“Yes, you suggested them. Will they fit?”
“Nobody,” said Richard smiling, “would fit this extraordinary house party. The Simpson woman is a disaster, and probably a secret toper as well, according to the horrified Dodge, who had it from the new housemaid.”
“Heavens,” said Celia, “I suppose that explains her baleful glares. Poor woman.”
“You’re a nice child,” said Richard. “Charity for all, but I feel that the female is sinister.”
Celia scarcely noted the rather startling adjective, under the rush of hope. She looked up at the Marsdon Chronicle, high on the top shelf in the gloom, and made a face at it.
She ran blithely upstairs to her room, humming “La Vie en Rose.”
C
ELIA AND MOST
of the Marsdon house party set out for Kent at half-past three.
Edna and George Simpson did not go. Edna had her headache, and she gave George his orders privately.
“You’ll stay here, too, of course. Sir Richard might want to discuss business with you when he gets back from the farm, and anyway, we don’t have to cater to those American women’s every whim.”
George sighed. He had been looking forward to the jaunt, but he knew better than to oppose her when her face was flushed, her eyes glittering, and she smelled strongly of peppermint. “Lady Marsdon seems very pleasant,” he said. “I can see you don’t like her, though can’t see why, and a young bride’s bound to influence her husband. ’Twould be a pity to threaten the Marsdon business, it’s been with Simpson’s since eighteen-eighty.”
Edna snorted, and lying down on the bed shut her eyes. “You’re a spineless worm, George, allus have been. I troost I know how to behave civilly, but I’ll not toady to vulgar Yanks for anybody, and mind you don’t go to that Ightham Mote. I don’t laike the sound of it.”
As George went out, shutting the door softly behind him, Edna’s annoyance shifted to puzzled questioning. She was aware that there was no reason to dislike the very name of a place she had never heard of before lunchtime. She also disliked the name “Celia,” let alone the young woman herself. But then, she thought, I’ve a right to my fancies, should be pampered during the “change,” and George knows it. She reached for the tincture which stood on her bedside table, poured out a quarter cupful, drank it and drifted rapidly into snorting sleep.
Myra led the way towards Kent, Lily sat beside her with a map; Harry sat on the back seat smoking his pipe and watching Myra’s auburn head. The long hair was now arranged into a gleaming Psyche knot which nicely balanced her long-nosed but beautiful profile. From time to time she turned to give him a small enigmatic smile over her shoulder. There was promise, surely, in those green glances, and Harry grew hopeful again.
Maybe tonight? He had noted the thoughtful bedroom assignments, and blessed Celia Marsdon who must have heard rumors. I wish they were true, he thought, haven’t felt like this about a woman since Denise de Caron, ten, no twelve years ago. The others’ve been too easy. No sport. Which diverted him into wishing it were the hunting season—a good run with the hounds. He puffed on his pipe and resumed watching Myra, though it occurred to him that Mrs. Taylor was not unattractive herself. A bit long in the tooth—about his own age, actually—yet still pretty in a plump, blond way, but no spark, no sex appeal; something like his ex-wife, Peggy, a cosy little woman. She had divorced him without rancor, and still wrote friendly notes to him from their daughter’s home in Cornwall.
In the Jaguar, following Myra’s Bentley, Igor was driving. Celia had asked him to, partly because it obviously pleased him, and partly because she had begun to feel nervous when she drove herself—a condition which she understood no more than the other distressing new symptoms. She had been expertly driving since she was sixteen and she had, by now, driven all kinds of cars; until last month she had loved driving the Jag. And now, she didn’t. But, Celia thought, still glowing from the relief of Richard’s warmth in the library, I’ll feel better now, I’ll dare tell Richard of my jittery nonsense.
Sue Blake sat beside Igor in front and kept up a babble of excitement, directed mostly back to Celia, for Igor was intent on the road.
“Oh, Cousin Celia, England’s so sweet, so green, and those thatched cottages, just like a calendar we had in the kitchen at home! I’ve never seen this many sheep before; the baby lambs are so cute, and
what
are those funny-looking pointed things in the field?”
“Oast-houses,” answered Celia smiling, and explained something about hops and the making of beer.
Celia noted absently that the Hindu beside her was very quiet, that his eyes were half shut, and that there was an inward listening expression on his lean, bronze face.
“Forgive Sue’s raptures, Dr. Akananda,” she said, laughing. “England must be a very old story to you.”
He turned and looked at her with a brief, compassionate gaze. Not exactly compassion, she thought startled—more like pity, which would be as annoying as it was uncalled for.
“Why do you look at me like that?” she cried involuntarily.
Jiddu Akananda smiled apology. “I’m sorry, Lady Marsdon, I’d like to convey to you my sympathy and offer what help I can give during the trials that may await you. I tried to stop your going here today, but you didn’t hear me.”
“Trials?” she repeated sharply. “What do you mean?”
He raised his slim hand and touched her forehead between the arched dark brows, a gentle touch like a benediction, yet it was also like an electric charge, a quick shimmer of light through her head.
“You must,” he said calmly, almost conversationally, “hold fast to your course, with faith, for you may be badly buffeted in the tempest that I fear is brewing.”
Celia lifted her brows and would have questioned further, but Sue had caught Akananda’s last words and twisted around to say archly, “Tempest? Dr. Akananda. You Hindu gentlemen are awfully poetical, I’ve always heard so. Back in Kaintucky we wouldn’t think this sky looked like a storm comin’.”
“I suppose not, my child.” Akananda’s eyes held an indulgent twinkle. “Yet there are many kinds of storms. Outside in nature; inside in the soul.”
Sue giggled and pouted. “You’re positively bafflin’, Doctor. I’ve always wanted to meet one of you, after Jack—that’s my brother—went all committed to Maharishi and kept doing Yoga an’ meditations. Jack was a real hippie for a while,” she explained. “Mom and Dad were horrified. But, I guess he’s got over it. He’s cut his hair, stopped smoking pot, and is dating a real nice girl.”
“That is splendid,” said Akananda smiling. Sue turned around to answer some comment of Igor’s and the Hindu glanced at Celia. “Your cousin is charming and very young. She’s also fortunate. I believe that for her this life will be easy.”
“Do you predict futures?” asked Celia with a hint of sarcasm. She had not liked the implied warning in Akananda’s speech about tempests, especially as the man attracted her. There came from him a radiation, an effect of light around him. And
that’s
idiotic, too, she thought.
“I’m not a fortuneteller,” Akananda answered quietly. “But through training and discipline I receive more impressions than most people can. Yes, you’re right in thinking that I was trying to prepare you for a grave ordeal. That much is permitted. I am also permitted, even commanded, to help you as best I can. Though we must all pay our Karmic debts, the Divinity which is above Karma is ever merciful; through God’s help and your own actions you
may
be able to reduce a sword-thrust to a pin-prick. It depends.”
Celia stared through the open window where the rose-studded hedgerows and the buttercup fields slipped by. She had not been really listening but one word startled her.
“God . . .?” she said hesitantly. “I used to believe in Him when I was very little, now He’s just what somebody said, just an oblong gray blur. I had a peculiar religious upbringing.” She turned to Akananda, yet spoke half to herself, “A year in a Catholic convent as a boarder when I was eleven, while Daddy was traveling on business around the world with Mother.”
“But your parents weren’t Roman Catholics?”
“Oh, no, but Mother’s best friend was, and they thought it a safe place to leave me. I was lonely and bored, really miserable . . . Before that,” she added ruefully, “I was a little Christian Scientist, because my governess was one. I went to Sunday school in Chicago. But the governess left. And Mother took up Theosophy. I devoured all the books she did, and was fascinated by them. But after Daddy died . . .”
“Your father had no interest in religions?”
“None whatsoever, he used to laugh at Mama and say he’d leave all that tomfoolery to the women, common horse sense was enough for him.”
“And you agree?”
“I think so,” Celia said. “As I grew up I got cynical. I’d see Mother enthusiastic and involved with charlatans. Numerologists and astrologists who charged five hundred dollars for a ‘reading’ which was so vague you could twist the meaning any way you wanted. And faith healers who couldn’t seem to heal themselves, and a Yogi in California who preached purity, sublimity and continence, and then tried to seduce me one day while Mother was out. It was awful.”
“Did you tell your Mother?”
“Oh, yes, I did.” Celia considered this with slight surprise. “She’s never shocked, never fusses. I always told her everything. She was very distressed, she soothed me and wrote the Yogi a blistering letter. We never saw him again, of course.”
“And now you fear that Mrs. Taylor has entangled you with another such Yogi?” Akananda asked, amused.
Celia colored, “Oh, I don’t mean
that.
I don’t know what I mean, and I love Mama, I trust her even when she makes mistakes. She always admits them, and has faith in people just the same.”
“Your mother,” he said slowly, “is a fine woman. She seeks the truth, and often glimpses it. The bond between you is very strong.”
She nodded, half exasperated. She didn’t want to talk about Lily. The whole conversation made her uncomfortable. “Oh, Mother’s all right. My whole
life
should be all right now. Oh, it will be, I’m sure.”
Akananda sighed. “Yes, there’s something you desperately want, and you are
not
sure—to understand your husband. There are from the past appalling obstacles, I’m afraid, between you and your desire.” It was an authoritative statement.
Celia started and her jaw tightened, “That’s a ridiculous remark, Doctor! Little tiffs are natural in marriage. I don’t know what you’re getting at anyway.”
Akananda shook his head, “Poor child, your deep self knows very well what I mean. Why do you swallow and gasp so often, why are your hands trembling?”
She clenched her hands tight. “Nerves,” she said angrily. “Everyone gets nervous symptoms, sometimes. Stop probing. You’ve no right to, and I don’t like it.”
“That’s reasonable, and your privilege.” He spoke with patient dignity. “However, I
am
a physician, trained at the University of Calcutta, then Oxford, and Guy’s Hospital, and after that two years of psychiatry at the Maudesley in London. I am also a disciple of a great world teacher who was at one time called Nanak.”
“Is he
dead?
” she asked, her anger ebbing.
“He no longer inhabits a body,” said Akananda. “He’s passed beyond the disciplinary Karmic need to reincarnate.”
“Oh,
that,
” she said. “I suppose it makes sense, or why are innocent babies born crippled, blind—why horrible injustices? Oh, I know half the world believes in rebirth, and even some things in the Bible seem to point that way. But, why can’t we remember past lives?”
“Remembrance would usually be an intolerable burden, which All-merciful God spares us. For that matter, Lady Marsdon, do you consciously remember the first year or two of
this
life?”
Celia shook her head. “But what difference does it make?” She was tired, drained, bored with the subject. And there was still resentment towards Akananda, who had disrupted her hopeful mood. “You don’t seem to be the sort of man who would bother to come to a silly weekend house party,” she said crossly. “Especially as you hardly know Mother, and the rest of us not at all.”
He was silent, debating whether to answer her frankly. He read her mood and understood it, but after a moment he spoke what he knew to be truth.
“I don’t want to annoy you, my dear child, but I believe I’ve known you and your mother before this lifetime, though I don’t know where. There’s a reason for my presence. Also, you have known some of the people at your house party before this. I’m quite sure of that. The great Karmic Law has now brought you to the brink of a precipice where a battle will take place.”
“Indeed,” said Celia shrugging. “I hope the good guys win.” She fished in her bag and brought out her pink lipstick, applying it carefully. Her hand did not tremble, her throat was not constricted. She was only tired. “Sue, look!” She touched the girl’s shoulder. “Down there in the hollow, that must be the house we’re going to. Why, it really
does
have a moat!”
The girl looked where Celia pointed, and her mouth fell open. “Fabulous . . .” she breathed, and then for once was speechless.
Myra turned her car and drove slowly through the opened gates. Igor followed her in. The cars stopped by a graveled path. The occupants got out, and joined forces. They were all quiet for a while, gazing at the manor house, which was gilded by the afternoon sun into the garnet of bricks and tiles, the topaz of lichen-covered stones, broken here and there by stretches of half-timbering—striped ivory between oak beams. Secluded, solitary, enchanted, Ightham lay dreamlike within its encircling moat, and on first sight gave all beholders a sense of romantic peace.
Igor spoke first. “Marvelous, Mrs. Taylor, utterly
fantastic!
I’d no idea such a place existed—and so near London. It takes the Americans to show us our country! Look at those colors, mellow yet vibrant above that ribbon of liquid emerald. If I could only get those tones in fabric . . .” He squinted, framed off sections with his hands. “Good thing I brought the Polaroid.” He sauntered back to the car to fetch his camera.