Nuns and Soldiers Read online

  About four o’clock in the afternoon Tim was still there. He was exhausted. He had consumed his lunch. To do this he had retired outside the ‘door’ as it seemed to him improper to eat in the presence of the rock and the pool. He had eaten the bread and butter, the paté, the cheese, and the apple, but had drunk sparingly of the wine, since he feared to go to sleep in the place. By four o’clock he was on the whole pleased with what he had done. He had done a number of drawings of the rock face. The circular area with the strange straight lines above it was so odd that he feared it would not, on paper, look like anything. However the subject somehow took charge of him and conveyed some of its grandeur into his vision. He did some larger water colour sketches, outlines in brown ink, of the whole cliff face, including the vegetation. Then perched in the ‘amphitheatre’ he had tried, with wax crayon on grey paper, to convey the radiant light-giving quality of the crystal basin. This was less successful. Now it was time to stop. He packed up his gear and retrieved his basket, gave one last hasty anxious look at the scene which was already darkening, then climbed through the cleft into the outer world. At once he felt giddy, as at a change of pressure. Outside it was brighter. An undulating glow was rising from the pale spotty sunlit rocks. He looked upward, shading his eyes, deeming it yet too early to return home, and decided to try once more to climb over the rocky skyline and see what lay beyond. The little path soon vanished, or he had lost it. Perhaps its only task had been to lead him to the Great Face.

  He mounted the steep rocks, scrambling, holding onto the hard ridgy surfaces, digging into their crannies with his finger nails. The climb, never dangerous, became more difficult, and he was hampered by the basket until he decided to leave it under a little bushy fig tree which offered a rare landmark. Only when the rocks to which he clung actually ceased in front of his face did he realize that he had reached the top. He rose panting to his feet upon the very crest. He was indeed now gazing down into another land. Far off he could see a sunlit plain with fields, and beyond it mountains, real blue mountains much higher than his ‘little hills’. Near to him the rocks frilled downward in a series of small valleys or gorges which were now in shadow. Directly below, however, Tim saw something which drew his gaze away from any further view. There, at the very foot of the rocks upon which he stood, and easily, as it seemed, accessible by a natural rocky stairway and a green grassy slope, was a flashing river. It was not wide but even from here Tim could see the joyful commotion of its copious waters. With an exclamation of pleasure he began to descend, and was soon rewarded by sound as well as by sight. The coursing of the water had become distinctly audible, together with a more distant drone of what might be a waterfall; and it occurred to Tim that this was, apart from the cicadas’ song lower down among the trees and a very occasional bird cry like an exclamation of woe, the only sound which the hot quiet landscape had vouchsafed him throughout the whole day.

  The climb was longer than he had expected, as he had to circumvent a gully filled with box and brambles, but at last sweating again and panting with exertion he had crossed the grass and stood upon the very edge of the water. He saw at once that this flashing torrent was no river. It was a canal. Straight as a die, it made its way through the landscape, appearing from below some rocks a little distance off and disappearing further on into a haze of young pines. What a miracle that in this dry dry land all this precious water stayed together rejoicing in its own elemental being! Where he stood the bank was steepish smooth and grassy, the water opaque, a light chalky grey. It gurgled and curled and swirled as it went along producing quick vanishing circlets of foam. It was infinitely inviting to a hot tired man. There was of course no one in sight. Tim dropped his rucksack and tore off his clothes. He sat upon the sweet cool very green grassy verge and slid down into the moving stream.

  Instantly he was seized by a water demon. It was as if two firm light grey hands had gripped his waist, lifted him and conveyed him firmly along, turning him over and ducking him in the process. The stream was very cold. As from a moving train he saw the grassy banks speeding by, he entered the sudden shade of the pines. Swimming was out of the question, no movement of that kind was possible even in embryo. The force of the water drove his arms towards his sides as if the water demon were making of him a mere stick to twist and twirl about. He tried to kick his legs to keep his head up but the speed of the current gave him no purchase. He could not touch bottom. Spewing water from his mouth, Tim collided with something, grasped it, and was abruptly dragged round and jerked against the steep bank by the combined forces of the rushing water and the drooping pine branch which he had managed to take hold of. The branch broke, but a moment later Tim had hold of a bushy thorny acacia, whose ferny leaves were sweeping the water. He was flattened horizontally against the bank, but he held on. He struggled, pressing his knees into underwater grasses. Gradually his limbs obeyed him and with immense relief his feet touched a stony bottom. He clung there, a little out of the force of the stream, panting and resting. Then he managed to pull himself up, holding onto the acacia, then onto the hanging clumps of stout grass. The bank was not quite sheer and there were scooped out sandy footholds. He got up onto the level ground and collapsed, exhausted, buffeted by the water, his hands bleeding from the acacia thorns, his feet bruised by the stones.

  His body was water-cold, he could feel the hot blood on his hands; then gradually the sun warmed him, and he got up. He had seemed to be a long time in the water but he had travelled less than a hundred yards and could now see, through the tufted branches, his clothes and rucksack not far away, fortunately on the same side of the canal. He walked back, testing the wholeness of his body. The sun had dried him by the time he began to dress. He looked down with amazement at the headlong force of the grey curling water in its deep narrow bed. It looked to him now dangerous, terrible. Shouldering his gear he walked along a bit, past the pines to see what the dreadful thing did next. Here of a sudden the canal curved to the right and became narrower, now enclosed by beautiful walls of hard neatly cut grey stone, which gave a clean stony footway at the top. Tim walked on upon the stone edge, looking down. The water was becoming more turbulent, more noisy, swifter, rising up into a curling wave on the inside of the curve. Then Tim saw something which shocked him with cold fear, with that sense of the fragile mortality of his own body, which comes to most of us as rare reminders, too soon forgotten. The water was now racing downhill between its narrowed stony walls. Then, in an ecstasy, it discharged itself, suddenly become glassy smooth, onto a long slope of slimy green stone. Down below, at the foot of the slope, it churned itself into a white chaos of contending foam and then entered the dark hole of a subterranean tunnel. The mouth of the tunnel was just under water and the stream had to stoop and crowd to force its way in. In this manner, with a roar and a rumbling clattering sound it descended into the earth and vanished totally from the sunny landscape. Tim shuddered. He now wanted very much and very quickly to get home.

  It was twilight in Tim’s valley when at last, and unexpectedly, he saw below him the curve of the concealed rivulet and the red tiled roof of the house. He had of course lost himself on the return journey. He forgot about the basket and the fig tree which could have been a guiding mark. The rocks in the setting sun looked flat, their cracks fading into a uniform surface like veined marble. It was difficult to make out formations or judge distances. Once he had to pass through an area of dense scrub oak which he had never seen before. He descended, then found himself having to climb again.

  He felt tired, but, as soon as he was away from the canal, not unduly dismayed by his adventure. It was exciting to think that he had escaped death. If the water demon had carried him just a little further on he would have slid helplessly down that slippery glassy slope and been sucked into that dark turbulent hole. His body might never have been found, even his rucksack might not have been noticed for weeks. He imagined Daisy’s arrival, her annoyance, her puzzlement, then her alarm. Well, that would have been the end of
his troubles and possibly, he reflected, a blessing in disguise for Daisy too. No one else, he thought to himself now a little sadly, would care a fig. It would quite amuse the people at Ebury Street to learn that Tim Reede had mysteriously vanished somewhere in France.

  Tim was relieved to see the valley. He began to descend from the rocks into the vineyard. As soon as he felt underfoot the soft turned soil after the hardness of the rocks he paused to rest. The house was now well in view below him and he looked down upon it. Then he became rigid with fear.

  There appeared to be a person standing on the terrace. The uncertain light seemed to jump and flash before his strained tired eyes. He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked again. The shape had moved. It certainly looked like a human being. Tim had gorged his nervous apprehension with tales of roving thugs and tourists murdered in lonely houses. Such fears regularly returned with the dark. His impulse now was quite simply to hide. He moved cautiously behind a row of vines, crouching and staring down through the young leaves at the maddeningly shadowy and unclear scene below him. He kept blinking his eyes, trying to make out what refused to be clarified. He crept a little way downhill, then crouched back into the open again, the terrace still in view. From there, with puzzled surprise and a little relief, he perceived that the mysterious person was a woman.

  But who on earth could it be? There were plenty of female terrorists after all, often worse than the men. Perhaps they used this usually-empty house as a hide-out? Could it be Daisy arriving early, having let her flat more quickly than she expected? The shadowy figure, now moving again, did not look at all like Daisy. It had however begun to look vaguely familiar. For a horrible moment Tim thought it looked like Anne Cavidge. Then he realized, with an almost equally dismaying shock, that the woman standing upon the terrace was Gertrude.

  Gertrude too, as it grew darker and no one came, had been feeling frightened. The empty house, Tim’s protracted absence, filled her with foreboding. And when at last, looking down the hill, she saw a man emerge from the willows and begin to mount the slope through the olive grove she felt sheer terror until she made out Tim’s friendly wave and heard his voice calling to her.

  Gertrude had been unable to settle down in London. The old misery awaited her at Ebury Street. And then Anne had said she wanted to go away for a time to be alone. Of course she would come back but for a short while she must be somewhere by herself, even if it was only in a hotel in Pimlico. Gertrude thought than Anne might expect her to offer Les Grands Saules as a retreat house, but Gertrude said nothing to Anne about the house in France or about Tim’s being there. In fact she had told nobody about her ingenious plan and felt rather shyly secretive about it. The others might think that Tim had ‘imposed himself’. Perhaps it had been a bad idea after all. Gertrude telephoned Stanley and in the end Anne returned to the cottage in Cumbria. Gertrude then felt she must get out of London. Without Anne she could not endure the flat. There was no one whose presence she wanted there as a companion, though Janet proposed herself, then Rosalind. When Manfred suggested that Gertrude should join him and Mrs Mount on a drive across Europe she rather desperately accepted. The objective of the drive was Manfred’s flat in Rome, but the idea was that they would go slowly and Gertrude should come as far as she pleased.

  Gertrude did not particularly want to be alone with Manfred, of whom in an odd way she felt a little shy, but she found, after they had set off, the company of Mrs Mount rather irksome. Manfred was always very good to the old thing, but Gertrude could have wished for another (Manfred was so exquisitely tactful) chaperone. As soon as she was in France and driving south she began to want to go to Les Grands Saules after all, to know the worst, to see the worst, to confront there in another place, where they had been so happy, the ghost of Guy. She wanted to get it over with and be ready to sell the house. She could not leave the arrangements for the sale to Tim, she would have to do it, sometime or other, herself. Tim’s presence was, in the context of this sudden frantic urge, but a slight embarrassment. Tim was not someone who weighed in any way upon her soul, he was, to Gertrude, a harmless powerless figure. Anyway he would be away painting all day. He would not mind her or she him. She would linger a few days, possibly make arrangements locally about the sale, and then go home again. Once home it would not be long till Anne was back, and meanwhile she could go and stay again with Stanley and Janet, they had asked her often enough and she was really quite fond of the children, especially Ned.

  Gertrude said nothing about Tim to Manfred and Mrs Mount, and she did not allow them to come to the house. (She said she had the key, which she had not, but fortunately Tim had left the place unlocked.) She said she must go there alone, it would be better so. With protests they dropped her in the lane and she heard with relief the sound of the big car dying away.

  Tim’s first feeling on seeing Gertrude there upon the terrace had been: oh crumbs, Gertrude, that’s torn it, she’ll spoil everything, how mean of her to come after all! I wonder who’s with her, I hope they aren’t staying long. Then he thought, God! Daisy! She’ll be here soon, unless I can put her off somehow.

  He mounted the steps to the terrace.

  ‘Oh Tim, I’m so glad to see you! I’ve been quite frightened here, it’s stupid. I thought supposing you didn’t come back, supposing something had happened to you -’

  Gertrude really did seem glad to see him, Tim was amazed. He said, ‘Something nearly did happen to me -’

  Gertrude went on, ‘I’m sorry to turn up without letting you know -’

  ‘But that’s all right -’

  ‘I suddenly felt I had to come here and get it over -’

  ‘Who’s here, who brought you?’

  They were both talking at once.

  ‘Manfred and Mrs Mount dropped me off,’ said Gertrude. ‘They’ve gone on to Italy. I’m sorry to intrude.’

  ‘But I’m delighted -’

  ‘I won’t stay long. I must see people in the village about selling the house. I won’t interrupt your painting.’

  ‘No -of course -’

  ‘I hope you’ve done some. I hope you like it here.’

  ‘I like it very much.’

  ‘Let’s go inside, it’s getting cold. I’m so relieved you’ve come, I thought something might have happened to you.’

  ‘It nearly did -’

  Gertrude went in through the open doors of the sitting-room and switched on a light. It had become quite dark outside while they talked. Tim followed her and closed and bolted the windows and pulled the curtains. It was another scene.

  The sitting-room was large and square with two white plastered walls where the shaggy centipedes sat or scurried like little bits of mobile carpet and lizards sometimes came. The wall where the fireplace was showed the original stone of the farmhouse. The furniture was simple, mostly made of cane, with copious flowery cushions which Gertrude had lovingly made on long winter evenings in London. There was a fine wooden table, made locally and stained with linseed oil, and a matching sideboard upon which there had been a tray with an empty gin bottle and a glass. (Gertrude had removed these.) One picture hung on the wall, a reproduction of a Munch print of three startled girls on a bridge which Janet Openshaw (who quite liked pictures) had given to Guy and Gertrude many years ago at Christmas time.

  Tim, who had hitherto eaten his meals in the kitchen, saw with surprise that a red cloth had been put upon the table and plates, cutlery and glasses laid out neatly for dinner for two. There were even table napkins. It was years since anyone had laid the table for him. It seemed like the work of fairies.

  ‘Gertrude! You’ve laid the table!’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind the tablecloth. We - we always used it so as not to make wine rings on the table. Well, I suppose it - doesn’t matter much now -’

  Tim hoped Gertrude had not noticed the wine rings he had been vaguely aware of making upon the kitchen table where he also recalled he had left rather a mess behind when he set out in the morning.


  ‘Tim, you’ve cut your hand!’

  ‘Yes, I caught hold of a thorny bush, you see -’

  ‘There’s a first aid kit upstairs.’

  ‘I know. I’ll just tidy myself. I’ll be with you in a moment.’

  He slipped out, visited the kitchen where, as he feared, everything had been cleared up and the table scrubbed. (He was usually tidy and grieved over this blot on his reputation.) He ran upstairs, noting Gertrude’s suitcase in the larger bedroom. What on earth was he going to do about Daisy? Could he be sure that Gertrude would go before Daisy arrived? An unexpected meeting between those two women would be a major catastrophe.

  Gertrude called up, ‘Did you have any lunch?’

  ‘A little -’

  ‘I’m cooking spaghetti, is that all right?’

  ‘Marvellous!’

  Tim washed his hands and face. His hands had started to bleed again and he put some plaster on. After some hesitation he changed his shirt. He put a jacket on. The evening was cool. He had brought no tie. He combed his hair. What a pickle! He came downstairs a little self-consciously.

  Gertrude too seemed embarrassed. She had set out wine and a jug of water, also bread, butter, cheese and apples. She was just ladling out the spaghetti which was liberally dosed with olive oil and tomato sauce and basil. She had made a salad of green peppers (Tim had bought them in the village) to go with it.