Shadows of Ecstasy (15 page)

An abrupt movement swept the circle. “Women!” Caithness exclaimed. “Does he depend on the devotion of women?”

“And look here,” Philip said rather desperately, “do you mean to say that the white officers could be mixed up in the African armies?”

“As to the women,” Sir Bernard said, “the early Church, if I remember rightly, depended largely on women.”

“And as to the white officers,” Roger said abruptly, “Mr. Caithness will applaud a similar precedent of Jew and Gentile.”

Caithness took no notice, except by a nod. He said: “This sleep—is it hypnotic?”

Inkamasi made a movement with his hands. “Call it so if you like,” he answered, “but I think rather that hypnotism is a reflection of it. He is able to establish a control on all the consciousness, except the secret centre of a man's being and the mere exterior apprehensions of the world. He can suspend thought and will—until he or a greater than he restores it.”

“Well,” Sir Bernard said, “the immediate point is—have I enough reasonable (if you can call it reasonable) stuff to send to the Home Secretary or the Public Prosecutor or the Elder Brethren of the Trinity?—who sound the kind of people that ought to be looking after the Deathless One. What do you say, Isabel?”

Isabel was looking at Roger and did not for a moment answer. Then she said, “I think so—yes. Whether they'll believe it.…”

“I once put the Prime Minister's stomach right,” Sir Bernard said thoughtfully. “Perhaps I'd better go to him. What d'you think?” he added to Inkamasi.

“If you can seize Considine,” the king said,—“I say, if you
can
—it will not be easy. For the greatest energy is in him, he and he alone is the centre of all the schools; it is he who holds power, either by the initiation or by the sleep, over the royalties of Africa; he is the union of their armies; without him the energies of the adepts will be divided, the generals will quarrel, the armies will fight. I tell you this, because you have saved me twice, and because I do not think mankind can be saved without intellect and without God.”

“It must be almost the first time in the history of the world that those powers have been united,” said Sir Bernard. “But what of you?”

The king looked at the floor. “I indeed can do nothing,” he said, “for I cannot get to my people: I do not know where they are fighting. And I do not want to help Considine, though I long for Africa to be free. I am neither of one side nor of the other, neither of Europe nor Africa. I am an outcast and an exile.”

“You are the citizen of another country,” the priest said, “that is, a heavenly.”

“Also, I am the king,” Inkamasi exclaimed, “and there shall be no peace between this man and me. He laid his power upon me when I was a child, he has made me his puppet since, and for that I will kill him, though my spirit goes down with his into hell.”

“It was not for this that Christ redeemed you,” Caithness cried to him.

“I am the king,” Inkamasi said, “and I will put my foot upon his mouth; I, Inkamasi, the king.”

Rosamond gave a little choked cry. Philip leant forward quickly and put his hand on hers, but she pulled it away. “It's all right,” she said. “I just felt … it's all
right
, Philip.”

Sir Bernard got up, an eye on his prospective daughter-in-law. “Well, if you are all agreed——”

Roger pushed his chair back a trifle, and said, more sharply than before, “It won't stop you, but—no, we're not.”

There was a dead silence. Roger was looking at his wife; the others looked at him. Philip buried his head in his hands. Sir Bernard began to speak when Caithness broke in: “What d'you mean, Roger? Surely there can't be two opinions about letting the authorities know about this charlatan?”

“It may be your duty,” Roger said, “I'm pretty certain it isn't mine. You haven't met him.”

“Sir Bernard has and Sir Bernard agrees,” Caithness answered.

“Sir Bernard and I don't believe in the same things,” Roger said. “I can't stop him but I won't have anything to do with it.”

Philip got up—for him violently. “Roger,” he cried out, “what are you talking about? Are you on this man's side?”

“Yes, I am,” Roger said. “At least I can't go against him. He knows there's something in it, and which of you all does that?”

“I know it very well,” Inkamasi said, sitting rigid. “And I will kill him because of it.”

“You've a right to do as you please,” Roger answered, “but I haven't. I've no right except to follow what I know when I find it.” He looked over at his wife. “Aren't I right?” he exclaimed to her.

Isabel also stood up, and met his eyes full. “Yes, darling,” she said simply.

“Roger,” Sir Bernard said dulcetly, “is it Mr. Considine's feeling about poetry that affects you so much? Because the unfortunate white race has not been entirely silent. Was Dante a Bantu or Shakespeare a Hottentot? A few of us read it still.”

“O read it!” Roger said contemptuously. “God knows I don't want to live for ever, but I tell you this fellow
knows
. So do I—a little bit, and I believe it's important. More important than anything else on earth. And I won't help you to shut it up in a refrigerator when I ought to be helping to keep it alive.”

“Can't you leave that to God?” Caithness flung out.

“No,” said Roger, “I damn well can't, when he's left it to me. I know your argument—it's all been done, death has been conquered, and so as nothing ever dies somewhere else, we needn't worry about it's dying here. Well, thank you very much, but I do. What are you worrying about? I know I can't stop you, but I won't have a hand in it.”

“I see,” Sir Bernard said, “that the white administration in Africa may easily have been absorbed. I'm sorry, Roger.”

“Don't be,” Roger said. “It's not a thing to be sorry about.” He swept suddenly round. “What about it, Philip?” he cried. “Are you with them?”

Philip, trying to keep his footing, said, “Don't be a fool, Roger, we can't not fight the Africans.”

“We can ‘not fight' them perfectly well,” Roger said, and it seemed to Isabel that his tall insolent figure dominated all the room except for the carven and royal darkness of the seated Zulu, “and you know it. Love and poetry are powers, and these people—will you deny it too?”

“Really, Roger,” Sir Bernard put in, “must you dichotomize in this appalling way? It's so barbarian; it went out with the Victorians. If you feel you're betraying the
Ode to the Nightingale
or something by agreeing to my call on the Prime Minister, must you insist that your emotions are universal? Keep them private, my dear boy, or they'll be merely provincial; and the provincial is the ruin of the public and the private at once.”

He knew he was talking at random, but the whole room was filled with uncertainty and defiance and distress. A man had come out into the open from behind the fronds and leaves and it was Roger. A trumpet had answered the horns and drums that were crying to the world from the jungle of man's being; and the trumpet was Roger's voice. Was Africa then within? was all the war, were the armies and munitions and the transports but the shadow of the repression by which man held down their more natural energies? but images of the strong refusal which Europe had laid on capacities it had so long ruled that it had nearly forgotten their independent life? But things forgotten could rise; and old things did not always die. Poland—Ireland—Judah—man. Roger knew something; the voice that had discussed and lectured and gibed and repeated verse now cried its sworn loyalty: a schism was opening in civilization. Sir Bernard looked at Isabel, but she said nothing. She leaned on the mantelpiece and looked into the fire, and her face was very still. Roger relaxed slightly; he liked Sir Bernard, and they had often gently mocked each other. He said, “Yes, I know I can't do anything. I think I'll say good-night and get back to Hampstead. Coming, Isabel?”

She turned her head towards him. “It'll be very awkward, dearest,” she said. “The milkman's been told not to call, and what shall we do for breakfast?” She spoke quite seriously, but her lips smiled; only a deeper seriousness and sadness grew in her eyes, and his own were sad as they encountered hers. She stood upright, as if to move, and yet lingered a little on that silent interchange.

“I know, I know,” Roger said, answering her smile, “it'll be most inconvenient, but can I stop here?” He looked round at them all and flung out his hands. “O you're charming, you're lovely, all of you, but how much do you care what the great ones are doing? And in these centuries you've nearly killed it, with your appreciations and your fastidious judgements, and your lives of this man and your studies in that. What do you know about ‘huge and mighty forms that do not live Like living men'? Power, power, it's dying in you, and you don't hunger to feel it live. What's Milton, what's Shakespeare, to you?”

“If this is just a literary discussion——” Caithness began.

“What d'you mean—just a literary discussion?” Roger said, his temper leaping. “D'you call Islam a mere theological distinction? Can't you understand any other gospel than your own damned dogmas?”

“Roger, Roger,” Sir Bernard murmured.

“I beg your pardon,” Roger said, “and yours too, Sir Bernard. But I can't stay here to-night. I know it seems silly, but I can't.” He looked back at his wife. “But I shall be all right, darling,” he said, “if you'd rather stop. I can even go and buy a bottle of milk!”

Isabel smiled at him. “I think I'll come to-night,” she said. “To-night anyhow.” She looked down at her sister. “Rosamond, you might as well stop here, mightn't you?”

Rosamond looked up with a jerk. “Stop,” she exclaimed. “What, are you going back? O I can't, I can't. I'll come.”

They all stared at her. “I wasn't just listening,” she went on hastily. “I was thinking of something else. Are you going at once, Isabel? I'll get my things.” She was on her feet, when Philip's hand took hold of her arm. She jerked it away. “Let me alone,” she cried out. “Aren't you going with them?”

Philip, in spite of his opposition to Roger, hadn't been at all certain; or rather, he was extremely troubled about being certain. He couldn't begin to imagine himself on the side of Considine and the Africans, but he had a curiously empty feeling somewhere when he thought of denying them. It was all so muddled, and he had hitherto thought that moral divisions, though painful, were clear: such as not cheating, and not telling lies except for urgent reasons, and being on your country's side, and being polite to your inferiors, and in short playing the game. But this game was quite unlike any other he'd ever played; what with the piercing music that called him still, and the song Considine's talk of love sent through his blood, and the urgent appeal to him to do what he so much wanted to do, to exult and live. But of course when Rosamond put it like that—no, he wasn't. He was going to be on the side of his country and his duty and his fiancée. He said so.

She said: “I thought not,” almost snapping at him. “Then leave me alone. I thought you wouldn't.”

The king at this moment stood up. He had been silent, concerned with his own thought of vengeance, while the breach between Roger and the rest had widened, and now he thrust himself up in the midst of them, an ally and yet a hostility, a dark whirlwind of confusion in their thoughts and in their midst. He came to his feet, and Rosamond, as if by the force of his rising, seemed flung against her sister. She clung to Isabel, and Isabel said, speaking of ordinary things in her own extraordinarily lovely voice: “Very well, darling, we'll all go. Perhaps Sir Bernard will give us a loaf of bread.”

Sir Bernard, almost disliking Rosamond—he hadn't wanted her there at all, but she'd insisted on coming, and without being rude to Philip he could hardly refuse—said: “Also the jug of wine, if it's any good. The Sahara will no doubt presently serve for Paradise. Ian, will you come with me as far as Downing Street?”

The breach widened indeed, but he was more aware of it than Roger, and as he became aware of it he refused and bridged it in his mind. He had been very nearly irritated, and irritation inflamed all the exquisite contemplative mind: he turned the cool spray of medicinal irony on himself till he was able to smile at Roger and say, “Well, if you will go—But let me be in at the death, won't you? While gospels exist, let's enjoy them as best we can. Good-night.”

A little later he and Caithness, having telephoned for an appointment, came to Downing Street, where, parting from the priest, he was after some slight delay carried in to see Raymond Suydler himself; which attention and privilege he owed to the Prime Minister's gratitude for a restored stomach.

It was a long time since Sir Bernard had seen him; his attention to his stomach had been paid during the Prime Minister's first administration, and this was his second. He was a man who had made not merely an opportunity but a political triumph out of the very loss of public belief in politics which afflicted the country. He had carried realism to its extreme, declaring publicly that the best any statesman could do was to guess at the solution of his various problems, and that his guesses had a habit of being right. In private he dropped only the last half of this statement, which left him fifty per cent of sincerity, and thus gave him an almost absurd advantage over most of his colleagues and opponents. It had taken some time certainly for his own party to reconcile themselves to the enormous placards “Guess with Suydler” which at the General Election outflamed the more argumentative shows of the other side. But the country, half mocking, half understanding, had laughed and followed, in that mingling of utter despair and wild faith which conceals itself behind the sedate appearance of the English. Chance, no doubt, had helped him by giving him an occasional opportunity of lowering taxation at home and increasing prestige abroad, but his denial of reason had done more. It was not cynicism; it was, and it was felt to be, truth, as Suydler saw it, and as most of the country did. In any state of things, the facts—all the facts—were unknown; circumstances were continually changing; instability and uncertainty were the only assured things. What was the use of rational discussion or fixed principles or far-sighted demonstrations? “Guess—guess with Suydler.” He was reported to have said that the English had only had one inspired fool as Prime Minister—Pitt; and two intelligent men—Melbourne and Disraeli, who were hampered by believing, one in a class, the other in a race. “I would rather guess with Pitt, if you'll guess with me.”