Riders in the Chariot

er apologetic amethysts, colours which suggested mourning. She would cough thinly, from behind an expression that invited inquiry into the state of her health, and visitors would take the hint, not that they really cared to discover how Mrs Hare's health was poor, but it provided a useful topic with which to hack a way into the tangles of conversation. She was not a snob, though there were many who accused her of it. She suffered, rather, from seeing the weak exposed to those whom she considered strong, and so, she would attempt to keep her friends separate, in compartments that she hoped might protect them from one another. She was completely unreal, and would impart temporarily to those of her equals with whom she came in contact something of her unreality. Yet she was not ineffective against the peacock colours of the stage at Xanadu, and provided the perfect, flat foil to her husband's fustian. The one cataclysmic reality to challenge her playing of the part was the presence of her daughter, but that was a fact she had failed from the beginning to embrace, an event the significance of which she had recoiled from relating to the play of life. After several years of tedious and frustrated childbirth, Mrs Hare had succeeded in having this little girl. They named her Mary, because the mother, fortunately, was too exhausted to think, and the father, who would have plunged with voluptuous excitement into the classics, or the works of Tennyson, to dredge up some shining name for a son, turned his back on the prospect of a daughter. So, Mary the latter became, but an innocent, Protestant one. Mrs Hare had soon taken refuge from Mary in a rational kindness, with which she continued to deal her a series of savage blows during what passed for childhood. "My darling must decide how best she can repay her parents for all she owes them," was amongst the mother's favourite tactics. "See all these beautiful things they have put here to be enjoyed, not smashed in thoughtless games." And, in answer to a frequent question: "Only our Father in Heaven will be able to tell my pet why He made her as He did." Paddling in her own delicious shallows, it never occurred to Mrs Hare to raise her eyes to God, except to call Him as a formal witness. She accepted Him-who would have been so audacious not to? — but as the creator of a moral and a social system. At that level, she could always be relied on to put her hand in her purse, to help repair vestments, or support fallen girls, and her name was published for everyone to read, on a visiting card, inserted in a brass frame, on the end of her regular pew. The little girl appeared gravely to accept the attitudes adopted by her mother, but was not genuinely influenced. Unattached, she drifted through the pale waters of her mother's kindness like a little, wondering, transparent fish, in search of those depths which her instinct told her could exist. Her father's attitudes were less acceptable than her mother's. Once in her presence-or she had been standing, rather, in the drawing-room alcove, apart, touching the waves of an emerald silk with which the day-bed would fascinate the fingers-her father had thrown down his cap with more than his usual violence, and shouted, "Who would ever have thought I should get a _red__ girl! By George, Eleanor, she is ugly, ugly!" Which-it sounded-was the worst that might be said. With more than her usual kindness, Eleanor Hare motioned to their child, and when the latter had come forward-because what else could anyone do? — the mother smoothed a sash, and sighed, and suggested, "Plain is the word, Norbert. And who knows-Mary's plainness may have been given to her for a special purpose." Because she was inexperienced, or because she was born hopeful, Mary did not immediately begin to hate her father. She decided on a watery smile, which only made her uglier, and her parent more enraged. She remained altogether without companions, because it never occurred to anybody that she was in need of them, and she did fairly well without: with sticks, pebbles, skeleton leaves, birds, insects, the hollows of trees, and the cellars and attics of Xanadu. She did have a pony, but preferred to be with it rather than to ride upon it-which would have entailed the company of her father-and soon learned to oblige most of its wishes by studying the quiver of a nostril, the flicker of a muscle, and the varying assertions of silence. Once when, unavoidably, in the company of her father, and they had gone down to inspect a rested paddock, she had thrown herself on the ground, and begun to hollow out a nest in the grass, with little feverish jerks of her body, and foolish grunts, curling round in the shape of a bean, or position of a foetus. So it appeared to him. But, in answer to his quick-drawn demand for an explanation, the child had replied, simply, "Now I know what it feels like to be a dog." He had been so shocked and disgusted by the expression on her freckled face, that he told her to get up at once, and decided not to think about the incident again. On very few occasions Mary Hare and her father, approaching from their opposite sides, arrived simultaneously at a common frontier of understanding, and then only when alcohol, despair, or approaching death loosened the slight restraints of reason-when, indeed, he came closest to resembling in her eyes a distressed or desperate animal. Throughout her life the daughter would remember an incident which occurred about that time, and on which she would employ her intuition in attempting to interpret what her mind failed to understand. She had been standing on the terrace. It was the hour of sunset. Earlier in the afternoon they had gone driving along the roads and lanes round Sar-saparilla, even as far as Barranugli, so that her father might show himself. How relieved she felt to be alone at last, able to look at, and touch, and smell whatever she saw, without danger of being asked by her parents for explanations. The urns on the terrace were running over, she remembered, with cascades of a little milky flower, which would shimmer through darkness like falls of moonlight. But at that hour the light was gold. Or red. So splendid that even she, a red girl, had no need to feel ashamed of the correspondence. Then her father came outside. He had been tasting a new brandy which they had sent out for his personal opinion, and his mouth was still wet and shining from his recent occupation. His eyes, in the dazzle from the sun, appeared almost vulnerable. There they stood, the father and daughter, facing each other, alarmingly exposed. He came forward, and seemed at once both puzzled and assured. Fondling her. Which was not his habit. And it was not altogether pleasant: his hands playing amongst her hair. She was reminded of a pair of black-and-white spaniels she had seen lolloping and playing together, too silly to help themselves. But just because her father's temporary silliness and loss of control had reduced him to the level of herself and dogs, she did submit to his fondling her. She did not remember what he said, not all of it, for that, too, was silly and confused, only that at one point he had shaken his head, as if to dash the sunlight out of his eyes, both frowning and smiling, and spoke in a harsh voice, which, although addressing her, did not seem designed for her attention. Her father said: "Who are the riders in the Chariot, eh, Mary? Who is ever going to know?" Who, indeed? Certainly _she__ would not be expected to understand. Nor did she think she wanted to, just then. But they continued there, the sunset backed up against the sky, as they stood beneath the great swingeing trace-chains of its light. Perhaps she should have been made afraid by some awfulness of the situation, but she was not. She had been translated: she was herself a fearful beam of the ruddy, champing light, reflected back at her own silly, uncertain father. Then he had started frowning, and it became obvious they were again driving along the road from Barranugli to Sarsa-parilla, returning through the comparatively humdrum light of the afternoon already past. "I do not like the off-side front mare," he complained. "Must replace the off-side front. She moves lame, without her being lame at all." For he required perfection in horses, as in everything, and usually got it, except in human beings. He looked at her, and was again irritated, she saw, because she was such an ugly little girl, and she, for her part, could do nothing for him but smile back in the way of those from whom nothing much is expected. Yet, the father's rather oblique remark, made when he was drunk, and uttered with the detachment and harshness of male egotism, encouraged the daughter to expect of life some ultimate revelation. Years after, when his stature was even further diminished in her memory, her mind would venture in foxy fashion, or more blunderingly wormlike, in search of a concealed truth. If fellowship with Himmelfarb and Mrs Godbôld, and perhaps her brief communion with a certain blackfellow, would confirm rather than expound a mystery, the reason could be that, in the last light, illumination is synonymous with blinding. In the meantime, life at Xanadu was disturbed less by transcendental problems than by the economic and social ones which come to those who enjoy nerves and invested income. The Hares never talked about money. To Mrs Hare that would have been an act in the poorest taste. To her husband, on the other hand, money was something he did not care to think about, but which he hoped fervently would still be there. He was not unlike a traveller walking into a landscape which may prove mirage. Fortunate in his inheritance from the wine-merchant father and commercial uncles, and in the devotion of an individual just stupid enough to be honest, just intelligent enough to be practical, who managed his late father's business, Norbert was pretty certain that his landscape was an actual one. But it unnerved him to discuss it, and if drink or insomnia forced him to consider his financial future, he would buy reality off by writing to his London agent to order a fireplace in Parian marble, or a Bonington, which, he was assured, would soon be coming up for sale. In that way he was fortified. In that way they continued to live at Xanadu, and soon it became clear the daughter of the house was a young girl. They put up her hair, and the nape of her neck was greenish and unfreckled where the red hair had lain. She was no prettier, however, and unnaturally small. The mother began to sigh a good deal, and remarked, "It is time we thought about doing something for our poor Mary." But immediately wondered whether her suggestion might not have sounded vulgar. The father could not feel the situation deserved his interest. "If anything is to happen, it will happen." He yawned, and showed his rather handsome, pointed teeth. "How does it happen to at least ninety per cent of the unlikely human race? How did it happen to us?" "We grew fond of each other," his wife ventured, and blushed. The husband laughed out loud. And the wife preferred not to hear. Not long after, Mrs Hare displayed excitement and her husband cynical interest when it was announced that Eustace Cleugh intended to undertake a tour of the world, in the course of which he would visit his relations in New South Wales. Except that he was a member of an English branch of Urquhart Smiths, not a lot was known about Mr Cleugh, but blank sheets are always whitest. Mrs Hare _had__ heard that her Cousin Eustace was _awfully nice__, neither young, nor yet middle-aged, comfortably off, and that his mother's brother had married the Honourable Lavinia Lethbridge, a daughter of Lord Trumpington. "What does Mr Cleugh do for a living?" Mary asked her mother. "I don't exactly know," replied the latter. "I expect he just lives." So, it all sounded most desirable. Eustace Cleugh, when he arrived, was not surprised at a lot of what he heard and saw, for as an Englishman and an Urquhart Smith, he had preconceived notions of what he must expect from colonial life in general and the Norbert Hares in particular. "Breeding is ninety per cent luck, whatever the experts and Urquhart Smiths may tell you, " Mr Hare announced the first night at dinner. "And when I say luck, I mean bad luck, of course." "There are so many _rewarding__ topics!" his wife complained, looking at her cherry stones. Mary Hare stared at her cousin. An absence of interested upbringing had at least left her with a thorough training in observation, and although she looked deeper than was commonly considered decent, she often made discoveries. Now she confirmed that this man was, in fact, as her mother had forewarned, neither young, nor yet middle-aged. To Mary Hare it seemed probable that Mr Cleugh had always been about thirty-five. As she herself was of indeterminate age, she hoped they might become friends. But how was she to go about it? In the first place, he was of her father's sex. In the second, his beautifully kept, slightly droopy moustache, and the long bones of his folded-fan-like hands, appeared unaware of anything beyond the person of Eustace Cleugh. Perhaps if he had been a dog-say, an elegant Italian greyhound-she might have won him over by many infallible means. But as that was not the case, she could only offer him an almond. Which he accepted with an unfolding of hands. Now also he began to unfold his mind, and to offer to the audience in general-everything that Eustace spoke was offered to a general, rather than to a particular, audience-an account of a journey he had made with a friend through Central and Northern Italy. "After a short interlude at Ravenna," Mr Cleugh picked his way, "not in itself of interest, but there are the mosaics, and the _zuppa di pesce__-and they are essential, aren't they? — we went on to Padua, where the Botanic Gardens are said to be the oldest in Europe. They are not, I must admit, particularly large, or _fine__, as gardens go, but we found them to be of peculiarly subtle horticultural interest." Mrs Hare made the little social noises that one made. But her husband had begun to blink, repeatedly, and hard. "In Padua, poor Aubrey Puckeridge was struck down by some ailment we were never able to diagnose, part tummy, part fever, in what turned out to be-our guidebook had sadly misinformed us-a most primitive _albeigo__." Mrs Hare made the same, only slightly more appreciative noises. "And did he die?" asked Norbert. "Well, no," replied Eustace Cleugh. "I hope I did not imply. I intended only to suggest that poor Aubrey was awfully indisposed." "Oh," said Mr Hare. "I thought perhaps the fellow died." Eustace Cleugh noticed that his cousin's husband had been drinking a good deal of his own poisonous wine. Mary Hare was fascinated by Mr Cleugh's story, not so much by the narrative as by how it issued out of his face. She put it together in piles of dead leaves, but neatly, and matched, like bank-notes. It made her sad, too. So many of the things she told died on coming to the surface, when their life, to say nothing of their after life in her mind, could be such a shining one. She wondered whether Mr Cleugh realized how dead his own words were, and if he was suffering for it. There were, after all, many things he and she had in common, if they could first overcome the strangeness of their separate existences, and crack the codes of human intercourse. "When he got better, and left that primitive _albeigo__," she asked, for a start, offering him her assistance. But Eustace Cleugh no longer felt inclined. He had only glanced at his cousin's ugly child, and promised himself that, during his visit, he would look as little as possible in that direction. Her short, stumpy hands were particularly repulsive, and the flare of hair that had not yet submitted to the tyranny of pins. He shuddered inside himself. Even while concentrating on the pattern of his dessert plate, he was conscious of how shockingly the girl was put together. It was almost as though the presence of any kind of physical monstrosity was a personal insult to Mr Cleugh. "I expect Cousin Eustace is tired." Mrs Hare was making his excuses. "My own arrival in a strange house exhausts me beyond anything." Eustace, of course, turned a smile on the company, because his manners were perfect, and became murmurous in protest. But he did retire early, and not to the bachelors' quarters, because, said Mrs Hare, he was a member of the family. Mary soon realized that her life would remain unchanged by their cousin's being with them, because she did not see so very much of him; he was always either reading or writing-his tastes appeared studious-smo