Lord of the Hollow Dark (11 page)

No matter: in less than fifteen minutes, afoot, he could be in the midst of the Fossie housing scheme, and from there catch a bus or telephone for a cab. True, the narrow road to Fossie Housing Estates was uninhabited, with only the derelict railway marshaling yard and the reaches of the Fettinch Moss on one’s left, and that big abandoned factory, the ruins of a cooperative league’s misconceptions, on one’s right. Yet if pursued, he could dodge among the rotting goods wagons or into the empty shell of the factory, and still make his way to Fossie. So near!

Where he sat, he was still high on the tumulus or knoll surmounted by Balgrummo Lodging, though invisible from the house. He could catch a glimpse of the massive ancient pend at the foot of the drive. To left and right of the vaulted pend, a few rods beyond those ornamental gateposts, there were visible two squat mock towers, seventeenth-century work probably, which were actually conical-capped dovecotes set into the high precinct wall. Some pigeons flapped near to him now, probably hoping for tossed crumbs; they set his nerves on edge, and he would have liked to strangle them.

Sweeney did not know precisely why he was running away, but flee he would. He was abandoning a good salary, a soft berth, and the prospect of mastering two delectable women. Apollinax had said nothing to him that could be construed as a serious threat. And this was Scotland, and only a few miles from a capital city, and he had been surrounded by many people in a quiet country house, most of them harmless enough, probably. Yet he would run.

That ghastly dream had something to do with his decision. Hoo-ha! So did the Archvicar’s note and the Archvicar’s manner. So did Apollinax’s archaic smile. So, though inexplicably, did the appearance of that stranger called Bain. Had a glance of unexpected recognition passed between Bain and the Archvicar? Then there had been that gaze of expectation, which distressed him oddly, on the faces of Apollinax’s disciples and acolytes. Also he dreaded the absurd nasty task expected of him—finding a perilous way through medieval sewers that might not remain into the Weem that might not exist. He was oppressed by the whole brooding, chill atmosphere of Balgrummo Lodging, a dead house, a deathly house. He did not know what might happen at Balgrummo Lodging, on Ash Wednesday night; but something would occur, and he meant not to be there then.

After all, he had his London bank account, with a healthy balance. He would not return to his rented London flat-Apollinax knew all too well where that was, and there might be acolyte-boys in the West End-but would take a room in some obscure hotel for a night, and then perhaps train and the Holyhead packet to Ireland, and fly somewhere from Shannon. He had covered his tracks before, shifting from one alias to another, one mode of transportation to another. Not back to Canada, no. Mexico, perhaps? There must be openings for his talents at Acapulco, say.

Well, up then, Sweeney! Leave your luggage and that exasperating “Apeneck Sweeney” name behind you; let Apollinax and his ways fade like a bad taste in the mouth. He rose from the stump and strolled-casually, he hoped-down the long drive toward the pend. These vast decayed limes and beeches overhanging the drive must be two centuries old at least, ready for the axe, overripe, senile. Get out of this rotting place, Sweeney. One limb had fallen across the drive during the night; he stepped over it. Should he whistle cheerfully as he approached the gate lodge? No, he couldn’t manage that, and it might seem an affectation. Square your shoulders, Sweeney: you’re half a head taller than those zombie-boys at the pend, and ten times as smart as they are. You look tough. Be tough but civil.

There they were, the two acolytes, mops of hair atop them, lounging at the mouth of the pend. One actually held a shotgun in his hand, resting the butt on the paving. He tried hard to recollect their names. One was an American, the other a Dutch youth, he thought. For the life of him, Sweeney couldn’t think of their damned Eliot pseudonyms. Well, brazen it out, Sweeney. You’ve got a thick black beard, and you’re wearing denims and a flannel shirt, and once you tried for a black belt in karate, even if you didn’t earn it. They’re just a couple of punks, brainwashed by that mountebank Apollinax. They won’t stop you. You can’t let them stop you!

Sweeney walked up to the keepers, still trying to think of how he should greet them. They stared at him. It came into Sweeney’s head that their hard stare, and the stare of all the disciples and acolytes, that damned smirking stare, was voracious. Hoo-ha, hoo-ha! Knock, knock, knock!

“Hi there,” said Sweeney, rather hoarsely.

The two young men did not reply. What he would have given to be able to wipe that gloating smirk off their faces!

“Not a bad day, chums. About time for a cup of tea down here?”

They said nothing, only glancing at each other, still grinning.

“I’m going out for a walk, just down the road. Good day for it, eh? I’ll be back in five minutes, if anybody asks for me.” Really, they couldn’t stop him; this was Scotland, a free country.

Still they were silent, simply standing in the mouth of the pend, obstructing passage. But he could squeeze past them. He would; damn it, he
would
.

He sidled toward them, his right shoulder brushing the pend wall; he could just make it past them if they didn’t move. The empty-handed acolyte reached inside the carven stone molding of the pend mouth and fetched out a second shotgun. Sweeney pretended not to notice.

The first acolyte spoke then, but not to Sweeney. “Look at the old pusher,” he said. “He’s asking for it.” The second acolyte nodded.

Sweeney tried to glide past.

The first acolyte brought down the butt of his shotgun, hard, on the instep of Sweeney’s left shoe.

As he howled and hopped backward, clutching his foot with both hands, Sweeney in his agony felt even more humiliated by that adjective “old.” Old! He was only thirty-two, and these zombies called him old, these nasty kids. They were laughing at him, roaring with mirth, screaming with laughter. He hopped and howled and swore. Would they come after him and let him have it, really have it? His foot might be broken. God, what would he do now, after he could stop howling and hopping?

Then he heard tinkling laughter behind him, which frightened him so that he ceased cursing and put his injured foot back on the ground, and managed to turn.

Apollinax stood there, fetus-faced, laughing in a leisurely way. Another of the devil-boys was with Apollinax, and he was laughing like a hyena.

He had been so close to freedom, so close!

Apollinax pointed toward the Lodging. All the way back up the drive, as he limped ahead, Sweeney heard Apollinax chuckling, following him closely, saying nothing. What an elegant, blurred-faced master, Apollinax! Sweeney’s only consolation was that they did not prod him from behind as they herded him back inside Balgrummo Lodging. Hoo-ha!

Marina was almost the last to enter the great dining room, really a banquet hall, with its remote, noble plaster ceiling, all swags and knops-were those the right terms?-by some fine Italian hand. In two or three places, that magnificent ceiling seemed to sag ominously. Heavy interior shutters over the windows closed off the hall from the night.

With one or two exceptions, the disciples were there already, and so were the Archvicar and Madame Sesostris. Rather to her surprise, people were sipping from wineglasses something that looked like sherry; the dinner gong not having been sounded yet, they stood about a sideboard, talking quietly.

Mrs. Equitone came up to Marina. “So happy you’ve arrived, my dear!” she mumbled, much as if her mouth were full of potatoes. “The Master said we couldn’t proceed without you, really we couldn’t.” She seemed unable to think of more to say; her old face sagged in perplexity; then she brightened. “Do have a glass of this aperitif: the Master created it, and it’s vegetal, he says, not alcoholic at all.”

All wrinkles and jewels, Mrs. Equitone stared at her with a fixed smile. Her nightmare flooding back into Marina’s consciousness, she thought, Why, Mrs. Equitone’s face is quite like an old worn mask! But she said this aloud: “Will the Master have time to talk with me tonight, do you suppose?” She just sipped her drink, or rather touched it to her lips: it was tart, the color of prune juice, and she wanted no more of it.

Everyone was in evening dress; Marina felt glad she had worn her best long frock. Two of the acolyte-girls were carrying about little silver trays with appetizers-not very appetizing appetizers-upon them; their names, Marina learned, were Doris and Dusty, and they weren’t tidy, Dusty in particular looking as if she would be the better for a thorough dusting. They were clumsy: twice Marina heard the splintering of delicate stemware. Before the hesitating Mrs. Equitone could reply to her question, a tall gaunt man spoke to Marina, introducing himself: “De Bailhache.” He was a Frenchman with narrow red-rimmed eyes and a blotchy face. And it occurred to Marina that this man’s face, too, was like a weathered mask. Was she dreaming again? In this house, it was hard to tell. Had that slightest sip of the drink gone to her head?

“But surely you brought with you the baby, Mademoiselle?” de Bailhache was inquiring. With a grin of sorts, he emphasized the
Mademoiselle.
She recognized in him the sort of man who insults people mercilessly from behind a veneer of polished manners.

“Madame Sesostris’ maid, Fresca, has him while I’m here at dinner,” Marina said. The man turned away abruptly to say something to Grishkin, who was directing Doris and Dusty. Someone touched Marina’s elbow.

It was Madame Sesostris, and the old lady took the wineglass out of Marina’s hand. “I shouldn’t touch more of this, my dear.” Wondering, Marina saw Madame Sesostris surreptitiously pour the drink into an aspidistra pot.

Then someone sounded the immense brass dinner gong in the corridor outside the dining-room door; the booming echoed and re-echoed through this labyrinthine house. People began to take chairs at the long mahogany table, set with perfectly beautiful porcelain. Men and women moved between her and Madame Sesostris. “Let me show you to your place, Marina,” said a rather high, assured voice.

It was Mr. Apollinax himself! His large eyes regarded her intently; what with the wonder of his eyes, one scarcely noticed the peculiarity of the rest of his face. Mr. Apollinax’s eyes flamed with energy, but it crossed Marina’s mind that there was no sparkle at all in the eyes of most of the people in this room; de Bailhache’s eyes had been a leaden gray-black.

“Oh, I’ve been so wishing to talk...” Marina began. But the Master merely nodded indulgently and propelled her to a chair about halfway down the table.

“There will come a time, Marina,” he promised. Then he moved away to take his place at the head of the table.

Besides Doris and Dusty, two of the acolyte-boys—“Albert and Sam,” Mrs. Equitone gobbled to her, as she went past-were drawing back chairs for the seventeen diners. In that shadowy banqueting hall, this looked a small party.

There seated himself beside her a plump swarthy man, somewhat in need of a shave, who spoke with a heavy accent of some sort. His dinner jacket was far too tight. “I am Eu-genides,” he began. “You the London girl with the baby, no?” Mr. Eugenides was unpleasing. Marina nodded, and glanced at her dinner companion on the other side. This was a bowed bald man wearing rimless spectacles. He had protuberant upper teeth, and his black eyes flickered up and down her. “I’m supposed to be Marina,” she told him. “I mean, I
am
Marina.”

“Channing-Cheetah,” he responded, “Professor Channing-Cheetah.” Was his what was called a New England accent? He reminded Marina of some animal-a rat, possibly? An Eliot line or two ran through her head: “Such deliberate disguises... Rat’s coat... crossed staves...”

Before the professor could say more, Mr. Apollinax tinkled a little silver bell.

“As we are about to partake of this meal,” the Master called out, “we pause in meditation upon the Timeless Moment.”

He folded his hands, and so did all his disciples—and, tardily, the Archvicar and Madame Sesostris. All eyes were lowered; Marina pressed her fingers together and stared at her plate. Could she become worthy of this?

“Beloved,” Apollinax intoned, “we fix our awareness upon the realm of spirit. We offer up thanks that there are gathered together this night those victims of circumstance from whom all sense of guilt shall be cleansed forever. We are grateful for the coming of Marina, with her child, that our ceremony of innocence may be fulfilled utterly. We pray for the swift success of those who labor in the darkness beneath this house, opening our way to ancient mysteries. We ask, one and all, that unto every creature under this roof there shall be given his heart’s desire, whether in this house or in death’s dream kingdom.”

There elapsed some moments of silence. Then the Archvicar, from somewhere or other, heartily said “Amen!” Doris and Dusty and Sam and Albert began thrusting handsome bowls of soup before the diners.

Or, by courtesy, it might be called soup. Was it supposed to be ox-tail? A reek arose from it. Marina was sliding her plate aside when Professor Channing-Cheetah said, “Don’t you care for your soup? The girls who made it worked very hard, you know.”

This rubbed Marina the wrong way. “Then the mountain labored and produced a mouse,” she said. Really, she never had tasted such horrid soup in all her life.

“Yes, they worked very hard indeed, those devoted young women,” the professor continued, “and who are you and I to judge the result? Are you a cook? Am I? It is the worker who determines the worth of his product, and none other.”

“You don’t have to be a chicken to judge an egg,” Marina retorted. Professor Channing-Cheetah’s face, so ratlike, was very close to hers, almost beseeching her. The professor did not really look at all generous or compassionate, any more than a rat does.

“Aren’t people nice?” Channing-Cheetah inquired of her. “Don’t you just love people?” He smiled broadly, almost beatifically. “Of course there are exploiters, not nice, not nice at all, don’t you agree? In Algeria, once-I was there on a scholarly fact-finding mission-we were shown more than a hundred corpses, ‘white bodies naked on the low damp ground...’ This was just at the time when independence was achieved, you understand. I, and even my wife over there, were a trifle startled at this exhibition; and, indeed, I suppose that we foreigners-but should anyone be a foreigner to anyone else?-had been brought to the execution spot, unintentionally, through some failure of communications. Yet when we were told that these were the cadavers of the agents of the repudiated imperialism-why, every one of us on the Commission of Inquiry clapped his or her hands.”