Many Dimensions, Charles Williams [black authors fiction TXT] 📗

facts. The two facts which Lord Arglay’s

reasoning left out of account were, first, the inclusion of the Prince

Ali among the pursuers of the Stone, and second Chloe’s increasing

determination not to use her Type for her own safety. It was this

omission which proved his conclusion wrong and did actually put her in

peril.

 

For whatever the Persian Ambassador might diplomatically desire, and

whatever the HaJi Ibrahim might religiously assert, Ali had no

intention at all of relinquishing his efforts—to

recover all the Types if possible, and if not at least one; by the

possession of which he hoped to procure the rest. His first objective

had been Sir Giles. But Sir Giles had made it clear that any attempt to

recover the Type in his possession would mean a multiplication of

Stones which from Ali’s point of view would be not only sacrilegious

but extremely troublesome. He had not for some days been at all clear

where the rest of the Types were. Reginald Montague had apparently had

one, but then—he gathered from the papers—so had Sheldrake; were they

one or two? Ali could not, in his position, afford to make a number of

violent and unsuccessful efforts to recover it or them; the

Ambassador’s modernity and the Hajji’s piety might agree in removing

him to Moscow or having him recalled to Tehran before he achieved what

he wanted, should either of them suspect what was happening. He had not

dared so far to make any effort to excite the temper of the East. But

he had, with the greatest caution, sounded the mind of one of his

friends in the Embassy; he intended to gather about himself a small

group of similar spirits in order that when a convenient time came he

might, if necessary, strike in several directions at once.

 

Nothing however was further from his mind than that he should be rung

up by Sir Giles Tumulty. It was not the first telephonic conversation

which had proceeded between the Embassy and the English that morning;

the Hajji and Lord Arglay had been talking earlier. The Chief justice

had briefly explained that all was well with Miss Burnett, and had

added that he was still in two minds about going off to Ealing and

quite simply killing Sir Giles.

 

“What good do you think that would be… in the End?” the Hajji said.

 

“I haven’t an idea what good it would be in the End,” Lord Arglay

assured him, “but it seems as if it might be a considerable good here

and now. After all, we can’t be expected to put everything off because

of the End or we should just be putting off the End itself At least it

seems so to me, but I’m no metaphysician.”

 

“What would Miss Burnett desire?” the Hajji asked.

 

“That’s my only difficulty,” Lord Arglay explained. “I don’t think

she’d like it—and yet I don’t know. Everybody else would be pleased. I

might be hanged but I should be almost certain - to have a memorial

statue somewhere, probably by Epstein. I like Epstein too. Well, I

suppose I shan’t.”

 

He might however have been almost inclined to turn the only half-fantastic idea into an act if he had overheard Sir Giles a quarter of

an hour later. The whole history of Tumulty’s dealings with the Stone

had roused in him a state of increasing irritation with Lord Arglay and

his secretary. There had been the spying on him, as he chose to call

it, at Birmingham; Arglay’s refusal to investigate the half-hour’s

break; the affray at the Conference; his own impotence to understand

Arglay’s mind; the rescue of Pondon. And now… He was not very

clear what had interfered with his domination of Chloe. He had, after

the usual preliminary attention and concentration, become aware of

looking through Chloe’s eyes much as Arglay had looked through his own.

He had been aware of a feeling for the Chief justice which, since it

certainly wasn’t his own, must be Chloe’s. He had attempted to turn

that emotion into his own desire to use Arglay and then throw him

aside. But he had not reached to the extremer places of Chloe’s own

manner of experience; it—had been but her conscious thought that he

could dominate, working inwards from without. He had so far conquered

that his intention had imposed itself on her as her own, although with

the changed appearance which, in their turn, her physical and mental

desires had wrought in it. But at the time when Lord Arglay had called

upon his friend with the authority to which she was accustomed and

Which she loved, Giles’s will had been swept aside. A darkness fell

upon him; he became aware of the Stone in his hands, it seemed to move

in them and itself to thrust him back. He dropped it suddenly as if

just in time to avoid its growth against him, and took, as he became

again conscious of his outer Surroundings, a few angry steps about the

room. “I don’t know if this is a damned nightmare,” he grunted, “but it

felt as if I was going to be swallowed by the bloody thing. I wonder if

I’m letting the idea of getting back at Arglay and his whore run away

with me. One does, sometimes; and that’s just death to observation. I

wish there was someone else who could tackle, them. And by God,” he

exclaimed, “there is. I suggested it to Birlesmere myself—there’s the

Persian.”

 

As he thought about it he decided that this, in default of a better,

was the momentary solution. The Prince Ali was probably still anxious

to recover the Stone, and if he happened to kill Chloe or Arglay in the

process so much the better. Anyhow even to lose their Types would

certainly annoy them, and if at the worst Ali or his friends failed or

suffered there was no particular harm done to Sir Giles himself. “Ali

and this screaming peahen can fight it out together,” he said, and

looked up the number of the Persian Embassy.

 

The Prince was considerably surprised when he was first told that Sir

Giles Tumulty wanted to speak to him, but he condescended to answer.

 

Sir Giles was obscenely abrupt. On condition that he was left alone he

would give the Persian a chance of recovering something, if All thought

it worth while. Was he to be left alone? The Prince, as abruptly,

agreed. Then at Lancaster Gate and wherever the secretary hibernated,

were Types of the Stone, if they were wanted.

 

“But why,” the Prince said curiously, “do you tell me this?”

 

“What in hell’s name does that matter to you?” Sir Giles asked. “I gave

him one when I thought you were after me, just to make you and your

company of date-eaters think a bit. But he annoys me, and I’d rather

you had it.”

 

The Prince thought, but did not say, that the Foreign Office would

hardly have agreed. Sir Giles had thought of it but he was far too

angry with his brother-in-law to care about all the Foreign Offices in

Europe.

 

“Well, there you are,” he said. “I suppose you can hire somebody to do

the job.”

 

“That I will see to,” the Prince said. “If this is true I cannot thank

you, but I will at least ignore you.”

 

“You’ll do what?” Sir Giles almost yelled, but recovered himself and

slammed down the receiver. “And I hope they assault the girl and

assassinate Arglay,” he thought to himself as he prepared to go out

again to Wandsworth.

 

The exact measures which the Prince took were, not unnaturally, never

explained. But by the time that Chloe, after an uneventful day,

returned home, they had been carried out. His friend had left London

for Brighton and Reginald Montague. He himself was waiting for night.

 

Chloe and the Chief Justice had—quite seriously—discussed the

possibility of attempting to recover all the Types and of escaping with

them from England. But neither of them, especially as they grew less

and less inclined to use it—or, as Chloe had said—to dictate to it, had

-been quite prepared to take such extreme measures. Lord Arglay viewed

with a certain hesitation the annexation of Sheldrake’s Type, for which

after all he had paid and from which he was presumably entitled to get

such satisfaction as he legally could. The Mayor of Rich had called to

ask the Chief Justice to draw up a public statement and petition on

behalf of all the sick, and on the first draft of this Lord Arglay,

with a wry smile, had spent some time. Rich, he gathered from the

papers, was still in a state of simmering discontent. Oliver Doncaster

had called, very uncertain of his behaviour in Chloe’s company, and

rather defeated at finding that everything seemed normal. No one

alluded to her remark of the previous night, and the Chief Justice

being in the room all the time there was no opportunity

for him to make the running on the strength of her own behaviour. As,

rather gloomily, he departed, Lord Arglay looked at Chloe. “Of course

he doesn’t appreciate Giles,” he said.

 

“But what must he think of me?” Chloe asked despairingly.

 

“I can’t begin to imagine,” Lord Arglay said. “Nor as a matter of fact

can he. You can, but you needn’t at the moment. For I am utterly

convinced that Austin-Austin!-never said ‘Attribuat igitur rex legi,

quod lex attribuit ei, videlicet dominationern et Potestatem. Non est

enim rex ubi dominatur voluntas et non lex.’ Don’t you know the sound

of Bracton’s voice, when you hear it? ‘Therefore let the king attribute

to the law that which the law attributes to him, namely, domination and

power. For where the will rules and not the law is no king.’ You

haven’t checked your references, child, and, as a result, you’ve got

this whole page of quotations wrong.”

 

Chloe bit her lips, crossed out the attribution, and plunged back into

legal histories.

 

This unfortunate lapse, the more maddening that it had been a page she

had written out some weeks earlier, and before the Stone had

preoccupied her mind, was annoying her when she returned that night.

For she had rather prided herself on her secretarial efficiency, and

Lord Arglay’s quite pleasant, but quite firm, criticism of it

distressed almost as much as it pleased her. Almost, because she

thought as she took off her hat how much worse it would have been if he

had pretended that, because of their friendship, it didn’t matter. “It

was,” he had said, “no doubt the prophetic soul of your wide world

dreaming on things to come. But don’t let it be dreaming too much about

the law-makers who are gone, will you? Or let us be quite clear when it

is.” Chloe kicked herself again and made some coffee.

 

The incident however sent her to bed even more certain of the edge of

incapacity and void upon which she dwelt than

she normally was. What with Frank Lindsay being angry with her for one

thing (and even now she wasn’t clear that she had been right), and Lord

Arglay being critical of her for another (and she was quite clear that

she had been hopelessly careless), she seemed to herself a sufficiently

ineffectual creature. It was true she couldn’t much care whether Frank

was angry or not, and didn’t in a sense mind whether Lord Arglay was

displeased or not; if the one didn’t understand, well, she couldn’t

help it, and of the other she would always be secure no matter how

unhappy he might, very properly and rightly, make her. Still, if this

was the result of her emotional and intellectual life—merely to annoy

everybody! She looked at herself in the glass