War in Heaven - Charles Williams (reading the story of the .TXT) 📗

and Calvary and Olivet, as that itself opened upon the Centre of all. And through that gate, upon those tides of retirement, creation moved. Never so clearly as now had he felt that movement proceeding, but his mind nevertheless knew no other vision than that of a thousand dutifully celebrated Mysteries in his priestly life; so and not otherwise all things return to God.

When their separate devotions ceased, they looked at one another gravely. “There’s one thing,” the Duke said. “It must never be left unwatched. We must have an arranged order—people whom we can trust.”

“Intelligent people whom we can trust,” the Archdeacon said.

“In fact, an Order,” Kenneth murmured. “A new Table.”

“A new Table!” the Duke cried. “And a Mass every morning.” He stopped short and looked at the Archdeacon.

“Quite so,” the priest said, not in answer to the remark.

The Duke hesitated a moment, then he said politely, “I don’t want to seem rude, sir, but you see that since, quite by chance, it has come into my charge, I must preserve it for… for… “

“But, Ridings,” Kenneth said in a slightly alert voice, “it isn’t in your charge. It belongs to the Archdeacon.”

“My dear fellow,” the Duke impatiently answered, “the sacred and glorious Graal can’t belong. And obviously it is in my charge. I don’t want to press my rights and those of my Church, but equally I don’t want them abused or overlooked.”

“Rights?” Kenneth asked. “It is in the hands of a priest.”

“That,” the Duke answered, “is for the Holy See to say. As it has done.”

The two young men looked at one another hostilely. The Archdeacon broke in.

“Oh, children, children,” he said. “Did either of you ever hear of Cully or Mr. Gregory Persimmons? It being (legally, my dear Duke) my property, I should like Mr. Persimmons not to get hold of it until I know a little more about him. But, on the other hand, I will promise not to hurt anyone’s feeling by using it prematurely for schismatic Mysteries. A liqueur glass would do as well.” Kenneth grinned; the Duke acknowledged the promise with a bow, and rather obviously ignored the last remark.

It was already very late; midnight had been passed by almost an hour. The Archdeacon looked at his watch and at his host. But the Duke had returned to his earlier idea.

“If we three can share the watch till morning,” he said, “I will bring Thwaites in; he is one of our people. And there are certain others. It is one o’clock now—say, one to seven; six hours. Archdeacon, which watch will you take?”

The Archdeacon felt that a passion for relics had its inconveniences, but he hadn’t the heart to check its ardour. “I will take the middle, if you like,” he said, normally accepting the least pleasant; “that will be three to five.”

“Mornington?”

“Whichever you like,” Kenneth answered. “The morning?”

“Very well,” the Duke said. “Then I will watch now.”

They were at the door of the room, and, as they exchanged temporary good nights, the Archdeacon glanced back at the sacred vessel. He seemed to blink at it for a moment, then he took a step or two back into the room, and gazed at it attentively. The two young men looked at him, at it, at each other. Suddenly the priest made a sudden run across the room and took the Graal up in his hands.

It seemed to move in them like something alive. He felt as if a continuous slight shifting of all the particles that composed it were proceeding, and that blurring of its edges which had first caught his eyes was now even more marked. Close as he held it, he felt strangely uncertain exactly where the edge was, exactly how deep the cup was, how long the stem. He touched the edge, and it seemed to have a curious softness, to give under his finger. The shape did not yield to his grasp, but it suggested that it was about to do so. It quivered, it trembled; now here, now there, its thickness accumulated or faded; now it seemed to take the shape of his fingers, now to harden and resist them. The Archdeacon gripped it more firmly, and, keeping his eyes on it, turned to face the others.

“Something is going on,” he said, almost harshly. “I do not know what. It may be that God is dissolving it—but I think there is devilry. Make yourselves paths for the Will of God.”

“But what is it?” the Duke said amazedly. “What harm can come to it here? What can they do to its hurt?”

“Pray,” the Archdeacon cried out, “pray, in the name of God. They are praying against Him tonight.”

It crossed Kenneth’s mind, as he sank to his knees, that if God could not be insulted, neither could He be defied, nor in that case the procession and retrogression of the universe disturbed by the subject motion of its atoms. But he saw, running out like avenues, a thousand metaphysical questions, and they disappeared in the excitement of his spirit.

“Against what shall we pray?” the Duke cried.

“Against nothing,” the Archdeacon said. “Pray that He who made the universe may sustain the universe, that in all things there may be delight in the justice of His will.”

A profound silence followed, out of the heart of which there arose presently a common consciousness of effort. The interior energy of the priest laid hold on the less trained powers of his companions and directed them to its own intense concentration. Fumbling in the dark for something to oppose, they were, each in secrecy, subdued from that realm of opposition and translated to a place where their business was only to repose. They existed knit together, as it were, in a living tower built up round the sacred vessel, and through all the stones of that tower its common life flowed. Yet to all their apprehensions, and especially to the priest’s, which was the most vivid and least distracted, this life received and resisted an impact from without. The tower was indeed a tower of defence, though it offered no aggression, and resisted whatever there was to be resisted merely by its own immovable calm. Once or twice it seemed to the Duke as if he heard a soft footprint behind him just within the room, but he was held too firmly still even to turn his head. Once or twice on Kenneth there intruded a sudden vision of something other than this passivity; a taunt, unspoken but mocking, moved just beyond his consciousness, a taunt which was not his, but arose somehow out of him. Sudden phrases he had used in the past attacked him—“the world can’t judge”; “man chooses between mania and folly”; “what a fool Stephen is.” In the midst of these the memory of the saying about every idle word obtruded itself; he began to justify them to himself, and to argue in his own mind. Little by little he became more and more conscious of his past casual contempt, and more disposed to direct a certain regretful attention to it. The priest felt the defence weaken; he did not know the cause, but the result was there; the Graal shook in his hands. He plunged deeper into the abysmal darkness of divinity, and as he did so heard, far above, his own voice crying “Pray!” Kenneth heard, and knew his weakness; he abolished his memories, and, so far as was possible, surrendered himself to be only what he was meant to be. Yet the attack went on: to one a footstep, a whisper, a slight faint touch; to another a gentle laugh, a mockery, a reminder; to the third a spiritual pressure which not he but that which was he resisted. The Graal vibrated still to that pressure, more strongly when it was accentuated, less and less as the stillness within and amidst the three was perfected. Dimly he knew at what end the attack aimed; some disintegrating force was being loosed at the vessel—not conquest, but destruction, was the purpose, and chaos the eventual hope. Dimly he saw that, though the spirit of Gregory formed the apex of that attack, the attack itself came from regions behind Gregory. He saw, uncertainly but sufficiently defined, the radiations that encompassed the Graal and the fine arrows of energy that were expended against it. Unimportant as the vessel in itself might be, it was yet an accidental storehouse of power that could be used, and to dissipate this material centre was the purpose of the war. But through the three concentrated souls flowed reserves of the power which the vessel itself retained; and gradually to the priest it seemed, as in so many celebrations, as if the Graal itself was the centre—yet no longer the Graal, but a greater than the Graal. Silence and knowledge were communicated to him as if from an invisible celebrant; he held the Cup no longer as a priest, but as if he set his hands on that which was itself at once the Mystery and the Master of the Mystery. But this consciousness faded almost before it was realized; his supernatural mind returned into his natural, leaving only the certainty that for the time at least the attack was ended. Rigid and hard in his hands, the Graal reflected only the lights of the Duke’s study; he sighed and relaxed his hold, glancing at his two companions. The Duke stood up suddenly and glanced round him. Kenneth rose more slowly, his face covered with a certain brooding melancholy. The Archdeacon set the Graal down on the table.

“It is done,” he said. “Whatever it was has exhausted itself for the time. Let us go and rest.”

“I thought I heard someone here,” the Duke said, still looking round him. “Is it safe to leave it?”

“I think it is quite safe,” the Archdeacon said. “But what has happened?” the Duke asked again.

“Let us talk to-morrow,” the priest said very wearily. “The Graal will guard itself tonight.”