Anthony Powell - The Military Philosophers

I told her I had seen the Ufford — where we had first met — now in such changed circumstances. She was not at all interested, continuing to speak of Stevens, who had evidently made an impression on her.

‘It is the planet Mars that connects him with that very beautiful young woman,’ she said. ‘The girl herself is under Scorpio — like that unhappy Miss Wartstone, so persecuted by Saturn — and possesses many of the scorpion’s cruellest traits. He told me much about her when we talked on the roof. I fear she loves disaster and death — but he will escape her, although not without an appetite for death himself.’

Mrs Erdleigh smiled again, as if she appreciated, even to some extent approved, this taste for death in both of them.

‘Lead me to your friends,’ she said. ‘I am particularly interested in the girl, whom I have not yet met.’

She picked up the black box, which presumably contained spells and jewellery, carrying the helmet in her other band. We returned to Stevens and Pamela. They were having words about a bar of chocolate, produced from somewhere and alleged to have been unfairly divided. Stevens jumped up and seized Mrs Erdleigh by the hand. It looked as if he were going to kiss her, but he stopped short of that. Pamela put on the helmet that had been lying beside her on the seat. This was evidently a conscious gesture of hostility.

‘This is Miss Flitton,’ said Stevens.

Pamela made one of her characteristically discouraging acknowledgments of this introduction. I was curious to see whether Mrs Erdleigh would exercise over her the same calming influence she had once exerted on Mona, Peter Templer’s first wife, when they had met. Mona, certainly a far less formidable personality than Pamela, had been in a thoroughly bad mood that day — without the excuse of an air-raid being in progress — yet she had been almost immediately tranquillized by Mrs Erdleigh’s restorative mixture of flattery, firmness and occultism. For all one knew, air-raids might positively increase Mrs Erdleigh’s powers. She took Pamela’s hand. Pamela withdrew it at once.

‘I’m going to have a walk outside,’ she said. ‘See what’s happening.’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Stevens. ‘You’re not allowed to wander about during raids, especially one like this.’

‘My dear,’ said Mrs Erdleigh, ‘I well discern in your heart that need for bitter things that knows no assuagement, those yearnings for secrecy and tears that pursue without end, wherever you seek to fly them. No harm will come to you, even on this demonic night, that I can tell you. Nevertheless stay for a minute and talk with me. Death, it is true, surrounds your nativity, even though you yourself are not personally threatened — none of us is tonight. There are things I would like to ask you. The dark unfathomable lake over which you glide — you are under a watery sign and yet a fixed one — is sometimes dull and stagnant, sometimes, as now, angry and disturbed.’

Pamela was certainly taken aback by this confident approach, so practised, so self-assured, the tone at once sinister and adulatory, but she did not immediately capitulate, as Mona had done. Instead, she temporized.

‘How do you know about me?’ she asked. ‘Know when I was born, I mean.’

She spoke in a voice of great discontent and truculence. Mrs Erdleigh indicated that Stevens had been her informant. Pamela looked more furious than ever.

‘What does he know about me?’

‘What do most people know about any of their fellows?’ said Mrs Erdleigh quietly. ‘Little enough. Only those know, who are aware what is to be revealed. He may have betrayed the day of your birth. I do not remember. The rest I can tell from your beautiful face, my dear. You will not mind if I say that your eyes have something in them of the divine serpent that tempted Eve herself.’

It was impossible not to admire the method of attack. Stevens spoiled its delicacy by blundering in.

‘Tell Pam’s fortune,’ he said. ‘She’d love it — and you were wonderful with me.’

‘Why should I want my fortune told? Haven’t I just said I’m going to have a look round outside?’

‘Wiser not, my dear,’ said Mrs Erdleigh. ‘As I said before, my calculations tell me that we are perfectly safe if we remain here, but one cannot always foresee what may happen to those who ride in the face of destiny. Why not let me look at your hand? It will pass the time.’

‘If you really want to. I don’t expect it’s very interesting.’

I think Mrs Erdleigh was not used to being treated in such an ungracious manner. She did not show this in the smallest degree, but what she went on to say later could be attributed to a well controlled sense of pique. Perhaps that was why she insisted that Pamela’s hand should be read by her.

‘No human life is uninteresting.’

‘Have a look then — but there’s not much light here.*

‘I have my torch.’

Pamela held out her palm. She was perhaps, in fact, more satisfied than the reverse at finding opposition to her objections overruled. It was likely she would derive at least some gratification in the anodyne process. However farouche, she could scarcely be so entirely different from the rest of the world. On the other hand, some instinct may have warned her against Mrs Erdleigh, capable of operating at as disturbing a level as herself. Mrs Erdleigh examined the lines.

‘I would prefer the cards,’ she said. ‘I have them with me in my box, of course, but this place is really too inconvenient … As I guessed, the Mount of Venus highly developed … and her Girdle … You must be careful, my dear … There are things here that surprise even me … les tentations lubriques sont bien prononcées … You have found plenty of people to love you … but no marriage at present … no… but perhaps in about a year…’

‘Who’s it going to be?’ asked Stevens. ‘What sort of chap?’

‘Mind your own business,’ said Pamela.

‘Perhaps it is my business.’

‘Why should it be?’

‘A man a little older than yourself,’ said Mrs Erdleigh. ‘A man in a good position.’

‘Pamela’s mad about the aged,’ said Stevens. ‘The balder the better.’

‘I see this man as a jealous husband,’ said Mrs Erdleigh. ‘This older man I spoke of … but … as I said before, my dear, you must take good care … You are not always well governed in yourself … your palm makes me think of that passage in Desbarrolles, the terrible words of which always haunt my mind when I see their marks in a hand shown to me … la débauche, l’effronterie, la licence, le dévergondage, la coquetterie, la vanité, l’esprit léger, l’inconstance, la paresse … those are some of the things in your nature you must guard against, my dear.’

Whether or not this catalogue of human frailties was produced mainly in revenge for Pamela’s earlier petulance was hard to know. Perhaps not at all. Mrs Erdleigh was probably speaking no more than the truth, voicing an analysis that did not require much occult skill to arrive at. In any case, she never minded what she said to anyone. Whatever her intention, the words had an immediate effect on Pamela herself, who snatched her hand away with a burst of furious laughter. It was the first time I had heard her laugh.

‘That’s enough to get on with,’ she said. ‘Now I’m going for my walk.’

She made a move towards the door. Stevens caught her arm.

‘I say you’re not going.’

She pulled herself away. There was an instant’s pause while they faced each other. Then she brought up her arm and gave him a backhand slap in the face, quite a hard one, using the knuckles.

‘You don’t think I’m going to take orders from a heel like you, do you?’ she said. ‘You’re pathetic as a lover. No good at all. You ought to see a doctor.’