‘Well, then Sir William gave me an orange drink, and asked some more questions, and after a bit he said that’d be all for today, and goodbye, and I came out.’
I duly reported to Mary.
‘Oh,’ she said. `Hypnosis. I don’t think I like that very much.’
‘No,’ I agreed. `But I suppose he’d use whatever method seemed appropriate. Matthew can be pretty cagey about Chocky. I know he opened up with Landis, but that was exceptional. If Sir William was having to fight for every answer he may well have felt that hypnosis would make it easier for both of them.’
‘M’m,’ said Mary, `well, all we can do now is to wait for his report.’
The next morning, Saturday, Matthew came down to breakfast looking tired. He was low-spirited, too, and listless. He refused Polly’s invitation to dispute with such gloomy distaste that Mary dropped on her heavily, and shut her up.
‘Are you not feeling well?’ she demanded of Matthew, who was toying uninterestedly with his cornflakes.
‘I’m all right,’ he said.
Mary regarded him, and tried again.
‘It’s not anything to do with yesterday? Did that man do something that upset you?’
‘No,’ Matthew shook his head. `I’m all tight,’ he repeated, and attacked his cornflakes as if in demonstration. He got them down as if every leaf were threatening to choke him.
I watched him closely, and had a strong impression was on the verge of tears.
‘Look, old man. I’ve-got to go down to London again today. Would you like to come along?’ I suggested.
He shook his head again.
‘No, thank you, Daddy. I’d rather. Mummy, can T just have some sandwiches, please?’
Mary looked at me in question, I nodded.
‘All right, darling. I’m cut you some after breakfast,’ she said.
Matthew ate a little more, and then disappeared upstairs.
When we were alone Mary said:
‘I’m sure it’s something that man told him yesterday.’
‘Could be,’ I admitted. `But I don’t think so. He wasn’t at all upset yesterday evening. Anyway, if he wants to get away by himself, I think we ought to let him.’
When I went out to get the car I found Matthew strapping a sketching-block, his paint-box, and a packet of sandwiches on to the carrier of his bicycle I hoped the sandwiches would survive it.
‘Go carefully. Remember it’s Saturday,’ I told him. ‘Yes,’ he said, and rode off.
He did not come back until six o’clock, and went straight up to his room. At dinner he was still up there. I inquired.
‘He says he doesn’t want any,’ Mary told me. `He’s just lying on his bed staring at the ceiling., I’m sure he must be sickening for something.’
I went up to see. Matthew was, as Mary had said, lying on his bed, He looked very tired.
‘Feeling worn out, old man?’ I asked him. `Why don’t you get right into bed? I’m bring you something on a tray.’
He shook his head.
‘No thanks, Daddy. I don’t want anything.’
‘You ought to have something, you know.’
He shook his head again.
I looked round the room. There were four pictures I had not seen before. All landscapes. Two propped up on the mantel shelf, two on the chest of drawers.
‘Did you do these today? May I look?’ I asked.
I moved closer to them. One I recognized immediately, a view across Docksham Great Pond, another included a part of the pond in one corner, the third was taken from a higher po-int looking across a village to the Downs beyond, the fourth was like nothing I had ever seen.
It was a view across a plain. As a background a line of rounded, ancient-looking hills, topped here and there by domed towers, was set – against a cloudless blue sky. In the middle-ground, to the right of the centre, stood something like a very large stone structure. It had the shape, though not the regularity of a pyramid, nor were the stones fitted together; rather they seemed, as far as one could tell from the drawing, to be boulders piled up. It could scarcely have been called a building, yet it quite certainly was not a natural formation. In the foreground were rows of things precisely spaced and arranged in curving lines – I say `things’ because it was impossible to make out what they were; they could have been plants, or haycocks, or, perhaps even, huts, there-was no telling, and to make their shape more difficult to determine, each appeared to throw two shadows. From the left of the picture a wide, cleared strip ran straight as a ruler’s edge to the foot of the pyramid, where it changed direction towards the mountains. It was a depressing view with the feeling of intolerable heat.
I was still looking at the thing, bewildered, when there was a gulp from the bed behind me. Matthew said, with difficulty:
‘They’re the last pictures, Daddy.’
I turned round. His eyes were screwed up, but tears were trickling out of them. I sat down on the bed beside him and took his hand.
‘Matthew, boy, tell me. Tell me what the trouble is.’ Matthew sniffed, choked, and then stammered out: ‘It’s Chocky, Daddy. She’s going away – for ever :..’
I heard Mary’s feet on the stairs, crossed swiftly to the door, and closed it behind me.
‘What is it? Is he ill?’ she asked.
I took her arm and moved away from the door.
‘No. He’ll be all right,’ I told her, leading her back to the stairs.
‘But what is the matter?’ she insisted.
I shook my head. When we were down in the hail, safely out of earshot of Matthew’s room -T told her.
‘It’s Chocky. Apparently she’s leaving – clearing out.’ ‘Well, thank goodness for that,’ Mary said.
‘Maybe, but don’t let him see you think that.’
She looked at me uncertainly, with a puzzled frown.
‘But, David, you’re talking as if – I mean, Chocky isn’t real.’
‘To Matthew she is. And he’s taking it hard.’
‘All the same, I think he ought to have some food.’
‘Later on, perhaps,’ I said. `But not now.’
Throughout, the meal Polly chattered constantly and boringly of ponies. When we had got rid of her Mary asked:
‘I’ve been thinking. Do you think it’s something that man did?’
‘What man?’
‘That Sir William Something, (*).f course,’ she said, impatiently. `After all he did hypnotize Matthew. People can be made to do all kinds of things through hypnotic suggestion. Suppose he said to Matthew, where he was in a trance: “Tomorrow your friend Chocky is going to tell you she is going away. You are going to be very sorry to say goodbye to her, but you will. Then she will leave you, and gradually you will forget all about her” – something like that. I don’t know much about it, but isn’t it possible that a suggestion of that kind might cure him, and clear up the whole thing?’
`“Cure him”?’ I said.
‘Well, I mean …’
You mean you’ve gone back to thinking Chocky is an illusion?’
‘Not exactly an illusion …’
‘Really, darling – after the swimming, after watching him at his painting last weekend, you can still think that …?’
‘I can still hope that. At least it’s less alarming than what your friend Landis talked about – possession.’
I had to admit that she had a point (*) there. I wished I knew more about hypnosis in general , and Matthew’s in )articular. -1 also wished very much that, if Sir William would manage to expel Chocky by hypnosis, he could have managed to do it in some way that would have caused Matthew less distress.
In fact, I found myself displeased with Sir William. It began to look as if I had taken Matthew to him for a diagnosis – which I had not yet got – and possibly been given instead a treatment, which I had not, at this stage, requested. The more I considered it, the more unsatisfactory it seemed.
On our way to bed we looked into Matthew’s room in case he were feeling hungry now. There was no sound except his regular breathing, so we shut the door quietly and went away.
The next morning, Sunday, we let him sleep on. He emerged about ten o’clock looking dazed with sleep, his eyes pink about the rims, his manner distrait, but with his appetite hugely restored.
About half-past eleven a large American car with a front like a juke-box turned into the drive. Matthew came thundering down the stairs.
‘It’s Auntie Janet, Daddy. I’m off,’ he said breathlessly, and shot down the passage to the back door.
We had a trying day. Matthew had been wise. There was a lot of discussion, mostly one-sided, on guardian angels, and on the characteristics of an artist in the family, presenting almost all of them a sun desirable, if not actually disruptive.