Lily looked anxiously to Akananda, who stood by the chest of drawers sipping his tea; his eyes met hers with smiling sympathy.
“She seems—oh—she
looks
normal,” Lily whispered, “but she’s delirious. Oh, Doctor, will her mind be all right?”
He nodded. “She has almost made the transition.”
“From what?” Lily asked sharply.
“From the far past and its evils.”
Lily, whose blue eyes were haggard, and who, like Akananda, had not slept for two nights, cried, “The evil’s
now!
I mean, I guess my baby’s come through the worst, and I pray you’re right. But Richard . . .”
Akananda put down his cup. He frowned. “Yes, there’s still Sir Richard, who has a worse Karma to understand and expiate. I’ll go to him tomorrow, after I’ve rested and, with God’s help, regained my own strength.”
“Thank you . . .” Lily said. “I don’t understand. And I don’t understand what makes you help us, except you’re a doctor, and they
do
help people . . .”
“Usually,” said Akananda in a lighter tone. “They
vow
to do so. Vows are important, Mrs. Taylor. I rather failed in mine four hundred years ago—failure all the worse because in my soul I knew better.
Ignorance
can sometimes be excused. You know I died back then with only one desire. Sun, warmth . . . and I most certainly got it. I was reborn sixty-two years ago in Madras.” He gave a rueful laugh.
“Oh, were you . . .?” said Lily blankly. She was too harassed and tired to follow him. She jumped as there was a movement on the bed, a groping hand. She took it in hers, and felt the fingers cling. Lily put her cheek down on the little hand, and began to cry softly.
“Nor was
that
time I speak of in Tudor England, the first in which I failed you two,” said Akananda, but Lily did not hear him. He looked tenderly down on them both, and went to the door. He raised his voice. “I’m sending a nurse in with a tablet I want you to take, Mrs. Taylor. You may stay with Celia for a time, but please don’t talk. Let her rest.”
Lily nodded mutely.
Akananda’s visit to Medfield next day was considerably delayed. He stopped at the clinic to see his patient and found her sitting up in bed drinking beef broth, and wearing a pink satin bed jacket her mother had brought her. Nurse Kelly was beside the bed, and greeted Akananda with a broad smile.
“Oh, we
do
feel better, Doctor! We’ll be dangling this afternoon, and maybe take a step or two tomorrow—won’t we, pet?”
Celia assented with a little nod, and a weak smile. “I still get muddled—I had such strange dreams, you were in them, Doctor, only you had a beard, I think.” Her face puckered, her gray eyes grew confused. “Something had happened, something terrible . . .”
“Och—” said the nurse quickly. “Iverybody has nightmares. Finish your broth, dear, and a nice bit o’ custard to follow.”
Celia obediently drank, while Akananda scrutinized her. They had brushed most of the electrode gum out of her hair, which lay around her face like a little dark cap. The color was good under the rather sallow skin, but there were still signs of strain in the muscles around the gray eyes, and the bones were a trifle sharp, as was natural after the long fast. A pleasant little face, but held none of the luring rose and gold beauty of Celia de Bohun, whose face he still distinctly remembered.
This
face would not inflame men, or lead its owner towards wantonness and destruction.
He thought of the night at Medfield—Lord, only four days ago—when this Celia had suddenly merged with the other one—the wild sparkle she had shown, her reckless disappearance into the garden with Harry—her defiance. Harry Jones, it was hard to believe that he had once been Anthony Browne, Lord Montagu—and yet Akananda thought so. But if the law of Karma
could
be neatly explained he wondered what had happened during the rest of Lord Montagu’s life, so that the soul this time chose for habitation a rather commonplace man, dedicated to womanizing and eloquent only on the subject of his war years. In his case religion, his Catholicism, had not carried over—probably because it had never been a deep conviction. As for the Duchess—perhaps she had not altered much from the Lady Magdalen she had been, except for a veneer of beauty and sophistication—both chiefly the products of the present century. She had been a great lady, an aristocrat then, she was so still. She had again been born in a Cumberland castle; she had again moved south with marriage; and doubtless, might repeat the underlying pattern, having seen no reason to change it—as yet. Still there had been a change. While delving in the British Museum Akananda had found a small seventeenth century book purporting be the biography of Lady Montagu. He had banned it rapidly and been repelled by the bigotry and smug prudery of Magdalen Dacre’s latter years. Whatever she was now did
not
include prudish bigotry.
Celia was dozing and Akananda sat down beside her for a moment, until her nurse should come back from an errand. He briefly considerd the vivid and painful experience he had lived through during the last days. It was not like watching a film—it
was
very like reading an absorbing novel in which the author dips at will into the mind of each character. The difference lay in the purpose behind—Akananda’s purpose, and that of the enlightened being who had directed it.
Most of the central figures had undoubtedly been brought together at the Marsdons’ house party last week so that there might be a chance of resolving an ancient tragedy which was still producing tragedy.
Sue Blake, however, had not appeared in Tudor times. On the other hand there was no identification in the present with Wat Farrier or, indeed, the three Tudor monarchs of those bygone years.
At least, Akananda thought, cruelty is no longer condoned when it occurs now. We have few religious persecutions, nobody in England is burned at the stake for his beliefs, or is tortured, killed, according to a despot’s whims.
We have achieved instead a fuzzy general tolerance, less exciting but a step upward climb on the spiral.
He was roused by Celia, who suddenly said, “Where’s Richard?” in a plaintive voice. “Shouldn’t he be here? I want him.”
Akananda started. The fascinating puzzles remaining from the past were not paramount. The central dilemma remained.
“Why, I’m sure Sir Richard will be up shortly,” he said. “He too has been ill.”
“Oh, poor darling,” said Celia. “Is it his back? Maybe the flu. He was acting rather feverish before the—” she frowned, trying to remember, “—the house party, when I got sick!”
“He’ll be all right,” said Akananda, trying to impel a confidence he did not feel. “Quite okay.”
Nurse Kelly returned as Celia nodded. “I’m longing to see him”—she broke off and looked at her left hand. “Where’s my ring . . . the Marsdon ring? . . . I had it over the wedding band. Somebody took it off!”
“Now, now, dear—” said the nurse quickly. “Ye mustn’t fret yourself . . . is this it?” She took the amethyst ring from the bed table drawer. “’Twas on the washstand, we found it when we tidied ye up.”
Celia took the ring and smiled. She put it back on her finger. “Of course. I seem to have forgotten a whole lot, but it doesn’t matter, I guess. I had a fall, didn’t I? Or was it an accident? Somebody was talking about a car crash on the A-twenty-seven and needing beds . . . Richard hasn’t been hurt, has he?” Her pupils dilated, and she caught her lip.
“
No
—” said Akananda, with such conviction that Celia relaxed. “Sir Richard has
not
been hurt. I want you to stop talking, eat what the nurse gives you, and then sleep dreamlessly for three hours.” He raised his brown hand, moved it slowly in circles, then smoothed her forehead. “Eat and then sleep, Celia. You will awaken refreshed. Tonight the same. Eat and then sleep. Awake refreshed.”
He had hypnotized many patients and with varying results, but never had he had so receptive a subject. He waited until she finished the tiny custard, saw her eyelids droop, then said to the nurse, “Don’t disturb her today—no dangling, much less walking. I’ll clear it with Sir Arthur.”
The nurse nodded. “I’ve faith in ye, Doctor, God bless ye—no matter what the matron thinks,” she added under her breath.
Akananda left Celia’s room and went downstairs. As he passed the waiting room a small, grizzled man darted out, and clutched his arm.
“Doctor . . .
please
. . .” he said in a muffled squeak. “I’ve been here an hour, they won’t tell me anything!”
Akananda, whose mind was entirely set on the conflict ahead, had difficulty in placing the contorted face, the puckered eyes which were red with weeping. “And what is it?” he said.
“You know me, Doctor—George Simpson. We met at Medfield. How’s Lady Marsdon?”
“She’s doing well.” Akananda was puzzled, though an interior signal was alerted. “No reason to be distraught.” His own memories of the other lifetime experience in Celia’s hospital room were beginning to fade, and except that George Simpson was connected with futility and terror—of which he had had quite enough—he barely remembered the man. “No need to be so excited about Lady Marsdon . . .” he repeated coldly.
“Well, you see—” George Simpson chewed on his little gray mustache, “’tis Edna—she had an accident last night, bad, very bad. She’s in a hospital now—isolation—they won’t let me near her. But the only thing she said before the pain got so bad was ‘Celia’—and knowing that was Lady Marsdon’s Christian name, and
she
so ill, I thought I’d come to the clinic and inquire.”
“Ah-h—” said Akananda. George Simpson now had his full attention, and he drew the distracted husband into a small private consultation room. “Sit down, sir. Tell me what happened to Mrs. Simpson.”
The little man made an effort. He fished out his pipe, tried to fill it, then gave up as the tobacco spilled all over his knees. “She was burned,” he said with a gulp. “When I got home from the office, they’d already smelled the smoke and broken in—they heard her screams—people in the flat next us. They got it out—’twasn’t much fire but Edna’s kimona had caught, and she was all in flames—they rolled her in the carpet.” George made a dry noise and put his hands over his eyes. “It’s horrible,” he whispered. “They doubt she’ll live—some third degree burns, her flesh was
charred—
her face—”
Akananda was silent a moment before he put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “I’m deeply sorry. Can you tell me how it happened? It’s better if you talk.”
“Must’ve been the spirit lamp,” answered George dully. “Lit it to make a cup of tea . . . she . . . liked to save the gas. And then . . . she wasn’t quite herself, maybe. Had a—a tincture the chemist gave her. When she’d take a lot . . . she’d not be quite herself.”
“I see . . .” said Akananda after a pause. “A very sad accident. I sympathize with you, Mr. Simpson.” He had compassion in his voice, but he felt immense relief. In the end, the law of Karma had worked, not quite as one might expect for the retribution of the murder and suicide once caused by Emma Allen, but in the great agony and purging of seemingly accidental fire. Yet, there was a link which only he could discern. Edna Simpson’s accident had happened last night, probably at the time that Celia had been reliving the moment of her own death at Ightham Mote.
“Shall I ring the hospital for you, and find out Mrs. Simpson’s condition now?” he asked. “They’ll be more apt to give me information.”
George nodded, and mumbled the number.
Akananda reached for the telephone and spoke for some minutes. He put the receiver softly back on its cradle.
George lifted his wobbly little chin and stared at the doctor’s face. “She’s gone . . .” he said.
Akananda slowly bent his head. “You should have someone with you. Children? Relatives?”
“We had no children, ’twas always a grief to her . . . there’s my brother, John Simpson—works in the City. Oh, Doctor, I can’t believe it . . . she’s . . . she
was
often difficult—lots of people didn’t like Edna, and she’d altered of late, so discontented and touchy, but I was fond of her . . . and my God, what a ghastly death . . . I can’t believe it . . . such a cruel death . . . when I think of her screaming for help all alone in the flat . . .”
Akananda sighed. “In time you’ll forget,” he said. “Now, what is your brother’s phone number?”
Jiddu Akananda and Lily Taylor arrived at Medfield Place that evening in the chauffeur-driven car Lily had rented in London.
They spoke but little on the ride, and Lily’s apprehensions were gradually allayed by the Hindu’s quiet presence. She felt strength flowing from him, and rested in it. A last minute check on Celia had confirmed steady improvement, and a composure which was new. Though she was still weak, there was nothing left of the childishness and confusion she had shown upon first waking from her deathlike trance.
She had made no reference to her illness, nor to Richard. She had talked a little to Nurse Kelly about Ireland, and then America, where the nurse had many relations. Just as Lily left, Celia asked for a Bible.
“A quite sane wish, Mother,” she had said, smiling at Lily’s consternation. “Don’t be alarmed. You
did
send me to Sunday school back in Lake Forest, you know! There are some verses I want to look up. It’s funny, I used to hate Bible classes, but some of it seems to have stuck.”
A Bible was found and when Lily left, Celia was quietly leafing through the pages and pausing to read now and then.
“You don’t think that a sign of abnormality?” Lily said anxiously to Akananda in the hospital corridor. “I mean, it’s so unlike her to ask for the
Bible,
she’s always been something of an agnostic.”
“I don’t think it abnormal,” said Akananda, “and I think that you’ll find Celia changed in many ways. Your own delvings and gropings and fundamental spirituality probably caused her to rebel—this is natural, but not final.”
The car purred through the twilight towards Sussex, and it wasn’t until they approached Alfriston that Lily roused herself from an exhausted doze, and sighed. “If Richard again refuses all admittance, I suppose we’ll have to put up at the Star. Telephone’s not working at Medfield Place—Richard cut the wires. Perhaps we’d better make reservations now?”