That Hideous Strength

I

Almost before Jane had finished putting clean sheets on Mark’s bed, Mrs. Dimble, with a great many parcels, arrived. “You’re an angel to have me for the night,” she said. “We’d tried every hotel in Edgestow I believe. This place is going to become unendurable. The same answer everywhere! All full up with the hangers-on and camp followers of this detestable N.I.C.E. Secretaries here-typists there-commissioners of works-the thing’s outrageous. If Cecil hadn’t had a room in College I really believe he’d have had to sleep in the waiting-room at the station. I only hope that man in College has aired the bed.”

“But what on earth’s happened?” asked Jane.

“Turned out, my dear!”

“But it isn’t possible, Mrs. Dimble. I mean, it can’t be legal.”

“That’s what Cecil said . . . Just think of it, Jane. The first thing we saw when we poked our heads out of the window this morning was a lorry on the drive with its back wheels in the middle of the rose bed, unloading a small army of what looked like criminals with picks and spades. Right in our own garden! There was an odious little man in a peaked cap who talked to Cecil with a cigarette in his mouth, at least it wasn’t in his mouth but seccotined onto his upper lip-you know-and guess what he said? He said they’d have no objection to our remaining in possession (of the house, mind you, not the garden) till eight o’clock to-morrow morning. No objection!”

“But surely-surely-it must be some mistake.”

“Of course Cecil rang up your Bursar. And of course your Bursar was out. That took nearly all morning ringing up again and again, and by that time the big beech that you used to be so fond of had been cut down, and all the plum trees. If I hadn’t been so angry I’d have sat down and cried my eyes out. That’s what I felt like. At last Cecil did get on to your Mr. Busby, who was perfectly useless. Said there must be some misunderstanding, but it was out of his hands now and we’d better get on to the N.I.C.E. at Belbury. Of course it turned out to be quite impossible to get them. But by lunch-time we saw that one simply couldn’t stay there for the night, whatever happened.”

“Why not?”

“My dear, you’ve no conception what it was like. Great lorries and traction engines roaring past all the time, and a crane on a thing like a railway truck. Why, our own tradesmen couldn’t get through it. The milk didn’t arrive till eleven o’clock. The meat never arrived at all; they rang up in the afternoon to say their people hadn’t been able to reach us by either road. We’d the greatest difficulty in getting into town ourselves. It took us half an hour from our house to the bridge. It was like a nightmare. Flares and noise everywhere and the road practically ruined and a sort of great tin camp already going up on the Common. And the people! Such horrid men. I didn’t know we had workpeople like that in England. Oh, horrible, horrible!” Mrs. Dimble fanned herself with the hat she had just taken off.

“And what are you going to do?” asked Jane.

“Heaven knows!” said Mrs. Dimble. “For the moment we have shut up the house and Cecil has been at Rumbold the solicitors, to see if we can at least have it sealed and left alone until we’ve got our things out of it. Rumbold doesn’t seem to know where he is. He keeps on saying the N.I.C.E. are in a very peculiar position legally. After that, I’m sure I don’t know. As far as I can see there won’t be any houses in Edgestow. There’s no question of trying to live on the far side of the river any longer, even if they’d let us. What did you say? Oh, indescribable. All the poplars are going down. All those nice little cottages by the church are going down. I found poor Ivy-that’s your Mrs. Maggs, you know-in tears. Poor things! They do look dreadful when they cry on top of powder. She’s being turned out too. Poor little woman; she’s had enough troubles in her life without this. I was glad to get away. The men were so horrible. Three big brutes came to the back door asking for hot water and went on so that they frightened Martha out of her wits and Cecil had to go and speak to them. I thought they were going to strike Cecil, really I did. It was most horribly unpleasant. But a sort of special constable sent them away. What? Oh yes, there are dozens of what look like policemen all over the place, and I didn’t like the look of them either. Swinging some kind of truncheon things, like what you’d see in an American film. Do you know, Jane, Cecil and I both thought the same thing: we thought, it’s almost as if we’d lost the war. Oh, good girl, tea! That’s just what I wanted.”

“You must stay here as long as you like, Mrs. Dimble,” said Jane. “Mark’ll just have to sleep in College.”

“Well, really,” said Mother Dimble, “I feel at the moment that no Fellow of Bracton ought to be allowed to sleep anywhere! But I’d make an exception in favour of Mr. Studdock. As a matter of fact, I shan’t have to behave like the sword of Siegfried-and, incidentally, a nasty fat stodgy sword I should be! But that side of it is all fixed up. Cecil and I are to go out to the Manor at St. Anne’s. We have to be there so much at present, you see.”

“Oh,” said Jane, involuntarily prolonging the exclamation as the whole of her own story flowed back on her mind.

“Why, what a selfish pig I’ve been,” said Mother Dimble. “Here have I been chattering away about my own troubles and quite forgetting that you’ve been out there and are full of things to tell me. Did you see Grace? And did you like her?”

“Is ‘Grace’ Miss Ironwood?” asked Jane.

“Yes.”

“I saw her. I don’t know if I liked her or not. But I don’t want to talk about all that. I can’t think about anything except this outrageous business of yours. It’s you who are the real martyr, not me.”

“No, my dear,” said Mrs. Dimble, “I’m not a martyr. I’m only an angry old woman with sore feet and a splitting head (but that’s beginning to be better) who’s trying to talk herself into a good temper. After all, Cecil and I haven’t lost our livelihood as poor Ivy Maggs has. It doesn’t really matter leaving the old house. Do you know, the pleasure of living there was in a way a melancholy pleasure, (I wonder, by the bye, do human beings really be happy? A little melancholy, yes. All those big upper rooms which we thought we should want because we thought we were going to have lots of children, and then we never had. Perhaps I was getting too fond of mooning about them on long afternoons when Cecil was away. Pitying oneself. I shall be better away from it, I dare say. I might have got like that frightful woman in Ibsen who was always maundering about dolls. It’s really worse for Cecil. He did so love having all his pupils about the place. Jane. that’s the third time you’ve yawned. You’re dropping asleep and I’ve talked your head off. It comes of being married for thirty years. Husbands were made to be talked to. It helps them to concentrate their minds on what they’re reading-like the sound of a weir. There!-you’re yawning again.”

Jane found Mother Dimble an embarrassing person to share a room with because she said prayers. It was quite extraordinary, Jane thought, how this put one out. One didn’t know where to look, and it was so difficult to talk naturally again for several minutes after Mrs. Dimble had risen from her knees.