“This is a farm of death,” he said.
“Death's always the end of all of us, pig or cow or man alike.”
“Right-ho, Mr. Grendon, you can think like that if you like. It's not my way of thinking, nor am I going to see your dependents suffer from your madness. Mr. Grendon, sir, I wish to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage.”
For the first three days that she was away from her home, Nancy Grendon lay in her room in “The Wayfarer” near to death. It seemed as if all ordinary food poisoned her. But gradually under Doctor Crouchorn's ministrationterrified perhaps by the rage she suspected he would vent upon her should she fail to get bettershe recovered her strength.
“You look so much better today,” Gregory said, clasping her hand. “You'll soon be up and about again, once your system is free of all the evil nourishment of the farm.”
“Greg, dearest, promise me you will not go to the farm again. You have no need to go now I'm not there.”
He cast his eyes down and said, “Then you don't have to get me to promise, do you?”
“I just want to be sure we neither of us go there again. Father, I feel sure, bears a charmed life. It's as if I was now coming to my senses againbut I don't want it to be as if you was losing yours! Supposing those things followed us here to Cottersall, those Aurigans?”
“You know, Nancy, I've wondered several times why' they remain on the farm as' they do. You would think that once they found they could so easily defeat human beings, they would attack everyone, or send for more of their own kind and try to invade us. Yet they seem perfectly content to remain in that one small space.”
She smiled. “I may not be very clever compared with you, but I can tell 'ee the answer to that one. They ent interested in going anywhere. I think there's just two of them, and they come to our little old world for a holiday in their space machine, same as we might go to Great Yarmouth for a couple of days for our honeymoon. Perhaps they're on their honeymoon.”
“On honeymoon! What a ghastly idea!”
“Well, on holiday then. That was Father's ideahe says as there's just two of them, treating Earth as a quiet place to stay. People like to eat well when they're on holiday, don't they?”
He stared at Nancy aghast.
“But that's horrible! You're trying to make the Aurigans out to be pleasant!”
“Of course I ent, you silly ha'p'orth! But I expect they seem pleasant to each other.”
“Well, I prefer to think of them as menaces.”
“All the more reason for you to keep away from them!”
But to be out of sight was not to be out of mind's reach. Gregory received another letter from Dr. Hudson-Ward, a kind and encouraging one, but he made no attempt to answer it. He felt he could not bear to take up any work that would remove him from the neighborhood, although the need to work, in view of his matrimonial plans, was now pressing; the modest allowance his father made him would not support two in any comfort. Yet he could not bring his thoughts to grapple with such practical problems. It was another letter he looked for, and the horrors of the farm that obsessed him. And the next night, he dreamed of the saliva tree again.
In the evening, he plucked up enough courage to tell Fox and Nancy about it. They met in the little snug at the back of “The Wayfarer's” public bar, a discreet and private place with red plush on the seats. Nancy was her usual self again, and had been out for a brief walk in the afternoon sunshine.
“People wanted to give themselves to the saliva tree. And although I didn't see this for myself, I had the distinct feeling that perhaps they weren't actually killed so much as changed into something elsesomething less human maybe. And this time, I saw the tree was made of metal of some kind and was growing bigger and bigger by pumpsyou could see through the saliva to big armatures and pistons, and out of the branches steam was pouring.”
Fox laughed, a little unsympathetically. “Sounds to me like the shape of things to come, when even plants are grown by machinery. Events are preying on your mind, Greg! Listen, my sister is going to Norwich tomorrow, driving in her uncle's trap. Why don't the two of you go with her? She's going to buy some adornments for her bridal gown, so that should interest you, Nancy-Then you could stay with Greg's uncle for a couple of days. I assure you I will let you know immediately the Aurigans invade Cottersall, so you won't miss anything.”
Nancy seized Gregory's arm. “Can we please, Gregory, can we? I ent been to Norwich for long enough and it's a fine city.”
“It would be a good idea,” he said doubtfully.
Both of them pressed him until he was forced to yield. He broke up the little party as soon as he decently could, kissed Nancy good-night, and walked hurriedly back down the street to the baker's. Of one thing he was certain: if he must leave the district even for a short while, he had to have a look to see what was happening at the farm before he went.
The farm looked in the summer's dusk as it had never done before. Massive wooden screens nine feet high had been erected and hastily creosoted. They stood about in forlorn fashion, intended to keep the public gaze from the farm, but lending it unmeaning. They stood not only in the yard but at irregular intervals along the boundaries of the land, inappro– priately among fruit trees, desolately amid bracken, irrelevantly in swamp. A sound of furious hammering, punctuated by the unwearying animal noises, indicated that more screens were still being built.
But what lent the place its unearthly look was the lighting. The solitary pole supporting the electric light now had five companions: one by the gate, one by the pond, one behind the house, one outside the engine house, one down by the pig sties. Their hideous yellow glare reduced the scene to the sort of unlikely picture that might be found and puzzled over in the eternal midnight of an Egyptian tomb.
Gregory was too wise to try and enter by the gate. He hitched Daisy to the low branches of a thorn tree and set off over waste land, entering Grendon's property by the South Meadow. As he walked stealthily towards the distant out– houses, he could see how the farm land differed from the territory about it. The corn was already so high it seemed in the dark almost to threaten by its ceaseless whisper of movement. The fruits had ripened fast. In the strawberry beds were great strawberries like pears. The marrows lay on their dunghill like bloated bolsters, gleaming from a distant shaft of light. In the orchard, the trees creaked, weighed down by distorted footballs that passed for apples; with a heavy autumnal thud one fell over-ripe to the ground. Everywhere on the farm,, there seemed to be slight movement and noise, so much so that Gregory stopped to listen.
A wind was rising. The sails of the old mill shrieked like a gull's cry as they began to turn. In the engine house, the steam engine pumped out its double unfaltering note as it gen– erated power. The dogs still raged, the animals added their un– easy chorus. He recalled the saliva tree; here as in the dream, it was as if agriculture had become industry, and the impulses of nature swallowed by the new god of Science. In the bark of the trees rose the dark steam of novel and unknown forces.
He talked himself into pressing forward again. He moved carefully through the baffling slices of shadow and illumination created by the screens and lights, and arrived near the back door of the farmhouse. A lantern burnt in the kitchen window. As Gregory hesitated, the crunch of broken glass came from within.
Cautiously, he edged himself past the window and peered in through the doorway. From the parlor, he heard the voice of Grendon. It held a curious muffled tone, as if the man spoke to himself.
“Lie there! You're no use to me. This is a trial of strength. Oh God, preserve me, to let me prove myself! Thou has made my land barren till nownow let me harvest it! I don't know what You're doing. I didn't mean to presume, but this here farm is my life. Curse 'em, curse 'em all! They're all enemies.” There was more of it; the man was muttering like one drunk. With horrid fascination, Gregory was drawn forward till he had crossed the kitchen flags and stood on the verge of the larger room. He peered round the half open door until he could see the farmer, standing obscurely in the middle of the room.