.” In a moment it was back again and full, and never a drop was spilt.
Then Carston showed them the Charleston, and tumbled with them up to bed, shaking hands at doors, easy at last, and full of goodwill.
The air that filled his room was moist and strong, preparation for the freshest earth there is. The elation went out of him and left content. The visit had given him wonder. That was good, because one got brittle and lonely travelling round, and quick to mistrust. How simple it had been to win on these lordly young men. Love their women. Their place was his now. And the wood. It stood like something punished under the rain. He blew out his candle, and lay down in bed.
A minute later the tail of the lightning winked. The rain quickened. The door next his opened. The gutter outside began to run fast again. Through the finale of the storm, he heard a gull crying. Then, outside his door he heard a whistle like a glass flute. How loud, how long he could not judge, startled by it, teased by it. It was outside the door where Scylla slept. All he could do was repeat the words of the call, as it poured out, with grace notes and repeats:
Scylla’s door opened, neither noisily nor stealthily. Carston was out of bed, his ear to a split panel. He heard her laugh, her stage notion of an american accent. “I should worry.” Her door shut. He felt like a weight on his body, the three feet of stone between them. On the other side of that they were lying together, in the quiet of the wood. After a time, he went to the window to listen. But only the casement farthest from him was open, and there was no light. Shocked, almost whimpering, he went back to bed, falling, thanks to the strong air, very quickly asleep. Outside, the night cleared. Over the wood Orion hung up his belt and sword. In the pommel, Aldebaran shook; the star some time before Ross had offered to his attention.
Chapter VIII
The morning was a merciful bustle, with Ross’s promise come true of the freshest earth there is. The car arrived, and there seemed to be a controversy where they were to go. To pay a call or see some antiquity. Felix put his foot down on the antiquities.
Carston saw Scylla, preoccupied, perfectly and hideously gay.
They took him to Starn and shewed it him: as if it was a live thing; and did not notice that he resented its life, and was making attempts to kill it. Principally he remembered it because it was half full of people from the world outside. Not peasants, people in vulgar clothes, on motorcycles, in Ford cars, come to stare because it was summer, whom his party treated as if they were a disease.
After lunch the object of the expedition leaked out. He was told that there was a farm, some way off, where mead was made and could be bought. The price of whisky and drinkable wine had turned their thoughts to it. There was no road to the farm. About the distance they were delicately indefinite. They spoke about a track across a place they called the Heath.
Carston had seen the Heath, had crawled along it for miles in the train. It had seemed purple and endless, and he suspected full of traps. The other side of these people’s world of hills and the sea. Their idea was that it was time for Carston to visit it, covered with a gauze of every variety of heather, the sweet blood-bright burning crop out of which the honey wine was made.
They rested a little and set out.
Ross caught up Scylla, walking ahead, picking out the track. “A word with you,” he said, “don’t let anyone know.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the American, because of Felix, because of Clarence.”