The Bird's Nest Part 20

"A nervous fever," said Aunt Morgen smoothly.

Mrs. Arrow turned and looked openly at Doctor Wright. "I would have thought," she said, "that Doctor Ryan . . . of course, he's a younger man."

"We have the greatest confidence in Doctor Wright," said Morgen, raising her voice slightly to be heard with clarity across the room. "Complete confidence."

"Not unlike," said Doctor Wright to Mr. Arrow, "the familiar practice of impaling a living man on a maypole. Disagreeable only to the victim, if, indeed, he himself is not transported with ecstasy. I would not suppose, however, that in the present day . . ."

"Not," said Mr. Arrow valiantly, "with the town manager system the way it's set up most places."

Mrs. Arrow put her hand over Morgen's. "I just want to say that I think you've been pretty brave, Morgen, just pretty brave. There aren't many people," she finished, and nodded emphatically. "I wonder," said Morgen, half-rising. "I'll just take a look at her through the kitchen window."

"Of course." Mrs. Arrow smiled sympathetically. "I know she's all right, though; you mustn't worry so."

"I just want to know if she's still there," Morgen said.

Mrs. Arrow smiled at Morgen's back, shook her head with a tender little sigh, and turned to the gentlemen; "A gla.s.s of sherry?" she asked brightly.

"Ah?" said Mr. Arrow dimly.

"Sherry, Doctor Wright?"

"Thank you, thank you. On the other hand, although I am at best only very slightly informed in these matters, I would suppose that the mandrake, which shrieks, you will recall, only when uprooted-"

"You all right, kiddo?" Aunt Morgen said, looking down from the kitchen window.

"Yes, thank you, Aunt Morgen."

"What you doing?"

"Sitting on the bench. The roses are lovely."

"You warm enough?"

"Yes, thank you."

"All right. Call me if you need anything."

"-And I think Morgen will bear me out in my theory that witchcraft is little more than the judicious administration of the bizarre."

"Yes, indeed," said Morgen, seating herself. "She's fine," she told the doctor.

"Certainly. This is overprotection, Morgen; our lamb will not leave the fold, particularly since the fence is so high. Morgen's interest in what is called 'modern' art-"

"Modern rubbish, I call it," said Mr. Arrow, stung to vehemence. "I don't know about your interest in music, sir, but I always say that a ten-year-old boy could do better."

"You're talking to the man who wanted to burn all my paintings, Vergil," said Morgen. "Until I offered to throw him in after them."

"I have very little desire," said the doctor dryly, "to stand in as a human sacrifice to ensure the fertility of Morgen's artistic self-expression." He gave a pleased little wriggle in his uncomfortable chair.

"I wouldn't have minded," Morgen said.

"Each life, I think," said the doctor, "asks the devouring of other lives for its own continuance; the radical aspect of ritual sacrifice, the performance of a group, its great step ahead, was in organization; sharing the victim was so eminently practical."

"And such a social occasion," Morgen murmured. "I can just see you, Victor."

"And you wouldn't be the first, either," said Mr. Arrow, coming squarely to grips with the conversation. "You take Kipling, and all the great musicians. They didn't have anyone to help them."

"Kipling?" said Doctor Wright injudiciously.

"Mandalay, I was thinking of. Maybe, if you haven't ever heard it, I could-"

"Lovely," said Morgen, looking at the doctor with evil intensity. "Victor would love to hear you sing."

"I should be delighted," said the doctor. "I was speaking of the custom of human sacrifice; I have been led to understand that although it is, as a practice, deplored generally today, the initiate into the secret society-"

"What exactly was wrong with her?" Mrs. Arrow, coming up to Morgen with a tray, spoke too loudly, and there was silence in the room. Mrs. Arrow looked around, discomfited, and then said boldly, "Well, we've known her ever since she was so high, and I think we've shown enough interest to be told."

"Very old family friends," Mr. Arrow confirmed.

"A nervous fever," Morgen said.

The doctor spoke slowly, in a measured voice, seeming to estimate the suitability of each of his phrases for the ears of Mr. and Mrs. Arrow: "The human creature at odds with its environment," he said, "must change either its own protective coloration, or the shape of the world in which it lives. Equipped with no magic device beyond a not overly sharp intelligence," and the doctor hesitated, perhaps lost in wonder at his own precarious eminence, "intelligence," he went on firmly, "the human creature finds it tempting to endeavor to control its surroundings through manipulated symbols of sorcery, arbitrarily chosen, and frequently ineffectual. Suppose a gazelle, discovering itself to be colored blue when all other gazelles-"

"A nervous fever, you said?" Mrs. Arrow whispered to Morgen, and Morgen nodded.

"My cousin-" Mr. Arrow began in a low voice, but Doctor Wright frowned him down.

"-will take refuge, first, in disbelief, in a convincing refusal to perceive colors, a state of confused bewilderment-"

"Like that fellow you mentioned, the one on the maypole," said Mr. Arrow, hoping to atone for his previous interruption by a show of intelligent comprehension.

"In any case," said Morgen, overwhelmingly, "I think our pet gazelle had better come indoors." She rose. "I'll get her."

Doctor Wright turned alertly to Mr. Arrow, but this time Mr. Arrow was ready. "Since you were kind enough to ask me," Mr. Arrow said, "I'll just get out my music."

Later, walking home companionably through the warm summer night, she put one hand through Morgen's arm and one hand through the doctor's arm and walked in step between them. "And all that faradiddle," Morgen was saying.

"Not faradiddle at all." The doctor was hurt. "I thought I did it very nicely."

"Hah," said Morgen. "And the way you play bridge."

"Bridge is a game for the undivided intellect," said the doctor. "Like your own." He bowed to Morgen, as well as he could, walking through the night with her niece between them.

"You know what I was thinking, out in the garden?"

"What?" said Aunt Morgen, and "Yes?" said the doctor.

"I was looking at the flowers, thinking of their names, as though I were naming them, and had to see that each one had a name, and it was the right name. It's harder than it sounds."

"Like what?" said Morgen.

"And the stars-I named some of the stars, too."

"And yourself?" said the doctor.

She nodded, smiling.

"This child is without a name," the doctor said across her to Morgen. "Did you know?"

Morgen thought, and then laughed. "I guess she is," she said, "but I hadn't noticed." She laughed again, and pressed her niece's arm. "If you're taking on a new name, how about Morgen this time?"

"Victoria?" suggested the doctor.

"Morgen Victoria," Morgen amended generously.

"Victoria Morgen," said the doctor.

She laughed, too, holding both their arms. "I'm happy," she said, just as she had that afternoon. "I know who I am," she said, and walked on with them, arm in arm, and laughing.

*These are Betsy's words, not mine; I hesitate to copy them, but accuracy compels. V.W.

*aboulia; a state which I can describe for the layman who reads and runs as an inhibition of will, preventing a desired action; Miss R. showed this largely in speech, almost as though she were prevented from uttering a syllable.

*Naturally, for reasons of discretion, I cannot call this young woman by her full name. V.W.

end.