Part 3 (continued 2)

It was ungenerous. The dead man had been pilloried long enough; it was high time that Maulgrave’s Folly should be left to fall into decent ruin and decay. And instead of that, even at this moment it was being trimmed up afresh. She felt a thrill of anger as she saw a gardener come out of the enclosure, carrying a flag basket and a pair of shears. He came towards her, and something about the rather slouching and prowling gait struck her as being familiar. She looked more closely, and recognised Satan.

‘How can you?’ she said, when he was within speaking distance. He, of all people, should be more compassionate to the shade of Sir Ralph.

He feigned not to hear her.

‘Would you care to go over the Folly, ma’am?’ he inquired. ‘It’s quite a curiosity. Visitors come out from London to see it.’

Laura was not going to be fubbed off like this. He might pretend not to recognise her, but she would jog his memory.

‘So you are a grave-keeper as well as a gamekeeper?’

‘The Council employ me to cut the bushes,’ he answered.

‘O Satan!’ she exclaimed, hurt by his equivocations. ‘Do you always hide?’

With the gesture of a man who can never hold out against women, he yielded and sat down beside her on the grass.

Laura felt a momentary embarrassment. She had long wished for a reasonable conversation with her Master, but now that her wish seemed about to be granted, she felt rather at a loss for an opening. At last she observed:

‘Titus has gone.’

‘Indeed? Isn’t that rather sudden? It was only this afternoon that I met him.’

‘Yes, I saw you meeting him. At least, I saw him meeting you.’

‘Just so. It is remarkable,’ he added, as though he were politely parrying her thought, ‘how invisible one is on these bare green hillsides.’

‘Or in these thick brown woods,’ said Laura, rather sternly.

This sort of Satanic playfulness was no novelty; Vinegar often behaved in the same fashion, leaping about just out of reach when she wanted to catch him and shut him up indoors.

‘Or in these thick brown woods,’ he concurred. ‘Folly Wood is especially dense.’

‘Is?’

‘Is. Once a wood, always a wood.’

Once a wood, always a wood. The words rang true, and she sat silent, considering them. Pious Asa might hew down the groves, but as far as the Devil was concerned he hewed in vain. Once a wood, always a wood: trees where he sat would crowd into a shade. And people going by in broad sunlight would be aware of slow voices overhead, and a sudden chill would fall upon their flesh. Then, if like her they had a natural leaning towards the Devil, they would linger, listening about them with half-closed eyes and averted senses; but if they were respectable people like Henry and Caroline they would talk rather louder and hurry on. There remaineth a rest for the people of God (somehow the thought of the Devil always propelled her mind to the Holy Scriptures), and for the other people, the people of Satan, there remained a rest also. Held fast in that strong memory no wild thing could be shaken, no secret covert destroyed, no haunt of shadow and silence laid open. The goods yard at Paddington, for instance—a savage place! as holy and enchanted as ever it had been. Not one of the monuments and tinkerings of man could impose on the satanic mind. The Vatican and the Crystal Palace, and all the neat human nest-boxes in rows, Balham and Fulham and the Cromwell Road—he saw through them, they went flop like cardhouses, the bricks were earth again, and the steel girders burrowed shrieking into the veins of earth, and the dead timber was restored to the ghostly groves. Wolves howled through the streets of Paris, the foxes played in the throneroom of Schönbrunn, and in the basement at Apsley Terrace the mammoth slowly revolved, trampling out its lair.

‘Then I needn’t really have come here to meet you!’ she exclaimed.

‘Did you?’

‘I didn’t know I did. I thought I came here to be in the country, and to escape being an aunt.’

‘Titus came here to write a book on Fuseli, and to enjoy himself.’

‘Titus! I can’t believe you wanted him.’

‘But you do believe I wanted you.’

Rather taken aback she yet answered the Devil honestly.

‘Yes! I do believe you wanted me. Though really I don’t know why you should.’

A slightly malevolent smile crossed the Devil’s face. For some reason or other her modesty seemed to have nettled him.

‘Some people would say that you had flung yourself at my head.’

‘Other people,’ she retorted, ‘would say that you had been going about seeking to devour me.’

‘Exactly. I even roared that night. But you were asleep while I roared. Only the hills heard me triumphing over my spoil.’

Laura said: ‘I wish I could really believe that.’

‘I wish you could, too,’ he answered affably; ‘you would feel so comfortable and important. But you won’t, although it is much more probable than you might suppose.’

Laura stretched herself out on the turf and pillowed her head on her arm.

‘Nothing could feel more comfortable than I do, now that Titus is gone,’ she said. ‘And as for importance, I never wish to feel important again. I had enough of that when I was an aunt.’

‘Well, you’re a witch now.’

‘Yes.... I really am, aren’t I?’

‘Irrevocably.’

His voice was so perfectly grave that she began to suspect him of concealing some amusement. When but a moment before he had jested she had thought a deeper meaning lay beneath his words, she almost believed that his voice had roared over her in the thunder. If he had spoken without feigning then, she had not heard him; for he had stopped her ears with a sleep.

‘Why do you sigh?’ he asked.

‘Did I sigh? I’m puzzled, that’s all. You see, although I’m a witch, and although you sitting here beside me tell me so, I can’t really appreciate it, take it in. It all seems perfectly natural.’

‘That is because you are in my power. No servant of mine can feel remorse, or doubt, or surprise. You may be quite easy, Laura: you will never escape me, for you can never wish to.’

‘Yes, I can quite well believe that, I’m sure I shall never wish to escape you. But you are a mysterious Master.’

‘You seem to me rather an exacting servant. I have shaped myself like a jobbing gardener, I am sitting on the grass beside you (I’ll have one of your apples if I may. They are a fruit I am particularly fond of), I am doing everything in my power to be agreeable and reassuring.... What more do you want?’

‘That is exactly what I complain of. You are too lifelike to be natural; why, it might be Goethe’s Conversations with Eckermann. No! if I am really a witch, treat me as such. Satisfy my curiosity. Tell me about yourself.’

‘Tell me first what you think,’ he answered.

‘I think’—she began cautiously (while he hid his cards it would not do to show all hers)—‘I think you are a kind of black knight, wandering about and succouring decayed gentlewomen.’

‘There are warlocks too, remember.’

‘I can’t take warlocks so seriously, not as a class. It is we witches who count. We have more need of you. Women have such vivid imaginations, and lead such dull lives. Their pleasure in life is so soon over; they are so dependent upon others, and their dependence so soon becomes a nuisance. Do you understand?’

He was silent. She continued, slowly, knitting her brows in the effort to make clear to herself and him the thought that was in her mind:

‘It’s like this. When I think of witches, I seem to see all over England, all over Europe, women living and growing old, as common as blackberries, and as unregarded. I see them, wives and sisters of respectable men, chapel members, and blacksmiths, and small farmers, and Puritans. In places like Bedfordshire, the sort of country one sees from the train. You know. Well, there they were, there they are, child-rearing, house-keeping, hanging washed dishcloths on currant bushes; and for diversion each other’s silly conversation, and listening to men talking together in the way that men talk and women listen. Quite different to the way women talk, and men listen, if they listen at all. And all the time being thrust further down into dullness when the one thing all women hate is to be thought dull. And on Sundays they put on plain stuff gowns and starched white coverings on their heads and necks—the Puritan ones did—and walked across the fields to chapel, and listened to the sermon. Sin and Grace, and God and the——’ (she stopped herself just in time), ‘and St. Paul. All men’s things, like politics, or mathematics. Nothing for them except subjection and plaiting their hair. And on the way back they listened to more talk. Talk about the sermon, or war, or cock-fighting; and when they got back, there were the potatoes to be cooked for dinner. It sounds very petty to complain about, but I tell you, that sort of thing settles down on one like a fine dust, and by and by the dust is age, settling down. Settling down! You never die, do you? No doubt that’s far worse, but there is a dreadful kind of dreary immortality about being settled down on by one day after another. And they think how they were young once, and they see new young women, just like what they were, and yet as surprising as if it had never happened before, like trees in spring. But they are like trees towards the end of summer, heavy and dusty, and nobody finds their leaves surprising, or notices them till they fall off. If they could be passive and unnoticed, it wouldn’t matter. But they must be active, and still not noticed. Doing, doing, doing, till mere habit scolds at them like a housewife, and rouses them up—when they might sit in their doorways and think—to be doing still!’

She paused, out of breath. She had never made such a long speech in the whole of her life, nor spoken with such passion. She scarcely knew what she had said, and felt giddy and unaccustomed, as though she had been thrown into the air and had suddenly begun to fly.

The Devil was silent, and looked thoughtfully at the ground. He seemed to be rather touched by all this. She continued, for she feared that if she did not go on talking she would grow ashamed at having said so much.

‘Is it true that you can poke the fire with a stick of dynamite in perfect safety? I used to take my nieces to scientific lectures, and I believe I heard it then. Anyhow, even if it isn’t true of dynamite, it’s true of women. But they know they are dynamite, and long for the concussion that may justify them. Some may get religion, then they’re all right, I expect. But for the others, for so many, what can there be but witchcraft? That strikes them real. Even if other people still find them quite safe and usual, and go on poking with them, they know in their hearts how dangerous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they are. Even if they never do anything with their witchcraft, they know it’s there—ready! Respectable countrywomen keep their grave-clothes in a corner of the chest of drawers, hidden away, and when they want a little comfort they go and look at them, and think that once more, at any rate, they will be worth dressing with care. But the witch keeps her cloak of darkness, her dress embroidered with signs and planets; that’s better worth looking at. And think, Satan, what a compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret like a gentleman out killing tigers. Her soul—when no one else would give a look at her body even! And they are all so accustomed, so sure of her! They say: “Dear Lolly! What shall we give her for her birthday this year? Perhaps a hot-water bottle. Or what about a nice black lace scarf? Or a new workbox? Her old one is nearly worn out.” But you say: “Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest made of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it.” That’s why we become witches: to show our scorn of pretending life’s a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure. It’s not malice, or wickedness—well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that—but certainly not malice, not wanting to plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and—what is it?—“blight the genial bed.” Of course, given the power, one may go in for that sort of thing, either in self-defence, or just out of playfulness. But it’s a poor twopenny housewifely kind of witchcraft, black magic is, and white magic is no better. One doesn’t become a witch to run round being harmful, or to run round being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick. It’s to escape all that—to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others, charitable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces of stale bread of life a day, the workhouse dietary is scientifically calculated to support life. As for the witches who can only express themselves by pins and bed-blighting, they have been warped into that shape by the dismal lives they’ve led. Think of Miss Carloe! She’s a typical witch, people would say. Really she’s the typical genteel spinster who’s spent herself being useful to people who didn’t want her. If you’d got her younger she’d never be like that.’

‘You seem to know a good deal about witches,’ remarked Satan. ‘But you were going to say what you thought about me.’

She shook her head.

‘Go on,’ he said encouragingly. ‘You have compared me to a knight-errant. That’s very pretty. I believe you have also compared me to a hunter, a poaching sort of hunter, prowling through the woods after dark. Not so flattering to my vanity as the knight-errant, but more accurate, I daresay.’

‘O Satan! Why do you encourage me to talk when you know all my thoughts?’

‘I encourage you to talk, not that I may know all your thoughts, but that you may. Go on, Laura. Don’t be foolish. What do you think about me?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘I don’t think I do think. I only rhapsodise and make comparisons. You’re beyond me, my thought flies off you like the centrifugal hypothesis. And after this I shall be more at a loss than ever, for I like you so much, I find you so kind and sympathetic. But it is obvious that you can’t be merely a benevolent institution. No, I must be your witch in blindness.’

‘You don’t take warlocks so seriously, I know. But you might find their point of view illuminating. As it’s a spiritual difficulty, why not consult Mr. Jones?’

‘Poor Mr. Jones!’ Laura began to laugh. ‘He can’t call his soul his own.’

‘Hush! Have you forgotten that he has sold it to me?’

‘Then why did you mortgage it to Mr. Gurdon? Mr. Jones isn’t even allowed to attend the Sabbath.’

‘You are a little dense at times. Hasn’t it occurred to you that other people might share your sophisticated dislike for the Sabbath?’

‘You don’t attend the Sabbath either, if it comes to that.’

‘How do you know? Don’t try to put me in your pocket, Laura. You are not my only conquest, and I am not a human master to have favourites among my servants. All are souls that come to my net. I apologise for the pun, but it is apt.’

She had been rebuked, but she did not feel particularly abashed. It was true, then, what she had read of the happy relationship between the Devil and his servants. If Euphan Macalzean had rated him—why, so, at a pinch, might she. Other things that she had read might also be true, she thought, things that she had till now been inclined to reject. So easy-going a Master who had no favourites among his servants might in reality attend the Sabbath, might unbend enough to eat black-puddings at a picnic without losing his dignity.

‘That offensive young man at the Sabbath,’ she remarked, ‘I know he wasn’t you. Who was he?’

‘He’s one of these brilliant young authors,’ replied the Devil. ‘I believe Titus knows him. He sold me his soul on the condition that once a week he should be without doubt the most important person at a party.’

‘Why didn’t he sell his soul in order to become a great writer? Then he could have had the party into the bargain.’

‘He preferred to take a short-cut, you see.’

She didn’t see. But she was too proud to inquire further, especially as Satan was now smiling at her as if she were a pet lamb.

‘What did Mr. Jones——’

‘That’s enough! You can ask him that yourself, when you take your lessons in demonology.’

‘Do you suppose for one moment that Mr. Gurdon would let me sit closeted with Mr. Jones taking lessons in plain needlework even? He would put his face in at the window and say: “How much longer are them Mothers to be kept waiting?” or: “I should like to know what your reverence is doing about that there dung?” or: “I suppose you know that the cowman’s girl may go off at any minute.” And then he’d take him down to the shrubbery and scold him. My heart bleeds for the poor old gentleman!’

‘Mr. Jones’—Satan spoke demurely—‘will have his reward in another life.’

Laura was silent. She gazed at the Maulgrave Folly with what she could feel to be a pensive expression. But her mind was a blank.

‘A delicate point, you say? Perhaps it is bad taste on my part to jest about it.’

A midge settled on Laura’s wrist. She smacked at it.

‘Dead!’ said Satan.

The word dropped into her mind like a pebble thrown into a pond. She had heard it so often, and now she heard it once more. The same waves of thought circled outwards, waves of startled thought spreading out on all sides, rocking the shadows of familiar things, blurring the steadfast pictures of trees and clouds, circling outward one after the other, each wave more listless, more imperceptible than the last, until the pool was still again.

There might be some questions that even the Devil could not answer. She turned her eyes to him with their question.

Satan had risen to his feet. He picked up the flag basket and the shears, and made ready to go.

‘Is it time?’ asked Laura.

He nodded, and smiled.

She got up in her turn, and began to shake the dust off her skirt. Then she prodded a hole for the bag which had held the apples, and buried it tidily, smoothing the earth over the hole. This took a little time to do, and when she looked round for Satan, to say good-bye, he was out of sight.

Seeing that he was gone she sat down again, for she wanted to think him over. A pleasant conversation, though she had done most of the talking. The tract of flattened grass at her side showed where he had rested, and there was the rampion flower he had held in his hand. Grass that has been lain upon has always a rather popular bank-holidayish look, and even the Devil’s lair was not exempt from this. It was as though the grass were in league with him, faithfully playing-up to his pose of being a quite everyday phenomenon. Not a blade of grass was singed, not a clover-leaf blasted, and the rampion flower was withering quite naturally; yet he who had sat there was Satan, the author of all evil, whose thoughts were a darkness, whose roots went down into the pit. There was no action too mean for him, no instrument too petty; he would go into a milk-jug to work mischief. And presently he would emerge, imperturbable, inscrutable, enormous with the dignity of natural behaviour and untrammelled self-fulfilment.

To be this—a character truly integral, a perpetual flowering of power and cunning from an undivided will—was enough to constitute the charm and majesty of the Devil. No cloak of terrors was necessary to enlarge that stature, and to suppose him capable of speculation or metaphysic would be like offering to crown him with a few casual straws. Very probably he was quite stupid. When she had asked him about death he had got up and gone away, which looked as if he did not know much more about it than she did herself: indeed, being immortal, it was unlikely that he would know as much. Instead, his mind brooded immovably over the landscape and over the natures of men, an unforgetting and unchoosing mind. That, of course—and she jumped up in her excitement and began to wave her arms—was why he was the Devil, the enemy of souls. His memory was too long, too retentive; there was no appeasing its witness, no hoodwinking it with the present; and that was why at one stage of civilisation people said he was the embodiment of all evil, and then a little later on that he didn’t exist.

For a moment Laura thought that she had him: and on the next, as though he had tricked himself out of her grasp, her thoughts were scattered by the sudden consciousness of a sort of jerk in the atmosphere. The sun had gone down, sliding abruptly behind the hills. In that case the bus would have gone too, she might as well hope to catch the one as the other. First Satan, then the sun and the bus—adieu, mes gens! With affectionate unconcern she seemed to be waving them farewell, pleased to be left to herself, left to enter into this new independence acknowledged by their departure.

The night was at her disposal. She might walk back to Great Mop and arrive very late: or she might sleep out and not trouble to arrive till to-morrow. Whichever she did Mrs. Leak would not mind. That was one of the advantages of dealing with witches; they do not mind if you are a little odd in your ways, frown if you are late for meals, fret if you are out all night, pry and commiserate when at length you return. Lovely to be with people who prefer their thoughts to yours, lovely to live at your own sweet will, lovely to sleep out all night! She had quite decided, now, to do so. It was an adventure, she had never done such a thing before, and yet it seemed most natural. She would not sleep here: Wickendon was too close. But presently, later on, when she felt inclined to, she would wander off in search of a suitable dry ditch or an accommodatingly loosened haystack; or wading through last year’s leaves and this year’s fern she would penetrate into a wood and burrow herself a bed, Satan going his rounds might come upon her and smile to see her lying so peaceful and secure in his dangerous keeping. But he would not disturb her. Why should he? The pursuit was over, as far as she was concerned. She could sleep where she pleased, a hind couched in the Devil’s coverts, a witch made free of her Master’s immunity; while he, wakeful and stealthy, was already out after new game. So he would not disturb her. A closer darkness upon her slumber, a deeper voice in the murmuring leaves overhead—that would be all she would know of his undesiring and unjudging gaze, his satisfied but profoundly indifferent ownership.