The carols of Christmas, wherever they were sung that night, were sung in ignorance of the salvation which endured among them, or in ignorance at least of the temporal salvation which the maiden-mother of Love preserved. But the snow ceased to fall as the night drew on, and before midnight the moon rode in a clear sky. Yet another moon shone over the house on the Downs, like that which was among the one and twenty illuminations of the Greater Trumps. For there, high between two towers, the moon shines, clear and perfect, and the towers are no longer Babels ever rising and falling, but complete in their degree. Below them again, on either side of a long and lonely road, two handless beasts—two dogs, or perhaps a wolf and a dog—sit howling, as if something which desired attainment but had not entered into the means of attainment cried out unprofitably to the gentle light disseminated from above; and again below, in the painting of mysterious depths, some other creature moves in the sea, in a coat of shell, clawed and armed, shut up in itself, but even itself crawling darkly towards a land which it does not comprehend. The sun is not yet risen, and if the Fool moves there he comes invisibly, or perhaps in widespread union with the light of the moon which is the reflection of the sun. But if the Tarots hold, as has been dreamed, the message which all things in all places and times have also been dreamed to hold, then perhaps there was meaning in the order as in the paintings; the tale of the cards being completed when the mystery of the sun has opened in the place of the moon, and after that the trumpets cry in the design which is called the Judgment, and the tombs are broken, and then in the last mystery of all the single figure of what is called the world goes joyously dancing in a state beyond moon and sun, and the number of the Trumps is done. Save only for that which has no number and is called the Fool, because mankind finds it folly till it is known. It is sovereign or it is nothing, and if it is nothing then man was born dead.
She stood above the world, and her outstretched and down-turned palms felt the shocks, and she laughed aloud to see the confusion of clubs striking upward and failing to break past the small shields that were defending the world from them. She laughed to feel the blows as once she had laughed and mocked at Henry when his fingers struck her palm; danger itself was turned into some delight of love. As if her laughter were a spiritual sword, the last great rush of spectral giants fell back from it: the two-edged weapon of laughter sprang from her mouth, as some such conquering power springs from the mouth of the mystical hero of the Apocalypse. The laughter and the protection that are beyond the world entered her to preserve the world, and, still laughing for mere joy of contact and conflict, she moved forward. The ghostly elements broke and fled in chaos; a grey swirl of snow received them, and then the golden mist was around her again and she was sinking and moving forward through it. It swirled and shook and condensed; darkness sprang through it. She stood by the golden base, empty of images, in the room where the dark hangings enclosed her; and then she saw across the table, confronting her, the wild face of Joanna and her clutching hands, and her mouth gnashing itself together upon incoherent words.
Nancy’s hands dropped to her side; the joy that possessed her quietened; she became still. All then was not yet done. The storm had been turned back, but she did not know if it was quenched, and this mad personification of storm raged at her a few feet off. Joanna had come to the inner room, when the mist already drawn from its hiding-place among or in the dancing figures by the operation of the lovers had filled the whole chamber; she had entered through the breach which they had made in the constraining power that localized the images, or, to put it another way, she had been received into the vapor which they had loosed from the expanding dance. As Henry had seen her for a moment, so she had seen him; she entering, he returning. His mortal purpose had been overthrown, and his mind had accepted that and submitted. But hers, thwarted long since, had overthrown the mind itself in its collapse. Babel had overwhelmed her being; she walked among the imagined Tarots seeking for the love which she held to be her right, her possession, her living subject. Wild, yet not more wild than most men, she sought to nourish the god in her own way, and that way was by the dream of Horus and vengeance and torments. Full of that hope, tenderness mingled with cruelty, devotion with pride, government with tyranny, maternity with lust, she raged among the symbols of the everlasting dance, and madly believed that, by virtue of her godhead, she ruled it and was more than a part of it. Henry and she had seen each other, then she had rushed on. She rushed into the center of the room, where now the mist blew in widening circles round the empty base, and saw the void. There, where all restoration should have lain was nothing; there, where the slain god should have lived, the very traces of his blood had vanished; for she had passed the fallen Tarot paintings in her haste, and they lay behind her, hidden and neglected, upon the floor. But she saw Nancy, and at Nancy she now gazed and gibbered. The silence for some seconds was yet unbroken; the old woman mouthed across the empty pedestal, but no sound came from her. Nancy, unafraid but aware of her ignorance before this questing anger, after the pause said, half faltering, “You’re … still looking?”
The old woman’s face lit up with a ghastly certainty. She nodded vehemently. “Ah,” she said, “still looking, kind lady. Kind lady, to hide him there!”
Nancy moved her hands a little. “Indeed,” she said, “I haven’t hidden him. Tell me what you want and I’ll help look.”
Joanna went off into a fit of ironical chuckling. “Oh, yes, you’ll help,” she said. “Oh, you’ll help! You’ve helped all this long time, haven’t you? But it was you who ran about the tent and peeped underneath to see if the child was there! Peeping here and peeping there! and wriggling through at last to take him away!”
“What have I taken?” Nancy said, knowing the madness, half convinced by it and half placating it. “What could I take from you? I’ll give it back, if you’ll tell me, or I’ll look for it everywhere with you.”
Joanna, up against the table of the Tarots, leaned across it suddenly and caught Nancy’s hand in her own. The girl felt the old fingers clutch her and squeeze into her with a numbing strength, so that the free activity in which she had moved during her conflict with visions was now imprisoned and passive. She resisted the impulse to struggle and let her hand lie still.
“I’ll look for it,” Joanna said. “I know where you keep him. The blood in the blood and the body in the body. I’ll let him out of you.” She wrenched the girl nearer and sprawled over the table, leaning her head towards Nancy’s breast. “I hear him,” she breathed. “It’s he that’s beating in you. I’ll let him out.”
Nancy shook suddenly. The laughter that had been in her had died away; a fantastic wonder possessed her whether she might now be paying for her mastery of the storm. Better perhaps to have died with Henry in the snow than … but this was nonsense; she wasn’t going to die. She was going to live and find Henry, and show him the palms that had taken the snow, and make him kiss them for reward, and lay hers against his, his that had begun and sent the clubbed elementals right into hers, and in all ways adore the mystery of Love. The mystery of Love couldn’t be that she should die here … with only the old woman near. Aunt Sybil would come, or Mr. Lee, or her father.… Meanwhile, she must try and love this old woman.
She was jerked forward again. Joanna scrambled upright and dragged Nancy in turn across the table; then, holding her tight-stretched, she bent her head down towards her, and gabbled swiftly, “The hand you took him with, the hand of power, the hand of magic—there, there, that’s where we let him out. The middle of the hand—didn’t you know? that’s where the god goes in and out.” She twisted the girl’s hand upward and scratched at the palm with the nail of her other hand. “I shall see him,” she ran on, “in the first drop of blood, the blood that the cats smell out; that’s why the cat brought me here, the cat that lives in the storm, the tiger that runs by the Fool. It’ll come”—her nails tore at the hand—“and he’ll come out of it. My own, my little one, my sweet chuck! come, come along, come
.”
The pain struck Nancy as being quite sufficient; it suggested to her that she might scream—scream out—call out. There wouldn’t, she thought, be much harm in calling out. But also she must love this old woman—wish her well—understand her—see her goodness. But the old woman was one and she was one—and she couldn’t see any clear reason why the old woman should spoil hands that Henry had said were beautiful. She made a final effort to break away, and didn’t succeed; almost upside down as she felt she was, that was hardly surprising. So she called, in as steady a voice as possible, “Aunt! Henry! Father! Aunt! Aunt Sybil!”
Her voice ceased abruptly. Instead of any of these appearing out of the golden mist that hid the doorway from her, there was a sudden soft thud, and on the table close up to her stretched arm appeared a cat. Nancy in the few minutes she had spent with Sybil in the hall had heard and seen nothing of the cat and had had no opportunity since. But there it crouched, mewing, turning its head from her to Joanna and back again, unsheathing and sheathing its claws, moving its restless tail. Nancy’s first thought as she saw it was, “It’s got no hands,” and this seemed to her so horrible that she nearly lost control. It had no hands, it had no spiritual instruments of intention, only paws that patted or scratched, soft padded cushions or tearing iron nails—all four, all four, and no hands. The cat put one paw suddenly on her arm, and she almost shrieked at that soft dab. It tried to lift its paw, but its claws were entangled in the light stuff of the afternoon frock she had on, and were caught. After a moment’s struggle it ripped them out, and Nancy seemed to hear the sound of the light stuff tearing—absurd, of course, but if it should tear it right away, and her arm lay bare like her wrist and hand, and the cat and Joanna both tore and scratched … Love.… She must love Joanna. Joanna wanted something and, though she was afraid Joanna wouldn’t find it, she herself must try and love.
Never since the child had died had Joanna been nearer to finding the power of whom she told herself fantastic tales, than when the girl’s struggling will fixed itself again on that center. In the place of the images the god offered himself to his seekers through the effort of his creature. In the depths of Nancy’s eyes as she turned them on Joanna, in the sound of her voice as she spoke, he allowed his mystery to expand, as she said, “Indeed, it isn’t here. I’d help you if I could. It’ll do it if we let it.”
The old woman did not meet her eyes; she was looking at the cat. “The cat that lives in the storm,” she said. “Go, my dear; go and show me. You brought me here—show me; show me. She’s got it in her, hasn’t she? Go and get it out.”
The cat stared at her; then it turned its eyes to Nancy’s face, and, keeping them fixed there, seemed to swivel its body slowly round. Nancy had an awful thought. “It’s going to spring! It’s got no hands and it’s going to spring! It’ll tear me because it’s got no hands!” In the last of the Tarot cards, in the unnumbered illumination, she had seen something like that—a beast rearing against the Fool; in the midst of the images, rigid in the center of the base, she had seen it, a beast rearing against the Fool. It had not then seemed to be attacking exactly; rather it had seemed as if poised in the very act of a secret measure trodden with its controlling partner among the more general measure trodden by all the shapes. The Fool and the tiger, the combined and single mystery—but it was going to spring. She brought up her other hand from where it had held the edge of the table, to help her keep her footing against Joanna’s strong pull; and she slipped a little more forward as she did so, bringing her face too near to that crouched energy that was gathering itself … too near, too near. Her hand came up, clutched, missed, for the cat slithered aside snarling, and then, as her hand came down on the golden table, crouched again, and was unexpectedly caught by its neck. A high, peevish voice said, “Good God! what is all this? Let go at once, you wretched creature! Do you hear me? Let my daughter alone. Damn you, woman, let my daughter alone!”
15
THE WANDERERS IN THE BEGINNING
THE DESCENT of the golden mist separated the inhabitants of the house from the sight of each other, with the single exception of Sybil and Aaron. The servants, caught in the hall, clung together, not daring to move yet frightened to remain where they were. They felt in the closeness of hands and bodies the only suggestion of safety, as, long since, our scarcely human ancestors crowded together against night and the perils of the night. The cook gasped continuously; her hysterical companion was reduced to a shaking misery of moans; even the silent Amabel quivered spasmodically as she clutched the arms of her unseen colleagues. Between them the mist rolled and stayed.
In the corridor above, ignoring social divisions, reducing humanity to an equality of bewildered atoms, it had swept between Ralph and his father. Ralph, frankly defeated by this inexplicable amazement, fell back against the wall in a stupor similar to the cook’s. A world upon which he had all his life relied had simply ceased to exist. Mists on mountains, fogs in towns, he had heard of, sea fogs and river mists. But here was neither sea nor river, neither mountain nor town. Existence as he knew it had just gone out. In a minute or two he would pull himself together and do something. But this stuff, as he leaned against the wall, was damned unpleasant: the wall gave to his back, and he came hastily upright, feeling gingerly for it. He couldn’t feel it; he couldn’t feel any difference between anything.
He brought his hand towards his thigh, trying to touch himself, and couldn’t; where he ought to be was nothing but this thick consistency. He closed his hand upon itself, and what felt like fingers pressed more deeply into the same shifting and resisting matter. He could feel himself all right, so long as he didn’t definitely try to find himself. But when he did, he wasn’t there. That was silly; he was there. He put up both hands to his head—at least to where his head ought to have been, and still, if his head was there, he couldn’t get it. This porridge-like substance oozed between his fingers and clung to them—porridge or thin mud. He had had a tooth out once, and afterwards felt as if the tooth was still there. Suppose his whole body had been pulled out, and he were only feeling as if it were there. But the rest of the world? That was gone too. Suppose everything had just been pulled out—leaving only the place, seeming sometimes full and sometimes empty? For a moment he visualized a hole in the air, out of which the round world had been neatly and painlessly extracted, but his mind, unused to metaphysical visions, refused to pursue this thought and restored him to the simple view that he was feeling very funny, probably a bit overtired with all this snow. Nevertheless, he couldn’t forget that never in his life, fresh, tired, or overtired, had he searched for himself and not found himself. His hold on sanity depended on the fact that the fingers of either hand did sometimes rub together as he moved them, though the two hands never quite met each other. If they only could, he would be getting back to normal; something would have joined. There would have been a kind of shape, a point of new beginning, a definite fixture, in this horrible mess, where at present were only two wandering feelers, antennae moving about in a muddy mass. He wondered abruptly what his father was feeling like, but no sound—yes, but there was a sound, four sounds. Four separate notes of music, in an ascending scale, came to him, faint and monotonously repeated—la, la, la, la; la, la, la, la; la, la, la, la. Well, sooner or later perhaps this incredible nightmare would stop.
Mr. Coningsby had found himself cut off from Ralph with as much sudden expedition as Ralph had experienced. But, unlike his son, he did not feel the cloud that so surrounded and deprived him as being thickly material. It was an offense, certainly, but an offense of shocked bewilderment. It removed his world from him as it had removed Ralph’s and, like Ralph and the servants, he instinctively put out his hand to find companionship. He found—not companionship certainly, but what he had found before, another hand that laid hold of his, a strong, gentle, cold, strange hand. He pulled his own hastily back, and the other let it go. It had rather invited than constrained him, and it did not attempt to control. He rubbed his
fingers together distastefully and pretended that it might have been Joanna’s hand or Stephen’s. Anything else—it couldn’t be anything else. It might be Henry’s or Aaron’s—it might even have been Ralph’s. Only he was, in spite of himself, certain that it hadn’t been Ralph’s or Aaron’s or Henry’s and, in spite of himself, he didn’t believe it to be Stephen’s or Joanna’s; it had been too cold and strong for any mortal hand. It was then—it wasn’t; certainly it wasn’t. Or if it was, then the only thing to be done was to keep out of the way of these released marionettes. “Robots!” Mr. Coningsby indignantly thought, though how the Robots had got from their table to the corridor he didn’t attempt to explain. He would get right out of the house—but the storm was outside. It cut him off from his home, from London, from trains and taxis; it shut him in and he must stay in. And within was the mist. There was, Mr. Coningsby realized, absolutely nowhere in the universe he could get to. He was there, and there he was going to stop.