‘Certainly,’ I nodded.
‘Well, a spirit is a living force, therefore it is not static, therefore it is something which must either evolve, or atrophy. Evolution of a spirit assumes the eventual development of a greater spirit. Suppose, then, that this greater spirit, this super spirit, is attempting to make its appearance on the scene. Where is it to dwell? The ordinary man is not constructed to contain it; the superman does not exist to house it. Might it not, then, for lack of a suitable single vehicle, inform a group – rather like an encyclopedia grown too large for one volume? I don’t know. But if it were so, then two super-spirits, residing in two groups, is no less probable.’
He paused, looking out of the open windows, watching a bumble-bee fly from one lavender-head to another, then he added reflectively:
‘I have wondered about these two groups quite a lot. I have even felt that there ought to be names for these two super-spirits. One would imagine there were plenty of names to choose from, and yet I find just two, out of them all, persistently invading my mind. Somehow, I keep on thinking of – Adam – and Eve.’
*
Two or three days later I had a letter telling me that the job I had been angling for in Canada could be mine if I sailed without delay. I did, leaving Janet to clear things up, and follow me.
When she arrived she had little more news of Midwich except on a rather one-sided feud which had broken out between the Freemans and Zellaby.
Zellaby, it appeared, had told Bernard Westcott of his findings. An inquiry for further particulars had reached the Freemans to whom the whole idea came as a novelty, and one which they instinctively opposed. They at once instituted tests of their own, and were seen to be growing gloomier as they proceeded.
‘But at least I imagine they’ll stop short of Adam and Eve,’ she added. ‘Really, old Zellaby! The thing I shall never cease to be thankful for was that we happened to go to London when we did. Just fancy if I’d become the mother of a thirty-first part of an Adam, or a twenty-ninth part of an Eve. It’s been bad enough as it is, and thank goodness we’re out of it. I’ve had enough of Midwich, and I don’t care if I never hear of the place again.’
Part Two
CHAPTER 16
Now We Are Nine
DURING the next few years, such visits home as we managed were brief and hurried, spent entirely in dashing from one lot of relatives to another, with interludes to improve business contacts. I never went anywhere near Midwich, nor indeed thought much about it. But, in the eighth summer after we had left, I managed a six-week spell, and at the end of the first week I ran into Bernard Wescott one day, in Piccadilly.
We went to the In and Out for a drink. In the course of a chat I asked him about Midwich. I think I expected to hear that the whole thing had fizzled out, for on the few occasions I had recalled the place lately, it and its inhabitants had the improbability of a tale once realistic, but now thoroughly unconvincing. I was more than half-ready to hear that the Children no longer trailed clouds of anything unconventional, that, as so often with suspected genius, expectations had never flowered, and that, for all their beginnings and indications, they had become an ordinary gang of village children, with only their looks to distinguish them.
Bernard considered for a moment, then he said:
‘As it happens, I have to go down there tomorrow. Would you care to come for the run, renew old acquaintance, and so on?’
Janet had gone north to stay with an old school friend for a week leaving me on my own, with nothing particular to do.
‘So you do still keep an eye on the place? Yes, I’d like to come and have a few words with them. Zellaby’s still alive and well?’
‘Oh, yes. He’s that rather dry-stick type that seems set to go on for ever, unchanged.’
‘The last time I saw him – apart from our farewell – he was off on a weird tack about composite personality,’ I recalled. ‘An old spellbinder. He manages to make the most exotic conceptions sound feasible while he’s talking. Something about Adam and Eve, I remember.’
‘You won’t find much difference,’ Bernard told me, but did not pursue that line. Instead, he went on: ‘My own business there is a bit morbid I’m afraid – an inquest, but that needn’t interfere with you.’
‘One of the Children?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘A motor accident to a local boy called Pawle.’
‘Pawle,’ I repeated. ‘Oh, yes, I remember. They’ve a farm a bit outside, nearer to Oppley.’
‘That’s it. Dacre Farm. Tragic business.’
It seemed intrusive to ask what interest he could have in the inquest, so I let him switch the conversation to my Canadian experiences.
The next morning, with a fine summer’s day already well begun, we set off soon after breakfast. In the car he apparently felt at liberty to talk more freely than he had at the club.
‘You’ll find a few changes in Midwich,’ he warned me. ‘Your old cottage is now occupied by a couple called Welton – he etches, and his wife throws pots. I can’t remember who is in Crimm’s place at the moment – there’s been quite a succession of people since the Freemans. But what’s going to surprise you most is The Grange. The board outside has been repainted; it now reads: “Midwich Grange – Special School – Ministry of Education.” ‘
‘Oh? The Children?’ I asked.
‘Exactly.’ He nodded. ‘Zellaby’s “exotic conception” was a lot less exotic than it seemed. In fact, it was a bull – to the great discomfiture of the Freemans. It showed them up so thoroughly that they had to clear out to hide their faces.’
‘You mean his Adam and Eve stuff?’ I said incredulously.
‘Not that exactly. I meant the two mental groups. It was soon proved that there was this rapport – everything supported that – and it continued. At just over two years old one of the boys learnt to read simple words -‘
‘At two!’ I exclaimed.
‘Quite the equivalent of any other child’s four,’ he reminded me. ‘And the next day it was found that any of the boys could read them. From then on, the progress was amazing. It was weeks later before one of the girls learnt to read, but when she did, all the rest of them could, too. Later on, one boy learnt to ride a bicycle; right away any of them could do it competently, first shot. Mrs Brinkman taught her girl to swim; all the rest of the girls were immediately able to swim; but the boys could not until one of them got the trick of it, then the rest could. Oh, from the moment Zellaby pointed it out, there was no doubt about it. The thing there has been – and still is – a whole series of rows about, on all levels, is his deduction that each group represents an individual. Not many people will wear that one. A form of thought transmission, possibly; a high degree of mutual sensitivity, perhaps; a number of units with a form of communication not yet clearly understood, feasible; but a single unit informing physically independent parts, no. There’s precious little support for that.’
I was not greatly surprised to hear it, but he was going on:
‘Anyway, the arguments are chiefly academic. The point is that, however it happens, they do have this rapport within the groups. Well, sending them to any ordinary school was obviously out of the question – there’d be tales about them all over the place in a few days if they’d just turned up at Oppley or Stouch schools. So that brought in the Ministry of Education, as well as the Ministry of Health, with the result that The Grange was opened up as a kind of school-cum-welfare-centre-cum-social-observatory for them.
‘That has worked better than we expected. Even when you were here it was pretty obvious they were going to be a problem later on. They have a different sense of community – their pattern is not, and cannot by their nature, be the same as ours. Their ties to one another are far more important to them than any feeling for ordinary homes. Some of the homes resented them pretty much, too – they can’t really become one of the family, they’re too different; they were little good as company for the true children of the family, and the difficulties looked like growing. Somebody at The Grange had the idea of starting dormitories there for them. There was no pressure, no persuasion – they could just move in if they wanted to, and a dozen or more did, quite soon. Then others gradually joined them. It was rather as if they were beginning to learn that they could not have a great deal in common with the rest of the village, and so gravitated naturally towards a group of their own kind.’