Green Darkness (81 page)

“Did you put Nanny in the cellar?” he asked, maintaining his quiet, casual tone. Richard looked at him blankly. His lids were drooping. He yawned rendingly. Akananda pushed him down onto a kitchen chair and debated summoning the chauffeur outside for help—the patient was probably beyond the danger of a sudden murderous spring, but any new stimulus was unwise.

“Sit there,” he repeated. “Don’t move! I
command
you!”

Akananda went down to the cellars, a labyrinth of coal holes, wine bins and storerooms. He switched on the lights, and saw at the far end of the cellar a cubbyhole with a little wooden door, bolted from the outside by a heavy iron bar.

This time, in response to his call he heard a faint answer. Nanny was sitting in the dark on a pile of rusty household implements, thrust there long ago and forgotten by earlier Marsdons. The tiny resolute figure greeted Akananda with one sobbing cry, then said, “God be thankit. I’ve been pr-raying, pr-rayers I learned as a bairn. How’s Master Richard? Oh, but he fr-righted me, Doctor-r. He’s gan daft, ye ken.”

Akananda wasted no words. “How long have you been here?”

“Yester nicht,” she said. “I’m a wee bit thir-rsty, but how’s
him?
”

“In the kitchen. Hurry!”

Surprisingly nimble, Nanny pelted through the cellars and up the stairs ahead of him. She saw Richard hunched in a chair, and threw her arms around him. “A naughty lad, ye are,” she said, “playing tricks wi’ ye’re auld Nanny.”

Richard looked at her in a dazed way, then let his head fall on her round poplin-covered bosom. “I’m sleepy . . .” he said.

It crossed Akananda’s mind to wonder whence this love sprang. There was nobody in the Tudor life, as far as he knew, who might have been Nanny Cameron, nor did it matter. There had been other lives, or perhaps the attachment started in this one.

Between them, they got Richard to bed.

Lily’s anxious blue eyes surveyed the doctor. “You look all in,” she said gently. “Some supper, maybe? I take it the staff has left, but the fridge must be loaded. I’ll scramble some eggs—and I guess I’ll send the driver into Alfriston. We won’t want him, will we?”

Akananda said, “No, I think not, and I’ve another syringeful of chlorpromazine in my kit—if he’ll bring that in. Though I doubt if Sir Richard will need it. This psychotic break has passed, and it was not a typical one.”

The next morning Richard slept on heavily as Medfield Place rapidly returned to its normal appearance.

Lily, refreshed and competent, sent the hired chauffeur into the village to make phone calls and get a temporary housekeeper to fill in until new help could be sent from London. Before the woman arrived she and Akananda removed all traces of the destructive forces engendered by the week of violence and anguish.

Celia’s slashed portrait came down from the stairwell, and as it was beyond salvage, they threw the fragments in the dust bin. Two photographs of Celia were unmarred except for smashed glass. Lily put them in her own bureau drawer until they could be reframed. A telephone repair man came from Lewes and mended the cut wires without showing a trace of curiosity about the matter. When service was restored an immediate call to the London Clinic brought the reassurance that Celia was fine had slept well and eaten a big breakfast

“What about the schoolroom?” asked Lily. “Should we change anything there? It seems to have been such a place of torment for him all these days he’d hardly leave it—poor man.”

Akananda frowned thoughtfully. “Let’s go look.”

The bright June morning exposed nothing sinister in the shabby room with its old coal grate, its battered desks and benches, the ink-stained drugget on the splintery floor.

“Mercy,” said Lily, “look at the dust! This place certainly needs a good cleaning. What’s that over there in that closet—is that an
altar?
”

“Yes,” said Akananda. “Sir Richard’s chapel.”

Lily stared at the candles and crucifix. “But he isn’t Catholic, he’s always sort of sneered at religion. Any kind.”

“Nonetheless, he
was
devoutly religious once—and the contents of that rather pathetic little cupboard saved him last night.”

Lily shivered, half in awe, half in joy, looking from Akananda’s quiet face to the tarnished crucifix. “Prayer . . .” she said softly, “the redeeming light . . .?”

He smiled. “You understand, my dear. I think we mustn’t touch this room now. Let Sir Richard decide when he’s able to.”

She nodded. “You know, it’s funny, but I remember hearing when Celia first came to Medfield, somebody said the Marsdons’ old chapel, the one they used in early days—oh, long before the first baronet—was built in this wing, do you think it was
here?
”

“Very probably. The Marsdons retain stronger links with the past than most, especially Sir Richard, though his haven’t been quite conscious.”

“Yours
are,
aren’t they?” she said wistfully. “Oh, I wish I could remember.”

Akananda shook his head. “Remembrance can cause great suffering.
Imperfect, uncomprehending
remembrance nearly killed Celia and Sir Richard, though it’s a different and logical force of the Law which has punished Edna Simpson.”

Lily sighed deeply. “I don’t quite understand,” she said, and looked out through the smeared, diamond-pane window towards the garden and the old dovecote. “But I learned a poem once, I forget who wrote it—somebody Phillips—” She paused and went on in a groping voice:

’Twas the moment deep

When we are conscious of the secret dawn

Amid the darkness that we feel is green . . . 

Thy face remembered is from other worlds,

It has been died for, though I know not when,

It has been sung of, though I know not where . . . 

She broke off blushing a little. “Awfully romantic,” she said with a rueful twist of her delicately rouged lips, “but then I was romantic at fourteen, and I felt—felt—well, that there was something
true
about it. It just came to my mind.”

Akananda joined her at the window. He put his arm around her shoulders, and kissed her cheek. “There
is
something true about it, my dear, and
you,
at least, will always feel the hope of secret dawn.” He turned abruptly and added, “I must go and check on Sir Richard. If he’s awake, we’ll have to get some food down him—the man hasn’t eaten in days.”

O
N THE FOURTH OF JULY,
Celia came home to Medfield Place, accompanied by Dr. Akananda and her mother. Arthur Moore saw them off from the steps of the London Clinic. He was jovial but hurried, due shortly at a hospital governors’ meeting, and after that an appointment with a distraught countess whose son had suddenly and openly declared himself a homosexual.

“Well, well,” said Sir Arthur beaming, “you’re fit as a fiddle, Lady Marsdon. I couldn’t be more delighted. Good way to celebrate this day, eh? When you Yankees threw tea or something at us poor old fogies over here. Independence all the thing now, but your chaps thought of it first. Oh, I don’t say you didn’t have me scared for a while in hospital but these episodes like yours—they pass—I’ve seen several—Dr. Akananda was most helpful.” He gave the Hindu a warm smile. “Glad you’re taking him back with you for a bit. Lucky fellow—I could do with some fresh Sussex air m’self.”

The Marsdons’ Jaguar twisted deftly through the heavy London traffic. Akananda sat in front with the chauffeur Lily had hired. She had, in fact, almost completely restarted Medfield Place, and since the calamitous strain of the past weeks was lessened, she now had room for a moment of complacency. It was disturbed when Celia spoke.

“Why didn’t Richard come for me?”

“But, darling—” said Lily, “he still isn’t very strong, you know that. He was sick, too—but he’s longing to see you.”

This was not strictly true. Richard was apathetic, detached. When Lily told him they were fetching Celia from the clinic, he said, “I suppose so, if she’s well enough. I married her.”

“Much better . . . he has lost his delusions,” said Akananda later to Lily. “But not completely recovered.” There would be an intermediate phase, but scant danger of acute paranoia again. “Yet, there is much unresolved,” he added, and Lily, who felt that she now knew the Hindu doctor so well, had caught his uncertainty. She looked at her daughter.

Celia was dressed in a simple and very expensive violet linen frock, ornamented only by a white monogram. The color became her clear, tawny skin, and the soft dark hair, shampooed in the hospital but not set, made her rumpled little head look boyish. Yet, Lily again noted maturity in the gray eyes, and there were a few new lines around the mouth, which was tinted a faint iridescent pink. She looked older now than her twenty-three years, perhaps it was the hint of sadness, an other-worldliness. Perhaps it was the knowledge of pregnancy. The urine test had come back yesterday—strongly positive.

As they crossed to Southwark on London Bridge, Lily glanced at Southwark Cathedral to their right, and said hesitantly—“Does this place, I mean the church and everything, bring back any—I mean, do you get impressions?”

“Why, no,” said Celia looking around at the blaring traffic, the jumble of ugly warehouses, the scurrying pedestrians. “Just a tiresome bit of road to be endured. Should I feel something?” She gave her mother an indulgent smile.

Lily shook her head. “I guess not, it’s just that Dr. Akananda said . . .”

Celia interrupted, frowning. “I don’t think I quite like that man. Oh, I know he worked hard on me at the clinic, but . . .”

“He saved your life, Celia,” said Lily sternly. “He’s a good man and a good doctor!”

“Well, I know . . .” Celia was startled by her mother’s vehemence, “I know he tried something, but the matron, and Sir Arthur, too, say I’d have come out of whatever it was anyway. They seem to think his methods were arbitrary, too off-beat. I just feel that I can’t entirely trust him, and don’t want him long at Medfield.”

Lily controlled her spurt of anger as she stared hard out of the window at the rows of duplexes sliding by.

“At least,” she said, in a crisp authoritative tone she had seldom used to Celia, “we need his exceptional skills for Richard’s treatment. And, my dear girl, you have, fortunately, no idea of the dangers already surmounted with
that man’s
dedicated help. No matter what Arthur Moore and the nurses may have said during the last week, your life—and the life of the baby inside you—depended on Jiddu Akananda.”

Conflict was so rare between this mother and daughter that it disturbed them both. Lily at once changed the subject.

“Did you enjoy your Bible readings?” she asked smiling. “Find what you wanted?”

“I found,” said Celia after a thoughtful moment, accepting the olive branch, “many verses, especially in the New Testament, which had a new meaning and comfort I’d never seen in them before.”

The meeting between Richard and Celia was like that of polite strangers. Richard came out on the steps as the car drew up, his mouth lifted a trifle at the corners when he saw Celia.

“It’s a pleasure to welcome you back to Medfield Place. Sorry you were ill. I believe tea’s laid on in the drawing room. We’ve a whole new staff. Your mother’s been most efficient.” He nodded to Lily. “And Dr. Akananda? So you’ve come down for a breather? Splendid. I expect Mrs. Taylor will show you to your room, though I believe you’ve used it before?”

Akananda bowed gravely, but he was watching Celia, and saw her eyes widen, heard her muffled gasp. She had held her face up to be kissed, but deftly hid the motion by shifting her handbag to the other arm.

“Some tea would be great . . .” she said. “How are
you
feeling, Richard? Funny we should both get sick at the same time, but you look wonderful—except we’ve both lost our tans. We must do some sun bathing tomorrow—between showers.”

She’ll
do, Akananda thought. She’s handling this right. It would be better if he and Lily Taylor cleared out, leaving them alone here, but he did not dare. As they sat at tea he concentrated until he saw the emanations around Richard. There was still danger in them. He saw with the third eye, the little organ which he had been taught to use, but since the unhappy days at Guy’s Hospital was no longer so certain that it was located in the pineal gland, or anywhere. Am I losing confidence? And the girl—my Celia—his chest twinged and he felt sadly discouraged. As soon as they had descended from the car he had felt Celia’s hostility. Justified hostility in view of the past lives, but saddening.

They dined at eight; they watched television until nine-thirty when Lily, whose own heart had grown heavy as stone and who was barely able to endure the banal playlet on the screen, said that a girl just out of the hospital must get her rest. Richard nodded agreeably, and said he believed that the master bedroom was in order.

Celia held herself tight and spoke in a neutral voice. “Where are
you
sleeping, Richard?”

“Why, in the red room as usual.” His heavy black brows rose, as though it were an impertinent question. “I believe there’s a maid to look after you, or perhaps Nanny will.”

“I see,” said Celia. “Where
is
Nanny? I should’ve thought she’d greet me.”

“Oh, no,” said Richard. “She never greets guests, always keeps to herself unless wanted. Have a nightcap?” he added politely to Akananda, who shook his head. “Then off to bed with you all!” he gestured towards the stairs.

Lily gave a deep sigh, but began to ascend the steps.

“Are
you
going to bed, Richard?” said Celia quietly. “Or what?”

He blinked. Her clear slow voice penetrated his private world, and he looked at her with more attention. Pleasant voice, no twang, but definitely not English. A small, chic, brown-haired foreigner—yet one who had some right to question.

“Might take a turn round the grounds,” he said reluctantly. “Or spend a while in the library—I’ve been reading a lot. Fascinating batch of books my ancestors gathered through the years. Must get them catalogued.”