by Dion Fortune
“That is only to win your confidence. They will soon. You needn't worry about that.”
Hugh shifted his position wearily in his chair.
“When they do, I'll let you know. At the present they are uncommon useful to me.”
“And then it will be too late,” said Lady Paston irritably. “We have had so much of this sort of thing. You are so easily influenced, Hugh. Anybody can get anything they like out of you.”
“There's plenty for everybody,” said Hugh sullenly.
“That is exactly what there isn't, if you fritter it away. I have only a life interest, there is nothing I can leave your sisters. And there are Alice's two children, and Letitia's three, and Moira's baby.”
“Well, what about them? Won't they ever be able to earn a living? Have I got to support them permanently? Isn't anybody ever going to get a job?”
“There is no need to be offensive about it, Hugh. You know perfectly well how difficult things have been for everybody. Surely you are prepared to make some provision for your sisters' children?”
“I should have thought their own fathers might have done something in that line.”
“There is no need to be offensive, Hugh, as I have already told you once. Now this is my suggestion, my dear boy, and as it is unlikely that I shall be with you very much longer, I hope you will do it to please me, and then we can all be happy together for the few short years that remain to me. I suggest that you make your affairs into a trust, Hugh, with Robert and Cosmo as the trustees; then capital cannot be frittered away, and there will be something for everybody. When I persuaded your father to leave everything to you instead of dividing up the estate, it was always understood that you would look after your sisters.”
“So I will,” said Hugh. “But I don't see the fun of doing more for the third generation than educating it. I'm damned if I'm going to pension it,”
“But Hugh, who else have you got to leave your money to, except your sisters' children? You aren't thinking ofleaving it to charity, are you? I never heard of anything so absurd, with the three girls unprovided for. If I had known you were going to turn out as you have, I would never have persuaded your father to leave everything to you. If you can't make a mark in the world yourself, you might at least enable others to do so. What do you propose to leave your money to, Hugh, if not to the girls?”
“Hang it all, mother, why do you take it for granted I am going to peg out first? I am the baby of the family. I ought to bury the lot of you if I have my rights. Why do they expect to get more out of it if there is a trust, with their husbands as trustees, than if I disburse largesse myself? Are the trustees proposing to misapply trust funds?”
“Hugh, you are not to speak like that, I won't have it. It is only to prevent the capital from being frittered away that I want things put into the hands of trustees, so that there will be something for the children eventually. It makes a very great difference to the opportunities children get, especially girls, if there is something in prospect for them. You might just as well get things settled, Hugh, and then we can all be easy in our minds. What can you possibly leave your money to, jf not to your sisters' children?”
“Has it never occurred to you that I might marry again? I'm no Methuselah, you know.”
There was a dead silence.
“I thought as much,” said Lad y Paston, at length. “So she has got you to that point, has she?”
“Will she have you, Hugh?” came the voice of his youngest sister from his left.
“Judging on type, I should say she wouldn't,” came the voice of his eldest sister from his right. “She looks to me a passionate, full-blooded type. Personally I shouldn't think she would have you if you were the last man left alive.”
Hugh was too bitterly appreciative of the truths contained in these remarks to realise the volte face they indicated.
His mother's voice interrupted his thoughts as he sat staring out of the window into the fast-deepening twilight, oblivious of his companions, who were watching him like so many cats at a mouse-hole.
“We would be only too happy for you to marry, dear,” she said, “provided the girl was suitable; but you are very foolish to involve yourself with this Wilton woman, who believe me, is more than unsuitable. We have had enquiries made about her, and quite apart from being very middle-class indeed, she has led a thoroughly loose life, living with various men.”
“Is that my business?” said Hugh.
“It is if you are thinking of marrying her.”
“You remember that Lady Doreen something you were talking about last time I saw you?”
“Alice's friend? Yes, dear, of course I do; we have been seeing a good deal of her lately.”
“I wonder what her record would prove to be like if you got that detective to look it up.”
There was a deadly silence that was unbroken even by Lady Paston's assertion of maternal authority.
“We know what Frida's record was, don't we?” said Hugh with a harsh laugh.
“Whether you care about records or not, Hugh.” said his eldest sister, “you are a fool to let yourself get at all deeply involved with this Wilton girl, for she is only too obviously taking advantage of you.”
Hugh looked up, startled. “What do you mean?” he asked sharply.
“Look at her type—and look at yours. You don't suppose you have got a chance with a girl of that type, do you, Hugh? Vital. intense, accustomed to men of the artist type? My dear boy, have some sense. Look at the thing from her point of view and read between the lines. Don't be a goose, Hugh, keep your freedom. You have been married for your money once. and you know what came of it. Don't make that mistake a second time.”
“I don't suppose she'd marry me even for my money,” said Hugh bitterly. and the company pricked up its ears as one man.
“Have you asked her?” asked Lady Paston tartly.
“No,” said Hugh.
“Are you going to?”
“I don't know. I think not.”
Then all of a sudden something seemed to snap like a harp-string inside Hugh's head; for a moment the room swam round him; then it steadied again and he gathered his wits together; but they were not the wits of Hugh, but of Ambrosius.
The two minds overlapped, like two exposures on the same film, and the resulting man was neither one thing nor the other. There came upon him a horrible nightmare feeling of confusion and bewilderment. He did not know where he was—and yet the place was familiar. He did not know who these people were, and yet their faces were not strange. He knew. however. with both sides of his mind, that he was in a very tight corner, but what his peril was he could not be sure.
He knew that a net was closing round him, that suspicion was hardening into certainty; that the power of Rome had been invoked by certain of the senior monks, and that at any moment one who could not be denied might arrive. But these people did not look like the delegation from Rome; then who were they? He was utterly perplexed, dreading a mis-step that might precipitate the very danger he was striving desperately to ward off. The very uncertainty, the very bewilderment of mind, made things a thousand times worse, and he feared that at any moment he might lose his head and start flailing around wildly. There came to him the feeling that it was not real at all, but just a nightmare; and then the feeling that he was dead, and this was one of the dreams that come in the sleep of death. It was as if time were flowing the wrong way round and space were stretching and twisting like a wet hide. But whatever else was unreal, he knew that the danger was real, and he felt the cold hand of fear on throat and heart.
But whereas in this crisis Hugh would have been as helpless as a bird before a snake, as they very well knew as they sat waiting for him to betray himself, something that was not Hugh was also present, and as they watched him they saw his face change, and there was looking at them a man who, whoever he might be, was certa inly not Hugh. They gasped. The eyes of the stranger were steady and cold as a swordsman's. The three women were dumb; w
hatever they might do to Hugh, they dare not tamper with this individual; by sheer weight of personality he dominated them. Dr Hughes, too experienced to precipitate a crisis, kept quiet and took mental notes; he was familiar with the classical cases of dual personality, and had seen some minor ones in his own experience, but he had never come across anything like this before. The personality that was now present was putting the fear of God into him in a way that no pathology ought to do.
Then, even at the very moment when the situation lay in his hand, there came to the man standing there in the midst of them the knowledge that he was broken—that this was the end. Those who sat round him, whoever they might be, were the representatives of a power he could not resist; the inner protection that had been his ever since he had first contacted the great God Pan was withdrawn, and he waited for death unarmed.
And yet the god had not deserted him. He had only retreated, and stood a little way off beckoning him to follow. The time was not yet ripe, they could not make head against a world embattled against them. The Goat-god had come at his call, but the end was forbidden; he must beat a retreat.
Then he knew with an inner certainty that there was that in the soul which could rise above the bondage of the age and go free. Outwardly he had failed, but on the inner planes he had made the conditions that would assure success at the next attempt. He would go now, and he would come again. He would offer no resistance of casuistry or counter-charge against his accusers; he would not take refuge in flight. The inner resistance withdrawn, they could take his life and be done with it. But in his heart were the promises that had been made to him in the strange visions and writings that had been his, and by those he held the god pledged. When he came again, conditions would be right; the god would manifest as promised: the dreams would come true. It seemed to him, as these thoughts went through his mind, that the god, standing a little way off on a mound, lifted his hand in affirmation.
Then there arose in him an overmastering desire to go once again to his own place, his priory. Would they let him go there, or was he already under arrest? He put it to the test, walked boldly out of the door, and none stayed him.
To his surprise he found that he was already at his own priory, whereas he had thought that he had been in the justice room at the Abbey. Confusion descended on him again. A moment before he had been with Pan in a wood. Where was he? What was happening? Was it all a dream? Yet the peril was real enough, he felt certain of that. But it did not matter, now that he had given up hope. Let the end come quickly, the quicker the better; but he was glad that it was coming at the priory—his own place that was friendly to him, not alien and hostile as were the very walls of the Abbey.
He turned and went towards the chapel. He would stand in the centre of the great Sign that showed forth the created universe, he would stand at the point of the concourse of forces, and there he would surrender his soul to the powers that created it, and withdrawing, leave his body to those who had authority over it; they could do their worst, it could not be for long.
Some one spoke to him as he crossed the dew-soaked grass to the chapel door; he did not know who it was, but the feel of the man was friendly, so it must be one of his own monks, not the strangers from Rome with their Italian subtlety and cruelty. He gave the curt blessing ofpeace expected ofan ecclesiastic ofhis grade, and passed on and entered the darkness of the chapel.
As he took the great doors in his hands to close them, he stood still and looked back. The sun had set, but the afterglow lingered in the sky over the dark trees, at its verge one silver star. He stood long and looked at it. He would not see it again, he knew that. This was the end. He had a strange feeling as ifit had all happened before—as if he knew exactly what was coming. They would seek him here; they would take him down underground; and before dawn death would find him. He went up through the darkness to the high altar and took his stand as he had planned. Around him were the symbols of the heavenly houses; behind him the great Regents of the Elements, winged like archangels, stood in their buttressing bays. He stood for a while, and then knelt down and laid his hands on the cubical altar of stone. Those who would come for him should find him here.
CHAPTER XX
BACK in the room he had left, a rather heated conference was in progress.
“Do you think,” said Lady Paston, “that you can certify on what you have seen?”
“Dr Hughes rubbed his chin. “It's a little difficult. I should have liked to have had something more definite. One has to be so very careful.”
“But there is what Miss Pumfrey told us,” said Lady Whitney.
“We cannot make use of rhar, I am afraid, it is only hearsay evidence. She pumped it out of the girl, and the girl is admittedly subnormal. It may guide us in coming to an opinion, but I cannot put it into my certificate. I can only certify on what I actually see.”
“Well, haven't you seen enough? I should have thought we had seen enough today for anybody to certify on. I never saw anything that looked madder in my life.”
“Yes, but he hasn't done anything, dear lady.”
“It isn't what he does. He has never done anything in his life—and never will—” said Lady Paston bitterly. “It is what other people do when they get him into their hands. Dr Johnson is prepared to certify him, if you are, and he knows him very well.”
“Mm. Ah. One has to be very careful.”
“Well, if you don't certify him, there won't be a penny left for anybody. Most unfortunately his father left everything to him so as to give him the best possible chance in life, and you see how he has turned out. Quite subnormal mentally, Dr Johnson tells me.”
“Mm. Ah, Yes. He'll certainly never set the Thames on fire. Very eccentric too, I take it. Likes to associate with the lower classes. Defectives often do.”
“Well, what do you suggest?” Lady Paston was beginning to get a little tart. Dr Hughes had been brought for a special purpose, and knew it, but he did not seem disposed to get on with the job.
“Of course if I had Mr Paston under my care for a time—”
“That's no use,” snapped Lady Paston. “That won't enable us to take his affairs in hand and look after them.”
“I was about to say, Lady Paston,” said Dr Hughes with dignity, “that if I had Mr Paston under my care for a time, I could form a better opinion of his condition, and if I see anything that made certification appear advisable I could advise you in the matter.”
“What would your fee be for having him under your care?”
“Twenty guineas a week.”
“Twenty guineas a week? Why, that is a thousand a year.”
“It is a little more than that, dear lady. I said guineas, not pounds, and there are fifty-two weeks in a year.”
(” If he calls mother ‘dear lady' again, she'll kill him!”) whispered the younger to the elder of the two sisters. But it looked as if Lady Paston would not wait for that eventuality, but would slay him forthwith.
“Do you mean to say I have got to pay you twenty guineas a week indefinitely?”
“He has got to live somewhere, dear lady, and he will spend a great deal more than that on himself if he—er—remain in the hands of these—er—persons.”
“I am not prepared to do that,” snapped Lady Paston. “I am prepared to pay a fee for the consultation, certainly, but not to go on paying indefinitely.”
“I think we had better have another opinion,” said Lady Whitney icily.
“Then in that case,” said Dr Hughes, equally icily, “my opinion will be available for the other side. You cannot go from doctor to doctor till you get a man certified. If one doctor has declined to certify when asked, any other doctor is exceedingly chary of certifying, in the existing state of the law.”
“You can't change horses while crossing a stream, mother,” said Mrs Fouldes, with a laugh.
“This is sheer blackmail!” exlaimed Lady Paston.
“That statement is actionable,” said Dr Hughes.
This
was an eventuality they had never bargained for. Hugh could be certified all right, and his affairs got into their hands, no difficulty about that; but apparently he would only remain certified as long as Dr Hughes drew his twenty guineas a week; if that came to an end, Hugh would promptly be de-certified, and his trustees would then be called upon to render an account of their stewardship. And would Dr Hughes demands be limited to twenty guineas a week? Blackmail is a thing that grows with what it feeds on.
But if they went to any other doctor for the putting away of the unhappy Hugh, Dr Hughes would promptly turn round and say that Hugh did not need certifying, and then where would they be? In for a penny, in for a pound. Desperate situations required desperate remedies. They set to work to drive the best bargain they could with Dr Hughes.
“Twenty guineas a week is a very high fee,” said Lady Paston, but her voice was much milder than it had hitherto been.
“You are asking me to take a very heavy responsibility,” said Dr Hughes.
“I should have thought twelve guineas a week would have been ample.”
“I could not possibly undertake it for that money. Mr Paston is the kind of patient who will always be trying to escape, and might be very violent when prevented. He will have to have special attendants. I shall also require an indemnity against any legal expenses I might be involved in by him; these kind of patients often have a mania for litigation.”
“There is not the slightest likelihood of that with him. He has never been known to do anything on his own initiative.”
“But supposing a friend stirs up trouble?”
“He has no friends worth mentioning. They were all his wife's friends, and of course that is all over now.”
“His solicitors, then?”
“I have already been to see them. They are quite agreeable; they only stipulated that they should continue to handle his affairs, to which I agreed.”
“Mm. Ah. Yes, I see. It might, on the whole, be in his best interests to certify him. There do not seem to be any difficulties in the way. I will have a word with Dr Johnson, and see what he thinks. He has known him longer than I have. We will give him the casting vote. If he thinks it advisable, I will not say no.”