by Dion Fortune
And the sands were running out. Jelkes couldn’t stop on indefinitely. As he truly said, ‘I don’t believe in spending too much energy on money-making, but a business is like a baby — you’ve got to attend to it sometimes, or you have trouble with it.’
But into their Eden the Serpent irrupted, for from a big Daimler descended Lady Paston; her eldest daughter, Lady Whitney; her younger daughter, the Hon. Mrs Fouldes, and an urbane, professional-looking gentleman who was not Dr Johnson. That fact alone filled Jelkes with profound uneasiness. For if it had merely been Hugh’s health they were concerned about, the person in whom they would have trusted would have been the family physician who knew him. Two signatures, and only two, are necessary on the certificate that loses a man his freedom. If he had had his way, he would not have permitted the newcomer to set eyes on Hugh, for a man may only certify on what he sees, but Silly Lizzie showed the whole party in on top of them without demur.
Hugh looked distinctly annoyed, but was polite after the first surprise. Mona was introduced, and received with freezing coldness; Jelkes was introduced, and repaid the coldness with interest. The three women sat round like small boys at a pig-killing, and the doctor began to chat to Hugh, getting him on to the subject of Ambrosius almost without preamble. Jelkes wondered how he knew what to look for. Had Mrs Macintosh been indiscreet or unfaithful? Hugh, on his absorbing topic, opened up and forgot his constraint, and Jelkes marvelled at his unsuspiciousness.
Lady Paston then suggested a family conclave on business matters. Hugh sighed, but agreed.
Jelkes rose. He couldn’t very well do anything else. He looked at the only other person present who wasn’t a member ofthe family, and said: ‘Perhaps Dr Hughes would care to join me in a stroll while family matters are being discussed?’
Dr Hughes blinked at this mode of address, for he had been introduced as plain Mr Hughes. He bowed politely, however.
‘I am afraid I shall be needed,’ he said, ‘if you will excuse me.’
His manners were perfect, and Jelkes did not love him any better on that account. Sulkily he withdrew, and walked up and down outside the window so that he could hear if voices were raised in altercation; for he knew that if having turned his mind on to Ambrosius, they baited Hugh up with a family row, they would probably get Ambrosius, which he guessed was what they wanted. Profoundly uneasy, he walked up and down, glancing in through the lighted window each time he passed.
Hugh was uneasy too; quite apart from the fact that his family always made him uneasy when they descended on him in bulk for the purposes of a family counsel; the peculiar sensitiveness that is the heritage of all negative natures told him that something out of the ordinary was afoot today. The ladies of the party, however, seemed quite indifferent to the tension in the atmosphere.
‘Won’t you sit down, Hugh?’ said Lady Paston with that acid sweetness that had taken the place of authority since he had got too large to be smacked. ‘We have been very worried about you.’
‘You had no need to be,’ muttered Hugh sulkily.
‘We are very uneasy about these people you have got in with. We have had inquiries made about them, and they are not at all satisfactory. I suppose you know that the old man is an unfrocked priest?’
‘No, he isn’t,’ said Hugh. ‘He just didn’t go on with his training.’
‘We have heard otherwise.’
Hugh sat miserably silent, knowing the uselessness of argument, and quite unable to argue, even if it had been any use.
‘I wonder whether you also know that the girl has got a very dubious reputation?’
Hugh sat up and looked her in the eye.
‘I know nothing whatever about her history,’ he said. ‘I have always found her straight to deal with, and that is good enough for me.’
‘What terms are you on with these people, Hugh? It seems to us a most extraordinary menage.’
‘Jelkes is just a pal of mine,’ he said. ‘Miss Wilton is a kind of adopted daughter of his whom he looks after as she’s got nobody else. She’s a designer and house furnisher by trade and has been doing this job for me. It’s only temporary,’ he added desperately, feeling his heart sink within him at the words.
‘I’m not so sure of that,’ said Lady Paston. ‘You may find it a lot easier to get her in than to get her out.’
Hugh mumbled a disclaimer, wishing to God that she were right.
‘What does she get for whatever it is she is doing for you?’ pursued Lady Paston.
‘She gets a salary,’ said Hugh.
‘And the old man?’
‘He gets nothing. He’s here on holiday.’
‘And what are you going to do with the girl when he goes home after his holiday? Is she going to stop on here with you?’
Hugh knew no more than she did, and continued to stare miserably into space.
‘That is a matter on which I have no comment to make,’ said Lady Paston. ‘The day is long past when one even pretends to be shocked at such things. I have no doubt it is much better for you than sitting and brooding — isn’t that so, Dr Hughes?’
‘Oh, yes, yes, much better,’ said Dr Hughes hastily. ‘Never repress, always abreact your complexes.’
‘What we are troubled about, however, and very troubled about indeed,’ continued Lady Paston, ‘is what will happen to you, Hugh, in the hands of these harpies. We have had so much of this sort of thing. You are so easily influenced. Anybody can get anything they like out of you.’
‘There’s plenty for everybody,’ said Hugh sullenly.
‘Not if you fritter it away. I have only a life interest, there is nothing I can leave your sisters. And there are Alice’s two children, and Letitia’s three, and Moira’s baby.’
‘Well, what about them? Won’t they ever be able to earn a living? Have I got to support them permanently? Isn’t anybody ever going to get ajob?’
‘You know perfectly well how difficult things have been for everybody. Surely you are prepared to make some provision for your sisters’ children?’
‘I should have thought their own fathers might have done something in that line.’
‘There is no need to be offensive, Hugh. Now this is my suggestion, my dear boy, and as it is unlikely that I shall be with you very much longer, I hope you will do it to please me, and then we can all be happy together for the few short years that remain to me. I suggest that you make your affairs into a trust, Hugh, with Robert and Cosmo as the trustees; then capital cannot be frittered away, and there will be something for everybody. If I had known you were going to turn out as you have, I would never have persuaded your father to leave everything to you. If you can’t make a mark in the world yourself, you might at least enable others to do so. What do you propose to leave your money to, Hugh, if not to the girls?’
‘Hang it all, mother, why do they expect to get more out of it if there is a trust, with their husbands as trustees? Are the trustees proposing to misapply trust funds?’
‘Hugh, you are not to speak like that, I won’t have it. It is only to prevent the capital from being frittered away. You might just as well get things settled, Hugh, and then we can all be easy in our minds. What can you possibly leave your money to, if not to your sisters’ children?’
‘Has it never occurred to you that I might marry again?’ There was a dead silence. ‘I thought as much,’ said Lady Paston, at length. ‘So she has got you to that point, has she?’
‘Will she have you, Hugh?’ came the voice of his youngest sister from his left.
‘Judging on type, I should say she wouldn’t,’ came the voice of his eldest sister from his right. ‘She looks to me a passionate, full-blooded type. Personally I shouldn’t think she would have you if you were the last man left alive.’
Hugh was too bitterly appreciative of the truths contained in these remarks to realize the volte-face they indicated.
His mother’s voice interrupted his thoughts as he sat staring out of the window into the fast deepenin
g twilight, oblivious of his companions, who were watching him like so many cats at a mouse-hole.
‘We would be only too happy for you to marry, dear,’ she said, ‘provided the girl was suitable; but you are very foolish to involve yourself with this Wilton woman, who believe me, is more than unsuitable. We have had inquiries made about her, and quite apart from being very middle-class indeed, she has led a thoroughly loose life, living with various men.’
‘I don’t suppose she’d marry me even for my money,’ said Hugh bitterly, and the company pricked up its ears as one man.
‘Have you asked her?’ asked Lady Paston tartly.
‘No,’ said Hugh.
‘Are you going to?’
‘I don’t know. I think not.’
Then all of a sudden something seemed to snap like a harp-string inside Hugh’s head; for a moment the room swam round him; then it steadied again and he gathered his wits together; but they were not the wits of Hugh, but of Ambrosius.
The two minds overlapped, like two exposures on the same film, and the resulting man was neither one thing nor the other. There came upon him a horrible nightmare feeling of confusion and bewilderment. He did not know where he was — and yet the place was familiar. He did not know who these people were, and yet their faces were not strange. He knew, however, with both sides of his mind, that he was in a very tight corner, but what his peril was he could not be sure.
He knew that a net was closing round him, that suspicion was hardening into certainty; that the power of Rome had been invoked by certain of the senior monks, and that at any moment one who could not be denied might arrive. But these people did not look like the delegation from Rome; then who were they? He was utterly perplexed, dreading a misstep that might precipitate the very danger he was striving desperately to ward off. But whatever else was unreal, he knew that the danger was real, and he felt the cold hand of fear on throat and heart.
But whereas in this crisis Hugh would have been as helpless as a bird before a snake, something that was not Hugh was also present, and as they watched him they saw his face change, and there was looking at them a man who, whoever he might be, was certainly not Hugh. Dr Hughes, too experienced to precipitate a crisis, kept quiet and took mental notes. He was familiar with the classical cases of dual personality, and had seen some minor ones in his own experience, but he had never come across anything like this before. The personality that was now present was putting the fear of God into him in a way that no pathology ought to do.
Then there came to the man standing there in the midst of them the knowledge that he was broken — that this was the end. Those who sat round him, whoever they might be, were the representatives of a power he could not resist; the inner protection that had been his ever since he had first contacted the great Goat-Foot God was withdrawn, and he waited for death unarmed.
Then he knew with an inner certainty that there was that in the soul which could rise above the bondage of the age and go free. Outwardly he had failed, but on the inner planes he had made the conditions that would assure success at the next attempt. He would go now, and he would come again. He would offer no resistance against his accusers; he would not take refuge in flight. The inner resistance withdrawn, they could take his life and be done with it. But in his heart were the promises that had been made to him in the strange visions and writings that had been his. When he came again, conditions would be right; the god would manifest as promised: the dreams would come true.
Then there arose in him an overmastering desire to go once again to his own place, his priory. He walked boldly out of the door, and none stayed him.
He turned and went towards the chapel. He would stand in the centre of the great Sign that showed forth the created universe. He would stand at the point of the concourse of forces, and there he would surrender his soul to the powers that created it.
Someone spoke to him as he crossed the dew-soaked grass to the chapel door; he did not know who it was, but the feel of the man was friendly, so it must be one of his own monks, not the strangers from Rome with their Italian subtlety and cruelty. He gave the curt blessing of peace expected of an ecclesiastic of his grade, and passed on and entered the darkness of the chapel.
As he took the great doors in his hands to close them, he stood still and looked back. The sun had set, but the afterglow lingered in the sky over the dark trees, at its verge one silver star. He stood long and looked at it. He would not see it again, he knew that. He had a strange feeling as if it had all happened before — as if he knew exactly what was coming. They would seek him here; they would take him down underground; and before dawn death would find him.
He went up through the darkness to the high altar and took his stand as he had planned. Around him were the symbols of the heavenly houses; behind him the great Regents of the Elements, winged like archangels, stood in their buttressing bays. He stood for a while, and then knelt down and laid his hands on the cubical altar of stone. Those who would come for him should find him here.
Back in the room he had left, a rather heated conference was in progress. ‘Do you think,’ said Lady Paston, ‘that you can certify on what you have seen?’
Dr Hughes rubbed his chin. ‘It’s a little difficult. I should have liked to have had something more definite. One has to be so very careful.’
‘Well, I should have thought we had seen enough today for anybody to certify on. I never saw anything that looked madder in my life.’
‘Yes, but he hasn’t done anything, dear lady.’
‘It isn’t what he does. He has never done anything in his life — and never will—’ said Lady Paston bitterly. ‘It is what other people do when they get him into their hands. Dr Johnson is prepared to certify him, if you are, and he knows him very well.’
‘Mm. Ah. One has to be very careful.’
‘Well, if you don’t certify him, there won’t be a penny left for anybody. Quite subnormal mentally, Dr Johnson tells me.’
‘Mm. Ah. Yes.’
‘Well, what do you suggest?’ Lady Paston was beginning to get a little tart. Dr Hughes had been brought for a special purpose, and knew it, but he did not seem disposed to get on with the job.
‘Of course if I had Mr Paston under my care for a time—’
‘That’s no use,’ snapped Lady Paston. ‘That won’t enable us to take his affairs in hand and look after them.’
‘I think we had better have another opinion,’ said Lady Whitney icily.
‘Since the matter is somewhat urgent,’ said Dr Hughes hastily, seeing his very considerable consultant’s fee in sudden danger, ‘it might, on the whole, be in his best interests to certify him. There do not seem to be any difficulties in the way. I will have a word with Dr Johnson, and see what he thinks. He has known him longer than I have. If he thinks it advisable, I will not say no.’
So all arrangements were made once more for walling Hugh up alive, and history was about to repeat itself, when in walked Jelkes and stood in the centre of the circle with his hands on his hips, glaring at them.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ he demanded of Dr Hughes, who jumped as if he had had a pin stuck in him.
‘My dear sir, my dear sir, I don’t know what you are talking about, but your tone is most offensive. I must really take exception to it.’
‘Have you had your ear to the keyhole?’ snapped Hugh’s youngest sister.
‘No, not the keyhole; but the window is open and you’ve all got voices like peacocks.’
Dr Hughes turned to his female companions. ‘I think, dear ladies, we might as well be going. There is nothing more we can do for the moment.’
Jelkes went hastily to the chapel as the dying sounds of the car assured him that they had really gone. He saw, kneeling in front of the altar that was not a Christian altar, the figure of a man, and that man, whoever he might be, was calling upon strange gods.
Jelkes groaned, withdrew quietly, and returned to the house.
He ca
lled to Mona, who had retreated to her bedroom under the irruption of Hugh’s womenfolk, and told her what had happened. Ambrosius had arrived in front of witnesses — hostile witnesses. It was at this moment, as they were debating the gloomy prospect, that the sounds of a car on the drive were heard once more.
‘My God!’ said Jelkes. ‘What is it now?’
He went to the door, and there confronted a short, dapper, elderly man, who got out of a coupé as neat and small as himself.
‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘Is Mr Paston at home?’
‘No, he isn’t,’ said Jelkes curtly, eyeing him with unconcealed hostility, at which the newcomer looked rather taken aback.
‘That’s a pity,’ he said. ‘I thought I could have saved him a trip into town. I have just been with Miss Pumfrey, getting her signature, and I thought perhaps I could get his, and hand over the deeds and be done with it. Perhaps you would be good enough to ask him to call at my office at his convenience. My name is Watney.’
Jelkes looked at him for a moment. ‘Is it?’ he said. ‘Come inside,’ and held the door open.
Mr Watney entered, and passed into the living-room, where he saw Mona, obviously agitated, standing before the fire. He sensed the tenseness of the atmosphere, and noted the absence of Hugh.
‘Sit down,’ said Jelkes curtly. ‘We’re in the devil of a mess.’
Mr Watney looked at him inquiringly, but with true legal caution uttered no comment.
