Goat Foot God

by Dion Fortune

  After a few moments he, like herself, became aware that he was not alone, looked over his shoulder, and saw her. He looked at her for a moment, and his face took on a very strange expression; melancholy, fatalistic, and yet with a touch of fire and fanaticism slumbering behind his eyes. She had a queer feeling that more than one pair of eyes were looking out from under Hugh's rather heavy lids.

  They looked at each other without speaking. Speech was impossible. That was a silence that could not be broken. Then Hugh held out his hand and she put hers in it. Her unhesitating response sent a thrill through Hugh, and his face twitched in a manner that Mona knew was a sure indication that he was emotionally moved. Then he turned towards the East again, and drew her to stand beside him within the circle of the Elements, and they stood facing the altar that was not there, and which, if it had been there, would have been the throne of the goat-god, hand in hand, as if being married.

  Mona's heart was beating hard in her throat. There was no knowing what was going to happen next. Ambrosius was capable of anything. Then gradually the panic fear passed away and its place was taken by a profound peace. Then the peace gave place to a curious tense thrilling, like a great organ-note sounding in the soul. Then that too gradually died away, and she knew that they were back to normal. Hugh turned and looked at her again, and she felt the tragedy of that man, whether as Hugh or Ambrosius. She stood with her hand in his and looked into his eyes, and he looked back into hers, a thing that, shifty-eyed with shyness, he had never done before, and she felt that the barriers were down between them. Then he dropped her hand and stood helplessly before her, as if all volition had left him.

  “Shall we go now?” she said, touching him lightly on the sleeve. He nodded, and fell into step beside her as they went down the aisle together. She felt a hand laid on her shoulder, looked up, and in the light of the doorway saw Hugh looking very lined and grey and worn and much more round-shouldered than usual.

  “These things are tearing me to pieces, Mona,” he said in a low voice. “God knows what will be the upshot of it.”

  They sat down on a low bench in the angle of the wall, the heat of the spring sun warming them after the chill of the chapel; Hugh stretched out his long legs and put his hands behind his head and leant back and shut his eyes. Mona gazed at him anxiously. He looked absolutely done.

  The obvious, common-sense remedy was for Hugh to refrain from playing about with Ambrosius any more. But Mona had a profound conviction that Hugh had got to work through Ambrosius and come out the other side if things were ever to be right with him, and that if he turned back now it would be to re-enter into the deathin- life that was closing about him when he had first come to the Marylebone bookshop.

  At that moment they heard a footstep on the gravel, and Mr Watney appeared. Mona was never so pleased to see anyone in her life.

  Hugh pulled himself together and did the polite. Produced cigarettes and went in search of whisky, leaving Mona and the solicitor together.

  “Well?” said Mr Watney as soon as they were alone. “And how is our friend?”

  “I am rather bothered about him,” said Mona, “and I don't feel that doctors would be the slightest use. You see, he's had a pretty bad shock, and there is nothing they can give him for that except bromide, is there?”

  “He certainly does not look right, and he has gone downhill since I was here the other evening. Do you know anything of the nature of the shock he has had?”

  “His wife was killed in a motor-smash, and it all came out about how she was carrying on with another man at the time. He had never suspected it and had absolutely believed in her.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “It must be getting on for two months now.”

  “Then I do not think that was the cause of the trouble, for he was not fond of her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he is obviously very much in love with you.”

  Mona was too worried to make the indignant repudiation which is the usual reply to such a charge.

  “What makes you think that?” she asked soberly, as if Mr Watney had drawn her attention to an ominous symptom.

  He looked at her sharply over his spectacles.

  “Hadn't you seen that for yourself?”

  “I had seen it, but I hadn't taken it seriously, knowing his type of man.”

  “Then you have made a mistake. He is taking it very seriously.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was watching him when you said that there was no marriage in the offing the other afternoon. It was a knock-out blow for him. or I'm very much mistaken. Whatever other troubles he may have, that is what is causing the flare-up now.”

  “Oh dear. this is very awkward,” said Mona. “I knew he wanted to flirt with me, but I had no idea it was as serious as all that. What's to be done about it? Do you think I ought to go away?”

  “Don't you care about him?”

  “Not in that way. It wouldn't work.”

  “Why not?”

  “We belong to different worlds. We've got nothing in common. I'd never settle with him, and he'd never settle with me.”

  “Well, I suppose you know your own business best, but I'm sorry. He's a nice fellow, and it would have been the salvation of him.”

  At that moment Hugh returned with the drinks, shared the whisky with Mr Watney, and gave Mona a cocktail, which she was very glad to have.

  They chatted in a desultory manner. Hugh invited Mr Watney to lunch, which invitation was accepted, and Mona fled to see if there were enough food. It would never have entered Hugh's head to raise that point before issuing an invitation.

  The moment she had turned the corner, Hugh's manner changed.

  “I want to make a new will,” he said abruptly.

  “Do you?” said the solicitor, wondering what was a foot now.

  “If you can give me pencil and paper I'll jot down the headings and let you have a draft.”

  Hugh felt through his pockets, found one of Mr Pinker's marvellous itemised accounts, and handed it to him. Mr Watney turned it over, changed his spectacles, and prepared to take his instructions.

  An eighth of Hugh's personal estate was to go to his mother and to each of his three sisters. The remaining half was to be divided equally between Mona and Jelkes. Mona was to have Monks Farm. Mr Watney gasped. The papers had arrived from his predecessors, and he knew the size of that estate.

  “That will is certain to be contested,” said Hugh. “How can we protect it?”

  “Give Mr Jelkes and Miss Wilton life interests only, with reversion to your sisters' children providing no one gives trouble. The children of anyone giving trouble to lose their share, proceeds to be divided between the children of the legatees who don't give trouble. Then they'll all cut each other's throats. That'll keep 'em quiet. Psychology again.”

  “That's all right as far as Jelkes goes. He's in the sear and yellow leaf. He's not likely to raise a family. But I should like Miss Wilton to have her share outright in case she ever has any kids.”

  “Is she likely to marry?”

  “I fancy there's someone in the offing.”

  “I was chatting to her just now and she implied there wasn't.”

  “Did she?” said Hugh, suddenly thoughtful. “Did she? Oh well, I don't suppose it makes much difference.”

  He seemed sunk in thought, which to judge from his expression was gloomy.

  Then Mona called them to lunch. Everyone did their best, but it was not a cheery meal, and out of the corner of his eye Mr Watney watched Hugh lowering the whisky.

  CHAPTER XXII

  AFTER Mr Watney had gone Hugh sat over the fire in the little sitting-room smoking a big cigar that had been given him. As Mona came into the room he heaved it into the fire.

  “Can't say I really like cigars,” he said. “Got any gaspers, Mona? I've run out.”

  Mona produced the desired gaspers out of that universal receptacle, the front of her
jumper.

  Hugh was always running out of gaspers, and out of small change to buy gaspers, and borrowing from Mona. In fact as far as petty cash was concerned, he was in a chronic condition of impecuniosity. He was only a rich man when he had his cheque-book in his hand—and then he invariably paid twice as much for a thing as it was worth because he hated bargaining and money meant nothing to him. This was a thing that riled Mona beyond all bearing, and she had had serious thoughts of marrying him simply to spite the antique furniture trade.

  Mona did not take the other big arm-chair on the opposite side of the hearth, as was her usual Darby and Joan custom, but fidgeted about the room. She wanted to talk to Hugh, but found it difficult to make a start. Hugh paid no attention to her. The sun outside was shining gloriously, but he had got all the windows tight shut and was throwing logs on the fire.

  “Why don't you come outside?” said Mona. “It's a shame to leave this sunshine running to waste.”

  “Too much trouble to move,” said Hugh, kicking a protruding log impatiently.

  Mona, who had scant patience with spoilt children, cleared out and left him, hoping that, what with the large lunch and the many whiskies and the hot room, he would sleep himself sensible by tea-time.

  When she returned from her walk as the early spring dusk closed in, Hugh greeted her with the information that there had been a telephone call for her.

  “A Mrs Madden,” he said. “She said you would know her as Lucy Whitley. She was at school with you. She's in town for a few days and wants you to join her for the week-end. I said you'd go.”

  “Oh no, I won't,” said Mona. “I'm not leaving here at the present moment.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ambrosius might turn up. I can't leave you to wrestle with that alone.”

  Hugh did not express either gratitude or deprecation, but sat in silence. The silence lasted so long that when at length he spoke Mona could not think for a moment what he was referring to.

  “I can't expect you to dry-nurse me indefinitely,” he said.

  Common sense bade her return an airy answer, but something that was not sensible welled up from deep in her, and she replied:

  “We'll see this through together, Hugh.”

  Again he made no acknowledgment.

  “Tell me, what were you doing in the chapel this morning?” said Mona.

  “Trying to work things out.”

  “Any luck?”

  “No, not much.”

  “Did you get Ambrosius?”

  “No, didn't try for him. To tell you the honest truth, Mona, I'm a bit scared of Ambrosius. You see, I feel that when he comes, he'll come with the hell of a rush, and I'm not sure that he's to be trusted. I'm certainly not going to chance his coming through while I'm alone in the house with you. Ambrosius wouldn't take no for an answer, if I know him.”

  “I've got a notion I could handle Ambrosius,” said Mona.

  “I've got a notion you couldn't.” said Hugh.

  “I'll tell you a curious thing. Hugh, do you know that this business goes back long before Ambrosius?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you remember your dream of the Grecian hillside? Well, that used to be my favourite day-dream when I was a child. Fawn-skin and all.”

  To her surprise this did not elicit the reaction she had expected; she looked round at Hugh, and saw that there was a curious tense immobility about him. She waited.

  Presently he spoke:

  “Do you know what struck me about you when I saw you when I was Ambrosius?”

  “No?”

  “That you were the succuba that had haunted my dreams all my life.”

  Silence fell between them again as each tried to realise the significance of what the other had said. Mona was well acquainted with what both the old theologians and the modern psychologists have to say about the demons that haunt men's sleep. She knew all about the theory of dream mechanism and wish fulfilment. and all the rest of the psychological bag of tricks. She had also heard Jelkes discourse on time and space as known to the modern philosopher. Whether there was between herself and Hugh a bond of the soul forged in ancient Greece in a bygone life. or whether she was a type that appealed to that particular sex-starved male, depended entirely upon whether one considered time as a mode of consciousness or a matter of clocks.

  One thing stood out quite clearly, however, she was the solution of Hugh's problem. If she were unwilling to solve it for him, it would go unsolved. And looking deeply into her own soul she had to face the fact that although Hugh might make no appeal to her as a man, there was a queer kind of fascination about Ambrosius.

  She had always had a very strong feeling for the glory that was Greece and was firmly convinced that she had been an initiate of the Mysteries of the Earth Mother. Her childish fantasy of the swift free running in the short slit kirtle that earned the Spartan girls the opprobrious title of Thigh-showers from the rest of Greece, had given place, as she grew older, to a fantasy in which she was a priestess and an initiate, penetrating deep and secret things, and the boy-comrade of the childish day-dream became the priest-initiator of the Mysteries. Not very long before Hugh had appeared on the scene, she had been reading in one of the books borrowed from jelkes' miscellaneous stock in trade of the interpretation put by modern scholarship upon the scurrilous abuse which the Early Fathers heaped upon the pagan faiths they sought to supplant. She knew that the alleged temple orgies were far from being the Mi-Carême they were supposed to be, but were solemn and sacrificial acts into which no human feeling entered.

  At the climax of the Mysteries of the Earth Mother all the lights went out, and the high priest and the chief priestess descended in darkness into the crypt and there consummated a union that was a sacrament just as much as eating the Body and drinking the Blood. She knew the curious magical bond that the act of union makes between a man and a woman, whether they love, or whether they hate, or whether they buy and sell in sordid indifference. If such a bond is forged by a simple animal function, what must be the bond that is forged by such a sacramental rite as that of the pastos of Eleusis?

  “Do you know what I think, Hugh?” she said, breaking the long silence that had settled upon the darkening room. “I think that there is a path opening before us, if we have the nerve to take it,'that will lead us to some very wonderful things. I'll face it if you will, but remember, once we start on it, there will be no turning back.”

  “That's what I have begun to suspect,” said Hugh. “I tried to turn back this morning when I got the wind up over you and Ambrosius, and found it was like swimming across a river. It's no good thinking you can't make it after you've got more than half way across. You've got to make it. The only thing that bothers me is what Ambrosius will do to you when he comes through, for I've got absolutely no control over Ambrosius, you know, Mona.”

  “I'll have to tackle Ambrosius and come to terms with him,” said Mona. “It's the only thing to be done.”

  “I don't envy you the job,” said Hugh, “and I wish to goodness I knew what you'll have to say to me when I take over from him again after the interview. Personally, I think Ambrosius is quite capable of strangling you.”

  “I'm not worrying about that. It's something else I'm worrying about.”

  “What is it, Mona?” Hugh's face had a very queer look on it as he sat very quiet in his chair watching her. She had a feeling that Ambrosius was not far off. It was not easy to begin, however, and she felt her way.

  “I am worried about you because I think you're bothered about something. Can you tell me what it is?”

  Hugh shifted uneasily in his chair and looked away.

  “Was that why you wouldn't go up to see your pal over the week-end?”

  “Yes.”

  “You might just as well have gone. I've got to get used to standing on my own feet.”

  “No, you haven't. You can't stand on your own feet without me, Hugh. Not yet, anyway. Don't you know that?”
<
br />   “Yes, I know it all right, but I reckoned I'd got to. I'm not such a fool as not to realise how you feel about me. You're very kind to me, but if I overstep the limits you've set, you'll drop me like a hot coal. I can have your kindness, and I can have your companionship, as long as I don't transgress; but if I forget my manners, I'm for it. Well, I accept that, Mona. It's as much as I can hope for, and more than I have any right to expect, and I reckon I can consider myself lucky, and I ought to be damned grateful to have got so much.”

  He suddenly looked up and faced her.

  “It's odd, isn't it, how things recur in one's life? Those were exactly the terms on which I lived with my wife. I reckon I'm a spiritual diabetic—I can only keep alive provided I'm willing to stick to a starvation diet.”

  Mona laid her hand on his knee.

  “Do you know that there's a bond that binds me to you, just as there's one that binds you to me?”

  “Yes, I know there is. I've watched you straining at it.”

  “I may have done at first, but I feel differently about it now.”

  “I suppose you wouldn't care to marry me, Mona?”

  “Not as things are at present. It wouldn't be fair.”

  “Well, I don't blame you.”

  “No, I don't mean it like that. I mean I wouldn't care to take advantage of you when you aren't youself. If I didn't really like you, Hugh, I might; it's naturally a temptation to anyone placed as I am, but I'm not going to do it. You're too good a chap to be exploited. If I marry you at all, I'll marry you properly, because I really want to.”

  Hugh put his hand over hers as it rested on his knee.

  “I'd sooner be refused by you for that reason than accepted by anyone else,” he said, and they sat silently together hand in hand, looking into the fire.

  At length Hugh spoke.

  “The only person I've ever known to whom my money made absolutely no difference is old Jelkes.”

  “It makes no clliference whatever to me,” said Mona tartly, trying to withdraw her hand, but Hugh wouldn't let her.