V.

PALE PRIMROSES THAT DIE UNMARRIED

“I met Zita, Eva and John a few days later crossing the Maria-Theresienstrasse on their way to their sparse meal at the cheap restaurant under the arch. They were rather short of money, but full of enthusiasm on account of the Bulgarian students. ‘We spend all our time with them in the Hofpark,’ they told me. Later I saw them home to their room--a poor room tucked away behind someone else’s kitchen; one narrow bed for the two girls and a little sofa for John. ‘And doesn’t your father bother about you?’ I asked.

“‘Daddy’s gone back to Ireland.’

“We decided, in the absence of the mother, to make a climbing expedition to the top of the Patscherkofl mountain and arranged to meet at four o’clock next morning. It was still dark as we set out, clad in the appropriate mountaineering fashion: alpenstock and rucksack; the girls in Tyrolese peasant dress: short skirt, tight waist; John and I in blue coat and leather shorts, and leaving the still somnolent streets of the town behind us, began the ascent. At Igls we halted and breakfasted, then continued by the steep side wind through pine woods, as the red sun rose to meet us. John ran in front and behind, and Zita and Eva walked sprightly on either side of me, and we spoke of how nice it would be to make a hut in the pine woods or live in a cave. And to all Zita’s ‘I’s’ Eva said ‘we.’ By midday we reached Heiligwasser, famed for the miraculous cure of the sick, and unpacked our rucksacks for lunch; then continued the winding ascent. The Inn Vale now stretched deep beneath us. More mountains, like ghost ships on an uncharted sea, loomed into sight as we climbed the spiral grass-edged path, encountering more flowers on our way: snow-drops, buttercups, daisies, bluebells, primulas, violets, while little brooks scurried down head over heels to announce that Spring was already come. An hour’s distance from our goal, we spread out our mantles on the green slope of a sheltered warm valley where daffodils grew in profusion by the side of a brook and stretched our limbs and dozed rapturously in the sun.

“Profusion is not a good thing. So I mused, watching the two sisters, each so exquisite in her own way that at once when you began to focus your attention on the one, you were diverted from her by the other. They thus neutralised each other’s charm to a great extent and dissipated your affection. And lying with them in the sun I watched them lustless, in benignant peace. How beautiful life could be for a space!

“Rising, we set out on the last but one stage in our journey, climbing hills without paths, cutting across pastures where frisky young cows, turned irresponsible on these heights, jumped over the moon; now clearing gurgling brooks which still ran hurry-scurry down to the valleys to tell the glad tidings; now stooping to drink the cool water. By two we reached the top of the shaggy mountain slope: above loomed the gleaming naked dead rock of the summit. A separate journey, after an hour’s repose.

“At the Gasthaus we drank beer and booked accommodation for the night; then lay on the edge of a plateau projecting perilously over the void and looked down at Innsbruck, miniature like on a map, the river Inn bedded in the soft, green folds of the valley, the parcelled fields, the dotted villages, the spired churches, all lucent and serene in the spring sun. Leaving John asleep in the tavern, we climbed the steep rocky way to the peak, clinging to loose stones and sending them rolling a mile or two till they rebounded with a heavy earthen thud in the abyss. No more shrubs or alpine roses; nor a human habitation anywhere. The last was the Gasthaus, which is now lost to sight. On we climb till, in the first dusk, we reach the flat rocky mountain-top: there is nowhere higher to go. The girls frolic and gambol like frisky gazelles: the air is amazingly light. But I sat away on a rock, struck speechless by the mighty spectacle. The neighbouring mountain-peaks, all level now and grandly equal, looked on into the gathering dusk, heavy with a silent utterance.

“What is it when, the veil lifted, he beholds how lovely it all was in the beginning?...

“But as the rocky summits, like ghostly dreadnaughts anchored in doom’s waters, closed their eyes in the ensuing gloom, we hastened to retrace our steps towards the Gasthaus. Zita was in a hurry to get back to John. The paths diverged to all sides of us. We were afraid lest darkness should overtake us before we reached the Gasthaus, and, agreeing all on the necessity for haste, disagreed as to which path we ought to follow. Zita thought she knew a shorter way to the inn than the one we had come by, whereat Eva and I doubted, and stuck to the old path, or what we imagined to be the old path, which led us untowardly down the steep edge of the mountain, as Zita quickly vanished on the other side. When you look at a hill from below, it all seems perfectly easy and simple: you either walk up or else you walk down, according to whether you wish to find yourself at the top or the bottom. But as you begin to descend you find that the hill has a trick of breaking into new hills, new valleys, new precipices, that, having at length reached the foot of your hill, you are still at the top of another, and rounding it to get into the valley, you are thwarted by another precipice. Once Zita appeared far away, it seemed on the edge of a fourth hill; then vanished. We shouted as loud as our voices would carry; the wind took our words but brought us none back. Dusk fell upon us rapidly, and stones rolled dangerously beneath our feet, as we felt our way down the slippery steep rock. Soon it was too dark to move at all. We sat down on a stony slope, and Eva cried. I could have done so myself, with the exhaustion and nervous tension and vexation of it all; but her tears accomplished the trick for me. We were even too tired to eat. It was fresh in the dark, but not cold. We thought that Zita was back now and asleep with John at the inn. We spread our mantels and, sooner than we knew, we slept.

“In the night there was a storm, and we ran hand in hand down the slippery stones in search of shelter; and then hid ourselves under a rock.

“At dawn we were up, and having eaten of the contents of our rucksacks, we set afoot in search of the path, keeping together for fear of worse things. When a moving dot of a figure appeared across the wide gulf that separated us from another chain of rocks, we shouted and waved, and the figure waved back. Thinking it must be a man from the Gasthaus, we waved more and shouted ourselves hoarse. Manœuvring, the figure and we came nearer; we could dimly hear it shouting to us, presumably explaining the direction. Then, as it neared, we recognised Zita’s scarf flying in the wind, and then her voice asking for the way. We began a mad rush to each other across trackless slopes of naked rock, till, meeting finally on neutral ground in a small valley, she told us of the fearful night she spent alone and burst into sobs. With breaks for food, we continued our search, all keeping together, till the sun sank behind the mountains and the shadows crept up and, once again, it was night.

“We slept huddled together, and thought of John alone at the inn. Still, the Wirt would take care of him, and, compared with us, he was comfortable.

“In the course of next day we reconnoitred all round the summit and found ourselves trapped: very evidently the one pass connecting the rock with the main body of the hill had fallen away. We were cut off from the rest of the world, isolated on the naked rock which, like a tooth, sloped down at an angle we could not hope to descend without being swept into the precipice by the stones which barely piled on its steep sides and every now and then rolled off into the abyss. This was, we realised, what must have happened to the one connecting link by which we had ascended to the peak of the mountain, now clearly inaccessible except possibly by air.

“We began to ration our supplies and wait for relief. Surely the people at the Gasthaus where John still waited for us would do something? By the following day we began to doubt whether our provisions could possibly last out another day. Doubtless the Gasthaus people were searching for us; but how would they reach us with the pass missing? Where could they get an aeroplane? Munich was the nearest centre. Or perhaps John, quicksilver that he was, had left soon after us and the people at the inn concluded that we had all returned to Innsbruck.

“The day after was glorious and hot, and towards midday we had cleared our last supplies. We lay on the ground and felt very still and odd. I watched Zita lying on her belly, her long legs stretched out and apart. The sun was beating on us. Luckily there was no lack of water. How long could one last out on water? And would the rescue come at all? We did not say it to one another. We seemed to know and feel it that the other understood. They were young; it was a pity. For it seemed, though the weather was so beautiful, uncommonly like the end. The spring, and they so young. And death yawning to claim our bones. Somehow as I lay there watching them, these lines from Shakespeare swung back into my heart--

“‘_Pale primroses,_ _that die unmarried, ere_ _they can behold_ _Bright Phoebus in his strength,_ _a malady_ _Most incident to maids...._’

At that moment Zita turned a look, molten gold from the sun, upon me. Why should she?

“We kissed under the hot rays of the sun, taking the last it had to offer us before it withdrew its rays to shine on us no more.

“And then it was that Eva, whom I had forgotten, caught my look and said:

“‘Me too.’”

* * * * *

Lord Ottercove interrupted the reading with an astonished--“Ha!”, sprang up with that agility characteristic of him and which testified to his success, went over to the sideboard and mixed himself some whisky. Frank must have discerned disapproval in the gurgling notes of the whisky as it poured down into his lordship’s cavity, for, “Dammit, sir,” he protested, “the sun, spring, death crouching at you, the end of life in time, and these pale primroses to die unmarried--”

“Are you--I don’t quite understand--defending the book or your conduct?”

“That is--”

“Yes?” The noble lord now looked like a magistrate.

“I don’t think this is a fair question.”

“I agree.--Go on.”

“Reading?”

“Of course.”

“I think I’ve read enough.”

“My dear fellow, you can’t stop like that. I am dying to know what happened.”

“What happened?... Dammit, sir,” Dickin said, “is a fellow to blame for getting saved?”

“All saved?”

“All. They came and found us the day after. A picnic party from Innsbruck. The pass had not been destroyed as we imagined, and indeed there were several passes. We’d made a mistake. I am not very clever at mountaineering, you know. Nor the girls, either. John, as we had suspected, had slipped down to Innsbruck almost immediately on waking, thinking we had gone back to town. So all’s well that ends well.”

“Rather terrible that, what?” said Lord Ottercove.

“Dammit, sir, I appeal to your idealism. Yawning death. Pale primroses to die unmarried.... No escape. I tell you we thought we were for ever lost.”

“Didn’t you think so too readily?”

“I deprecate this attempt to abuse the autonomy of a work of literature.”

“So it is merely literature?”

“I don’t think it’s fair to my characters of you to ask.”

“Read on!” laughed Lord Ottercove.