Shadows of Ecstasy by Charles Williams (best books to read txt) 📖

shut in

his room. Rosamond was where Isabel had hardly dared to hope Sir

Bernard would succeed in getting her—in bed and asleep. It was a

Tuesday evening, and very often on Tuesday evenings, because Roger was

generally free then, the Ingrams did visit their friend. Sometimes

they played—if Philip or Rosamond or some other visitor would join

them; sometimes they talked; sometimes they went to the theatre.

Sometimes they even stopped the night; Sir Bernard was very fond of

them, and between him and them existed that happy state by which

fathers and children who are no relations may enjoy relationship

rarely achieved by fathers and children who are. Sir Bernard all but

understood Roger; Roger all but envied Sir Bernard. And what they did

not understand and envy salted their talk with agreeable mystery. The

evening therefore bore a bearable similarity to the past. The tact

which Sir Bernard and Isabel possessed in common soothed over the fact

of Rosamond’s hysteria, and in effect combined in finding her a bed

and putting her there. Once in the house indeed, from exhaustion or

cunning or content or fear, she grew docile, and was content to be

managed. Sir Bernard’s forty years of practice had made him an adept

at managing people. Roger had begun, from a sense of decency, to try

to explain why they were there, or why he was there. But Sir Bernard

refused to hear.

 

“I’m quite sure you don’t want to tell me,” he said, “and being told

things—there’s nothing I like better, but a sense of duty destroys

the satisfaction. Like the people who refuse to be loved by a sense of

duty. At my age one’s only too grateful to be loved—loved, mark

you—at all. Let’s pretend nothing ever happened.”

 

Hampered in this by the fact that the guns began almost immediately,

they nevertheless did make the evening rather like one of their old

enjoyments. It had been announced by Authority, after the last raid,

that, in the event of another, official bulletins of the progress of

the raid would be delivered to the wireless at regular intervals and

announced by that means to the public. Arranged entertainments would,

so far as possible, proceed as usual; and it was hoped that all

listeners-in would follow their ordinary custom, and lessen the chance

of panic, at creating which (as had been discovered in the Great War)

all air-raids over such places as London were directed. If the

experiment were found unsuccessful it would be discontinued after the

trial.

 

“We shan’t want the entertainment,” Sir Bernard said, “but we may as

well know what’s happening, so far as the Government will tell us.”

 

“I’m not sure of that,” Isabel said. “Suppose the thing says, ‘Great

aeroplane dropping fiery bombs directly over Colindale Square’.”

 

“It won’t,” Caithness said. “I’ll bet you a dozen pairs of gloves,

Isabel, that if we’re all blown to heaven the last thing we hear is:

‘No aeroplane has yet reached London; the raid is being effectively

repulsed.’”

 

“Done,” said Isabel.

 

“An anthropomorphic heaven,” Sir Bernard said, and picked up the

cards.

 

For some time the game and the entertainment proceeded. Then the first

announcement was heard.

 

“The first Government communique has just been received,” the loud

speaker announced. “‘Raiders have attempted to approach London from

all sides, but have entirely failed. Four enemy planes have already

been brought down. A number of bombs have been dropped, but all in

uninhabited districts. The O.C. London Air Defence announces that no

losses have been sustained by our forces’.”

 

“I hope they’ll use imagination,” Sir Bernard said. “One or two planes

destroyed on our side would make the bulletins credible.”

 

“I do wish you wouldn’t say ‘imagination’,” Roger complained. “It

isn’t, you know; only the lowest kind of cunning fancy.”

 

“I’ve never been clear that Coleridge was right there,” Caithness said

meditatively. “Surely it’s the same faculty—the adaptation of the

world to an idea of the world.”

 

“Well, if the O.C. London Air Defence has an idea of the world,” Roger

said, “you may be right. But is an idea a pattern?”

 

“O surely!” Caithness interrupted. “If an idea isn’t a pattern what

good is it?”

 

“If we’re playing bridge,” Isabel said forbearingly, “could you manage

to forget your ideas for a moment? Thank you so much.”

 

A new voice, after a quarter of an hour, took up the tale. “Latest

communiqu��,” the loud speaker reported. “‘Enemy planes continue to be

sighted. It is supposed that in all some eight hundred are engaged in

the raid. None have appeared over London. Five villages have been

destroyed. African troops have been landed from giant airships, and

have occupied the ridge of Hampstead and Richmond Park. Other airships

have appeared on the western side. Posts of Government troops have

been overwhelmed in the north and south’.”

 

“The devil they have!” Roger exclaimed.

 

There was a short pause, then the loud speaker continued, with another

variation of tone: “‘In the name of the things that have been and are

to be, willed and fated, in the name of the gods many and one—”

 

Isabel laid down her cards, Caithness jumped to his feet; Roger sat

upright in his chair. Sir Bernard, leaning back in his own, said in a

voice of considerable interest, “Mr. Considine, I believe.”

 

“…the High Executive of the African Sovereigns warns the English of

the folly of defiance. It is reluctant to make a difference in belief

a reason for the destruction of London, and it does not propose, even

under the provocations of the Government, to endanger the city

tonight. But it is compelled to display the ardent and unconquerable

forces at its disposal, and from the centre of the white race it

seriously warns them that the forces now in action shall be multiplied

a thousand times to effect the ends upon which it is determined—the

freedom of the black peoples and the restoration of Africa. It

exhibits something of the strength of its armies and the devotion of

its martyrs, and it asserts firmly that, if a third raid upon London

becomes necessary, then London shall be destroyed. It urges the

English to consider carefully what they are fighting, and if any among

them believe that in love and art and death rather than in logic and

science the kingdom of man lies, it entreats them, not to any transfer

of allegiance, for it recognizes in the folly of patriotism a means of

obedience to the same passionate imagination, but to a demonstration

on behalf of peace. In the name of their own loyalties it appeals to

the children of passion and imagination; in the name of a vaster

strength than their own it threatens the children of pedantry and

reason—in this first proclamation made at London in the first year of

the Second Evolution of Man’.”

 

“Then,” Sir Bernard said, “with more adequate assurance than Drake

had, we can go on with the game.”

 

But Roger and Caithness were both on their feet. Caithness said, “I

wouldn’t trust him too far.”

 

Isabel, still looking at her cards, murmured, “I don’t think you need

worry, Mr. Caithness. He told us the same thing this afternoon.”

 

“You’ve seen him?” Caithness incredulously exclaimed. “Yes,” Isabel

said. “In fact, we made a kind of appointment with him.”

 

“You did?” Caithness said, still more astonished.

 

“Well—I did for Roger,” Isabel said, and lifted her eyes. “He’d never

have done it himself. I hope you didn’t mind, Sir Bernard?”

 

“Almost thou persuadest me to be a monogamist,” Sir Bernard said, but

there was unusual tenderness in his voice. “Here, do you mean?

Because, if so, perhaps that’s him.”

 

It was not; it was Philip and the Jew. They came into the room

accompanied by Inkamasi who had descended from his to discover the

progress of the raid. Philip introduced Ezekiel to Sir Bernard and in

a low voice gave him the brief tale of the evening.

 

“I’m very glad you’re here, Mr. Rosenberg,” Sir Bernard said, in quite

a different tone from his usual placidity. “I’m your servant in

everything. You’ll use us as you will. Ring, Philip.”

 

But even as Philip’s finger touched the bell there was a louder ring

in the hall. Sir Bernard paused and glanced swiftly at Isabel, who sat

down by the card-table. In the minute that it took the feet of the

maid to go to the front door she looked up at Roger and said: “Be good

to me, my darling, and find out everything you can.” Roger, more

shaken than she, did not answer except by his gaze. There were voices

and footsteps; then the door was thrown wide open and Considine stood

in the entrance of the room. Behind him was Mottreux, and behind him

again two or three others—in whose faces, so far as he could see

them, Sir Bernard thought he recognized the gentlemen who had waited

on them during the dinner at Hampstead. But he had no time to

consider; he looked back, where everyone else was looking, at the High

Executive who stood in the entrance.

 

“A good meeting,” Considine said, “but I mustn’t wait. Who will come

with me?”

 

In the immediate silence Roger heard himself say, “I.”

 

“The king also,” Considine said.

 

“Fool,” the Zulu cried. “You’ve come to me now, and do you think

you’ll get away? You’re mine, you’re mine.”

 

He was standing almost on the other side of the room, nine or ten feet

away. But as he ended, he crouched low, and in one terrific movement

leapt—right across the intervening space, sending himself forward and

upward, so that he crashed down on Considine as a thunderbolt might

strike from the sky. His hands were at the other’s throat, and before

that descent of angry vengeance even Considine for a moment staggered

and seemed likely to fall. But before he could either fall or recover,

in the second after the onslaught fell, Mottreux sprang forward. The

others saw the revolver in his hand and cried out; their voices were

overwhelmed by the shot. Inkamasi reeled and crashed, his hand to his

thigh where the blood showed. Considine recovered himself and glanced

at his friend.

 

“Mottreux, Mottreux, is it necessary?” he murmured. “Am I afraid of

his hands? Well, it’s done; let Vereker see to him. It’s only a flesh

wound.”

 

He moved a step aside, so that another of his companions could come

forward and do what he could with Isabel’s help and with improvised

bandages for the wounded man. After a few minutes Considine went on:

“Mr. Ingram and the king; Mr. Rosenberg, I have your cousin’s jewels,

and others I have bought for you. Come with me; there’s no place for

you here.” He cast a glance around. “Is there any of you beside for

whom that’s true?”

 

“If you take the king you shall take me,” Caithness cried out. “I

demand that you-”

 

“Why demand?” Considine’s laugh answered him. “I invite you, I entreat

you, to come. Sir Bernard?”

 

“No,” Sir Bernard said. “We’ve come out of the jungle and I for one am

not going back.”

 

“The king, Mr. Caithness, Mr. Rosenberg, Mr. Ingram,” Considine said.

“Very well. Mrs. Ingram?”

 

“No,” Isabel said. “Africa’s near enough here.”

 

“You are perhaps a wise woman,” Considine said, “but if you are you

shall be a centre of our wisdom in London, and all the women of

England shall learn from you what it is they do. Your husband shall

come back to you with victory. Goodnight then. Goodnight, Sir

Bernard; I leave you to the sauces that you prefer to food. Come, my

friends; come, my enemies. Mottreux, you and Vereker shall