The Greater Trumps (19 page)

“And earth came out of them,” Nancy said breathlessly. Earth and air and fire and water—the lesser elements pouring down from below the Greater Trumps, but these also in the dance, and in each of those four cataracts she saw the figure of the Fool, leaping and dancing in joy. “So I thought it was the Hanged Man, and I screamed.” Nancy had dashed to another part of the tale, and Sybil remembered the crucifixions of her past, and by each of them, where she herself hung and screamed and writhed, she saw the golden halo and the hands of the Fool holding and easing her and heard his voice murmuring peace. “And what shall we do? what shall we do?” the young creature babbled at last, and, half risen, clutched hard at Sybil and broke into a storm of tears. But as she wept and agonized, Sybil's hands held and eased her and Sybil's voice murmured peace.

How far her vivid intelligence at the moment believed the tale was another matter. Whether the pieces of painted papyrus and the ever-moving images, the story of newly created earth and the swift storm, Henry's desire and her brother's firmness, the sight of her own eyes and the vision of the rest, Nancy's tragic despair and Joanna's wild expectation—whether all these corresponded to some revelation of ultimate things she could not then tell, nor did she much mind. The thing that immediately concerned her was Nancy's own heart. There was the division; there, justified or not, were bewilderment and fear. If it were delusion that possessed her, still it was clear that that delusion was too deep and far-reaching to be torn up by a few easy words of bright encouragement. If it were not delusion, if the strange and half mystical signs and names of the Greater Trumps had meaning and life, then no doubt in the due time of beneficence her own concern with them would be revealed. She held Nancy more closely.

“Dearest,” she said, “your father's safe. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” Nancy sobbed.

“Tell me then—there, darling, quietly; all is well, all is most well—tell me, where's Henry?”

“In his own room, I suppose,” Nancy said brokenly. “I—I ran away from him—when I knew.”

“Did he want you to—run away?” Sybil asked slowly.

“I don't know—no,” Nancy said. “But I couldn't stop. He'd been doing that awful thing—and I was terrified and ran away—and I love him. I can't live if I don't find him—and now I never shall.”

“But, darling, that's not loving
him
,” Sybil gently protested. “That's only preferring to live, isn't it?”

“I don't care what it is,” Nancy sobbed again. “If I could do anything, I would, but I can't. Don't you understand—he tried to
kill
father? There's just Death between them, and I'm in the middle of it.”

“Then,” Sybil said, “there's something that isn't death, at least. And you might be more important than Death, mightn't you? In fact, you might be life perhaps.”

“I don't know what you mean,” Nancy said, wresting herself free suddenly. “Oh, go away, Aunt Sybil. I'm going mad. Do go away.”

Sybil sat back on the bed. “Stand still and listen,” she said. “Nancy, you said it yourself, there's death and there's you. Are you going to be part of death against Henry and against your father? Or are you going to be the life between them? You'll be power one way or another, don't doubt that; you've got to be. You've got to live in them or let them die in you. Make up your mind quickly, for the time's almost gone.”

“I can't do anything,” Nancy cried out.

Sybil stood up and went over to her. “Your father came back with me,” she said. “Go and see if Henry still has any idea of going anywhere with you. Go and see what he wants, and if you can give it to him, do. I'll see to your father and you see to Henry. Do let's get on to important things.”

“
Give
it to him!” Nancy exclaimed. “But …”

“Dearest,” Sybil said, “he may not want
now
what he wanted two hours ago. People change their minds, you know. Yes, honestly. Go and live, go and love. Get farther, get farther—now, with Henry if you can. If not—listen, Nancy—if
not
, and if you loved him, then go and agonize to adore the truth of Love. Now.” She gave the girl a little gentle shake and moved away to the door, where she stopped, looked over her shoulder, said, “I should be as quick as I could, darling,” and went.

Nancy stared after her. “Go to Henry?” “Go and live?” “Go and love?” To be life or death between her lover and her father? Her hands to her cheeks, she stood, brooding over the dark riddle, seeing dimly some sort of meaning in it. Something had kept her father alive; something held her father and herself—if that something were waiting for her to move? to go to Henry? She couldn't think what she could do there, or of what, divided and united at once by a terrible truth, they could possibly even speak. Life wasn't all speaking. Love was being something, in some way. Was she now to be driven to be
that
, in the way that—who knows what?—chose? Slowly she began to move. Henry probably wouldn't want her, but … She went gradually and uncertainly towards his room.

He was sitting, as she had been lying, in darkness. When she had knocked and got no answer, she had taken the risk of annoying him and had gone in, switching on the light. She saw him sitting by his table and switched it off again. Then she went delicately across the room, knelt by him, touched him lightly, and said, “Henry!”

He did not answer. In a little while she said again, “Darling,” and as still he made no sound she said no more, only went on kneeling by his chair. After many minutes, he said, “Go. Go away.”

“I will,” she answered sincerely, “if you want me to, if I can't help. Can I help?”

“How can you help?” he said. “There's nothing for any of us but to wait for death. We shall all be with your father soon.”

“He's back, quite safe,” she said. “Aunt Sybil met him and brought him back.”

“It was a pity; the storm will have to find him out again,” he answered. “Go and be with him till that happens.”

“Must it happen?” she asked, and he laughed.

“Unless you have a trick to lure back the chalices and the staffs,” he said. “If you can, you can put them in their order and seal up the storm. But since they are rushing and dancing about the sky, I can't tell you how you'll do it. Perhaps if you talked to those that are left——”

“Mightn't we?” she asked, but he did not understand her.

“Try it,” he mocked her again. “Here are the four princes; take them and talk to them. Perhaps, since you struck all the rest loose, these will tell you where they are. Oh, to be so near, so near——!”

“I should have done it all the same if I'd known,” she said, “but I didn't know—not that I should do that. I only wanted to hold your hands still.”

“They'll be still enough soon,” he mocked, “and so will yours”; and suddenly his hand felt for and caught hers. “They're beautiful hands,” he said; “though they've ruined the world, they're beautiful hands. Do you know, Nancy, that you've done what thousands of priests and scientists have talked about? This is the end of the world. You've killed it—you and your beautiful hands. They've sent the snow and the wind over the whole world, and it'll die. The dance is ending; the Juggler's finished with one ball.”

“Love them a little then,” she said, “if you're sure. If you're quite sure.”

“Can you bring back the staffs?” he asked, “from the one to the ten? Shall I open the window for you to call or catch them? Maybe one's on the window-sill now.”

“Can't the images help?” she asked. “I don't know, but you should. Isn't there any way in which they could command the Tarots?”

She felt him stiffen in the darkness. “Who told you that?” he said. “I can't tell. I don't know anything of what can be done from within. If …”

“If——” she answered, and paused. “I will do anything with you that I can. What would you like me to do?”

His figure turned and leaned towards her. “You?” he said. “But you hated what I was doing, you wanted to save your father—of course you did; I'm not blaming you—but how can you help me now?”

She broke unexpectedly into a laugh, the sound of which surprised some solemn part of her nature but seemed to bring freedom at once into herself and into the dark room, so that she felt relieved of her lingering fear. “Oh, Henry darling,” she said, “must those dancers of yours concentrate on my father? Haven't they any way of doing things without bothering the poor dear? Don't you think they might manage to save the world and yet leave him alone? Henry sweetest, how serious you are about it all!”

“You can laugh,” he said uncertainly, not as a question nor yet in anger, but as if he were feeling after some strange fact. “You can laugh … but I tell you it
is
the end of the world.”

She scrambled to her feet. “I begin to agree with Aunt Sybil,” she said; “it isn't quite decent to break into the poor thing's secrets when it's gone to such trouble to keep them quiet. But since you and I together drove things wrong, shall you and I together see—only see, darling—if we can put them straight?”

“You're afraid of the Tarots,” he said; “you always have been.”

“Never again,” she said, “or yes—perhaps again. I'll be afraid again; I'll fall again; I'll hate and be angry again. But just for a moment there's something that runs and laughs and all your Tarots are flying along with it, and why shouldn't it catch them for us if we ask it very nicely? Only we won't hurt anyone, will we, if we can help it? Nothing's important enough for that.”

He got to his feet heavily. “There's no way anywhere without hurting someone,” he said.

“Darling, how gloomy you are,” she said. “Is this what comes of making blizzards and trying to kill your own Nancy's own father? Perhaps there's a way everywhere without hurting anyone—unless,” she added, with a touch of sadness clouding the full gaiety that had seized her, “unless they insist on being hurt. But let's suppose they won't, and let's pretend they don't, and let's be glad that my father's safe, and let's see if the golden dancers can call back the staffs and the cups. I think perhaps we owe the world that.” She kissed him lightly. “It was sweet of you to pick out a nice soothing way of doing what you wanted,” she said. “Some magicians would have put him in a barn and set it on fire, or forced him into a river and let him drown. You've a nice nature, Henry, only a little perverted here and there. All great geniuses are like it, they say. I think you must be a genius, darling; you take your job so solemnly. Like Milton and Michelangelo and Moses. Do you know, I don't believe there's a joke in all the Five Books of Moses. I can't see very well, Henry, but I think you're frowning. And I'm talking. And talking and frowning won't do anything, will they? Oh, hark at it! Come along, my genius, or we shan't save the world before your own pet blizzard has spoilt it.”

“There's no other way,” he said, “but I warn you that you don't know what may happen. Perhaps even this isn't a way.”

“Well, perhaps it isn't,” she answered. “But they are dancing, aren't they, dearest? And perhaps, if we mean to love——”

“Do you love me still then?” he asked.

“I never loved you more and yet I never loved you less,” she told him. “Oh, don't let's stop to ask riddles. And, anyhow, I wasn't thinking of you, so there! Come, darling, or your aunt will be doing something curious. Yours is a remarkable family, Henry; you get all het up over your hobbies. And so you shall if you like, bless you! only not just now.”

“Joanna——” he exclaimed, unconsciously following her as she drew him towards the door. “Is she here?”

“She is,” Nancy said, “but we won't worry about her now. Take me to them, darling, for the dance is in my ears and the light's in my eyes, and this is why I was born, and there was glory in the beginning and is now and ever shall be, and let's run, let's run, for the world's going quickly and we must be in front of it tonight.”

11

JOANNA

I
N THE HALL
below, the kitten stretched itself and yawned. Sybil had put it down when she was once well inside and asked one of the maids to look after it. But there had been no time yet; Mr. Coningsby, Ralph, Sybil herself, had to be seen to. And now there were still Joanna and Stephen. Aaron Lee, looking at his sister with something very much like watchful hatred, said, “Now you're here, Joanna, you'd better get into bed. And so,” he added, jerking his head at Stephen, “had he.”

“Yes, Aaron,” said Joanna docilely, with a little giggle. “It's a bad night to be out in, isn't it?”

Aaron glanced round him; the three, except for the kitten, were alone in the hall.

“Why have you come?” he asked.

“To see you, dear,” the old woman said. “So's Stephen. He's very fond of you, Stephen is. Aren't you, Stephen?”

“Yes, grandmother,” Stephen answered obediently.

“He's very big, isn't he?” Joanna ran on. “Much bigger than you, dear Aaron.” She hopped off her chair and began to prowl round the hall, sniffing. Presently she came to the kitten and stood staring at it. The kitten rubbed itself against her leg, felt the wet, and sprang aside. The old woman, bending, scratched its head, and began muttering to it in words which the others couldn't hear.

The kitten jumped up, fell down, twisted over itself, dashed off, and dashed back. Joanna gesticulated at it, and it crouched watching her.

“You'd better get to bed, Joanna,” Aaron exclaimed to her. “Get those things off and get between the blankets. You'll be ill if you don't.”