To have power at a moment’s notice, it is as well to begin by knowing a secret. He remembered the cup still on the table at breakfast, and used by Ross as an ashtray. Then, that Felix had not used it.
“You know,” he said to the boy, “that I was very interested in what you were saying last night. But I didn’t quite catch on.”
Felix was thinking that here was something nice and new, who did the things they did, a little differently. With the fundamental error that being an American, simplicity and kindness would be his chief characteristic. He surprised Carston with his quickness to explain.—“We got over there, and found Picus saying he was ill and Clarence doing all the work. As usual. So, after tea with soda water, I went down in the bucket. The others hung on to the windlass and Picus strolled out. Got a fishing spear with him, because he said high hedgehogs aren’t things to handle (they smell water and fall in, poor brutes). I raised that cup along with the corpses. We were looking at it, and Picus began to whistle. You must hear him whistle; it’s like Mozart. Said he was perfectly well again. He and Ross are mighty queer birds.”
“Tell me more about your friends.”
“Picus is Clarence’s ‘old man of the sea’ only he’s young. Clarence doesn’t know it. Scylla says I’m hers. He only does one or two small things like whistling, but he does them perfectly. Riding and blowing birds’ eggs. You saw how powerful his body is, but he’s like a bird. Off in a flash. Hence the name. Picus was the Woodpecker.
“Clarence fights for him and with him. What he fights for, I don’t know. Clarence is quite all right. A bit insincere, because he’s afraid. And what he’s afraid of, I don’t know.”
Carston could only say: “Tell me more.”
“Scylla’s a different egg. If there is anything wrong about my sister, it’s everything. I’ve said the word ‘fear’ at least ten times lately. This time it’s my own.” He horrified Carston—he was like a desperate butterfly, angry, petulant and white.—“It’s she at one end, and Picus at the other, who get me going. It’s because she wants everything to happen to its last possibility. That’s how she gets kick out of life. Once a thing’s got going, she’ll understand it and manage it. And enjoy it. She’ll never tone it down. Sort of woman who’d have mothered the house of Atreus, and though I owe her everything, it’s wasted on me. She’ll enjoy—”
“What will she enjoy?”
“What will happen out of what happened yesterday. Don’t you see. That infernal Picus is a psychic if there ever was one. Or if there is such a thing.”
“Does she believe in that?”
“Believing doesn’t trouble her. Only what is going to happen. She doesn’t create situations. She broods them and they hatch. And the birds come home to roost. Some mighty queer birds. Truth isn’t everyone’s breakfast egg. She isn’t happy till it’s hatched. Calls it knowing where you are. I wish I knew where I was—”
Carston revised his ideas again about Scylla as a lover. He could only say: “But what can she and your friend Picus make out of what happened yesterday, anyhow?”
“Don’t you see? It was fishing it out of the well with that old spear—they always went together.”
“What went with what?”
“The cup of the Sanc-Grail, of course. It and the spear, they always hunted in couples. You’ve heard of it. All sexual symbolism. I wish I hadn’t.”
“Does sexual symbolism get you?” It would be news if it did.
“I should worry. But the Sanc-Grail was a very funny thing. People used to think it was a shallow greenish dish. And the cup’s a shallow, greenish dish. Those well-shafts on the downs might be any age. So might it. Tollerdown had a bad reputation, and I never heard of the Sanc-Grail doing anyone any good. With that moron Picus behind it, and that demon, my sister, in front of it.”
Carston took stock of several things: what he remembered of the Grail story, the possibility of anyone behaving as if it had happened, and what that implied in human character. Felix’s youth.
He said at last:
“Don’t tell me your sister is superstitious.”
“Not she. Better if she was. She’d read it up and do processions and things. It might be like that. But with her it won’t get its home comforts. It will get vision.”
On the last four words he changed, and Carston saw the sister in the brother, in the elegant, frightened boy now explaining that what he wanted was not vision, but fashionable routine.
“Of course, there is nothing in it. I only meant that the find’s a reminder.”
“Reminder of what?”
“Of what it would remind you, of course. Oh! I see you don’t know. Never mind, it’s a long story.”
Carston gave out. He was not pleased. He had been atrociously taken into confidence, and he had not understood. His earlier dislike of them returned, with an uncomfortable respect. The Sanc-Grail did not call on everybody. The boy was a young thing, telling him how much he hated poverty and dreams. What a snob he was. All about the things you could not do. Felix remembered that Ross had prepared them to be misunderstood. It did not occur to him that he had no right to expect that Carston should understand.
V
Picus was alone in his room, modelling the body of Scylla in wax. One of the little things he did. Clarence was a serious and accomplished painter, discovered and produced by Ross. Picus played about with wax, which grew more transparent as he touched it. Exceedingly powerful in body, he looked like wax, in a gauze-thin blue sweater rolled up his neck. He looked out of the window at the wood swimming
