The Greater Trumps by Charles Williams Page B

figures, and the strange pack in her hand by which the wonder of earth had happened, and the two opposed faces, and Aaron Lee’s anxious eyes, and the immortal tenderness of Sybil’s. No—not exciting, but it would serve. It would ease the moment. “Who’ll try first?” she went on, holding out the Tarots. “Father? Aunt? Or will you, Mr. Lee?”
    Aaron waved them on. “No, no,” he said hurriedly. “Pray one of you—they’re yours. Do try—one of you.”
    â€œNot for me, thank you. I’ve no wish to be amused so——” Her father hesitated for an adverb, and Sybil also with a gesture put them by.
    â€œOh, aunt, do!” Nancy said, feeling that if her aunt was in it things would be safer.
    â€œReally, Nancy. I’d rather not—if you don’t mind,” Sybil said, apologetic, but determined. “It’s—it’s so much like making someone tell you a secret.”
    â€œWhat someone?” Henry said, anger still in his voice.
    â€œI don’t mean someone exactly,” Sybil said, “but things … the universe, so to speak. If it’s gone to all this trouble to keep the next minute quiet, it seems rude to force its confidence. Do forgive me.” She did not, Nancy noticed, add, as she sometimes did, that it was probably silly of her.
    Nancy frowned at the cards. “Don’t you think we ought to?” she asked.
    â€œOf course, if you can,” Sybil answered. “It’s just—do excuse me—that I can’t.”
    â€œYou sound,” Henry said, recovering a more normal voice, “on remarkably intimate terms with the universe. Mayn’t it cheat you? Supposing it had something unpleasant waiting for you?”
    â€œBut,” said Sybil, “as somebody says in Dickens, ‘It hasn’t, you know, so we won’t suppose it.’ Traddles, of course. I’m forgetting Dickens; I must read him again. Well, Nancy, it’s between you and Henry.”
    Nancy looked at her lover. He smiled at her at first with that slight preoccupation behind his eyes which always seemed to be there, she thought a little ruefully, since the coming of the Tarots. But in a moment this passed, and they changed, though whether she or that other thing were now the cause of their full, deep concentration, she could not tell. He laid his hand on hers that held the Tarots.
    â€œAnd what does it matter which?” he said. “But I’d rather we tried yours, if you don’t mind.”
    â€œCan’t we try them together?” she asked, “and say good night to separation?”
    â€œLet’s believe we’ve said it,” he answered, “but you shall try them for us both and let me read the fates. Do you believe that it’s true?”
    â€œIs it true?” she asked.
    â€œAs the earth in your hands,” he answered, and Mr. Coningsby’s hostility only just conquered his curiosity, so as to prevent him from asking what on earth Henry meant. “It’s between those”—he pointed to the ever-moving images—“and your hands that the power flows, and on the power the cards move. See.”
    He turned her, and Aaron Lee, who stood between her and the table, moved hastily back. Then, taking the cards from their case, he made her hold them in her hands, as she had held the suit of deniers on that other evening, and the memory of it came back to her with sudden force. But this time, having settled her hands, he did not enclose them in his own; instead, he stepped away from her and waved away Sybil also, who was close on her left side, so that she stood alone, facing the golden table, her hands extended towards it, holding within them the whole pack of cards, opened a little fanwise so that from left to right the edges made a steeply sloping ascent.
    â€œMove forward, slowly,” he said, “till I tell you to stop. Go