A Maggot - John Fowles (18 page)

Q. He made much of this matter of ciphering?

A. No, sir. As one, might speak of a curiosity.

Q. He would claim to have penetrated some secret of
nature, is it not so?

A. I would not say that, Mr Ayscough; rather that he
had glimpsed such a secret, yet had not fully explored it.

Q. Did you not think it odd that he should follow
these pursuits, and bring this travelling library, if the journey was
for the purpose alleged?

A. A trifle, sir. The more we travelled, the more I
perceived he was not as ordinary men, let alone as ordinary lovers. I
supposed him more serious in his scientific pursuits than he cared
openly to allow, and intended not to deprive himself of them in the
exile consequent on an elopement

Q. I have one last question here. Did you see in this
chest an instrument, that had appearance as of a clock, with many
wheels, and was made of brass?

A. No, sir.

Q. Yet you saw this chest open, you say?

A. Always full, and with loose papers scattered on
top. I was never enabled to see all it held.

Q. Nor saw such an instrument being used?

A. No, sir.

Q. Let us come to Amesbury.

A. I should remark something else first, that passed
at Basingstoke.

Q. Very well.

A. It concerned the maid Louise. Jones told me that
she too would have a chamber of her own, and not sleep with the inn
maids, as is the custom. Nor would she dine at their table, like the
rest, she must have her victuals taken upstairs to her by the mute.
Furthermore, that he saw the man was deep smitten by her, which he
found strange. We discussed upon it, yet could come to no conclusion
then.

Q. Seemed she smitten in return?

A. That he could not determine, sir, except that she
did riot openly rebuff him. There is more to tell on this. I but
mention it as it came.

Q. Did she always thus - sleep and eat apart?

A. She did, sir, where such a chamber was to be
found. For in one, it was Wincanton. there was some dispute upon such
an unaccustomed demand, such as that Mr B.'s authority was sought,
and he said she should have as she demanded. I saw this not, Jones
told me of it after.

Q. To Amesbury.

A. As I told before we came there Mr B. said we
should stay there, though we might have ridden further. That he
wished to see the temple and after we had dined I might if I wished
ride out with him over the downs to view it. The day was fine, the
distance small, I had some curiosity to see the place, though I
confess I found it less imposing and ruder than I had imagined. You
have visited it, sir?

Q. I have seen it graved. Your servants came with
you?

A. Only Dick. Mr B. and I dismounted and walked among
the stones. To my surprise he seemed familiar with the place, though
he had said he had no more seen it before than I. Q. How is that?

A. Why, sir, he began to expatiate upon what it was
conjectured its barbarous religion had been, the purpose of its
entabled pillars, how it would have appeared were it not half ruined.
I know not what else. I asked him with some astonishment how he had
come to this knowledge, whereat he smiled and said, Not by the black
arts, I assure you, Lacy. And he said he had met the Reverend Mr
Stukeley of Stamford, the antiquary, and seen his drawings and
chorographies, and discussed with him. He spoke of other books and
discourses upon the monument that he had read, yet that he found Mr
Stukeley's notions more just and worthy of attention.

Q. He found his tongue there then?

A. Indeed, sir. He did speak like a true virtuoso. I
confess I was the more struck by his learning than by the place
itself. He asked me, as it were in passing, if I gave credit to the
belief of the ancients in auspicious days. I said I had not thought
on the matter. Very well, he said, then by contrary: should you
happily open a new piece upon a Friday that was also thirteenth of
the month? I confessed I should rather not, though I hold such things
superstition. And he said, As do most men, but it may be they are
wrong. He then took me a step or two aside and pointed to a great
stone some fifty paces off, and informed me that upon Midsummer's Day
the sun would rise upon that stone, from the temple's centre where we
stood. Some other learned writer, whose name I do not recall, had
found it so; that the temple was so set upon its ground that it must
always match this one day, which could not be by chance. Then lie
said, I will tell you this, Lacy, these ancients knew a secret I
should give all I possess to secure. They knew their life's meridian,
and I still search mine. In all else the} lived in darkness, he said,
yet this great light they had; while : live in light, and stumble
after phantoms. I remarked that apprehended the charming object of
our journey, from what he had vouchsafed, was no phantom. At which he
seemed somewhat set back, sir, but then smiled and said, You an
right, I am wandered into dark pastures. We walked some paces in
silence, then he resumed. Yet is it not strange, hi said, that these
rude savages may have entered a place when we still fear to tread,
and have known what we can bare begin to comprehend? Why, to which
even that great philosopher Sir Isaac Newton, was but a helpless
child? I said I did no understand what arcane knowledge this might
be, Mr Ays cough. To which his answer was: why, that God is eternal
motion, Lacy. This is his first orrery. Know you the true name for
this pile? Chorum Giganteum, the dance of th, Gogs and Magogs. The
country people say it will not dance again until the Day of
Judgement. But it spins and dance now, Lacy, if we had only eyes to
see it.

Q. What made you of this?

A 'Twas said lightly, sir, as if he mocked me for my
ignorance. Which, albeit in the same light spirit, I taxed him with.
He assured me not, he meant no railing, there was truth in what he
said. For we mortals are locked as at Newgate, he said within the
chains and bars of our senses and our brief allotted span, and as
such are blind; that for God all time is as one eternally now,
whereas we must see it as past, present, future as in a history. Then
he gestured about us, at the stones, and said, Do you not admire
that, perhaps before Rome, before Christ Himself, these savages who
set these stones knew something even our Newtons and Leibnizes cannot
reach Then he likened mankind to an audience in a playhouse, who knew
not of actors, and had no notion that they acted to fixed and written
lines, and even less that behind the actors lay an author and a
manager,. To which I demurred, sir, for I said we most certainly knew
there was an Author behind all, and likewise His sacred text. At
which he smiled again and said he did not deny the existence of such
an Author, yet must beg leave to doubt our present notions of him;
for he said it Would be juster to say we were like the personages in
a tale or novel, that had no knowledge they were such; and thought
ourselves most real, not seeing we were made of imperfect words and
ideas, and to serve other ends, far different from what we supposed.
We might imagine this great Author of all as such and such, in our
own image, sometimes cruel, sometimes merciful, as we do our kings.
Notwithstanding in truth we knew no more of him and his ends than of
what lay in the moon, or the next world. Well, Mr Ayscough, I would
argue upon this, for it seemed he spoke in contempt of established
religion now. Then of a sudden, as if he would talk on such matters
no more, he beckoned to his servant who waited nearby; and told me he
must make some measurements, upon Mr Stukeley's request. That they
would be tedious, and he would not presume upon my patience to wait
while they were taken.

Q. You were given your conge?

A. So I took it to be, sir. As a man might say to
himself, I talk overmuch, it is better I find an excuse to be silent
now.

Q. What took you him to mean by this great secret we
cannot reach?

A. I must leap ahead, sir, to answer that.

Q. Then leap.

A. I must tell you I saw not Mr B. further that day.
The morrow I seized my opportunity as we rode past the monument on
our way west and would have him speak further of his views concerning
the ancients and in what their secret lay; to which he answered, They
knew they knew nothing. Then he said, I answer you in riddles, is it
not so? To which I agreed, sir, to make him expatiate the further.
And he said, We moderns are corrupted by our past, our learning, our
historians; and the more we know of what happened, the less we know
of what will happen; for as I say, we are like the personages of a
tale,

fixed it must seem by another intention, to be good
or evil, happy or unhappy, as it falls. Yet they who set and dressed
those stones lived before the tale began, Lacy, in a present that had
no past, such as we may hardly imagine to ourselves. And next he
spake of Mr Stukeley's belief, that it was they called the Druids who
had built this monument and that they came hence first from the Holy
Land, bearing within them the first seed of Christianity; that for
himself, however, he believed they had pierced some part of the
mystery of time. For the Roman historians, tho' their enemies, had
said as much, that is that they could see into the future by reading
the flight of birds and the form of livers, yet he believed them far
more subtle than that, as their monument showed, if one could
contrive to read it right, in mathematick terms. Which is why he took
his measurements. And he said, I believe they knew the book and story
of this world, to the very last page, as you may know your Milton-
for I carried his great work in my pocket, Mr Ayscough, and Mr B. had
inquired of what I read.

Q. What said you to that?

A. I did admire, if they could read the future, that
they had been conquered by the Romans, and disappeared from this
world. To which he said, They were a nation of seers and innocent
philosophers, no match for the Romans in war; and then he said, Was
Christ Himself not crucified?

Q. Did he not say earlier to you that man is able to
choose and so change his course - now the very opposite, that his
history is predestined, if it may be read in days to come, and we are
no more free than the fixed characters of a play or book already
written?

A. Mr Ayscough, your observation occurred to me also,
and I remarked upon it. To which he answered, that we may choose in
many small things as I may choose how I play a part, how dress for
it, how gesture, and the rest; but yet must at the end, in greater
matters, obey that part and portray its greater fate, as its author
creates. And he said although he might believe in a general
providence, he might not in a particular one, that God was in each;
for he would not believe that God was in the most vicious and
depraved as He was in the good and worthy, nor that He would allow
those He inspired, who were innocent, to suffer the pain and misery
that they most often did, such as we must see all around us.

Q. All this is most dangerous doctrine.

A. I must agree, sir. I tell you as it was put to me.

Q. Very well. We left you riding back to Amesbury.

A. I there came upon Jones, who was fishing for roach
in the stream, and sat with him an hour or more, the evening being
fine. When we returned to where we lodged, I found a note from Mr B.
in my room, to ask me to excuse his presence at supper, as he felt
greatly fatigued, and would straight to bed.

Q. What made you of that?

A. Nothing at that time, sir. I have not finished. I
was tired myself and was to bed early, and slept deep. Which I should
not have had I known Jones shall come to me early that next morning,
with a most strange tale. He had slept in the same place as Dick.
Just before midnight, for he said the bells sounded not a quarter
after, he was awake and heard Dick quit the chamber. He thought, to
answer nature. But no, just as the bells strike, he hears sounds
below in the yard. Whereat he goes to the window, and makes out three
figures; there was no moon, yet light enough for this. One is Dick,
who leads two horses with stifled hooves upon the cobbles. Another is
his master. The third, the maid. He was sure, these only. I
questioned him closely.

Q. They rode out?

A. They did, sir. He thought to rouse me, but saw
they took no baggage, and resolved to watch for their return. He was
waking for an hour, then Morpheus conquered him. At cockcrow he
wakes, and finds Dick asleep, as if nothing had passed.

Q. Did he not dream it?

A. I think not, sir. In company he will boast and
tell tales enough; I am certain not to me, on such an occasion.
Besides, he was alarmed for us both, for a suspicion had come upon
him. I must tell you, Mr Ayscough, that I had watched the maid more
close during that previous day, as we rode. Now I did not believe
Jones's story of seeing her at the bagnio. We perforce come to know
such women only too well in the theatre. She had none of their airs
and impudence. Yet I found something knowing in her, for all her
modesty of manner. I perceived also Jones was right concerning Dick:
there was that in his eyes would have devoured her alive, had he
dared. Now I found it strange she was not offended, no, seemed even
kind to this attention, would smile at him on occasion. It seemed
against nature to me, sir, as if she played a part, to mislead us.