One youngish man came up to Titus and in a friendly way suggested he might care to see the gardens and the buildings, but before he had time to answer the old man came up to him and said he would like to take him to the Prior.
They crossed the hall once more and went through a door marked PRIVATE. This divided what must have been the inner world from the outer. Though glistening, it was spartan and bare, and when the old man knocked a voice of extreme cultivation bade them come in.
‘This is the young man who came with me.’
‘Ah, yes. Welcome.’
‘I have told him we don’t ask questions.’
‘That is true. But may I tell you that we have some rules. Silence in the refectory, you have already seen (if not heard!). We sleep early, and our guests do not stay late in bed. Each one is responsible for his own room. There is contemplation, but no one is asked to do anything. The people who come here all come for different reasons, but paramount for all of them is, I hope, the peace, the cleansing and the rejuvenation of their spirit, or call it what you will. You can help in any of the pursuits in the running of this house and garden, if you would care to, but if you do not wish it there is no obligation. I hope that while you are here you may find inner peace.’
‘Perhaps I am here under false pretences, for I did not come. I was found.’
‘Yes, I have been told, but once more I would like to say, we ask no questions. Peace go with you, my son.’
The interview was ended, and Titus and the old man left the Prior.
‘I would like to ask you something,’ said Titus to the old man.
The old man nodded his assent and Titus said, ‘The man . . . the man in the refectory.’
‘Ah, yes. We have a little knowledge, but it is not for me to break into his seclusion. I cannot.’
‘I know him – I have seen him. I feel as though there is a link I cannot explain.’
‘Perhaps that is what led you here. Who can say? I am very old and I have seen how strange are the manifestations of whatever spirit you believe in. There is nothing that cannot happen. Yes, my son, I see in him a quest, a search, a reaching beyond what might be too great for one human being. He may be too far away for us, but I have watched him in the gardens, in the house, and the wealth within is breaking the locks, overflowing. There is tenderness. I have seen him fondling a bird with a broken wing, and mend it as best he could. I have seen him looking, looking, until he could look no more, at everything around. I have seen him play with the children who come here to lend a hand. He was at one with them and they with him. He has done drawings for them. I have seen him laughing with them, and making little jokes. I have never seen him hurt any living person or thing. And yet, my son, he causes discomfort. The guests do not understand, and I think he will have to leave. He is restless. So restless. He disturbs them. At night he cannot sleep. I have found him many times. His words will not come, and his sighs break my heart. I have led him back to his room and remade his bed as many as ten times in one night. Sometimes he falls, for his steps are halting, and his feet drag almost as though there were an invisible ball and chain on them. And when he wishes to thank me, and cannot, then is the only time I see anger in his eyes. There are paper and pencils and pens in his room, and drawings, and there is writing and the room is untidy. Sometimes, when his words come, he talks to the Prior, and with the intelligence there is so much humour. What can I say, my son? To understand such things is not for me to query. Can I accept? It is not for me. I am simple, and my life has been simple. I have no answers. I do accept. I do pray. But I am sure that he will have to leave. There are so many here who have come for rest and quiet, and we owe it to them to allow them that pleasure.’
‘Thank you.’
Titus left the old man and walked back to his quarters. It had been some time since he had been alone, in a physical way, and his sense of well-being exacerbated his lassitude, and he slept heavily, waking only when the day was almost over. The silence everywhere gave him no clue of time, but he reached for a small light near his bed, and the light gave him the impetus to jump up, before he had time to think about doing so.
He made his way out into the corridor and, like an animal in search of food, he turned towards the refectory. The animal sense that had awakened him proved right, for it seemed that a meal had just begun.
He saw his fellow guests raise their eyes at his entrance, with varying degrees of welcome and recognition, and he took his place where he had breakfasted. The eyes of the man opposite watched as he sat down, and his hunger abated as he felt his stomach flip. He could see by the eyes and the faltering hands, which played with the food on the plate, that the restlessness that could not be concealed was becoming too big a burden, and the strident screech of the chair on the floor once more broke the silence, striking a note of discord. Although the fellow guests tried to hide their feelings, there were one or two who raised their eyebrows and shook their heads, as they watched the sad, stumbling exit of the man they did not seem to understand.
Titus could no longer stay. He followed, and it was not long before he overtook the man. He was standing. His eyes were closed and he seemed rooted to the floor. His legs were too heavy to move, but he could not stand upright without swaying. Titus put out his arm as a prop and held the swaying body. The man made to move one leg with the diffidence of a child learning to walk, and in his frailness he would have fallen, save for the protective arm.
‘Thank you,’ a voice with no strength behind it whispered.
The two figures stood in the silent corridor, waiting for the momentum that would once again start up the faulty engine.
They stood for some minutes as the legs and arms jerked as though they did not belong to the torso that owned them, then suddenly the engine restarted, and Titus was surprised by the speed with which they moved along the corridor to a room like his own, but alive with a life of its own, untidy mounds of paper on the table and crumpled balls of paper thrown around in disarray. Plus bottles of ink and paints. There were drawings, and sheets of paper with writing on them, and it seemed that they were the sustenance of life, that here were the warlocks, almost the vehicles of destruction of a man’s life, but at the same time the very reason for his living.
The man made his way to the bed, as to a sanctuary, and with a cry, a rabbit in a snare, laid himself down upon it and closed his eyes.
There was nothing Titus could do, and by the time he had reached the door that dreadful restlessness grabbed its victim again, and before he was quite out of the room he saw the faltering figure slide off the bed, go to the table and, sitting at it, take up a pencil and make marks upon some paper.
33
An Unwelcome Interlude
TITUS MADE HIS way to his own room. He had no wish for company. As the light woke him, he had an uneasy feeling that he had betrayed himself. He lay thinking and then he knew that he had wanted to be on hand when inevitably during the night that dreadful illness would take hold of the man to whom he was so inexorably drawn.
He went to the refectory, but found it empty. He was either too early, or too late. There seemed no one about. He made his way to the garden, and there he saw his old friend. He crossed the lawn to where he was raking up leaves into tidy piles and said, ‘Good morning. I’m looking . . .’
‘Yes, my son. It was as I feared. We had to phone his wife early this morning and he was put on a train, to be met. There was nothing else to be done. I stayed with him, and we walked the house together all during the night, but there have been so many complaints, what else was there to do? Left to myself, I would have taken charge of him, but I must take my orders, you know.’