Descent into Hell Read online

  It was the reputation of Peter Stanhope which had so largely increased the excitement of this year’s drama. Public attention was given to it; articles appeared in New York and paragraphs in Paris. Seats had to be reserved for a few—a very few—very distinguished visitors; many others could be and had to be refused. The Press would be there. A palpitation of publicity went through the cast; the world seemed to flow towards Battle Hill. There was no denying that it was an event, almost a moment in the history of the imagination; recognized as such by, at least, a not inconsiderable minority of those who cared for such things, and a quite inconsiderable minority of those who did not, but who read everything in their papers. Even the cast were provided with tickets; and the rehearsal itself was guarded by a policeman. A popular member of the Chorus also stood by the gate and scrutinized all arrivals, as if the bear and the spirit purged creation by power and knowledge.

  The pressure of this outer world had modulated and unified the producer, the performers, and every one else concerned with the play. Harmony became so necessary that it was actually achieved, fate and free-will coinciding. Stanhope became so desirable that he was compelled to promise to say a few words at the end. A deference towards him exhibited itself. Adela rebuked Pauline for speaking lightly of the great man.

  “I didn’t know that you admired him so much yourself,” Pauline said.

  Adela, with an unfailing grasp of the real values of the world, said: “Even if I didn’t, he is respected by some very fine judges. But I’ve come to see there is more in him than I’d thought. He’s got a number of curiously modern streaks under his romanticism.”

  When Adela mentioned romanticism Pauline, and most other people, changed the conversation. Otherwise it was a prelude to a long and complete denunciation of all romantics as the enemies of true art. True art had been recently defined, by a distinguished critic, as “the factual oblique,” and of the factual oblique romanticism, it seemed, was incapable, being neither clear enough to be factual or clever enough to be oblique. The factual oblique, incidentally, had not yet revealed to Adela the oblique fact that she never mentioned romanticism when she was with Hugh; any conversation in which it seemed likely to appear was deflected before it arrived. Pauline, not having been able to deflect, merely altered.

  “There’s Mr. Wentworth,” she said. “I do hope he approves of the Guard.”

  “He ought to have looked at them before,” Adela said severely. “He’s been terribly slack. I suppose you haven’t seen him lately?”

  “No, not with grandmother and the play and everything,” Pauline answered. “Have you?”

  Adela shook her head. Wentworth was moving slowly across the lawn towards them. His eyes were on the ground; he walked heavily, and it was as if by accident that he at last drew level with them. Pauline said: “Good afternoon, Mr. Wentworth.”

  He looked up at her, and blinked. It was true the air was very clear and the sun very bright, yet Pauline was astonished by the momentary difficulty he seemed to find in focusing her. When he had got her right, he slowly smiled, and said: “Ah! Good afternoon, Miss Anstruther.”

  Adela Hunt abruptly said: “Mr. Wentworth!” He jumped. Slightly but definitely he jerked, and only then looked round. He looked, and there was perplexity in his eyes. He stared at the surprised Adela; he seemed taken aback at seeing her, and almost to resent it. A disagreeable shock showed in his face, and was gone, as he answered: “Oh, yes; Miss Hunt,” a statement, not a greeting: a piece of information offered to the inquiring mind. Adela could not help noticing it, and was almost too astonished to smile. She couldn’t believe the look had been acted, yet he couldn’t really be surprised. She wondered if he were indeed secretly angry, if it were a poor mad insult of an outraged mind, and decided it couldn’t be.

  She said briskly: “I hope you’ve approved of the uniforms.” He took a step back. He said, in real distress: “Oh, hush, hush, not so loud,” and in turn he blinked at her, as if, when he had taken in her words, they surprised him more. Little though she could know it, they did. He had supposed, in the night and the morning, that he had hated the Adela of the world; he had had her in his imagination as an enemy and a threat. He had overrated her. She was, in fact, nothing like what he had, and now he had met her he had hardly recognized her. There had been a girl talking to—to—the name had again escaped him—to the other girl, whose shape had reminded him of his nightly mistress; she had turned her head, and it had been his mistress, and then again it was not. It could not be, for this one was remote and a little hostile; it was not, for this one was nothing like as delightful, as warm, as close-bewildering. She spoke, and it was strange, for he expected love; he did not want that voice except in love, and now it—at first—said strange things. With relief he realized it was not his voice—so he called it, admirably exact; this was not the voice of his mistress, and his mistress was most particularly he. This distressed him; it was loud, harsh, uncouth. It was like the rest of the tiresome world into which he had been compelled to enter—violent, smashing, bewildering by its harsh clamour, and far from the soft sweetness of his unheard melody. It was not without reason that Keats imagined the lover of unheard melody in reverie on stone images; the real Greek dancers would have pleased him less. But though Wentworth was shocked by the clumsy tread and the loud voice, they relieved him also. He had hated once; but then he had not wanted to hate—it disturbed him too much; and now he knew he did not. He need not resent the grossness of the world; enough if, by flight, he rejected it. He had his own living medicament for all trouble, and distaste and oblivion for everything else—most of all for his noisome parody of his peace.

  Adela said, modulating her voice: “Have you got a headache? what a shame! it’s good of you to turn out, but we do want to be sure everything’s all right. I mean, if we must have uniforms. Personally …”

  Wentworth said, in a voice of exhaustion: “Oh, please!” In this stridency, as it seemed to him, there was a suggestion of another disastrous noise—the nightmare of a groan, tearing up the abyss, setting the rope swinging. The dull, heavy, plain thing opposite him became identified to his pained sense with that dreadful break-up of his dream, and now he could not hide. He could not say to the hills of those comforting breasts: “Cover me”. The sound sang to his excruciated body, as the sight oppressed it. The two imprisoned and split him: they held him and searched his entrails. They wanted something of him. He refused to want anything but what he wanted.

  While Adela stared, half offended by his curious moan, he withdrew himself into his recesses, and refused to be wanted. Like the dead man on his flight down the hill, he declined communion. But he, to whom more room and beauty in life had been given, chances of clarity and devotion, was not now made frightening to himself. He had not known fear, nor did he find fear, nor was fear the instrument of salvation. He had what he had. There were presented to him the uniforms of the Grand Ducal Guard.

  A voice as loud but less devastating than Adela’s, for it recalled no unheard melodies, said behind him: “Mr. Wentworth! at last! we’re all ready for you. Pauline, the Guard are over by the beeches: take Mr. Wentworth across. I’ll be there in 2 minute.” Mrs. Parry, having said this, did not trouble to watch them do it. She went on.

  Pauline smiled at Wentworth’s dazed and Adela’s irritated face. She said: “I suppose we’d better. Would you, Mr. Wentworth?”

  He turned to her with relief. The sound of her voice was quieter than the rest. He had never before thought so, but now certainly it was. He said, “Yes, yes; let’s get away.”

  Pauline saw Adela as they turned from her, a Gorgon of incredulity. Her heart laughed, and they went. As they passed over the grass, she said: “I do hope you haven’t a headache? They’re so trying.”

  He answered, a little relieved to be away from the dull shouting oppression of Adela: “People are so noisy. Of course … anything I can do … but I can’t stop long.”

  “I shouldn’t think it would take more than a
few minutes,” Pauline said. “You’ll only have to say yes or no—practically. And,” she added, looking round at the whole chaos of glory, and instinctively discerning Stanhope in the distance, “as it’s too late for anything else, you might be so very kind as to enjoy us for what we are, and say yes.”

  Hugh Prescott, grand-ducally splendid and dramatically middle-aged, ran after them. He said, as he caught them up: “Hallo, Mr. Wentworth! I hope my Guard’ll be correct.”

  Wentworth had been soothed by Pauline’s voice. It had to his mind, after Adela’s, something of that quality he desired. It mingled with him; it attracted him; it carried him almost to that moment he knew so well, when, as the desire that expressed his need awoke and grew in him, there came a point of abandonment to his desire. He did not exactly will, but he refused to avoid. Why, indeed, he had once asked himself, swiftly, almost thoughtlessly, should he avoid? He asked himself no more; he sighed, and as it were, nestled back into himself, and then it would somehow be there—coming from behind, or speaking in his ear, or perhaps not even that, but a breath mingling with his, almost dividing from his to mingle with it, so that there were two where there had been one, and then the breath seemed to wander away into his palm where his hand lay half-closed, and became a hand in his own hand, and then a slow arm grew against his, and so, a tender coil against him or a swift energy of hunger, as his mood was, it was there, and when the form was felt, it could at last be seen, and he sank into its deep inviting eyes. As he listened to Pauline he suddenly knew all this, as he had never known it before; he almost saw it happen as a thing presented. Her voice created, but it separated. It brought him almost to his moment, and coiled away, with him in its toils. It directed him to the Guard; it said, with an intensity that Pauline had never uttered, but he in his crisis heard: “Take us as we are, and say yes; say yes or no … we are … we are … say yes …,” and another voice, “Is the Grand Duke’s Guard correct?” They became, as he paused before the displayed magnificence, a chorus swinging and singing: “We are … we are … we are.… Is the Guard correct? … Say, say, O say … is the Guard, is the Guard correct?”

  It was not. In one flash he saw it. In spite of his diagrams and descriptions, they had got the shoulder-knots all wrong. The eighteenth century had never known that sort of thing. He looked at them, for the first moment almost with the pure satisfaction of the specialist. He almost, somewhere in him, joined in that insane jangle: “No, no, no; the Guard is wrong—O, wrong. Say … I say.…” He looked, and he swung, as if on his rope, as if at a point of decision—to go on or to climb up. He walked slowly along the line, round the back, negligent of remarks and questions, outwardly gazing, inwardly swinging. After that first glance, he saw nothing else clearly. “Say yes or no.…” The shoulder-knots could be altered easily enough, all twelve, in an hour or so’s work. Or pass them—“take us as we are … say yes.” They could be defended, then and there, with half a dozen reasons; they were no more of a jumble than Stanhope’s verse. But he was something of a purist; he did not like them. His housekeeper, for that matter, could alter them that evening under his direction, and save the costume-makers any further trouble. “Is the Guard, is the Grand Duke’s Guard, correct?”

  A voice penetrated him. Hugh was saying: “One must have one’s subordinates exact, mustn’t one?” There was the slightest stress on “subordinates”—or was there? Wentworth looked askance at him; he was strolling superb by his side. Pauline said: “We could alter some things, of course.” His silence had made her anxious. He stood away, and surveyed the backs of the Guard. He could, if he chose, satisfy and complete everything. He could have the coats left at his house after the rehearsal; he could do what the honour of his scholarship commanded; he could have them returned. It meant only his being busy with them that one evening, and concerning himself with something different from his closed garden. He smelt the garden.

  Mrs. Parry’s voice said: “Is the Guard correct?” He said: “Yes.” It was over; he could go.

  He had decided. The jingle was in his ears no more. Everything was quite quiet. The very colours were still. Then from a distance movement began again. His future was secure, both proximate and ultimate. But his present was decided for him; he was not allowed to go. The devil, for that afternoon, promptly swindled him. He had cheated; he was at once cheated. Mrs. Parry expected him to stop for the rehearsal and oversee the movement of the Guard wherever, in its odd progress about the play, it marched on or marched off. She made it clear. He chattered a protest, to which she paid no attention. She took him to a chair, saw him in it, and went off. He had no energy to oppose her. No one had. Over all that field of actors and spectators—over Stanhope and Pauline, over Adela and Hugh, over poetry and possession and sacred possession the capacity of one really capable woman imposed itself. The moment was hers, and in view of her determination the moment became itself. As efficient in her kind as Margaret Anstruther in hers, Catherine Parry mastered creation, and told it what to do. She had taken on her job, and the determination to fulfil her job controlled the utterance of the poetry of Stanhope and delayed the operation of the drugs of Lilith. Wentworth struggled and was defeated, Adela writhed but obeyed, Peter Stanhope laughed and enjoyed and assented. It was not perhaps the least achievement of his art that it had given to his personal spirit the willingness to fulfil the moment as the moment, so that, reserving his own apprehension of all that his own particular business meant to him, he willingly subordinated it to the business of others at their proper time. He seconded Mrs. Parry as far as and in every way that he could. He ran errands, he took messages, he rehearsed odd speeches, he fastened hooks and held weapons. But he only seconded her. The efficiency was hers; and the Kingdom of God which fulfilled itself in the remote recesses of his spacious verse fulfilled itself also in her effective supremacy. She stood in the middle of the field and looked around her. The few spectators were seated; the actors were gathering. Stanhope stood by her side. The Prologue, with his trumpet, ran hastily across the stage to the trees which formed the background. Mrs. Parry said: “I think we’re ready?” Stanhope agreed. They retired to their chairs, and Mrs. Parry nodded vigorously to the Prologue. The rehearsal began.

  Wentworth, sitting near to Stanhope, secluded himself from it as much as possible, reaching backward and forward with closed eyes into his own secrecies. At the extreme other end of activity, Pauline, waiting with the Chorus for the Woodcutter’s Son’s speech, upon which, as he fed the flames, the first omnipotent song was to break, also gave herself up to delight. If the heavens had opened, it was not for her to deny them, or even too closely to question or examine them. She carried, in her degree, Peter Stanhope and his fortunes—not for audience or other publicity but for the achievement of the verse and the play itself. It was all very well for Stanhope to say it was an entertainment and not a play, and to be charmingly and happily altruistic about her, and since he preferred her to fall in with Mrs. Parry’s instructions she did it, for everyone’s sake including her own. But he was used, anyhow in his imagination, to greater things; this was the greatest she had known or perhaps was ever likely to know. If the apparition she had so long dreaded came across the field she would look at it with joy. If it would sit down till the rehearsal was over.… She smiled to herself at the fantasy and laughed to think that she could smile. The Woodcutter’s Son from beside her went forward, carrying his burden of twigs. His voice rose in the sublime speculations of fire and glory which the poet’s reckless generosity had given him. He spoke and paused, and Pauline and all the Chorus, moving so that their own verdure showed among the trees, broke into an answering song.

  She was not aware, as the rehearsal proceeded, of any other sensation than delight. But so clear and simple was that delight, and so exquisitely shared by all the performers in their separate ways, that as between the acts they talked and laughed together, and every one in the field, with the exception of Lawrence Wentworth, joined in that universal joy—so single and fundamen
tal did it become that once, while again she waited, it seemed to her as if the very words “dress rehearsal” took on another meaning. She saw the ceremonial dress of the actors, but it did not seem to her stranger than Mrs. Parry’s frock or Stanhope’s light suit. All things at all times and everywhere, rehearsed; some great art was in practice and the only business anyone had was to see that his part was perfect. And this particular rehearsal mirrored the rest—only that this was already perfected from within, and that other was not yet. The lumbering Bear danced; the Grand Duke uttered his gnomic wisdom; the Princess and the Woodcutter’s Son entered into the lucid beauty of first love; the farmers counted their pence; and the bandits fell apart within.

  It was in the pause before the last act that the dark thought came to her. She had walked a little away from the others to rest her soul, and, turning, looked back. Around the place where lately the fire had burned, the Prologue and some of the Guard were talking. She saw him lift his trumpet; she saw them move, and the uniforms shone in the amazing brightness of the sun, and suddenly there came to her mind another picture; the woodcut in the old edition of the Book of Martyrs. There too was a trumpet, and guards, and a fire, and a man in it. Here, the tale said, and she had not remembered it till now, here where this stage, perhaps where this fire lay, they had done him to death by fire.