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

and that was when he

woke me up by calling out to me very late one night, ‘Isabel, what is

there in verse which is the equivalent of the principle of the arch?’

I really was angry then, but he only kept murmuring lines of poetry

and trying to see if they were like an arch. All that because a friend

of his who had been to dinner had gone away at half-past eleven

instead of half-past one. Always remember, Rosamond my child, that a

man needs you to get away from.”

 

“You mean needs to get away from me, don’t you?” Rosamond asked,

looking possessively at Philip.

 

“No,” Isabel said, “Sir Bernard, the milk’s boiling…thank you so

much. No, Rosamond, I don’t. I mean exactly what I said. A man must

have you-”

 

“I wish you wouldn’t keep saying ‘a man,’ Isabel,” Philip

remonstrated.

 

“Very well—give me a spoon, Philip—Philip then must have you there

in order to be able to get away. If you weren’t there he wouldn’t be

able to get away.”

 

Rosamond looked uninterested. Philip reflected what a curious thing it

was that so many people he knew should want to chatter like this. His

father did it, Ingram did it, Isabel did it. Sometimes he understood

it, sometimes he didn’t. But he never understood it as now, suddenly,

he understood Rosamond’s arm when she leant forward to pass a plate to

her sister; somehow that arm always made him think of the Downs

against the sky. There was a line, a curved beauty, a thing that spoke

to both mind and heart; a thing that was there for ever. And Rosamond?

Rosamond was like them, she was there for ever. It occurred to him

that, if she was, then her occasional slowness when he was trying to

explain something was there for ever. Well, after all, Rosamond was

only human; she couldn’t be absolutely perfect. And then as she

stretched out her arm again he cried out that she was perfect, she was

more than perfect; the movement of her arm was something frightfully

important, and now it was gone. He had seen the verge of a great

conclusion of mortal things and then it had vanished. Over that white

curve he had looked into incredible space; abysses of intelligence lay

beyond it. And in a moment all that lay beyond it was the bright

kitchen, and Sir Bernard standing up to go into the other room. He

jumped to his feet and with a movement almost of terror took the

loaded coffee tray from Isabel.

 

“Quietly,” Isabel said as they came to the door of the nondescript

room where the Ingrams habitually, alone or with their intimates,

passed their time. “Quietly; let’s hear what the rescued captive and

his saviour are talking about.”

 

She opened the door gently, and Ingram’s voice came out to them. “O

rhythm!” he was saying, “rhythm is the cheap pseudo-metaphysical slang

of our day. At least it was; it’s dying now. Everyone explained

everything by talking about rhythm. It’s a curious thing that people

who will sneer at a man for doing nothing all his life but making

words sound lovely and full of meaning will be quite happy over life

so long as they can explain it in words that are almost meaningless. I

sometimes think the nearest we can get to meaning is to feel as if

there was meaning.”

 

“Yet at least rhythm’s distinctly felt,” said another voice, a rich

strange voice; “so far they attempt to discover a knowledge of the

whole.”

 

“O so far!” Ingram said, and jumped off the table on which he was

sitting as Isabel pushed the door right open and came into the room.

After a table had been found for the tray, introductions took place;

at least Ingram began to say, “O Rosamond”—he stopped suddenly; “By

God,” he said, “I don’t know your name.”

 

The stranger, a tall magnificent young creature, darkly bronze, bowed

to Rosamond: “My name is Inkamasi,” he said. “At least,” he added, a

trifle scornfully, Sir Bernard thought, “that is the simplest form of

it.”

 

“Quite,” Roger said brightly. “Miss Murchison, Mr. Travers—hallo, Sir

Bernard, I didn’t know you were here—Sir Bernard Travers, the

Belly-King.”

 

It was a name with which his intimates had teased Sir Bernard in the

days of his practice. Philip frowned, forgetting that though the

black—if you could strictly call him black—was to him an entirely

new and not very desirable acquaintance, the occurrences of the last

two hours had put him on terms of intimacy with the Ingrams. Rosamond,

rather nervously, kept close to his side. Roger sat down again on top

of his large knee-hole writing-table, and took the coffee Philip

handed him.

 

“We were talking—” he began.

 

“Yes, darling, we heard you,” Isabel said. “Don’t trouble to repeat it

just at once. And I hope that doesn’t sound too rude,” she added to

the stranger, “only when Roger’s got more than two people to listen to

him he always begins to lecture.”

 

“I ought to have gone long ago,” the other said. “But your husband

kept me, talking of poetry and song and the principles of being.”

 

“But”, Isabel said, “must you go yet? I mean, will it be wise?” She

looked at Roger.

 

“O quite,” the African said. “The police will have cleared the

streets, and I don’t live far away.”

 

Roger looked at the clock. “Twenty to ten,” he said, “better wait a

little. I didn’t quite get the hang of what you were saying about

Homer. I’ll walk round with you presently. Sir Bernard’ll be

interested in Homer; he had a line from him on the title-page of his

book, opposite the peculiarly loathsome diagram that formed the

frontispiece.”

 

“I didn’t even know you’d looked so far into it,” Sir Bernard said.

 

“I generally give the title-page a fair chance,” Roger said. “One

can’t always judge books merely by the cover. It’s a book on the

stomach,” he explained to Inkamasi, “with nine full-page photographs

and about fifty more illustrations, each more abominable than the

others. When it was published Sir Bernard gave copies to all his

friends, because he knew they wouldn’t read it and wanted to hear them

explaining why. Brave men cut him afterwards.”

 

“I should like to see it,” the African voice said. “I did a little

medical work before I took up law.”

 

“Well, it’s buried under Rabelais, Swift, and Ulysses at the moment,”

Ingram grinned at Sir Bernard ,“but I’ll get it out for you before you

come again. ‘Lend it you I will for half a hundred years.’ But not

give it. I retain it to keep me humble.”

 

“I think I’ll go now,” Inkamasi said, putting down his cup. “Thank

you, Mrs. Ingram, for being so kind.”

 

“O well, if you will,” said Roger. “Coming, Philip?”

 

“Yes, rather,” Philip answered, with a momentary private hope that he

wouldn’t have to help defend this black man against even an unpleasant

white.

 

“Philip,” Rosamond whispered to him, with a soft pounce, “don’t go. I

don’t like him.”

 

“Must,” he whispered back. “Shan’t be long, dearest.”

 

“We’ll all go,” Sir Bernard said. “The streets aren’t too quiet. I’m

not at all sure, Mr. Inkamasi, that you wouldn’t be wise to take

advantage of the Government’s offer to remove friendly aliens. If

you’re living alone-”

 

The African dilated where he stood. “I will go alone,” he said. “They

will not attack me twice.”

 

“No, of course not,” Roger said. “Never attack the same man twice is a

well-known rule of mobs. Nonsense, man, no one knows who’s about. I

think you ought to stop here; you can, you know. We told you that

before.”

 

“Do,” Isabel put in.

 

Inkamasi seemed to hesitate, then he said rather vaguely, “No, I’m

sorry, I must go. There are reasons…”

 

“Are they really vicious, Roger?” Sir Bernard asked.

 

“Nasty little things,” Roger answered. “The usual kind. I believe

they’d have bolted before if Inkamasi and I had rushed them. He nearly

scattered them by himself but there were just enough to feel safe.”

 

“I know them,” the African said disdainfully. “There are others like

them in my country—they would run from a lion.”

 

“As bad as that, are they?” Roger asked gravely. “Good heavens, many’s

the time I’ve chased a lion or two down Haverstock Hill by just

shouting at them. Like you were doing when we came out. By the way,

what were you shouting?”

 

The African drew himself up and his magnificent form seemed to expand

before the young man’s eyes. He cried out: “They asked me my name and

I told them. I am Inkamasi of the Zulus, I am the chief of the sons of

Chaka, I am the master of the impis, I am Inkamasi the chieftain and

the king.”

 

There was a dead silence; and then suddenly Roger, almost as if some

challenge in the other’s voice had stirred him to motion and speech,

answered in the voice he had for verse. He threw up his right arm; he

cried out, “Bayate!”; he held the Zulu rigid by the unexpected salute.

And then someone else moved, and Roger dropped his arm and grinned and

said: “Rider Haggard. But it’s true, isn’t it?”

 

“It is true,” the king said. “It is the royal salute that you give,

though I’ve only heard it once or twice in my life before. But I

thought in England you’d forgotten royalty.”

 

“Well, in a kind of way we have,” Roger said. “And then again in a

kind of way we haven’t. And anyhow I didn’t know you really kept it in

Africa.”

 

“There are those among you who would like us to forget,” the Zulu

answered. “But it isn’t easy to forget Chaka. Have you forgotten

Caesar?”

 

He seemed to expect no answer; he turned again to Isabel, but this

time with a greater air. “Goodnight, Mrs. Ingram,” he said. “Your

husband will be back soon. They shan’t come far. Goodnight, Miss

Murchison. Sir Bernard, will you tell me one thing I have always meant

to look up about the stomach?”

 

Isabel came back from the front door to Rosamond with a bewildered

air. “Tell me,” she said, “are those three taking care of him or is he

taking care of them?”

 

“I think it’s perfectly horrible,” Rosamond said. “How could you let

him come into the house, Isabel?—everything smells of him. The king,

indeed! It’s almost profane.”

 

Isabel raised her eyebrows. “What, calling himself a king?” she asked.

 

“It was the way he talked, looking like a god,” Rosamond said, almost

hysterically. “I hate him to look like that.”

 

Isabel looked at the coffee cups. “Shall I clear them away?” she said,

“or shall I leave them for Muriel? Roger won’t call her Muriel, he

says it makes him feel unclean. So awkward, because he always has to

go and find her if he happens to want anything. He can’t just call out

‘Hi!’ Don’t worry, Rosamond, I don’t suppose you’ll see him again.”

 

“I hate him,” Rosamond repeated. “Why didn’t he stop in Africa?” She

walked to the window. “Isabel, they won’t come here, will they?”

 

Isabel looked at the fire, herself a little shaken. In spite of her

mockery of her sister she knew quite well what Rosamond had meant by

calling Inkamasi “profane.” It was a wild protest against the sudden

intrusion of a new energy, the making violently real of a thing that

had become less than a word. For a few moments royalty—a dark alien

royalty—had appeared in the room, imposed upon all of them by the

mere intensity