Perelandra (34 page)

‘And what would Arthur himself have been?’ said Jane. It was silly that her heart should have missed a beat at the words ‘rather like Spanish’.

‘That’s just the point,’ said Dr Dimble. ‘One can imagine a man of the old British line, but also a Christian and a fully-trained general with Roman technique, trying to pull this whole society together and almost succeeding. There’d be jealousy from his own British family, and the Romanised section – the Launcelots and Lionels – would look down on the Britons. That’d be why Kay is always represented as a boor: he is part of the native strain. And always that under-tow, that tug back to druidism.’

‘And where would Merlin be?’

‘Yes … He’s the really interesting figure. Did the whole thing fail because he died so soon? Has it ever struck you what an odd creation Merlin is? He’s not evil; yet he’s a magician. He is obviously a druid; yet he knows all about the Grail. He’s “the devil’s son”; but then Layamon goes out of his way to tell you that the kind of being who fathered Merlin needn’t have been bad after all. You remember, “There dwell in the sky many kinds of wights. Some of them are good, and some work evil.”’

‘It
is
rather puzzling. I hadn’t thought of it before.’

‘I often wonder,’ said Dr Dimble, ‘whether Merlin doesn’t represent the last trace of something the later
tradition has quite forgotten about – something that became impossible when the only people in touch with the supernatural were either white or black, either priests or sorcerers.’

‘What a horrid idea,’ said Mrs Dimble, who had noticed that Jane seemed to be preoccupied. ‘Anyway, Merlin happened a long time ago if he happened at all and he’s safely dead and buried under Bragdon Wood as every one of us knows.’

‘Buried but
not
dead, according to the story,’ corrected Dr Dimble.

‘Ugh!’ said Jane involuntarily, but Dr Dimble was musing aloud.

‘I wonder what they
will find
if they start digging up that place for the foundations of their NICE,’ he said.

‘First mud and then water,’ said Mrs Dimble. ‘That’s why they can’t really build it there.’

‘So you’d think,’ said her husband. ‘And if so, why should they want to come here at all? A little cockney like Jules is not likely to be influenced by any poetic fancy about Merlin’s mantle having fallen on him!’

‘Merlin’s mantle indeed!’ said Mrs Dimble.

‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, ‘it’s a rum idea. I daresay some of his set would like to recover the mantle well enough. Whether they’ll be big enough to fill it is another matter! I don’t think they’d like it if the old man himself came back to life along with it.’

‘That child’s going to faint,’ said Mrs Dimble, suddenly jumping up.

‘Hullo! What’s the matter?’ said Dr Dimble, looking with amazement at Jane’s face. ‘Is the room too hot for you?’

‘Oh, it’s too ridiculous,’ said Jane.

‘Let’s come into the drawing room,’ said Dr Dimble. ‘Here. Lean on my arm.’

A little later, in the drawing room, seated beside a window that opened onto the lawn, now strewn with bright yellow leaves, Jane attempted to excuse her absurd behaviour by telling the story of her dream. ‘I suppose I’ve given myself away dreadfully,’ she said. ‘You can both start psycho-analysing me now.’

From Dr Dimble’s face, Jane might have indeed conjectured that her dream had shocked him exceedingly. ‘Extraordinary thing … most extraordinary,’ he kept muttering.’
Two
heads. And one of them Alcasan’s. Now is that a false scent …?’

‘Don’t, Cecil,’ said Mrs Dimble.

‘Do you think I ought to be analysed?’ said Jane.

‘Analysed?’ said Dr Dimble, glancing at her as if he had not quite understood. ‘Oh, I see. You mean going to Brizeacre or someone of that sort?’ Jane realised that her question had recalled him from some quite different train of thought and even – disconcertingly – that the problem of her own health had been shouldered aside. The telling of her dream had raised some other problem, though what this was she could not even imagine.

Dr Dimble looked out of the window. ‘There is my dullest pupil just ringing the bell,’ he said. ‘I must go to the study, and listen to an essay on Swift beginning, “Swift was born.” Must try to keep my mind on it, too, which won’t be easy.’ He rose and stood for a moment with his hand on Jane’s shoulder. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to give any advice. But if you do decide to go to anyone about that dream, I wish you
would
first
consider going to someone whose address Margery or I will give you.’

‘You don’t believe in Mr Brizeacre?’ said Jane.

‘I can’t explain,’ said Dr Dimble. ‘Not now. It’s all so complicated. Try not to bother about it. But if you
do,
just let us know first. Good-bye.’

Almost immediately after his departure some other visitors arrived, so that there was no opportunity of further private conversation between Jane and her hostess. She left the Dimbles about half an hour later and walked home, not along the road with the poplars but by the footpath across the common, past the donkeys and the geese, with the towers and spires of Edgestow to her left and the old windmill on the horizon to her right.