The Quick and the Dead (11 page)

Repressing the exclamation that came to my lips, I turned back into the room with a quick glance at my mother, and almost cried aloud in my horror when I discovered her propped up on one elbow, narrowly watching me. Did she know? How could she know? We stared at each other in a silence of mutual suspicion. Her intentness unmanned me, and I flinched.

At that sign she struck. ‘He's there, isn't he!' It was like an accusation.

I quavered ‘Yes', and she sank back on her pillow. ‘Yes,' I said again, in a jauntier tone. ‘The stupid old man!' My mother made no answer. Her eyes were shut; her body trembled. Distraught, irresolute, I darted to the window again. The street was now empty. ‘Mother, he's gone!' Tiptoeing back to the bed I laid a timid hand on the shape she made of the bedclothes. ‘Don't worry about that old lunatic. We won't let him hurt you. And he's gone now, anyway.'

I waited, gazing down at her. And when at last she opened her eyes and looked at me, I read in her smile, her sad twisted smile, that her trust in my veracity was dead.

Dusk had fallen, and all colour but a drab funereal purple was draining from the sky, when I knocked at the door of Mr Fleer's house. There was rain in the air, and a breath of disquiet was abroad, whimpering and whinnying about the gaunt building. I could discern no light in the windows; and the large garden I had just traversed, the narrow avenue of cypress and yew that led from the outer gate, spoke intimately, to my imagination, of desolate things. The gloom of the approach had indeed somewhat unnerved me, taken the fine edge off my boldness; but it was too late to turn back; nor, remembering in what plight I had left my mother, could I have wished to do so. I knocked again, this time more clamorously; and while I waited I tried to rehearse in my mind what I should say to the man when I found him. There was ample time, as it proved, for this exercise; for it required yet a third knocking to get any response from within this dark house. At last, listening with strained senses, I heard the sound of a bolt being stealthily drawn, and
after another interval of suspense the door began moving away from me and a head came peering round its edge.

‘Who's that?' said a frightened voice.

The woman's fear infected me, but I stood my ground. ‘Good evening, Mrs Pring.' For this, I guessed, must be Mrs Pring, the newly-instated housekeeper. ‘I'm Claud Calamy, and I want to see Mr Fleer.'

‘Eh?'

‘I want to see Mr Fleer. Is he in?'

‘No, he's not.'

I saw my mistake, and anger at myself gave me new courage. Thrusting out a hand to prevent the door being shut in my face I took a decisive step forward.

‘I want to see Mr Fleer,' I repeated mulishly. ‘And I mean to see him.'

She pushed at the door, but my foot was in the way. ‘Go away,' gasped Mrs Pring. ‘You're the shoemaker's boy, ain't you? Yes, I've heard of you. I wonder you dare show your face. Go home to your wicked mother.'

In an agony of hatred and fear I cried out: ‘My … my mother's dying, and I want to see Mr Fleer.' I pushed at the woman with all my force, and she staggered back, screaming murder. ‘G … get out of the way!' I added, almost in tears. She was already out of my
way, saving her breath for a second scream. We were in a dark hall, invisible to each other, but with my mind's eye I saw the woman, old and evil like a witch, crouching and cursing in her corner against the wall. Suddenly she stopped calling out, and a strange silence fell. I was speechless, trying to collect myself, trying to form a plan. In some distant part of the house a door slammed, and heavy footsteps came padding towards us. A sense of nightmare invaded me, and the fingers of my right hand clutched the door lest I should be cut off from my means of escape. Time moved now with such agonizing slowness that I was forced to fight my battle anew in every interval between one echoing footfall and the next. But the coming of light released me from my worst and nameless fear, the fear born of darkness. The child dwindled; something of manhood returned; was I not fifteen? Mr Fleer, with an oil lamp held high in his hand, came to a pause; his small blinking eyes peered down upon us from his circle of light.

‘What's the matter here, Mrs Pring?' In that sudden brightness, every pore in his sagging flesh was magnified to my perception. It was an old face, a dead face; yet, as the bright little eyes bore witness, there was a life
imprisoned in it. ‘Can't you speak, woman? Who's this boy, and what does he want?'

‘I'm Claud Calamy,' I said, surprised by the loudness of my voice. ‘And I've come to see you.'

‘Ah, Claud my boy, it's you, is it? And how is Mother?'

In my simplicity I had expected a snarling answer; this smoothness disconcerted me. For a moment the truculent invader became a diffident schoolboy, and I felt myself blushing.

Mr Fleer did not press his question. ‘Well, well, you'll find your tongue presently, no doubt. Come along to my study and we'll have a talk together.' He glanced at the gaping woman. ‘And, ah, Mrs Pring,' he said, with suave politeness, ‘don't you think we might have a little illumination in the hall?
I
rather think so.'

With a gesture to me he turned on his heel and went down the passage. I followed him to his study, a room papered in dull red, hung with dark looming pictures, and filled (for me) with the sense of a repulsive secret. Mr Fleer urged me into a fireside chair, but he himself remained standing, hovering unpleasantly near me. I stared wretchedly into the fire, which, in any other room but this, and
with any other company but Mr Fleer's, would have been a cheerful sight. All my prepared speeches seemed now the callowest melodrama: not a phrase of them could I bring myself to utter. Yet speak I must, and to the point; for I had fully persuaded myself that my mother's life depended upon the issue of this encounter. But before I could resolve the matter, and before I could rise from the chair to prevent him, softly as a cat Mr Fleer came nearer still, a hand fell on my shoulder, and three moist plump fingers under my chin tilted my face upwards.

‘My boy,' he said, with a sleek sorrowful smile, ‘I'm glad you came to see me. Poor child of sin! God loves you. Never fear.'

I pushed his hand away and jumped up. ‘I've come to tell you,' I said stiffly, ‘I've come to tell you that my mother's very ill. And will you please leave her alone.'

‘Did your dear mother send you?' he asked sweetly.

I shook my head, speechless. But after a pause I managed to blurt out: ‘Will you please stop worrying her. I saw you this evening in the road. It's you that's made her ill.' At this point it was in my programme to threaten him with the direst vengeance. But the words would not come; for with my miserable
adolescent self-consciousness I was afraid—afraid not of anything he could do or say, but just of looking silly, of betraying myself for the child I was. ‘So,' I ended lamely, ‘you'd jolly well better stop it.'

He smiled sadly, forgivingly. ‘Come, let us reason together, saith the Lord. You're only a child, Claud, but you're not too young, my boy, to know what sin is. Ah, never too young for that! We are all born in sin, every one of us. We all need to be washed in the Blood of the Lamb. But you, Claud Calamy—you are a child of wrath in a special sense. It has pleased God to visit you with a peculiar affliction, making you a shame and a reproach to the mother that bore you. It were better, far better, that you had never been born. Better that a millstone had been tied about your neck. For you are the fruit of fornication, Claud—the child of adulterous lust.'

The reverend gentleman seemed to get great pleasure of these resounding phrases, but to me they meant little enough. The substance of his remarks was too warmly muffled in biblical rhythms to have much meaning for me. What most strongly affected me was not what he said so much as the lascivious unction of his tone and the moist tenderness with which he gazed at me.

I got up from my chair. ‘It's time I went home.'

‘Tell me, my boy,' said Mr Fleer eagerly. ‘Did your mother send you with a message?'

‘No, she didn't,' I answered. ‘I told you before.'

His face came nearer. ‘Are you sure?' he said coaxingly.

‘Quite sure. She doesn't know I'm here.'

His eyes became smaller and sharper; and suddenly from his grinning mouth there issued a snarl of anger. ‘You're lying, boy. You're lying, I tell you. She
did
send you. She wants me. She begs me to come. She begs me to come and pray with her.'

The sudden assault almost bereft me of my wits. I could only shout back at him, in as large a voice as I could muster: ‘She didn't. She hates you.'

He, too, was now on his feet. I faced him warily, clenching my fists in the belief that he intended me some mischief. But his quivering face composed itself, and his voice grew sleek again. He held up a deprecating hand. ‘The mercy of the Lord is infinite,' he said. ‘Perhaps there is yet time. If only she will repent of her sin, He will forgive her. Let us pray.'

The next moment he was raising his arms and fixing his gaze on the ceiling.

‘I'm going,' I said rudely.

Already he was praying. I tried not to listen to the prayer, but what I heard of it reminded me of that fantastic scene in the Bethel a year ago. I cursed myself for my folly in coming, and, having come, for my juvenile ineffectuality. The thought darted into my mind that I might kill him as he stood there praying: one well-aimed blow with that heavy poker, and then … I shuddered away from the thought, and stood in stupid discomfort till the praying came to an end.

And now his eyes were upon me again; his small, cat's eyes. I was at once aware of them, though at the moment my own gaze was idly following a moth that whirled round the lamp seeking its own destruction.

‘Yes,' said Mr Fleer, ‘there's a lesson for us there. The moth to the flame, the sinner to his sin.' He moved stealthily to the lamp, with arms stretched out and hands curving for the capture. Then, like a striking snake, one hand shot out; and it was as if I myself were a moth fluttering in the net of his fingers. He grinned with tender triumph. ‘Ah, Claud! Do you know what the Lord has in store for the unrepentant? Do you know what happens to liars, little boy? Do you know what will
happen to your dear mother if she dies in her sin? Look. I'll show you.'

Holding it delicately by the head between finger and thumb he held his captive at a distance of some nine inches over the chimney of the lamp.

‘Burn and burn and burn,' he said, with gleaming eyes. ‘Burn and burn, but never be consumed.'

I felt as if it were the body of my mother that he was torturing. ‘Kill it, you beast!' He snatched his hand away and laughed at me with undisguised pleasure. ‘You've
half
killed it,' I stammered feebly. ‘Kill it out.' His smile grew beatific, and, with his eyes intently watching me, he moved his hand forward to continue his demonstration of God's love.

Pity for the moth was lost in loathing of its persecutor. I ran to the table, and, snatching up the lamp with both hands, retreated with it. ‘That's right, my dear,' said Fleer, pressing close upon me. ‘You hold the lamp, and we'll learn our lesson together.' I backed towards the window, but he followed remorselessly. The lamp was heavy, but somehow I contrived to support it with one hand while the other clenched ready to strike that face upon which, in my inflamed fancy, was
now written all the evil of the world. He came so close that oil from the slanting lamp dripped on his clothes. ‘Get back, get back, I'll kill you.' His fingers snapped at my clenched right hand; I jerked it back and struck out blindly with all my strength.

The crash of the lamp on the floor, the sound of splintered glass, seemed to wake me from a trance of terror. Without understanding, with a kind of sick impersonal curiosity, I saw a great tongue of flame fawning up the legs of Mr Fleer. Only his scream startled me, so that I jumped out of his reach. And now the window curtains were alight; and Fleer, with strange animal noises, was rolling on the floor, writhing in a lake of fire. I jumped across the room, flung open the door, and yelled for help. My voice came back to me derisively. In this part of the house there was a rush of cold air. Running up the passage, I found that the front door had been left open, and had not the wit to shut it. So I turned back again, still yelling for Mrs Pring. Not only had Mrs Pring neglected to shut the door: she had ignored her master's instructions about putting a light in the hall. The place was in darkness. I cannot recall the details of my search for the woman, for there was the frenzy of fear in everything I did. But I
came at last on a door that opened on the basement stairs, and in the basement, asleep in her kitchen, I found Mrs Pring; found her, shook her, and dragged her screaming up to the ground floor. When we reached the stairhead the noise of the fire was like the growling voice and snapping jaws of a jungle beast; and the smoke blinded us. But I turned my face to meet the wind, and, half-dragging the woman with me, came at last to the open door.

And now my mind darts back, once more, to still earlier times. I am a small child, lying wakeful in my mother's bed at Lutterthorpe. I have been awake since cockcrow, and in my fancy I see that strutting fellow with his red comb and his raw bright eye. We are lying back to back, my mother and I; and within twelve inches of my nose is the patterned wallpaper with its twisting vines. It pleases me to pretend that those branches of blue grapes are real, and without moving an inch from where I lie, without even raising my head from the soft pillow, I stretch out a hand, pluck the grapes, and eat them, sucking the fruit from its skin and delicately spitting out the stones. Then I must climb the branches of the vine in order to look over the wall on which (so I have decided) it grows. But while this adventure is going on, quite other things are happening in the golden country that I have in my mind. At the moment, my Cocka-doodledoo is king of that country, for it was by the sound of his voice, as by a powerful magic, that the picture lying fallow in my mind, the
map of all my marvels and delights, was suddenly quickened into life. The sun shines, the hedges burst into bloom, the birds chatter, the shrewmice follow their quivering noses here and there and in and out among the tall stalks of the wheatfield. But my mother does not wake. Round and round move the clouds in the blue sky; sunlight dances like rain on the duckpond; the outlines of the waggon in the farmyard, the hard cool waggon so good to touch, are brushed with gold; the sow grunts, turning over in her slothfulness, and a dozen little pigs with curling tails fasten themselves to her many dugs; there is the creak of a gate opening, the scrape of a hobnail boot on the cobbles, the clatter of milking-pails. The cat, each hair of its fur tipped with fire, stretches itself, yawns, and with arching back and elongated legs stalks across the yard; farm-buildings—cowsheds, stables, granary, barn—loom up stark and real, quiet but very conscious, in the morning light; and on the rim of the upland meadows stand the trees, startled and glad, dark against a rosy sky. Light streams from the sky; and light, in green shoots, breaks through the earth's crust to meet this downpour. Seasons wax and wane and mingle. The ploughland changes from brown to green, from green to yellow. The
manly wheat stands stiff in the sunlight, or rustles dryly in a warm wind; the oats, at every breath, yield delicately, trembling in the day's radiance; the long bearded barley nods numerous acquiescence to the visiting air; and the valley meadow is like a water of rippling green. Daisies are starry in the grass; bleating lambs, on their long stiff legs, caper stiltedly about their mothers; the dog barks for his breakfast; and Cockadoodledoo, standing on tiptoe, raising his wings, and opening wide his beak at the sky, utters again that immortal challenge. But my mother does not wake.