Descent into Hell, Charles Williams [top 100 books to read TXT] 📗

Plantagenet’s cavalry had come across the river with the

dawn or over the meadows by the church at about noon. But a

phrase, a doubt, a contradiction, had involved the two in

argument. Aston Moffatt, who was by now almost seventy, derived

a great deal of intellectual joy from expounding his point of

view. He was a pure scholar, a holy and beautiful soul who would

have sacrificed reputation, income, and life, if necessary, for

the discovery of one fact about the horse-boys of Edward

Plantagenet. He had determined his nature. Wentworth was

younger and at a more critical point, at that moment when a man’s

real concern begins to separate itself from his pretended, and

almost to become independent of himself. He raged secretly as he

wrote his letters and drew up his evidence; he identified

scholarship with himself, and asserted himself under the disguise

of a defence of scholarship. He refused to admit that the exact

detail of Edward’s march was not, in fact, worth to him the cost

of a single cigar.

 

As for Adela, he was very well aware of Adela, as he was aware of

cigars, but he did not yet know what he would give up for her, or

rather for the manner of life which included her. As Aston

Moffatt was bound either to lessen or heighten Wentworth’s

awareness of his own reputation, so Adela was bound either to

increase or abolish his awareness of his age. He knew time was

beginning to hurry; he could at moments almost hear it scamper.

He did not very well know what he wanted to do about it.

 

He was sitting now in his study, his large body leaning forward

over the table, and his hands had paused in measuring the plan

that lay in front of him. He was finding the answer to Aston

Moffatt’s last published letter difficult, yet he was determined

that Moffatt could not be right. He was beginning to twist the

intention of the sentences in his authorities, preferring strange

meanings and awkward constructions, adjusting evidence,

manipulating words. In defence of his conclusion he was willing

to cheat in the evidence—a habit more usual to religious writers

than to historical. But he was still innocent enough to be

irritated; he felt, as it were, a roughness in the rope of his

dream, and he was intensely awake to any other slights from any

quarter. He looked sharply to see if there were more Moffatts in

the world. At that inconvenient moment on that evening Adela

arrived with Hugh. It was long since he had seen her in the

company of one young man: alone, or with one woman, or with

several young men and women, but not, as it happened, so. He

stood up when they were announced, and as they came in, Adela’s

short red-and-cream thickness overshadowed by Hugh’s rather

flagrant masculinity, he felt something jerk in him, as if a knot

had been first tied and then suddenly pulled loose. He had

written but that morning in an article on the return of Edward

IV, “the treachery of the Earl destroyed the balance”. Remote,

five hundred years away, he felt it in the room; a destruction of

balance. Then they were sitting down and Adela was talking.

 

She explained, prettily, why they had come. Hugh, watching,

decided that she must not behave quite so prettily. Hugh had no

jerks or quavers. He had decided some time since that Adela

should marry him when he was ready, and was giving himself the

pleasurable trouble of making this clear to her. There was a

touch too much gusto in her manner towards Wentworth. She had

been, as he had, and some others of the young, in the habit of

spending an evening, once a fortnight or so, at Wentworth’s

house, talking about military history and the principles of art

and the nature of the gods. During the summer these informal

gatherings were less frequent, because of tennis and motor-rides

and the nature of men and women. Hugh meant that for Adela they

should stop altogether. He observed an intimacy; he chose that

it should not continue, partly because he wished Adela to belong

to him and partly because the mere action of breaking it would

show how far Adela was prepared to go with him. His mind made

arrangements.

 

Adela explained. Wentworth said: “Very well, I’ll do anything I

can. What is it you want?” He felt ungracious; he blamed Aston

Moffatt.

 

“O, the costumes,” Adela answered. “The Guard especially. The

Grand Duke has a guard, you see, though there didn’t

seem to be much point in it. But it has a fight with the

robbers, and if you’d see that it fought reasonably well.”

 

She did not trouble to enlarge on her own view that the fight

ought to be quite unrealistic; she knew that Mr. Wentworth did

not much care for non-realistic art, and till recently she had

preferred her mild satisfaction with her invasion of Wentworth’s

consciousness to any bigotry of artistic interpretation.

 

Hugh said: “It’d be frightfully good of you to give me a hand

with my Guard, Mr. Wentworth.” He infused the “Mister” with an

air of courteous deference to age, and as he ended the sentence

he stretched and bent an arm in the lazy good humour of youth.

Neither of the others analysed stress and motion, yet their blood

was stirred, Adela faintly flushing with a new gratification,

Wentworth faintly flushing with a new anger. He said, “Are you

to be the Grand Duke then, Prescott?”

 

“So Mrs. Parry seems to suggest,” Hugh answered, and added, as if

a thought had struck him, “unless—Adela, d’you think Mr.

Wentworth would take the part himself? Isn’t that an idea?”

 

Before Adela could answer Wentworth said: “Nonsense; I’ve never

acted in my life.”

 

“I’m quite sure,” Hugh said, leaning comfortably forward with his

elbows on his knees and his strong hands interlocked, “that you’d

be a better father for the princess than I should. I think

there’s no doubt Adela’ll have to be the princess.”

 

“O, I don’t see that,” said Adela, “though it’s true Mrs. Parry… but

there are lots of others. But, Mr. Wentworth, would you?

You’d give it a kind of…” she thought of “age” and

substituted “force”. “I was saying to Hugh as we came along that

all it needs is force.”

 

“I certainly wouldn’t take it away from Prescott,” Wentworth

said. “He’s much better at these games than I could be.” He had

tried to give to the words a genial and mature tolerance, but he

heard them as merely hostile; so did the others.

 

“Ah, but then,” Hugh answered, “you know such a lot about battles

and history-battles long ago. You’d certainly be more suitable

for Adela’s father-sir.”

 

Wentworth said: “I’ll keep myself for the Guard. What period did

you say?”

 

“They seem to think 1700,” Adela said. “I know Mrs. Parry said

something about eighteenth-century uniforms. She’s going to

write to you.”

 

Hugh stood up. “So we oughtn’t to keep you,” he added. “Adela

and I are going back to talk to her now. Come on, duchess-or

whatever it is they call you.”

 

Adela obeyed. Wentworth noted, with an interior irritation, that

she really did. She moved to rise with something more than

consent. It was what he had never had—consent, yes, but not

this obedience. Hugh had given her his hand to pull her up, and

in that strained air the movement was a proclamation. He added,

as she stood by his side: “Do change your mind, sir, and show us

all how to be a Grand Si�cle father. I’ll ask Mrs. Parry to put

it to you.”

 

“You certainly won’t,” Wentworth said. “I’ve no time to be a

father.”

 

“Odd way of putting it,” Hugh said when they were outside. “I

don’t know why your Mr. Wentworth should be so peeved at the

idea. Personally, I rather like it.”

 

Adela was silent. She was well aware of the defiance—not even a

defiance, the rumour of a struggle long ago—that Hugh had

brought into the conversation. Wentworth had been relegated, for

those few sentences, to his place in the shadowy past of Battle

Hill. The notice he had taken of her had been a dim flattery;

now it was more dim and less flattering. She had been

increasingly aware, since she had met Hugh, of her militant

blood; of contemporary raid and real contest, as of some battle

“where they charge on heaps the enemy flying”. But she did not

quite wish to lose Lawrence Wentworth; he had given her books, he

had friends in London, he could perhaps be useful. She desired a

career. She could be sensationally deferential on Thursday, if,

as she expected, she went to him on Thursday. There had been, at

the last gathering, ten days before, an agreement on next

Thursday. She had just accomplished this decision when Hugh

said: “By the way, I wanted to ask you something. What about

next Thursday?”

 

“Next Thursday?” she said, startled.

 

“Couldn’t you come out somewhere in the evening?”

 

“But…” Adela paused, and Hugh went on: “I thought we might

have dinner in town, and go to a show if you liked.”

 

“I’d love it,” Adela said. “But it needn’t be Thursday?”

 

“I’m afraid it must,” Hugh answered. “There’s tennis at the

Foxes’ on Monday, and Tuesday and Wednesday I shall

be late at work, and Friday we’re to read the play, and the

Parry’s almost certain to want us on the Saturday too.”

 

Adela said again: “I’d love it, but I was going to Mr.

Wentworth’s on Thursday. I mean, we’ve been going rather

steadily, and last time I practically promised.”

 

“I know you did,” said Hugh. “So did I, but we can’t help it.

 

“Couldn’t we go another week?” Adela asked.

 

“With this play about?” Hugh said sardonically. “My dear, we’re

going to be clutched by rehearsals every evening. Of course, we

can leave it if you’d rather, but you said you’d like to see that

thing The Second Pylon-it’s your style-and as it’s only on till

Saturday… well, as a matter of fact, I got a couple of

tickets for Thursday on the chance. I knew it’d be our only

night.”

 

“Hugh!” Adela exclaimed. “But I want frightfully to see it; they

say it’s got the most marvellous example of this Surrealist

plastic cohesion. O, Hugh, how splendid of you! The only thing

is….”

 

“Pauline’ll be going to Wentworth’s, won’t she?” Hugh said. “And

probably others. He can talk to them.”

 

They were both aware that this would be by no means the same

thing. They were equally both aware that it was what was about

to happen; and that by Thursday evening it would have happened.

Adela found that her hesitation about the future had already

become a regret for the past: the thing had been done. A willing

Calvinist, she said: “I hope he won’t think it rude. He’s been

very nice.”

 

“Naturally,” Hugh answered. “But now it’s up to you to be nice.

Grand Dukes ought to be gratified, oughtn’t they?”

 

“You asked him to be the Grand Duke,” Adela pointed out.

 

“I asked him to be your father,” Hugh said. “I don’t think I had

any notion of his being a Grand Duke.”

 

He looked at her, laughing. “Write him a note on Wednesday,” he

said, “and I’ll ring him up on Thursday evening from, London, and

ask him to make my excuses to you and Pauline and the rest.”

 

“Hugh!” Adela exclaimed, “You couldn’t!” Then, dimpling and

gurgling, she added: “He’s been very kind to me. I should hate

him to feel hurt.”

 

“So should I,” Hugh said gravely. “Very