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

>“Ah, well, that doesn’t so much matter, does it? I mean-” He hesitated.

 

“O I know it isn’t my money that comes in,” Chloe hastened to say.

“I do realize that, Mr. Montague.”

 

“It isn’t a question of money—not first of all,” Reginald protested.

“It’s a matter of general interest.”

 

Chloe said nothing, chiefly because she was a little ashamed of

herself, but the result was almost worse than if she had made another

effort. The commenting silence extended itself for some minutes and

was

broken at last by Lord Arglay’s return.

 

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been talking to Giles. I’m bound to say he

swears it’s quite right, and sticks to you in every particular,

Reginald. However, he’s asked us to go over to-night and see. Miss

Burnett, can you come?”

 

“O but, Lord Arglay, ought I to… ” Chloe said doubtfully; and

“I don’t suppose Miss Burnett would find it very interesting,” Reginald

hastily threw in.

 

“Civilized man,” Lord Arglay said, “is known by the capacity of his

intellect to produce convincing reasons for his emotions. Convincing,

Reginald. Say anything you like, except to suggest that anyone

wouldn’t

be interested in this new interstellar traffic of yours. Besides, I

need my secretary. I shall be out this afternoon and I officially

request her to spend her time looking up all the references to Suleiman

the son of David that she can find. We will all dine here at seven

and

then go to Ealing. That suit you, Miss Burnett? You, Reginald? Right.”

 

Reginald got up to go. “Well, you won’t finally decide against coming

in until to-night, will you, uncle?” he said. “Goodbye, Nliss Burnett.

Don’t let my uncle persuade you to come if you don’t want to.”

 

“I won’t,” Chloe said politely, “as I shan’t be able to have a

financial interest. Goodbye, Mr. Montague.”

 

When Reginald had gone-“And why the scratch, Miss Burnett?” Lord

Arglay asked. “Quite right, of course, but why to-day especially?

Generally you just let Reginald fleet by. Why this unwonted sharpness?”

 

“I beg your pardon,” Chloe said. “I don’t quite know. It was

impertinent of me. I didn’t mean to be rude to you.”

 

“Not in the least impertinent,” the Chief Justice answered. “Quite

remarkably relevant. But why to-day?”

 

“I think it was his talk of the Crown of Suleiman,” Chloe said

reluctantly. “Somehow…”

 

Arglay shook his head. “I wouldn’t pin much to that. My belief is

still that Giles has been hocussing that young man. But I’m curious to

know why; and anyhow it wouldn’t do me any harm to know as much as you

about the son of David. I can’t think of another fact about him at

present. So you dig out what you can and then clear off and be back by

seven. “

 

“Are you going out, Lord Arglay?” Chloe asked.

 

“Certainly not,” the Chief justice said. “I am going to lie in my

deepest armchair and read When Anarchy came to Town, which has an

encouraging picture of the Law Courts being burnt on the cover. Till

seven, then.”

 

The dinner was largely occupied, much to Reginald’s boredom, by Chloe’s

account of what she had discovered about King Suleiman and Lord

Arglay’s

comments on it. It seemed she had been right in her remembrance that

the Majesty of the King made its journeys accompanied by the Djinn, the

doctors of the law, and the viziers, upon a carpet which accommodated

its size to the King’s needs. But there were also tales of the Crown

and the Stone in the Crown, and (more general) of the Ring by virtue of

which the King understood all languages of men and beasts and Djinn and

governed all created things’ save only the great Archangels

themselves who exist in immediate cognition of the Holy One. “For,”

said Chloe thrilling, “he was one of the four mighty ones-who were

Nimrod and Sheddad the Son of Ad, and Suleiman and Alexander; the first

two being infidels and the Second two True Believers.”

 

“Alexander?” Arglay said in surprise. “How jolly! Perhaps Giles will

produce the helmet of the divine Alexander too. We shall have a

regular archaeological evening, I expect. Well, come along, Malbrouck

s’en va t’en guerre…… He carried them off to the car.

 

Sir Giles received the party with an almost Christlike, “What went ye

out

for to see?” air, but he made no demur about producing the Crown for

their examination. The Chief Justice, after examining it, showed it to

Chloe.

 

“And the markings?” he asked her.

 

Chloe said nervously, “O you know them, Lord Arglay.”

 

“I know they are Hebrew,” the Chief justice said, “and I know that Sir

Giles is sneering at me in his heart. But I haven’t an idea what

they are.”

 

“I suppose you’ve never had a Hebrew Rabbi before you?” Sir Giles said.

“That’s how you judges become educated men, isn’t it? The letters-”

 

“I asked Miss Burnett, Giles,” Lord Arglay interrupted, and Sir Giles

with a shrug waited.

 

“They are the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, the Divine Name,”

Chloe said still more nervously. “Yod,

He, Vau, He. I found it out this afternoon,” she said suddenly to Sir

Giles, “in an encyclopedia.”

 

“Some of us write encyclopedias,” Arglay said, “-that’s you, Giles;

some of us read them—that’s you, Miss Burnett; some of us own them—that’s me; and some of us despise them -that’s you, Reginald.”

 

“Encyclopedias are like slums,” Giles said, “the rotten homes of

diseased minds. But even Hoxton has to pretend to live, it thinks, and

of course it doesn’t know it stinks.”

 

Arglay was looking at the letters. “The Divine Name,” he said

musingly.

“Yod, He, Vau, He. Umph. Well…. We were going to experiment, weren’t

we?” he added, almost as if recovering himself. “Who begins? Reginald,

suppose you show us.”

 

“Certainly,” Montague said. “Now look here, uncle, let’s really show

you. tell me something I can bring you from your study.”

 

“Bring me the pages of manuscript on the small table by the window,”

Arglay answered at once. “The top one is marked Chapter IV.”

 

Montague nodded and taking the Crown put it on his head; he settled it

comfortably, then taking a step or two backwards sat down in the

nearest convenient chair. Lord Arglay watched him attentively,

occasionally

darting his eyes sideways towards Sir Giles, who—as if bored with the

repetition of a concluded experiment—had turned to the papers on which

he had previously been working. Chloe suddenly caught Arglay’s arm;

he put up his other hand and pressed hers. At once they found

themselves looking at an empty chair. Chloe cried out; Arglay took a

step towards the chair. Sir Giles, looking round, said casually; “I

shouldn’t get in the way; he may be back at any moment, and you might

get a nasty knock.”

 

“Well, I’m damned,” Lord Arglay said. “It’s all—” he began, looking

at

Chloe, but, impressed by the vivid excitement that possessed her,

ceased

in the middle of the reassuring phrase he had begun. They waited in

silence.

 

It was only about two or three minutes before, suddenly, they saw

Reginald Montague again in front of them. He sat still for another

minute or two, then he stepped forward and gave the Chief Justice

several pages of manuscript. “Well, uncle?” he asked triumphantly.

 

Arglay took the papers and looked at them. They were those on which he

had been making notes that afternoon, and he had, he knew, left them on

his table. He turned them over in silence. Chloe released his arm

suddenly and sat down. Sir Giles strolled back to them. “Interesting

exhibit, what?” he said.

 

The Chief Justice’s mind admitted the apparent fact. It was

impossible, but it had happened. In less than five minutes these

papers

had been brought from Lancaster Gate to Ealing. He loosed the little

sigh which always preceded his giving judgement and nodded. “I don’t

know whether it’s the Crown of Suleiman, Giles,” he said, “or some

fantasia of our own. But it certainly seems to work.”

 

“What about trying it, uncle?” Reginald said invitingly, removing the

gold circlet from his head and holding it out. “It’s quite simple.

You

just put it on and wish firmly to gowherever you choose.”

 

“Wishing firmly is a very difficult thing,” Lord Arglay said. “But

if you can I suppose I can.” He took the Crown and looked at Chloe.

“Where shall I go, Miss Burnett?” he asked.

 

“Somewhere quiet,” Sir Giles interjected. “If you choose the House of

Commons or London Bridge or anything like that you’ll cause a

sensation.

Try your-” he paused a moment, “dining-room,” he added.

 

“I’d rather go somewhere I didn’t know,” Arglay said.

 

“Go to my sitting-room, Lord Arglay,” Chloe put in swiftly. “I don’t

suppose you even remember what the address is. Oh—let me think—on the

table is last week’s New Statesman.”

 

“There isn’t likely to be any other fellow there?” Sir Giles asked.

“No? All right, Arglay. Better sit down; it’s apt to jar you, they

say.

Now—will yourself there.”

 

Lord Arglay took the Crown in both hands and set it on his head. Chloe

involuntarily compared the motion with Montague’s. Reginald had put it

on with one hand as if he were settling a cap; against his thin form

the Chief Justice’s assured maturity stood like a dark magnificence.

He set on the Crown as if he were accepting a challenge, and sat down

as

if the Chief Justice of England were coming to some high trial, either

of another or of himself. Chloe, used to seeing and hearing him when

his mind played easily with his surroundings, used to the light

courtesy

with which he had always treated her, had rarely seen in him that rich

plenitude of power which seemed to make his office right and natural

to him. Once or twice, when, in dictating his book, he had framed

slowly some difficult and significant paragraph, she had caught a hint

of it, but her attention then had been on her work and his words rather

than his person. She held her breath as she looked, and her eyes met

his. They were fixed on her with a kind of abstract intimacy; she felt

at once more individual to him than ever before and yet as if the

individuality which he discerned was something of which she herself was

not yet conscious. And while she looked back into them, thrilling to

that remote concentration, she found she was looking only at the chair,

and was brought back at once from that separate interaction to the

remembrance of their business. She started with the shock, and both

the men in the room looked at her.

 

“Don’t be frightened,” Sir Giles said, with an effort controlling his

phrases, and “It’s all right, you know,” Montague added coldly.

 

“I’m not frightened, thank you,” Chloe said, hating them both with a

sudden intensity, but she knew she lied. She was frightened; she was

frightened of them. The Crown of Suleiman, the strange happenings,

Lord Arglay’s movements -these were what had stirred her emotions and

shaken her, and those shaken emotions were loosed within her in a

sudden

horror, yet of what she did not know. It seemed as if there were two

combinations; one had vanished, and the other she loathed, but to that

she was suddenly abandoned. It -was ridiculous, it was insane. “What

on earth are you afraid of?” she asked herself, “do you think either of

them is going to assault you?” And beyond and despite herself, and as

if

thinking of some assault she could not visualize or imagine she

answered, “Yes, I do.”

 

Lord Arglay, as he sat down