Mansfield with Monsters (12 page)

For it was always to the drawing-room they retired when they wanted to talk over Kate.

Josephine closed the door meaningfully. “Sit down, Constantia,” she said, still very grand. She might have been receiving Constantia for the first time. And Con looked round vaguely for a chair, as though she felt indeed quite a stranger.

“Now the question is,” said Josephine, bending forward, “whether we shall also eat Kate or not.”

“That is the question,” agreed Constantia.

“And,” said Josephine firmly, “we must come to a definite decision.”

Constantia looked for a moment as though she might begin going over all the other times, but she pulled herself together and said, “Yes, Jug.”

“You see, Con,” explained Josephine, “everything is so changed now.” Constantia looked up quickly. “I mean,” went on Josephine, “we're not dependent on Kate as we were.” And she blushed faintly. “There's not Father to cook for. And his rules around eating at home, well, they may now be put aside.” The late colonel had insisted on human food as well as human form in his later days, and he had always insisted on restricting their appetites to small animals. Kate had been kept quite busy preparing his meals.

“That is perfectly true,” agreed Constantia. “Father certainly doesn't want any cooking now, whatever else—”

Josephine broke in sharply, “You're not sleepy, are you, Con?”

“Sleepy, Jug?” Constantia was wide-eyed.

“Well, concentrate more,” said Josephine sharply, and she returned to the subject. “What it comes to is, if we did”—and this she barely breathed, glancing at the door—“kill and eat Kate”—she raised her voice again—“we could manage our own food.”

“Why not?” cried Constantia. She couldn't help smiling. The idea was so exciting. She clasped her hands. “What should we live on, Jug?”

“Oh, birds and mice and dogs!” said Jug, lofty again. “And, besides, there are all the exotic pet-store animals.”

“But I've always heard,” said Constantia, “they are considered so very expensive.”

“Not if one buys them in moderation,” said Josephine. But she tore herself away from this fascinating bypath and dragged Constantia after her. “What we've got to decide now, however, is whether we really do trust Kate with our secret or not.”

Constantia leant back. Her flat little laugh flew from her lips.

“Isn't it curious, Jug,” said she, “that just on this one subject I've never been able to quite make up my mind?”

X

She never had. The whole difficulty was to prove anything. How did one prove things, how could one? Suppose Kate had stood in front of her and deliberately made a face. Mightn't she very well have been in pain? Wasn't it impossible, at any rate, to ask Kate if she was making a face at her? If Kate answered “No”—and, of course, she would say “No”—what a position! How undignified! How did one really know what these human faces meant? Then again Constantia suspected, she was almost certain that Kate went to her chest of drawers when she and Josephine were out, not to take things but to spy. Many times she had come back to find her serpent-bound cross in the most unlikely places, under her lace ties or on top of her evening Bertha. More than once she had laid a trap for Kate. She had arranged her ceremonial things in a special order and then called Josephine to witness.

“You see, Jug?”

“Quite, Con.”

“Now we shall be able to tell.”

But, oh dear, when she did go to look, she was as far off from proof as ever! If anything was displaced, it might so very well have happened as she closed the drawer; a jolt might have done it so easily.

“You come, Jug, and decide. I really can't. It's too difficult.”

But after a pause and a long glare Josephine would sigh, “Now you've put the doubt into my mind, Con, I'm sure I can't tell myself.”

“Well, we can't postpone it again,” said Josephine. “If we postpone it this time—”

XI

But at that moment in the street below a barrel-organ struck up. Josephine and Constantia sprang to their feet together.

“Run, Con,” said Josephine. “Run quickly. There's sixpence on the—”

Then they remembered. It didn't matter. They would never have to stop the organ-grinder again. Never again would she and Constantia be told to make that monkey take his noise somewhere else. Never would sound that loud, strange bellow when Father thought they were not hurrying enough. The organ-grinder might play there all day and the stick would not thump.

“
It never will thump again. It never will thump again
,” played the barrel-organ.

What was Constantia thinking? She had such a strange smile; she looked different. She couldn't be going to cry. Her tongue flicked across her eyes.

“Jug, Jug,” said Constantia softly, pressing her hands together. “Do you know what day it is? It's Saturday. It's a week to-day, a whole week.”

“A week since Father died. A week since Father died,” cried the barrel-organ. And Josephine, too, forgot to be practical and sensible; she smiled faintly, strangely. On the Indian carpet there fell a square of sunlight, pale red; it came and went and came—and stayed, deepened—until it shone almost golden.

“The sun's out,” said Josephine, as though it really mattered.

A perfect fountain of bubbling notes shook from the barrel-organ, round, bright notes, carelessly scattered.

Constantia lifted her big, cold hands as if to catch them, and then her hands fell again. She walked over to the mantel-piece to her favourite old fisherman. And the stone and gilt image, whose smile always gave her such a queer feeling, almost a pain and yet a pleasant pain, seemed to-day to be more than smiling. He knew something; he had a secret. “I know something that you don't know,” said her old fisherman. Oh, what was it, what could it be? And yet she had always felt there was… something.

The sunlight pressed through the windows, thieved its way in, flashed its light over the furniture and the photographs. Josephine watched it. When it came to Mother's photograph, the enlargement over the piano, it lingered as though puzzled to find so little remained of mother, except the earrings shaped like tiny pagodas and a black feather boa. Why did the photographs of dead people always fade so? wondered Josephine. As soon as a person was dead their photograph died too. But, of course, this one of Mother was very old. It was thirty-five years old. Josephine remembered standing on a chair and pointing out that feather boa to Constantia and telling her that it was a snake that had killed their mother in Ceylon… Their father had told them it was a serpent that had done it. The servants had muttered about the size of the wounds, the ferocity of the attack, the attempt to bury the body, but servants always gossiped so. Father had remained in human shape ever since that night. Would everything have been different if Mother hadn't died? She didn't see why. Aunt Florence had lived with them until they had left school, and they had moved three times and had their yearly holiday and… and there'd been changes of servants, of course.

Some little sparrows, young sparrows they sounded, chirped on the window-ledge. “Yeep-eyeep-yeep.” But Josephine felt they were not sparrows, not on the window-ledge. It was inside her, that queer little crying noise. “Yeep-eyeep-yeep.” Ah, what was it crying, so weak and forlorn? She moved to catch one out of habit, but they scattered into the brilliant sky.

If Mother had lived, might they have married? But there had been nobody for them to marry. There had been Father's Anglo-Indian friends before he quarrelled with them. But after that she and Constantia never met a single man except clergymen. How did one meet men? Or even if they'd met them, how could they have got to know men well enough to be more than strangers? How could they have hidden their reptilian appetites, their cold blood? One read of people having adventures, being followed, and so on. But nobody had ever followed Constantia and her. Oh yes, there had been one year at Eastbourne a mysterious man at their boarding-house who had put a note on the jug of hot water outside their bed-room door! But by the time Connie had found it the steam had made the writing too faint to read; they couldn't even make out to which of them it was addressed. And he had left next day. And that was all. The rest had been looking after Father, and at the same time keeping out of Father's way. But now? But now? The thieving sun touched Josephine gently. She lifted her face.

Until the barrel-organ stopped playing Constantia stayed before the old fisherman, wondering, but not as usual, not vaguely. This time her wonder was like longing. She remembered the times she had come in here, crept out of bed in her night-gown when the moon was full, and lain on the floor with her arms outstretched, as though she was crucified. Why? The big, pale moon had made her do it. The horrible dancing figures on the carved screen had leered at her and she hadn't minded. She remembered too how, whenever they were at the seaside, she had gone off by herself and got as close to the sea as she could, and sung something, something she had made up, while she gazed all over that restless water. There had been this other life, running out, bringing things home in bags, getting things on approval, discussing them with Jug, and taking them back to get more things on approval, and arranging Father's trays and trying not to eat anyone or annoy Father. But it all seemed to have happened in a kind of tunnel. It wasn't real. It was only when she came out of the tunnel into the moon-light or by the sea or into a thunderstorm that she really felt herself. What did it mean? What was it she was always wanting? What did it all lead to? Now? Now?

She turned away from the old fisherman with one of her vague gestures. She went over to where Josephine was standing. She wanted to say something to Josephine, something frightfully important, about—about the future and what…

“Don't you think perhaps—” she began.

But Josephine interrupted her. “I was wondering if now—” she murmured. They stopped; they waited for each other.

“Go on, Con,” said Josephine.

“No, no, Jug; after you,” said Constantia.

“No, say what you were going to say. You began,” said Josephine.

“I… I'd rather hear what you were going to say first,” said Constantia.

“Don't be absurd, Con.”

“Really, Jug.”

“Connie!”

“Oh, Jug!”

A pause. Then Constantia said faintly, “I can't say what I was going to say, Jug, because I've forgotten what it was… that I was going to say.”

Josephine was silent for a moment. She stared at a big cloud where the sun had been. Then she replied shortly, “I've forgotten too.”

“Come on, Jug,” Constantia said, slipping back the skin of her human face. “It's warm up in the attic. We'd better go eat the rest of the nurse.”

The Escape

It was her husband's fault, wholly and solely his fault, that they had missed the train. The military had announced that morning that it was to be the last passenger train out of the city before a total lockdown began. The Martian tripods had laid waste to half of Europe, and were now only hours away. What if the idiotic hotel people had refused to produce the bill? Wasn't that simply because he hadn't impressed upon the waiter at lunch that they must have it by two o'clock? Any other man would have sat there and refused to move until they handed it over. But no! His exquisite belief in human nature had allowed him to get up and expect one of those idiots to bring it to their room…

Telegraphs from home had told of old friends who perished in the burning of London, succumbed to the creeping plagues that had swept through the midlands, been drowned or worse—captured—at sea while fleeing England. How could he trust foreigners to have any sense of urgency? And then, when th
voiture
did arrive, while they were still (Oh, Heavens!) waiting for change, why hadn't he seen to the arrangement of the boxes so that they could, at least, have started the moment the money had come? Had he expected her to go outside, to stand under the awning in the heat with the Martian tripods even now crossing the Channel, and point with her parasol? A very amusing picture of English stoicism. Even when the driver had been told how fast he had to drive he had paid no attention whatsoever—just smiled. Oh, she groaned, if she'd been a driver she couldn't have stopped smiling herself at the absurd, ridiculous way he was urged to hurry. And she sat back and imitatehis voice: “
Allez, vite, vite,
”—and begged the driver's pardon for troubling him…

And then the station—unforgettable—with the sight of the sombre little train shuffling away, loaded with French cowards and hideous children in gas masks waving from the windows. “Oh, why am I made to bear these things? Why am I exposed to them?” The glare, the flies, while they waited, and he and the stationmaster put their heads together over the time-table, trying to find another route out of the city. At last a carriage and horses had been found. The people who'd gathered round as they left, blistered and maimed refugees and the woman who'd held up that baby with that awful, awful head… “Oh, to care as I care—to feel as I feel, and never to be saved anything—never to know for one moment what it was to… to…”

Her voice had changed. It was shaking now—crying now. She fumbled with her bag, and produced from its little maw a scented handkerchief. She put up her veil and, as though she were doing it for somebody else, pitifully, as though she were saying to somebody else: “I know, my darling,” she pressed the handkerchief to her eyes.

The little bag, with its shiny, silvery jaws open, lay on her lap. He could see her powder-puff, her rouge stick, a bundle of letters and telegrams, a phial of tiny black pills like seeds, a broken cigarette, a mirror, white ivory tablets with lists on them that had been heavily scored through, a dainty pistol recently purchased. He thought: “In Egypt she would be buried with those things.

They had left the last of the houses, those small straggling houses with bits of broken pot flung among the flower-beds and half-naked hens scratching round the doorsteps. Now they were mounting a long steep road that wound round the hill and over into the next bay then finally veered inland. The horses stumbled, pulling hard. Smoke drifted across the water, and there was a sweet scent in the air, the smell of the Martian spores spreading inexorably over the landscape. Every five minutes, every two minutes the driver trailed the whip across them. His stout back was solid as wood; there were boils on his reddish neck, and he wore a new, a shining new straw hat…

There was a little wind, just enough wind to blow to satin the new leaves on the fruit-trees, to stroke the fine grass, to turn to silver the smoky olives—just enough wind to start in front of the carriage a whirling, twirling snatch of dust that settled on their clothes like the finest ash. How long would it be before that dust was mixed with the ash of civilization burning? When she took out her powder-puff the powder came flying over them both.

“Oh, the dust,” she breathed, “the disgusting, revolting dust.” And she put down her veil and lay back as if overcome.

“Why don't you put up your parasol?” he suggested. It was on the front seat, and he leant forward to hand it to her. At that she suddenly sat upright and blazed again.

“Please leave my parasol alone! I don't want my parasol! And anyone who was not utterly insensitive would know that I'm far, far too exhausted to hold up a parasol. And with a wind like this tugging at it… Put it down at once,” she flashed, and then snatched the parasol from him, tossed it into the crumpled hood behind, and subsided, panting. She blinked, lights sparkling behind her eyes. The red of her eyelids was strangely comforting.

Another bend of the road, and down the hill there came a troop of little children, shrieking and giggling, little girls with sun-bleached hair, little boys in faded soldiers' caps. In their hands they carried weapons—any kind of weapons—knives and axes and ancient rifles, and these they offered, running beside the carriage. They thrust the barrels and blades and their impish faces into the carriage; one even threw into her lap a sharpened stick. Poor little mice! He had his hand in his trouser pocket before her. “For Heaven's sake don't give them anything. Oh, how typical of you! Horrid little monkeys! Now they'll follow us all the way. Don't encourage them; you
would

He saw the queer shock on the children's faces. They stopped running, lagged behind, and then they began to shout something, and went on shouting until the carriage had rounded yet another bend. Their weapons would be no use against the fighting machines of the Martians, but perhaps the children would take some comfort in them when the darkness fell.

“Oh, how many more are there before the top of the hill is reached? The horses haven't trotted once. Surely it isn't necessary for them to walk the whole way.

“We shall be there in a minute now,” he said, and took out his cigarette-case. At that she turned round towards him. She clasped her hands and held them against her breast; her dark eyes looked immense, imploring, behind her veil; her nostrils quivered, she bit her lip, and her head shook with a little nervous spasm. There was something inside her, a voice that whispered to her of burning red sands and three-legged masters. But when she spoke, her voice was quite weak and very, very calm.

“I want to ask you something. I want to beg something of you,” she said. “It's such a little thing, but if you knew what it meant to me…” She pressed her hands together. “But you can't know. No human creature could know and be so cruel.” And then, slowly, deliberately, gazing at him with those huge, sombre eyes: “I beg and implore you for the last time that when we see them, the tripods, when the end comes, we will surrender immediately,” she said. “The anguish I suffer when I think that we may never see them…”

“Very well,” he said, frowning. “When the time comes, we shall submit.” He lit a cigarette and chewed the tip as he inhaled.

“Oh, no,” said she, and almost began to laugh, and put the back of her hand across her eyes. “No, not that. I don't…”

The wind came, blowing stronger. She laughed again, shook her head and slumped back. Her heart was pounding and her skin was tingling. They were at the top of the hill. “Hoy-yip-yip-yip,” cried the driver. They swung down the road that fell into a small valley, skirted the sea coast at the bottom of it, and then coiled over a gentle ridge on the other side. Now there were houses again, blue-shuttered against the heat, with bright burning gardens, with geranium carpets flung over the pinkish walls. The coastline was dark; on the edge of the sea a white silky fringe just stirred. Far out at sea shapes moved above the water, and burning warships spewed smoke into a dark horizon. The carriage swung down the hill, bumped, shook. “Yi-ip,” shouted the driver. She clutched the sides of the seat, she closed her eyes, and he knew she felt this was happening on purpose; this swinging and bumping, this was all done—and he was responsible for it, somehow—to spite her because she had asked if they couldn't go a little faster. But just as they reached the bottom of the valley there was one tremendous lurch. The carriage nearly overturned, and he saw her eyes blaze at him, and she positively hissed, “I suppose you are enjoying this?”

They went on. They reached the bottom of the valley. Suddenly she stood up. “
Cocher! Cocher! Arrêtez-vous!
” She turned round and looked into the crumpled hood behind. “I knew it,” she exclaimed. “I knew it. I heard it fall, and so did you, at that last bump.”

“What? Where?”

“My parasol. It's gone. The parasol that belonged to my mother. The parasol that I prize more than—more than…” She was simply beside herself. She raised a hand as if to strike him, but seeing the odd shade of her flesh she started and clasped her hands behind her back. The driver turned round, his gay, broad face smiling

“I, too, heard something,” said he, simply and gaily. “But I thought as Monsieur and Madame said nothing…”

“There. You hear that. Then you must have heard it too. Sthaaccounts for the extraordinary smile on your face…”

“Look here,” he said, “it can't be gone. If it fell out it will be there still. Stay where you are. I'll fetch it.”

But she saw through that. Oh, how she saw through it! “No, thank you.” And she bent her spiteful, smiling eyes upon him, regardless of the driver. “I'll go myself. I'll walk back and find it, and trust you not to follow. For”—knowing the driver did not understand, she spoke softly, gently—“if I don't escape from you for a minute I shall go mad.”

There would be a weapon beside the road somewhere. Nothing as lethal as the pistol, nothing that would deprive the coming masters of live playthings. A sturdy branch would suffice. She would prepare him and the driver for the Martians. She stepped out of the carriage. “My bag.” He handed it to her.

“Madame prefers…”

But the driver had already swung down from his seat, and was seated on the parapet reading a small Bible with his lips moving. The horses stood with hanging heads. It was still. The man in the carriage stretched himself out, folded his arms. He felt the sun beat on his knees. His head was sunk on his breast. “Hish, hish,” sounded from the sea. The wind sighed in the valley and was quiet. He felt himself, lying there, a hollow man, a parched, withered man, as it were, of ashes. And the sea sounded, “Hish, hish.”

It was then that he saw the tripod, that he was conscious of its presence just above the hills behind them. It was an immense silver disc with three thick stems below and a great arc of copper and brass above ending in a wide trumpet that pulsed with an unearthly light. There was something in front of the tripod, an ancient tree dwarfed by the metal machine. As he looked at the tree he felt his breathing die away and he became part of the silence. The tripod seemed to grow, to expand in the quivering heat until the great silver dome hid the sky; and yet it was motionless. Then from within its depths or from beyond there came the sound of an alien voice. Something in the craft was singing. The cold, troubling voice floated upon the air, and it was all part of the silence as he was part of it. Suddenly, as the voice dropped, sharp, guttural, maddening, he knew that the Martians were coming for him, and his peace was shattered. What was happening to him? Something stirred in his breast. Something dark, something unbearable and dreadful pushed in his bosom, and like a great weed it floated, rocked… it was warm, stifling. He tried to struggle to tear at it, and at the same moment—all was over. Deep, deep, he sank into the silence, red sand blowing through his mind, Martian winds sweeping through him, until he felt himself enfolded. He smiled down at his wife as she dragged a heavy tree limb toward him. She was singing the alien tune, her sweet voice mingling with the tripod's melody. She looked up at him, saw the sands in his heart, and turned her red eyes to the driver.

 

 

When the driver was unconscious, the tripod took them. A great metal tentacle snaked down and lifted them into a huge domed chamber in the belly of the craft. The driver was deposited into a large cage in the centre in which half a dozen others cowered. The husband and wife, spores and song deep in their hearts, were placed on a wide gantry over-looking the cage. The tripod legs hissed and strode through the falling dark, jostling the prisoners and the couple. He held on with both hands to a brass rail, staring out of a porthole. She sat on the gantry, legs dangling, and smiled down at the prisoners.

A hatch at the front of the chamber hissed open and a great lumpen thing with three legs, mottled green skin, and innumerable tentacles shambled onto the gantry. Its three unblinking eyes leered down into the cage. Satisfied, it turned its gaze on the man.