Dance of the Years (39 page)

James saw this region for the first time as still ‘remembering' he followed the history of James Edwin's emotional life. He ‘remembered' the sense of being apart from one's fellows, the appalling clarity of every incident, the obviousness of every motive, the horrifying responsibility of being alive. He ‘remembered' James Edwin's conviction that Phœbe and the child were his only link with normal living. James Edwin had harried Phœbe; he moved her from Farthing Hall to Wales; from Wales to Suffolk; from Suffolk to The Lakes; and always, every moment of the day and of the noisy, relentless night, he was afraid. It had gone on so long, there had been weeks and months of it, each moment memorable, so that years of consciousness had seemed packed within the time.

Finally, when the birth of the child had come near, he had been able to bear the anxiety no longer, and had over-ridden all Phœbe's passionate objections. It had not been easy to arrange her passage to the U.S.A., but James Edwin, hag-ridden by his premonitions, had achieved it and had taken her in his arms and said good-bye to the two of them.

James ‘remembered' James Edwin's state of mind perfectly. For the first time then he had known what people meant when they said they had no choice. For the first time James Edwin had been aware of the giddy Dance of the Years, swinging himself and all the rest of mankind into a whirling circle of intricate figures. The sober Castor had revolted from this imagery, but all the time since it was an honest intelligence, it could not hide its eyes and the picture had crept into James Edwin's reasonable mind again and again.

James saw the story racing on to that point in Time which, whatever else it was, was now. He ‘remembered' James Edwin hearing first the rumour, and then the official announcement:

American Passenger Vessel.… Some Survivors
.

James saw McBride as he came to realize very slowly that James Edwin was not himself any longer, and that the reports on the
Cross Eight's
production figures were not sinking in to him. James saw the old man turn from his own machine to that other not of his making, which had broken down.

Still in his dream, James saw McBride send James Edwin home to the deserted Farthing Hall, and heard him tell him carefully what to do.

“Wait there,” he had said. “You're no good to me here. Wait there. When good news comes, I'll wire you.”

James saw that James Edwin had waited six days, and that this was the morning of the seventh day and that it was three minutes to noon.

When James Edwin walked down the garden at Farthing Hall he was not thinking of Death so much as of finish; the end, not so much of his physical life, as of his general make-up of every part of him. He did not want to survive.

James thought he walked beside James Edwin, that Castor walked on the other side, and that around them were all the others—a legion of them.

James Edwin lay down in the rough grass where old Pecker had once cropped, and because the gun in his pocket hurt him with its bulk, he took it out and laid it within arm's reach.

In James's dream the scene was very vivid. He saw the bright, sunlit day, the waving grasses, and the young man who was so like himself but for the Castor colouring lying among them.

James saw things that were strange to him. There was a pylon in the next field, and high above him in the blue, two little planes like silver fish slipping unobtrusively by, but he did not remark these especially. It was the new path which caught his eyes as it wandered along at the edge of the meadow. In his own day people were always trespassing along there, and now it seemed that they had got their way, for there was a defined track with gravel on it.

As James was looking at the path he saw a woman with a little girl of four or so coming purposefully down it. As he watched, they stepped off the path and advanced towards James Edwin through the grass.

The woman was tall, and she reminded James of Dorothy at first, but as she came nearer he saw she was somebody new. She had red hair and big bones in her face, and was of a type entirely foreign to him.

As she approached, James Edwin reached out for the gun and hid it in his pocket before he rose. He was not attempting to pretend that he was pleased by the intrusion and James saw for the first time
that he made a slightly alarming picture, his skin drawn tightly over his bones, and his hooded eyes, which were the Castor blue, darkened with pain.

The stranger came on resolutely, however, and smiled in a frank fashion which stretched her wide mouth and lit up her eyes.

“I'm afraid you'll feel this is an unpardonable thing of me to do, Mr. Galantry,” she said nervously, “but I caught sight of you and I felt I just had to come up and speak. I've been staying over at the Wendon's with my little girl, and I heard you were down here on a visit. You see, my name is Galantry too.”

James Edwin was not helping her, and she hurried on, blushing.

“My husband and I came over at the beginning of the War, and he joined up with the R.A.F. We're South Africans, you know. His name is John Galantry and his father was Rex Galantry?”

Her voice rose in a question and she paused. James Edwin looked at her blankly. He was praying only that she would go quickly.

“I see you don't know those names?” she said wistfully.

“No. No, I don't,” said James Edwin, struggling to keep his tone at least polite. “There's only me left of our lot,” he said awkwardly. “I'm sorry.”

“I'm sorry too,” she said, and hesitated before turning away.

James Edwin did not stop her and she would have gone, but after a few steps she looked back.

“My husband's grandfather's name was Tom,” she said. “He came from London, I believe. There was a quarrel.…?”

James Edwin shook his head, but the dreaming James was suddenly excited. He looked at the child, and that part of him which was in James Edwin looked also. She was a round, dark little thing, with hoods to her bright black eyes, and as they looked at her she ran off into the grass and held her arms out to the wind. She stood there for a moment letting it caress her, and her snaky black hair blew out behind. Her mother called her sharply, and she came back at once and looked up at James Edwin with dawning interest.

“Who are you?” she demanded. And then with passionate curiosity and sympathy for his wretchedness, which was apparent to her if not to her mother: “Oh, who are you?”

In his dream James recognized Jinny's voice and Jinny's power of identifying herself with the next man. He struggled within James Edwin, urging him to see her and know her who she was. But the man's preoccupations held him, and he did not want to understand, James felt himself becoming frantic in his dumbness, and he fought with the rest of them who were in the later man. In the end he was successful.

Presently James Edwin looked at the child, and spoke on impulse.

“You should go and see Debby,” he said. “I'll give you her address if you like. She's my grandmother, she may have known Tom.”

The woman thanked him. She was too overcome by her own embarrassment to notice the unnatural condition of the man, but the child saw it and her sympathy forced itself upon James Edwin. He stood looking after her when she went, and noticed her small, fat arms held out to the breeze as she ran.

When he lay down in the grass again the James within him and the James who was dreaming combined to comfort him.

“There is no dying,” said James to James Edwin. “There is no escaping.
Somebody is doing all this. Somebody is stirring the bowl.
”

James Edwin lay in the grass until it was three o'clock, and by that time his gun looked not only cheap and ridiculous but also useless. The heaviness of his sorrows was still with him, but he had had a great experience.

In his weariness he buried his head in the warm grass as James had done long ago in the field behind Jason's house, and after a long time he slept. It was dusk when he came down out of the garden; he had very little idea what had happened to him but he felt light-hearted and free because of a presentiment he had had that the miracle had occurred, and that Phœbe somehow or other was all right.

These premonitions had worried him all his life. After a long experience of them he had come to believe they were the outcome of simple telepathy between himself and persons near to him in distance rather than love. In his dream James saw him hurrying down the narrow path between the pear trees, his step lighter than it had been for weeks, and his eyes obstinately hopeful. James had had the premonition also, and he was overjoyed but not surprised when he saw old Miss Wilsmore, the post-mistress from next door whom James Edwin had known all his life, trotting over the lawn towards the young man, the wire in her hand.

“It's come!” she shouted with that truculence in triumph which is typical of the East Country. “That's come, my little old boy! That's all right now, they're both on 'em safe. Telegram signed by someone called McBride.”

“Both?” James Edwin demanded, the blood in him leaping.

“That's what it says,” she said, laying a bony hand on his shoulder. “Now you goo down on your knees. That's a Mercy. None on us had any right to expect that.”

James opened his eyes as he sat on the lawn at Farthing Hall back in the nineteenth century. His mind was still engrossed with James
Edwin and Phœbe and the child who was safe, and the other child who had held out her arms to the wind. He remembered what he had said to James Edwin.

“
Somebody is doing all this. Somebody is stirring the bowl.
”

The garden was still swimming about him. His heart was flickering and the great fear of Death was upon him. His thoughts were in confusion and he opened his eyes to their widest extent, trying at least to see the beech tree buds or the flowers that were like Dorothy, trying to catch and hold them, trying not to go. He was so frightened that the sweat broke out on his forehead and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. It was in that moment that the kind earth to whom he belonged and of whom he was made, said to him in a singsong:

“God is your Father, but I am your mother, James. I am your mother, and I am remarkable. I am of infinite resource. I am kind, I am constant, I restore. I do magic, and I heal. I cleanse. There is nothing so vile that I cannot destroy it, nothing so dead that I cannot remould it. I am always young to-morrow and you are my darling, best beloved of all my children. Be not afraid of dying. You came from me and you will return to me, and I will re-fashion you, and your Father will breathe on you again. While you live you have purpose, while you live I have astonishment for you. While you live you have seed. While you live I am your servant, and when you die I will take care of you. What is eternal in you will go to your Father, what is mortal in you will come to me, and I will clean it and restore it and use it again. God is your Father, but I am your mother, and I love you too.”

James cried out aloud suddenly as the green and gold and blue burst into a blaze of light about his head.

“There,” mumbled the earth, fanning him with her cow's breath. “There, there. Don't be frightened. Never be afraid.”

When Debby came back with little Jeffrey from their walk in the village, the child ran over to his grandfather, and presently began to scream. By the time Debby came up to him he was in a panic and he threw his arms round her, clutching her bunchy skirts, his face hidden against the hard stomacher of her bodice.

Debby saw at once what had happened, and was not surprised, for they had been expecting it.

“He's gone!” the child screamed, “he's gone!”

“No, darling, he's only asleep,” said Debby soothingly, but her voice was unsteady for she was frightened by Death too. “He's only asleep. He'll go away now and wake up and have a nice long day to-morrow. You'll see.”

Margery Louise Allingham was born in Ealing, London in 1904 to a very literary family; her parents were both writers, and her aunt ran a magazine, so it was natural that Margery too would begin writing at an early age. She wrote steadily through her school days, first in Colchester and later as a boarder at the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge, where she wrote, produced, and performed in a costume play. After her return to London in 1920 she enrolled at the Regent Street Polytechnic, where she studied drama and speech training in a successful attempt to overcome a childhood stammer. There she met Phillip Youngman Carter, who would become her husband and collaborator, designing the jackets for many of her future books.
The Allingham family retained a house on Mersea Island, a few miles from Layer Breton, and it was here that Margery found the material for her first novel, the adventure story
Blackkerchief
Dick (1923), which was published when she was just nineteen. She went on to pen multiple novels, some of which dealt with occult themes and some with mystery, as well as writing plays and stories – her first detective story,
The White Cottage Mystery
, was serialized in the
Daily Express
in 1927.
Allingham died at the age of 62, and her final novel,
A Cargo of Eagles
, was finished by her husband at her request and published posthumously in 1968.

Discover books by Margery Allingham published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/MargeryAllingham
Blackkerchief Dick
The White Cottage Mystery
Dance of the Years
No Love Lost