The Greater Trumps (15 page)

For the rest of the service Nancy moved and rose and sat and knelt according to the ritual, without being very conscious of what was going on. She felt two modes of being alternating within her—now the swift rush of her journey in the car, of her own passion, of the images seen in the night, of the voices roaring upward in the ceremonies of Christmas; now again the pause, the silence and full restraint of the Emperor, of Sybil, of her own expectation, of that single voice declaring unity, of the Fool amid the dance of the night. She flew with the one; she was suspended with the other; and, with downcast eyes and parted lips, she sought to control her youth till one should disappear or till both should come together. Everything was different from what it had so lately seemed; even the two who sat beside her. Her respect for her aunt had become something much more like awe. “Try it, darling,” was a summons to her from one who was a sibyl indeed. Her father was different too. He seemed no more the absurd, slightly despicable, affected and pompous and irritating elderly man whom she had known; all that was unimportant. He walked alone, a genie from some other world, demanding of her something which she had not troubled to give. If she would not find out what that was, it was no good blaming him for the failure of their proper relation. She, she only, was to blame; the sin lay in her heart whenever that heart set itself against any other. He might be funny sometimes, but she herself was very funny sometimes. Aunt Sybil had told her she didn't love anyone; and she had been slightly shocked at the suggestion. The color swept into her cheeks as she thought of it, sitting still during the sermon. But everything would be different now. She would purify herself before she dared offer herself to Henry for the great work he contemplated.

At lunch it appeared that his ordinary work, however, was going to occupy him for the afternoon as well as the morning. He apologized to her for this in a rather troubled way, and she mocked him gently.

“Father's going,” she said, “and you'll be shut up. It'll be perfect heaven to look at the furniture or read a murder story—only your grandfather doesn't seem to have many murder stories, does he, darling? All his literature seems so very serious, and quite a lot of it's in foreign languages. But there's yesterday's newspaper, if I'm driven to it.”

“I must do it,” Henry said, rather incoherently. “There's no other way.”

“Where there's a will there's a way,” she said. “You haven't got the will, Henry. You don't think the world's well lost for me.”

“I've a will for what's useful,” he said, so seriously that she was startled.

“I know you have, dearest,” she said. “I'm not annoying you, am I? You sounded as if you were going to do something frightfully important, that I hadn't a notion of.”

He found no answer to that, but wandered off and stood looking out of the window into the frosty clearness of the day. He dared not embrace her lest she should feel his heart beating more intensely than ever it had beaten for his love; nor speak lest his voice should alarm her sensitive attention to wonder what he purposed. It was one thing to see what had to be done, and if it had not been for Nancy he could have done it easily enough, he thought. But to sit at lunch with her and “the murdered man.” If she ever knew, would she understand? She must, she must! If she didn't, then he had told his grandfather rightly that all his intention was already doomed. But if she did, if she could see clearly that her father's life was little compared to the restoration of the Tarots, so that in future there might be a way into the mystical dance, and from within their eyes might see it, from within they—more successful than Joanna—might govern the lesser elements, and perhaps send an heir to all their knowledge out into the world. If they perished, they perished in an immense effort, and no lesser creature, though it were Nancy's father or his own—though it were Nancy herself, should she shrink—must be allowed to stand in the way. She would understand when she knew; but till she had learned more he dared not tell her. It would be, he told himself, cruel to her; the decision for both of them must be his.

The somber determination brooded over the meal. As if a gray cloud had overcast the day and the room, those sitting at the table were dimmed and oppressed by the purpose which two of them cherished. Aaron's eyes fixed themselves, spasmodically and anxiously, on the women whom his business was to amuse; Henry once or twice, in a sudden sharp decision, looked up at Mr. Coningsby, who went on conversing about Christmas lunches he had known, about lunches in general, the ideal lunch, the discovery of cooking, fire, gas-fires, air, space, modern science, science in the Press, the present state of newspapers, and other things. Sybil assisted him, more talkative than usual, because the other three were more silent. Nancy felt unexpectedly tired and chilly, though the room was warm enough. A natural reaction of discouragement took her, a natural—yet to her unnatural—disappointment with Henry. Her eyes went to him at intervals, ready to be placated and delighted, but no answering eyes met hers. She saw him, once, staring at his own hands, and she looked at them too, without joy, as if they were two strange instruments working at a little-understood experiment. The dark skin, the long fingers, the narrow wrists—the hands that had struck and caressed hers, to which she had given her free kisses, which she had pressed and stroked and teased—they were so strange that they made her union with them strange; they were inhuman, and their inhumanity crept deeper into the chill of her being. Her glance swept the table; five pairs of hands were moving there, all alien and incomprehensible. Prehensile … monkeys swaying in the trees, not monkeys … something more than monkeys. She felt Sybil looking at her and refused to look back. Her father's voice maddened her; he was still talking—stupid, insane talk. He a Warden in Lunacy! He was a lunatic himself, the worse for being uncertifiable. Oh, why didn't he die?

A fork and spoon tinkled. Mr. Coningsby was saying that forks came in with Queen Elizabeth. She said, quite unexpectedly, “In Swift's time people used to say ‘Queen Elizabeth's dead' instead of ‘Queen Anne's dead.'”

Henry's hand jerked on the cloth, like some reptile just crawled up from below the table. She went on perversely, “Did you know that, Henry?”

He answered abruptly, “No,” and so sharp was the syllable that it left all five of them in silence, a silence in which either Elizabeth or Anne might have passed from a world she knew to a world she could not imagine. Sybil broke it by saying, “It was the change of dynasty that made their ends so important, I suppose? No one ever said ‘George II is dead,' did they?”

“Aren't we being rather morbid?” Aaron asked, in a kind of high croak, almost as if the reptile Nancy had imagined had begun to speak. Cold … cold … and cold things making discordant noises. Oh, this wouldn't do; she was being silly She made an effort and reminded herself that this was Mr. Lee speaking—and it was a gloomy conversation; not so much gloomy as horrid. Everyone was unnatural—at least, Henry was unnatural, and her father was overwhelmingly natural, and Mr. Lee … He was saying something else. She bent her attention to it.

“There are some manuscripts,” he was saying, “you might like to look at this afternoon. Some poems, parts of a diary, a few letters.”

“I should like to very much,” Sybil said. “What sort of a man does he seem to have been?”

“I'm afraid I've not read them carefully enough to know,” Aaron replied. “He was, of course, disappointed; the cause had been ruined, and his career with it.”

Sybil smiled. “He believed that?” she asked. “But how foolish of him!”

Henry said, “Is it foolish to give oneself to a purpose and die if it perishes?”

“Disproportioned, don't you think?” Sybil suggested. “One might die rather than forsake a cause, but if the cause forsakes you——? They're pathetic creatures, your lonely romantics. They can't bear to be mistaken.”

Nancy shivered again. Even Sybil's lovely voice couldn't help giving the word “mistaken” rather a heavy and fatal sound. “Mistaken”—utterly mistaken. To mistake everything life had concentrated in, to be
wrong
, just
wrong.…
Oh, at last the meal was ending. She got up and followed her aunt and Aaron to the drawing-room, loathing herself and everybody else, and especially the manuscript relics of the unfortunate peer.

Henry saw Mr. Coningsby off. “Which way shall you go?” he asked.

“I shall walk as far as the village and back,” his guest said. “If I see the vicar I shall congratulate him on the service this morning—bright, short, and appropriate. A very neat little sermon too. Quiet and convincing.”

“What was it about?” Henry said, against his will trying to delay the other. He looked at him curiously: “bright, short, and appropriate” were hardly the words for the thing that was gathering round him who had spoken. The reared tower of his life was already shaking; and it was Henry whose hand pushed it.

“Oh, behaving kindly—and justly,” Mr. Coningsby said. “Very suitable to the villagers who go. Well, I mustn't delay. I'll be off.”

“Take care you take the left path at the division as you come back,” Henry said.

“Quite, quite; the left,” Mr. Coningsby said, and disappeared. Henry went his own way—not to the drawing-room, where Nancy, with all her heart but much against her temper, expected him to look in for a few minutes. He didn't. She cursed herself, and went on staring at the peer's extremely eighteenth-century diary, taking no part in the chat of the other two. Sybil began reading a poem aloud.

TO CLARINDA: ON RECEIVING A LETTER

Ah, cruel Clarinda, must this Paper show

All of thy Fortune that I now may know
?

Though still the Town retain thee, perjured Maid
,

May not some Thought of me the Town invade
?

Was I forgotten when I did depart
,

And thou oblivious of a Faithful Heart
?

Despair to thee is but a grateful Pain
,

Coolly pretended by the Amorous Swain;

But Oh, in me Despair is all my Sense

As hateful as impoverished Joy's Pretense—
—

“Impoverished Joy's pretense”—Nancy knew that was what she was feeling, and knew how hateful it was. At the same time she realized that she was feeling tired—oh, so absolutely tired. She must get away and lie down and rest; she'd be better then by tea-time. And perhaps Henry would be free, and impoverished Joy need no longer pretend. When the poem was finished, she said, rather ungrateful to the wretched peer, “He wasn't a very good poet, was he? I suppose Clarinda had thrown him over. Mr. Lee, would you think me a perfect pig if I went and lay down and went to sleep? I'm only just keeping my eyes a little way open.”

“My dear girl, of course,” Aaron said. “Anything you like. I'm so sorry. You're not overtired, are you?”

“No. Oh, no,” Nancy protested. “It's just … it's just … that I'm unutterably sleepy. I can't think what's come over me.”

As he went to open the door, she smiled at her aunt. Sybil said in a low voice, “Being in love is a tiring business—I mean getting into love. Sleep well, darling.”

She slept at least without dreams, unless that sudden vision of her father falling from a high precipice from which she woke and sprang up was a dream. It was his scream that had wakened her; was it—or was it that howling wind? There was something driving against the windows; for a moment she thought it was a great white face staring in, then she knew it for snow—heavy, terrific snow. Bewildered, she blinked at it. The day had changed completely; it was dark, and yet, from the unlit room, white with snow. The wind or the scream sounded again, as, still half-asleep, she clung to the bed and gazed. Her father—he must be in by now. It was close on five. Her father—faces looking for him—her father crying out. She ran uncertainly to the door and, driven by an unknown fear, went hurrying to the hall. There was Sybil and Aaron—Sybil with her coat on, Aaron protesting, offering.… Nancy came up to them.

“Hallo,” she said. “I say, aunt, you're not going out, are you?”

Sybil said something that was lost in the noise of the blizzard; Nancy looked round. “Where's father?” she asked.

“Out,” Sybil said. “I was just going to meet him.”

“Hasn't he come back?” Nancy said. “But, I say, he'll never find his way.…” If only she hadn't dreamed of his being thrown over a precipice. There was no precipice here. But he'd screamed.

“But it's absurd,” Aaron said. “Henry'll go. I'll call him. I've let the chauffeur go home. But Henry'll go.”

Sleep was leaving Nancy, but dream and fear and cold took her. Her father ought to have been back long ago—and where
was
Henry? He couldn't be working all this time in this tumult. He and her father were missing—and her aunt was going out—and she?

“I'll go,” she said. “You can't go, aunt. I'll go.”

“You,” Sybil said, “can go and look for Henry. We can't leave Mr. Lee to do everything. I've no doubt your father's all right, but he may be glad of an arm. Even mine. Help Mr. Lee to shut the door.”

If her father had taken the wrong road—if hands were guiding him the wrong way—if he were being thrust——

Sybil opened the door; the wind struck at their throats and half stifled them; the snow drove at their faces. Over her shoulder Sybil said, “It is rather thick.”

“Oh, don't go,” Nancy said. “You'll be flung over the edge too. I'll go—I hated him—I'll go. What can you
do
?”

“You go and find Henry,” Sybil said, leaning forward against the wind. “I can adore the mystery of love.” The tall figure was poised for a moment against the raging turmoil beyond and around, then it took a couple of steps forward and was lost to sight. Aaron struggled to close the door, desperately alarmed; it had been no part of his intention that Sybil also should be exposed to the powers that were abroad. But he hadn't been able to stop her. Nancy, in a torment of anger at herself, flung forward to help him; that done, she turned and fled to find Henry. Where was Henry? Some terror beat in her. Henry and her father—a scream in the storm. She ran into Henry's room; he wasn't there. She rushed out again—to other rooms; she raced through the house and couldn't find him. Was he in the room of the images? If so, the old man must open it for her. But Aaron had vanished too, and the wind was howling even louder round the house. She burst in on the maids in the kitchen thrilling at the storm—“Mr. Lee; where's Mr. Lee?” Before they could answer with more than the beginning of stammered ignorance she was off again. Well, if he wasn't here she would go without him. She
must
go. She rushed into her own room, and as she pulled on her coat she gazed out of the window on the wild chance of seeing her father's returning figure, though (could she have thought) she would have remembered that her room looked out over the terrace at the side of the house. But it was then that she saw Henry.