Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (401 page)

“And very fine clothes they are,” the Lady Amoureuse exclaimed. “Oh, holy man, they are the very habits that were worn by our glorious master, the Knight of Coucy, upon the occasion of the great supper after his jousting with Sir Walter de Marnay.”

Mr. Sorrell precipitately withdrew his head. The little page had climbed up on to the wooden side of the great tub. Here he sat astride, and lisped gently that if the pilgrim were ready he would call for the warm water to be sent down the chute. He had little serious and gentle airs, this page, and Mr. Sorrell at once took a fancy to him.

“Oh well, nipper,” he said, “if you clear out I’ll be ready in a jiffy.”

The little Jehan appeared to understand from his gesture what was required of him, nevertheless he remained astride of the wood.

“It is a good thing and a custom, and, as I have heard, very refreshing and sanitary,” he said gravely, “to stand beneath the end of the wooden conduit. Then the slaves pour the water from within the conduit, and at first it is of the heat of one’s flesh, and gradually they shall make it grow hotter and hotter, until it is very hot, and then again they let it grow quite cold. And this is said to impart to the skin a beauty like that of the good knight Sir Paris of Troy, and to the courage such a force that you may easily overthrow three knights immediately afterwards. So it is said, but for myself I do not know if this is true, for I am only a little page and have not the right to these knightly luxuries, and wash myself in the cold streams three times a day, by means of which I shall come to be a good and hardy knight.”

Having uttered these words with extreme precision and gravity, the little boy cocked his other leg over the side of the bath and disappeared. His hand once more came over the side, holding the wooden platter upon which the soap reposed, and immediately afterwards, Mr. Sorrell having thrown his nightshirt and his linen turban over the side of the bath, the little boy called out shrilly:

“Oh! let the water come.”

It came, and falling deliciously tepid over Mr. Sorrell’s head and coursing down his limbs, it gave him really the first pleasant sensation of the day, and gradually it grew warmer until it was very hot, and then colder till it was very cold.

“Well, they know how to do things,” Mr. Sorrell said, for the water, being agreeably scented with mint, did away with the stench of the courtyard, and when he sat himself down it reached exactly to his chin. The platter with the soap upon it bobbed up against his face, and because the bath in which he sat was elevated so high, the sunshine poured down all over him. He sat luxuriously stretching himself and sighing. He sat still for quite a long time — he half dozed, and large flies buzzed all over him. And suddenly the voice of the Lady Amoureuse cried out:

“Oh, holy man, are you ill, have you fainted, for we do not hear the plash of the water?”

“Oh, I’m all right,” Mr. Sorrell exclaimed.

“Because,” the Lady Amoureuse continued, “knights have been known to faint and to drown in these large baths. Such was the miserable fate which overtook the miraculously gallant Sir Lois du Destrier Blanc in the Court of the French King only a twelvemonth was last June.”

“Oh, I’m all right!” Mr. Sorrell exclaimed again.

But the feel of the soap which he had taken into his hand filled him with a sudden panic. It was not like any soap he had ever touched before — or rather, it was exactly like a soap that he had once purchased when he was inspecting a mine for some Germans in Syria. He could not for the life of him understand how they came to have Syrian soap in the middle of Salisbury Plain. And then suddenly he exclaimed to himself:

“By Jove! I’m not only in the middle of Salisbury Plain, I’m in the middle of the Middle Ages!”

He put his hand up to feel his hair — there was not a vestige, there was not a trace of any wound, though there was certainly a scar that might have been two years old, just above the middle of his left temple. And this scar had never been there of old.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed again, “it
is
that. Something must have happened. Something must have happened in the railway accident at Salisbury.” He had got a knock — or perhaps it was only a mental shock — something mysterious, something that he could not understand, which had knocked him clean back through time — 483 years, as a cricket-ball is struck by a bat. It seemed extraordinary, it seemed almost incredible. But there he was, there were the hard facts before him. He was not going to account for this, it was not any business of his to account for things.

And so essentially modern a man was Mr. Sorrell, so excellently had he been schooled in worldly practicable things, that his mind immediately accepted the situation. He had not any doubt that one or other of the Christian Scientists, New Homoeopathists or Psychics that he met at his aunt’s, could explain the matter in some seemingly nonsensical but probably quite true method.

And he felt vaguely that if the ghosts from the past could come into the present, why in the world should not ghosts of the future be able to go back into the past? That was all that it would amount to. He seemed, indeed, vaguely to remember that in the Scriptures there had been apparitions of prophets or even of Christ Himself, several hundred years before the births of the prophets or of the Saviour. This, of course, was a much smaller kind of thing. He did not regard himself as being as important even as a minor prophet. But if it could happen in the one case, why should not it happen in his own?

What he supposed to have happened was this: His soul had been shaken out of his body by the railway accident at Salisbury; it had gone wandering back through time until it chanced upon the body of the Greek slave, who had probably died upon Salisbury Plain 483 years before. Then his soul had entered the Greek slave’s body. It seemed ridiculous, but there again he certainly was. He examined himself rather carefully, as far as he could for the water, and he could not find that he differed materially from his ordinary self. But, on the other hand, Mr. Sorrell had never been a vain man. He had never examined himself in a looking-glass, and although he was moderately familiar with his own face, which one cannot help looking at at times, he had not for the moment any mirror in which to inspect himself. The water had become too clouded with soap to afford him a reflection. But upon the whole he felt exactly the same. He felt tired in just the same portions of his limbs that usually felt tired; he felt hungry with his usual hunger. Then, possibly, all this had something to do with the transmigration of souls. Perhaps his soul had formerly inhabited the body of the Greek slave, and perhaps it had just gone back to it. Something like that must have happened.

With his easy acceptance of things as they are, the only thing that appeared odd to Mr. Sorrell was that he had not himself the least feeling of oddity. He was just there, just his normal self, ringed in by the wooden staves, perfectly comfortable, and with no view save that of an oval of blue sky above his head, against which the banner on top of the keep, which was just large enough to come into his view, flapped lazily its red and white chequers. Though he seemed himself to be a sort of ghost, he could not discover that he felt anything uncanny at all. Indeed, even the people around him did not seem to see anything uncanny in him; on the contrary, they appeared to welcome him with rapture, and to be inclined to do him as well as their barbarous means would let them.

The water beginning to grow a little cold, Mr. Sorrell stood up and looked over the side of his bathtub for his little page. The little Jehan was sitting on the steps that led up to the tub, alternately meditating and telling his beads.

“Hallo, nipper!” Mr. Sorrell exclaimed; “it’s about time I got myself dressed.”

And the little Jehan understanding from his gestures what he desired, handed him the white towels, and once more removed the spiket so that the water gushed down into the courtyard.

“Now,” Mr. Sorrell said whilst he proceeded to dry himself, “pop along and fetch my clothes.”

He had to repeat these words in French, for the boy did not understand him at all. And thus he made himself comprehensible, too, to the Ladies Blanchemain and Amoureuse.

“Ho, là!” the little Lady Blanchemain cried out from behind the palisade beneath him, “most holy pilgrim, here are your chausses.’’

And Mr. Sorrell perceived that she was handing up to him, at the full stretch of her arm and on tiptoe, a garment whose purpose he did not immediately understand. He took it, however, with all the modesty of which he was capable, so that he exhibited no more than his hand and the top of his head. Then he perceived that it fulfilled the functions at once of trousers and of stockings, for it was all of one piece, one leg being of red woollen work and the other of white, whilst the part which went about his waist was red and white chequers. It seemed to him to be a preposterous thing to put on, but having examined it and discovered that it was quite clean and apparently new, he slowly and with some difficulty inserted himself into the garment, which fitted as tight as the skin of an eel. Having got so far, he exclaimed to the ladies below him:

“Well, and what comes next?”

The Lady Amoureuse took from the hand of the page a white shirt, which in turn she passed up to him with an air of serious and reverent gravity. The shirt presented no very serious difficulties. It was of white, fine, and soft linen, and, having got into it, Mr. Sorrell heaved a sigh of immense relief. He was at least now in a shirt and trousers of a sort, sufficiently covered to confront anybody in the world, though he would not much have liked to walk in it about the streets round Covent Garden, where most of his brother publishers do their business. And at that moment he was aware that his feet had got wet. The bath was quite empty, but naturally a considerable amount of water remained upon the bottom boards. He therefore approached with a great deal more confidence the side of the bath which gave on to the palisade, and, looking down upon the Lady Amoureuse, he told her that he wanted a pair of shoes. These were handed up to him, two objects so extraordinary that Mr. Sorrell could really make nothing of them at all. There was obviously a place for the feet to go into, but the toes were prolonged in a sort of stiff leather tube for perhaps a foot and a half. And at the end of each of these leather tubes was fixed a small leather strap with buckles, resembling a dog’s collar. One of these objects was red in the foot part and white in the tube, and the other white in the foot and red as far as the dog collar. But whilst Mr. Sorrell was perplexedly regarding them, he was aware that the little page Jehan had climbed over the side of the bath, and was standing beside him. With an air of reverent seriousness the little boy took one of the things from Mr. Sorrell. He knelt down upon the ground, and, lifting Mr. Sorrell’s foot on to one of his little knees, he proceeded to put the shoe on to it. The shoe was of soft and pliant leather, very beautifully coloured red, and it fitted round Mr. Sorrell’s ankle by an efficient strap and buckle. And next very cautiously and tenderly the little Jehan took the strap, which resembled a dog collar, and buckled it round Mr. Sorrell’s knee. Thus the leather tubing which had so puzzled him curved upwards and out from Mr. Sorrell’s toes to his knee.

Mr. Sorrell ejaculated:

“By Jove! I suppose this is the very latest fashion. But they’d be no end in the way if you went roller skating.”

The little boy in the meanwhile was engaged with his other foot.

“Well, anyhow,” Mr. Sorrell said, “they’ve made a very competent valet out of you, my little friend. Now, I suppose, they’ll give me a coat.”

He approached, indeed, the side of the bath with more confidence, though the tubes bowing out in front of his shins made it difficult for him. The Lady Amoureuse tiptoeing handed him up a garment all flaked in red and white, with a white fur edging. And when Mr. Sorrell stood up in it he could not help thinking that he must present a very splendid appearance. His jerkin was on the upper half of the right breast of vermilion velvet, on the lower half it was of white velvet, and similarly as to his left chest the upper half was white and the lower red.

“By Jove!” Mr. Sorrell said, “I must look like a living chess-board!”

But a certain complacency came over his mind at the thought that he could wear such flaming splendours and yet not be a bit overdressed. He thought he must present a really fine figure of a man. The little page now made it evident to him by signs that it would be appropriate to climb over the side of the bath. It was a task of some difficulty, and one only to be performed backwards because of his shoes. Nevertheless, Mr. Sorrell performed it with good humour.

He stood on the platform on which the bath rested, and then carefully descended the steps, the little page leading him by the hand. On the lowest step but one Jehan placed a cushion of red velvet.