The village of Foxpath, not visible from the road, was reached by a lane bordered by huge yew trees, from some of whose more slender branches the piled snow had fallen, revealing dark glossy pointed foliage and pale red waxen berries.
‘The Pike will be open now,’ said Jenkin at last.
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t be cross, Gerard.’
‘I’m not, my dear creature, I’m just thinking how differently we see the world.’
‘Honestly, I don’t think I understand politics any more, I just want a few decent simplifications. Utilitarianism is the only philosophy that lasts.’
‘There aren’t any decent simplifications. All this stuff about feeding the poor is religion. OK, doing it is good. But as an idea it’s just a bit of romantic Christian myth. You think this idea takes you all the way.’
Jenkin’s long nose was red with cold and his eyes were watering. He had pulled his wollen cap down over his ears and was hunched up ape-like inside his overcoat.
‘Don’t walk so fast, Gerard. I’mjust a practical chap, it’s you who are religious. Yes, as we keep telling each other, we do see life differently. I see it as a journey along a dark foggy road with a lot of other chaps. You see it as a solitary climb up a mountain, you don’t believe you’ll get to the top, but you feel that because you can think of it you’ve done it. That’s the idea that takes you all the way!’
Gerard with a sidelong glance at his friend acknowledged both the attack and the disarming tone of its delivery. ‘I don’t think one can see much above where one is, up there it just looks like death.’
‘That’s what I’d call a romantic myth.’
‘I believe in goodness, you believe in justice. But we don’t either of us believe in an ideal society.’
‘No – but I feel I live in society, you don’t – I think you don’t notice it.’
By this time their lane had joined a road which led into the village, the snow was trodden, cars had passed, there was a sound of dogs barking, echoing in the snow spaces, and the high cries of children tobogganing on a hillside half a mile away. The church, beyond the village, upon a small eminence, was here in view, not shielded by trees. Soon they were walking on trampled pavements between cottages, their roofs of slate and thatch heavy with thick snow and fringed with icicles, their walls, of pale powdery rectangular stones, spark-ling with frost. ‘Good mornings’ were exchanged, and ‘cold, isn’t it!’ There was an air of excitement and comradeship in the dry windless cold and the brightening white light. Gerard had never really got to know Rose’s acquaintances in Foxpath. There was for instance an elderly Miss Margoly whom Rose used to speak of, the tall box hedge of whose garden they were just passing, and a Scropton family whose pretty square house was set back from the road. Then there was the house of Tallcott, the doctor, who was ‘good but brusque’, then the village shop where one could get ‘almost everything’, the new house of the local builder, the cottage of Mr Sheppey the plumber, the dressmaker’s cottage, the cottage where Annushka was born and her nieces still lived. The big pond was frozen, two people were skating, others cautiously and triumphantly walking on the ice, together with puzzled ducks and geese. A few flakes of snow now wavered in the air, scarcely resolved to fall. At last the Pike, the sign of the savage toothy fish, picturesquely rising among bulrushes, hanging immobile in the cold quiet air. Real Ale. Unbuttoning their coats and removing their gloves, they went into the hot crowded bar.
The room, dark after the dazzling white scene outside, smelt of warm wet wool, wet clothes, wet carpet. Yes, thought Gerard, amid the deafening chatter, as he looked around in vain for somewhere to sit while Jenkin was exchanging pleasantries at the counter, this is what he likes and I don’t! How long do we have to stay here? He’s ordering pints. We shall be late for lunch.
Suddenly feeling tired he pulled off his overcoat and rubbed the frost off his eyelashes and shook the snowflakes out of his curly hair. He rubbed his cold nose, thawed by the heat into a dripping wetness. He pulled down his smooth jersey and adjusted his just-visible collar and tie.
He doesn’t have to worry about virtue, thought Gerard, he lives a simple life devoid of temptation and remorse, he lives in decent simplifications, all he sees is a mass of particular sufferers – and of course he’s right about the mountain and how one cheats by a leap into the ideal. We’ve talked about this before, but it’s never had such a deep cutting edge, it goes right down to the bone. Thank God he’s stopped asking me what I’m going to write. Perhaps I’ll write about Plotinus, he thought, a quiet rambling book about Augustine and Plotinus with some observations about today, their time was just like ours really. How sublime it all seems when one looks back, that moment when Plato’s Good was married to the God of the psalms. But what an awful perilous mess it was too, philosophy versus magic, just like now. Only we haven’t got a genius to teach us a new way to think about goodness and the soul.
Jenkin turned and looked at Gerard and smiled. Then he pointed upward. Gerard looked up. The Christmas decorations were in place, the glittering red and silver chains crisscrossing the ceiling, the sparkling tinsel stars, the little pendant figures of angels. He looked again at Jenkin and his pointing finger. Perhaps I’ll write that book, thought Gerard; but first of all there’s something about Jenkin Riderhood which has got to be decided, it’s got to be found out and sorted out and done something about. Oh God, it’s such a terrible risk – it’s as if his life were at stake, or mine.
The flooded water-meadow, a huge space adjoining the river, was superbly frozen. The land, which belonged to Rose and was let to an amiable farmer, had once been common land and was still discreetly so regarded by the village. Rose ignored her fishing rights, to the disgust of Reeve and Neville. The wilful English winters did not often produce reliable enduring expanses of ice, and so the Foxpathers were not much given to skating and on the whole preferred to show off on the village pond. A few however were dotted here and there on the flat snow-covered ice-sea of the meadow as Rose and her party approached.
It was after lunch. Lunch, though announced as ‘light and simple’, had been fairly substantial, consisting of cold meats, hot potatoes, salads, then tipsy cake, then cheese, and accompanied by claret, which everyone said they must ‘go easy’ on, but mostly did not. It had been generally agreed that skating, if it was to take place, must do so at once, otherwise everyone would retire and fall asleep, and anyway it would be dark by four thirty. Duncan, who had drunk most claret, had announced his intention of sleeping it off forthwith, so the little group consisted of Rose, Gerard, Jenkin, Tamar, Gulliver and Lily. Tamar and Jenkin, non-skaters, had come for the show. Rose was glad that Tamar, who had refused even to try on the proffered boots, had come along. She was afraid that the child, who had eaten very little at lunch, would elect to spend the afternoon alone. She had already ‘taken possession’ of the library where the others tended to leave her in peace, and had been seen reading or (it was Rose’s impression) affecting to read The Tale of Genji, which Rose had recommended to her some time ago. Rose had intended to have, but had not yet had, a ‘good talk’ with Tamar who looked more than usually reserved and wan.
A little more snow had fallen, covering the earlier tracks of man and beast, and had now ceased. The air remained windless and breathlessly quiet, suspended in a kind of magical pause which made people lower their voices. The afternoon light was already changing, the white sky darkening into a reddish glow. The expanse of meadow showed mainly white, but, seen close to, where skaters’ curving tracks had passed, the gleaming ice beneath the snow was iron-grey. The Boyars party made quite a colourful set. Rose and Lily had taken some trouble with their appearance. They were both wearing fur hats, Rose’s brown, Lily’s black. Rose wore a long dark green jacket of heavy tweed, a thick high-necked brown jersey with a green silk scarf at the neck, knee-breeches and thick socks. Lily wore a white polo-necked skin-tight jersey, with a V-necked red jersey over it, a loose fluffy belted black cardigan
of angora wool, and black woollen trousers tucked into red socks. Noting Rose’s well-worn knee-breeches, she had remarked that tucking one’s trousers into one’s socks looked just as good and was easier. (She at once regretted this observation.) Both women, as they announced, had on their thickest woollen vests, Rose two, Lily only one. Lily felt cold. She had paid too much attention to Rose’s prediction that they would get quite hot skating. Gerard, who, thinking it wrong to be obsessed with clothes, dressed with a casual discernment, was wearing a dark green high-necked cashmere sweater over a white shirt, a dark blue scarf of very light wool, a long navy jacket of hand-woven tweed and blue-black corduroy trousers. Jenkin wore his usual winter suit with a thick jersey, a heavy overcoat and his stripy woollen cap. Tamar also wore a substantial overcoat above her jumper, and legwarmers over her trousers and had covered her head and most of her face with a beige-coloured scarf. Gulliver had, after much thought and indecision, put on pale brown corduroy trousers, his best and longest jersey, blue with the strawberry design, and his short green Loden coat. He already felt both bulky and cold. He and Gerard were bare-headed. Gulliver, who had felt it infra dig to wear headgear, now intensely envied Jenkin his silly woolly cap. Gerard and Rose and Lily wore smart high leather boots. Tamar and Jenkin wore heavy walking shoes. Gulliver wore trim wellingtons.
Gull was in a state of intense anxiety. He had bitten his tongue badly at lunchtime and it was still hurting. He had, to begin with, and quite erroneously as it happened, imagined that he was being invited to Boyars as part of some sort of test. He was being looked over with a view to something or other. He was to be ‘shown off’ to somebody or other, introduced to some grand personage, a theatre director or impresario or minister of the arts, whom he was intended to impress and who would then offer him a job. Or perhaps Rose’s cousins would be there, the titled ones, and he would get on famously with and eventually marry Rose’s niece Gillian whom he had heard Rose describe as a handsome clever girl. He felt all ready to meet some entirely new person, male or female, either would do, who would entirely change his life. Or perhaps, this was another kind of thought, Gerard had some grave personal problem, some dreadful secret even, divulged to no one else, and had decided that Gull was the only person in whom he really wanted to confide; and he imagined how, late at night, Gerard would come wild-eyed to his room, tell all, and implore Gulliver to set out on some dangerous and essential mission. ‘I shall leave tonight!’ Gulliver would instantly say in this scenario. When he discovered that Lily had been invited too he had a sense of disappointment, as if her inclusion must somehow devalue the whole affair. When, later still, he found that no strangers were to be present at all, only the usual little coterie, he felt even more let down, though consoled by reflecting that it was a compliment to be thus treated as ‘one of the family’. Lily’s presence too, after the first mean pang of resentment, was a relief and a pleasure, as they immediately paired off, supporting each other, comparing notes, and giggling in corners. ‘We are the children here,’ said Lily, ‘and they are the grown-ups! I think it’s rather fun!’
Gulliver was no stranger to country house weekends, in his successful theatre days he had been invited here and there and counted himself a sophisticated young fellow who did not in general suffer from social shyness. He was, after having got over old expectations and old resentments and recent fantasies, hoping at least to come closer to Gerard, to be established as a genuine permanent friend. He wanted to please Gerard and not to make a fool of himself. The possibility here of not coming up to scratch worried him seriously. He was still a bit afraid of Rose but revered her and found her attractive, and was glad that she seemed to like him. He remembered the evening of the dance when he had so much wanted to dance with her but had not had the courage to ask. Duncan he regarded with awe, with a fear of Duncan’s animal persona, his bull-like bear-like presence, his totemistic strength, his ability to kill with one blow of the paw. He would have liked to be friends with this minotaur, but Duncan though polite was remote, and Gulliver found a spiteful compensation in reflecting that after all poor old Duncan was a cuckold who had been pushed into the Cherwell by David Crimond. He made nothing of Jenkin, conscious of being a little jealous in that quarter. Jenkin was very kind to him, but it was like being obliged by an elf. He felt sorry for Tamar, whose troubles he had heard discussed, but she was cold to him and he did not try to approach her.
And now, with this accursed skating party, he had placed himself in a perfectly disastrous position. Why on earth had he said that he could skate, when in truth he could only skate badly? Why had he purchased those hideously expensive skates and skating boots (when he could have bought some proper boots like Gerard’s for half the sum) which he was awkwardly carrying in a plastic bag which was visibly tearing under their weight, and coming closer and closer to that appalling sheet of slippery ice as to a place of judgment? He need not have admitted to having ever skated in his life, he could have come along without shame as a spectator, as Tamar and Jenkin had done. He had simply not wanted to be left out, he had childishly cried ‘me too’, he had drunk too much claret and eaten too much tipsy cake, he had not imagined what a poor figure he was bound to cut. Skating is a ruthless sport. One can get away with being a mediocre tennis player or a moderate cricketer, but skating is like ballet, unless one is fairly good one is contemptible. Gerard and Rose were, he guessed, good. Lily it was true said she had done it ‘a bit’ and ‘not for ages’, but she did not seem to mind being a novice. The trouble was she had somehow, on the basis of vague things Gulliver had said, come to believe that he was really an adept being modest! She imagined he would support her, help her to get the hang. He faced, in her eyes too, inevitable disgrace. That morning, when his imagination had caught up with his situation, he had contemplated staging a sprained ankle. But he had not the will-power to do it, and now it was too late. The sprained ankle would arrive on the ice!
Rose led the way from the path, where the frozen earth on each side was frilled up into little stiff waves, over crisp frozen grass which appeared beneath their footsteps, round the edge of the ‘rink’ to where, a little above the level of the ice, a lopped tree trunk, perhaps put there long ago for that purpose, served as a seat. She was carrying, with her skates, a cassette player, in case, as she put it, anyone wanted to dance. (Dance!! thought Gulliver.) The skaters sat down and began to take off their walking footwear and put on their skating boots, while Jenkin and Tamar wandered on, upon the higher ground, in the direction of the river. Gulliver felt, and felt that they all felt, a kind of trembling excitement, a shudder of anticipation almost like sexual desire, as they thus transformed themselves, as in some physical change of being, from slow walking animals into fast sliding ones. It was three o’clock, the sun would set soon after four, and the sky, its dome contracting, was becoming red and glowing darkly. The snow was pink, the figures of the few skaters upon the ice, black. Voices sounded oddly, subdued, ringing yet enclosed.
‘Who’s the old lady in black skating over there?’ asked Lily, who seemed in no hurry for the metamorphosis. ‘She must be crazy to skate in that long skirt.’
‘That’s no lady, that’s the parson!’ said Gerard, in whom the cold and the light and the prospect of speed had inspired an unusual jollity.
‘That’s our local vicar,’ said Rose, ‘Angus McAlister, or Father McAlister as he likes to be called. He’s fairly new here. He always wears his cassock! Remember last year, Gerard?’
‘He’s showing off!’ said Gerard. ‘Look how gracefully he controls his skirt! And now he’s put his hands behind his back like in that picture by Raeburn!’
‘He’s a bit dotty,’ said Rose. ‘He uses the old prayer book and wants to be “Father”, he even hears confessions! – but he’s very evangelical too. If you come to church tomorrow you’ll hear him preach.’
‘That’ll be nice,’ said Lily dubiously, struggling at her laces with clumsy cold gloved hands.
Rose was first upon the
ice. She skipped down the little slope and sped off gracefully and very fast, tracing swift arcs in the snowy surface, circled for a bit, then came back calling to Gerard and holding out her hand. Gerard, more awkwardly, descended the slope, then leapt onto the ice and raced towards her. They held hands for a moment, whirling each other round, then shot apart in different directions, Gerard flying off toward the far end of the meadow, Rose to talk to the skirted priest who, increasing his pace, skated easily beside her.
It’s just as I feared, thought Gulliver, they’re blooming experts! If I can stay upright I’ll be lucky. The best plan is for Lily and me to mess about at this end for a short time, just for appearances, while they’re flashing around in the distance, and then quickly get this gear off and go and look for Jenkin and Tamar at the river. I can save my face if I can be just seen to be skating! They’re so pleased with themselves actually they won’t bother to watch my performance. Or will they? When it gets darker I’ll be invisible anyway. If only dear old Lily doesn’t pull me over!
The afternoon was darkening but the reddish light was more intense, making the scene for the moment more vivid. The dark figures of the skaters were working, it seemed, upon the hidden ice, making it, by their quick weavings, more visible, instinctively cutting the still unmarked snow with their sharp feet. Most of the villagers, who had a longer walk home, had gone now, the whizzing priest had disappeared. Gull was trying to get his cramped foot into one of his skating boots. His foot, immobilised with cold and locked into an impossible position, dabbed miserably at the space, which was blocked now by the tongue of the boot. He had taken off his gloves and his hands were frozen.