He passed out of the church into the evil weather, with its failing light and beginning storm. He had planned to go to the left, to see the forlorn water-meadows; he had thought that they would be a good image of desolation. Something, he knew not what, perhaps only a gust or draught of wind coming up the Peppery against him as he left the church door, made him say: “No, not the water-meadows.” He turned, instead, to the right, and was soon in the lights and glistening pavings of the Market Square. He had left his car there, and was just about to turn again to the right, towards it, when something caught his eye on the wall of the Corn Exchange, on the other side of the open space. It was a big notice-board, nearly covered with what seemed to be a design from Botticelli’s Primavera. He wondered what could have made her venture to a place like Stubbington, and crossed the Square to find out.
When he stood beneath the notice-board, he saw that the Spring was subtly changed, to show that she was dancing; it had been done with a good deal of ribald dash, but what brought ribald dash to Stubbington? Underneath was the announcement:
“Poor devils,” he muttered, “what on earth can bring Circassians to Stubbington of all places and on a day like this? Poor devils. What brought them here?” He knew nothing about Circassians, except what Tolstoi tells. “And ballet, too,” he muttered. “What can bring ballet here, a thing of rhythm, beauty and delight, to that awful hall where the concert was?”
Well, ballet belonged to the world of the imagination, which Stubbington had ceased to believe in. He would go to it, if only as a protest against everything that Stubbington stood for. He would be late, for it was already seven minutes to four, but still, even if they were only doing one of their three pieces it would be life and beauty in a day of death.
“Good old Stubbington,” he said, “once famed as the rottenest borough in England, now, without much question, the deadest. Forwards, to its champion morgue, the Stokeley-Pitte.”
He had called it Stubbington’s champion morgue, but when he drew near to it a few minutes later, he felt that few cities could have a morgue more gloomy; the supreme Morgue, “Death’s high capital and kingly seat,” would not seem a more awful negation of life. There it was in the cold and wet, vast, mean and hideous, with little suggestions of Gothic, and little hints of Byzantine, the foul day dying, the streets unlighted, though there were lights in some of the windows. The wind was rising and the rain becoming worse. Leaves were blowing about and some little boys had recently been at the posters near the door and had torn them into streamers which now lay and sometimes flopped on the pavement. Across the road from the hall a small, much battered car was parked. The house seemed to be deserted; the lights were on in the porch, but no signs showed of audience, and no noise came from within.
“I suppose the Circassians realised what they were coming to,” he said, “and cancelled the engagement.”
He walked to the entrance. The porch was covered in at the sides with panes of white and yellow glass, placed alternately; beyond the porch, in a gloomy passage, were a table and chair, the table bearing books of tickets and a paper of tax stamps. A woman was talking volubly and bitterly in French, not far away. Frampton beat with his foot upon the floor for the ticket-seller, but nobody answered. The draughts were running along the corridor and causing the frame of a picture to clack upon the wall. The picture was a much-foxed engraving of a whiskered man in uniform, General Stokeley-Pitte, no doubt. The window of the passage had had a stone through it; the rain had come in there in a long, dark smear down the wall. At the back of the house something whined and sobbed. It didn’t sound cheerful enough to be a dog in pain; Frampton thought it must be the hot-water system refusing duty.
The door at the end of the passage, which opened into the auditorium, suddenly pushed back; a young, fresh-coloured man, whom Frampton remembered to have seen more than once in Stubbington Market Place, came towards him.
“Is the show cancelled?” Frampton asked, “or can I have a ticket?”
“They’ve only just come,” the lad said. “They don’t know if they’ll dance or not. They don’t talk no known Christian language. Then there’s some mistake about the tickets. You see, they’ve got the wrong days on ’em. But Mr. What’s-his-name’ll be here in a minute; he’s the one that’ll know.”