The Greater Trumps (7 page)

There were springs, deep springs, cisterns and wells and rivers of water down in the earth, water floating in rocky channels or oozing through the earth itself; the earth covering, hampering, stifling them, they bursting upwards through it. No, not water—
earth
. Her feet clung to it, were feeling it, were strangely drawing it up into themselves, and more and more and higher and higher that sensation of unity with the stuff of her own foundation crept. There were rocks, but she was not a rock—not yet; something living, like an impatient rush of water, was bubbling up within her, but she felt it as an intrusion into the natural part of her being. Her lips were rough against each other; her face must be stained and black. She almost put up her wrist to brush the earth from her cheek—not her hand, for that also was dirty; her fingers felt the grit. They were, both hands, breaking and rubbing a lump of earth between them; they were full and heaped with earth that was slipping over them and sliding between the fingers, and she was trying to hold it in—not to let it escape.

“Gently, gently,” a voice murmured in her ear. The sound brought her back with a start and dispelled the sensation that held her; she saw again the cards in her hands and saw now that her hands, with Henry's lying over them, were shuffling the cards, each moment more quickly. She was trying to keep up with the movement; she wasn't initiating it, and that feeling of earth escaping was in fact only this compulsion which the cards were exercising. They were sliding out and sliding back; now she saw the four of deniers on top, and now the ace, and now the Esquire, and now the King, a hatted figure, with a four-forked beard, holding the coin—or whatever it was—in a gloved hand. It shone up at her; a card from below slipped out, and her fingers thrust it back, and it covered the King—the nine of deniers. A slight sound reached her, a curious continuous sound, yet hardly a sound at all, a faint rustle. The cards
were
gritty, or her hands were; or was it the persistent rubbing of her palms against the edges of the cards? What was that rustling noise? It wasn't her mere fancy, nor was it mere fancy that some substance was slipping between her fingers. Below her hands and the cards she saw the table, and some vague unusualness in it attracted her. It was black—well, of course, but a dull heavy black, and down to it from her hands a kind of cloud was floating. It was from there that the first sound came; it was something falling—it was earth, a curtain, a rain of earth falling, falling, covering the part of the table immediately below, making little sliding sounds—earth, real black earth.

“Steady,” said the voice in her ear. She had a violent impulse to throw the cards away from her—if she could, if she could rend her hands from them, but of course she couldn't; they, earthy as they were, belonged to this other earth, the earth that was slipping everywhere over and between her fingers, that was already covering the six of deniers as it slid over the two. But there were other hands; hers weren't alone. She pressed them back into her lover's, and said, keeping her voice as steady as she could, “Couldn't we stop?”

Breath deeply drawn answered her, then Henry's voice. “Yes,” it said. “Steady, steady. Think with me, think of the cards—cards—drawings—just drawings—line and color. Press them back, harder;
use
your hands now—harder.”

It was as if a brief struggle took place between her hands and that which they held, as if the thing refused to be governed and dominated. But it yielded; if there had been any struggle, it ceased. Her strong hands pressed back the cards, pushed them level; her thumb flicked them. Henry's hands left hers and took the suit. She let hers drop, took a step away, and looked at the table. There lay on it a little heap of what seemed like garden-mold.

Faintness caught her; she swayed. Henry's arm round her took her to a chair. She gasped out, “I'm all right. Stop a minute,” and held on to the arm. “It's nothing,” she said to herself, “it's quite simple. It's only that I'm not used to it—whatever it is.” That it was any kind of trick did not even enter her mind. Henry and that sort of trick could not exist together. Earth on the dining-room table. Aunt Sybil would wonder why it was there. She deliberately opened her eyes again, and her mouth opened in spite of her. It was still there.

“All right?” Henry's voice said.

Nancy made a great effort. “Yes,” she said. “Henry, what's happened? I mean——”

“You're frightened!” he said accusingly.

“I'm not frightened,” she said.

“If you are, I can't tell you anything,” he said. “I can't share with you unless you want me to. This is only the beginning; you'd better understand that at once.”

“Yes, darling,” she said. “Don't be cross with me. It's a little sudden, isn't it? Is it … is it real?”

He picked up some of the earth and scattered it again.

“Quite,” he said. “You could grow evergreens in it.”

“Then,” said Nancy, with a slightly hysterical note in her voice, “I think you'd better ring for Agnes to clear it up.”

“Touch it,” he said, “feel it, be sure it's real.”

“I wouldn't touch it for anything,” she exclaimed. “Do ring, Henry. I want to see Agnes taking it away in a dustpan. That'll prove it's real.”

Agnes indeed removed it in a dustpan, without any other emotion than a slight surprise and a slight perplexity. It was clear that she couldn't think what Miss Nancy and her young man had been about; but it was also clear that she supposed whatever they had been about had resulted in a small heap of earth on the dining-room table, which she efficiently removed and then herself disappeared. Nancy lay back in her chair, and there was a complete silence for a long time.

At last she stirred and looked at Henry. “Tell me now,” she said.

He leaned against the mantelpiece, looking down on her. “I've told you,” he answered. “I told you at first; at least, I hinted at it. There is correspondence everywhere; but some correspondences are clearer than others. Between these cards”—he pointed to the leather case in which he had replaced the denier suit—“and the activities of things there is a very close relation.…”

She broke in. “Yes, darling; don't explain it, just tell me,” she said. “What you said about the wind, and this, and everything.”

“Earth, water, air, and fire,” he said. “Deniers, cups, scepters, swords. When the hands of a man deal in a certain way with the cards, the living thing comes to exist.”

She looked down at the hands that lay in her lap. “Hands,” she said. “Can they do it?”

“They can do anything,” he said. “They have power.”

“But why the cards?” she asked.

He smiled at her, and suddenly she threw out her arms to him and he leaned and caught her in his own. The movement gathered her, but it was she who was raised from her chair, not he who was brought down to that other level, and even while he murmured to her his voice was charged with an exultant energy, and when upon her moving he loosed her at last there was in his action something of one who lays down a precious instrument till it shall be required. Or, since he kept his eyes on her, something of one who watches a complex and delicate piece of machinery to see if everything runs smoothly, and the experiment for which it is meant may be safely dared.

Nancy patted her hair and sat down again. “Next time,” she said, “I shall be more prepared.”

“There is to be a next time?” he asked, testing a screw in the machinery.

Her eyes were seriously upon him. “If you choose,” she said, “and you will, won't you? If you want me to help, I will. But next time perhaps you'd better tell me more about it first. Why
does
it happen?”

“I don't know why,” he said, “but how is clear enough. These cards are in touch with a thing I'll show you at Christmas, and they're in touch with … well, there aren't any words for it—with the Dance.”

“The Dance?” she asked.

“The Dance that is … everything,” he answered. “You'll see. Earth, air, fire, water—and the Greater Trumps. There's a way to all knowledge and prophecy, when the cards and they are brought together. But, O Nancy, Nancy, if you'll see what I see and want what I want, there's a way—if it can be found, there's a way.” He caught her hands in his. “Hands,” he cried, “hands among
them
and all that they mean. Feel it; give it to me; take it.”

She burned back to his ardor. “What will you do?” she asked, panting.

He held her hands more tightly. “Who knows?” he answered, rising on the wings of his own terrific dream. “Create.”

4

THE CHARIOT

O
N THE
Wednesday before Christmas, Henry had arranged to take the Coningsbys to his grandfather's house. Mr. Coningsby had decided to give them a week of his Christmas vacation from the preoccupations of a Warden in Lunacy, and Henry was very willing that the chances of those critical days should have so long a period in which to be tested. The strange experiment which he and Nancy had tried had left him in a high state of exaltation; he felt his delight in her as a means to his imagined end. Of its effect upon Nancy herself he found it difficult to judge. She did not refer to it again, and was generally rather more silent with him than was her wont. But his own preoccupations were intense, and it may be it was rather his preoccupation than her own which shrouded and a little constrained her. To the outer world, however, she carried herself much as usual, and only Sybil Coningsby noted that her gaiety was at times rather a concealment than a manifestation. But then among that group only Sybil was aware of how many natural capacities are found to be but concealments, how many phenomena disappear before the fact remains. It was long since in her own life the search had begun. With eyes that necessarily veiled their passion she saw in her niece the opening of some other abyss in that first abyss which was love. Mr. Coningsby had spoken more truly than he thought when he accused Sybil of an irresponsibility not unlike Nancy's; their natures answered each other across the years. But between them lay the experience of responsibility, that burden which is only given in order to be relinquished, that task put into the hands of man in order that his own choice may render it back to its creator, that yoke which, once wholly lifted and put on, is immediately no longer to be worn. Sybil had lifted and relinquished it; from the freedom of a love more single than Nancy's she smiled at the young initiate who from afar in her untrained innocence beheld the conclusion of all initiations.

She stood now on the steps of the house and smiled at Henry, who was beside her. Nancy was in the hall. Mr. Coningsby was telephoning some last-minute instructions in lunacy to the custodians of lunacy who were for a while to occupy the seat of the warden. Ralph had gone off that morning. It was late afternoon; the weather was cold and fine.

Sybil said, “Have I thanked you for taking us down, Henry?”

He answered, his voice vibrating with great expectation, “It's a delight, Aunt Sybil. Mayn't I call you that too?”

She inclined her head to the courtesy, and her eyes danced at him as she said, “For Nancy's sake or mine?”

“For all our sakes,” he answered. “But you're very difficult to know, aren't you? You never seem to move.”

“Simeon Stylites?” she asked. “Do I crouch on a tall pillar in the sky? What an inhuman picture!”

“I think you are a little inhuman,” he said. “You're everything that's nice, of course, but you're terrifying as well.”

“Alas, poor aunt!” she said. “But nowadays I thought maiden aunts were nothing uncommon?”

“A maiden aunt——” he began and stopped abruptly.

Then he went on with a note of wonder in his voice, “That's it, you know; that's exactly it. You're strange, you're maiden, you're a mystery of self-possession.”

She broke into a laugh almost as delightful, even to him, as Nancy's. “Henry,
mon vieux
,” she said, “what do you know about old women?”

“Enough to know you're not one,” he said. “Aunt Sybil—Sibyl—your very name means you. You're the marvel of virginity that rides in the Zodiac.”

“That,” she said, “is a most marvelous compliment. If I wasn't in furs, I'd curtsey. You'll make me wish myself Nancy's age—for one evening.”

“I think it's long,” he said, “since you have wished yourself anything but what you are.”

She was prevented from answering by Mr. Coningsby, who hurried Nancy out before him on to the steps and shut the door. They all went down to the car, and a policeman on the pavement saluted Mr. Coningsby as he passed.

“Good evening, good evening, constable,” he said. “Here.” Something passed. “A merry Christmas.”

“Gracious,” Nancy said in Henry's ear, “father's almost jovial.”

“That,” Henry answered, “is because he doesn't regard the police as human. He'd never be harsh to a dog or a poor man. It's those of his own kind that trouble and fret him.”

“Well, darling,” she said, “I've never heard you speak of standing a policeman a drink.” She slipped her hand into his. “Oh, I'm so thrilled,” she went on, “what with you and Christmas and … and all. Is that policeman part of it, do you think? Is he in the scepters or the swords? Or is he one of your mysterious Trumps?”

“What about the Emperor?” Henry threw at her, as Mr. Coningsby, who had stopped to speak to the constable, probably about the safety of the house, came to the car. Sybil was already in her seat. Nancy slipped into hers, as Mr. Coningsby got in next to Sybil. Henry closed the door, sprang in, and started the car.

There was silence at first. To each of them the movement of the car meant something different and particular; to the two men it was movement
to
something, to the two women it was much more like movement
in
something. Mr. Coningsby felt it as a rush towards an immediate future to which he had been compelled and in which he gloomily expected defeat. Henry's desire swept on to a future in which he expected trial and victory. But to Nancy and Sybil separately the future could not be imagined except as a blessed variation on what they knew; there was nowhere to go but to that in which they each existed, and the time they took to go was only the measure of delight changing into delight. In that enclosed space a quadruple movement of consciousness existed, and became, through the unnoticeable, infinitesimal movements of their bodies, involved and, to an extent, harmonized. Each set up against each of the others a peculiar strain; each was drawn back and controlled by the rest. Knowledge danced with knowledge, sometimes to trouble, sometimes to appease the corporeal instruments of the days of their flesh.