The Greater Trumps Page 6

  “You’re making fun of me, my dear,” she half protested.

  “Never less,” he said seriously. “Look at him.”

  She looked and, whether the hours she had given to brooding over the Tarots during the last few days, partly to certify her courage to herself, had imposed their forms on her memory, or whether something in the policeman’s shape and cloak under the lights of the dark street suggested it, or whether indeed something common to Emperor and Khalif, cadi and magistrate, praetor and alcalde, lictor and constable, shone before her in those lights—whichever was true, it was certainly true that for a moment she saw in that heavy official barring their way the Emperor of the Trumps, helmed, in a white cloak, stretching out one sceptered arm, as if Charlemagne, or one like him, stretched out his controlling sword over the tribes of Europe pouring from the forests and bade them pause or march as he would. The great roads ran below him, to Rome, to Paris, to Aix, to Byzantium, and the nations established themselves in cities upon them. The noise of all the pausing street came to her as the roar of many people; the white cloak held them by a gesture; order and law were there. It moved, it fell aside, the torrent of obedient movement rolled on, and they with it. They flashed past the helmed face, and she found that she had dropped her eyes lest she should see it.

  With the avoidance of that face she seemed to have plunged herself deeper into the dream, as if by avoiding it she had assented to it and had acknowledged its being and power. They were not stopped again, but yet, as the car ran smoothly on, she seemed to see that white-clothed arm again and again, now in the darkness beyond the headlights, now pointing forward just outside the window. The streets were busy with Christmas shoppers, but the car shut them out and her in, and though they were there it was running steadily away from them—as if down a sloping road while they were all on the high level banks on either hand. They never actually did go down that road, but—as in nightmare—they were always on the very point of plunging. Nancy held desperately to her recollection of a car and a policeman and Henry; she was really beginning to pull herself together when suddenly—somewhere on the outskirts of London—the car slowed for a moment outside the gate of a large building. Over the gate was a light, and under the light was a nurse holding a big key. A gate—a light—a nurse; yet one lobe of her brain showed her again a semblance of one of the Tarot cards—ceremonial robes; imperial head-dress, cloak falling like folded wings, proud, austere face lifted towards where in the arch of the gate, so that the light just caught it, was a heraldic carving of some flying creature. Someone, somewhere—perhaps her father behind her—grunted a little, and the grunt seemed to her as if it were wrung from a being in profound pain. And then the car quickened again, and they were flying into the darkness, and away in the roads behind them was that sovereign figure and the sound of a suffering world coming up to it out of the night.

  She would have liked to speak to Henry, but she couldn’t. She and he were in the same car, side by side, only she wasn’t at all clear that there was anyone else in the car at all, or that it was a car, that it was anything but herself mysteriously defined to her own knowledge. She was in a trance; the car, though moving, was still—poised, rushing and motionless at once, at the entrance to a huge, deep, and dark defile, from which on either side the mighty figures rose, themselves at once swift and still, and fled past her and yet were forever there. Indefinable, they defined; they made and held steady the path that was stretched for her. It was a cloud; it was the moon; it was vapor and illusion—or it was the white cloak of the Emperor and the clear cold face of the Empress, as she had seen them when she pored over the Greater Trumps. But the darkness of the low defile awaited her; deeper and deeper, motionless and rushing on, they—she and her companions—were sinking into it. She dared not speak to Henry; he was there, but he was guiding the car. If he were distracted for a moment they might all crash into utter ruin. She let herself take one side-glance at him, a supplication in her heart but never a finger stirring; and, even as she saw his face, she remembered to have seen it elsewhere. There was a painting—somewhere—of a chariot, driven by some semi-Greek figure scourging on two sphinxes who drew that car, and the face in the painting was Henry’s. Henry’s, and yet there was a difference … there was some other likeness; was it (most fantastic of all dreams!) her aunt? The faces, the figures, all rushed together suddenly; something that was neither nurse nor policeman, Empress nor Emperor, Sybil nor Henry, sphinx nor charioteer, grew out of and possessed them all. It was this to which they were rushing, some form that was immediately to be revealed, some face that would grow out of …

  The car slowed, wheeled as if sweeping round a curve in the road, and suddenly—despite herself—she screamed. For there, with light full on it, thrown up in all its terrible detail, gaunt, bare, and cold, was a man, or the image of a man, hanging by his hands, his body thrust out from the pole that held it, his head dropping to one side, and on it a dreadful tangled head-dress. It hung there right before her, and she only knew that it was the wrong way up—the head should have been below; it was always so in the cards, the Hanged Man upside down. But here the Hanged Man was, livid and outstretched before her, his head decked but above. She screamed and woke. At least, everyone supposed she woke. Henry was solicitous and her father was irritable, and, after all, it was only a village war memorial with a rather badly done crucifix.

  They took her away from it and Henry comforted her, and she settled down again, apologizing with the most utter shame. A bad dream, of course.

  “Darling, of course it was,” Henry murmured.

  “Of course it was,” her father snapped.

  “Of course it is,” Sybil Coningsby said. “One wakes, Nancy.”

  So then they went on again and, except for one other unusual incident—but that was certainly not a dream—reached their destination undisturbed. The incident indeed occurred not far away.

  The car had slid through a village—the nearest village to his grandfather’s, Henry told them, and at that a couple of miles away. It had issued thence past the church and rectory on to an upland road and climbed steadily across the Downs. Mr. Coningsby looked out at the winter darkness and shuddered, thinking of London, Eastbourne, and the next five or six days. Henry had just looked over to say “Not far now,” much as one of Dante’s demons might have spoken to a soul he was conducting to its particular circle in Hell. He looked back, swore, and jammed on the brakes. The car protested, slid, and came to a standstill. Six feet in front of it an old woman squatted on the ground, right in the middle of the road. Two feet behind her stood a tall, rough-looking young fellow, as if waiting.

  “Good God!” said Mr. Coningsby.

  The old woman was apparently speaking, but, shut in the car, they could not hear. Henry opened the door and jumped out. Mr. Coningsby opened his window; Nancy and Sybil instinctively did the same.

  “Welcome home, Henry!” the old creature said, in a high shrill voice. Henry took a couple of steps forward—the unknown man moved level with the squatting hag. In the lights of the car she was seen to be very old, shriveled, and brown. She was wrapped head and body in a stained shawl that had once been red; one foot, which was thrust out from under a ragged skirt, wore a man’s heavy boot. She pushed a hand out from beneath the shawl and waggled the skinny fingers at Henry as if in grotesque greeting.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked fiercely.

  “He, he!” the grotesque being tittered at him. “I’ve come to see Aaron, Henry. I’m very tired. Won’t you take me up in your grand coach? Me and Stephen. Good little Stephen—he takes care of his grandmother—his gran——” She went off into an indescribable fit of chuckling and choking. Henry looked at Stephen. “Get her out of the way,” he said.

  The man looked stupidly back. “She does what she likes,” he said, and turned his eyes again on the old woman.

  “Two nice ladies and one nice gentleman,” she babbled. “Kind lady”—she peered at Nancy, who was leaning from the
window—“kind lady, have your fortune told? He”—she jerked a thumb at Henry—“thinks he knows fortunes, but is he a goddess? Good luck to you, kind lady, to meet a goddess on the roads. Great good luck for you and your children to have a goddess tell you your doom.”

  Henry said something in a low voice that the others couldn’t hear. Sybil opened her door and got out of the car. Mr. Coningsby said sharply, “Sybil, come back,” but she only threw him a smile and remained standing in the road. Most reluctantly he also got out. The hag put her head on one side and looked at them.

  “Is the young miss afraid of the goddess?” she said. “Or will she help me look? Blessings on whoever finds him.”

  “Out of my way, Joanna,” Henry said, with anger in his voice.

  “Henry dear,” Sybil said, “is she going our way?”

  He made a fierce gesture, but did not reply.

  “Do you know her, Henry?” Mr. Coningsby said sharply.

  “Father!” Nancy breathed, and touched his arm. “Don’t be cross with us; Henry couldn’t help it.”

  “Us,” Mr. Coningsby thought. “You … us … Oh!”

  “Do you want to come to the house?” Henry asked.

  “What house?” she shrilled. “Fields, rivers, sea—that’s his house. Cover for you, beds for you, warmth for you, but my little one’s cold!”

  Henry looked over at his friends and made a sign to them that all would be well in a moment. The hag thrust her head on one side and looked up at him.

  “If you know——” she cried, more wildly than before.

  “Curses on you, Henry Lee, if you know and don’t tell me. I’m an old fool, aren’t I, and you’re a clever man and a lawyer, but you’ve gone to live in houses and forgotten the great ones who live in the gipsy tents. And if you find so much as a shred of skin and don’t tell me, so much as the place where a drop of blood has soaked into the ground and don’t tell me, you shall be destroyed with the enemy when I and my son take joy in each other again. I’ll curse you with my tongue and hands, I’ll lay the spell on you, I’ll——”

  “Be quiet,” he said harshly. “Who are you to talk, Joanna, the old gipsy-woman?”

  “Gipsy I was,” she said, “and I’m something more now. Ha, little frightened ones! Ha, Henry Lee the accursed! Stephen! Stephen!”

  “Aye, grandmother,” the man said.

  “Say the answers, say the answers. Who am I?”

  The man answered in a voice entirely devoid of meaning, “A goddess are you.”

  “What’s the name of the goddess?” she shrilled.

  “Isis the Wanderer,” he said mechanically.

  “What does Isis the Wanderer seek?”

  “The flesh and the bones and the heart of the dead,” he answered, and licked his lips.

  “Where are the flesh and the bones and the heart of the dead?” she shrilled again.

  “Here, there, everywhere,” he said.

  “Good Stephen, good Stephen,” she muttered, appeased, and then suddenly scrambled to her feet. Henry jumped forward to interpose himself between her and the other women and found himself in turn blocked by Stephen. They were on the point of closing with each other when Sybil’s voice checked them.

  “And where does the Divine Isis search?” she asked in a perfectly clear voice of urgent inquiry.

  The old woman turned her eyes from Nancy to Sybil, and a look of delight came into her face. She took a step or two towards the other.

  “Who are you,” she said, “to speak as if you knew a goddess? Where have we seen each other?”

  Sybil also moved a step forward. “Perhaps in the rice-fields,” she said, “or in the towns. I don’t remember. Have you found anything that you look for?”

  The old creature came nearer yet and put out her hand as if to feel for Sybil’s. In turn Miss Coningsby stretched out her own, and with those curiously linked hands they stood. Behind, on the one side, the two young men waited in an alert and mutually hostile watch; on the other, Mr. Coningsby, in a fever of angry hate, stood by Nancy at the car door. The Downs and the darkness stretched about them all.

  “Aren’t you a stranger and a Christian rat?” the hag said. “How do you know the goddess when you meet her in Egypt?”

  “Out of Egypt have I called my son,” Sybil said. “Could you search for the god and not belong to his house?”

  “Worship me then, worship me!” the insane thing cried out. “Worship the Divine Isis!”

  “Ah, but I’ve sworn only to worship the god,” Sybil answered gently. “Let Isis forgive me, and let us look for the unity together.”

  “They’ve parted him and torn him asunder,” the creature wailed. “He was so pretty, so pretty, when he played with me once.”

  “He will be so lovely when he is found,” Sybil comforted her. “We’ll certainly find him. Won’t you come with me and look?”

  The other threw up her head and sniffed the air. “It’s coming,” she said. “I’ve smelt it for days and days. They’re bringing him together; the winds and waters are bringing him. Go your way, stranger, and call me if you find him. I must be alone. Alone I am and alone I go. I’m the goddess.” She peered at Sybil. “But I will bless you,” she said. “Kneel down and I’ll bless you.”

  Mr. Coningsby made a sound more like a real Warden in Lunacy than ever in his life before as the tall furred figure of his sister obeyed. But Nancy’s hand lay urgently on his shoulder, even had he meant to interfere. Sybil knelt in the road, and the woman threw up her arms in the air over her, breaking into a torrent of incomprehensible, outlandish speech, which at the end changed again to English. “This is the blessing of Isis; go in peace. Stephen! Stephen!” He was by her in a moment. “We’ll go, Stephen—not with them, not tonight. Not tonight. I shall smell him, I shall know him, my baby, my Osiris. He was killed and he is coming. Horus, Horus, the coming of God!” She caught the young man by the arm, and hastily they turned and fled into the darkness. Sybil, unaided, rose to her feet. There was a silence, then she said charmingly, “Henry, don’t you think we might go on now? It doesn’t look as if we could be of any use.”

  He came to hold the door for her. “You’ve certainly done it,” he said. “How did you know what to say to her?”

  “I thought she talked very sensibly,” Sybil said, getting into the car. “In her own way, of course. And I wish she’d come with us—that is, if … would it be very rude to say I gathered she had something to do with your family?”

  “She’s my grandfather’s sister,” he answered. “She’s mad, of course; she—but I’ll tell you some other time. Stephen was a brat she picked up somewhere; he’s nothing to do with us, but she’s taught him to call her ‘grandmother,’ because of a child that should have been.”

  “Conversation of two aunts,” said Sybil, settling herself. “I’ve known many wilder minds.”

  “What were you at, Sybil?” Mr. Coningsby at last burst out. “Of all the scandalous exhibitions! Really, Henry, I think we’d better go back to London. That my sister should be subjected to this kind of thing! Why didn’t you interfere!”

  “My dear, it would mean an awful bother—going back to London,” Sybil said. “Everything’s settled up there. I’m a little cold, Henry, so do you think we could go fairly fast? We can talk about it all when we get in.”

  “Kneeling in the road!” Mr. Coningsby went on. “Oh, very well—if you will go. Perhaps we shall smell things too. Is your grandfather anything like his sister, Henry?

  If so, we shall have a most agreeable Christmas. He might like me to kneel to him at intervals, just to make things really comfortable.”

  Sybil laid a hand on his knee. “Leave it to me to complain,” she said. “All right, Henry; we all know you hated it much more than the rest of us.” Nancy’s hand came over the seat and felt for hers; she took it. “Child, you’re frozen,” she said. “Let’s all get indoors. Even a Christian rat—all right, Henry—likes a little bacon-rind by the fire. Lothair dear, I was
going to ask you when we stopped—what star exactly is that one over there?”

  “Star!” said Mr. Coningsby, and choked. He was still choking over his troubles when they stopped before the house, hardly visible in the darkness. He was, however, a trifle soothed by the servant who was at the door and efficiently extricated them, and by the courtesies which the elder Mr. Lee, who was waiting just within the hall, immediately offered them. He found it impossible, within the first two minutes, not to allude to the unfortunate encounter; “the sooner,” he said to himself, “this—really rather pleasant—old gentleman understands what his sister’s doing on the roads, the better.”

  The response was all he could have wished. Aaron, tutored at intervals during the last month by his grandson in Mr. Coningsby’s character and habits, was highly shocked and distressed at his guests’ inconvenience. Excuses he proffered; explanations he reasonably deferred. They were cold; they were tired; they were, possibly, hungry. Their rooms were ready, and in half an hour, say, supper.… “We won’t call it dinner,” Aaron chatted on to Mr. Coningsby while accompanying him upstairs; Sybil and Nancy had been given into the care of maids. “We won’t call it dinner tonight. You’ll forgive our deficiencies here. In your own London circle you’ll be used to much more adequate surroundings.”

  “It’s a very fine house,” said Mr. Coningsby, stopping on what was certainly a very fine staircase.

  “Seventeen-seventeen,” Aaron told him. “It was built by a Jacobite peer who only just escaped attainder after the Fifteen and was compelled to leave London. It’s a curious story; I’ll tell it to you some time. He was a student and a poet, besides being a Jacobite, and he lived here for the rest of his life in solitude.”

  “A romantic story,” Mr. Coningsby said, feeling some sympathy with the Jacobite peer.

  “Here’s the room I’ve ventured to give you,” Aaron said. “You can’t see much from the windows tonight, but on a clear day you can sometimes just catch a glimpse of the sea. I hope you’ve everything. In half an hour, then, shall we say?”