That Hideous Strength

II

That same afternoon Mother Dimble and the three girls were upstairs in the big room which occupied nearly the whole top floor of one wing at the Manor, and which the Director called the Wardrobe. If you had glanced in you would have thought for one moment that they were not in a room at all but in some kind of forest-a tropical forest glowing with bright colours. A second glance and you might have thought they were in one of those delightful upper rooms at a big shop where carpets standing on end and rich stuffs hanging from the roof make a kind of woven forest of their own. In fact, they were standing amidst a collection of robes of state-dozens of robes which hung, each separate, from its little pillar of wood.

“That would do beautifully for you, Ivy,” said Mother Dimble, lifting with one hand the fold of a vividly green mantle over which thin twists and spirals of gold played in a festive pattern. “Come, Ivy,” she continued, “don’t you like it? You’re not still fretting about Tom, are you? Hasn’t the Director told you he’ll be here to-night or to-morrow midday at the latest?”

Ivy looked at her with troubled eyes.

“Tisn’t that,” she said. “Where’ll the Director himself be?”

“But you can’t want him to stay, Ivy,” said Camilla, “not in continual pain. And his work will be done-if all goes well at Edgestow.”

“He has longed to go back to Perelandra,” said Mother Dimble. “He’s-sort of home-sick. Always, always . . . I could see it in his eyes.”

“Will that Merling man come back here?” asked Ivy.

“I don’t think so,” said Jane. “I don’t think either he or the Director expected him to. And then my dream last night. It looked as if he was on fire . . . I don’t mean burning, you know, but light-all sorts of lights in the most curious colours shooting out of him and running up and down him. That was the last thing I saw: Merlin standing there like a kind of pillar and all those dreadful things happening all round him. And you could see in his face that he was a man used up to the last drop, if you know what I mean-that he’d fall to pieces the moment the powers let him go.”

“We’re not getting on with choosing our dresses for to-night.”

“What is it made of?” said Camilla, fingering and then smelling the green mantle. It was a question worth asking. It was not in the least transparent, yet all sorts of lights and shades dwelled in its rippling folds, and it flowed through Camilla’s hands like a waterfall. Ivy became interested.

“Gor!” she said, “however much a yard would it be?”

“There,” said Mother Dimble as she draped it skilfully round Ivy. Then she said “Oh!” in genuine amazement. All three stood back from Ivy, staring at her with delight. The commonplace had not exactly gone from her form and face: the robe had taken it up, as a great composer takes up a folk-tune and tosses it like a ball through his symphony and makes of it a marvel, yet leaves it still itself.

A “pert fairy” or “dapper elf,” a small though perfect sprightliness, stood before them: but still recognisably Ivy Maggs.

“Isn’t that like a man!” exclaimed Mrs. Dimble.

“There’s not a mirror in the room.”

“I don’t believe we were meant to see ourselves “, said Jane. “He said something about being mirrors enough to one another.”

“I would just like to see what I’m like at the back “, said Ivy.

“Now, Camilla,” said Mother Dimble, “there’s no puzzle about you. This is obviously your one.”

“Oh, do you think that one?” said Camilla.

“Yes, of course,” said Jane.

“You’ll look ever so nice in that,” said Ivy. It was a long slender thing which looked like steel in colour, though it was soft as foam to the touch. It wrapped itself close about her loins and flowed out in a glancing train at her heels. “Like a mermaid,” thought Jane: and then “Like a Valkyrie.”

“I’m afraid,” said Mother Dimble, “you must wear a coronet with that one.”

“Wouldn’t that be rather . . . ?”

But Mother Dimble was already setting it on her head. That reverence (it need have nothing to do with money value) which nearly all women feel for jewellery hushed three of them for a moment. There were, perhaps, no such diamonds in England. The splendour was fabulous, preposterous.

“What are you all staring at?” asked Camilla, who had seen but one flash as the crown was raised in Mrs. Dimble’s hands and did not know that she stood “like starlight, in the spoils of provinces.”

“Are they real?” said Ivy.

“Where did they come from, Mother Dimble?” asked Jane.

“Treasure of Logres, dears, treasure of Logres,” said Mrs. Dimble. “Perhaps from beyond the Moon or before the flood. Now, Jane.”

Jane could see nothing specially appropriate in the robe which the others agreed in putting on her. Blue was, indeed, her colour, but she thought of something a little more austere and dignified. Left to her own judgement, she would have called this a little “fussy.” But when she saw the others all clap their hands, she submitted. Indeed, it did not now occur to her to do otherwise, and the whole matter was forgotten a moment later in the excitement of choosing a robe for Mother Dimble.

“Something quiet,” she said. “I’m an old woman and I don’t want to be ridiculous.”

“This wouldn’t do at all,” said Camilla, walking down the long row of hanging splendours, herself like a meteor as she passed against that background of purple and gold and scarlet and soft snow and elusive opal, of fur, silk, velvet, taffeta, and brocade. “That’s lovely,” she said “but not for you. And oh!-look at that. But it wouldn’t do. I don’t see anything . . .”

“Here! Oh, do come and look! Come here,” cried Ivy, as if she were afraid her discovery would run away unless the others attended to it quickly.

“Oh! Yes, yes, indeed,” said Jane.

“Certainly,” said Camilla.

“Put it on, Mother Dimble,” said Ivy. “You know you got to.” It was of that almost tyrannous flame colour which Jane had seen in her vision down in the lodge, but differently cut, with fur about the great copper brooch that clasped the throat, with long sleeves and hangings from them. And there went with it a many-cornered cap. And they had no sooner clasped the robe than all were astonished, none more than Jane, though indeed she had had best reason to foresee the result. For now this provincial wife of a rather obscure scholar, this respectable and barren woman with grey hair and double chin, stood before her, not to be mistaken, as a kind of priestess or sybil, the servant of some prehistoric goddess of fertility-an old tribal matriarch, mother of mothers, grave, formidable, and august. A long staff, curiously carved as if a snake twined up it, was apparently part of the costume: they put it in her hand.

“Am I awful?” said Mother Dimble, looking in turn at the three silent faces.

“You look lovely,” said Ivy.

“It is exactly right,” said Camilla.

Jane took up the old lady’s hand and kissed it.

“Darling,” she said, “aweful, in the old sense, is just what you do look.”

“What are the men going to wear?” asked Camilla suddenly.

“They can’t very well go in fancy dress, can they?” said Ivy. “Not if they’re cooking and bringing things in and out all the time. And I must say if this is to be the last night and all I do think we ought to have done the dinner, anyway. Let them do as they like about the wine. And what they’ll do with that goose is more than I like to think, because I don’t believe that Mr. MacPhee ever roasted a bird in his life, whatever he says.”

“They can’t spoil the oysters, anyway,” said Camilla.

“That’s right,” said Ivy. “Nor the plum pudding, not really. Still, I’d like just to go down and take a look.”

“You’d better not,” said Jane with a laugh. “You know what he’s like when he’s in charge in the kitchen.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” said Ivy, almost, but not quite putting out her tongue. And in her present dress the gesture was not uncomely.

“You needn’t be in the least worried about the dinner, girls,” said Mother Dimble. “He will do it very well. Always provided he and my husband don’t get into a philosophical argument just when they ought to be dishing up. Let’s go and enjoy ourselves. How very warm it is in here.”

“’s lovely,” said Ivy.

At that moment the whole room shook from end to end.

“What on earth’s that?” said Jane.

“If the war was still on I’d have said it was a bomb,” said Ivy.

“Come and look,” said Camilla, who had regained her composure sooner than any of the others and was now at the window which looked west towards the valley of the Wynd. “Oh, look!” she said again. “No. It’s not fire. And it’s not searchlights. And it’s not forked lightning. Ugh! . . . there’s another shock. And there . . . Look at that. It’s as bright as day there beyond the church. What am I talking about, it’s only three o’clock. It’s brighter than day. And the heat!”

“It has begun,” said Mother Dimble.