Honeybath's Haven by Michael Innes Page B

designed and planted maze of a kind the best-known example of which in England is to be found at Hampton Court.
    To seem to pursue a perfect stranger into the heart of such a contraption was highly unbecoming, and Honeybath at once endeavoured to beat a retreat. Unfortunately he moved in too rapid and unconsidered a fashion, with the result that he lost his bearings at the start, and was instantly as disorientated as if he were already halfway through the labyrinth. He took yet another turn, and found himself directly at gaze with the man in the Panama.
    The situation was perhaps a little awkward, but ought not to have been actually embarrassing. Yet it was just that. For the man’s attitude and expression rendered an impression of apprehensiveness and indeed alarm. And Honeybath had just registered this disconcerting fact when the man dodged aside – it was the only word for it – and once more vanished.
    Honeybath wondered if the situation would be improved were he to call out a polite good morning. He had to judge that it would not. That he had actually pursued this inoffensive person into the maze was a fact impossible to disguise. He must simply continue his effort to emerge from the wretched thing, and trust that chance would not in the process produce a renewal of the rencounter.
    But it may be called the general principle of a maze that it is easier to get in than to get out. Honeybath turned hither and thither, but to no avail. It was a curiously upsetting experience. He began to feel a little like a rat under the invisible dispassionate gaze of some member of the investigating classes – or if not this, at least a lobster in a pot. He had to repress an irrational impulse to tear or claw himself out of the place in a fashion that would have been destructive to the whole device, ruinous to his attire, and even scarifying to his person. He had just broken into a blundering run, as if persuaded that mere impetus would solve his problem, when a voice addressed him as from the heavens above. He halted, looked upwards, and became aware of a species of gazebo erected just beyond the perimeter of the maze. Only its upper platform was visible, and on this the head and shoulders of the man addressing him.
    â€˜Easy, sir!’ this person said soothingly and indulgently. As he spoke he respectfully removed a cloth cap, a gesture from which Honeybath inferred that this Ariadne-figure, coming to the rescue, as it were, of her beloved Theseus, was in fact a gardener. ‘Would you be wanting still to get to the centre?’ this person went on, when apparently persuaded that Honeybath was again reasonably composed. ‘There’s a cage with some very pretty parakeets – very pretty indeed, and well worth a visit.’
    â€˜Confound your parakeets!’ Honeybath said, not very civilly. ‘I want to get out.’
    â€˜Then just turn round, sir, and do as I say.’ The man on the gazebo sounded a shade hurt in his mind. ‘You’re no distance from the entrance, no distance at all. Straight on until you can turn right, sir. That’s it. Go on until you can turn left. A nice morning for a stroll, wouldn’t you say? That’s it! Left again now, and you might say freedom is before you.’
    In this somewhat ignominious way, Honeybath escaped from the maze, and found that Ariadne had descended from her perch and was awaiting him.
    â€˜Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I was a little short with you about the birds. I’ve no doubt they are delightful. But I had no notion of threading the thing. My entering it at all was – um – inadvertent.’
    â€˜Just that, sir. And a maze is rather a flustering place.’
    â€˜No doubt.’ Honeybath didn’t enjoy being detected as having become flustered in so absurd a fashion. ‘By the way, do you happen to have seen a man in a big white hat?’
    â€˜Ah, him! He’s one of