‘I understand, but for all your kindness and the serenity here, I couldn’t stay. I don’t understand what has happened to me. I must go. For the first time in all my wanderings I feel there is a purpose, and fate, or whatever controls my destiny may lead me there.’
‘Perhaps I can understand a little more than you think – or perhaps not understand, but grasp a little. For all my simple way of life, my lack of what you might call ‘‘experience’’, I have seen all manner of men come here, and seek in so many ways to lay down their burdens.’
‘I think you are good. I too have seen all manner of people. Eccentric, greedy, rich, poor, ambitious, beautiful, crippled, but very seldom . . . good. It is an untouchable quality. I don’t think cynicism could ever hurt you, or destroy you.’
‘Oh, my son. I have been out of temptation’s way. Who knows what I might have become if I had not been sheltered here?’
‘In my very brief stay here, you are the only one . . . but then, that man. It was a different quality. I saw truth there, for all the pain. Intangible. Yes, I must go now, and thank you for every kindness to him.’
‘Before you go you must have some food. Come with me. We’ll go to the kitchen.’
They walked together through the refectory, and into a large, airy kitchen that adjoined it. It was painted a brilliant azure and the stone floor was scrubbed nearly white. There was a huge wooden table, bleached to the colour of the palest wine. Everything in it glistened, as did everything in the whole house. In a basket by a vast kitchen range lay a tabby cat, licking endlessly one or other of her newly born little brood of blind offspring. There was no one else in the room, but freshly cut vegetables and fruit shone on the white table, and their green and red seemed to give point to the deep azure walls.
The old man opened cupboards, and brought out bread and honey and butter, and placed them in front of Titus. ‘Now then, eat away, and I’ll make you something to drink, and I’ll give you a packet to be on your way.’
He finished the food that had been provided and, standing up, he said, ‘I would like to leave some money for all that I have received, and perhaps you would say goodbye to the Prior for me.’
‘I will say goodbye, but don’t leave any money. If at some time you can spare a little it would be welcome, but not now. Goodbye, my son, and peace go with you.’
Titus left the way he had come, and found himself once more on the road. It was still early in the morning, and there were no people and no vehicles. He walked on the grass verge, by the side of the wall that had been a bedpost in his fatigue.
Before he had been waylaid he had made up his mind that he would make his way towards the sea. He had spent little of his life on the sea; although he had voyaged far and wide on many different craft, it was not native to him and he had a certain fear of it. Perhaps it was one of the few things he was afraid of.
A very large antiquated black car drew up beside him. It stopped, and from the back window that had been unwound he saw a head appear and a voice, which was neither obviously male or female, called out, ‘Going our way?’
Titus was tired of chance encounters and he made no answer, expecting whoever it was to drive away, but the unwieldy vehicle backed slowly, until it drew up beside him.
‘I said, going our way?’ repeated the voice.
‘Well, I’m not sure where I’m going.’
‘In that case you’re the boy for me. I know just where I’m going. Get in.’
‘I really want to go on not knowing where I’m going, until I get there.’
‘More and more elaborately amusing. A puzzle – an enigma. My very taste, but I will not take no.’
The door was opened and the occupant got out. He was a portly man, dressed in a formal black suit. His face was sharp, his mouth was small and rather mean, and his hair, what little of it there was, was brushed straight back from a low forehead.
‘Now then, look in here. You simply can’t refuse. Have you ever seen anything like it?’
Titus looked inside; the car seemed to contain every comfort on wheels that could be imagined. A table set with ornate and highly polished silver. Roses in a silver bowl, a bookshelf filled with leather-bound books; a white velvet seat and a rug on the floor with all the faded beauty of antiquity.
‘I’m hardly dressed to compete, am I?’
‘There could be no competition. I do not compete. What I possess is always the best. Come, get in, and you can listen to my poems. I was tiring of my own definitely stimulating company and there is still some way to go. Come, I insist.’
Titus had no wish to sit near this man, who for all his eccentricity did not appeal to him, but he had neither the strength nor the positive will to refuse. So he got in, cautious of the damage his shoes might do to the incredibly beautiful rug.
The man took an apparatus beside him and speaking into it in his unpleasant high-pitched voice said, ‘Advance.’
The vehicle glided noiselessly and effortlessly off, as though no mechanism existed in its antiquated but superlative body.
By the side of the man were sheafs of papers, which he at once took into his hands and from which he started to read. He made no attempt to introduce himself.
Titus realised that he was an ear only, and he ceased to listen as the voice, pleased to have an audience, mercilessly pursued its way through page after page of salacious verbiage.
They glided through a countryside whose beauty was lessened by the self-indulgent pronouncements of the sybarite.
‘Well. Tell me, sweet youth. Have you heard such verse?’
‘I have heard nothing like it,’ Titus said truthfully.
‘Ah. A youth whose taste belies his physical condition.’
The recitation was finished and, leaning forward, the man pressed a button at his side, and a small cupboard opened to display heavy crystal glasses and decanters. Pouring a pale liquid into two glasses, he handed one to Titus. ‘To my muse. I bask headily in her arms.’
Titus raised his glass, but had no wish to join in the toast. He had an overwhelming desire to be away from this man whose grubby spirit tainted everything he contacted. ‘I would like to get out now,’ he said.
‘Sweet youth. Be silent. We approach the very portals, ere long, of divinity. I would not deprive you of your chance to bathe (metaphorically speaking of course) in the waters of supreme beauty.’
As the voice grated on to its own delight, the car turned to the right. There were no gates, but a sign on a small board, with an arrow stated ‘To Hidden House’.
They drove along what was a mixture between a rough cart track and a driveway. On both sides was a coppice, which looked uncared for, so deep and tangled were the roots and the ivy growing up the dead trees with great parasitic profusion. The road had a slight incline, but despite its bad condition it had no effect on the silky progress of the car.
As it sailed upwards, Titus wondered where the house could be, since there was no sign of one ahead, but he had decided to remain silent to his unattractive companion. The road now became rather twisting and the trees on either side sparser. He saw what appeared to be the roof of a large house, with a conglomeration of chimneys, both tall and squat.
‘We approach, dear boy.’
The car drew effortlessly to a halt and the driver, whom Titus had not seen and had given no thought to, got out from his driving seat and appeared at the car door, on its owner’s side. He was very small, very young and very frail, and his cast of features was also small, with hooded eyes. He seemed far too delicate to be in charge of such a large vehicle.
He opened the door and his master got out. Titus followed and found himself looking down at a great house, which seemed to grow out of the ground far below. The car had stopped beside a small wooden gate, and as it was opened, he saw steps that had been forged out of the rock, spiralling downwards. He imagined whoever lived in this strangely located house would suffer from a fairly strong feeling of claustrophobia.