Titus Awakes

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.’

‘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.

The nameless man started his descent of the rough-hewn steps and motioned to Titus to follow. Despite his portly figure he was nimble on his feet, and they went downwards quite speedily. As they neared the end of the steps the house came into view more clearly. It was large and it seemed to have no particular shape. There were three floors, with four deep windows on either side of the front door. It was painted white and there was a courtyard in front, which allowed a breathing space between the last of the steps and the house itself.

The door was open, and the entrance room was painted white, with white-painted floorboards. Titus had imagined it would be gloomy but the atmosphere was translucent. The hall itself went right through to the back of the house, and a great glass window gave on to a large expanse of lawn, which seemed to have been recently cut.

There was a sound of voices and the man turned towards a door, once more indicating that Titus should follow. He entered a long drawing room. Again, there was the shock of whiteness. The floor, walls, ceiling, curtains, furniture, broken only by riotous colour in huge vases of flowers dispersed around the room at different heights. A woman, dressed in white, with abundant dark hair pulled back severely, sat on a sofa, with a child on her knee. They were playing a game with coloured beads, and she made no effort to rise on seeing her visitors.

‘We thought you were coming last night.’

‘My muse would have none of it. Here is a youth who knows not where he is bound, nor will do so until he arrives. Such enigmas are my daily bread. I shall retire to refresh myself, and the reading will begin after dinner. Farewell.’

Titus was left alone with the woman and child. She was too old to be the child’s mother, but had a proprietorial air towards her surroundings.

‘Run along now,’ she said to the child, who jumped off her lap and ran out of the room.

‘You must excuse me,’ said Titus. ‘I am a most unwelcome guest, I am sure. I’ll leave now . . .’

‘Oh, is it as dreadful as all that here?’

‘No, but I feel that perhaps I am?!’

‘You know, or of course you don’t, when he comes, we never know what to expect, or rather, should I say we know enough to know that we do not know what to expect. Do you understand? And if I may say so, I am sure that you are probably more confused than I am.’

‘Well, perhaps my own way of life has adapted me to the surprises that seem to hover wherever I go.’

‘Is that exciting?’

‘It was. But I’ve grown tired of them. When your friend elected me to be a captive ear, I was on my way somewhere else.’

‘He is not exactly a friend. If that sounds disloyal, perhaps it is. He is one of those people that nearly everyone has in his or her life. He comes in and out of it, like summer storms. Everything is passive; then he arrives and devastation follows. He goes nowhere without leaving a trail behind him. However unpleasant the trail, it is at least memorable, and despite the fact that you didn’t want to come, perhaps you would like to stay the night, and I can promise you it won’t be dull. May I show you a room to sleep in?’

As she asked this question, the woman stood up, and Titus saw that she was a good deal older than he had thought. She was very tall and had slim legs. There were dark rings under her eyes, but there was a quizzical intelligence in them.

They left the white room and, passing across the hall, went through a door on the other side to a wide uncarpeted staircase painted white. As they went up three flights of stairs, Titus heard children’s voices, laughing and querulous and being exercised with all the lack of inhibitions known to children.

‘I expect they’re dressing up. We’ve got a little theatre in the garden, you know,’ the woman said. ‘I hope you won’t mind this room. The others are all occupied. It was a nursery – and they still use it.’

She spoke, as many people do, as though everything that happened in her house was common knowledge.

‘We’ll have dinner about eight.’

‘I have no change of clothes – only what I came in. Perhaps you would rather . . .’

‘Oh, we are very informal here, you know.’

It was a household, certainly, where the hostess (or so Titus assumed her to be) took everything in her stride.

‘With a family like mine, I have long since learned to be surprised at nothing. Well, do make yourself at home.’ And with that she left Titus in a much lived-in room, full of discarded toys and books – and all the paraphernalia of childhood, and in one corner an iron bedstead with bedclothes that had obviously seen other guests.

Titus found himself angry at having been so easy a pawn in what he thought of as his last accidental encounter, and he decided to leave, realising that his departure would make as little difference, in this haphazard house, as his arrival.

He was travelling light, so he left the nursery and started on his way downstairs. But his departure was not to be so easily accomplished.

‘Oh, hello,’ he heard, as a door opened to reveal laughter and music and singing.

‘Hello,’ he said, peering at two young faces that bore a resemblance to the dark woman he thought of as the ‘lady of the house’.

‘I expect you’ve come for tonight. We’ve more or less finished everything now. Shall we go down to the lake?’

‘Well, I was just about to go,’ began Titus, but was interrupted by a young girl, who said, ‘But you’ve only just come. You can’t go when you’ve just arrived. We’d think you didn’t like us.’

It was too difficult for Titus to explain his arrival, so he decided that for tonight he would drift into whatever lay in store and erase his own wishes until the morning.

He found himself in a group of people much younger than himself, and he felt so far away in time and experience from them that he could not join with their light-hearted chatter; yet they tried to draw him into their activities with an easy friendliness. He thought he must appear dour to them, but his mind reverted continually to the man who had left his life so empty on two occasions. He did not wish to banish the memory of those eyes from his thoughts.

‘You are far away,’ said the same young girl to him. They were sitting by a lake, and Titus did not believe that this open garden could belong to the Hidden House. The back was entirely different from the front, but that seemed almost logical, with this likeable family.

‘Would you like to see our theatre?’

‘Yes, that would be nice.’

They walked across to the outbuildings, and the girl opened one of the stable doors and switched on a light. Inside was a stage at one end, and rows of assorted chairs. The walls were white-painted brick, and just beneath the raised stage was a decorated piano.

‘I think we’d better go in. Some of the people may be coming soon. Did you come with ‘‘I am’’?’

‘If that’s who I think it is, yes, I did.’

‘Poor you. I expect you had the ordeal?’

‘If that’s what I think it is, yes, I did.’

‘We’ve got it again tonight, you know. I wonder if anything will happen? It usually does. We’d better go now.’

They returned towards the back of the house, across the lawn, and into the white drawing room through one of the long windows that looked on to the garden. There were people of all ages, in every kind of dress. There was nothing new in what Titus saw. He was loath to enter and, although his physical presence did so, his thoughts did not follow him. There was no need of speech – he merely appeared to listen to anyone who chose to speak at rather than to him. After an hour or so he realised that there was a common move from the white room towards a room across the hall.