That Hideous Strength

II

For the first few minutes after Grace Ironwood had left them alone, Jane hardly took in what the Director was saying. It was not that her attention wandered: on the contrary, her attention was so fixed on him that it defeated itself. Every tone, every look (how could they have supposed she would think him young?), every gesture, was printing itself upon her memory: and it was not until she found that he had ceased speaking and was apparently awaiting an answer that she realised she had taken in so little of what he had been saying.

“I-I beg your pardon,” she said, wishing that she did not keep on turning red like a schoolgirl.

“I was saying,” he answered, “that you have already done us the greatest possible service. We knew that one of the most dangerous attacks ever made upon the human race was coming very soon and in this island. We had an idea that Belbury might be connected with it. But we were not certain. We certainly did not know that Belbury was so important. That is why your information is so valuable. But in another way, it presents us with a difficulty. I mean a difficulty as far as you are concerned. We had hoped you would be able to join us-to become one of our army.”

“Can I not, sir?” said Jane.

“It is difficult,” said the Director after a pause. “You see, your husband is in Belbury.”

Jane glanced up. It had been on the tip of her tongue to say “Do you mean that Mark is in any danger?” But she had realised that anxiety about Mark did not, in fact, make any part of the complex emotions she was feeling, and that to reply thus would be hypocrisy. It was a sort of scruple she had not often felt before. Finally she said,

“What do you mean?”

“Why,” said the Director, “it would be hard for the same person to be the wife of an official in the N.I.C.E. and also a member of my company.”

“You mean you couldn’t trust me?”

“I mean nothing we need be afraid to speak of. I mean that, in the circumstances, you and I and your husband could not all be trusting one another.”

Jane bit her lip in anger, not at the Director but at Mark. Why should he and his affairs with the Feverstone man intrude themselves at such a moment as this?

“I must do what I think right, mustn’t I?” she said softly. “I mean-if Mark-if my husband-is on the wrong side, I can’t let that make any difference to what I do. Can I?”

“You are thinking about what is right?” said the Director. Jane started, and flushed. She had not, she realised, been thinking about that.

“Of course,” said the Director, “things might come to such a point that you would be justified in coming here, even wholly against his will, even secretly. It depends on how close the danger is-the danger to us all, and to you personally.”

“I thought the danger was right on top of us now, from the way Mrs. Denniston talked.”

“That is just the question,” said the Director, with a smile. “I am not allowed to be too prudent. I am not allowed to use desperate remedies until desperate diseases are really apparent. Otherwise we become just like our enemies-breaking all the rules whenever we imagine that it might possibly do some vague good to humanity in the remote future.”

“But will it do anyone any harm if I come here?” asked Jane.

He did not directly answer this. Presently he spoke again.

“It looks as if you will have to go back; at least for the present. You will, no doubt, be seeing your husband again fairly soon. I think you must make at least one effort to detach him from the N.I.C.E.”

“But how can I, sir?” said Jane. “What have I to say to him. He’d think it all nonsense. He wouldn’t believe all that about an attack on the human race.” As soon as she had said it she wondered, “Did that sound cunning?” then, more disconcertingly, “Was it cunning?”

“No,” said the Director. “And you must not tell him. You must not mention me nor the company at all. We have put our lives in your hands. You must simply ask him to leave Belbury. You must put it on your own wishes. You are his wife.”

“Mark never takes any notice of what I say,” answered Jane. She and Mark each thought that of the other.

“Perhaps,” said the Director, “you have never asked anything as you will be able to ask this. Do you not want to save him as well as yourself?”

Jane ignored this question. Now that the threat of expulsion from the house was imminent, she felt a kind of desperation. Heedless of that inner commentator who had more than once during this conversation shown her her own words and wishes in such a novel light, she began speaking rapidly.

“Don’t send me back,” she said. “I am all alone at home, with terrible dreams. It isn’t as if Mark and I saw much of one another at the best of times. I am so unhappy. He won’t care whether I come here or not. He’d only laugh at it all if he knew. Is it fair that my whole life should be spoiled just because he’s got mixed up with some horrible people? You don’t think a woman is to have no life of her own just because she’s married?”

“Are you unhappy now?” said the Director. A dozen affirmatives died on Jane’s lips as she looked up in answer to his question. Then suddenly, in a kind of deep calm, like the stillness at the centre of a whirlpool, she saw the truth, and ceased at last to think how her words might make him think of her, and answered, “No.”

“But,” she added after a short pause, “it will be worse now, if I go back.”

“Will it?”

“I don’t know. No. I suppose not.” And for a little time Jane was hardly conscious of anything but peace and well-being, the comfort of her own body in the chair where she sat, and a sort of clear beauty in the colours and proportions of the room. But soon she began thinking to herself, “This is the end. In a moment he will send for the Ironwood woman to take you away.” It seemed to her that her fate depended on what she said in the next minute.

“But is it really necessary?” she began. “I don’t think I look on marriage quite as you do. It seems to me extraordinary that everything should hang on what Mark says . . . about something he doesn’t understand.”

“Child,” said the Director, “it is not a question of how you or I look on marriage but how my Masters look on it.”

“Someone said they were very old fashioned. But-”

“That was a joke. They are not old fashioned: but they are very very old.”

“They would never think of finding out first whether Mark and I believed in their ideas of marriage?”

“Well-no,” said the Director with a curious smile.

“No. Quite definitely they wouldn’t think of doing that.”

“And would it make no difference to them what a marriage was actually like . . . whether it was a success? Whether the woman loved her husband?”

Jane had not exactly intended to say this-much less to say it in the cheaply pathetic tone which, it now seemed to her, she had used. Hating herself, and fearing the Director’s silence, she added, “But I suppose you will say I oughtn’t to have told you that.”

“My dear child,” said the Director, “you have been telling me that ever since your husband was mentioned.”

“Does it make no difference?”

“I suppose,” said the Director, “it would depend on how he lost your love.”

Jane was silent. Though she could not tell the Director the truth, and indeed did not know it herself, yet when she tried to explore her inarticulate grievance against Mark, a novel sense of her own injustice and even of pity for her husband, arose in her mind. And her heart sank, for now it seemed to her that this conversation, to which she had vaguely looked for some sort of deliverance from all problems, was in fact involving her in new ones.

“It was not his fault,” she said at last. “I suppose our marriage was just a mistake.”

The Director said nothing.

“What would you-what would the people you are talking of say about a case like that?”

“I will tell you if you really want to know,” said the Director.

“Please,” said Jane reluctantly.

“They would say,” he answered, “that you do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but have lost love because you never attempted obedience.”

Something in Jane that would normally have reacted to such a remark with anger or laughter was banished to a remote distance (where she could still, but only just, hear its voice) by the fact that the word obedience-but certainly not obedience to Mark-came over her, in that room and in that presence, like a strange oriental perfume, perilous, seductive, and ambiguous . . .

“Stop it!” said the Director sharply.

Jane stared at him, open-mouthed. There were a few moments of silence during which the exotic fragrance faded away.

“You were saying, my dear?” resumed the Director.

“I thought love meant equality,” she said, “and free companionship.”

“Ah, equality!” said the Director. “We must talk of that some other time. Yes; we must all be guarded by equal rights from one another’s greed, because we are fallen. Just as we must all wear clothes for the same reason. But the naked body should be there underneath the clothes, ripening for the day when we shall need them no longer. Equality is not the deepest thing, you know.”

“I always thought that was just what it was. I thought it was in their souls that people were equal.”

“You were mistaken,” said he gravely; “that is the last place where they are equal. Equality before the law, equality of incomes-that is very well. Equality guards life; it doesn’t make it. It is medicine, not food. You might as well try to warm yourself with a blue-book.”

“But surely in marriage . . . ?”

“Worse and worse,” said the Director. “Courtship knows nothing of it; nor does fruition. What has free companionship to do with that? Those who are enjoying something, or suffering something together, are companions. Those who enjoy or suffer one another, are not. Do you not know how bashful friendship is? Friends . . . comrades . . . do not look at each other. Friendship would be ashamed . . .”

“I thought,” said Jane and then stopped.

“I see,” said the Director. “It is not your fault. They never warned you. No one has ever told you that obedience-humility-is an erotic necessity. You are putting equality just where it ought not to be. As to your coming here, that may admit of some doubt. For the present, I must send you back. You can come out and see us. In the meantime, talk to your husband and I will talk to my authorities.”

“When will you be seeing them?”

“They come to me when they please. But we’ve been talking too solemnly about obedience all this time. I’d like to shew you some of its drolleries. You are not afraid of mice are you?”

“Afraid of what?” said Jane in astonishment.

“Mice,” said the Director.

“No,” said Jane in a puzzled voice.

The Director struck a little bell beside his sofa which was almost immediately answered by Mrs. Maggs.

“I think,” said the Director, “I should like my lunch now, if you please. They will give you lunch downstairs, Mrs. Studdock-something more substantial than mine. But if you will sit with me while I eat and drink, I will show you some of the amenities of our house.”

Mrs. Maggs presently returned with a tray, bearing a glass, a small flagon of red wine, and a roll of bread. She set it down on a table at the Director’s side and left the room.

“You see,” said the Director, “I live like the King in Curdie. It is a surprisingly pleasant diet.” With these words he broke the bread and poured himself out a glass of wine.

“I never read the book you are speaking of,” said Jane.

They talked of the book a little while the Director ate and drank; but presently he took up the plate and tipped the crumbs off on to the floor. “Now, Mrs. Studdock,” he said, “you shall see a diversion. But you must be perfectly still.” With these words he took from his pocket a little silver whistle and blew a note on it. And Jane sat still till the room became filled with silence like a solid thing and there was first a scratching and then a rustling and presently she saw three plump mice working their passage across what was to them the thick undergrowth of the carpet, nosing this way and that so that if their course had been drawn it would have resembled that of a winding river, until they were so close that she could see the twinkling of their eyes and even the palpitation of their noses. In spite of what she had said she did not really care for mice in the neighbourhood of her feet and it was with an effort that she sat still. Thanks to this effort she saw mice for the first time as they really are-not as creeping things but as dainty quadrupeds, almost, when they sat up, like tiny kangaroos, with sensitive kid-gloved forepaws and transparent ears. With quick, inaudible movements they ranged to and fro till not a crumb was left on the floor. Then he blew a second time on his whistle and with a sudden whisk of tails all three of them were racing for home and in a few seconds had disappeared behind the coal box. The Director looked at her with laughter in his eyes. “It is impossible,” thought Jane “to regard him as old.” “There,” he said, “a very simple adjustment. Humans want crumbs removed; mice are anxious to remove them. It ought never to have been a cause of war. But you see that obedience and rule are more like a dance than a drill-specially between man and woman where the roles are always changing.”

“How huge we must seem to them,” said Jane. This inconsequent remark had a very curious cause. Hugeness was what she was thinking of and for one moment it had seemed she was thinking of her own hugeness in comparison with the mice. But almost at once this identification collapsed. She was really thinking simply of hugeness. Or rather, she was not thinking of it. She was, in some strange fashion, experiencing it. Something intolerably big, something from Brobdingnag, was pressing on her, was approaching, was almost in the room. She felt herself shrinking, suffocated, emptied of all power and virtue. She darted a glance at the Director which was really a cry for help, and that glance, in some inexplicable way, revealed him as being, like herself, a very small object. The whole room was a tiny place, a mouse’s hole, and it seemed to her to be tilted aslant-as though the insupportable mass and splendour of this formless hugeness, in approaching, had knocked it askew. She heard the Director’s voice.

“Quick,” he said gently, “you must leave me now. This is no place for us small ones, but I am inured. Go!”