The Sea Priestess

by Dion Fortune

  CHAPTER XII

  I BORROWED Trethowen's razor next day and had a shave, not without difficulty, for it was the old-fashioned kind that suicides use, and came downstairs and joined Miss Morgan in the forecourt. I felt curiously light, as if the ground were rising and falling under me like a ship, quite different from my usual leaden heaviness after a go of asthma. All the same, I did not fancy it was a particularly wholesome feeling. Miss Morgan was very sweet to me, as always, and let me wander about a bit and stretch my legs, and then put me into a deck-chair, not the beastly canvas kind that catch you behind the knees, but the genuine P. and 0. sort. When I denied I was beginning to tire she did not argue with me, as my sister does, but contradicted me flatly and took me by the arm and put me into the chair without asking me what I wanted. It is good for me to be bullied when in this state, for I am always very contrary after a bout, and insist on doing all the things that are bad for me, just as one bites on a sore tooth to spite it. After I had been fed I was more amiable. Not that I actually snapped at Miss Morgan, though I probably should have done if she had been anyone else; for try as I will, there is a kind of fretfulness about me on these occasions which no one deplores more than I do. However, having slept most of the afternoon, I was practically back to normal by tea-time. I do not say that I wasn't still a bit weary, but mentally I was myself again. We lay in our deck-chairs, and the sound of the bells of the little old church at Starber came to us across the still water; no air stirred, but on Bell Head the sea is never quiet, and a slow slight ground-swell came in from the west to wash over th< rocks with a soft whispering. Presently a cold wind sprang up and drove us in, and Miss Morgan put a match to the sea-fire of drift-wood on the big hearth I had made for her between nay two dolphins, and I sprawled on the enormous sofa, and she sat on a pouf with her elbows on her knees, and we watched the flames licking over the salt-soaked wood, all blue and mauve and golden and very lovely. The flames of a sea-fire arc exactly like opals. It was then Miss Morgan mooted her suggestion to me. "What shall we do with these walls?" she asked. I looked round the huge room where the Tommies had disported themselves--that is, if the poor devils felt like sporting at all on this rock. The southern wall of the room was one sheet of plate-glass, only broken by the slender supporting pillars of the pergola; at the back there were the narrow Gothic windows that broke the flat line of masonry to the landward side. The floor was parquetry, still smelling sweetly of the new wood, which is a smell I am very fond of, but the plaster stretched gaunt and bare, for I had not known what she meant to do with it. "I should panel a big place like this, if I were you," I said. "That, or hangings. Wallpaper is no use to you." "What about wall-paintings?" said she. "What sort? "said I. ; "Sea-scenes," said she.. It was a good idea, and I said so, but asked her how she pro- . posed to fix the canvas to the wall in this sea-damp air. "No canvas," said she. "Paint straight on to the plaster." I "You will have to get a fellow here to do it," said I. "Won't you find that an awful nuisance?" "Not in the least," said she, "I'll be delighted to have you. ; Have you ever worked in tempera?" "Never," said I. "Oh, well," said she, "you listen and learn." Then I saw what she was driving at. ("Hell!" said I to myself. "Why doesn't she have the sacrificial cave under Bell Knowie put in order and be d0ne with it?") "Are you averse to the idea?" said she. "Not in the least," said I. When Miss Morgan said good night to me, she patted my hand and I never blinked an eyelid. I felt I had travelled a long way since I left Dickford last Friday morning. It proved unexpectedly easy to satisfy my family concerning my sojourn at the fort. My sister had liked having my work in the art exhibition; she felt the family had gone up a notch on the strength of it; I was something a bit more now than a Dickford business man. Scottie's father-in-law, for instance, had never had any of his handiwork in an art exhibition. My sister jumped to the conclusion that Miss Morgan meant to leave her money to me in her will, and dashed out and bought me a new tie and some socks. Personally I should have thought she would have been more likely to leave her money to me if I wore my old tie and looked deserving. My sister always kept a very close eye on my comings and goings, but Providence and my pals generally conspired to throw dust in it, and on the rare occasions when she was on the right track she knew so little of human nature that she never spotted it. Being a mother's boy has few advantages that I have ever been able to discover, but it does enable you to get away with pretty nearly anything, because nobody believes you capable of it. Anyway, I felt pretty certain that in the present instance I could sail as near the wind as I chose with perfect impunity, and the worse my conscience might be, the less my sister would suspect me. As for old Scottie, having put no money into the business, he never feels entitled to throw his weight about in it, which is very decent of him; in the ordinary way I respect his wishes, but on this occasion I am afraid I took advantage of the. position up to the hilt. He didn't say anything, but he drew down his long upper lip and sucked it till I thought of Kipling's story of How the Elephant's Child Got His Trunk. The arrangement was that I should go out to the fort every Saturday, put in the week-end on the job, and come back to the office in time to deal with the correspondence on Monday morning. The town didn't give a hoot for the business, believing Miss Morgan to be rising ninety; except of course, Hcadley, in whom Scottic had confided, and who grinned when he saw me putting a suit-case into the car one Saturday afternoon. I felt like a kid going off to the pantomime as I crossed the swing-bridge over the Dick, for the moment one crosses over into the marshes, the atmosphere changes and the Old Gods take charge. There are no farms among the marshes; the farmers who have the grazing take their beasts across by the swing-bridge and bring them back at night. Nor are there walls or any stone-built structure out on the levels, for they flood so frequently that no stone can stand. The road itself goes through them high-carried on a dyke, and I have driven along it when the floods were out and a sea-mist over them and one could see no land on either side, but only the narrow ribbon of road winding through the water: an uncanny experience. To-day, however, the heat-haze lay over the watermeadows where they were hay-making the aftermath. I took off my coat, and rolled up my shirt-sleeves, and was jogging along quite cheerfully, intending to tidy up before I arrived, when who should I meet just beyond the farm but Miss Morgan herself, on foot. She said she had walked out to see Trethowen about planting vines on the old vine terraces, and she was very pleased to meet me as it would save her a hot walk back if I would give he|r a lift, for it was much hotter here, at the landward end, than she had suspected out at the fort. She made me come with her up to the vine-terraces. I did not know how I was going to manage the scramble, but I went up like a bird, and we found Trethowen dubiously inspecting what looked to me like some very melancholy little vines done up in matting. Miss Morgan said they were Concord vines that she had had sent especially from America, for if they would stand the New England winters, they ought to stand ours. They looked like potential stomach-ache to me, and I could see that Trethowen had no high hopes of them either. A more attractive feature was the herb garden that was laid out on the highest terrace; we climbed up there, I taking my time and Miss Morgan appearing not to notice, for which I was grateful to her; I hate my infirmities being commented on. Bell Head is a banana-shaped protubcrosity with the concave side to the south. All that side is sheer cliff where the jackdaws roost, and I should think they grill on their shelves. The slope to the north is a grassy down in possession of the rabbits, with bracken in the hollows. At its foot is a beach of broken rock. The landward end, where the terraces are, inclines south-south-cast. Fortunately for us a spur of the cliff gave shelter from the afternoon sun, and we sat down on a stone-built seat in its shade. Behind us the grey breast of the rock rose a hundred feet or so to the top of the down, hung with ivy. A little below the top, the dark mouth of a cave opened on to a ledge, and Miss Morgan told me that from below with field-glasses one could clearly discern a scries of cut-out steps and ledges by which an active man with a steady head could have cli
mbed down to it from above. "And," she said, "if you draw a line down the spine of the reef and along the down, following the lie of the strata, it passes exactly over the cave and ends on Bell Knowlev And it is my belief," she continued, "that on the longest day, anyone watching in that cave would see the sun rise over thei cairn on Bell Knowle." Of course it was obvious the minute it was pointed out, that however the battering of the waves might have bent the coastline, the lie of the rock of the long sea-down was due east and west. In fact Bell Head, Bell Knowle, and the ridge above Dickford all represented the up-ending of the same long slab of strata. When the Dick altered its course it had slipped through the one gap in the ridge due to a fault in the strata caused by God knows what ancient upheaval, and had made the sand-dunes to the north around Dickmouth into a marsh, leaving the marsh to the south around Starbcr to dry out into sand-dunes. It was an interesting bit of country for the naturalist. But our interest in it was not naturalistic. From our vantagepoint up under the breast of the cliff I was able to point out to Miss Morgan the lie of the land and explain its significance. I showed her the line of mounds and hollows that marked the footings of the ancient quays behind Starber, now half a mile from the sea, showing that the land had risen. I showed her the line of the ancient Dick and its tow-path, and the patch of haze under the hills that marked Dickford, where the tinmen came down to meet the ships of the sea-people. I showed her the cleft in the steep slope of Bell Knowle that in my belief hid the sea-cave, now filled by the scour of ages. She focused her field-glasses upon it and studied it carefully. "Do you observe," she said, "that the bank of the Dick below it is straight and sharp? I believe the long grass hides masonry. It would be there I landed when I came to the cave." Then she put the glasses into my hands and bid me follow the coastline down to Starber. The opening of the ancient estuary was clear to see from this height, and in its jaws rose a rocky knoll, beyond all question the islet where I had waited to light the beacon that should guide the sea-priestesss in from the sea. My hands shook so that I could hardly focus the glasses. I swear that I did not know it was there! Miss Morgan made no comment on my agitation, though I don't suppose she missed it. She didn't miss much, did that woman. We sat quietly for a while, till the sound of the rising tide on the shingle came up to us from below. All the ancient life of this hollow land was reconstructing itself before my eyes. I could see the Naradek rolling in silver flood among its reeds where now were bents and whin. I could see the dark line of the quays below the cave and the paved causeway leading up to it. Round the flanks of Bell Knowie one could still discern the winding line of the processional way going up to the cairn on top; but now I saw it no more as a cairn of fallen stone, split and broken by the weather, but a circle of standing stones, upright and with lintels, like a miniature Stonehenge. And I was sure that the pyramidal shadow of the peak would pass over the spot where we were sitting as the sun rose on the longest day, and that the first beam of the rising light would strike upwards through the high pylon of the sun-temple and fall upon the mouth of the cave above our heads. To my eyes there appeared a come-and-go of white-robed priests, gold-belted and shaven-headed, on the processional way; and on the roads through the marsh I could see the common people, clad in russet and hodden grey as their custom is, kin to the earth they serve; I could see, too, the bright-dyed cloaks of the sailors and fighting-men and the flash of arms. The haze of the evening hearths hung over Ishtar's Beerc, and along her quays lay the strange high-prowed sea-boats, decked stem and stern, and with their purple and blue and scarlet sails lowered over the rhidships to serve as an awning for the chained slaves that ripwed them. The dark mouth of the seacave of Bell Knowleclear to me now, so clear it seemed to fancy that I knew ^yho was within, and that she was sacrificing. Then I came oack to myself and found Miss Morgan watching me, and wonaered how much of all this my face had shown. } She rose and led the way down. The shallow sloping earth of the herb-beds, held by stones, was so hot the hand could hardly touch it, and the grey aromatic herbs that love the sunsoaked soil gave off their sharp and spicy smell, and I thought of the scent that had wafted across to me the day in the empty house when Miss Morgan had opened her coat and revealed the smooth neck of a young girl. I was not sorry to get back to the car, for going down was nearly as hard work as going up on those steep, irregular steps. When we reached the road to the fort. Miss Morgan suggested that we should leave the car and climb up on to the crest of the down and look at the cairns, but I had to say no, and give my reason, which made me sulky and miserable; and that upset Miss Morgan because she felt she had put her foot in it. No, I am not an agreeable person to live with. I don't wonder my family get fed up with me. When I get into these moods at home, I clear the air by provoking a row with my sister, never a difficult thing to do. I couldn't very well do that with Miss Morgan, but it showed me how I had deteriorated since I had had my asthma that I should treat a comparative stranger to my moods. This upset me still further, and when we got out of the car I followed her into the big living-room in a sullen silence, unable to find a word to say for myself. She turned and considered me as I stood in front of her like a sulky kid, and then she took me by the shoulders and shook me. "Wilfred, don't be a goose," she said, and smacked my cheek none too gently. I could not have been more surprised if she had thrown a bucket of cold water over me. I have had my face smacked in good earnest by my sister many a time, and given her one on the jaw in return, but this was an entirely different matter, and I was upheaved to a degree I would not have believed possible, though in an entirely different way from what I had been. Miss Morgan saw it, and smiled. Then she went to take her hat off and left me to my own devices, and I subsided into one of her sawn-off chairs and tried to collect what was left of my wits. I had just about enough of them left to wonder how I should be feeling when Miss Morgan finished with me and packed up and went back to London. And then something in me rose up and said: "After me, the deluge," and I settled back in my sawn-off chair, and stretched out my legs and lit a cigarette, and reckoned that next rime Miss Morgan took me by the shoulders and shook me she would get kissed. Anyway, by the time she arrived hack I was ready for any game she chose to play, and had begun to think out one or two of my own. But as soon as I saw her, I felt that I couldn't play games on Miss Morgan: she wasn't that sort. Then, of course, I was badly off my stroke again, and in yet another direction; and she saw it, and patted my shoulder, and I caught her hand and kissed it, and that seemed to put things right in a way that I cannot describe. Anyway, I felt perfectly happy with her after that. There was something between Morgan Ie Fay and myself that made formality impossible. I did not want it; it would have spoiled everything. I admit there were times when I boiled up, being after all a male, but all the same, I did not really want it. It was from that time that I called her Morgan Ie Fay. I never called her Miss Morgan again, but on the other hand, I never came to call her Vivian, not to her face, anyway. We went into the dining-room and had the first of the marvellous chafing-dish suppers that she used to make for me. It was most fascinating to watch her make them. There was a long, heavy refectory table in the dining-room, and at one end she had all her gear; Mrs Treth used to put it ready and then clear off, and we had the fort to ourselves, and for the matter of that, the headland as well. There was a big copper chafingdish with a spirit-lamp under it, flanked by a "sluggard's friend" to keep things warm, and a trayful of all sorts of outof- the-way flavourings, such as sweet basil and paprika and a sour white wine instead of vinegar; and with these Morgan Ie Fay cooked whatever she had to cook in cream, or in butter, or in a kind of bouillon. And there were various kinds of queer breads she had learnt to make in different parts of the world, not just one kind of bread as we have in England. Then she had made Trethowen grow all manner of odd potherbs, and taught me to eat raw seakale and salsify, and uncommon good they arc. She could cook literally from China to Peru; and I learnt to eat crisp fried noodles without getting any in my hair, and to appreciate mate. All the same, she n
ever looked domesticated as she stood up there at the end of the long table in her medieval dresses with a silver ladle in her hand, but rather like a priestess at an altar; and the dully gleaming copper over the blue flame looked like a witches' cauldron. The table was lit with very beautiful candles, tall and delicately tapering--lovely things, and outside we could hear the eternal beat of the sea. I used to sit and watch her, waiting for supper to be ready; luckily I had enough sense to know that this was a woman whom no one but a fool would try to domesticate; as well put a swift in a cage, for the beauty of a swift is in its night. It might be, as she said, that she was very old, with her youth marvellously preserved by strange arts; or it might be that she was a very clever woman playing some queer game of her own; I did not know, and had long since ceased to care. I only knew that she was Morgan Ic Fay, and there was no one like her. Well, this was my first supper with her like that, and I put my elbows on the table where I sat at the end of it and rested my chin on my hands and watched her, and would have been content to watch her for hours. She knew the skilful use of alcohol, too, by which one tunes a mood, and I, being abstemious, got the full benefit of it. There was an old wine waiter at the "George" who used to amuse me enormously the way he got the barristers sozzled; he could make you drunk or keep you sober through a long evening, just as he chose, and if anyone didn't do by him as he thought a gentleman should, gosh, didn't he wake up with a head next morning! It wasn't so much the drinks he had had as the way they were combined. I used to buy the wine for the "George" at the auctions, and had many a consultation with the old boy, and when he saw I appreciated his artistry, he taught me a lot. It is a highlyeducative thing to talk to a specialist in any line of business. Morgan Ie Fay, who had been about the world a lot, used to have stuff sent over from all sorts of queer little chateaux and castles and estancias that produced uncommon good stuff but not enough of it to come on the open market, so it was only sold to local purchasers. Whenever she tasted anything she particularly fancied at any of the little country inns she was so fond of, she inquired where it came from, and traced it to its source, and made friends with the grower. There is an extraordinary thrill for a stay-at-home soul like me in looking at a snapshot of the vineyard while you drink the wine. Of course some of it' did not travel well, and we poured it into the sea and chucked its barrel after it; but for the most part it was all right, for Morgan Ie Fay was a pretty good judge, and some of it was really wonderful. Her cooking was entirely different from my old Sally's cooking, which also was good in its way. Sally relied on handling a thing so as to bring out its flavour, but Morgan Ie Fay looked on food as the raw material of cookery only. As for my sister's catering, it consisted in telling the cook what we'd have, and telling the butcher what he was to send, and giving both parties a rowing impartially on the principle that if they didn't need it now, they soon would; but she never put her hand to a pot, and would, I think, have been absolutely stumped if the cook had left. She knew as much about cooking as I did about ballooning, and cared no more; and yet she considered herself a good housewife on the strength of seeing to it that the steps were adequately whitened and the lace curtains clean, which arc not things that I, personally mind about. We strolled out to the end of the reef after supper to look at the moonlight on the water. I wondered whether a wave would rise out of the deeps and lick me off, and walked right out to the very point over the seaweed to see what would happen, till Morgan Ie Fay got quite agitated and called me back; but everything was dead calm and there was only a silvery whisper of ripples among the rocks and a faint wavy stir in the floating weed, for it was slack water and the tide was at uttermost ebb. Presently, as we watched, all the weed began to stream in one direction, and we knew that the tide had turned. Then we came in and sat by the fire, and my dolphins smiled at us, and I was absolutely happy.