Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (415 page)

“I understand almost none of the words you have uttered,” the Dean repeated, “but I think I understand your sense. Or if I do not understand your sense, you must be more mad than any man I have yet met. I think it is very plain that you mean that you are a great magician, and that, by means of your magic powers, you intend to acquire vast sovereignty either in this or in some other land. Against that I have nothing to say. I should not dare to arrogate to myself the title of a practitioner in the black arts, for whenever I have attempted myself to put them into practice I have been uniformly unsuccessful. I have never succeeded in raising the smallest of fiends, imps, devils, succubi, or so much as the spirit of a fair and kind lady. Nevertheless, I have somewhat studied these matters, and this much I know — that powers are of two kinds, black and white. If white, they are of heaven, and the wonders that they perform are called miracles. If black, they are of the fiend, and they are black magic. I have never had the impertinence to ask you of which sort are your powers. But I would like to point out to you that if they are of heaven, celibacy is an absolute necessity for their holy practitioner.”

“I don’t see what this has got to do with me,” Mr. Sorrell said.

“But you desire to marry the Lady Dionissia. Then if your gifts are from heaven, they will immediately lose all their potency.”

“I am going to marry Lady Dionissia,” Mr. Sorrell said grimly. “I am going to marry her in spite of all the devils in hell, or with their assistance.” He paused and added slowly: “And I am not going to lose any of my powers at all.”

The Dean uttered a prolonged “Oh!” for he took this utterance to be a declaration that Mr. Sorrell was indeed a very powerful magician. And immediately his admiration for Mr. Sorrell became enormous. The Dean had for long doubted in his mind whether this man, appearing, as he had done, so unaccountably in their midst, and performing as he had done such singular miracles — as to whether this man, who appeared one time a miracle of ignorance and another wise beyond mortal knowledge, were an emissary of heaven or, indeed, the most terrible of necromancers. Now he had it from his own lips that he was this last. And immediately the Dean’s respect became enormous.

For miracles performed by saints, relics, or by other holy agencies, he had a proper respect; but they were things with which he was familiar, so that such powers appeared to him comparatively pale and ineffective. Innumerable ones had been performed by innumerable saints. There was no doubt of that; but real black magic was altogether another matter — a thing to be craved beyond anything in the world. By its aid you might become Pope, lengthen your life out to immortality, transmute stones into gold, or revel for ever in unholy joys.

“It becomes, therefore, all the more mysterious to me,” he said, after he had thought for some time, “that you should desire to attain your ends by ways so circuitous. Why do you not, by means of your arts, slay her husband, and, at a distance, take possession of his castle, his lands, and his wife, and terrify his retainers and the surrounding countryside into submission?”

Mr. Sorrell could only utter, “Ah, my dear sir!” with so much horror that the Dean shrugged his shoulders coldly, and said:

“This seems to me to afford you horror; nevertheless, I cannot see that you desire to do anything else in the long run than to possess yourself of the gentle knight’s wife, and, if not of his lands, castles, and retainers, at least of those of someone else now possessing them.”

“But can your Holiness not perceive the difference?” Mr. Sorrell asked. “I will admit that, supposing myself to be successful in my schemes, something very like what you propose will have taken place. I shall secure control over a vast amount of territory — but it will be by legal and proper commercial methods. I certainly should not think of soiling my hands with the blood of any lady’s husband.”

Again the Dean slowly shrugged his shoulders.

“Once more,” he said, “I can only say that I do not understand you. The ends you propose to yourself appear exactly to coincide with those that I have supposed you to have. Whether you kill the lady’s husband, or whether by magic you strike him with a palsy or otherwise render him impotent, seems all one to me. You will have his wife, his gear, and his lands.”

Mr. Sorrell vented a heavy sigh of puzzled exasperation. He realised that it would be impossible for him to make this singular clergyman understand the difference between their respective views. Nevertheless, he felt a strong desire to vindicate his ideas of what was sound commercial morality as he understood it. He managed to get out:

“Can your Holiness not see that it is the means and not the ends that have to be justified?”

But the same look of incredulous non-comprehension remained in the Dean’s eyes, and at last, in order to change the subject, Mr. Sorrell asked:

“You would very much aid me if you would tell me what, in your language, is ‘saltpetre.’”

“I have never heard the word,” the Dean said. “Is it a moral scruple?”

“No, it is a mineral,” Mr. Sorrell answered. “It should be sold by apothecaries, but I have no means of making myself understood. That is one of my chief difficulties — either these people do not understand me, or it is obvious that they do not possess the material that I require.”

“I will certainly assist you in any way I can,” the Dean said, and, his mind running upon magic, he added: “I could give you, for instance, the skulls of three murderers, of whom one killed his mother; or a vessel filled with the blood of a new-born child who was killed when the moon was at the full — at least, this was said to be what the phial contained. But since I used it in some attempts of my own, and those attempts in no way succeeded, I am under the impression that I must have been deceived by the person who procured it for me.”

“I am afraid that these things would be of little use to me,” Mr. Sorrell answered; “but my gratitude to you would be great if you could procure for me the substance I have mentioned.”

“I would certainly do all that I can,” the Dean said, “but I doubt whether our poor city of Salisbury will afford the substance that you desire. It must evidently be one of the constituents of a brew of great magic potency. So that I hardly think that you will find it in any of the inferior cities of this land, where magic is practised with but little success. In London, where the King so incomprehensibly places his Court — for why should he do it when the much larger, fairer, and more opulent city of Salisbury would afford him a far more comfortable retreat? — in London, I think, you will scarcely find it, though you might in Dover, or in Sandwich, which are fair cities to which come many tall ships.”

“But saltpetre,” Mr. Sorrell said, “isn’t anything rare, or any new discovery. I have an idea that they used to find it under dung-heaps; but, although I have had many dung-heaps turned over, I have been unable to discover any of this substance.”

“Without doubt,” the Dean said, “this substance will be to be found beneath the dung-heaps of Byzantium, or of the Eastern countries from which you come. For there are many strange beasts, and doubtless they are to be found in the stables and byres. But our poor common cows, oxen, bulls, and swine cannot produce this inestimable commodity.”

The Dean’s face, which had been by turns rendered keen in bargaining, ironical, apprehensive at the thought of his interlocutor’s possibly destructive powers of magic — for it had lately been in his head that Mr. Sorrell might have it in him to blast by fire and lightning not only the Dean himself, but the cathedral, the cathedral clergy, and all the city of Salisbury — his round face, which had hitherto expressed several passions, none of them very pleasant, became suddenly sunny and altogether benevolent. He had perceived in the doorway behind Mr. Sorrell the form of the Lady Dionissia, carrying a small leathern pouch that depended weightily from her right hand. She was dressed all in green, with white cords to her sleeves, and little tassels of gold on her silken gloves. Her head-dress of white linen was curiously folded, so that it stood up high over her head, and came down low beside her ears and over her white forehead. She was a little flushed with riding, and her very fair, large, and honest face expressed at once curiosity to know what had befallen between the two men, and a smiling belief in the benevolence of the Dean.

She came, with her long green sleeves trailing behind her, over to the Dean’s chair, and knelt down to kiss his hand.

Mr. Sorrell’s eyes followed her with such admiration, such devotion, and such longing, that the Dean felt himself slightly affronted. Jovial, comfortable, and easy, it was not possible for him to avoid these slight pangs of jealousy. And this jealousy had given a tinge of coldness to all his colloquy with Mr. Sorrell. He had been ready, as it were, to do anything he could to help the Lady Dionissia; but it was impossible for him not to feel piqued at the object upon whom she had elected to bestow her affections.

At her coming, he became at once brilliant and jovial. Leaning back in his chair, he held his hand beneath the comfortable pouch of gold as if he expected her at once to permit him to relieve her of this burden. It gave him another pang of jealousy to think that her blue eyes beneath their dark brown brows were immediately bent upon Mr. Sorrell for guidance. But immediately afterwards he was consoled to feel upon his hand the full weight of the little bag which she had relinquished to him. He weighed it meditatively for a few moments, and then, with a smiling benignity, he assumed the expression of the distinguished Churchman that he was, and laying his hand gently upon her head-dress, he let his lips move for a moment whilst he conferred on her his blessing, and then he said aloud:

“All that you desire of me I will do — your paramour has driven a very hard bargain with me, but I will do it. And now, with no more words, I will call in Nicolas, my chaplain, that he may take down some of the prophecies of this gentle pilgrim, who is no more a pilgrim. For I think that there are few things more edifying for the soul, or more useful to one’s fortunes, than to listen to prophecies if they be not procured by unlawful means.”

The Lady Dionissia had risen from her knees, and standing between the two men, looked down upon the ground with her absent and deep gaze. One of her hands went up to her cheek, and her body all in green swaying a little to one side, she looked at last into Mr. Sorrell’s eyes.

“There will be very great joy,” she said in her deep and sonorous tones.

CHAPTER II.

THEY rode out by the green park-road beside the river of Wiley that runs from Warminster to Salisbury. They passed Bemerton with its tiny church, and Wilton embowered in tall trees. On their right hand the Plain stretched up the hills, but they kept to the valley. Along the stream here and there were clumps of high elm-trees, though many of these had been blown down in the great gale of six weeks before, and they lay across the water like bridges with earth and grass attached to their broad roots. Many moorhens, teal, grebe, and coot swam in the silver waters, and grey herons stood like sentinels or like philosophers who meditated, as they rode by. Once, a stag which had come down to drink at the water ran swiftly over the grass on the other side of the stream; a dappled brown, it lifted its slender legs very high and laid its crown of antlers low along its back. They passed now a shrine, now an image of the Virgin, and now a cross set up to commemorate the murder of some poor traveller by robbers. The merciless sun shone in a blue heaven, the valley was very broad and green, and beside them walked the Welsh mountaineers. With their spears resting upon their shoulders and their caps of steel, they stepped with long strides, and from time to time they sang the long and melancholy songs with which their Welsh mothers had lulled them to sleep. The Lady Dionissia was all in green, and the wind played in the folds of her linen head-dress. She controlled her white stallion by means of two silken threads, for she was training him to be very obedient. Nevertheless his reins, which were of the breadth of a man’s hand and of white leather sewn with gold, lay upon his neck ready for her to take hold of. For at times when he passed other horses he would be seized with fits of ungovernable fury.

Mr. Sorrell was dressed all in red, but he had a hood of black cloth. The long toes of his shoes went downwards far below his stirrups. And the horse he rode was dark brown with a back so broad that it resembled many cushions.

The evening sun was down behind the great mass of the castle of Stapleford before ever they were within sound of the cocks of Wishford town. Enormous, with its one square tower and its many turrets with the conical roofs, this castle seemed to fill up the whole valley, casting a large tract of land into shadow. It appeared all black, and from behind and above it the sun hurled immense shafts of light through the air. They had ridden silently, for the Lady Dionissia was filled with joy, and Mr. Sorrell had many things that filled his mind.

Presently they came to a little square field that was all green grass between black woods. Here, as was their custom, they descended from their horses. These the mountaineers led away beyond the corner of the thick woods that on three sides enclosed the little field. The two walked over the grass, for the field sloped upwards. It had in it several little mounds and hillocks. When they were nearly into the wood the Lady Dionissia sat down upon one of these little mounds. She drew her skirts about her feet, and the ragged brambles from the wood caught at them, whilst Mr. Sorrell walked up and down before her. His face was full of melancholy, and his shoulders bowed in dejection. From where they were the walls of the little town of Wishford were visible to them, and the grey bridge which spanned the stream. A wild cat called from the woods a shrill and tearing cry, and silently a huge white owl floated over their heads and skimmed low down over the mists that were beginning to rise from the grass.

“It seems to get farther and farther,” Mr. Sorrell said suddenly. The Lady Dionissia did not speak, but she looked up into his face with a great and confiding love.

“Farther and farther!” Mr. Sorrell repeated; “it goes back; it disappears. Do you know what is happening to me? I am becoming one of you. I can’t get back into what was my past — into what is your future. I can’t get back into it.”

“Surely that is very well,” the Lady Dionissia said slowly. Her voice had very deep chords; it was one of those sounds which give an idea that they express the thoughts of a very honest and simple heart, like the baying of a mastiff.

“I don’t want to get back into my past,” Mr. Sorrell said.
“
I wonder now that I could ever have lived it. It appears little and grey and cold and unimportant. I don’t know what could have kept me going then, for there was no you in all the world.”

The Lady Dionissia looked at him with a deepening love, but she said nothing. The owl, turning at the bottom of the field, floated slowly back, ghostlike amidst the mists along the dark shadows of the wood side, searching for such small mice and frogs as the evening called to their avocations in the grasses.

“I don’t want to get back to it,” Mr. Sorrell said, “but I can’t even get back to that frame of mind. I used to be what we called a good business man. Now I don’t care. I don’t care for anything but walking in the fields and talking to you.”

“Surely that, too, is well,” the Lady Dionissia repeated.

“Surely it is pleasant,” Mr. Sorrell said, “but I cannot see that it is well, and pleasantness is not the whole of life?”

“Is it not?” the Lady Dionissia asked wonderingly. “No, surely not,” Mr. Sorrell answered. “Are there not such things as duties, ambitions, and responsibilities?”

“I do not know what these things are,” she answered. “In the spring the moles come out of the woods and the little birds sing, and we walk in the gardens and take what pleasure we can. And then comes the winter, and shuts us up in our castles so that it is not so pleasant; but with jongleurs and ballad-singers we pass the time as well as we may. And what is there to do?”

“Ah, it is just that that is so fatal,” Mr. Sorrell said agitatedly. “It is just that that I am slipping into. You dress me up in these scarlet clothes, and I take a pleasure in it; you ride a-hawking, and it seems to me the whole end of life when your tassel strikes down a heron or a daw. But I ought to be up and doing. I ought to be — I ought to have been master of the world by now.”

“And how would it help you?” the Lady Dionissia asked. “You are my master and my lord. You are bright and glorious — what more should you ask?”

“Oh, no, I am nothing,” Mr. Sorrell answered in a deep dejection. “I am entirely useless, and there is nothing I can do well. Even that prophesying for the Dean was nothing. I am so ignorant. Of history I am ignorant — I hardly know the names of kings, and nothing of what they did....”

“Oh, peace,” the Lady Dionissia said; “my mind still trembles at the wonders you unfolded. What could be more miraculous than the flying of men through the air, or their rushing faster than the flight of swallows beneath the ground?”

“All that is nothing,” Mr. Sorrell said. “Do you not understand how it only proves my ignorance, and how useless I have been? I ought to know how to do all these things. But I know nothing. Don’t you understand, I have been so in the habit of having all these things done for me that I am useless as the grub in the honeycomb that the bees feed. It is no use my saying that I can do nothing because I have not the materials — that is an idle excuse. We might fit out ships to go to the end of the world to get rubber; but even if we did that I do not know where rubber comes from, nor if I knew should I know-from what tree rubber is procured. Or if I had the rubber should I know what to do with it. And it is a condemnation of a whole civilisation. There was not, of the men I knew, one who knew any of these things. There was not one of them who knew that a beefsteak comes from an ox. Or if he had known that it did, and if he had possessed an ox, he would not have been able to kill that ox. Or if he had been able to kill the ox, he would not have known how to cut the steak or to cook it or to make a fire or to light it when it was made. I do not believe that a single man that I knew would have been able to black his own boots.”

“I don’t know why boots should be black,” the Lady Dionissia said. “I myself have never seen any black boots, and it would be a very ugly colour.”

“Yet I here stand useless” Mr. Sorrell said with deep bitterness. “I know nothing of my own arts.

I said I was going to set out to conquer the world, yet I should not even know how to form a limited company. And of your arts I know nothing — I cannot fight, I cannot tilt at the ring, I cannot shoot with the bow, my muscles are too slack to let me take part in any manly exercise. Of the laws of the chase I know nothing. I cannot tell the roedeer from the fallow; if I can tell a daw from a dove it is all that I can do, and I cannot tell a cushat from a turtle, except when you are there to point out the difference. And I am the man that is going to take you from your life of splendour with nothing but my arm to rely upon. My arm is no stronger than a reed in a thatch, and my brain is more useless than an empty pot with the wind whistling in it.”

“It is not grateful to God,” the Lady Dionissia said, “so to speak, when God has given you such powers, and if I did not love you I should think it evil of you to speak in this way. For you have healed many hundreds of the sick; and you have ridded this whole countryside of robbers, and even miraculously you have cured the hens and chickens of the Convent of St. Radigund.”

“Oh, heaven!” Mr. Sorrell said, “what is all this? It was not I that put down the robbers, it was their superstitious fears. It was not I that cured these cripples and the sick. There was no miracle about it; it is what we used to call natural suggestion. Haven’t you heard of Lourdes? I tell you all these people were not really ill. It was what they believed. They thought they were ill, and the sight of the cross cured them.”

The Lady Dionissia rose from her hillock where she had been sitting with her chin upon her hands and her elbows upon her knees, raptly listening to him. In the gathering dusk she came very close to him, her face near to his, and her eyes gazing into his eyes. Her voice was more deep than ever when she spoke.

“Almost you make me enraged with you,” she said, “almost you make me desire to shun you. For what you have spoken is a very damnable blasphemy. Here have the dear God and the blessed angels of God and God’s Mother been pouring down, through your agency, great blessings upon poor and miserable persons. Joy and solace and peace and comfort have been given in abundance in place of agony and anguish and cares and solicitudes. And these splendid and comfortable miracles of God and of the blessed angels of God and of the Mother of God, you, a poor sinful man — for every man, no matter how glorious he be, is poor and sinful before the face of Almighty God that sent His Son to be our comforter — you poor sinful man, who are privileged to be the agent of these most gentle and splendid doings, you cry out upon your fate, and refuse to put your trust in God for what in the future shall happen to you and me. I am a woman, and should be the more timorous part of us two who stand here. Oh, take courage, take courage! For what God has done, God again will do, so you deny Him not.”

Her voice had grown deeper and deeper, and she seemed to wave a little back into the shadows of the evening, as if in her anger she were denying herself to him. A great wave of passion came over him, and he stretched out his arms.

“Oh! have pity! Oh! have pity and do not deny yourself to me,” he said. “Remember what strange things all these are. Though I have many times tried to explain myself to you, I have never been able to explain, so strange it all is,”

She came closer to him, and set her two hands upon his shoulders.

“Ah, what is all this of explaining and explaining that you will always desire to be doing,” she said almost despairingly. “Many hours of unhappiness it has caused me. Do I ask from whence you came? No, no! All I ask is that you should take me whither you go. When I first set eyes upon you I knew that I loved you, and what more is there to ask or to say? You are like no other man that I have seen, nor do I believe that ever there was before a man so gentle and so good, so true or with such great gifts. I think there was never such another man since Christ was, and that it is a miracle of the little angels of God that you should love me who am nothing, or very little. And each night when I go to sleep I am afraid of the waking; so precious a thing is this love that I dread to find it a dream. But I wake, and I find it is no dream, so that I have all that I ask.”

He put his hands upon her shoulders; his arms were outside hers, and in the gleaming twilight they stood gazing into each other’s eyes. From a thicket close at hand there came out the shadowy forms of a vixen with her three cubs. A little moon had got up and was sending feeble gleams on to the grass that was all grey with dew. The vixen and her cubs played together, running round in circles. From the wood there came the sweet scents of damp verdure and of wild lavender. A bat fluttered close round their heads, its wings making a faint buzzing sound, and every now and again came the long call of the restless peewits on the Plains far away.

“Yes, I see nothing else,” he said.