Descent into Hell - Charles Williams (an ebook reader txt) 📗
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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
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