Many Dimensions, Charles Williams [black authors fiction TXT] 📗
- Author: Charles Williams
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he said. “Think, very carefully, yourself
Chloe pouted. “What about?” she said. “Isn’t there anything better to
do? It’s you that ought to think, not me.”
“Good God!” Lord Arglay said, really annoyed, “don’t talk such rubbish,
child.”
A quick tremor shook Chloe, she released his hand, and slid round to
face him. “Am I a child?” she said, and suddenly anger contended with
cunning in her eyes. She paused uncertainly, as if something within
her, unaccustomed to the instrument it was using, was fumbling with it;
she half put out her hand again and withdrew it; she leaned forward but
whether in desire or hate Arglay could not tell. He kept his eyes on
her now, saying nothing for a moment that the remembrance of the Chloe
Burnett be knew might gather more mightily within him. For the change
that had come upon her was provoked by no natural alteration of mood,
and for a moment he wondered whether indeed he had been wise in this
extremity to refuse the mysterious capacities of the Stone. If he could
use it to rescue Pondon might he not with a thousand times more reason
use it here? Might it not be a wise and proper thing to do? But however
wise or proper it might be he knew he could not; to do so would be
already to confess defeat—there was something else on which he relied
and it was the mere fact that they were what they were and had been
what they had been.
He said, with a certain slowness, “Child, I would have you think of
what we chose to do.”
“I do not want to think of anything that is past,” she answered
sullenly, and to that he said in a growing passion of authority, “But I
will have you do this, and therefore you shall do it now. I will have
you do it.”
She moved her head from side to side as if to avoid the charge he laid
upon her; then, abandoning a direct refusal, she said in almost a
whisper, “But first let us think of other things. “
“Child,” he answered, “the things of which you would think are neither
here nor there, nor do you think of them. You think and you shall think
of all that we have done together, and of how we determined to believe
in God.”
“I will believe in you instead,” Chloe said and took a small step
forward in the small distance that separated them.
The sentence was so unexpected, she was herself so close, that Arglay
for a moment hesitated. It was not so much desire for her that filled
him as a willingness to accept himself on those terms, to take this
offered substitution. To play deity to an attractive young girl—there
was, for a moment he felt, a certain point to the idea. But even as the
point pricked him ever so slightly he smiled to think of it, and the
consciousness of the prick passed from him. His own belief in God was
still small, but his feeling for Organic Law was very strong, and his
dislike of any human being pretending to be above that Law was stronger
still. The temptation rose and was lost in its absurdity. And yet…
She looked up with an inviting smile. He took her suddenly by one
shoulder with his hand.
“You will not believe in me,” he answered, “as more than a servant of
that which you serve. Answer me—what is that?”
“It is nothing with which you have anything to do,” she said, “unless
you will do also what I will.”
He smiled at her in a sudden serenity. “Now I know that I shall have my
way,” he said, either to her or to that which was within her, and added
to her alone, “since it is impossible that we should be so separated
for ever.”
“You!” she said harshly. “Will you govern me with your bit of filthy
pebble?”
“I have no need of the Stone,” he answered, still smiling at her, “for
all that is in the Stone, except the accidents of time, is here between
us and perhaps more than is in the Stone. And in that you will answer
me. Tell me, child, what is it you serve.”
She wrenched her shoulder away from him. “Keep your beastly hands
away,” she cried. “I am my own to keep and command.”
“And if that shall be true tomorrow,” Lord Arglay said, “it is not
true now.” His voice took on a sternness and he looked
on her with a high disdain. “Answer,” he said; “will you make me wait?
Answer—what is it that you serve?”
She moved back a step or two, and suddenly he put out his hand, caught
her wrist, and pulled her back close to him; then, his eyes on hers, he
said: “Child, you know me and I know you among the deceptions. What is
it, what is it that you serve?”
She gave a stifled cry, and slipped forward so that he caught her”I
know,” she said, “I know. Hold me; I know.” When at last he moved she
stood up and did something to her hair; then she looked at him with a
faint smile. “I do know,” she said.
“Then I think it is more than I do,” Lord Arglay said. “But that is
very possible.”
“Have I been saying anything—very silly?” she asked, picking up her
handbag and looking for her powder-puff.
The Chief justice considered her. “How do you feel?” he asked.
“Well enough to talk a little about it?”
“Quite,” Chloe answered, sitting down, and adding after a Moment’s
pause, “Have I been a nuisance?”
“Don’t you remember?” Lord Arglay asked. “Suppose you tell me first—whatever seemed to happen,”
“I don’t know that anything exactly happened,” Chloe said. “I just
began to think about….began to think in a different way.”
“In quite a different way?” Arglay interrupted. “I mean, in a way you
had never thought before?”
The colour flamed in Chloe’s cheeks. But she met his eyes, and
answered, “Partly. I don’t think I ever calculated before—not so much
anyhow. Or not at the same time that I felt…” she struggled bravely
on and ended… “desirous.”
The Chief Justice considered again. He had seen the farewell she had
taken of Doncaster; he had observed, when he had returned to the study,
the valuation to which she was bringing its furniture; he had remarked
the cold intention in her eyes when the two of them were talking; and
he decided that in this case desire and calculation were two different
things. But by what means, if by any outside herself, had they been
loosed?
“It came on you suddenly?” he asked.
“It came,” she answered, “as if I thought I was walking down one road
and found I was walking down another. it didn’t even come; it was
there. I lived into the midst of it.”
“And it?” Arglay said, “it seemed like some other self of yours? Did
you know yourself in it?”
“In a way,” she answered, “all the things that I have sometimes hated
most in myself. But not altogether. Never—no, in all my life, I never
wanted so utterly to grab without giving anything at all, never
before.” In her agitation she stood up, “I’m not like that,” she said,
“O indeed I’m not.”
“No,” Lord Arglay said, “but I think I could guess who is, and whose
mind was thrust upon yours then.’ But even he, even in the Stone, could
only affect you through your own habits and emotions. So that both he
and you troubled and hid your heart.” He mused for a moment and went
on.“Child, in those past times that you speak of, how have you governed
yourself?”
“By this and that,” Chloe said, “By trying to think clearly and by
trying to be as nice as I could to people,”
“It’is very well said,” Lord Arglay answered. “I do not think Giles or
anyone else will easily overcome that guard,
of yours.”
“I will take care of that,” Chloe said in quite a different voice. “I
shan’t be caught twice.”
“Well,” Lord Arglay answered comfortably, looking round the room, “I
mayn’t be what Reginald’s unfortunate American would call rich, but I
should think I am quite the most well-to-do person you know. So if you
are going to make an attempt on anyone it will probably be on me again.
Which won’t matter, will it?”
“No,” said Chloe, “though it seems funny that it shouldn’t. And in a
way it does.”
“O la la! in a way-” Lord Arglay said. “But only in a way conformable
to the Stone. Now it is funny, if you like, how determined I was not to
use the Stone. One might have thought I didn’t care what happened to
you. I might have been the Hajji; indeed I was worse than the Hajji,
for he at least thought about using it.”
“Why—if I may—why didn’t you?” Chloe asked shyly, but her eyes were
glad as she looked at him.
“I couldn’t see that it was going to be of the slightest use,” he
answered. “It just wasn’t there. Or else—since we have decided to
believe in it—it was there anyhow, and to have it materially wouldn’t
have helped.”
“Is there then something greater than the Stone?” she asked. “I dreamed
last night that the King lifted up his hand and there was a great
light.”
“Also the Hajji spoke of a greater secret,” he answered. “I do not
think Giles quite knows what he is doing.”
“Do you think it is—dangerous to him?” Chloe said.
“Anything that one uses is apt to become one’s master,” Arglay
answered. “And if the Stone should become Giles’s Master—what would he
find it to be?”
Chloe looked at her fingers. “Do you think,” she said doubtfully, “we
ought to try and… warn him or… help him… Or anything?”
“Help him—help Giles?” Lord Arglay exclaimed. “My dear
child, don’t be absurd! After he… O you’re tired out; I shall take
you home. Unless—I ask you again—unless you’ll stop here?”
“Not to-night, please,” she said. “I shall be quite safe now. If he
tries it again, I shall just think.”
“Do,” Lord Arglay approved. “My present problem in Organic Law is this—Good heavens, you want to know! O come along, you’re merely making
altruism into a habit.”
THE SECOND REFUSAL OF CHLOE BURNETT
Lord Arglay asserted later that whenever Chloe declared that she
would be quite safe something perilous was certain to be approaching,.
But since he knew that she was in possession of one of the Types and
therefore had at her disposal a means of escape from any crisis and a
place of refuge in his own house it did not seem to him that she was
likely to be in any unavoidable danger. For alternatively if any one of
those who were bound to regard them as enemies should seize on the Type
she had, then his object would be achieved. The Stone possessed, there
would be no point in harming Chloe; it would indeed be a stupid and
risky thing to do, arousing that very attention which it was important
to avoid. It appeared therefore to the Chief Justice that though she
might be inconvenienced she could not be seriously endangered.
This argument, though sound within its limits, suffered from the same
trouble that invalidates all human argument and makes all human
conclusion erroneous, namely, that no reasoning can ever start from the
possession of all the
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