The Oracles Page 2

  But she had never called Serafina a little mother. The commendation of Miss Byrne opened up new vistas. What a pity that more people did not know about this! How glorious it would be when everybody knew! There she goes, they would say. There she goes, that sainted child! Where? Who? Why? Serafina Swann, to be sure, in her lovely little hat.

  The house seemed to be deserted when she got home. It stood up bleakly under the heavy yellow sky, a mean, small box of a house, in a garden choked with weeds. All the doors and windows were wide open, as though the inhabitants had just rushed out in a panic and deserted it for ever. She did not go in because she knew that the others would probably be up at the tree.

  This great oak tree was their favourite refuge and hiding-place. It stood higher than the house, in the middle of a meadow adjoining the back garden, and was more like a little town than a tree. Each child had a particular house, or branch—Serafina had even managed to contrive a sacking roof for hers. Their treasures and toys they kept in their houses, suspended in baskets.

  The ascent was particularly enchanting. They could not have reached the lowest bough without the aid of a derelict ladder which they had found in the garage. Most of its lower rungs were gone, but they could achieve the upper by climbing on to an old green metal garden chair, which had been knocking about in the field ever since they came to Summersdown.

  The greater part of their life was spent in this tree. Sometimes they fell out of it, but nobody had, as yet, been seriously hurt. They would sit for hours in their houses, or climb slowly from branch to branch, visiting one another. They felt it to be a friendly place. Up there they were safe, especially in the summer, when the leaves were so thick as to hide them from anyone not standing immediately below. They were all, except Serafina, timid, low-spirited children, easily terrified, and with a mania for concealing themselves.

  Nobody ever came to look for them in the field. Only cows gathered in the shade of the tree in hot weather, whisking their tails to drive the flies off, and sending up a reassuring cow smell to the children in Tree Town. Even Serafina, who had outgrown most of the tree games, felt a security and confidence up there which she missed in her wary, battling life below. And she was, therefore, a little unwilling to tell anybody about this refuge; Joe, in his innocence, had betrayed their secret to Mrs. Pattison, and invited her to tea in his tree house. There was nothing to be done, save welcome her when she came. Nor had the party gone off badly. She had admired it all very much, thoroughly appreciated the ingenuity of the chair and the ladder, paid a visit to every branch, and brought with her a contribution of lemonade and chocolate biscuits. But she belonged to the dangerous grown-up world, which Serafina distrusted. The people in it were not reasonable. They got themselves into the most mysterious predicaments and then made more hullabaloo about it than any child would dream of making. They seemed to believe that somebody would come and put everything right for them, if they made a great deal of fuss. Even Joe knew better than that. The little Swanns yelled and roared sometimes, if they hurt themselves, but only to relieve their feelings. They did not expect redress. Mrs. Pattison, although she was so nice, did belong to that strange, untrustworthy race, and the tree did not seem so safe after she had been there.

  The back garden was a long one, running uphill to the meadow. Serafina had only got halfway up when she heard Joe’s voice, plaintively hailing her.

  ‘Where are you?’ she called.

  ‘In the miggle of the pond.’

  She ran round a hedge of rambler roses and found them all huddled together in a tank which had once been a lily-pond. To her angry enquiries they replied that they had gone there for safety, until she came home.

  ‘You said—you said yourself,’ said Polly, ‘that they can’t cross water.’

  The worst of raising bogies is the difficulty of dismissing them. Serafina sighed. She ruled by terror, as many another little mother has done. Reassurance was not so easy.

  ‘Silly! They can’t come out in the daytime.’

  Her subjects looked at one another.

  ‘Yes they can,’ whispered Mike at last.

  ‘There’s one now in the meadow,’ said Dinah.

  ‘He’s spoilt our tree,’ said Polly.

  ‘Spoilt our poor tree all quite dead,’ mourned Joe.

  ‘And he’s there still,’ said Mike. ‘We saw him. Hopping after us and shooting at us.’

  Serafina’s spine began to crawl.

  ‘You mean … there’s a person in the meadow?’ she ventured.

  A fluttering sigh of dissent rose from the woebegone group. It was not, they gave her to understand, a person.

  ‘Not … not …’

  Far away a long roll of thunder seemed to answer her. Joe suddenly dashed out of the tank and butted his head into Serafina’s stomach, yelling at the top of his voice:

  ‘An Arfitax!’

  Everybody cried Ssh! It was extremely dangerous to refer to the Enemy by name. Grown-up people might babble lightheartedly about Artefacts, but they did everything differently.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ quavered Serafina.

  To believe it would bring the skies toppling down.

  The whole mythology of the Artefacts had been, as she knew in her saner moments, her own invention. Of course she was afraid of the things; she always ran past the studio as fast as she could. Even grown-up people were afraid of them. A charwoman, who came sometimes, called them wicked-looking things. And Dr. Browning, when he took the bean out of Mike’s nose, had peered through the studio window and declared that he should not like to meet any of them in a wood on a dark night. They looked very frightening, especially those which had some faint resemblance to human beings. But she knew, perfectly well, that they could not really think, and had no life. They were not real, as she put it to herself. Her father made them. People sometimes bought them; for what purpose she could not imagine. They must be very wicked people. It was not possible for Artefacts to get out of the studio and attack the Swanns. If she had ever encouraged the others to think that they could, it was only as a means of keeping order. The idea had presented itself when Mike once asked if they could be in the house; she had answered quickly that they might come, if he did not do as she told him.

  From this beginning the cult had grown and ramified. It was half a game, half a religion, mingling enjoyment with terror, until they had almost come to depend on it. Perpetual warfare raged betwixt the Artefacts and the Swanns, and, in this drama, Serafina played the part of witch-doctor. She knew the habits of the creatures; she knew how to propitiate and defeat them. She could distinguish between an Artefact and a milder type of demon, known as a Form, also an inhabitant of the studio, but less malign and sometimes actually upon the side of the Swanns. It was by her spells and incantations that these creatures were sent to the shed, a kind of condemned cell next door to the garage, which was the ultimate fate of Artefacts and Forms alike. Once they were put there, all was over with them. Within a day or two men would come with a van or lorry and drag the occupant of the shed away to his doom. Sometimes a great many men came. Last year six of them had been needed to remove an egg-shaped Form, so large that the shed door could not be quite closed upon it. The Swanns had rather an affection for it, and were sorry to see it go off to execution. Dinah had cried until Serafina produced the theory that the men were good, and were secretly helping it to escape. One of them had said that it was going to Venice, which was a beautiful place, full of churches and holy people.

  Mike and Dinah believed it all. Joe believed as much as he could understand. Polly, who was sharper than the rest, had lately displayed some signs of scepticism, but she was thoroughly frightened now.

  ‘It really is,’ she persisted. ‘Go up to the meadow and look. He’s there still.’

  They had all come out of the tank by now and they followed Serafina up to the field, lagging a little way behind her, ready to fly at a moment’s notice.

  The first thing which she comprehended, when she
reached the meadow, was the ruin which had fallen upon their tree. It really was destroyed—split from top to bottom and partially burnt. It looked terrifying enough, in that strange yellow light, with the thunder always growling around the hills.

  Then she saw the THING, and cried out in terror:

  ‘Jesus-Mary-Joseph!’

  She could not run away. She could not move. She had to stand there, petrified. If this could happen, anything could happen.

  It stood just beneath the blasted tree—it was the worst that she had ever seen. In hue it was a smouldering red and it was about her height. One long thin leg it had, and a great flat foot. The head was very small, a pear-shaped blob at the end of a twisted neck. It had no arms, but, as Mike said, it was shooting at them. Spikes of different lengths stuck out from it, like wicked arrows.

  At the moment it was motionless, but it was obviously just about to move. On its one long leg it could come hopping faster than anybody could run. It seemed to quiver slightly, as it stood there looking at them, jeering at them, boasting of what it had done—could do. It was the very embodiment of evil.

  ‘Pray for us! Pray for us! Now and in the hour …’

  But I’ve got my rosary, remembered Serafina. I’ve got the Holy Cross. God is stronger than the devil. If he comes at me, I can hold my cross up.

  Her panic subsided a little. This was only an Artefact. It was not real. It could not think. How it had come there she did not know, but it had not come of itself. Somebody must have brought it.

  ‘Pooh!’ she shouted suddenly. ‘I’m not afraid of that!’

  Gripping her rosary, she advanced upon it. Her heart was thudding and she felt sick, but she forced herself to go on. Having reached it, she gave it a little push. It wobbled and fell upon its side at her feet. Immediately half its malignity seemed to evaporate. It looked weak and silly, lying there, shooting its harmless arrows at the sky.

  A yell of triumph arose in the meadow. Dinah, Polly, Mike and Joe rushed up and gathered round the fallen foe. They would not have touched it for the world, but they danced and jumped, threw sticks and dirt at it, shouting shrill taunts:

  ‘Stinking old Artifack!’

  ‘Now you’re dead!’

  ‘Lousy old Artifack.’

  ‘Lousy ole Arfitax! We’ll kill you, and we’ll kill you, and then we’ll come back and kill you some more!’

  ‘We’ll send you to the shed.’

  ‘Oh yes! Yes! Serafina! Put him in the shed!’

  This was rather more than Serafina had bargained for. She did not much like having to touch it. But she had a reputation to sustain. She compelled herself to raise it, whereat the triumphant clamour died away and the others drew off, eyeing the business uneasily. No help was to be expected from them. Alone she dragged the horrid thing out of the meadow and down the garden to the shed.

  This turned out to have an occupant already.

  ‘Why,’ cried Polly compassionately, ‘it’s a poor Form. Shan’t we rescue it, Serafina? It looks almost holy.’

  Serafina agreed. There was something benign about this flame-shaped object, which rose from a slender base with so much suggestion of movement that they all instinctively looked upward, to some point above it. They dragged it out, pushed it into the garage, and concealed it under an old car tarpaulin. The Artefact was then placed in the shed. Set upright it looked formidable again, as though it might come hopping out at any moment. They slammed the door upon it and took to their heels.

  All except Joe, who had never really been frightened of it. He was too young to understand the game; he merely shrieked and ran when the others did. To his eyes there was a certain familiarity about the prisoner, a connection which had eluded the others, because their imaginations had been more strongly assaulted. He lingered behind, for a moment, to yell, through the keyhole of the shed, a final taunt:

  ‘You ole chair!’

  3

  THE invitations to Conrad Swann’s party had not been issued by the sculptor himself but by a Mrs. Rawson, who had constituted herself his patroness in chief.

  This toothy, determined little woman believed that she was born to lead. She had inherited considerable powers of domination from her father, old Tom Skipperton, who had owned a fleet of pleasure steamers and made a large fortune out of persuading people that they liked to be sea-sick. But she lacked his coarse geniality; she suffered from a chronic unpopularity, a total absence of followers, until she took up the cause of Art. In this field she encountered inertia but little serious resistance. Her fellow townsmen were never to be convinced that she knew more than they did about politics, economics, religion or hygiene—few troubled to gainsay her when it came to aesthetics. Since nobody cared to stop her, she was able to accomplish a good deal.

  She seldom travelled, but she did occasionally go to Paris, and it was there that she met Don Rawson, a large, lazy, handsome American, several years younger than herself. He believed that Paris was his spiritual home, but, having squandered his patrimony in an attempt to become an artist, had failed to find a material home there. Had he not married Martha he would have been obliged to return to North Dakota. He brought to the partnership a number of very small etchings and a gift of tongues. He preferred, more often than not, to express himself in rapid French or Italian, which Martha would translate to the company, with an indulgent smile.

  Until Conrad Swann came to East Head she had been rather short of protégés. The biggest fish in her net had been an architect called Alan Wetherby, who lived in Bristol, and for whom, after some crafty campaigning, she had got the job of building a new Marine Pavilion. Swann, however, was more rewarding. He had an international reputation and he was easier to manage, since he cared only for his work and took little notice of anything which went on outside his studio.

  Martha it was who stopped Dickie Pattison in the street one day, and asked him to come to Conrad Swann’s house on Sunday night. A band of the Elect were to enjoy a rare privilege; a first view of Swann’s Apollo. He was going to enter it for the Gressington Arts Theatre Competition; a prize of £500 had been offered for the winning entry, which was to have this title, although, as Martha explained, a representational treatment would not be expected, naturally. In addition to this, the prize work would find a permanent home in the vestibule of the Arts Theatre.

  ‘Conrad likes you so much,’ she concluded. ‘He very much hopes you’ll come. I’m sure you’ll excuse this informal invitation. He’s such a simple person. It never occurred to him that anybody would want to see the Apollo before it goes to Gressington. But I told him there must be a party.’

  Dickie accepted with delighted alacrity, not because he wanted to see the Apollo, which he did not expect to understand, but because he liked Conrad Swann, with whom he very much wished to be better acquainted. Earlier in the year a truck, turning in the lane in front of Swann’s house, had knocked down part of his garden wall. Dickie had acted for him in the business of extracting compensation. And then, a few weeks later, they had met down at the harbour just as Dickie was hiring a boat for a day’s fishing. Swann had come upon the same errand, but there was no other boat to be had. He had looked so much disappointed that Dickie offered hospitality on his own. They had enjoyed a delightful day and caught a great many fish. Swann, in Dickie’s opinion, was the best company in the world. Only diffidence prevented Dickie from suggesting another expedition; he did not want to thrust himself upon an older man, a celebrity. He hoped that Swann might make some proposal of the sort, but weeks went by and no word of encouragement came from the great man. This was the first indication that Swann liked or remembered him.

  ‘We shall be delighted to come,’ he told Martha. ‘Though I expect the Apollo will be rather above our heads.’

  Her face clouded. She had her reasons for wishing to stand well with Dickie, but she had not intended to invite his wife. ‘Little Mrs. Pattison’ would, she felt, mix badly with the Elect. Dickie thought that she was shocked at hearing that the Apollo
might be above his head and hastened to assure her that he was ready and willing to learn more about contemporary Art.

  ‘If people want to learn,’ she said, ‘that’s everything. So many don’t. I’m glad Mrs. Pattison can come. I was afraid she mightn’t be able to leave the baby.’

  ‘Oh, for an occasion like this,’ said Dickie, with enthusiasm, ‘we can get a sitter.’

  ‘Splendid! Nine o’clock. Informal dress. Mr. Pethwick will be coming. You know him, don’t you?’

  Dickie rushed home to Christina with the news, and was disappointed when she made a face.

  ‘How like Martha Rawson to give other people’s parties for them,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t Mr. Swann ask us himself?’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Dickie, ‘… it might be rather awkward.’

  ‘You mean he hasn’t got a proper wife to send invitations? What about the Cucumber? Will she be there?’

  This was their name for Swann’s lady. It had originated in some primitive joke about concubines.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Dickie. ‘But it would be awkward for her to be hostess, perhaps, so that’s why Martha is running the party. You wouldn’t mind meeting her, would you, Tina?’

  ‘Oh well … no. Though I’m sure I shan’t like her. Married or not, she ought to look after those children better. Such pathetic little things. But what a funny sort of party! In aid of a statue! Will they put it in the lounge and bring us all up to shake hands with it?’

  Dickie ignored this crude sarcasm and said, rather solemnly, that the statue would be in the studio.

  ‘We must take care to say the right thing,’ she continued. ‘And we mustn’t laugh, whatever we do, or they’ll look at us as if we were the dog’s dinner.’

  ‘Swann won’t,’ said Dickie quickly.

  She agreed. She also liked Conrad Swann, who did not seem to be at all conceited, in spite of being a genius. She had sat next to him, at the opening of the new Marine Pavilion, and had been frightened out of her wits, until she found how nice and human he was. When the Archdeacon walked into the fountain by mistake, Mr. Swann laughed his head off, and she had been quite as bad until he gave her some chewing gum. You can’t chew and giggle, he said, and that was perfectly true.