More Miracle Than Bird

by Alice Miller

  At last she received a yellow calling card, announcing that her examination would be held at ten that night. She immediately wrote a telegram to Willy, letting him know the time. She had told Mrs. Thwaite that she had some urgent family business—not mentioning, but clearly alluding to, her late brother—and the matron had let her take a week off.

  For the hours before the examination, Georgie went to the reading room, except instead of focusing on her examination she found herself still fixating on Thomas of the White Hand. So far all her leads were unconvincing. The first thing that had come to Georgie’s mind—particularly after she’d scanned the Radcliffes’ bookshelves—was the character Elfride Swancourt in A Pair of Blue Eyes. Georgie could remember the lovely Elfride with her pretty white hand. But there must be countless ladies with lovely white hands, invented by men with the Christian name Thomas. And anyway, Thomas Hardy was still alive.

  Of course there was Thomas the Apostle, or Didymus, who needed proof from Christ in order to believe. Doubting Thomas, who demanded to see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side. This was a lesson in belief, which seemed a fitting message, the lesson being you shouldn’t need proof. Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. But there was no mention of whiteness.

  The librarian had found her a Sir Thomas White, who had dreamed about an elm, which he later saw at his right hand at the North Gate Oxford, after which he purchased the grounds and built the college of St. John the Baptist. But did it really count if the supposed hand was not a hand at all?

  Finally there was Thomas of Britain, a twelfth-century poet who wrote the first version of Tristan, in Old French. In Tristan, there was a character who was known by her white hands, but they were in the plural, and the character was a woman.

  And of course there was the hand which had appeared both in Harkin’s writing and in Nora Radcliffe’s—which Georgie had identified as the gesture of benediction. She had read that the pope’s sign was invented by Saint Peter, who had intended to stretch out his palm, but because of a medical condition, he could not open his hand, and so the symbol more closely resembled a claw. But how did any of these pieces fit together? And what was the system? Georgie told herself all she needed was a little patience. The question of the white hand, like the question of Dorlowicz, would make sense in time.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  When she came back to the dormitory, there was a letter waiting for her from Willy. She lay back on her bed to read it. It was brief, wishing her luck for the examination that evening and saying he looked forward to the chance to celebrate her victory with her. She wanted to speak to him—to tell him about her new position at the Order, and about Thomas of the White Hand. She knew she would have to give up going to Miss Radcliffe, but she wanted to talk to Willy first. She closed her eyes. After a while she thought she could hear a baby. From the stairwell, a wobbled call was echoing from somewhere. She imagined the boy—it was a boy, she was certain; he had dribble down his chin, and dark strands of hair. She swooped down to pick up the baby, but instead she woke up.

  Her examination was only in a few hours, and she could hardly stay awake. She decided she would go out for a walk.

  She cut back through Berkeley Square Gardens, the wet grass scattered with leaves from the plane trees, which were still dripping from an earlier downpour. It was not entirely respectable to traipse across town in the manner to which she had become accustomed, but she found that this only made it all the more appealing. She could feel pricks of the day’s rain grip at her stockings. The streets were filled with dusty late-afternoon light and the trees threaded through the rectangular garden were spidery, winding their thin twigs together in a network so fine as to be almost invisible, with the little nuts hanging like bells.

  She had unthinkingly walked to the hospital. She found herself looking up into the hospital windows, and she wondered how Pike’s hand was. As she had time, she decided on a whim that she would check in the ward on her way past, and see if he had recovered.

  Indoors, autumn air slipped through the gaps in the windows. Stepping inside, knowing there was no twelve-hour shift ahead of her, she felt lighter than usual. She peered into the ward to see the officers. The room looked the same; she was the one who felt different, as if she had become an outsider.

  There was one nurse on duty, Sanderson, who acknowledged her with a nod. Georgie took that as encouragement and walked between the beds, down the length of the room. On her way back, she paused by the bed of Second Lieutenant Pike and realised that this was the first time she’d ever seen him properly asleep. His sheet was drawn up to his neck, and his arm poked out from beneath the sheet, the pale cream bandage around his hand clean. She stopped by the bed a moment, wondering how long he had been sleeping. Although flowers were scarce in wartime, there was a vase of white and pink lilies at his bedside, their raw golden stamens hanging down like greedy tongues. Sanderson was over the other side of the room, and Georgie whistled, quietly, as if that might wake him, Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. His eyelids didn’t flicker.

  She glanced at his head on the pillow, the straight parting in his hair dividing each dark hair one way or another, and his hair grown so long it curled around his ears, making him look almost elven. She was disappointed that he wouldn’t wake up. His mouth was open and his breathing slow. He seemed too vulnerable, too open.

  “Isn’t it your day off?” The nurse approached her, carrying an empty basin.

  Georgie nodded and stepped back from the bed.

  The nurse smiled with her head on one side. “Did you ever meet Kitty?”

  “Kitty who?”

  “Richmond was her maiden name. She was one of the VADs.” She dangled the basin in one hand. “She left, though, married a captain.”

  “Oh Lord,” Georgie said, moving farther away from the bed, and spotting a window that was open a few beds down, she pushed it shut and latched it, with the silent implication that Sanderson should have done so herself earlier. “Don’t get the impression—that’s not what I’m doing. I’m not interested in the second lieutenant.”

  “Of course,” the nurse said. “You know the blonde woman who always hovers around him? I heard him tell her not to come back.”

  “It makes no difference to me, honestly.” Georgie looked over at Pike’s bed.

  “So you’re only here to say goodbye, then.”

  “Goodbye?”

  “They’re sending him to Southampton. To convalesce. Tomorrow.”

  “Even with his hand like that?”

  “Yes. His hand is fine. He missed the muscle. Cut it very cleanly. He’s training to be a surgeon, you know.”

  Georgie nodded as if it made no difference to her. Why would it? Except that it seemed strange not to get the chance to speak to him again. Making sure that the nurse wasn’t watching her, she gave the second lieutenant’s arm a little shake, to try to wake him.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  PIKE

  They’d told him the injury to his hand wasn’t serious. Would heal quickly. Once more he was a miracle, lucky him.

  But he was an ungrateful miracle. He did not want to go to Southampton. He hadn’t yet asked Hyde-Lees if she might visit him there, but he must. It was very strange that you could be nearly dead at the front and then a few weeks later you’d have trouble asking a girl if she would do so much as visit you.

  He heard her nearby, and knew he had to do it. It could be his last chance.

  She was leaning over him, and his eyes flicked open.

  “Georgie,” he said, before he could stop himself. (By pestering one of the other nurses, he’d learned her Christian name.)

  But the face leaning over him was not Georgie Hyde-Lees’s at all. It was a freckle-inflamed face with thin wrinkles, the face of an old man. One of the doctors, returned.

  “Just one last check, old boy.”

&
nbsp; Pike’s heart seemed to be blowing around inside him as the doctor loomed back into view. For some reason his feet felt hot. The doctor hmmmed in the way of someone who is trying to solve a complex problem and wants you to know how hard it is. He put his hand on the sheet and hmmmed again, now with his head down in his notebook. Pike thought if he ever were a doctor, he would never leave someone in suspense like this; he would always talk to his patient.

  “That’s it, then,” the man said finally.

  “Is something wrong?” Pike said. “Because you startled me just now. I didn’t mean to call you Georgie.”

  The doctor was amused. “I’ve been called worse things, believe me. I’m sorry I woke you. But I’m making it official. In just over a fortnight, we’ll let you go.”

  Pike tilted his head. “I thought I was going tomorrow.”

  “Not to convalescence,” the doctor said. “Back to your regiment. Congratulations.” He smiled at Pike, snapped his bag shut, and walked on to the next bed.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Georgie ate alone that evening and afterwards took a cab to the Order, getting out a few blocks early to try to get her head straight. The city felt like a stage set, as though the houses were being put up as she walked, and if she could only move fast enough, she would walk past these bits of cardboard and into nothing.

  She walked as fast as she could, feeling sweat gather at the base of her back, and she reached her hand to her chest to try to stop the absurd shuddering of her heart. She figured that because the examination hadn’t been cancelled, she must have been mistaken in seeing Harkin in the car at the Radcliffes’. She should have studied more, should have gone to Willy’s apartment and spoken to him, so he could slip her hints about what to expect. But it was hard to imagine how it could go wrong. Compared with every other member of the Order, she was better versed in alchemy, astrology, tarot, and kabbalah. She touched the yellow card in her pocket as she walked, beginning to crumple and uncrumple it in her fingers, until it became so soft it tore.

  She let herself into the Bassett Road house and peered into the cloakroom. At first she thought she had entered the wrong house. The pigeonholes had gone from the walls; the rack full of robes had disappeared; there was a faded outline where the silk hanging of the long-legged Fool had hung. All that was left were marks on the wall and a short piece of rope, such as that used to tie up a robe, lying on the floor. She walked back down the hallway, wondering what was going on. At the end a very tall figure in an ordinary brown robe was waiting for her.

  “Soror Nemo,” the figure said.

  “What happened?” Georgie said, but the figure—it was a woman—had her finger to her lips. The woman was holding something in her other hand: it was Georgie’s own robe. Georgie took it and put it on. She tied the rope around her waist, tugged her hood down over her eyes, and glanced up the stairs. But the woman pointed towards the adjoining meeting room.

  “Go through.”

  The room was almost unrecognisable. The chairs had gone, and the wall hangings had all been taken down, revealing cheap, peeling gold wallpaper underneath. The podium seemed to have been ripped out of the floor, and where it had been was a square hole. Scattered about the floor were fist-sized spheres of dust. She heard a creak and turned around; a figure in a dark red robe was coming towards her.

  From the way he walked, she could tell it was a man, and although he never played a role in the examinations, she thought it might be Dr. Harkin himself. His hood was down over his eyes and lips, too low for her to be certain. He walked around behind her and touched the back of her head, pulling her hood away roughly and wrapping something scratchy around her face, over her eyes. She felt him knotting it and she drew in breath when it caught her hair. The man finished the knot and pulled her hood down over her face. She reached up to try to release her hair, but another hand pushed hers back down. With her eyes open she could see nothing but tiny dots of light through the blindfold. She felt a jab at the small of her back, pushing her forward. She took one step, and another. Out the door. Along a corridor. She could smell ground coriander and soil. The dots of light were gone by now; it was completely dark.

  The hand pushed her forward, and she lifted her foot, to find nothing in front of her. She stopped.

  “Down,” a voice said. She lowered her foot and hit a step below—the surface uneven—and then, below, another. She was worried she might lose her footing. As the stairwell curled around, the smell became damp—they were underground—and she could hear a faint dripping. When she reached the bottom of the steps, she felt a hand at the back of her head, fumbling. The blindfold was pulled away and she heard footsteps behind her, and she turned to see the hooded man leaving the room.

  She was alone in a small room carved out of pale earth. The floor was uneven, and she could see the ill-fitting wooden door they had come through, which was raised slightly above the level of the room, and had been left open. She put her hand on the wall, which was packed earth, and damp. There were two steps below the door, cut into the clay, and the only light came from a fat white candle on one of the steps, stuck in the ground and flickering its light across the walls.

  In the centre of the room was a long, thin box, a rough coffin, beside a small crate. The coffin was made of heavy dark wood and was propped up on two planks covered with black cloth, which sank in the middle.

  From her studies she knew that this represented the empty coffin of Christian Rosenkreutz. She would be expected to get inside. She stepped up onto the flimsy crate and pulled open the coffin’s lid. The lid was heavy, and almost grazed the low ceiling. She managed to clamber into the box, awkwardly manoeuvring herself until she was lying down. The box was too long for her, but rather tight around the sides; the wood was rough, and her robe caught at her shoulder. She reached up to free the fabric. Having never liked enclosed spaces, she looked up at the pale ceiling, which was close to her face. She waited.

  A bell rang once, and she lay as flat as she could with her eyes shut. She heard footsteps approach, until they were right beside her. A creaking indicated that the lid of the box was being closed over the top of her. She opened her eyes for a moment but saw nothing but the lid closing over her face. She shut her eyes again.

  She heard one sharp puff of breath. The candle had gone out.

  She told herself to be calm, to wait. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine she was outside on a hill, in the air. She opened her eyes. The lid was too close for her to raise her head, and her breathing was too fast. She frantically tried to clear out her thoughts. She could smell her own breath, rebounded from the wood. She pushed gently on the lid, but it was fixed above her, locked in position. And the ceiling above. Was someone standing there, holding the lid down over her?

  The bell rang three times, and a voice said, “You are in the space between this world and the next.”

  She tried to slow her breathing. All she needed was to get through this. They would let her out in time. All she needed was to wait, do what the voice instructed, and she would pass the examination. But how was she demonstrating her studies by lying in a box? The harder she tried to clear out her brain, the more new thoughts leapt into her head. What if they left her in here? How would she get out?

  She banged on the wood with her fist. “I want to get out.”

  The voice came from above her. “This is part of your test.”

  “Let me out,” she said.

  “I would stay there if I were you.”

  She smashed the top of the coffin with her fist. At last she heard a latch flick, and the lid lifted up.

  She breathed a burst of stale air, and she leaned over the side of the coffin and vomited. A match hissed, and the candle was lit once more.

  “The Higher Members will not be pleased with you.” Dr. Harkin stood there, his hood pulled back from his face, looking at the ground where she had thrown up. Georgie was embarrassed. She wiped her mouth and tried to climb out of the coffin too quickly; when she dangled her f
oot down to find the crate, she overbalanced and almost fell on the floor. Harkin took a step towards her but did not help her. When she had recovered, she sat down on the dirty crate.

  “What was all that for?” she said.

  “We are testing you,” he said. He was leaning against the wall, and he spoke as if he were in the lecture room, as if his words were unquestionable. “To be an associate. The Higher Members insisted. You were seen at Miss Radcliffe’s. We weren’t sure if we could trust you.”

  “So you lock me in a box? As a punishment?”

  “Not a punishment. A test.”

  “What does a test like that prove?” She was confused, didn’t understand. She felt sick, and the room smelled of vomit.

  “I have reasons to do it. I need to make sure I can trust you.”

  She frowned. “Of course you can.”

  He paused. He looked exhausted; in the dim light it looked as if two enormous dark slugs had nestled under his eyes.

  “There’s a problem,” he said. “Two weeks ago, I received a letter. Someone saying parts of the Order aren’t true. And the difficulty is that—the person who wrote this letter—knows things.”

  “What things?”

  “Well.” He sniffed. “Anna Sprengel, for instance, is a—sort of composite.”

  “A composite?”

  “A combination of several people who did exist. It was necessary to have someone as a symbol, you know.” He went on. “This person found a letter from the old chief, Mathers, about Anna Sprengel, and various other parts of the Order.” His voice was gentler now. “You see this has the potential to cause trouble.”

  “You are saying that you made her up?” Why was he telling her this?

  “Mathers and I—assembled—bits—from various sources. Yes. It is part of the process, as I’m sure you understand. But now I’m being blackmailed. They’re threatening to reveal all this, they want to throw me out and take over. And my members are straying. Going to mediums, finding alternatives they like better. I can’t pay my bills. My main donor pulled her contributions. You saw the house; I’ve had to pawn the furniture. The house itself is next.”