‘I should think not,’ said Zellaby. ‘It ought to be an interesting indictment to frame.’
‘Well, she didn’t seem to think it was likely to come to that,’ Angela admitted.
‘I imagine she’s perfectly right there,’ agreed Zellaby. ‘We have made our own efforts, but the unperceived official machinations to keep all this quiet must have been quite considerable. Even the evidence brought to dispute a court order would be manna to journalists of all nations. In fact, the issue of such an order would probably bring Dr Haxby a considerable fortune, one way and another. Poor Mr Crimm – and poor Colonel Westcott. They are going to be worried, I’m afraid. I wonder just what their powers in the matter are …?’ He lapsed into thought for some moments before he went on:
‘My dear, I’ve just been talking to Alan about getting Ferrelyn away. This seems to make it a little more urgent. Once it becomes generally known, others may decide to follow Margaret Haxby’s example, don’t you think?’
‘It may make up their minds for some of them,’ Angela agreed.
‘In which case, and supposing an inconvenient number should take the same course, don’t you think there is a possibility of some counter-move to stop more desertions.’
‘But if, as you say, they don’t want publicity – ?’
‘Not by the authorities, my dear. No, I was wondering what would happen if it were to turn out that the children are as opposed to being deserted as they are to being removed.’
‘But you don’t really think – ?’
‘I don’t know. I’m simply doing my best to place myself in the situation of a young cuckoo. As such, I fancy I should resent anything that appeared likely to lessen attention to my comfort and well-being. Indeed, one does not even have to be a cuckoo to feel so. I just air the suggestion, you understand, but I do feel that it is worth making sure that Ferrelyn is not trapped here if something of the sort should happen.’
‘Whether it does or not, she’ll be better away,’ Angela agreed. ‘You could start by suggesting two or three weeks away while we see what happens,’ she told Alan.
‘Very well,’ Alan said. ‘It does give me a handle to start with. Where is she?’
‘I left her on the veranda.’
The Zellabys watched him cross the lawn and disappear round a comer of the house. Gordon Zellaby lifted an eyebrow at his wife.
‘Not very difficult, I think,’ Angela said. ‘Naturally she’s longing to be with him. The obstacle is her sense of obligation. The conflict is doing her harm, wearing her out.’
‘How much affection does she really have for the baby?’
‘It’s hard to say. There is so much social and traditional pressure on a woman in these things. One’s self-defensive instinct is to conform to the approved pattern. Personal honesty takes time to assert itself – if it is ever allowed to.’
‘Not with Ferrelyn, surely?’ Zellaby looked hurt.
‘Oh, it will with her, I’m sure. But she hasn’t got there yet. It’s a bit much to face, you know. She’s had all the inconvenience and discomfort of bearing the baby, as much as if it were her own – and now, after all that, she has to readjust to the biological fact that it is not, that she is only what you call a “host-mother” to it. That must take a lot of doing.’
She paused, looking thoughtfully across the lawn. ‘I now say a little prayer of thanksgiving every night,’ she added. ‘I don’t know where it goes to, but I just want it to be known somewhere how grateful I am.’
Zellaby reached out, and took her hand. After some minutes, he observed:
‘I wonder if a sillier and more ignorant catachresis than “Mother Nature” was ever perpetrated? It is because Nature is ruthless, hideous, and cruel beyond belief that it was necessary to invent civilization. One thinks of wild animals as savage, but the fiercest of them begins to look almost domesticated when one considers the viciousness required of a survivor in the sea; as for the insects, their lives are sustained only by intricate processes of fantastic horror. There is no conception more fallacious than the sense of cosiness implied by “Mother Nature”. Each species must strive to survive, and that it will do, by every means in its power, however foul – unless the instinct to survive is weakened by conflict with another instinct.’
Angela seized the pause to put in, with a touch of impatience:
‘I’ve no doubt you are gradually working round to something, Gordon.’
‘Yes,’ Zellaby owned. ‘I am working round again to cuckoos. Cuckoos are very determined survivors. So determined that there is really only one thing to be done with them once one’s nest is infested. I am, as you know, a humane man; I think I may even say a kindly man, by disposition.’
‘You may, Gordon.’
‘As a further disadvantage, I am a civilized man. For these reasons I shall not be able to bring myself to approve of what ought to be done. Nor, even when we perceive its advisability, will the rest of us. So, like the poor hen-thrush we shall feed and nurture the monster, and betray our own species …
‘Odd, don’t you think? We could drown a litter of kittens that is no sort of threat to us – but these creatures we shall carefully rear.’
Angela sat motionless for some moments. Then she turned her head and looked at him, long and steadily.
‘You mean that – about what ought to be done, don’t you, Gordon?’
‘I do, my dear.’
‘It isn’t like you.’
‘As I pointed out. But then, it is a situation I have never been in before. It has occurred to me that “live and let live” is a piece of patronage which can only be afforded by the consciously secure. I now find, when I feel – as I never expected to feel – my situation at the summit of creation to be threatened, that I don’t like it a bit.’
‘But, Gordon, dear, surely this is all a little exaggerated. After all, a few unusual babies …’
‘Who can at will produce a neurotic condition in mature women – and don’t forget Harriman, too – in order to enforce their wishes.’
‘It may wear off as they get older. One has heard sometimes of odd understanding, a kind of psychic sympathy …’
‘In isolated cases, perhaps. But in sixty-one inter-connected cases! No, there’s no tender sympathy with these, and they trail no clouds of glory, either. They are the most practical, sensible, self-contained babies anyone ever saw – they are also quite the smuggest, and no wonder – they can get anything they want. Just at present they are still at a stage where they do not want very much, but later on – well, we shall see …’
‘Dr Willers says -‘ his wife began, but Zellaby cut her short impatiently.
‘Willers rose to the occasion magnificently – so well that it’s not surprising that he’s addled himself into behaving like a damned ostrich now. His faith in hysteria has become practically pathological. I hope his holiday will do him good.’
‘But, Gordon, he does at least try to explain it.’
‘My dear, I am a patient man, but don’t try me too far. Willers has never tried to explain any of it. He has accepted certain facts when they became inescapable; the rest he has attempted to explain away – which is quite different.’
‘But there must be an explanation.’
‘Of course.’
‘Then what do you think it is?’
‘We shall have to wait until the children are old enough to give us some evidence.’
‘But you do have some ideas?’
‘Nothing very cheering, I’m afraid.’
‘But what?’
Zellaby shook his head. ‘I’m not ready,’ he said again. ‘But as you are a discreet woman I will put a question to you. It is this: If you were wishful to challenge the supremacy of a society that was fairly stable, and quite well weaponed, what would you do? Would you meet it on its own terms by launching a probably costly, and certainly destructive, assault? Or, if time were of no great importance, would you prefer to employ a version of a more subtle tactic? Would you, in fact, try somehow to introduce a fifth column, to attack it from within?’
CHAPTER 15
Matters to Arise
THE next few months saw a number of changes in Midwich.
Dr Willers handed over his practice to the care of a locum, the young man who had helped him during the crisis, and, accompanied by Mrs Willers, went off, in a state of mingled exhaustion and disgust with authority, on a holiday that was said to be taking him round the world.
In November we had an epidemic of influenza which carried off three elderly villagers, and also three of the Children. One of them was Ferrelyn’s boy. She was sent for, and came hurrying home at once, but arrived too late to see him alive. The others were two of the girls.