The Black Fox A Novel Of The Seventies (24 page)

superiority of the male. A moment after she was glad with all her heart, greatly relieved, in fact, that her brother was not with her.

The postscript ran: "I trust you will pardon the eccentricity of my request, but it would be, I ask you to believe, of the utmost service to us"—"a few of had been added above the line and then scratched out—"if you could manage tomorrow morning to be in Sheriton's Bookshop at 10:30 precisely. I will be there myself. I need not be at the beginning of the conference session as your brother will be taking the chair for me. It would be highly advisable that this should not be mentioned to him."

She realized how difficult it would be for a University Don to write such a note. Her lips, against her will, again curled, as she thought of the outward absurdity of an assignation in a famous book-shop made with her, an elderly maiden lady, by a man whom she had only once met, for the first time this week, and then only bowed to. And, the final touch of the grotesque, that he should not only warn her to be secret but that he had plotted that her chaperone should be kept out of the way. Then the involuntary humour released its gall as she realized that if this was a note from a man not off his head then only one other alternative was open. What other interpretation could the words hold? What but a matter, if not yet of life or death, at least of sanity or madness, could make a learned fellow of an ancient college of a famous university write to a spinster whom he really hardly knew by sight, urging such an odd request?

However, the first confirmation came true enough. Her brother entered into their sitting room just after she had put the note in the pocket of her gown, and volunteered that the conference had done him the honour of asking him to preside at the first part of the final session.

"Anyhow," he added, "McPhail tells me it will be a kindness to him as unavoidably he finds he has an engagement that might make him slightly late."

The next morning she walked with him to the hall where the meetings were being held and after leaving him retraced her steps quickly. It was but some five minutes away to the big bookstore.

Famous book-shops succeed in blending something of the atmosphere of an antique market with that of the quietest of universities. They are what libraries would like to be but too often fail, falling off the fine edge, either into a dusty neglect where the silver-fishes play or into a harried dog-eared traffic. Sheriton's had long achieved its balance. The books lay out on tables, spacious tables with thick green baize cloths. The books stood in black oak bookcases that rose till, like Atlas, they shouldered the ceilings, up to which you might send learned mercuries scaling to fetch you down some tractate that you and some man in Valparaiso alone want but want enough to make it precious. The bookcases protruded and quartered and octaved the floor-space, making the floor-plan like the wards of a key, with these wooden inner walls running out and enclosing small bays wherein you might stand encased in books and, at the opposite end from the defile through which you entered, might gain light from a window again framed and encroached upon by books that seemed jealous even of the very light needed to read them.

As soon, however, as Miss Throcton entered she caught sight of Dr. McPhaiL He had, too, that look of the conspirator that marks and gives away the innocent the moment they deviate, even for the noblest causes, from disingenuousness. He was peeping round the side of one of die outstanding bookcases and, on catching her eye, though he blushed miserably, he felt he must signal to her.

If any of the clerks saw this slightly odd gesture no doubt they assumed that he was filled with that secret glee that rises when you have found a tract that no one else wants, or will want, till you have written your paper on it and its incomprehensible

neglect. No doubt she was his favourite student, or rather (for she was certainly his age) one of those athenaphoebes, lady scholars who, denied the recognition of a degree, have to convey their contributions to learning through an accredited male. No doubt they \vere about to share the joy of a co-operative triumph.

When, however, she had followed him into the depths of his chosen cove his confusion grew. Clearly, now that the moment had come he could not bring himself to say what he had so prepared himself to tell her. She saw that she must now make the opening.

"It is kind of you to have noted that my brother has been overtired of late. Indeed he felt all the more free to accept your kind invitation to this conference because it was clear he needed a change. For an active mind," she went on, for her listener showed no inclination to interrupt her, "the best rest is a change of interest. We both know how his Arabic studies have been the joy of his life. And I would like to tell you how much 4is meeting has pleased him, yes, and refreshed him."

She paused; surely this should reassure Dr. McPhail at least to the point of making it possible for him to say what he had planned and plotted. To put him more at his ease she had avoided looking at him as she spoke and now glancing up she found that he had turned his back on her. But after peering at the window for a moment or two he evidently had succeeded in composing a sentence that was at least utterable with the aid of a number of throat clearances.

"I know oratio recta is said to be the sign of a bore. But, if accurate, which of course is seldom"—his nervousness made him titter—"it is most informative. I am therefore asking only that you would listen to my report, every detail of which is certainly impressed on my memory. Then if you judge that I have been wholly inept in this matter I trust you will leave without questioning my wish to be of use."

The stilted opening seemed to give him self-assurance. For after that he succeeded in acting up to his word as to the style of his narrative.

"We have, as you know, the honour of Sheik Reshad ibn-Khaldun's presence with us. The fact that he was able to visit England was the chief reason for my so hastily summoning all the lovers of Arabic on whom I could lay hands. As I believed he would be, he has proved a star on our voyages. I so preface my report because otherwise I could not have listened to what I am now about to repeat. It would have been wholly impossible for me to retail it to you. He and I were together as yesterday our noon conference closed. He had been taking the chair for us and I had been seated on the rostrum beside him acting as secretary and reporter. As the members were adjourning he turned and touched me as I was completing an entry. He said almost in my ear, 'Do you see that man?' I looked up. I saw unmistakably at whom he was looking. I replied, 'He has been introduced to you and has spoken several times. You recall he is. . . ' He cut me short. That man is followed.' 'Followed?' I asked, a little absent-mindedly, I fear, for I was writing at the time and, believe me, had not an idea as to what he could mean. 'That man is closely followed,' he went on. 'I saw the dark jackal in his shadow.' 'I don't understand,' I said with complete frankness. I wish he had not felt he must"—Dr. McPhail paused at the word —"enlighten me further."

Miss Throcton put out her hand and held onto one of the book shelves.

"I could hardly believe my ears. 'He has put evil on another,' the Sheik continued quite quietly, 'and it is now following him until it comes up with him.''My dear Sheik,' I exclaimed, for we are very close to each other, and he knows the—well I may as well say it—the more than regard, the reverence in which I hold him, 'My dear Sheik, really that is, I can assure you, nonsense. It's just one of the things that can't be true. You must remember he is a Dean—it is a position of great prestige.' I even attempted, for I was so at a loss, a small weak jest. 'You may not need to be told that we seldom seem to produce sanctity, but the reason for that, many have thought, is because we so heartily pursue respectability. And a Deanery is, I repeat, a station which only the most highly respectable can ambition or retain.' 'How did he come to it?' 'By preferment,' I answered at once. 'It, like all the Deaneries, is a gift of the Crown. And I must say that whereas in our time a scandalous appointment can hardly be made, though holiness may be passed over, scholarship may not only apply but may expect to be called. In this case pre-eminently, as in many others, a scholar of high excellence has been chosen for recognition.' "

" 'I am not questioning—and would not—his intellectual power. Be assured I have judged of that. Further, I have not only found it powerful. I have detected in it a quality that might have suggested to me the very diagnosis which now my inner sight has confirmed. It is his wish for recognition that gave him his present place. Ambition, and the power which it has to raise us high in this world, can always and with equal power drive us to the brink of the unseen precipice of the world unseen.' "

" 'But even if there could be the slightest truth in this,' I asked him, for by now I was alarmed (after all, he knows more than we of books and words can ever learn), 'even then we could do nothing about it.' There is still a little time,' he answered, and then asked, 'Is there no one in this world who still cares for him, has a real devotion to him? Of course he may not have kept any such contacts. It is the danger of the lonely arrogant soul. In its crisis it finds itself without allies, without sureties. It is through such selfless loving-kindness and through that alone that there is a hope of making a passage to deliver his beleaguered soul.' "

The reporter had evidently come to the end of his narrative.

Miss Throcton heard him sigh deeply, that sigh which is half exhaustion brought on by bewilderment and half relief at the discharge of a repugnant task.

'That is why I ventured to send for you."

Dr. McPhail's colophon obviously called on her to reply.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked distressedly.

What was the use of this poor little man pouring out all this to her? Granted it was true, and of course in some horrible irrational way it was, it must be, what could he or she do about it? It was, then, with something that was more surprise, but had in it a species of relief, that she heard him reply promptly.

'The Sheik says that he will speak with you in the garden at the party tomorrow."

The reply, however, with its tone of superior arrangement, the moment she reflected on it increased her surprise and lessened the small element of relief.

"But I don't know that I want to speak with him," she said defensively. And as the horrible absurdity of the situation grew clearer to her, she added, "I mean how can a complete stranger, a ... a ... foreigner"—her exhaustion, coming on her long fear, made it condense into a sudden uncontrollable irritability— "... I mean how dare he have such suspicions!"

The moment she had permitted herself the irrational relief of trying to put out of countenance her informant, who had told her more truth than she could bear, she felt ashamed. He was watching her now. The fact that he had discharged his task had given him his courage. And so he was able to judge hers.

"I realize, Miss Throcton, I realize how utterly painful this must be to you. And"—he turned aside for a moment to pat a broad calf-bound folio on its back—"may I be permitted to say how much the thought of your courage heartened me in my attempt to be of use and my determination—in which I had the Sheik's strong counsel—not to shirk, as I would have wished,

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the discharge of this duty. It is therefore that I would beg you to consider the two things which finally decided me to take this unprecedented step of sending for you: Firstly, I have never known the Sheik to be mistaken in his diagnoses—yes, that is the word—and, secondly, I have known his advice neglected, neglected with the gravest consequences."

The offer was still one she would have given much to be able to refuse. But now she saw that choice was no longer offered her. Here, however painful it might be, lay an offer of help. To try and disregard it would be to show that she, like her brother, no longer had the power to face facts but in their determination not to recognize the change in their world, the successful intrusion from another, were taking refuge in a fantasy of common sense.

The kindly common-sense world of "average sensual people," the quiet highly diluted piety of the Close, these things she and her brother might regain. But today they were as banished from it as Adam and Eve from Paradise. She must face the fact—call it madness, molestation, possession. Words didn't matter. Only the price of the return, the redemptive price had now to be asked. "Thank you very much," she said. "Please understand I realize what this must have cost you to perform. I will certainly and gladly consult with the Sheik."

As they parted in the main room of the great shop, Dr. Me-Phail said, t( I will see that a couple of chairs are put under some trees that are at the border of the farther lawn. You will be able to be quiet there."

It was a lovely afternoon, the year having reached that turn in its tide when summer's salience and autumn's recoil are balanced, a day when it seems possible to believe that the climate has settled down and might give up having seasons and changes, give up growth and decay and stabilize in a quiet perpetuation of unhurried beauty* Miss Throcton had found the two chairs, had been found, served and left supplied by a tea-distributing

waiter. She was glad the main group was still round the long table-clothed benches on which silver cake-dishes and tea and coffee urns rose like miniature spires and domes. Her eye had just wandered, climbing up the creeper-covered walls, to the still sky, when she heard a voice beside her.

"These days when Nature seems to pause are of course far more significant than winter's storms or the splendour of spring. It is not really the climate of the land 'where it was always afternoon.' It is that the veil between that which does not move and our periodic selves is now thin."

The voice spoke English with that perfection ot accent hardly ever achieved either by those who have learned it after they have ceased to be children or those who have carelessly misspoken it from infancy. She turned to see looking down at her a man dressed in a dark robe that passed in this group where a number of the residents were wearing their gowns. What could not be passed over were his eyes. Indeed she was held by them so that afterwards she found she was unable to recall his other features. Was his beard grey or black, his nose straight or hooked, his complexion olive or pale? Even of the eyes themselves she could not remember their tint. He sat down beside her and in the same quiet almost reminiscent tone remarked, "You are of course sister to Dean Throcton. Further, you brought him here, by the mercy of the All Merciful while time remained. When I left Egypt I questioned my soul why it should warn me that grave necessity lay behind my intention. I had duties in regard to my religious concerns which called for a visit to London—now that your country by the mysterious powers of money and machinery has reversed the miracle of Moses by joining two seas and so has made a water highway across the desert. I had the pleasure of this extemporized conference and generous hospitality to expect, and my expectations have been more than met. But neither business nor pleasure could have given me that deep sense of urgency. Now I know. And this particular day, yes it is fitting, lucky as the ignorant say, auspicious as you might put it, blessed would be my term."