Nuns and Soldiers (25 page)

Today, in the bright morning light, a good deal braver, he was going to revisit the Great Face, perhaps even draw it. He had some difficulty in finding it since his path seemed to have developed since yesterday any number of tributaries and ambiguities in its upper reaches, and he kept discovering new and distracting marvels, such as rock-bound shelves where little pink and white tulips were growing upon miniature lawns. At last when he thought himself lost and about to reach the real summit of the endlessly receding piled-up rocks, he suddenly saw, some distance away, his narrow cleft gate, now below him, and began to clamber down towards it panting and streaming with sweat. He pulled himself onto the high step of the gate, and in a moment was standing once more upon the long stretch of grass in the enclosed presence of the Great Face.

In the daylight the huge thing looked different but no less awe-inspiring. Tim could now see, far up, the V-shaped crack out of which some ferny vegetation was hanging. The pendent creepers came from farther above where the rock merged into leaves and shadows, he could not see the top of it. The descending cliff with the narrow ‘pencil lines’ was now seen to be marked by a yellowish moss which grew in the narrow shallower scoring of the lines, giving to the rock a soft glowing stripy look. The round area beneath was remarkable, slightly salient, without vegetation, shadowed still but glistening in the bright reflected light. It hung above Tim, its lowest part a little above the level of his head, and its diameter might have been about twenty feet. Below it the rock receded into a shadowy alcove. Coming nearer Tim saw that the whole circular surface, of a pallid creamy whiteness which contrasted with the surrounding rock, was gleaming with water which seemed to be somehow exuding from the round shallow pores with which it was lightly pitted. The water veiled the rock, yet did not drip into the pool below.

The stone basin, seen by day, was clearly a work of nature, though a surprising one. It was circular, roughly the same size as the pale sweating stone above it. The verge was formed of the grey spotted rock which here rose vertically out of the grass, surrounding the water with a sort of broad undulating frill, and joining the base of the cliff in the rocky ‘alcove’ which projected a little way over the pool. The water of the basin was, as Tim had apprehended last night, particularly pure and clear, almost radiant with its own clarity. It was difficult to say how deep it was, perhaps eight or ten feet in the centre, towards which the sides gently and regularly sloped. The entire floor of the basin, including its sloping sides, was covered with small crystalline pebbles, some white, some creamy, as if little stony tears had dropped down from the face above. Gazing at the strange pool Tim saw, with a further thrill of surprise, that the whole body of contained translucent water was very very faintly, throughout its entire extent, shuddering or quivering but with so small a vibration that the transparency of the medium was unaffected, while being as it were shot through by swift invisible almost motionless lines. Nor was the tension of the surface disturbed at all. The basin was evidently a source, but where exactly the water rose from and where it departed to Tim was unable to determine. None spilled over the side, nor was any streamlet visible nearby. The beautiful radiant pool simply quivered in perpetual occult donation and as perpetual renewal.

Tim stood for a while gazing at the cliff and at the pool, and his heart was so filled with joy that at one moment he had to clutch at it with both hands. The great round white pitted rock now seemed to hang there like a vast heroic shield. It was (or did he imagine this?) faintly steaming in the hot air, although the sun was not shining, perhaps never shone, directly upon it. He began to look cautiously round about him, at the expanse of grass which was so fine and short as if cropped by sheep (only there were no sheep) and at the way in which the loop of grey rocks, composing a narrow amphitheatre, made the place so secret. At last his pulse slowed down and he walked back to the cleft where, at the base of the ‘doorway’, he had left his rucksack and his basket.

The idea of swimming in the pool had at once occurred to Tim, and been at once rejected. He could not sully that pure water with his sweat or with his gross splashing interrupt its sibylline vibration. He permitted himself only to break the surface with his fingers. It was extremely cold. Now Tim unpacked his little stool, his sketch book, his pencils, his crayons, his paint box and brushes, his handy water-pot, filled at the kitchen tap. He had that pure clean blessed beginning-again feeling. He was full of grace. He sat down, completely happy, and began to draw.

 

 

About four o’clock in the afternoon Tim was still there. He was exhausted. He had consumed his lunch. To do this he had retired outside the ‘door’ as it seemed to him improper to eat in the presence of the rock and the pool. He had eaten the bread and butter, the paté, the cheese, and the apple, but had drunk sparingly of the wine, since he feared to go to sleep in the place. By four o’clock he was on the whole pleased with what he had done. He had done a number of drawings of the rock face. The circular area with the strange straight lines above it was so odd that he feared it would not, on paper, look like anything. However the subject somehow took charge of him and conveyed some of its grandeur into his vision. He did some larger water colour sketches, outlines in brown ink, of the whole cliff face, including the vegetation. Then perched in the ‘amphitheatre’ he had tried, with wax crayon on grey paper, to convey the radiant light-giving quality of the crystal basin. This was less successful. Now it was time to stop. He packed up his gear and retrieved his basket, gave one last hasty anxious look at the scene which was already darkening, then climbed through the cleft into the outer world. At once he felt giddy, as at a change of pressure. Outside it was brighter. An undulating glow was rising from the pale spotty sunlit rocks. He looked upward, shading his eyes, deeming it yet too early to return home, and decided to try once more to climb over the rocky skyline and see what lay beyond. The little path soon vanished, or he had lost it. Perhaps its only task had been to lead him to the Great Face.

He mounted the steep rocks, scrambling, holding onto the hard ridgy surfaces, digging into their crannies with his finger nails. The climb, never dangerous, became more difficult, and he was hampered by the basket until he decided to leave it under a little bushy fig tree which offered a rare landmark. Only when the rocks to which he clung actually ceased in front of his face did he realize that he had reached the top. He rose panting to his feet upon the very crest. He was indeed now gazing down into another land. Far off he could see a sunlit plain with fields, and beyond it mountains, real blue mountains much higher than his ‘little hills’. Near to him the rocks frilled downward in a series of small valleys or gorges which were now in shadow. Directly below, however, Tim saw something which drew his gaze away from any further view. There, at the very foot of the rocks upon which he stood, and easily, as it seemed, accessible by a natural rocky stairway and a green grassy slope, was a flashing river. It was not wide but even from here Tim could see the joyful commotion of its copious waters. With an exclamation of pleasure he began to descend, and was soon rewarded by sound as well as by sight. The coursing of the water had become distinctly audible, together with a more distant drone of what might be a waterfall; and it occurred to Tim that this was, apart from the cicadas’ song lower down among the trees and a very occasional bird cry like an exclamation of woe, the only sound which the hot quiet landscape had vouchsafed him throughout the whole day.

The climb was longer than he had expected, as he had to circumvent a gully filled with box and brambles, but at last sweating again and panting with exertion he had crossed the grass and stood upon the very edge of the water. He saw at once that this flashing torrent was no river. It was a canal. Straight as a die, it made its way through the landscape, appearing from below some rocks a little distance off and disappearing further on into a haze of young pines. What a miracle that in this dry dry land all this precious water stayed together rejoicing in its own elemental being! Where he stood the bank was steepish smooth and grassy, the water opaque, a light chalky grey. It gurgled and curled and swirled as it went along producing quick vanishing circlets of foam. It was infinitely inviting to a hot tired man. There was of course no one in sight. Tim dropped his rucksack and tore off his clothes. He sat upon the sweet cool very green grassy verge and slid down into the moving stream.

Instantly he was seized by a water demon. It was as if two firm light grey hands had gripped his waist, lifted him and conveyed him firmly along, turning him over and ducking him in the process. The stream was very cold. As from a moving train he saw the grassy banks speeding by, he entered the sudden shade of the pines. Swimming was out of the question, no movement of that kind was possible even in embryo. The force of the water drove his arms towards his sides as if the water demon were making of him a mere stick to twist and twirl about. He tried to kick his legs to keep his head up but the speed of the current gave him no purchase. He could not touch bottom. Spewing water from his mouth, Tim collided with something, grasped it, and was abruptly dragged round and jerked against the steep bank by the combined forces of the rushing water and the drooping pine branch which he had managed to take hold of. The branch broke, but a moment later Tim had hold of a bushy thorny acacia, whose ferny leaves were sweeping the water. He was flattened horizontally against the bank, but he held on. He struggled, pressing his knees into underwater grasses. Gradually his limbs obeyed him and with immense relief his feet touched a stony bottom. He clung there, a little out of the force of the stream, panting and resting. Then he managed to pull himself up, holding onto the acacia, then onto the hanging clumps of stout grass. The bank was not quite sheer and there were scooped out sandy footholds. He got up onto the level ground and collapsed, exhausted, buffeted by the water, his hands bleeding from the acacia thorns, his feet bruised by the stones.

His body was water-cold, he could feel the hot blood on his hands; then gradually the sun warmed him, and he got up. He had seemed to be a long time in the water but he had travelled less than a hundred yards and could now see, through the tufted branches, his clothes and rucksack not far away, fortunately on the same side of the canal. He walked back, testing the wholeness of his body. The sun had dried him by the time he began to dress. He looked down with amazement at the headlong force of the grey curling water in its deep narrow bed. It looked to him now dangerous, terrible. Shouldering his gear he walked along a bit, past the pines to see what the dreadful thing did next. Here of a sudden the canal curved to the right and became narrower, now enclosed by beautiful walls of hard neatly cut grey stone, which gave a clean stony footway at the top. Tim walked on upon the stone edge, looking down. The water was becoming more turbulent, more noisy, swifter, rising up into a curling wave on the inside of the curve. Then Tim saw something which shocked him with cold fear, with that sense of the fragile mortality of his own body, which comes to most of us as rare reminders, too soon forgotten. The water was now racing downhill between its narrowed stony walls. Then, in an ecstasy, it discharged itself, suddenly become glassy smooth, onto a long slope of slimy green stone. Down below, at the foot of the slope, it churned itself into a white chaos of contending foam and then entered the dark hole of a subterranean tunnel. The mouth of the tunnel was just under water and the stream had to stoop and crowd to force its way in. In this manner, with a roar and a rumbling clattering sound it descended into the earth and vanished totally from the sunny landscape. Tim shuddered. He now wanted very much and very quickly to get home.

 

 

It was twilight in Tim’s valley when at last, and unexpectedly, he saw below him the curve of the concealed rivulet and the red tiled roof of the house. He had of course lost himself on the return journey. He forgot about the basket and the fig tree which could have been a guiding mark. The rocks in the setting sun looked flat, their cracks fading into a uniform surface like veined marble. It was difficult to make out formations or judge distances. Once he had to pass through an area of dense scrub oak which he had never seen before. He descended, then found himself having to climb again.

He felt tired, but, as soon as he was away from the canal, not unduly dismayed by his adventure. It was exciting to think that he had escaped death. If the water demon had carried him just a little further on he would have slid helplessly down that slippery glassy slope and been sucked into that dark turbulent hole. His body might never have been found, even his rucksack might not have been noticed for weeks. He imagined Daisy’s arrival, her annoyance, her puzzlement, then her alarm. Well, that would have been the end of his troubles and possibly, he reflected, a blessing in disguise for Daisy too. No one else, he thought to himself now a little sadly, would care a fig. It would quite amuse the people at Ebury Street to learn that Tim Reede had mysteriously vanished somewhere in France.

Tim was relieved to see the valley. He began to descend from the rocks into the vineyard. As soon as he felt underfoot the soft turned soil after the hardness of the rocks he paused to rest. The house was now well in view below him and he looked down upon it. Then he became rigid with fear.

There appeared to be a person standing on the terrace. The uncertain light seemed to jump and flash before his strained tired eyes. He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked again. The shape had moved. It certainly looked like a human being. Tim had gorged his nervous apprehension with tales of roving thugs and tourists murdered in lonely houses. Such fears regularly returned with the dark. His impulse now was quite simply to hide. He moved cautiously behind a row of vines, crouching and staring down through the young leaves at the maddeningly shadowy and unclear scene below him. He kept blinking his eyes, trying to make out what refused to be clarified. He crept a little way downhill, then crouched back into the open again, the terrace still in view. From there, with puzzled surprise and a little relief, he perceived that the mysterious person was a woman.