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.