“Sorry; she’s over. To do her tricks, I mean. Aldebaran’s very bright just now.”
Damn the stars. I know starlight. And the penalty. Leave the stars to them. Carston turned a disk: “I think you’ll like this. Not come to London yet.”
They did. Incarnated him responsible for
Then Carston showed them the Charleston, and tumbled with them up to bed, shaking hands at doors, easy at last, and full of goodwill.
The air that filled his room was moist and strong, preparation for the freshest earth there is. The elation went out of him and left content. The visit had given him wonder. That was good, because one got brittle and lonely travelling round, and quick to mistrust. How simple it had been to win on these lordly young men. Love their women. Their place was his now. And the wood. It stood like something punished under the rain. He blew out his candle, and lay down in bed.
A minute later the tail of the lightning winked. The rain quickened. The door next his opened. The gutter outside began to run fast again. Through the finale of the storm, he heard a gull crying. Then, outside his door he heard a whistle like a glass flute. How loud, how long he could not judge, startled by it, teased by it. It was outside the door where Scylla slept. All he could do was repeat the words of the call, as it poured out, with grace notes and repeats:
Scylla’s door opened, neither noisily nor stealthily. Carston was out of bed, his ear to a split panel. He heard her laugh, her stage notion of an american accent. “I should worry.” Her door shut. He felt like a weight on his body, the three feet of stone between them. On the other side of that they were lying together, in the quiet of the wood. After a time, he went to the window to listen. But only the casement farthest from him was open, and there was no light. Shocked, almost whimpering, he went back to bed, falling, thanks to the strong air, very quickly asleep. Outside, the night cleared. Over the wood Orion hung up his belt and sword. In the pommel, Aldebaran shook; the star some time before Ross had offered to his attention.
The morning was a merciful bustle, with Ross’s promise come true of the freshest earth there is. The car arrived, and there seemed to be a controversy where they were to go. To pay a call or see some antiquity. Felix put his foot down on the antiquities.
Carston saw Scylla, preoccupied, perfectly and hideously gay.
They took him to Starn and shewed it him: as if it was a live thing; and did not notice that he resented its life, and was making attempts to kill it. Principally he remembered it because it was half full of people from the world outside. Not peasants, people in vulgar clothes, on motorcycles, in Ford cars, come to stare because it was summer, whom his party treated as if they were a disease.
After lunch the object of the expedition leaked out. He was told that there was a farm, some way off, where mead was made and could be bought. The price of whisky and drinkable wine had turned their thoughts to it. There was no road to the farm. About the distance they were delicately indefinite. They spoke about a track across a place they called the Heath.
Carston had seen the Heath, had crawled along it for miles in the train. It had seemed purple and endless, and he suspected full of traps. The other side of these people’s world of hills and the sea. Their idea was that it was time for Carston to visit it, covered with a gauze of every variety of heather, the sweet blood-bright burning crop out of which the honey wine was made.
They rested a little and set out.
Ross caught up Scylla, walking ahead, picking out the track. “A word with you,” he said, “don’t let anyone know.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the American, because of Felix, because of Clarence.”
