by Dion Fortune
“Oh yes, it does. You shy like a frightened horse whenever you come up against it. The people I meet can be divided into two classes, the people who want a lick at my silver spoon, and hang out their tongues whenever I come near; and the people who think I'll think they want a lick at it, and stick out their tongues whenever I come near. It may show a healthy spirit in them, but it's rather trying for me. There's no possibility of a natural relationship with anybody when you've got too much money, and it gets you as suspicious as an electric hare at a dog-race. It's a depraved form of royalty, I suppose.
“The only money I ever made in my life was the tanner I got selling chuck-outs from old Jelkes' twopenny bin —and dash it all, if I haven't forgotten to give it to the old buster and gone and embezzled it! A sandwich-board is about my fighting-weight if I were thrown on my own resources. I didn't make my money. I don't suppose I should have kept it if it hadn't been tied up so that I couldn't get at it till I married. I have never done any good with it, and I've never got any good out of it.”
“Don't you ever give anything to charity?”
“God, yes, I give thousands. Mother's a whale on knowing the right things to give to. The right things socially, I mean. She wants me to save up and buy a peerage. But I'd sooner give to party funds if I'm going to do that. You get better value for your money provided you time it rightly. No good giving to a party that's just going into the wilderness for the next five years.”
“Then you've got no political convictions?”
“Nobody's got any political convictions except leader-writers, my dear girl, and they change them when they change their papers. There are only two parties, the ins and the outs, and the thing to give to is the just-coming-ins. But you've got to mind you aren't done. You can't sue on a thing like that, you know. The best way is to sign your cheque with the name you mean to take for your title, and then they've got to elevate you to the peerage before they can cash it. No, Mona, charity, as charity, is all my eye. The big charities are just big business in the poverty trade.
“And charity's unsound, anyway. The Warehouseman's Orphanage comes to me and says: ‘Mr Paston, your firm employs over two thousand clerks and warehousemen, won't you give us something?' I give them a cheque for four figures, and everyone says how good I am. But damn it all, if we paid 'em decently, they'd provide for their own widows and orphans. Soothingsyrup for the under-dog, Mona, so's he won't bite the seat out of our pants, that's what charity is. We make the conditions that shove 'em under, and then chuck 'em a life-line lest their corpses get into the water-supply.”
“You don't seem to have much faith in human nature.”
“I haven't. Not when it's exposed to the temptations it's exposed to when it gets near me. You and Jelkes and Mrs Macintosh are the only people who've ever given me anything like a square deal. And you've none of you got any use for me as a human being. You all think I'm a fool, and I guess you're right.”
Mona did not know what to say, for that was exactly what they did think.
“Mona, has it ever struck you that the man isn't breeched who's grateful for kindness from a woman?”
“But you have just been saying that you were grateful?”
“Oh, damn it all, that's just like biting on a sore tooth. You bite on it because it's sore out of pure cussedness.”
Mona rose. The heart to heart talk she had intended to have with Hugh had not been a success. He had merely been irritable and irritating. If marriage with him were going to be like this, she certainly wasn't having any. Much better to struggle on as she was and keep her freedom.
“I'm afraid I've been a swine, Mona:”
“Yes, I'm afraid you have.”
“I wish you'd give me a kiss.”
Why in God's name should I give you a kiss after the way you've behaved all afternoon?”
“If you had Ambrosius to deal with, he wouldn't ask for a kiss, he'd take it. By Jove, why shouldn't I get Ambrosius to kiss you for me? It would be rather a lark.”
“If you do, I'll never forgive you.”
Hugh put his back against the door and looked at her fixedly, and as he looked, she watched his face begin to change. But the change had hardly started before it stopped.
“Sorry, that was caddish. Sorry, Mona.”
He held the door open for her.
She walked over to it, looked up at him, held out her hand and said:
“Shake?”
He gripped her hand hard.
“Thanks. That was very sweet of you, Mona.”
CHAPTER XXIII
HUGH was so late getting down next morning that he had to eat his breakfast by himself, which he hated.
He could hear Mona's voice in the back premises talking to Silly Lizzie, who appeared to be in a great state of mind. There were occasional interpolations from Bill Pascoe. There did not seem to be exactly a row going on, but things sounded rather crucial. Gradually it dawned on the listener that the invocation of Pan on which they were engaged had not been without results, and that Mona was engaged in persuading Silly Lizzie that it was her duty to let Bill Pascoe make an honest woman of her, which to his credit he appeared to be quite willing to do. Lizzie appeared to think, however, that as she had fallen into sin it was her bounden duty to stop there, and that nothing could ever be the same again. Hugh was immensely amused at Mona's matter of fact, man-of-the-world attitude in the matter. The reprobate Bill and she were entirely of one mind and seemed to understand each other perfectly and be supporting each other warmly. Lizzie's attitude, on the other hand, was strictly conventional, and she overflowed into a squelching repentance and misery by way of compensating for her previous actions. She was also terrified of Bill's mother.
Hugh was not at all sure that Mona was justified in the line she was taking unless it were absolutely necessary; Lizzie would be an exceedingly uneugenic wife—but then Billwould be an exceedingly unhygienic husband, so perhaps it was as well that they should pair off and cancel each other out, rather than make better folk miserable. Finally Lizzie's blubbering became less stormy, and Bill's jocular basso more in evidence. and presently Mona left the happy pair to their own devices. and came out to join Hugh where he stood leaning against the door-post, smoking in the sunshine. Together they strolled slowly to the seat in the angle of the wall. Hugh gave Mona a cigarette and lit it for her.
“You have taken on a serious responsibility. Mona. Bill and Lizzie will produce things with tails if family likenesses are anything to go by.”
“I think they have got about as good as they could expect. don't you?” said Mona. “It would be awful if either of them married anyone decent.”
“Mona, is this the result of the invocation of Pan I did in the chapel yesterday?”
“Yes. I expect so.”
“If it affects Silly and Bill like this, what is it going to do to us?”
Mona did not answer.
“I admit we have got better headpieces than they have.” Hugh went on, “but it has got to be considered.”
Mona scraped the gravel with the toe of her shoe.
“What are you driving at, Hugh?”
“This is what I am driving at, Mona. I think that if Pan comes through in force, he will clear out all the stopped-up inhibitions in me, and I shall be all right after that.”
“How do you expect him to come through?”
“As an emotional upheaval. I suppose you don't think you are taking rather a long chance, alone at the farm with me like this. while I am stirring up Pan with a pole?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“If I did the right thing by you, I should take you home to your mother; but life is sweet, Mona. and I am afraid I'm not going to.”
She did not answer.
Hugh spoke again.
Do you remember Des Esseintes' stunt—in Huysmans' ‘A Rebours’, you know? The all-black dinner-party when he wished to feel particularly wicked—or wished his pals to think he was feeling particularly wicked. And
the bedroom got up with fawn-coloured watered silk to look like a stone-walled cell with a leaky roof? Well, what about it? Don't you think we ought to be getting on with the job?”
Mona flushed at the sudden recall to the business relationship, which had gone from her mind as completely as if it had never existed.
“Yes, certainly,” she said. “What would you like me to start on first?”
“'Well, I don't quite know. I'll have to ask your Uncle Jelkes. He's the expert. And I'll have to feel my way a bit. I've a sort of notion things will come clear when we make a move. But there's one thing I wish you would fit me up with, so as I can make a start, and that's a monk's robe like Ambrosius was wearing in the picture in the psalter.”
Mona raised startled eyes to his.
“What are you going to do?” she demanded anxiously.
He put his hand over hers.
“Mona, I'm going to bring Ambrosius back in good earnest. You needn't look so scared. It's the safest thing to do; for then we shall know where he is and what he is up to. You fit me up with my monk's robe, and then you clear off up to London and do a bit of shopping, and by the time you get back, I'll have Ambrosius cleared up, or know the reason why. Can you get the gear for a monk's outfit in the town, or must you go up to London for it?”
“I expect we can get it in the town. It's pretty common-place.”
“Right-o. If you'll put your bonnet on, I'll run you into the town, and we can get the makings and sling it together temporarily. Then you can clear off and leave me to get on with it.”
He drove Mona into the little country town, and waited in the parked car in the market-place and watched her enter a draper's and a saddler's and a shoe-shop. The back view of Mona, as she stalked through the marketday crowds at her unhurried pace, recalled his dream, and something inside him stirred like a quickening child. For a moment he saw Mona's face before him in her green hood—the face of the succuba—and all the crowded market place went strange and unreal and fantastic. It was only the great bell of the Abbey that recalled him to a sense of reality and self-control, and he knew that for a brief moment Ambrosius had come again, and that it was to his eyes that the modern marketplace looked strange and fantastic, and it was the familiar sound of the great bell that had recalled him to himself.
The draper, of whom Mona bought half a dozen yards of the coarse black serge affected by country people in mourning, wondered who the poor young lady had lost. The saddler of whom she bought a length of the white cotton rope that is used to halter beasts at shows, wondered what she was exhibiting. The shoe-maker of whom she bought a pair of sandals such as are worn by healthy lifers thought she must have a hefty pair of feet for her size.
Mona spent the afternoon in her bedroom making the coarse black serge into a cowled robe. Where or how Hugh spent it, she did not know, save that he came in to supper looking exhausted.
“I want a fitting,” said Mona in her abrupt way as soon as tea was finished.
“Right-o,” said Hugh, and followed her upstairs when she went to fetch her handiwork.
He followed her straight into her room, which was not what she had bargained for, coming as she did from a class that do not walk into each other's rooms. However, he seemed to think nothing of it, and it was less trouble to accept the situation at its face value than to give it an importance it did not possess by shooing him out.
He pulled on the voluminous garment over his head like a shirt, tied the white halter-cord round his waist, and Mona knelt down at his feet to adjust the hem. He looked over her head into the mirror on the door of the wardrobe.
It gave him a very odd feeling to see himself in the long black robe with its white girdle and loose cowl around the neck. Raising his hands, he drew the cowl over his head and studied the effect of his own face, dimly seen in its shadow. It seemed extraordinarily natural to wear that kit. He had never felt so at home in anything in his life. He could understand why Jelkes, having once got used to it, always wore a dressing-gown. All his life he had had it rubbed into him, in season and out of season, that he chose his clothes badly, put them on badly, carried himself badly, and generally shuffled through life in a shame-faced fashion. But all that seemed wiped out with the assumption of the monk's robe. The long loose folds gave dignity to his lanky height. His round-shouldered stoop was appropriate in a churchman. The shadow of the cowl gave his hollowcheeked, sharp-featured face a look of fine-drawn asceticism. He was an utterly different man.
And with the change came a sudden feeling of something dynamic; of a self-confidence and self-will he had never known before. He looked down at Mona's black head as she knelt at his feet, and prompted by some sudden mischief, he laid his hand on it.
“Pax: vobiscum, my daughter,” he said.
Mona looked up, startled.
“It's all right, it's all right,” he said, patting her on the head, seeing that he had really frightened her. “I'm not Ambrosius. I was only teasing you.”
But she continued to crouch at his feet, clutching a fold of his robe.
He bent down and put a hand on her shoulder.
“What's the matter, Mona? I'm frightfully sorry if I scared you. I was only joking. I'm not Ambrosius, you know, I'm Hugh.”
“You're not the Hugh I know,” said Mona.
He sat down on the edge of her low divan bed and drew her towards him till she was leaning against his knee. She stared up into his face, fascinated, oblivious of her position.
“What do you mean, Mona?”
“There was a rush of power through you. I don't know what it means.”
The realisation came to Hugh that Mona was completely dominated by him at that moment, and he could do anything he liked with her. The feeling gave him an extraordinary exhilaration and sense of freedom and power. He felt that he must say something, anything, to assert his new dominion and make it lock home.
“This is my bigger self coming through,” he said in a low voice.
“I know it is.”
“This is the Ambrosius that won't take no for an answer.”
“This is the Ambrosius who won't ga no for an answer!” and Mona suddenly smiled at him in a way she had never done before.
Hugh sat motionless, not daring to break the spell; wondering how long it would last before it faded into the light of common day.
“Do you know what I am going to do as soon as my robe is ready?” he said at length. “I am going into the chapel, and I'm going to try and reconstruct the whole thing.”
“Aren't I coming?” said Mona.
“No,” said Hugh, “you aren't, I'm taking no chances on Ambrosius. If I were you I'd lock your door.”
“But Hugh, you won't solve the problem with Ambrosius. It goes back further than him. It goes back to Greece—on the hill-side. And I want to be there. I'm sure I ought to be there. I'm part of it.”
“You're no part of Ambrosius, Mona. You were simply his bad dream.”
“That was his trouble, Hugh. That was what was the matter with him. It was because I wasn't there that things went wrong. They'll go wrong again if I'm not there this time.”
Hugh laid his hand on the black head that had grown satiny as her health returned and she got decent food.
“We aren't having any human sacrifices in this temple. I'll tackle Ambrosius by myself, and then if anything goes wrong, the results will be minimal.”
Mona clutched his wrist and looked up at him with anguished eyes.
“Oh, Hugh, I wish you'd let me come too. I am sure things will go wrong if I don't.”
“No, little Mona. I know Ambrosius better than you do, and you just aren't coming.”
“Hugh, if I'm not there to act as lightning-conductor, it will be as if you were struck by lightning. I know it will. I felt it on a small scale just now. If! hadn't been touching you when it happened, you'd have gone right off into Ambrosius.”
Hugh leant forward and took her by the shoulders.
“Mona, that is exactly wh
at I have got to do. I've got to go right off into Ambrosius, and then I've got to bring Ambrosius back into me. But you needn't worry, because the two overlap nowadays, and I shan't get lost in the past, if that is what you are afraid of. Ambrosius and I have been overlapping more and more every time he comes through. A very little more, and we'll coincide, and then the job will be done.”
Mona, looking up at his face, hawk-featured in the shadow of the cowl, knew instinctively that his mental attitude was that of a man accustomed to being obeyed, like Ambrosius, who had commanded a monastery as big as a small town, not like Hugh Paston, used to being chivied by his womenfolk.
Mona kept herself busy in the garden during the days that followed. The thing she was doing was a severe strain, and it was telling on her. It was one thing to stand by Hugh with Jelkes beside her; it was another to go on day after day alone, knowing that he was experimenting all the time, and that Ambrosius was drawing steadily nearer. She was determined not to summon Jelkes because she feared that his little business might tie itself into a knot if he were not there to attend to it, and then he would be without means of livelihood.
She worked steadily at the long border leading out into the field. Dug up by Bill's willing but inexpert efforts, it looked as if it had been shelled by heavy artillery. The grey, aromatic plants were going in one by one, and the sweet sharp scent given off by their foliage as she handled them filled the air as she worked. She concentrated on her planting, knowing that from the contact she was making with the newly-turned earth she was drawing strength and stability. The great Earthmother, feeling herself tended and served, responded, and virtue flowed from her.
A shadow fell across the moist, sun-warmed soil, and Mona looked up to find Hugh Paston standing over her.
“Where have you put my black dressing-up gown, Mona?”
“It's hanging over the banisters.”
“Thanks.”
Mona knew that the thing she greatly feared had now arrived. She watched Hugh walking back towards the house, never turning his head, which was not his usual custom when he was leaving her; unable to concentrate on the gardening any longer, she sat down on a pile of turf and lit a cigarette with fingers that trembled.