The Womb of Time, page 12
“It won’t last long, gentlemen,” said Crome. “I should have reminded you about the umbrellas—I’m sorry.”
Crome’s prediction seemed sound enough. The storm was half-hearted, at best, and seemed to be centered well out to sea. Halsted had experienced sudden summer deluges far worse in their violence, even in Oxford, where the contrast between summer and winter seemed to be much less marked than it was in Arkham. In spite of its lack of true conviction, however, it made the return journey considerably more uncomfortable than the previous day’s rehearsal run, when the fine drizzle had been hardly noticeable.
The rainwater streaming down Ridpath’s face seemed to revive him somewhat. The biologist indicated to Rylands that he was now able to support himself in a sitting position, and coughed experimentally before fixing his eyes on Halsted.
“What was that?” he asked, hoarsely.
“We don’t know,” Halsted replied. “We think…”
“I’m not talking about that crap about noxious gases,” Ridpath said, interrupting rudely. “I’m talking about what we saw. You did see it, didn’t you?”
Halsted hesitated. He knew that he was never going to be able to talk freely about what he had seen, and that he would have to be very careful indeed before electing to name it publicly, let alone make any concerted attempt to describe it in comprehensible terms. There was, he thought only one person with whom he might actually be able to discuss the matter, and—no matter how unfair it seemed, given that he firmly believed that the biologist had seen exactly what he had seen—that person was not Graham Ridpath.
Fortunately, he was let off the hook by James Wychelow, who said: “I saw it. I don’t quite believe it, but I did see it. It wasn’t like one of my dreams—it was much more splendid, much more vibrant, exactly as one would expect of an authentic vision…but I daren’t believe it, of course. This is the twentieth century, after all. We understand things differently now…even if all of you saw it too, none of us will ever dare to believe that it was anything but a collective hallucination.”
There was a moment’s silence before Rylands said: “What on Earth are you talking about, Wychelow?”
“The Holy Grail,” Wychelow replied, as if it were perfectly obvious. “Isn’t that what you meant, Mr. Ridpath?”
Ridpath looked at Wychelow, and then at Halsted, and then at Martin Rylands. “No,” he said, in a tone suggestive of the suspicion that he was being mocked and teased. “No, it isn’t.” He was wary now, just as Halsted had been when he had been asked to testify to what he had seen. The moment of his fervent determination had passed—from now on, he too would probably be very careful indeed in selecting those to whom he might confide his experience. He seemed regretful about that, but Halsted knew that the biologist would bow to the inevitable, just as he had done—with the one certain exception that Ridpath would choose a different informant, if he chose any at all.
“You thought you saw the Holy Grail?” Martin Rylands said to James Wychelow, as if to make absolutely sure that he was not hearing things.
“Yes, I did,” Wychelow admitted, candidly. “It was a subjective experience, of course—a hallucination—but I don’t doubt that it was the same kind of subjective experience that’s described in so many Arthurian tales and legends, as well as the scriptures. I was conscious of the other symbols too, but the grail was the central one.”
“What other symbols?” Rylands wanted to know.
“The staff, the sword and the crown. They’re often associated in Arthurian arcana, and in more familiar places—the four suits of the Tarot deck, for instance. Conventional packs of cards substitute simpler versions, but the original associations can still be glimpsed. For a while, I thought that the symbols engraved on my stone fragment might represent the same four items—the first the staff, the second the sword, the third the crown and the fourth the cup, but I couldn’t figure out why there would be more than one crown, so the similarities are probably coincidental. There’s nothing particularly unusual about my tendency to see the symbols where other people don’t—it’s a matter of sensitivity. The Medieval knights who saw visions of the grail were doubtless sensitized in the same way, by their education, interests and habitual dreams. What did you see, Dr. Ridpath?”
“Something vast and horrible,” Ridpath admitted, but concluded his account there, refusing to attempt further detail. “You’re right, of course—it was just a hallucination, born of preliminary sensitivity.” He glanced at Halsted as he said it, as if looking for confirmation. Halsted felt that it would be dishonest to lend any explicit endorsement to the suggestion, so he kept his face straight and said nothing.
“Your vision didn’t tell you where to find the grail, then?” Rylands put in, taking care to make his sarcasm gentle.
“No,” Wychelow replied, still sounding perfectly serious. “That’s not the purpose of such visions. The true quest is for enlightenment, not vulgar enrichment. The mythical Arthur and Merlin—as opposed to any real individuals whose names and deeds were co-opted into the legendary complex—were in search of something finer than mere political power or wealth. They really did want to redeem the wasteland that the Roman retreat from Britain had left behind. As I’ve said before, I doubt that any actual kingdom of that era was Christianized, but it’s not surprising that the Arthurian legends and the symbolism of the grail were avidly co-opted by Christian preachers, for they had so many aims in common: virtue, and the values of civilization.”
“You might care to remember, Mr. Wychelow,” Vamplew put in, “that you’re not preaching to the converted now—not entirely, at any rate. Mr. Crome is devout in his support of the Kingdom of Medraut, and I’ve lived here long enough to have absorbed the local skepticism regarding Arthur.”
“It makes no difference to my argument,” Wychelow said, serenely. “The real Arthur and the real Medraut were probably petty warlords, no better than one another. The choice of which one to eulogize and mythologize was probably arbitrary, more to do with mere geography than discriminating judgment. If Medraut is the hero hereabouts, so be it.”
“Did your ancestor have a similar vision?” Halsted asked, curiously. “Is that why you came here?”
“If he did,” Wychelow replied, “then he was careful to speak of it obliquely, to leave hints in his writings rather than explicit claims. He and Thomas De Quincey might have had more in common than leaps to the untutored eye.”
“Even though the Confessions of an English Opium-Eater strongly suggests,” Rylands put in, “that whatever De Quincey might actually have seen here in his mind’s eye, it certainly wasn’t the Holy Grail. Something vast and horrible seems much closer to the mark.”
The rain was falling more heavily and more relentlessly now, blown about by the wind that was buffeting the cart, so that it sometimes seemed to be mounting its assaults from one side or another rather than from overhead. Halsted’s clothing, which had already been caked by cloying mud because of his fall, was now soaked through to the skin, and a chill was reaching into his wearied flesh. Reflexively, he reached into his pocket and took out one of the hard-boiled eggs he had secreted there, and began to remove the shell, while shielding it from the rain by leaning forward, in order to extend it the protection of his broad-brimmed hat.
Ridpath might not have needed his trowel or his specimen-bottle, he thought. There’s probably more than enough mud clinging to his trousers—but the rain will surely dilute it to the point of impotence, if it doesn’t wash the poison away completely. Perhaps the storm didn’t miss its cue at all; perhaps it made its entrance exactly when it was required.
“Do you need medical attention, Dr. Ridpath?” Martin Rylands asked the biologist, while Halsted consumed his reassuring snack. “Will we need to call a doctor, or get you to a hospital?”
“I don’t think so,” Ridpath replied. “I feel better now, although I ache all over and I’m very weary. I dare say that I’ll have bad dreams tonight, but I hope to wake sound and refreshed in the morning.”
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Rylands said to Giles Crome, “but I do hope you’re not intending to serve cockle soup at dinner tonight.”
“Mrs. Crome has put a beef casserole in the slow oven,” the hotelier assured them. “She’ll be busy looking after Mr. Conrad, but everything will get done. The doctor will be calling in to see Mr. Conrad this afternoon. I’ll ask him to look in on Dr. Ridpath and Dr. Halsted too, to be on the safe side.”
“All I need is a change of clothes and a hot bath,” Ridpath said. He glanced at Halsted and added: “I suppose we’ll have to toss a coin to see who gets first use of the bathroom.”
“One of you can use the downstairs bathroom,” Crome was quick to say. “I’ll make sure that there’s a plentiful supply of hot water. I’ll collect your dirty clothes and Mrs. Crome will make sure that they’re thoroughly cleaned”
A wise precaution, Halsted thought. If the rain leaves anything noxious behind, Mrs. Crome’s valiant detergents will surely take care of it. Ridpath will lose what remains of his samples—but he doesn’t seem at all anxious about that prospect. If he saw something I didn’t—or was able to deduce something from what he saw that I wasn’t—it was no mere matter of toxic mud exhaling stored vapors. What a strange hallucinatory confusion this is!
The cliffs were looming up now, no longer content to be a mere line on the horizon. Halsted scanned the beach, searching with his eyes for the woman who had chanced to pass by for the second day running while he was chasing the tide, this time with fortunate results. She was nowhere to be seen among the ragged retreating crowd—although the low cloud and the heavy rain were limiting visibility to a relatively narrow span, so there was no particular significance in that. She was not a phantom, though; there had been no mistake about her tangibility. She was not Anabel either; the sound of her voice had put that mad fancy to the sword. She was someone unknown to him, a genuine mystery.
The rain began to ease as soon as the cockle-cart engaged the zigzag path, and was much lighter by the time they arrived at the door of the Hidden Crown.
As Giles Crome helped him down from the cart, Halsted looked up at the slackly-hanging inn-sign. It suddenly occurred to the American to ask: “Why the Hidden Crown? Why not Lost, or Buried…or simply, The Crown?”
“That’s what folk believe, in these parts,” the innkeeper told him, soberly. “They don’t assume that the crown was lost—they’re well used to the long retreat from the deadly sea, and to the habit of carrying away everything valuable once it becomes unduly exposed to danger. They always assume that the protective crown was hidden—but not in such a silly way that the fools with spades and maps will ever find it. There was a time when it was free in the world, along with the staff and the sword, but those times are long gone, and the protectors work in mysterious ways, for good reason. Some things are meant to be hidden, Dr. Halsted—just as some things are best left dead and buried, forever confined if not entirely inert.”
Halsted was looking directly into the innkeeper’s eyes while Crome made his speech, but he did not want to read more into the eyes, or the speech, than there actually was. “I’ll take the upstairs bathroom, if I may,” he said.
“Certainly, sir,” the other replied, meekly. “I’ll bring you an extra towel when I come to collect your clothes. Take all the time you need—I’m sure that the others will understand.”
Ridpath raised no objection. He could stand and walk now, but probably did not feel up to the challenge of the staircase as yet.
“Make sure you leave some hot water for the rest of us, though,” Rylands put in, as they made their way upstairs. “There’s a limit to any man’s understanding and tolerance, even when confronted with the spectacle of so much mud.”
Chapter Ten
A Rising Sympathy
When he came out of the upstairs bathroom, clad in a voluminous dressing-gown, Halsted found Martin Rylands and Henry Vamplew in conversation outside the door, almost on the threshold of room 5. Vamplew had changed his clothes but Rylands was also wearing a dressing-gown, in anticipation of taking over the bathroom that Halsted had been occupying for some time.
“Has Wychelow staked a claim?” the Cambridge man asked, anxiously, as Halsted maneuvered his way between the two men.
“He hasn’t said anything to me,” was Halsted’s curt reply.
“Don’t worry about your muddy clothes,” Vamplew said—unnecessarily, as any such anxiety was far from Halsted’s thoughts. “Mrs. Crome will get the mud out. I don’t say they’ll be as good as new, but they’ll be wearable. The doctor is still in with Mr. Conrad, but you’ll be able to consult him after he’s looked in on Dr. Ridpath, if you wish.”
“That’s all right,” Halsted assured him, as Rylands went past him into the bathroom. “I feel fine now. I don’t need to see a doctor. I’d like a word with you, though, if it’s convenient.”
“Certainly. If you’d care to knock on my door when you’ve dressed, I’ll fetch a pot of tea up from the kitchen in the meantime, and I’ll tell Mr. Crome that you don’t require the doctor’s services.”
Halsted took his time dressing, and then stared out of the window for a few moments, waiting until he heard Vamplew coming back along the corridor. The rain had stopped now and the sky had cleared again, although the village and its surroundings were still dripping with damp. The sea had long since reclaimed the narrow strip of anonymous mud that it stripped bare for just a moment.
The American caught up with the returning resident in time to go into room 6 with him. He closed the door behind them while Vamplew set down a tray containing a teapot, two cups and saucers, a milk-jug and a sugar-bowl.
Vamplew’s lair was slightly larger than rooms 4 and 5, and slightly different in shape, but the principal contrast of which Halsted was immediately aware was the personalization of the space. Room 5 was unmistakably a temporary abode, minimal in its appointments; this one was much more cluttered with personal possessions, including several framed pictures set on the wall, the mantelpiece and the shelves of a sideboard. The top of the sideboard and its cabinet—the doors of which stood slightly ajar—were overloaded with papers. The glass-fronted bookshelf unit was woefully inadequate to confine all the books that Vamplew possessed; the remainder were stuffed under the bed and into the wardrobe, save for a couple of stray piles to either side of the fireplace.
The resident did not bother to apologize for the untidiness, but simply waved his guest in the direction of one of the room’s two armchairs. Both of them were turned away from the fireplace, in recognition of the season, and positioned so as to catch the light from the west-facing window, which was at its brightest in mid-afternoon.
“Milk and sugar?” Vamplew asked.
“Just milk,” Halsted replied.
“If you need something to read this evening,” Vamplew said, “there’s plenty of choice, as you can see. I used to have many more of course, but I had to adapt myself to this rather restricted space. Mr. Conrad’s room is slightly less cramped, in spite of his wretched aquarium, so we usually take our tea in there, but it seems that he might be confined to bed for some while.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Halsted said, politely, but then got straight to the point. “Down by the waterline you implied that you knew what had happened to me—you even said that you had expected something similar to happen to you. What’s going on here, Mr. Vamplew?”
“I still don’t know for sure, alas. There’s something real here, as you said, but it’s strangely shy. When it condescends to reveal itself—which it seems to do very rarely—it always does so in oblique and puzzling ways. There’s a mystery here, which is very difficult to grasp. People have known about it for a long time, I think, and some people have been fascinated by it—including me, I suppose—but I doubt that anyone has ever got any closer to the heart of it than you contrived to do today, at least in my lifetime. When I said that I had expected something to happen to me, I meant that I was far more ready in my mind and my education to suffer any effect that might occur. I must confess to a sharp disappointment that the phenomenon almost passed me by, preferring to afflict you and Dr. Ridpath with its full effect. That hardly seems fair—and it adds to the puzzle, for you and he are obviously more robust than I am, seemingly far less vulnerable to constitutional disturbance. On the other hand, I might not have got up afterwards as easily as you and he did, so I suppose I ought to be grateful.”
“Why did you come down to the water-line with us if you believed that it would be dangerous?” Halsted asked.
“Because I’ve been here for sixteen years, and never got closer to Cthulhu than an occasional bad dream. Even if it proved fatal, I wanted to achieve a better result than that before I die. You did see Cthulhu, didn’t you, in all its appalling glory?”
“Yes, I did,” Halsted admitted. “But Mr. Wychelow saw the Holy Grail instead. I don’t understand how that came about. Do you?”
“No, I don’t,” Vamplew admitted, sipping from his tea-cup with what seemed like perfect equanimity, although his hand was trembling slightly. “I’ve never understood the Arthurian connection. I heard what Crome said to you when you got down from the cart, and he’s said similar things to me, in that impressively earnest fashion of his, but I suspect that it’s all derived from what was said to him in his infancy—formulae that have been repeated many times over, acquiring an authority of their own in consequence. He doesn’t inquire as to what the significance of it all might be; he just repeats the words. It pains me to say so, but I’m only a little wiser now than I was when Mr. Conrad and I first settled here—but it is real, isn’t it? It might not make sense, but Cthulhu is real.”
