Descent into Hell - ebook

I. THE MAGUS ZOROASTER

“It undoubtedly needs”, Peter Stanhope said, “a final pulling together, but there’s hardly time for that before July, and if you’re willing to take it as it is, why–“ He made a gesture of presentation and dropped his eyes, thus missing the hasty reciprocal gesture of gratitude with which Mrs. Parry immediately replied on behalf of the dramatic culture of Battle Hill. Behind and beyond her the culture, some thirty faces, unessentially exhibited to each other by the May sunlight, settled to attention–naturally, efficiently, critically, solemnly, reverently. The grounds of the Manor House expanded beyond them; the universal sky sustained the whole. Peter Stanhope began to read his play.

Battle Hill was one of the new estates which had been laid out after the war. It lay about thirty miles north of London and took its title from the more ancient name of the broad rise of ground which it covered. It had a quiet ostentation of comfort and culture. The poor, who had created it, had been as far as possible excluded, nor (except as hired servants) were they permitted to experience the bitterness of others’ stairs. The civil wars which existed there, however bitter, were conducted with all bourgeois propriety. Politics, religion, art, science, grouped themselves, and courteously competed for numbers and reputation. This summer, however, had seen a spectacular triumph of drama, for it had become known that Peter Stanhope had consented to allow the restless talent of the Hill to produce his latest play.

He was undoubtedly the most famous inhabitant. He was a cadet of that family which had owned the Manor House, and he had bought it back from more recent occupiers, and himself settled in it before the war. He had been able to do this because he was something more than a cadet of good family, being also a poet in the direct English line, and so much after the style of his greatest predecessor that he made money out of poetry. His name was admired by his contemporaries and respected by the young. He had even imposed modern plays in verse on the London theatre, and two of them tragedies at that, with a farce or two, and histories for variation and pleasure. He was the kind of figure who might be more profitable to his neighbourhood dead than alive; dead, he would have given it a shrine; alive, he deprecated worshippers. The young men at the estate office made a refined publicity out of his privacy; the name of Peter Stanhope would be whispered without comment. He endured the growing invasion with a great deal of good humour, and was content to see the hill of his birth become a suburb of the City, as in another sense it would always be. There was, in that latest poetry, no contention between the presences of life and of death; so little indeed that there had been a contention in the Sunday Times whether Stanhope were a pessimist or an optimist. He himself said, in reply to an interviewer’s question, that he was an optimist and hated it.

Stanhope, though the most glorious, was not the only notorious figure of the Hill. There was Mr. Lawrence Wentworth, who was the most distinguished living authority on military history (perhaps excepting Mr. Aston Moffatt). Mr. Wentworth was not in the garden on that afternoon. Mrs. Catherine Parry was; it was she who would produce the play, as in many places and at many times she had produced others. She sat near Stanhope now, almost as tall as he, and with more active though not brighter eyes. They were part of that presence which was so necessary to her profession. Capacity which, in her nature, had reached the extreme of active life, seemed in him to have entered the contemplative, so much had his art become a thing of his soul. Where, in their own separate private affairs, he interfered so little as almost to seem inefficient, she was so efficient as almost to seem interfering.

In the curve of women and men beyond her, other figures, less generally famous, sat or lay as the depth of their chairs induced them. There were rising young men, and a few risen and retired old. There were ambitious young women and sullen young women and loquacious young women. They were all attentive, though, as a whole, a little disappointed. They had understood that Mr. Stanhope had been writing a comedy, and had hoped for a modern comedy. When he had been approached, however, he had been easy but firm. He had been playing with a pastoral; if they would like a pastoral, it was very much at their service. Hopes and hints of modern comedies were unrealized: it was the pastoral or nothing. They had to be content. He consented to read it to them; he would not do more. He declined to make suggestions for the cast; he declined to produce. He would like, for his own enjoyment, to come to some of the rehearsals, but he made it clear that he had otherwise no wish to interfere. Nothing–given the necessity of a pastoral–could be better; the production would have all the advantage of his delayed death without losing any advantage of his prolonged life. As this became clear, the company grew reconciled. They gazed and listened, while from the long lean figure, outstretched in its deck-chair, there issued the complex intonation of great verse. Never negligible, Stanhope was often neglected; he was everyone’s second thought, but no one’s first. The convenience of all had determined this afternoon that he should be the first, and his neat mass of grey hair, his vivid glance, that rose sometimes from the manuscript, and floated down the rows, and sank again, his occasional friendly gesture that seemed about to deprecate, but always stopped short, received the concentration of his visitors, and of Mrs. Parry, the chief of his visitors.

It became clear to Mrs. Parry as the afternoon and the voice went on, that the poet had been quite right when he had said that the play needed pulling together. “It’s all higgledy-piggledy,” she said to herself, using a word which a friend had once applied to a production of the Tempest, and, in fact to the Tempest itself. Mrs, Parry thought that this pastoral was in some ways, rather like the Tempest. Mr. Stanhope, of course, was not as good as Shakespeare, because Shakespeare was the greatest English poet, so that Stanhope wasn’t. But there was a something. To begin with, it had no title beyond A Pastoral. That was unsatisfactory. Then the plot was incredibly loose. it was of no particular time and no particular place, and to any cultured listener it seemed to have little bits of everything and everybody put in at odd moments. The verse was undoubtedly Stanhope’s own, of his latest, most heightened, and most epigrammatic style, but now and then all kinds of reminiscences moved in it. Once, during the second act, the word “pastiche” floated through Mrs. Parry’s mind, but went away again on her questioning whether a Pastiche would be worth the trouble of Production. There was a Grand Duke in it who had a beautiful daughter, and this daughter either escaped from the palace or was abducted–anyhow, she came into the power of a number of brigands; and then there was a woodcutter’s son who frequently burned leaves, and he and the princess fell in love, and there were two farmers who were at odds, and the Grand Duke turned up in disguise, first in a village and then in the forest, through which also wandered an escaped bear, who spoke the most complex verse, excepting the Chorus. The Chorus had no kind of other name; at first Mrs. Parry thought they might be villagers, then, since they were generally present in the forest, she thought they might be trees, or perhaps (with a vague reminiscence of Comus) spirits. Stanhope had not been very helpful; he had alluded to them as an experiment. By the end of the reading, it was clear to Mrs. Parry that it was very necessary to decide what exactly this Chorus was to be.

She had discouraged discussion of the play during the intervals between the four acts, and as soon as it was over tea was served. If, however, the poet hoped to get away from discussion by means of tea he was mistaken. There was a little hesitation over the correct word; fantastic was dangerous, and poetic both unpopular and supererogatory, though both served for variations on idyllic, which was Mrs. Parry’s choice and won by lengths. As she took her second cup of tea, however, she began to close. She said: “Yes, idyllic, Mr. Stanhope, and so significant! “

“It’s very good of you,” Stanhope murmured. “But you see I was right about revision–the plot must seem very loose.”

Mrs. Parry waved the plot up into benevolence. “But there are a few points,” she went on. “The Chorus now. I don’t think I follow the Chorus.”

“The Chorus could be omitted,” Stanhope said. “It’s not absolutely necessary to a presentation.”

Before Mrs. Parry could answer, a young woman named Adela Hunt, sitting close by, leant forward. She was the leader of the younger artistic party, who were not altogether happy about Mrs. Parry. Adela had some thoughts of taking up production herself as her life-work, and it would have been a great advantage to have started straight away with Peter Stanhope. But her following was not yet strong enough to deal with Mrs. Parry’s reputation. She was determined, however, if possible, to achieve a kind of collaboration by means of correction. “O, we oughtn’t to omit anything, ought we?” she protested. “A work of art can’t spare anything that’s a part of it.”

“My dear,” Mrs. Parry said, “you must consider your audience. What will the audience make of the Chorus?”

“It’s for them to make what they can of it,” Adela answered. “We can only give them a symbol. Art’s always symbolic, isn’t it?”

Mrs. Parry pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t say symbolic exactly,” she said slowly. “It has a significance, of course, and you’ve got to convey that significance to the audience. We want to present it–to interpret.”

As she paused, distracted by the presentation by the poet of two kinds of sandwiches, Adela broke in again.

“But, Mrs. Parry, how can one interpret a symbol? One can only mass it. It’s all of a piece, and it’s the total effect that creates the symbolical force.”

“Significant, not symbolical,” said Mrs. Parry firmly. “You mustn’t play down to your audience, but you mustn’t play away from them either. You must” –she gesticulated “intertwine... harmonize. So you must make it easy for them to get into harmony. That’s what’s wrong with a deal of modern art; it refuses–it doesn’t establish equilibrium with its audience or what not. In a pastoral play you must have equilibrium.”

“But the equilibrium’s in the play,” Adela urged again, “a balance of masses. Surely that’s what drama is–a symbolical contrast of masses.”

“Well,” Mrs. Parry answered with infuriating tolerance, “I suppose you might call it that. But it’s more effective to think of it as significant equilibrium–especially for a pastoral. However, don’t let’s be abstract. The question is, what’s to be done about the Chorus? Had we better keep it in or leave it out? Which would you prefer, Mr. Stanhope?”

“I should prefer it in, if you ask me,” Stanhope said politely. “But not to inconvenience the production.”

“It seems to be in the forest so often,” Mrs. Parry mused, dismissing cake. “There’s the distant song in the first act, when the princess goes away from the palace, and the choric dialogue when... It isn’t Dryads, is it?”

A friend of Adela’s, a massive and superb young man of twenty-five, offered a remark. “Dryads would rather wreck the eighteenth century, wouldn’t they?”

“Watteau,” said a young lady near Adela. “You could have them period.”

Mrs. Parry looked at her approvingly. “Exactly, my dear,” she said. “A very charming fantasy it might be; we must take care it isn’t precious –only period. But, Mr. Stanhope, you haven’t told us–are they Dryads?”

“Actually,” Stanhope answered, “as I told you, it’s more an experiment than anything else. The main thing is–was–that they are non-human.”

“Spirits?” said the Watteau young lady with a trill of pleasure.

“If you like,” said Stanhope, “only not spiritual. Alive, but with a different life–even from the princess.”

“Irony?” Adela exclaimed. “It’s a kind of comment, isn’t it, Mr. Stanhope, on futility? The forest and everything, and the princess and her lover –so transitory.”

Stanhope shook his head. There was a story, invented by himself, that The Times had once sent a representative to ask for explanations about a new play, and that Stanhope, in his efforts to explain it, had found after four hours that he had only succeeded in reading it completely through aloud: “Which,” he maintained, “was the only way of explaining it.”

“No,” he said now, “not irony. I think perhaps you’d better cut them out.”

There was a moment’s pause. “But we can’t do that, Mr. Stanhope,” said a voice; “they’re important to the poetry, aren’t they?” it was the voice of another young woman, sitting behind Adela. Her name was Pauline Anstruther, and, compared with Adela, she was generally silent. Now, after her quick question, she added hastily, “I mean–they come in when the princess and the wood-cutter come together, don’t they?” Stanhope looked at her, and she felt as if his eyes had opened suddenly. He said, more slowly:

“In a way, but they needn’t. We could just make it chance.”

“I don’t think that would be nearly as satisfactory,” Mrs. Parry said. “I begin to see my way–the trees perhaps–leaves–to have the leaves of the wood all so helpful to the young people–so charming! “

“It’s a terribly sweet idea,” said the Watteau young lady. “And so true too! “

Pauline, who was sitting next her, said in an undertone: “True?”

“Don’t you think so?” Watteau, whose actual name was Myrtle Fox, asked. “It’s what I always feel–about trees and flowers and leaves and so on –they’re so friendly. Perhaps you don’t notice it so much; I’m rather mystic about nature. Like Wordsworth. I should love to spend days out with nothing but the trees and the leaves and the wind. Only somehow one never seems to have time. But I do believe they’re all breathing in with us, and it’s such a comfort–here, where there are so many trees. Of course, we’ve only to sink into ourselves to find peace–and trees and clouds and so on all help us. One never need be unhappy. Nature’s so terribly good. Don’t you think so, Mr. Stanhope?”

Stanhope was standing by, silent, while Mrs. Parry communed with her soul and with one or two of her neighbours on the possibilities of dressing the Chorus. He turned his head and answered, “That Nature is terribly good? Yes, Miss Fox. You do mean ‘terribly’?”

“Why, certainly,” Miss Fox said. “Terribly–dreadfully–very.”

“Yes,” Stanhope said again. “Very. Only–you must forgive me; it comes from doing so much writing, but when I say ‘terribly’ I think I mean ‘full of terror’. A dreadful goodness.”

“I don’t see how goodness can be dreadful,” Miss Fox said, with a shade of resentment in her voice. “If things are good they’re not terrifying, are they?”

“It was you who said ‘terribly’,"Stanhope reminded her with a smile, “I only agreed.”

“And if things are terrifying,” Pauline put in, her eyes half closed and her head turned away as if she asked a casual question rather of the world than of him, “can they be good?”

He looked down on her. “Yes, surely,” he said, with more energy. “Are our tremors to measure the Omnipotence?”

“We’ll have them in shades of green then,” Mrs. Parry broke in, “light to dark, with rich gold sashes and embroidery running all over like twigs, and each one carrying a conventionalised bough–different lengths, I think. Dark gold stockings.”

“To suggest the trunks?” asked Adela’s friend, Hugh Prescott.

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