The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell [37]
‘Oh, but I do,’ said Mona, drawling out the words. ‘I think those occult things are almost always right. They are in my case, I know.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Quiggin, brushing aside this affirmation with a tolerant grin, as the mere fancy of a pretty girl, and at the same time addressing himself more directly to Stripling, at whom his first attack had certainly been aimed, ‘but you can’t believe all that—a hard-headed business man like yourself?’
‘That’s just it,’ said Stripling, ignoring, in fact probably not noticing, the sneering, disagreeable tone of Quiggin’s voice. ‘It’s just the fact that I am occupied all day long with material things that makes me realise they are not the whole of life.’
However, his eyes began to start from his head, so that he was perhaps becoming aware that Quiggin was deliberately teasing him. No doubt he was used to encountering a certain amount of dissent from his views, though opposition was probably not voiced as usual in so direct and dialectical a manner as this. Quiggin continued to smile derisively.
‘You certainly find in me no champion of the City’s methods,’ he said. ‘But at least what you call “material things” represent reality.’
‘Hardly at all.’
‘Oh, come.’
‘Money is a delusion.’
‘Not if you haven’t got any.’
‘That is just when you realise most money’s unreality.’
‘Why not get rid of yours, then?’
‘I might any day.’
‘Let me know when you decide to.’
‘You must understand the thread that runs through life,’ said Stripling, now speaking rather wildly, and looking stranger than ever. ‘It does not matter that there may be impurities and errors in one man’s method of seeking the Way. What matters is that he is seeking it—and knows there is a Way to be found.’
‘Commencement—Opposition—Equilibrium,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh in her softest voice, as if to offer Stripling some well-earned moral support. ‘You can’t get away from it— Thesis—Antithesis—Synthesis.’
‘That’s just what I mean,’ said Stripling, as if her words brought him instant relief. ‘Brahma—Vishnu—Siva.’
‘It all sounded quite Hegelian until you brought in the Indian gods,’ said Quiggin angrily.
He would no doubt have continued to argue had not a new element been introduced at this moment by Jean: an object that became immediately the focus of attention.
While this discussion had been in progress she had slipped from the room. I had been wondering how I could myself quietly escape from the others and look for her, when she returned carrying in her hand what first appeared to be a small wooden palette for oil paints. Two castors, or wheels, were attached to this heart-shaped board, the far end of which was transfixed with a lead pencil. I recalled the occasion when Sunny Farebrother had ruined so many of Stripling’s starched collars in a patent device in which he had a business interest, and I wondered whether this was something of a similar kind. However, Mrs. Erdleigh immediately recognised the significance of the toy and began to laugh a little reprovingly.
‘Planchette?’ she said. ‘You know, I really rather disapprove. I do not think Good Influences make themselves known through Planchette as a rule. And the things it writes cause such a lot of bad feeling sometimes.’
‘It really belongs to Baby,’ said Jean. ‘She heard of it somewhere and made Sir Magnus Donners get her one. She brought it round to us once when she was feeling depressed about some young man of hers. We couldn’t make it work. She forgot to take it away and I have been carrying it round—meaning to give it back to her—ever since.’
Stripling’s eyes lit up and began once more to dilate.
‘Shall we do it?’ he asked, in a voice that shook slightly. ‘Do let’s.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs. Erdleigh, speaking