The Greater Trumps by Charles Williams Page A

grandfather anything like his sister, Henry?
    If so, we shall have a most agreeable Christmas. He might like me to kneel to him at intervals, just to make things really comfortable.”
    Sybil laid a hand on his knee. “Leave it to me to complain,” she said. “All right, Henry; we all know you hated it much more than the rest of us.” Nancy’s hand came over the seat and felt for hers; she took it. “Child, you’re frozen,” she said. “Let’s all get indoors. Even a Christian rat—all right, Henry—likes a little bacon-rind by the fire. Lothair dear, I was going to ask you when we stopped—what star exactly is that one over there?”
    â€œStar!” said Mr. Coningsby, and choked. He was still choking over his troubles when they stopped before the house, hardly visible in the darkness. He was, however, a trifle soothed by the servant who was at the door and efficiently extricated them, and by the courtesies which the elder Mr. Lee, who was waiting just within the hall, immediately offered them. He found it impossible, within the first two minutes, not to allude to the unfortunate encounter; “the sooner,” he said to himself, “this—really rather pleasant—old gentleman understands what his sister’s doing on the roads, the better.”
    The response was all he could have wished. Aaron, tutored at intervals during the last month by his grandson in Mr. Coningsby’s character and habits, was highly shocked and distressed at his guests’ inconvenience. Excuses he proffered; explanations he reasonably deferred. They were cold; they were tired; they were, possibly, hungry. Their rooms were ready, and in half an hour, say, supper.… “We won’t call it dinner,” Aaron chatted on to Mr. Coningsby while accompanying him upstairs; Sybil and Nancy had been given into the care of maids. “We won’t call it dinner tonight. You’ll forgive our deficiencies here. In your own London circle you’ll be used to much more adequate surroundings.”
    â€œIt’s a very fine house,” said Mr. Coningsby, stopping on what was certainly a very fine staircase.
    â€œSeventeen-seventeen,” Aaron told him. “It was built by a Jacobite peer who only just escaped attainder after the Fifteen and was compelled to leave London. It’s a curious story; I’ll tell it to you some time. He was a student and a poet, besides being a Jacobite, and he lived here for the rest of his life in solitude.”
    â€œA romantic story,” Mr. Coningsby said, feeling some sympathy with the Jacobite peer.
    â€œHere’s the room I’ve ventured to give you,” Aaron said. “You can’t see much from the windows tonight, but on a clear day you can sometimes just catch a glimpse of the sea. I hope you’ve everything. In half an hour, then, shall we say?”
    He pattered away, a small, old, rather bent, but self-possessed figure, and Mr. Coningsby shut his door. “Very different from his sister,” he thought. “Curious how brothers and sisters do differ.” His mind went to Sybil. “In a way,” he went on to himself, “Sybil’s rather irresponsible. She positively encouraged that dreadful old woman. There’s a streak of wildness in her; fortunately it’s never had a chance to get out. Perhaps if that other had had different surroundings … but if this is her brother’s house, why’s she wandering about the country? And, anyhow, that settles the question of giving Henry those cards. I shall tell Nancy so if she hints at it again. Fancy giving poor dear Duncannon’s parting gift—the things he left me on his very death-bed—to a fellow with a mad gipsy for an aunt! Isis,” he thought, in deep disgust, “the Divine Isis. Good God!”

5
    THE IMAGE THAT DID NOT MOVE
    M UCH TO her own surprise when she found it out in the morning,