The Acceptance World

by Anthony Powell

  Stripling, for his part, did not talk much; when he spoke chiefly addressing himself to Jean. He had shown—perhaps not surprisingly—no interest whatever in Quiggin’s admirably lucid exposition of the New School’s poetic diction, in which Communist convictions were expressed in unexpected metre and rhyme. On the other hand Stripling did sometimes rouse himself in an attempt to break into the stream of astrological chatter that bubbled between Mrs. Erdleigh and Mona. His mind seemed to wander perpetually through the mystic territories of clairvoyance, a world of the spirit no doubt incarnate to him in Mrs. Erdleigh herself. Although this appearance of permanent preoccupation, coupled with his peculiar, jerky manner, conveyed the impression that he might not be quite sane, Templer seemed to attach more importance to Stripling’s City gossip than his father had ever done. Mr. Templer, I remembered, had been very curt with his son-in-law when financial matters were in question.

  All the while I felt horribly bored with the whole lot of them, longing to be alone once more with Jean, and yet also in some odd manner almost dreading the moment when that time should come; one of those mixed sensations so characteristic of intense emotional excitement. There is always an element of unreality, perhaps even of slight absurdity, about someone you love. It seemed to me that she was sitting in an awkward, almost melodramatic manner, half-turned towards Quiggin, while she crumbled her bread with fingers long and subtly shaped. I seemed to be looking at a picture of her, yet felt that I could easily lose control of my senses, and take her, then and there, in my arms.

  ‘But in these days you can’t believe in such things as astrology,’ said Quiggin. ‘Why, even apart from other considerations, the very astronomical discoveries made since the time of the ancients have negatived what was once thought about the stars.’

  We had returned to the drawing-room. Already it was obvious that the afternoon must be spent indoors. The leaden, sunless sky, from which sleet was now falling with a clatter on to the frozen snow of the lawn, created in the house an atmosphere at once gloomy and sinister: a climate in itself hinting of necromancy. The electric light had to be turned on, just as if we were sitting in the lounge of the Ufford. The heavy claret drunk at luncheon prompted a desire to lie at full length on the sofa, or at least to sit well back and stretch out the legs and yawn. For a second—soft and exciting and withdrawn immediately—I felt Jean’s hand next to mine on the cushion. Quiggin lurked in the corners of the room, pretending to continue his examination of the pictures, his silence scarcely concealing the restlessness that had overtaken him. From time to time he shot out a remark, more or less barbed. He must by then have tumbled to the implications of his own status at the party. Nettled at Mrs. Erdleigh’s capture of Mona, he was probably planning how best to express his irritation openly.

  ‘Oh, but I do,’ said Mona, drawling out the words. ‘I think those occult things are almost always right. They are in my case, I know.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Quiggin, brushing aside this affirmation with a tolerant grin, as the mere fancy of a pretty girl, and at the same time addressing himself more directly to Stripling, at whom his first attack had certainly been aimed, ‘but you can’t believe all that—a hard-headed business man like yourself?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Stripling, ignoring, in fact probably not noticing, the sneering, disagreeable tone of Quiggin’s voice. ‘It’s just the fact that I am occupied all day long with material things that makes me realise they are not the whole of life.’

  However, his eyes began to start from his head, so that he was perhaps becoming aware that Quiggin was deliberately teasing him. No doubt he was used to encountering a certain amount of dissent from his views, though opposition was probably not voiced as usual in so direct and dialectical a manner as this. Quiggin continued to smile derisively.

  ‘You certainly find in me no champion of the City’s methods,’ he said. ‘But at least what you call “material things” represent reality.’

  ‘Hardly at all.’

  ‘Oh, come.’

  ‘Money is a delusion.’

  ‘Not if you haven’t got any.’

  ‘That is just when you realise most money’s unreality.’

  ‘Why not get rid of yours, then?’

  ‘I might any day.’

  ‘Let me know when you decide to.’

  ‘You must understand the thread that runs through life,’ said Stripling, now speaking rather wildly, and looking stranger than ever. ‘It does not matter that there may be impurities and errors in one man’s method of seeking the Way. What matters is that he is seeking it—and knows there is a Way to be found.’

  ‘Commencement—Opposition—Equilibrium,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh in her softest voice, as if to offer Stripling some well-earned moral support. ‘You can’t get away from it— Thesis—Antithesis—Synthesis.’

  ‘That’s just what I mean,’ said Stripling, as if her words brought him instant relief. ‘Brahma—Vishnu—Siva.’

  ‘It all sounded quite Hegelian until you brought in the Indian gods,’ said Quiggin angrily.

  He would no doubt have continued to argue had not a new element been introduced at this moment by Jean: an object that became immediately the focus of attention.

  While this discussion had been in progress she had slipped from the room. I had been wondering how I could myself quietly escape from the others and look for her, when she returned carrying in her hand what first appeared to be a small wooden palette for oil paints. Two castors, or wheels, were attached to this heart-shaped board, the far end of which was transfixed with a lead pencil. I recalled the occasion when Sunny Farebrother had ruined so many of Stripling’s starched collars in a patent device in which he had a business interest, and I wondered whether this was something of a similar kind. However, Mrs. Erdleigh immediately recognised the significance of the toy and began to laugh a little reprovingly.

  ‘Planchette?’ she said. ‘You know, I really rather disapprove. I do not think Good Influences make themselves known through Planchette as a rule. And the things it writes cause such a lot of bad feeling sometimes.’

  ‘It really belongs to Baby,’ said Jean. ‘She heard of it somewhere and made Sir Magnus Donners get her one. She brought it round to us once when she was feeling depressed about some young man of hers. We couldn’t make it work. She forgot to take it away and I have been carrying it round—meaning to give it back to her—ever since.’

  Stripling’s eyes lit up and began once more to dilate.

  ‘Shall we do it?’ he asked, in a voice that shook slightly. ‘Do let’s.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, speaking kindly, as if to a child who has proposed a game inevitably associated with the breakage of china, ‘I know trouble will come of it if we do.’

  ‘But for once,’ begged Stripling. ‘Don’t you think for once, Myra? It’s such a rotten afternoon.’

  ‘Then don’t complain afterwards that I did not warn you.’

  Although I had often heard of Planchette, I had never, as it happened, seen the board in operation; and I felt some curiosity myself to discover whether its writings would indeed set down some of the surprising disclosures occasionally described by persons in the habit of playing with it. The very name was new to both the Templers. Stripling explained that the machine was placed above a piece of blank paper, upon which the pencil wrote words, when two or three persons lightly rested their fingers upon the wooden surface: castors and pencil point moving without deliberate agency. Stripling was obviously delighted to be allowed for once to indulge in this forbidden practice, in spite of Mrs. Erdleigh’s tempered disparagement. Whether her disapproval was really deep-seated, or due merely to a conviction that the game was unwise in that particular company, could only be guessed.

  Quiggin was plainly annoyed; even rather insulted, at this step taken towards an actual physical attempt to invoke occult forces.

  ‘I thought such things had been forgotten since the court of Napoleon III,’ he said. ‘You don�
��t really believe it will write anything, do you?’

  ‘You may be surprised by the knowledge it displays of your own life, old chap,’ said Stripling, with an effort to recover the breeziness of earlier days.

  ‘Obviously—when someone is rigging it.’

  ‘It’s hardly possible to rig it, old chap. You try and write something, just using the board by yourself. You’ll find it damned difficult.’

  Quiggin gave an annoyed laugh. Some sheets of foolscap, blue and ruled with red lines for keeping accounts, were found in a drawer. One of these large sheets of paper was set out upon a table. The experiment began with Mona, Stripling and Mrs. Erdleigh as executants, the last of whom, having once registered her protest, showed no ungraciousness in her manner of joining the proceedings, if they were fated to take place. Templer obviously felt complete scepticism regarding the whole matter, which he could not be induced to take seriously even to the extent of agreeing to participate. Quiggin, too, refused to join in, though he showed an almost feverish interest in what was going forward.

  Naturally, Quiggin was delighted when, after a trial of several minutes, no results whatever were achieved. Then the rest of us, in various combinations of persons, attempted to work the board. All these efforts were unsuccessful. Sometimes the pencil shot violently across the surface of the paper, covering sheet after sheet, as a new surface was substituted, with dashes and scribbles. More often, it would not move at all.

  ‘You none of you seem to be getting very far,’ said Templer.

  ‘It may be waste of time,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh. ‘Planchette can be very capricious. Perhaps there is an unsympathetic presence in the room.’

  ‘I should not be at all surprised,’ said Quiggin, speaking with elaborately satirical emphasis.

  He stood with his heels on the fender, his hands in his pockets—rather in the position Le Bas used to adopt when giving a lecture on wiping your boots before coming into the house—very well pleased with the course things were taking.

  ‘I think you are horrid,’ said Mona.

  She made a face at him; in itself a sign of a certain renewed interest.

  ‘I don’t think you ought to believe in such things,’ said Quiggin, nasally.

  ‘But I do:

  She smiled encouragingly. She had probably begun to feel that occult phenomena, at least by its absence, was proving itself a bore; and that perhaps she might find more fun in returning to her original project of exploring Quiggin’s own possibilities. However, this exchange between them was immediately followed by sudden development among the group resting their fingers on the board. Jean and Mona had been trying their luck with Stripling as third partner. Jean now rose from the table, and, dropping one of those glances at once affectionate and enquiring that raised such a storm within me, she said: ‘You have a go.’

  I took the chair and placed my fingers lightly where hers had been. Previously, when I had formed a trio with Mrs. Erdleigh and Mona—who had insisted on being party to every session—nothing of note had happened. Now, almost at once, Planchette began to move in a slow, regular motion.

  At first, from the ‘feel’ of the movement, I thought Stripling must be manipulating the board deliberately. A glassy look had come into his eye and his loose, rather brutal mouth sagged open. Then the regular, up-and-down rhythm came abruptly to an end. The pencil, as if impatient of all of us, shot off the paper on to the polished wood of the table. A sentence had been written. It was inverted from where Stripling was sitting. In fact the only person who could reasonably be accused of having written the words was myself. The script was long and sloping, Victorian in character. Mrs. Erdleigh took a step forward and read it aloud:

  ‘Karl is not pleased.’

  There was great excitement at this. Everyone crowded round our chairs.

  ‘You must ask who “Karl” is,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, smiling.

  She was the only one who remained quite unmoved by this sudden manifestation. Such things no longer surprised her. Quiggin, on the other hand, moved quickly round to my side of the table. He seemed divided between a wish to accuse me of having written these words as a hoax, and at the same time an unwillingness to make the admission, obviously necessary in the circumstances, that any such deception must have required quite exceptional manipulative agility. In the end he said nothing, but stood there frowning hard at me.

  ‘Is it Karl speaking?’ asked Stripling, in a respectful, indeed reverential voice.

  We replaced our hands on the board.

  ‘Who else,’ wrote Planchette.

  ‘Shall we continue?’

  ‘Antwortet er immer.’

  ‘Is that German?’ said Stripling.

  ‘What does it mean, Pete?’ Mona called out shrilly.

  Templer looked a little surprised at this.

  ‘Isn’t it: “He always answers”?’ he said. ‘My German is strictly commercial—not intended for communication with the Next World.’

  ‘Have you a message? Please write in English if you do not mind.’

  Stripling’s voice again trembled a little when he said this.

  ‘Nothing to the Left.’

  This was decidedly enigmatic.

  ‘Does he mean we should move the coffee tray?’ Mona almost shouted, now thoroughly excited. ‘He doesn’t say whose left. Perhaps we should clear the whole table.’

  Quiggin took a step nearer.

  ‘Which of you is faking this?’ he said roughly. ‘I believe it is you, Nick.’

  He was grinning hard, but I could see that he was extremely irritated. I pointed out that I could not claim to write neat Victorian calligraphy sideways, and also upside-down, at considerable speed: especially when unable to see the paper written upon.

  ‘You must know “Nothing to the Left” is a quotation,’ Quiggin insisted.

  ‘Who said it?’

  ‘You got a degree in history, didn’t you?’

  ‘I must have missed out that bit.’

  ‘Robespierre, of course,’ said Quiggin, with great contempt. ‘He was speaking politically. Does no one in this country take politics seriously?’

  I could not understand why he had become quite so angry.

  ‘Let’s get on with it,’ said Templer, now at last beginning to show some interest. ‘Perhaps he’ll make himself clearer if pressed.’

  ‘This is too exciting,’ said Mona.

  She clasped her hands together. We tried again.

  ‘Wives in common.’

  This was an uncomfortable remark. It was impossible to guess what the instrument might write next. However, everyone was far too engrossed to notice whether the comment had brought embarrassment to any individual present.

  ‘Look here——‘ began Quiggin.

  Before he could complete the sentence, the board began once more to race beneath our fingers.

  ‘Force is the midwife.’

  ‘I hope he isn’t going to get too obstetric,’ said Templer.

  Quiggin turned once more towards me. He was definitely in a rage.

  ‘You must know where these phrases come from,’ he said. ‘You can’t be as ignorant as that.’

  ‘Search me.’

  ‘You are trying to be funny.’

  ‘Never less.’

  ‘Marx, of course, Marx,’ said Quiggin testily, but perhaps wavering in his belief that I was responsible for faking the writing. ‘Das Kapital… The Communist Manifesto.’

  ‘So it’s Karl Marx, is it?’ asked Mona.

  The name was evidently vaguely familiar to her, no doubt from her earlier days when she had known Gypsy Jones; had perhaps even taken part in such activities as selling War Never Pays!

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Quiggin, by implication including Mona in this reproof, probably more violently than he intended. ‘It was quite obvious that one of you was rigging the thing. I admit I can’t at present tell which of you it was. I suspect it was Nick, as he is the only one who knows I am a practising Marxist—and he
persuaded me to come here.’

  ‘I didn’t know anything of the sort—and I’ve already told you I can’t write upside-down.’

  ‘Steady on,’ said Templer. ‘You can’t accuse a fellow guest of cheating at Planchette. Duels have been fought for less. This will turn into another Tranby Croft case unless we moderate our tone.’

  Quiggin made a despairing gesture at such frivolity of manner.

  ‘I can’t believe no one present knows the quotation, “Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one,”’ he said. ‘You will be telling me next you never heard the words, “The Workers have no country.”’

  ‘I believe Karl Marx has been “through” before,’ said Stripling, slowly and with great solemnity. ‘Wasn’t he a revolutionary writer?’

  ‘He was,’ said Quiggin, with heavy irony. ‘He was a revolutionary writer.’

  ‘Do let’s try again,’ said Mona.

  This time the writing changed to a small, niggling hand, rather like that of Uncle Giles.

  ‘He is sick.’

  ‘Who is sick?’

  ‘You know well.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In his room.’

  ‘Where is his room?’

  ‘The House of Books.’

  The writing was getting smaller and smaller. I felt as if I were taking part in one of those scenes from Alice in Wonderland in which the characters change their size.

  ‘What can it mean now?’ asked Mona.

  ‘You have a duty.’

  Quiggin’s temper seemed to have moved from annoyance, mixed with contempt, to a kind of general uneasiness.

  ‘I suppose it isn’t talking about St. John Clarke,’ I suggested.

  Quiggin’s reaction to this remark was unexpectedly violent. His sallow skin went white, and, instead of speaking with his usual asperity, he said in a quiet, worried voice: ‘I was beginning to wonder just the same thing. I don’t know that I really ought to have left him. Look here, can I ring up the flat—just to make sure that everything is all right?’