First published one hundred years ago in July 1926, The
Dancing Floor by John Buchan was the third book in which his recurring
character Edward Leithen played a prominent role. A man with a strong work
ethic and social conscience, Leithen always seeks to do the right thing by his
friends, those for whom he has responsibility, and his country. He is a
high-flyer who excels at his profession and in the skills of sportsmanship. A
barrister and politician, Leithen moves through the corridors of power and the
London clubs and country house gatherings of the Establishment. Although part
of a small and exclusive society where everyone knows each other or can be
acquainted at one move – as are several of Buchan’s other recurring characters
– he is not limited by it. Leithen is an assiduous networker: his professional career
and wartime experiences enable him to know people from a wide range of
backgrounds and all social classes.
Returning from a shooting holiday, Sir Edward Leithen sits
back and tells a story. The Dancing Floor is a retrospective adventure, unfolded
in secure and relaxed surroundings that contrast greatly with the immediacy of
the risky and often violent events recounted. It all begins in January 1913, when
Leithen takes his nephew Charles to dinner and a ball. He notices one of the
other guests, a man who seems ‘so completely detached, so clothed with his own
atmosphere’. This is Vernon Milburne, one of Charles’ friends.
For his Easter vacation Leithen takes a walking tour in
Westmorland. Spraining his ankle, he finds help at nearby Severns Hall – the
home of Vernon Milburne. They become good friends. Eventually Milburne tells Leithen
about his recurring dream of a room with a door that led to a ‘second room just
like the first one; he knew nothing about it except that opposite the entrance
another door led out of it. Beyond was a third chamber, and so on interminably.
[…] He thought of it as a great snake of masonry, winding up hill and down dale
away to the fells or the sea. […] Yes, but there WAS an end. Somewhere far away
in one of the rooms was a terror waiting on him, or, as he feared, coming
towards him.’
Milburne’s dream recurs annually, around Easter. When he had
been fifteen he had fixed its date as the night of the first Monday in April,
and had realised that were twelve rooms – and so years – left. Milburne, a
staunch Calvinist, explains that it is ‘foreordained by God. No caprice of our
own can alter the eternal plan. Now, why shouldn’t some inkling of this plan be
given us now and then – not knowledge, but just an inkling that we may be
ready? […] It is a reminder that I must be waiting with girt loins and a lit
lamp when the call comes.’
The following spring Leithen takes a holiday in the Aegean on
his friend Lord Lamancha’s yacht. Milburne was invited too, as Leithen wanted them
together on the first Monday of April. While the yacht shelters off an island,
they hear a ‘human voice, sweet and high and infinitely remote, a voice as
fugitive as a scent or a colour’. It is the Spring Song, which ‘has probably
been going on here since the beginning of time.’
War intervenes. November 1918 finds Leithen and Milburne
convalescing – in neighbouring beds. Milburne has continued to dream – there
are just two years left. At a ball, Milburne meets Koré Arabin, who turns out
to be the granddaughter of the first English owner of Plakos – the island where
they had heard the Spring Song. The family has a dark reputation, and Milburne
is both attracted and revolted by her.
Further circumstance and coincidence ensure that Leithen,
Milburne, and Koré come together on Plakos. The spring rite is to be celebrated
at the Dancing Floor – but Koré will be in danger. The islanders ‘have
suffered, and they blame their sufferings on the Arabins, till they have made a
monstrous legend of it.’ A medieval account of the spring festival is
unambiguous: ‘The boy and the girl had to die before the Gods could be re-born.
You see, it was a last resource – not an annual rite, but one reserved for a
desperate need.’
Milburne’s call had come. The story switches to his account,
narrated by Leithen at second-hand. Determined to play her part, Koré had rejected
with scorn Milburne’s offer to take her from Plakos. He decided to pass himself
off as an islander returned from the wars so he could go onto the Dancing Floor
and win the race to possess the goddess. ‘These peasants are keyed up to a
tremendous expectation. A belief has come to life, a belief far older than
Christianity. They expect salvation from the coming of two Gods, a youth and a
maiden. If their hope is disappointed, they will be worse madmen than before.
To-morrow night nothing will go out from this place, unless it be Gods.’
Milburne and his helpers resolve to ‘give them their Gods.’
Observing from a vantage point, Leithen sees how the
festival ends: ‘I do not think that Koré and Vernon saw anything – they had
their own inward vision. I do not know what the people saw in the presences
that moved out of the darkness above them. […] The people of Plakos had gone
after strange gods, but it was only for a short season that they could shake
themselves free from the bonds of a creed which they had held for a thousand
years. The resurgence of ancient faiths had obscured but had not destroyed the
religion into which they had been born. Their spells had been too successful.
They had raised the Devil and now fled from him in the blindest terror. […] The
priest of Kynaetho would presently have his fill of stricken penitents.’
Buchan took time through much preparation and a leisurely build-up
to bring the story to its climax. This does not matter, as there are so many
good things along the way. The Dancing Floor is intelligent, thinking
person’s adventure: suspense and action are mixed, smoothly, with theological stances
and Classical learning and allusion. They exist for each other and never slow the
pace. Buchan was a Calvinist, a cradle Protestant who had a fascination for paganism
– especially the ‘old religion’ that darkly endured into the present day of
modern civilisation. Partitions are thin and fragile. The rapturous
descriptions of landscape and light, the colours of spring, were in his nature
– as seemingly were the Nature mysteries. For John Buchan the sacred and divine
are to be met with caution: there are also survivals and revivals. When the
Gods come – whatever they are – be prepared.
(John Howard)
