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 showed 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.”
“Why shouldn’t they know that Picus and I have an amourette and have magic between us?”
“There’s something wrong today with Carston.”
“At worst he’ll leave and blast my reputation for a bit. What of that? And, anyhow, how did you find out, a floor up with Felix and Clarence?”
“Felix and Clarence snoring. Carston quiet, Picus whistling.”
“Ross, why have that tall bird and I become lovers? I want to know that. I think it is the kind of thing we shall find out about when it’s over, and wonder at.” Ross said:
“There is trouble about. The kind that comes with brightness. Can you see that?”
“I can,” she said. “Do you mean that Picus is up to no good? I rather agree.”
“The first rule,” said Ross, “is that Picus is never up to any good.”
“Allow me a little fantasy about him.”
“Remember that I told you.”
“You are being one of the enemies of the rose. Why should you? You always do what you like. Leave that to Clarence.”
“I’m telling you to be careful.”
“Are we never to have any peace, only adventure and pain? And you, Ross, have a sacred peace.”
“So have you. It’s the others. That’s why they had better not know.”
“Perhaps not Felix. Brothers will be brothers.”
“Carston’s bored. Today he’s upset. Satan’s looking for a job for him. I think you were to have been the job.”
“First I’ve heard of it.”
“We didn’t tell him how long he was to stay.”
“You mean that our ‘come down and see us’ is going to add an episode to what Felix calls the family horror?”
“I mean that anything that’s going to happen that shouldn’t will find him useful to happen through. Also, a thing you will be too vain to see. This is a move against Clarence by your fancy-boy.”
She looked across the purple land to where it ended in the waters of an estuary, more transparent than the sky. “Remember what has to be remembered, too—that Picus and I are young and handsome, rather in love. That he is full of fun and dancing, and bird-calls. Like I am. These things count as well.”
“You’ll see.”
“You are not counting on me?”
“If you can keep things steady, you’d better.”
“Perhaps I’m tired of keeping things steady for you. This is my pleasure and my game. And Clarence is unreasonable. Think of it another way, Ross: that Picus is giving us an excuse for the sacred game.”
He answered sullenly: “Americans are bad players. At bridge or gardening, or life; especially when it is life as the sacred game. And it isn’t his game here, anyhow.”
Scylla said: “I’ll tell you something. Picus doesn’t want Clarence to know. He’s afraid of that.”
“So he should be. Where would he be without him?”
“Dead, perhaps. That’s why I’ll do my best to be decent. And now, I want you to tell me what you think about the cup?” He turned away and beat the heather with his stick.
“It’s too late, Ross, to be petulant, because you know too much or too little. When you said there was trouble about like brightness, you spoke of things which are nefas, and you’ve got to go on. Remember Freud.”
“We aren’t worthy,” he cried.
“Worthy? What’s worthy? Was anyone? And you’ve forgotten Gawaine, the knight of the world and of courtesy.”
“I didn’t know he came into it.”
“That comes of never opening a book.”
“I detest women.”
“Never mind detesting me, which is what you mean. If that cup is anything at all, if it was once an old cup of the sacrament people called ‘big magic,’ if it’s anything or nothing, we can’t hurt it, and it can’t hurt us. We have our courage and our imagination. We have to be as subtle as our memories. That’s all. And but one thing: Picus has given the cup to me.”
“Considering your relations, I suppose he had to.”
“Then forward, damsel of the Sanc-Grail.”
“How dare you!” said Ross, “how dare you!”
She looked at him stoically, “I thought better of you, Ross. Thought there was something hard and great in you. I’m tired of being disappointed. Hear the words of the lover of a bird. He is light and winged and holy. And I mean by holy all there can be in the word; I mean, taboo. You are heavy, wingless, and sacred. And you are a very sensual man. You should understand.”
“I understand that you’re up in risky air, because you’ve got off with the worst of the lot of us.”
“I can fly.” She waited a moment and then spoke cheerfully: “The first thing I understand is that you and I are being unpleasant to each other. The difficulty in this business will be to see the obvious. If Picus is up to his tricks, he’s won the first round. And I’ve tried to pretend that Picus means less than he does to me. To please you, and because it sounds chic. I take that back. And we shall all see.”
Ross stood still, his face wrinkled like a pony, sniffing.
“Where are they?” he said. They looked back over magenta risings, yellow sand-holes, black bunches of trees. Quite different from the ravishing gauze seen from Starn on its hill. They waited, but neither one body nor four could be seen moving out of a pocket or over a ridge of the huge, broken honeycomb. Scylla said:
“Has Carston got lost?”
Ross did not suppress a laugh. “He’s got three of us with him.”
“We’re not heath-people.”
“Picus knows it. Spends days prowling about here.” That subject, delicately picked up, was dropped. “Let’s get on.”
“No, let’s wait.”
“Why should we?”
“Because of the mead. Think of us, sweating back with a dozen between us.”
Bing. A large black bee slapped Ross’s cheek and swung out along the ribbon of sand-path across which the heather stalks whipped their ankles.
“Follow the bee,” he said, “it won’t be the last walk we shall take together.”
“Good!” she said—“at worst they will only be lost. Who minds being lost when there is so much to see? They can steer by Starn. We’ll collect what we can, and get home with some martyrdom in hand.”
For the last time she looked back over the blazing plain from which an army might pop out. Ross did not look back. He stood with his head flung up, his mouth stretching into its wild-animal smile. With violent, silent amusement, he said:
“It’s beginning.”