“Certainly not, Mr.—er—Wayland. It’s a very sensible question.” Mervil was courteous but a trifle condescending. “These members of the élite will of course enjoy such good things as this world offers its masters. I don’t rate all that very high myself. But they’ll enjoy the exercise of their ability. And they’ll enjoy a sense of power. Being realists and not given to self-deception, they’ll know they can’t reasonably expect more than that—and are fortunate to have so much. I hope that answers your question.”
“It’s good enough for me,” cried Karney, as Wayland merely nodded, apparently too shy to say any more.
“Is adult talk—eh?” said Perperek, his yellow moon of a face all one vast falsely-admiring smile.
“I think so.” Mervil was curt with the old fool.
“Wonderful!” Perperek wagged his head. Then he looked anxious. “But no women? All women go with children people, eh? Is a pity, I think.”
“So do I,” cried Nancy, taking this one chance of joining in. “I think it’s a shame, Lord Mervil.”
“Is big shame. Always I like women very moch.” He looked enquiringly at Mervil, who merely gave him a sketch of a shrug.
“Always I like women very much too,” cried Prisk, his burlesque more obvious than ever.
Perperek looked at him. “Not in right way, I think. Very dangerous. Woman has old powers from Earth—suddenly perhaps she punish—very bad.”
“I’m sorry, old boy, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And Prisk laughed, but Ravenstreet saw that he was not unimpressed, secretly perhaps rather shaken.
Now it was Marot’s turn. He was sitting opposite Mervil, and now he pointed a very long, large-knuckled forefinger across the table. “One more question, if you please,” he began slowly, gravely. He stared hard at Mervil as he spoke. “These rulers—they will have pity for all the childish people they rule?”
Marot was too impressive now to be contemptuously dismissed; Mervil had to take his question seriously. “I thought I’d made that point. We try to give them what we know they really want. And what they couldn’t obtain for themselves. What our individual feelings might be—pity or contempt, or perhaps a mixture of both—are of no consequence, my dear sir. We mustn’t forget that the masses are as necessary to us as we are to them.”
“Is that true?” Marot was still staring hard. “There are so many of them, these stupid people. More machines—mechanical workers—might be found to do their work. Why should you keep millions you do not want?”
“We can cross that bridge when we come to it.” Mervil spoke hastily and looked restive. He gave an involuntary shake of the head, as if he found Marot’s fixed stare oppressive.
“In Russia, I think,” cried Perperek, “bridge was crossed. Arrest all peoples not liked by secret police. Send them to work in desert, in cold forest. They do some work—good! They die—what a pity!” He looked round beaming, as if he ought to be applauded for being so helpful.
Mervil gave his plate a little push and leant back in his chair, then glanced impatiently at Ravenstreet. “I said they were ruthless but clumsy,” he told the table rather than Perperek. “We’re not arriving anywhere—going round in a circle. Let’s change the subject.”
“It was your subject, not ours,” said Sepman nastily. “The fact is, you talk very grandly about this élite but you’re not prepared to tell us how far it’s prepared to go. To hell with your élite, I say. I’m not sure they’re not just what the silly blighters deserve, the sort of mugs who believe what they read in your papers—but you’re not kidding me, Mervil. You’ll be like any other gang that’s got itself in power to push people around. I don’t blame you for that—it serves ’em right—they’ve asked for it—but when you say you might have some pity for ’em, you make me laugh.”
“Is good to laugh,” Perperek told him eagerly. “But I cannot hear you laughing.”
“Not very funny.” And Sepman’s glance was as sour as his tone. He had helped himself liberally to wine but it had only made him more aggressive, heightening and colouring all his grievances.
“Really, Ernest, you are awful tonight,” his wife protested.
“All right then,” he shouted, “I’m awful. You’re ashamed of me. Sir Charles is embarrassed. Lord Mervil can’t hide his dislike, even though he does want something I’ve got. I don’t know what Sir Edwin Karney feels—and he doesn’t look as if he does either. As for these three——”
But here he was interrupted. Horrified not so much by what he had said as by his outrageous manner, the reckless explosion, Nancy had had enough. Noisily she hurried out of the room; and, throwing a word of apology to Ravenstreet, Prisk went after her. To Ravenstreet’s surprise, Sepman ignored these departures; he emptied his glass and then stared at it sullenly.
“Mr. Sepman, what did you wish to say about my friends and me?” Marot enquired smoothly.
“Nothing worth saying. I lost my temper. I’m sorry. I’m having rather a difficult time—feeling raw. Apologies all round. I understand,” Sepman continued hurriedly, “you three have met to discuss something. May one ask what your subject is?” He glanced round at the three of them, ending with Wayland.
“We try to discuss certain problems,” Wayland told him, with an apologetic air. “For example, the problem of the sixth dimension.”
“Is very difficult, of course,” cried Perperek. “How he works—perhaps to make spiral—very difficult.”
“Sometimes we understand,” said Marot, shaking his head and looking very old, melancholy, defeated, a monument of intellectual futility. “Sometimes we cannot understand at all.”
“Don’t blame you,” said Karney, ignoring Sepman and giving Mervil a meaning glance.
“Nor I, gentlemen.” Mervil was very dry and appeared to be completely composed again. Now he caught Ravenstreet’s eye.
“Yes,” said Ravenstreet, responding. “We’ll have coffee in the drawing-room. It’s probably waiting for us.” He left them to straggle out and went to find some cigars that he knew were in the small study. He felt both depressed and irritated, a nasty combination. All that had been achieved so far was an unusually strained and ill-mannered dinner party, for which he must accept responsibility. And there were still three hours or so to get through somehow or other, most probably with Mervil, Karney and Sepman, arguing about objections that he would have to invent, to justify his bringing them here. Then he turned, cigars in hand, to find Wayland standing in the doorway.
“I thought I could safely have a minute with you,” he said softly. “You’re feeling unhappy about this evening, aren’t you?”
Ravenstreet did not try to hide his irritation. “I’m certainly not feeling very cheerful about it. I don’t know what you three think you can do, but I can’t believe you’re doing it. The magic doesn’t seem to be working. And as I told Perperek just before dinner, I can only keep them here tonight, and very soon Mervil will insist upon our having our business talk. I suppose I can invent something, but it’s ten to one I’ll be made to look a fool. In the meantime the combined efforts of you three have merely brought an outburst from Sepman, who would probably have lost his temper anyhow—he’s always angry. I’ve done what you asked me to do—here they all are—but I must say, Wayland, that now I’m rather sorry. All we’ve got, it seems, is a futile evening.”
“I think not.” Wayland was calm and easy. “Don’t worry about your business talk. There won’t be one. But Mervil is stronger than we thought he would be. He’s protected to some extent, just as we are, only his comes from the other side.” He dropped to a whisper. “This may well be the trial of strength we were expecting, though we didn’t know how or where we’d find it. Thanks to you, here it is. But I mustn’t keep you.”
As they moved out, Ravenstreet said quietly and in all sincerity: “Doesn’t it ever occur to you, Wayland, that you three may be living in an imaginary world?”
“We’re all living in imaginary worlds, Ravenstreet.
If you could catch a glimpse of the real world, you’d think you’d gone mad. But ours is nearer the ultimate truth than yours is, I believe; it has far less self-deception in it. And let me give you one piece of advice. Don’t be deceived by the apparent solidity of things. That’s the grand illusion of the senses. The old warnings against trusting the senses weren’t all pleas for asceticism, as most people think, but were concerned with false knowledge, wrong beliefs. You have to reverse all common-sense judgments. What seems solid is fluid, even gaseous, spectral. What seems ghostly, lighter than air, come and gone in a second, may have more true solidity than Gibraltar.” They were now within a few paces of the drawing-room door, and Wayland halted him, without any smile this time, looking almost as bleak as Marot. He spoke very softly. “I didn’t follow you to apologise because nothing is happening. I came to warn you that soon a great deal may happen, and some of it you may find very disturbing. You won’t believe, I’m afraid, that these strange or tragic events are only one chapter in these life stories, that they can be changed in time alive. But please remember that is what we believe. So—it may be bad, but not as bad as you think.”
He put a hand on Ravenstreet’s arm, let it rest there for a moment, then gave him a little push forward. Ravenstreet found himself entering the drawing-room, babbling about cigars and brandy. Through one tall window the sunset, ending angrily, glared, with molten bronze under a deep purple canopy of cloud. It turned the room into a cave of heavy shadows flecked with particles of fire. The men in it had the featureless faces of crowds in a dream. Still absentmindedly playing host, he heard himself shouting the usual commonplaces, switched on all the lights, drew the curtains. The stage, as he believed they said, was set.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Crack Up
“Have you seen my wife?” Sepman asked uneasily.
Ravenstreet said he hadn’t. “She’s probably somewhere around with Prisk,” he added.
Sepman pushed out his rather thick lower lip. “Well, I don’t want her somewhere around with Prisk.” He drank his brandy, in a curious defiant way, rather as if he had not really been offered any but felt he was entitled to some. But then this was his general attitude.
Karney had overheard them. “I thought I heard a car just before we left the dining-room. Probably they’ve gone for a little spin. Prisk knew he wouldn’t be wanted.” Karney’s curiously deep bass voice might have smothered a malicious inflection. Sepman looked at him suspiciously.
“I don’t care whether Prisk’s wanted or not. I certainly don’t want any part of him. But naturally I’d like to know where my wife is.” He looked at his glass, then moved rather uncertainly across the room towards the brandy.
“I’d suggest that should be his last, Ravenstreet,” Karney murmured. “And I think Mervil’s getting impatient. Another ten minutes—and then we’ll get down to it.”
“I’ll see.” Ravenstreet was irritable. “It’ll do Mervil no harm to control his impatience.”
“Yes, but you know what he is.”
“I know what he thinks he is.”
“Now, now, my dear fellow, we can’t have you losing your temper too. Look—he’s signalling.”
Ravenstreet refused to look. “I give the signals in this house. Stop fussing, Karney. You haven’t to take orders like Prisk. And we’ll talk business all the better when we’ve given ourselves a little time to settle down.”
“Is good that.” This was from Perperek, who had now joined them. He was smoking a cigar and holding a monster helping of brandy, and was the self-indulgent old Balkan merchant to the life. “Always I talk moch business—many places. Always I have nize cigar—nize brandy—plenty coffee. You think, Sir Karney?” He was all beaming innocence.
The high wide shoulders moved in a shrug, and Karney’s head seemed to sink lower than ever. “Sometimes, not always.” He hardly glanced in Perperek’s direction but gave Ravenstreet a meaning look.
Perperek raised his voice. “Is wonderful you do so good here in England.”
“I don’t understand you.” Karney sounded annoyed.
“But is easy to unnerstan’.” Perperek’s protest filled the room; everybody listened. “I say is wonderful you do so good here in England.”
“I’m not deaf, my dear sir. But I don’t understand what you mean, that’s all. It doesn’t make sense to me. However, let’s drop the subject.” And to make sure that it was dropped, he went across to join Mervil.
Perperek did not follow him but did go forward several paces, finally standing in the middle of the room, claiming all eyes. He pointed his cigar at Karney. He was still smiling but the look of beaming innocence had gone, the clown mask was melting away, the little dark eyes no longer twinkled; and there was a suggestion of concentrated force that Ravenstreet, who had seen it once or twice before, recognised at once. This was undoubtedly the real Perperek, a most formidable personality.
“Now what’s the matter?” The demand was impatient but there might have been a faltering note in Karney’s deep bass. He looked uneasy, too; not at all the man who had told Perperek to drop the subject and had contemptuously walked away from him. “Well—what is it now?”
“I say is wonderful you do so good here in England.”
“All right, man, you’ve made your point.” Karney sounded faintly relieved. “It’s wonderful I’ve done so well here in England. Let’s leave it at that.” He turned to speak to Mervil.
“Have good remembering. Moch difficult training for remembering. So I think—I think—where is it I see Sir Karney before.” Perperek had all Karney’s attention now. “So I remember. Is why I say you do so good here in England. In 1921 you were very young man—in Constantinople—and I see you in police house because of smoggling. Perhaps you go to prison—perhaps no. But in 1921 you are young smoggler there—now you are Sir Karney here. Is wonderful, I think——”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It was a fine roar, but already his eyes were afraid and he was beginning to sweat.
“No? Have care now.”
“I tell you I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Look here, Ravenstreet,” Mervil called, crisply and commandingly, “you really must put a stop to this. It’s intolerable.”
Before Ravenstreet could reply, the awkward little scene suddenly flared into strange drama. Perperek spoke rapidly in some foreign tongue; Karney responded in the same language, but hesitatingly and fearfully, like a servant caught pilfering; then Perperek lashed him with words that whistled and cracked like whips. This brought about a remarkable transformation, for Sir Edwin Karney suffered such an immediate change that he might almost be said to have disappeared; the high wide shoulders dropped, almost seemed to melt; the sunken head, now wet with perspiration, reared up on a writhing neck; and there between Mervil and Ravenstreet, in place of the stiff City knight, was a terrified Levantine, wriggling and abjectly protesting.
Perperek regarded him sombrely for a moment or two, saying no more, and then sat down to enjoy his cigar and his brandy. Karney, his persona still in ruins, found a few muttered words of English, rolled despairing sepia eyes, and bolted.
“Well, what was that in aid of?” Sepman demanded harshly.
“You tell,” said Perperek to Wayland.
“Mr. Perperek knew something of Sir Edwin Karney’s early history,” Wayland began, smoothly. “And he reminded him of it in the language associated with that time, which I imagine to be Turkish. This produced rather a strong effect, as you saw.”
“That’s about what I thought,” said Sepman. “But what’s he supposed to have done wrong? All right—he isn’t English, but what does that matter? When he was young he did a bit of smuggling—so what? Why attack him just because he’s made something of himself?”
“Yes—but——”
“I tell, Wayland,” cried Perperek, then stared at Sepman. “Why you so foolish? Three times I say—is wonderful he do so good in England. Three time
s he has chance to say ‘Yes, yes, I do wonderful, thank you very moch.’ But no, no. He say he don’t unnerstan’. He say I not know what am talking about. Is very proud, very stiff, in false personality. Snail stay in shell. So I crack shell. Why you think? Because he change nation—because he is once young smoggler? Pooh-pooh—pooh! I change nation—I smoggle—is all nothing. But proudness, falseness, big stiff lie—all that is something. So I crack it. I attack him, you say? Yes—a little. But most he attack himself. You see?”
“Near enough,” Sepman replied sourly. “Even if you did tell me not to be foolish. I’ll admit I didn’t care for him much before, but when I saw him standing there looking so damned miserable, I felt sorry for him.”
“Is good that.” Perperek beamed upon him now.
“I suppose he’s not going to be fit for much the rest of the evening,” said Mervil, without any signs of regret. “I always suspected a soft timid streak in him—and his servility worried me.” He gave the company a bleak little smile. “Perhaps I ought to feel grateful for this—er—psychological experiment.”
“We are interested in such things.” This was from Marot; a dry whisper from the old stone tower.
“So I gather.” Mervil answered Marot’s brooding stare with a quick glance, took in Wayland and Perperek, then squarely faced Ravenstreet, who knew at once that behind his icy manner Mervil was very angry indeed. “And now, Ravenstreet, I want an explanation.”
“Of what?”
“I took the trouble to check your story about the local hotel wrecked by aircraft. I found it was correct. It’s a reasonable explanation of the presence of these three here.” Mervil hesitated a moment.
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