The Greater Trumps by Charles Williams

the two young men waited in an alert and mutually hostile watch; on the other, Mr. Coningsby, in a fever of angry hate, stood by Nancy at the car door. The Downs and the darkness stretched about them all.
    â€œAren’t you a stranger and a Christian rat?” the hag said. “How do you know the goddess when you meet her in Egypt?”
    â€œOut of Egypt have I called my son,” Sybil said. “Could you search for the god and not belong to his house?”
    â€œWorship me then, worship me!” the insane thing cried out. “Worship the Divine Isis!”
    â€œAh, but I’ve sworn only to worship the god,” Sybil answered gently. “Let Isis forgive me, and let us look for the unity together.”
    â€œThey’ve parted him and torn him asunder,” the creature wailed. “He was so pretty, so pretty, when he played with me once.”
    â€œHe will be so lovely when he is found,” Sybil comforted her. “We’ll certainly find him. Won’t you come with me and look?”
    The other threw up her head and sniffed the air. “It’s coming,” she said. “I’ve smelt it for days and days. They’re bringing him together; the winds and waters are bringing him. Go your way, stranger, and call me if you find him. I must be alone. Alone I am and alone I go. I’m the goddess.” She peered at Sybil. “But I will bless you,” she said. “Kneel down and I’ll bless you.”
    Mr. Coningsby made a sound more like a real Warden in Lunacy than ever in his life before as the tall furred figure of his sister obeyed. But Nancy’s hand lay urgently on his shoulder, even had he meant to interfere. Sybil knelt in the road, and the woman threw up her arms in the air over her, breaking into a torrent of incomprehensible, outlandish speech, which at the end changed again to English. “This is the blessing of Isis; go in peace. Stephen! Stephen!” He was by her in a moment. “We’ll go, Stephen—not with them, not tonight. Not tonight. I shall smell him, I shall know him, my baby, my Osiris. He was killed and he is coming. Horus, Horus, the coming of God!” She caught the young man by the arm, and hastily they turned and fled into the darkness. Sybil, unaided, rose to her feet. There was a silence, then she said charmingly, “Henry, don’t you think we might go on now? It doesn’t look as if we could be of any use.”
    He came to hold the door for her. “You’ve certainly done it,” he said. “How did you know what to say to her?”
    â€œI thought she talked very sensibly,” Sybil said, getting into the car. “In her own way, of course. And I wish she’d come with us—that is, if … would it be very rude to say I gathered she had something to do with your family?”
    â€œShe’s my grandfather’s sister,” he answered. “She’s mad, of course; she—but I’ll tell you some other time. Stephen was a brat she picked up somewhere; he’s nothing to do with us, but she’s taught him to call her ‘grandmother,’ because of a child that should have been.”
    â€œConversation of two aunts,” said Sybil, settling herself. “I’ve known many wilder minds.”
    â€œWhat were you at, Sybil?” Mr. Coningsby at last burst out. “Of all the scandalous exhibitions! Really, Henry, I think we’d better go back to London. That my sister should be subjected to this kind of thing! Why didn’t you interfere!”
    â€œMy dear, it would mean an awful bother—going back to London,” Sybil said. “Everything’s settled up there. I’m a little cold, Henry, so do you think we could go fairly fast? We can talk about it all when we get in.”
    â€œKneeling in the road!” Mr. Coningsby went on. “Oh, very well—if you will go. Perhaps we shall smell things too. Is your