That Hideous Strength

“You could tell the steward,” said Straik.

IV

The committee sat for about two hours and the Deputy Director was in the chair. His method of conducting business was slow and involved, and to Mark, with his Bracton experience to guide him, it soon became obvious that the real work of the N.I.C.E. must go on somewhere else. This, indeed, was what he had expected, and he was too reasonable to suppose that he should find himself, at this early stage, in the I

“The usual objections were, of course, tabled,” said Wither. Mark who was not interested in architecture and who did not know the other side of the Wynd nearly so well as his wife, allowed his attention to wander. It was only at the end of the meeting that Wither opened a much more sensational subject. He believed that most of those present had already heard (“Why do chairmen always begin that way?” thought Mark) the very distressing piece of news which it was, nevertheless, his duty now to communicate to them in a semi-official ma

And they did-a world-without-end minute in which odd creakings and breathings became audible, and behind the mask of each glazed and tight-lipped face, shy, irrelevant thoughts of this and that came creeping out as birds and mice creep out again in the clearing of a wood when the picnickers have gone, and everyone silently assured himself that he, at least, was not being morbid and not thinking about death.

Then there was a stir and a bustle and the committee broke up.

V

The whole process of getting up and doing the “morning jobs” was more cheerful, Jane found, because she had Mrs. Dimble with her. Mark often helped: but as he always took the view-and Jane could feel it even if he did not express it in words-that “anything would do” and that Jane made a lot of u

Mrs. Dimble was anxious to know what had happened to Jane at St. A

She said she had been “silly” but felt sure she’d be all right now. And she glanced at the clock and wondered why Mrs. Maggs hadn’t yet turned up.

“My dear, I’m afraid you’ve lost Ivy Maggs,” said Mrs. Dimble. “Didn’t I tell you they’d taken her house too? I thought you’d understand she wouldn’t be coming to you in future. You see there’s nowhere for her to live in Edgestow.”

“Bother!” said Jane: and added, without much interest in the reply, “What is she doing, do you know?”

“She’s gone out to St. A

“Has she got friends there?”

“She’s gone to the Manor, along with Cecil and me.”

“Do you mean she’s got a job there?”

“Well, yes. I suppose it is a job.”

Mrs. Dimble left at about eleven. She also, it appeared, was going to St. A

“Have you heard the news, Mrs. Studdock?” said Curry. His ma

“No. What’s wrong?” said Jane. She thought Mr. Curry a pompous fool and Mark a fool for being impressed by him. But as soon as Curry began speaking her face showed all the wonder and consternation he could have wished. Nor were they, this time, feigned. He told her that Mr. Hingest had been murdered, some time during the night or in the small hours of that morning. The body had been found lying beside his car, in Potter’s Lane, badly beaten about the head. He had been driving from Belbury to Edgestow. Curry was at the moment hastening back to College to talk to the warden about it: he had just been at the police station. One saw that the murder had already become Curry’s property. The “matter” was, in some indefinable sense, “in his hands,” and he was heavy with responsibility. At another time Jane would have found this amusing. She escaped from him as soon as possible and went into Blackie’s for a cup of coffee. She felt she must sit down.

The death of Hingest in itself meant nothing to her. She had met him only once and she had accepted from Mark the view that he was a disagreeable old man and rather a snob. But the certainty that she herself in her dream had witnessed a real murder shattered at one blow the consoling pretences with which she had begun the morning. It came over her with sickening clarity that the affair of her dreams, far from being ended, was only begi

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