«It's the terror that's unspeakable/'
It was the apparent irrelevance of the observation and the abruptness of the transition to seriousness again that surprised us, as much as the fact of Alan's taking part in the argument at all. Frank and the Major looked blank, but Elizabeth, after an uncomprehending stare, said sharply, and with a just perceptible note of hostility in her voice:
«Terror? What terror?»
Alan leaned forward with his pipe clasped between his hands and frowned at the cat peacefully curled on the hearth-rug. He found it very difficult to say what he wanted, and we waited–we three men, at least, with a too obvious tolerance of his inarticulateness. The Major, amused now after his surprise, smiled encouragingly as one might to a child having difficulty with the beginning of a recitation.
«I mean,» Alan said at last, still staring at the cat, «I mean it's the fear something feels when it's being hunted: that's what you can't describe; that's what's unspeakable. You can describe the people all right...»
Elizabeth had raised her brows and made her eyes very wide; her whole expression spoke of objection and challenge; I expected her to burst out with «Rubbish!» and assail him with the same vehement assertion she had fired off at Frank Rowan already a dozen times that evening; that a violent death is the natural end of all wild creatures, that it is the most merciful one, that animals have no imaginations to paint them the terrors of death before it comes–all the familiar contentions used by fox-hunters who are imprudent enough to defend their sport by attempting to put the fox in the witness-box. I was sure she was going to retort all that upon Alan, for the expressions of her face were as easy to read as a child's, but before the words had passed her lips her thoughts were quite evidently diverted suddenly into another and, it struck me, an entirely unfamiliar channel. The objection, the eagerness to retort disappeared from her face; she gazed steadily at Alan, whose attitude seemed to express a greater worry and uneasiness as he bent forward, averting his head from her, and I fancied I saw some such absorbed interest as might have been native to the cat between them come into her still round eyes. Impossible to tell then what discovery, what new interpretation of experience his words had opened to her. I could only guess that for her the subject of argument had suddenly changed from fox-hunting to Alan himself and that she divined that the fear he spoke of had in some strange way something to do with herself, and instinctively, with that new realisation she had become watchful, intent on maintaining the privacy of her thoughts. She waited for one of the others to speak.
But Mrs. Hedley was gathering herself together to depart. Alan got up and went silently out to put on the hall lights, and after we had seen the visitors off he took a lantern and went to see about some task in the yard.
Mrs. Querdilion said goodnight very soon, and Frank, after laughing and joking a little, pleased at his success in the argument and amused at Alan's odd intervention, took himself off to bed. Not having the habit of such early hours, I poured myself out some beer, turned off the lights in the sitting-room and drew the fire together.
The cat jumped onto the arm of my chair and, tucking its forepaws under its chest, settled down with me to stare at the glowing coals.
A footfall and a cold draught roused me, not from a doze, but from contemplation of a long succession of memories that followed each other through my mind as involuntarily as the images of a dream. Alan had come in again. I heard him quietly bolting the outer door. I got up to put on the light, but bumped into him at the sitting-room door. He gasped and seized me by the coat; then, as I spoke, he gave a short relieved kind of laugh, and relaxed his hold.
«I forgot the cat,» he said. «Is she in here? I thought you'd all gone to bed.»
His voice sounded unsteady. I put on the light and was shocked to see his face quite white from the start I had given him. Full of contrition, I apologised for lurking there in the dark. He muttered with obvious embarrassment that I should take no notice, and came over to the fireplace, making a show of looking about him for the cat, but moving nervously and jerkily, taking too long to recover from the start.
I thought it better to say something and struck straight into the evening's main topic:
«I shouldn't wonder if it's just dawned on Elizabeth tonight that there might be something in the humanitarian case against hunting. It was what you said, of course; or the way you said it. Made her look a bit thoughtful, it seemed to me.» He turned on me sharply.
«She's hunted all her life. Why should anything I say make any difference?»
It was as clear as daylight to me then that he and she had argued this matter before–and with some heat. I could guess they had squabbled, and trivial as a difference of opinion on such a matter between two lovers might seem to me, I could see its importance to them, in a life where hunting was taken seriously. But why should Alan not want her to hunt now?
«Oh, I don't know,» I replied. «I should have thought your opinion counted for something–a good deal more than Frank's, anyway. And there was a time when every word you uttered was an oracle to her.»
He stooped and put another log on the fire, as if he had quite forgotten that he had been about to go to bed. Then he stood with bent shoulders for some time silently watching the log smoulder and smoke. At length, without looking at me, and in a controlled voice he said:
«My mother's been talking to you about me and Elizabeth, hasn't she?»
«Well...» I said. «About you.... She's a bit worried. Thinks you've got something on your mind, I believe. Personally I don't see any difference in you, except that you seem to lose your tongue at times, and, if you don't mind my saying so, your nerves aren't in any too good a state. I don't think you're very fit, and you ought to be in this farming life. It isn't the bottle, is it?»
He laughed. «I've been thinking these three days you've been here that we're just the same pair of blokes that we were before, really. Seeing you has been good for me. I know I haven't altered after all.»
«Well,» I said, «character and affections ought, no doubt, to remain constant, but there'd be little hope for man if experience didn't alter behaviour and opinions. You've had six years of war and imprisonment. I can well understand a man having different views about all sorts of things after that.»
«Yes,» he said. «You'd understand. Or at any rate, you'd be interested. Look here!» He straightened up abruptly and turned round. «You're not tired, are you? Mind if I tell you something? Let me fill your glass, then sit down and I'll tell you a tale.»
He poured out some beer for us both and switched off the light, then stirred the fire till it broke into flame.
«I can tell it better like this, by firelight,» he said as he settled himself in the armchair opposite me, «and if I bore you you can go quietly to sleep without my noticing it.»
We filled our pipes and I waited.
«I've not told this to anybody,» he began. «Not to my mother, or Elizabeth. And before I tell it to you, I want to make the point that it is a tale: just a tale, you understand, that I'm telling you because I think it'll entertain you; I'm not asking you to listen so that you can tell me what my trouble is. I know that perfectly well myself, and there's nothing anybody can do about it It's just a question of waiting to see if it happens again. It hasn't recurred in three years; if I get through another year without it happening I shall take it that it won't happen again and I shall feel I can safely ask Elizabeth to marry me and all will be well. She can ride to hounds and I shan't quarrel with her over that –so long as she doesn't expect me to; and she won't.»