The Secrets of Dr. Taverner (20 page)

The interruption broke the spell. For a moment Diana's eyes
flashed, and I thought we were going to be treated to one of the
exhibitions of temper we had heard about but not yet seen. They
faded, however, to their usual fish-like neutrality, and the gawky
female hobbledehoy shambled off at the bidding of authority.

Tennant, however, turned at bay for a minute, recalled from
some upland pasture of the spirit where he had found freedom,
and much inclined to resent the disturbance. My hand on his
arm, and a word of authority in his ear, however, soon restored
him to normal, and he too trudged off in the wake of the matron.

"Damn that woman," said Taverner as he secured the
windows, "she is no use for this work."

I stepped outside to fasten the shutters, but paused arrested
on the threshold.

"By Jove, Taverner," I exclaimed. "Smell this!"

He joined me on the terrace and together we inhaled the
odour of a garden in blossom. Frost lay white upon the grass,
and the bleak March wind cut keenly, but the air was full of the
odour of flowers, with an undercurrent of sun-warmed
pinewoods. Something stirred in the shadow of the creepers, and
a huge hare shot past us with a scurry of gravel and gained the
shelter of the shrubbery.

"Good gracious," I exclaimed. "Whatever brought him here?"

"Ah, what indeed?" said Taverner. "We should know some
rather important things if we knew that."

I had hardly reached my room when I was summoned by a
loud knocking at the door. I opened it to find one of the patients
clad only in his pyjamas.

"There is something wrong in Tennant's room," he said. "I
think he is trying to hang himself."

He was right. Tennant, suspended by the cord of his
dressing-gown, swung from the cornice pole. We cut him down,
and after some hard work at artificial respiration, got him round,
and even Taverner was convinced that constant supervision was
the only way of dealing with him. Next day he let me send for a
male nurse, but the train that brought him also took away the
matron, a much-injured woman, not altogether soothed by the
generous cheque and excellent testimonial Taverner had
bestowed upon her when he dismissed her without either cause
or notice.

Such incidents do not cause a three days wonder in a mental
home, and we settled down to our routine next morning.
Nevertheless I could not get out of my mind the gull-like wailing
of the violin and the strange odour of flowers. They seemed to
go together, and in some subtle way they had unsettled and
disturbed me. Though spring had not shown itself, a spring
restlessness was upon me. Unable to endure the closeness of the
office, I set wide open the French windows, letting the bitter
wind blow over me as I wrestled with the correspondence that
had to be got off by the afternoon post.

It was thus Taverner found me, and he surveyed me
curiously.

"So you heard it too?" he asked.

"Heard what?" I answered impatiently, for my temper was on
edge for some unknown reason.

"The call of Pan," said my colleague, as he shut out the
whirlwind.

"I am going out," I announced, gathering up the last of the
mail. Taverner nodded without comment, for which I was
grateful.

What freak possessed me I do not know, but finding Diana
curled up on a sofa in the lounge, I called to her as I would to a
dog: "Come on, Diana, come for a run," and like a dog she rose
and followed me. Forgetting that though a child in mind, she had
reached years of womanhood, forgetting that she had neither
coat, hat, nor boots, and for the matter of that, neither had I, I
took her with me through the dripping shrubbery to the garden
gate.

The sandy road in which the pillar box stood ended in the
heather of the moor. Diana advanced tentatively to the edge of
the turf and then stood looking back at me. It was so exactly like
a dog asking to be taken for a run that I gave myself up to the
illusion. "Come on, Diana," I shouted, "Let's have a scamper."

I raced down the path towards her, and with a bound she was
off and away over the heather. Away we went as hard as we
could go over the soaked black ground into the rolling mists. I
was only just able to keep the figure ahead in sight, for she ran
like a deer, leaping what I had to plough through.

We went straight across the level plain that had once been the
bed of a lake, heading for the Devil's Jumps. Long after I was
struggling for my second wind the bounding figure ahead held
its pace, and I did not catch up with her until rising ground gave
me the advantage. In the little pinewood on its crest she slipped
on the twisted roots and came down, rolling over and over like a
puppy. I tripped over the waving green legs and came down too,
so heavily, however, that I winded myself.

We sat up gasping, and looked at each other, and then with
one accord burst out laughing. It was the first time I had ever
heard Diana laugh. Her eyes were as green as a cat's, and she
showed a double row of very sharp white teeth and a pretty pink
tongue. It was not human, but it was very fascinating.

We picked ourselves up and trotted home over the heather,
and sneaked in at the scullery door while the maids were at tea. I
felt rather uncomfortable about the whole business, and
sincerely hoped no one had seen my escapade and that Diana
would not speak of it.

Speech was not a habit of hers, however, but she was rich in
the language of unconscious gesture and speedily announced to
the petty world of the nursing home that there was an
understanding between us. Her eyes gleamed green on my
appearance, and she showed her sharp white teeth and little pink
tongue. If she had a tail, she would have wagged it. I found all
this rather disconcerting.

Next day, when Taverner and I went down to the post for a
breath of fresh air, we found Diana at our heels.

"Your little pet dog, I see," said Taverner, and I mumbled
something about transference of libido and fixations.

Taverner laughed. "My dear boy," he said, "she is not
sufficiently human to fall in love with you, so don't worry."

At the end of the road Diana repeated her tactics of the
previous day.

"What does she want?" demanded Taverner. I felt myself
going an uncomfortable scarlet, and Taverner looked at me
curiously.

"She wants me to run with her," I said, thinking that the truth
was the only possible explanation and that Taverner would
understand it.

He did. But his reply was more disconcerting than his
question.

"Well, why not?" he said. "Go on, run with her, very good
for both of you."

I hesitated, but he would take no denial, and compelled by his
will I lumbered off. But Diana saw the difference. Deep had
called unto deep the previous day, but now I was one of the
Philistines, and she would not run with me. Instead, she trotted
in a circle and looked at me with troubled eyes, her pink tongue
hidden behind drooping lips. My heart was filled with a furious
hatred of Taverner and myself and all created things, and
vaulting the fence, I bolted down the shrubbery and took refuge
in my own room, from which I did not descend till dinner.

At that meal Diana gazed at me with her odd green eyes that
almost seem to say: "Now you know what I have felt like all
these years," and I telepathed back, "I do. Damn everybody."

Taverner tactfully refrained from referring to the matter, for
which I was devoutly thankful. A week went by and I thought it
was forgotten, when suddenly he broke silence.

"I cannot get Diana to run by herself," he said. I squirmed,
but wouldn't answer.

He went to the window and drew up the blind. A full moon
shone into the room, clashing horribly with the electric light.

"It is the night of the Vernal Equinox," said Taverner, a
propos of nothing.

"Rhodes," he said. "I am going to try a very dangerous
experiment, If I fail, there will be trouble, and if I succeed there
will be a row, so put your coat on and come with me."

In the drawing-room we found Diana, oblivious of the good
ladies knitting jumpers round the fire, curled up on a window
seat with her nose pressed to the pane. Taverner opened the
window, and she slipped out as noiselessly as a cat; we threw
our legs over the sill and followed her.

She waited in the shadow of the house as if afraid to advance.
The years of discipline had left their mark upon her, and like a
caged-bird when the door is left open, she desired freedom, but
had forgotten how to fly. Taverner wrapped around her a heavy
tweed cape he was carrying, and putting her between us, we set
out for the moors. We went by the same route that our wild
flight had followed, to the pine wood that rose on its low crest
out of the level of the ancient sea bed.

The Scotch firs, with their sparse tufted crests, were too
scanty to make a darkness, but threw grotesque goblin shadows
on the needle-carpeted ground. In a hollow of the moor a stream
made water-noises away out of sight.

Taverner took the cloak from Diana's shoulders and pushed
her out into the moonlight. She hesitated, and then fled timidly
back to us, but Taverner, glancing at his watch pushed her out
again. I was reminded of that wonderful story of jungle life in
which the cubs are brought to the Council Rock so that the
wolves of the pack may know and recognize them. Diana was
being handed over to her own people.

We waited, while the full moon sailed across the heavens in a
halo of golden cloud, Taverner glancing at his watch from time
to time. The wind had dropped and in the stillness the stream
sounded very loud, but though I neither saw nor heard anything,
I knew that something was coming towards us through the
shadow of the wood. I found myself trembling in every limb, not
from fear, but excitement. Something was passing us, something
big and massive, and in its train many lesser things of the same
nature. Every nerve in my body began to sing, and without my
volition, my foot took a step forward. But Taverner's hand on
my arm restrained me.

"This is not for you, Rhodes," he said. "You have too much
mentality to find your mating here."

Reluctantly I let him check me. The mad fit passed, and as
my eyes cleared again I saw the girl in the moonlight, and knew
that she too had felt Their coming.

She turned towards Them, half in fear, half in fascination.

They lured her, but she dared not respond. Then I felt that
they had surrounded her, and that she could not escape, and then
I saw her surrender. She stretched out her hands towards Them,
and I was sure that invisible hands clasped hers; then she raised
them towards the sky, and the moon seemed to shine straight
between the cupped palms into her breast; then she lowered
them towards the earth, and dropping on her knee, pressed them
to the ground, and sinking lower, pressed her whole body to the
earth till her form hollowed the light soil to receive it.