“Where’s Toby now?” said Michael.
“I sent him home,” said James.
Michael jumped up from his chair. He wanted to shout and bang on the desk. He said quietly to James, “You perfect imbecile.” He went and stood looking out of the window. “When did he go?”
“He went this morning,” said James. “I sent him off on the early train. The car taking Catherine picked him up at the Lodge. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to raise all this with you yesterday, but there was so damn much happening. I had to make a decision. I decided it was better he shouldn’t see you again. He obviously felt the thing was – you know, sort of messy and unclean. He’d tried to clean things up, for himself anyway, by telling about it. And I thought he should go while he felt, as it were, that he’d got back to some sort of innocence. If he’d stayed and had a talk with you he’d just have fallen back into the mess again, if you see what I mean.”
Michael drummed on the window. James was quite right in a way. But his heart ached terribly for Toby, sent away now with all his imperfections on his head, loaded with guilt, and involved by James’s solemnity in a machinery of sin and repentance with which he probably had no capacity to deal. How typical of James to do the simple decent thing which was also so damned obtuse. By sending Toby away he had branded the thing into the boy’s mind as something appalling; almost any other way of closing the incident would have been better than this one. Yet as Michael reflected how dearly he would have liked to be able to close this drama in his own way, he was not at all sure that his method would have been an improvement.
“Why am I an imbecile?” said James.
“There was no need to be so damn solemn,” said Michael. “The real blame belongs to me. By sending Toby away you’ve made him feel like a criminal and made the whole business into a tremendous catastrophe.”
“I don’t see why he shouldn’t take his full share of responsibility,” said James. “He’s quite old enough.”
Michael looked away across the lake and down the great avenue of trees toward the Lodge. He said, “I wonder why he suddenly took it into his head to confess to you?”
“Why shouldn’t he?” said James. “He was worried enough. I think what immediately made up his mind were some things Nick Fawley said. Apparently Nick knew all about it and reproached him and told him he ought to own up. First sensible thing Nick’s done since he arrived, in my view.”
Michael continued to drum on the window. The slight dazzle from the lake hurt his eyes. He moved his head to and fro, as if to help his mind to take in what he had just heard. He was too appalled to speak. So Nick “knew all about it”. His revenge could not have been more perfect. To have seduced Toby would have been crude. Instead, Nick had forced Toby to play exactly the part which Nick himself had played thirteen years earlier. Toby had been his understudy indeed. Michael had hoped to save Nick. But Nick had merely ruined him a second time and in precisely the same way.
Michael turned back to the desk and looked down at James, who had gone back to ruffling his hair. “Well, that appears to be that,” he said to James. “I’m sorry if I’ve seemed cross. I assure you I regard myself as very much to blame. There’s no point in going into it now. Of course I shall resign or whatever one does and go away from Imber.”
James began to say something in protest.
There was a loud knock on the door and Mark Strafford came in. He looked pale, upset, and frightened behind his beard. He said, “Sorry to barge in. I was down at the ferry and I heard a funny noise coming from the Lodge. I think it’s Murphy howling in a very odd way. I wondered if there might be anything the matter down there.”
Michael pushed past him and took the stairs three at a time. He descended to the terrace, scarcely putting a foot to the ground, and began to run down the path to the ferry, his breath coming in loud gasps from sheer panic. Behind him he could hear the pounding footsteps of the other two. He reached the ferry well in advance, jumped into the boat, and cast off alone. The progress across the lake seemed to take an endless time, as the boat lazily rolled and pitched to and fro slowly propelled by the single oar, and as he dug savagely into the water Michael’s glazed eyes could see, shimmering as in a glass, the figures of James and Mark left behind him on the landing-stage. He reached the other side and jumped out, and the boat immediately shot away, pulled vigorously back towards the house.
Michael stumbled on, still gasping, across the grass. The Lodge seemed immensely far away. He could hear quite clearly now the intermittent howling of Murphy. It was a terrible sound. He ran on, but by the time he got to the trees he had to slow down to a walk. His breath didn’t seem to be coming properly. Leaning forward in an agony of anxiety he almost fell. He had to walk the last hundred yards quite slowly.
He was almost at the Lodge now. The door was open. Michael called Nick’s name. There was no reply. Just outside the door he stopped. Something was lying in the doorway. He looked more closely and saw it was an outstretched hand. He stepped over the threshold.
Nick had shot himself. He had emptied the shot-gun into bis head. To make quite sure he had evidently put the barrel into his mouth. There was no doubt that he had finished the job. Michael averted his face and stepped outside. Murphy, who had been standing over the body, followed him out whining.
James and Mark were approaching down the avenue at a run. Michael called to them, “Nick has killed himself.”
Mark stopped at once and sat down on the grass at the side of the avenue. James came on. He took a look into the Lodge and came out again.
“You go and phone the police,” said Michael. “I’ll stay here.”
James turned and went back towards the lake. Mark got up and followed him.
Michael started to go in through the door but could not bring himself to. He stood for a while looking at Nick’s hand. It was a hand that he knew well. He stepped back and sat down on the grass with his back against the warm stone of the wall. He had thought that Nick’s revenge could not be more perfect. He had been wrong. It was perfect now. Hot tears began to rise behind his eyes and his mouth opened, trembling.
Murphy stood near him, shivering and whining, his eyes fixed on his face. He came up to Michael, and Michael stroked him gently. The landscape was blotted out.
CHAPTER 26
MORE than four weeks had passed and there was no one left now at Imber except Michael and Dora. It was late in October. Great sheets of various coloured cloud trailed endlessly across the sky, and the sun blazed intermittently upon the thick masses of yellow and copper trees. The days were colder, beginning usually with fog, and a perpetual haze lay upon the surface of the lake.
James and the Abbess between them had acted quickly. It had been decided to dissolve the community. James had departed back to the East End of London. The Straffords had decided to throw in their lot with a community of craftsmen who were attached to a monastery in Cumberland. Peter Topglass, urged and implored by Michael, had joined a party of naturalists who were just setting out for the Faroe islands. Patchway had returned laconically to farm-labouring on a nearby estate. Michael stayed on to wind up the affairs of the market-garden and Dora stayed on with him.
Margaret Strafford was still in London with Catherine. Catherine had been having insulin treatment and was continually under the influence of drugs. She had not yet been told of her brother’s death. Margaret wrote that there was no point in visiting her at present. She would let Michael know when there was some improvement and when a visit might be welcome. Meanwhile, Catherine was as well as could be expected. The doctors were not unhopeful of a complete recovery. The insulin was making her fat.
Dora, after appearing for some time to be about to go, announced, with a dignity and resolution which seemed new to her, that she would stay as long as she could be of any use. She seemed unperturbed by a large though diminishing number of long distance telephone calls. At first, everyone was far too upset and preoccupied to think of suggesting that she should depart; later, she made herself indispensable. She fetched and carried, did errands by bicycle in the village, and washed and dusted and tidied unobtrusively in the house. The time came when, with the gradual departure of the others, she did more than this. By the time she and Michael were left alone Dora was doing the cooking and catering, as well as full time secretarial duties. It turned out that she could type moderately well, and in the end she dealt entirely with the more routine correspondence, composing letters out of various formulae suggested by Michael.