The Midwich Cuckoos, Page 21

  He looked at me.

  ‘Coming with me, Richard?’

  I hesitated. Janet was still in Scotland, and not due back for a couple of days yet. There was nothing that needed my presence in London, and I was finding the problem of the Midwich Children far more fascinating than anything I was likely to encounter there. Angela noticed.

  ‘Do stay if you would like to,’ she said. ‘I think we’d both be rather glad of some company just now.’

  I judged that she meant it, and accepted.

  ‘Anyway,’ I added, to Bernard. ‘We don’t even know that your new courier status includes a companion. If I were to try to come with you we’d probably find that I am still under the ban.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that ridiculous ban,’ said Zellaby. ‘I must talk to them seriously about that – a quite absurd panic measure on their part.’

  We accompanied Bernard to the door, and watched him set off down the drive, with a wave of his hand.

  ‘Yes. Game to the Children, I think,’ Zellaby said again, as the car turned out into the road. ‘And set, too… later on… ?’ He shrugged faintly, and shook his head.

  CHAPTER 21

  Zellaby of Macedon

  ‘MY DEAR,’ said Zellaby, looking along the breakfast table at his wife, ‘if you happen to be going into Trayne this morning, will you get one of those large jars of bullseyes?’

  Angela switched her attention from the toaster to her husband.

  ‘Darling,’ she said, though without endearment, ‘in the first place, if you recall yesterday, you will remember that there is no question of going to Trayne. In the second, I have no inclination to provide the Children with sweets. In the third, if this means that you are proposing to go and show them films at The Grange this evening, I strongly protest.’

  ‘The ban,’ said Zellaby, ‘is raised. I pointed out to them last night that it was really rather silly and ill-considered. Their hostages cannot make a concerted flight without word reaching them, if only through Miss Lamb, or Miss Ogle. Everybody is inconvenienced to no purpose; only half, or a quarter, of the village makes as good a shield for them as the whole of it. And furthermore, that I proposed to cancel my lecture on the Aegean Islands this evening if half of them were going to be out making a nuisance of themselves on the roads and paths.’

  ‘And they just agreed?’ asked Angela.

  ‘Of course. They’re not stupid, you know. They are very susceptible to reasoned argument.’

  ‘Well, really ! After all we’ve been through –’

  ‘But they are,’ protested Zellaby. ‘When they are jittery, or startled, they do foolish things, but don’t we all? And because they are young they over-reach themselves, but don’t all the young? Also, they are anxious and nervous – and shouldn’t we be nervous if the threat of what happened at Gizhinsk were hanging over us?’

  ‘Gordon,’ his wife said, ‘I don’t understand you. The Children are responsible for the loss of six lives. They have killed these six people whom we knew well, and hurt a lot more, some of them badly. At any time the same thing may happen to any of us. Are you defending that?’

  ‘Of course not, my dear. I am simply explaining that they can make mistakes when they are alarmed, just as we can. One day they will have to fight us for their lives; they know that, and out of nervousness they made the mistake of thinking that the time had come.’

  ‘So now all we have to do is to say: “We’re so sorry you killed six people by mistake. Let’s forget all about it.” ’

  ‘What else do you suggest? Would you prefer to antagonize them?’ asked Zellaby.

  ‘Of course not, but if the law can’t touch them as you say it can’t – though I really don’t see what good the law is if it can’t admit what everybody knows – but even if it can’t, it doesn’t mean we’ve got to take no notice and pretend it never happened. There are social sanctions, as well as legal ones.’

  ‘I should be careful, my dear. We have just been shown that the sanction of power can override both,’ Zellaby told her seriously.

  Angela looked at him with a puzzled expression.

  ‘Gordon, I don’t understand you,’ she repeated. ‘We think alike about so many things. We share the same principles, but now I seem to have lost you. We can’t just ignore what has happened: it would be as bad as condoning it.’

  ‘You and I, my dear, are using different yardsticks. You are judging by social rules, and finding crime. I am considering an elemental struggle, and finding no crime – just grim, primeval danger.’ The tone in which he said the last words was so different from his usual manner that it startled both of us into staring at him. For the first time in my knowledge I saw another Zellaby – the one whose incisive hints of his existence made the Works more than they seemed – showing clearly through, and seeming younger than, the familiar, dilettante spinner of words. Then he slipped back to his usual style. ‘The wise lamb does not enrage the lion,’ he said. ‘It placates him, plays for time, and hopes for the best. The Children like bullseyes, and will be expecting them.’

  His eyes and Angela’s held for some seconds. I watched the puzzlement and hurt fade out of hers, and give place to a look of trust so naked that I was embarrassed.

  Zellaby turned to me.

  ‘I’m afraid there is some business that needs my attention this morning, my dear fellow. Perhaps you would care to celebrate the lifting of our siege by escorting Angela into Trayne?’

  ∗

  When we got back to Kyle Manor, a little before lunchtime, I found Zellaby in a canvas chair on the bricks in front of the veranda. He did not hear me at first, and as I looked at him I was struck by the contrasts in him. At breakfast there had been a glimpse of a younger, stronger man; now he looked old and tired, older than I had ever thought him; showing, too, something of the withdrawal of age as he sat with the light wind stirring his silky white hair, and his gaze on things far, far away.

  Then my foot gritted on the bricks, and he changed. The air of lassitude left him, the vacancy went out of his eyes, and the face he turned to me was the Zellaby countenance I had known for ten years.

  I took a chair beside him, and set down the large bottle of bullseyes on the bricks. His-eyes rested on it a moment.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘They’re very fond of those. After all, they are still children – with a small “c” – too.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to be intrusive, but – well, do you think it’s wise of you to go up there this evening? After all, one can’t really put the clock back. Things have changed. There is acknowledged enmity now, between them and the village, if not between them and all of us. They must suspect that there will be moves against them. Their ultimatum to Bernard isn’t going to be accepted right away, if it is at all. You said they were nervous, well, they must still be nervous – and, therefore, still dangerous.’

  Zellaby shook his head.

  ‘Not to me, my dear fellow. I began to teach them before the authorities took any hand in it, and I’ve gone on teaching them. I wouldn’t say I understand them, but I think I know them better than anyone else does. The most important thing is that they trust me….’

  He lapsed into silence, learning back in his chair, watching the poplars sway with the wind.

  ‘Trust –’ he was beginning when Angela came out with the sherry decanter and glasses, and he broke off to ask what they were saying about us in Trayne.

  At lunch he talked less than usual, and afterwards disappeared into the study. A little later I saw him setting off down the drive on his habitual afternoon walk, but as he had not invited me to join him I made myself comfortable in a deck-chair in the garden. He was back for tea – at which he warned me to eat well as dinner was replaced by a late supper on the evenings that he lectured to the Children.

  Angela put in, though not very hopefully:

  ‘Darling, don’t you think – ? I mean, they’ve seen all your films, I know you’ve shown them the Aegean one twice before, at least. Co
uldn’t you put it off, and perhaps hire a film that will be new to them?’

  ‘My dear, it’s a good film; it will stand seeing more than once or twice,’ Zellaby explained, a little hurt. ‘Besides, I don’t give the same talk every time – there’s always something more to say about the Isles of Greece.’

  At half past six we started loading his gear into the car. There seemed to be a great deal of it. Numerous cases containing projector, resistance, amplifier, loud-speaker, a case of films, a tape-recorder so that his words should not be lost, all of them very heavy. By the time we had the lot in, and a stand microphone on top, it began to look as if he were starting on a lengthy safari rather than an evening’s talk.

  Zellaby himself hovered round while we were at work, inspected, counted everything over, including the jar of bullseyes, and finally approved. He turned to Angela.

  ‘I’ve asked Gayford if he’ll drive me up there and help to unload the stuff,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’ He drew her to him, and kissed her.

  ‘Gordon –’ she began. ‘Gordon –’

  Still with his left arm round her he caressed her face with his right hand, looking into her eyes. He shook his head, in gentle reproof.

  ‘But, Gordon, I’m afraid of the Children now…. Suppose they – ?’

  ‘You don’t need to be anxious, my dear. I know what I’m doing,’ he told her.

  Then he turned and got into the car, and we drove down the drive, with Angela standing on the steps, looking after us unhappily.

  ∗

  It was not entirely without misgiving that I drove up to the front door of The Grange. Nothing in its appearance, however, justified alarm. It was simply a large, rather ugly Victorian house, incongruously flanked by the new, industrial-looking wings that had been built as laboratories in Mr Crimm’s time. The lawn in front of it showed little sign of the battle of a couple of nights before, and though a number of the surrounding bushes had suffered, it was difficult to believe in what had actually taken place.

  We had not arrived unobserved. Before I could open the car door to get out, the front door of the house was pulled violently back, and a dozen or more of the Children ran excitedly down the steps with a scattered chorus of ‘Hullo, Mr Zellaby.’ They had the rear doors open in a moment, and two of the boys began to hand things out for the others to carry. Two girls dashed back up the steps with the microphone, and the roller screen, another pounced with a cry of triumph on the jar of bullseyes, and hurried after them.

  ‘Hi, there,’ said Zellaby anxiously, as they came to the heavier cases, ‘that’s delicate stuff. Go gently with it.’

  A boy grinned at him, and lifted out one of the black cases with exaggerated care to hand to another. There was nothing odd or mysterious about the Children now unless it was the suggestion of musical-comedy chorus work given by their similarity. For the first time since my return I was able to appreciate that the Children had ‘a small “c”, too’. Nor was there any doubt at all that Zellaby’s visit was a popular event. I watched him as he stood watching them with a kindly, half-wistful smile. It was impossible to associate the Children, as I saw them now, with danger. I had a confused feeling that these could not be the Children, at all; that the theories, fears, and threats we had discussed must have to do with some other group of Children. It was hard indeed to credit them with the deliquium of the vigorous Chief Constable that had shaken Bernard so badly. All but impossible to believe that they could have issued an ultimatum which was being taken seriously enough to be carried to the highest levels.

  ‘I hope there’ll be a good attendance,’ Zellaby said, in half-question.

  ‘Oh, yes, Mr Zellaby,’ one of the boys assured him. ‘Everybody – except Wilfred, of course. He’s in the sick-room.’

  ‘Oh, yes. How is he?’ Zellaby asked.

  ‘His back hurts still, but they’ve got all the pellets out, and the doctor says he’ll be quite all right,’ said the boy.

  My feeling of schism went on increasing. I was finding it harder every moment to believe that we had not all of us been somehow deluded by a sweeping misunderstanding about the Children, and incredible that the Zellaby who stood beside me could be the same Zellaby who had spoken that morning of ‘grim, primeval danger’.

  The last of the cases was lifted out of the car. I remembered that it had been in the car already when we loaded the rest. It was evidently heavy, because two of the boys carried it between them. Zellaby watched them up the steps a little anxiously, and then turned to me.

  ‘Thank you very much for your help,’ he said, as though dismissing me.

  I was disappointed. This new aspect of the Children fascinated me; I had decided I would like to attend his talk, and study them when they were all relaxed, all together, and being children with a small ‘c’. Zellaby caught my expression.

  ‘I would ask you to join us,’ he explained. ‘But I must confess that Angela is considerably in my thoughts this evening. She is anxious, you know. She has always been uneasy about the Children, and these last few days have upset her more than she shows. She would, I think, be the better for company this evening. I was rather hoping that you, my dear fellow…. It would be a great kindness….’

  ‘But of course,’ I told him. ‘How inconsiderate of me not to have thought of it. Of course.’ What else could one say ?

  He smiled, and held out his hand.

  ‘Excellent. I am most grateful, my dear fellow. I’m sure I can rely on you.’

  Then he turned to three or four of the Children who still hovered near, and beamed on them.

  ‘They’ll be getting impatient,’ he remarked. ‘Lead on, Priscilla.’

  ‘I’m Helen, Mr Zellaby,’ she told him.

  ‘Ah, well. Never mind. Come along, my dear,’ said Zellaby, and they went up the steps together.

  ∗

  I got back into the car and drove off unhurriedly. On the way through the village I noticed that The Scythe and Stone seemed to be doing well, and was tempted to pause there to find out how local feeling was running now, but, with Zellaby’s request in mind, I resisted, and kept going. In the Kyle Manor drive I turned the car round and left it standing, ready to fetch him back later on, and went in.

  In the main sitting-room Angela was sitting in front of the open windows, with the radio playing a Haydn quartet. She turned her head as I came in, and at the sight of her face I was glad Zellaby had asked me to come back.

  ‘An enthusiastic welcome,’ I told her, in answer to her unspoken question. ‘For all I could tell they might – apart from the bewildering feeling that one was seeing multiple – have been a crowd of decent schoolchildren anywhere. I’ve no doubt he’s right when he says they trust him.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she allowed, ‘but I don’t trust. them. I don’t think I have, ever since the time they forced their mothers back here. I managed not to let it worry me much until they killed Jim Pawle, but ever since then I’ve been afraid of them. Thank goodness I packed Michael off at once…. There’s no telling what they might do at any time. Even Gordon admits that they are nervous and panicky. It’s nonsense for us to go on staying, here, with our lives at the mercy of any childish fright or temper that comes over them….

  ‘Can you see anybody taking Colonel Westcott’s “ultimatum” seriously? I can’t. That means that the Children will have to do something to show that they must be listened to; they’ve got to convince important, hard-headed, and thick-headed people, and goodness knows how they may decide to do that. After what’s happened already, I’m frightened – I really am…. They just don’t care what becomes of any of us….’

  ‘It wouldn’t do much good their making their demonstration here,’ I tried to console her. ‘They’ll have to do it where it counts. Go up to London with Bernard, as they threatened. If they treat a few big-wigs there as they treated the Chief Constable –’

  I broke off, interrupted by a bright flash, like lightning, and a sharp tremor that shook the house.<
br />
  ‘What – ?’ I began. But I got no further.

  The blast that blew in through the open window almost carried me off my feet. The noise came, too, in a great, turbulent, shattering breaker of sound, while the house seemed to rock about us.

  The overwhelming crash was followed by a clatter and tinkle of things falling, and then by an utter silence.

  Without any conscious purpose I ran past Angela, huddled in her chair, through the open french windows, out on to the lawn. The sky was full of leaves torn from the trees, and still fluttering down. I turned, and looked at the house. Two great swatches of creeper had been pulled from the wall, and hung raggedly down. Every window in the west front gaped blankly back at me, without a pane of glass left. I looked the other way again, and through and above the trees there was a white and red glare. I had not a moment’s doubt what it meant….

  Turning again I ran back to the sitting-room, but Angela had gone, and the chair was empty…. I called to her, but there was no answer….

  I found her at last, in Zellaby’s study. The room was littered with broken glass. One curtain had been torn from its hangings and was draped half across the sofa. A part of the Zellaby family record had been swept from the mantel-shelf and now lay shattered in the hearth. Angela herself was sitting in Zellaby’s working chair, lying forward across his desk, with her head on her bare arms. She did not move nor make any sound as I came in.

  The opening of the door brought a draught through the empty window-frames. It caught a piece of paper lying on the desk beside her, slid it to the edge, and sent it fluttering to the floor.

  I picked it up. A letter in Zellaby’s pointed handwriting. I did not need to read it. The whole thing had been clear the moment I saw the red-white glow in the direction of The Grange, and recalled in the same instant the heavy cases which I had supposed to contain his recording-machine, and other gear. Nor was the letter mine to read, but as I put it back on the desk beside the motionless Angela, I caught sight of a few lines in the middle: