Speaker 1: Chapter two of The Feasting Dead by John Metcalf. This
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker,
Speaker 1: Chapter two. There were black days that followed. I cannot
Speaker 1: convey how black. Though with the exit of Denis's sinister playfellow,
Speaker 1: the worse seemed over. I felt in my heart chilly
Speaker 1: that this was only an uneasy breathing space, and that
Speaker 1: the story yet was far from done breathing space. No,
Speaker 1: it was not really even that Raoul, I hoped, was banished,
Speaker 1: but his work remained. Dennis was ill, staring at me
Speaker 1: with horror and aversion, as if I were the sole
Speaker 1: author of his misery. He could scarcely bear that I
Speaker 1: should speak to him or go near his bed. The
Speaker 1: loss I recognized with anguish of his frightful parasite and
Speaker 1: paramour had virtually prostrated him, and he had ceased to
Speaker 1: be the boy cecil and I had loved. As to
Speaker 1: the eerie lummacks who had plagued us, I concluded that
Speaker 1: he had succeeded somehow in wriggling free from me and fleeing,
Speaker 1: that he would probably make his way back to France,
Speaker 1: and that at least in person, if he were a person,
Speaker 1: he would trouble us no more. Or rather, this was
Speaker 1: what I tried to tell myself. I had concluded truth
Speaker 1: is not necessarily or always sober, and there was something
Speaker 1: here I realized inwardly, of which all ordinary sane explanations
Speaker 1: and conjectures failed to take account. Dennis, when I had
Speaker 1: re entered the house after Raoul's flight had been in
Speaker 1: a half faint. The servants, roused by my running footsteps
Speaker 1: along the Verandah had found him lying by the chair
Speaker 1: and carried him to his room. Reviving. He had set
Speaker 1: up a low, continuous moaning, which did not abate till Godderic,
Speaker 1: whom I had at once rung up, had given him
Speaker 1: a sedative that had secured him a night's sleep. But
Speaker 1: next day, as I have said, he would hardly suffer
Speaker 1: my approach, and once had even barricaded his door against me.
Speaker 1: I was at my wits end, and terrified lest he
Speaker 1: should do himself an injury. Godderiic shared my anxiety. Have
Speaker 1: you discovered any more about this unholy creature? Now he's gone?
Speaker 1: He asked? Any more? Why? How I mean that now
Speaker 1: he has gone? Tongues might wag a bit more freely
Speaker 1: your servants, for instance. Oh yes, I agreed, yes, plenty
Speaker 1: of that. It was a fact that Jenny and Clara
Speaker 1: had unbosomed themselves to me of a good deal as
Speaker 1: to Raoul, and their sentiments towards him, which they had
Speaker 1: hitherto repressed, though without adding materially to my actual information.
Speaker 1: I told Godderick, so, how did you explain the fellow's
Speaker 1: sudden disappearance to them? I didn't in any detail. They
Speaker 1: must have guessed that I well chased him off. I
Speaker 1: don't think they cared how he went, as long as
Speaker 1: he went. Hum Well, honestly, I feel I can't do much.
Speaker 1: I wish you would try a psychiatrist, but I was
Speaker 1: not ready for that yet. And was there possibly an
Speaker 1: ever so slightly hurt a reproachful tone in my friend's voice.
Speaker 1: If so, it must have been because he could divine
Speaker 1: that with him too. In my description of the final scene,
Speaker 1: I had been reticent of what I had called details.
Speaker 1: Dennis recovered to the extent of leaving his bed and
Speaker 1: room and occasionally loitering alone about the orchard and meadow.
Speaker 1: But we were strangers to each other. My acquaintance or
Speaker 1: partial acquaintance with his dreadful secret made me a terror
Speaker 1: to him, And there seemed something pathetically horrible in the
Speaker 1: evident efforts of this child to rest the situation to
Speaker 1: his own partisan, extenuating view of it, to digest, modify,
Speaker 1: or soften it so as to render it more tolerable
Speaker 1: to him and to me, not Raoul as his enemy.
Speaker 1: It could not, I would think, go on like this,
Speaker 1: How if I live to be a hundred, could I
Speaker 1: forget or he forget that I must still remember. I
Speaker 1: would remind him always as he grew up, if not
Speaker 1: already in a show aames so poignantly embarrassed, he would
Speaker 1: wish my death. Thus, for a week or so matters continued.
Speaker 1: My uncertainty as to what had really happened to Raoul
Speaker 1: prevented my finding much consolation even in his absence, And
Speaker 1: soon after his disappearance I had a visit from the
Speaker 1: Winchester City Police privache. They said, at first I barely
Speaker 1: recalled the fellow's surname, had failed to report at the
Speaker 1: expiration of one month's residence, and was he with me still?
Speaker 1: I could only reply, with a modicum of truth that
Speaker 1: he had run off suddenly I had no notion where
Speaker 1: run off. Yes, I explained that the defaulter was a
Speaker 1: friend of my boys, of whom I had practically no knowledge,
Speaker 1: And I could see that my worthy and to me
Speaker 1: very respectful constable was dissatisfied and puzzled. He should have
Speaker 1: checked out properly, he grumbled. If he went back to
Speaker 1: France now, there'd be trouble and an itchiousy of some
Speaker 1: kind of the port. Meanwhile, the improvement in Denis's condition
Speaker 1: had been at least superficially maintained. That was he looked
Speaker 1: a shade less pale and had a better appetite. The
Speaker 1: nightly thumpings, hummings and a new ingredient derisive hootings, had however,
Speaker 1: increased the racket, finally attaining such proportions that, out of
Speaker 1: consideration for my domestics, rest I had his bedroom changed
Speaker 1: to one as far from theirs as possible. To me,
Speaker 1: his manner remained stubbornly hostile. I pleadingly attempted to get
Speaker 1: him to speak openly, frankly, and give me his own
Speaker 1: version of affairs, But quite in vain, it seemed, but
Speaker 1: too apparent that he had suffered a veritable bereavement, and
Speaker 1: was still pining for his vanished mate. Reluctantly, I was
Speaker 1: beginning to resign myself to taking Godderic's advice and trying
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist. This course would pretty evidently expose me, as
Speaker 1: well as the patient proper, to a good deal of
Speaker 1: awkwardness and incredulous, silly catechisings. But I must shirk no
Speaker 1: measure that might restore my boy. The leaves were falling
Speaker 1: in the October days, growing colder, when I happen and
Speaker 1: to receive a note reminding me of the approaching anniversary
Speaker 1: dinner of my old regiment. I had never missed attending it,
Speaker 1: and the formal invitation card was enclosed, But now I
Speaker 1: had no heart to go, and besides it would be
Speaker 1: out of the question. On the other hand, it was
Speaker 1: from Winchester, barely six miles away, that Mayfield, who had
Speaker 1: been my adjutant and was organizing the affair this year,
Speaker 1: had written me. He chanced. He told me to be
Speaker 1: spending the insight of a week there on business, and
Speaker 1: he was probably expecting I surmised that I should ask
Speaker 1: him to stay with me instead of at his hotel
Speaker 1: at any rate, for Saturday and Sunday. This too, as
Speaker 1: matters were, was scarcely practicable, but the least I could do,
Speaker 1: I thought, was to run over to Winchester and see him.
Speaker 1: I decided to risk, leaving Denis and Jenny's and Clara's care,
Speaker 1: and drove off after lunch. My chat with Mayfield, to
Speaker 1: whom I explained the position, so far as necessary, was
Speaker 1: as pleasant as anything could be in my state of
Speaker 1: worry about Dennis. But I hurried home from it so
Speaker 1: as to arrive by tea time. Clara and Jennie, to
Speaker 1: my dismay, were both waiting for me at the porch,
Speaker 1: and their words as I jumped out of the car
Speaker 1: told me the worst Dennis had gone self reproach was
Speaker 1: as useless as unavoidable. I had to act. When did
Speaker 1: you miss him? I asked? It had been only twenty
Speaker 1: minutes ago he had been on the verandah, and then
Speaker 1: no longer, seeing him there and wishing to reassure themselves,
Speaker 1: they had looked for him. His room was empty and
Speaker 1: fairly tidy, but a small suit case was undiscoverable. Likewise
Speaker 1: some socks and a shirt. The most conclusive piece of evidence, however,
Speaker 1: which seemed to rule out hope that he had merely
Speaker 1: set off for a walk. In my return was the
Speaker 1: fact that Jenny's room also had been entered and her
Speaker 1: money stolen. How much four pounds ten sir. I I
Speaker 1: had it in a little china box and was going
Speaker 1: to bank it Tuesday, expecting me at any moment. They
Speaker 1: had not as yet given an alarm to the police,
Speaker 1: and I decided, rather than telephone, to drive back again
Speaker 1: myself to Winchester. Meanwhile, Jenny could ring me at the
Speaker 1: police station. My poor truant did, after all return The
Speaker 1: desk sergeant knew me well and listened attentively to my story.
Speaker 1: It's early yet, he encouraged, and he may be just
Speaker 1: just larking. But of course we'll notify it and alert
Speaker 1: other stations round about five fifteen now he can't be
Speaker 1: very far and watch the ports too, I reminded him.
Speaker 1: My first thought, naturally, had been of Raoul, and my
Speaker 1: first fear that Dennis was rejoining him. Oh, yes, we'll
Speaker 1: do that as routine. Although he couldn't get across, you know,
Speaker 1: without a passport. As to that I had privately my doubts.
Speaker 1: Given sufficient determination, there were ways of doing it as
Speaker 1: a recent instance happened to have shown. After a further consultation,
Speaker 1: this time with the local superintendent in his adjoining sanctum,
Speaker 1: I drove home no news, I suppose, Jenny, no, sir.
Speaker 1: With what fortitude we could, we resigned ourselves as remorseful.
Speaker 1: Empty hours passed to the wretched and in my case,
Speaker 1: almost sleepless night. Feeling that the emergency had more than
Speaker 1: justified my breaking any rule of silence, I sent a
Speaker 1: wire of inquiry to Monsieur Viagnon. An answer arrived fairly promptly,
Speaker 1: not here. Yet this left me more up in the
Speaker 1: air than ever, and in vain did I strive to supply,
Speaker 1: as it were, the real and untelegraphable intonation of that word.
Speaker 1: Yet it sounded as if Monsieur Viagnon rather expected that
Speaker 1: Dennis might come later, but I could not be sure.
Speaker 1: I returned to the question of the passport. Dennis had
Speaker 1: had a passport, an individual one to allow of his escort,
Speaker 1: sometimes by Flebaug and sometimes by myself. But I had
Speaker 1: locked it up after his last trip, and had it
Speaker 1: locked up still. In any case, I thought he must
Speaker 1: have realized that before he could possibly reach the coast,
Speaker 1: the dock police would have been warned so that the
Speaker 1: document would be useless to him. The Winchester district, i
Speaker 1: was told, had been combed thoroughly without result, and as
Speaker 1: time passed it surprised me that a boy could elude
Speaker 1: the police net for so long. It argued certainly either
Speaker 1: a degree of ineptitude on the one side, or considerable
Speaker 1: adroitness and resource upon the other. Perhaps, whatever official incredulity
Speaker 1: might say, Dennis had succeeded by walking only at night
Speaker 1: and spending each day up a tree in a manner
Speaker 1: I had read of, and striking a place where French
Speaker 1: fishing boats put in, and then bribed some sailor into
Speaker 1: smuggling him across. This notion was, if anything, strengthened by
Speaker 1: a discovery made by Clara. When the hunt was six
Speaker 1: days old. She ran excitedly to me in my study
Speaker 1: one morning, crying, oh fo, we found something. It transpired
Speaker 1: that in cleaning out the loft she had come upon
Speaker 1: two loaves, two tins of sardines and a can opener,
Speaker 1: a jar of marmalade, and the suit case, which was
Speaker 1: empty a veritable cash. These objects, which I went with
Speaker 1: her to inspect, had been hidden under sacking near a
Speaker 1: back door giving on to a short outer stair by
Speaker 1: which access could be gained the loft without first passing
Speaker 1: through the coach house below. Close by I noticed with
Speaker 1: aversion was a collection of the grotesque wooden dolls something
Speaker 1: like nine pins, which Raoul had been used to whittle,
Speaker 1: and most significantly, an empty open tin and scattered crumb
Speaker 1: showed that one meal at least had been consumed up
Speaker 1: there already. However, illogically, this find, and particularly the abandoned
Speaker 1: suit case, established as an emotional certainty in my mind
Speaker 1: the belief that Denis had managed to reach France, or
Speaker 1: was upon his way there. He had been clever enough.
Speaker 1: I told myself to lie hidden in the immediate vicinity
Speaker 1: while the search was most intensive, and then to slip
Speaker 1: off by night as I had supposed. Yes, that was it,
Speaker 1: That must be it. I came to a prompt decision
Speaker 1: that very afternoon, having wrong Godderic to tell him what
Speaker 1: I contemplated, I set off for Southampton. Calling in at
Speaker 1: the Winchester police station and route I could see that
Speaker 1: my plan to pursue they would not admit that it
Speaker 1: was that my boy to France had met with official
Speaker 1: skepticism and disfaith. But though I did concur in the
Speaker 1: suggestion that a watch would be set if all too
Speaker 1: tardily around Aloft, I would not allow the cold water
Speaker 1: thrown on it to weaken my resolve. And as it happened,
Speaker 1: while I was not to know it, then I had only,
Speaker 1: as it were, anticipated matters by a single night a
Speaker 1: second wire from Monsieur Viaignon, I had learned later Denis
Speaker 1: here arrived for me the morning after I had left
Speaker 1: one morning, the prosaic and accustomed train, my gently having
Speaker 1: bunk upon the almost as accustomed channel packet, and the
Speaker 1: familiar harbor of Le Javre at misty dawn, the same, yes,
Speaker 1: all the same, and yet how different many times had
Speaker 1: I made this crossing, but with a heart unracked as now,
Speaker 1: by care eating my petit de jo neis in the
Speaker 1: station buffet. When I had passed through the customs, I
Speaker 1: bought a newspaper and further supply of brioches, and again
Speaker 1: boarded the train Paris and lunch, then southwards on to what.
Speaker 1: As we began to breast the gradual ascent towards the
Speaker 1: massif a vague but dreadful apprehension grew upon me. I
Speaker 1: dashed off from England, I realized, largely because inaction had
Speaker 1: become intolerable. Yet here in France I quailed. It was
Speaker 1: as if while I approached that black and tortured landscape
Speaker 1: of Auvergne, I were adventuring fool heartily into some citadel
Speaker 1: of evil powers, pitting my puny strength against a host
Speaker 1: of devils. I took up my newspaper and tried to
Speaker 1: read in vain Denis, I thought, where are you? What
Speaker 1: are you doing now? And why? With an effort, I
Speaker 1: forced myself to re examine as critically and calmly as
Speaker 1: I might the chain of circumstances that had led to
Speaker 1: my being where I was. And upon such a quest
Speaker 1: Fignon and Raoul, the whole business of the holiday exchanges
Speaker 1: had been so casual, so benign. And yet yes, there
Speaker 1: must be some connection beyond mere coincidence between the two.
Speaker 1: I recalled Monsieur Vagnon's brooding and half guilty looks, and
Speaker 1: that peculiar scrap of conversation I had overheard. It had
Speaker 1: come again, it said then to Flaubert, What had come again?
Speaker 1: Could it? Suddenly my mind snapped on something, and deliberately,
Speaker 1: for a second I made it blank, as if afraid
Speaker 1: of the light that threatened all at once to flood it.
Speaker 1: I even grabbed my paper and feigned a furious engrossment
Speaker 1: in its long columns of advertisements. Next morning, however, I
Speaker 1: gave up the pretense, and a sigh escaped me, a
Speaker 1: sort of cold sigh of recognition and admission. Could it Why, yes,
Speaker 1: of course it could. The it of Monsieur Villon's terrified
Speaker 1: lament was raoul. How this lurking, while fairly obvious conjecture
Speaker 1: had managed to get itself hushed up in the recesses
Speaker 1: of my brain, as I am sure it had for
Speaker 1: such a time before issuing forth at last to startle me,
Speaker 1: I did not know. But I found it now a
Speaker 1: highly disturbing one, without as yet being able to appreciate
Speaker 1: all its implications. I felt dimly a kind of spreading illumination,
Speaker 1: as though the contours of some formidable truth would presently emerge.
Speaker 1: To reach Faant, I had directly to change to a
Speaker 1: slower train. With the number of stops. The country side
Speaker 1: remained on the whole placidly pastoral. But I fancied I
Speaker 1: began to detect in it here and there faint earnests
Speaker 1: or intimations of that sinister quality which the Auverne whither
Speaker 1: I traveled had always held for me. Monsieur Vignon would
Speaker 1: be prepared for my coming, since I telegraphed him from
Speaker 1: the Hafa. But what sort of welcome he would accord
Speaker 1: me I had no idea. I had not, it must
Speaker 1: be remembered, received a wire from him that would arrive
Speaker 1: at Ashtoft the next morning. And I had nothing at
Speaker 1: the moment but my impulsive intuition to leave me to
Speaker 1: suppose Denis at the chateau. The sun was westering as
Speaker 1: we slackened speed for fwant, and before that, of course,
Speaker 1: the scenery had assumed the intimidating gigantism and cataclysmic look
Speaker 1: of violence, which which every time I visited the place
Speaker 1: had sent a shiver at my spine. Alighting, I stared
Speaker 1: round me, but could see no one on my own
Speaker 1: island platform, or on either of the other two, except
Speaker 1: the ticket collector and a couple of peasant women. Perhaps
Speaker 1: Monsieur Viallon was so indignant at my flat defiance of
Speaker 1: his previous virtual prohibition that he was not sending any
Speaker 1: one to meet me. Owing to his strange imposition of silence,
Speaker 1: I had felt unable to write to him or question him,
Speaker 1: maybe concerning Raoul, And though I now suspected him of
Speaker 1: knowing more about it than he might confess, his official
Speaker 1: state was one of ignorance, and he might not appreciate
Speaker 1: the seriousness of the case. For a quarter of an
Speaker 1: hour I waited impatiently in the little Salle d'attint. Had
Speaker 1: Monsieur Villnon actually resolved to deny me his hospitality, But no,
Speaker 1: he had answered my first wire, and surely in common
Speaker 1: humanity he couldn't be sure a bear and such a brute.
Speaker 1: I was, however, on the point either of telephoning the chateau,
Speaker 1: or without doing so, of hiring, if I could, a taxi,
Speaker 1: when a car hurtled furiously into the station yard. It
Speaker 1: hurtled in so furiously that I experienced a curious start
Speaker 1: of anticlimax at the sight of the form that crawled
Speaker 1: feebly out of the driving seat. The figure advanced immediately
Speaker 1: with a sort of frenzied, impetuous hobble towards me. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was Monsieur Vignon end of chapter two