Moon Magic

by Dion Fortune

  He clapped the lad lightly on the shoulder in dismissal.

  “Write me out your experiences,” he said, “I'm interested in these things.”

  Crossing the wide quadrangle to the gate, he realised with another keen feeling of pleasure that there had been a curious sense of sympathy, almost intimacy, between himself and the student, himself and the patient. He had never experienced such a thing before, and he felt as if something hungry in him were being fed just as Lilith Le Fay fed it—after the same manner, though in a lesser degree, and it gave him a sense of well-being and satisfaction with life to which he had hitherto been a stranger, and his work suddenly seemed worth while to him in a way it had never done before.

  He found himself halted by the traffic lights at the crossing to the Underground station. A sports car pulled up beside him. He glanced round and saw at the wheel the more irresponsible of his two clinical clerks, whose hide he removed piecemeal daily. The youth grinned.

  “Give you a lift anywhere, sir?”

  In all the annals of the hospital such a thing was unheard of. The youth himself marvelled that he was not struck dead as soon as the words had passed his lips, but the hospital terror was lowering himself comfortably into the bucket seat before he had time to take refuge in flight, and the drive home was enlivened by discussion of the relative merits of various very sporting makes of two-seaters which it appeared the senior physician was contemplating buying. The young man was, moreover, very intrigued when his passenger demanded to be dropped at Lambeth Bridge instead of being deposited at the famous rooms in Grosvenor Road. He watched him cross the bridge as if starting on the annual walk to Brighton, and being young and ribald, made a guess that was nearer the mark than he himself believed.

  Malcolm walked fast, but in his eagerness he seemed to go on ahead of his body. He was like a starving man in sight of food. What he received from Lilith he did not know, but it was something that fed his whole nature. When he came away from her, he was contented, fulfiled, ready to turn to his work with interest; happy to think of her as forming the background of his life; but after a few hours he began to crave for her presence, and now, after twenty-four hours had elapsed, he felt as if he were being drawn to her by hooks fixed in his viscera. It was sheer joy, yet the pull was so strong it was painful.

  He went rapidly down the road that had now become so familiar, and turning the corner, saw the façade of the lit-up church as he had so often seen it from across the water; now he knew that he was welcome there, and for a moment it seemed as if such a dream could not possibly have come true.

  He passed the prim little houses with their whitened steps and lace curtains. They seemed to belong to another world, another epoch. It was the world in which he had lived until he met his dream-woman; a world in which he had been a chained slave without hope or respite. And now it was all left behind; he did not belong to it any more; his bondage was broken. How, he did not know. Not by the death of his wife, that was quite certain. As Lilith had said, that did not change anything interiorly. A change had been coming in him before her death, which had simply forced into the open what had been going on under the surface. And there was more to come. He had got to change still further before he was where Lilith Le Fay wanted him to be, and he awaited that change with the eager certainty with which he knew the sun would rise in the morning.

  Ahead of him, towering above the little stucco-fronted villas, was the Gothic façade of the church, its great west window dimly glowing with the shaded light within. He knew there would be a welcome awaiting him there in that warm, diffused light; and a bright fire; and a huge chair with soft cushions. And there would be talk of deep and strange things that stirred the imagination and quickened the blood and called up pictures before the eye of the mind. There would be a smell of incense, and rich colouring, and the gleam of silken hangings in the shadows; and under his feet thick soft carpets, and great expanses of dark parquetry that shone like water. Books there would be all round the walls; strange books, rare books; books that most folk did not know existed; and pictures that opened doorways into another world, the world of dream.

  And she—she to whom he came, knew just what he needed. She never gave him food till he had rested, knowing he could not take it. There would be tea, hot and fragrant, and a cigarette, and pleasant, desultory talk in the warmth of her presence; the weariness would slip from him like a cloak, and his animation would return, and he would begin to be hungry and want his supper.

  Then there would be a meal, all ready and no fuss; a meal with food that seemed simple, yet was a work of art. He, who had never in his life paid attention to food, living mainly on sandwiches, had suddenly woken up to the fact that eating was one of the arts, to be ranked with musical appreciation. His austere temperament had revolted at this at first; but once inured, had taken to it very kindly.

  He knew that several hours of sheer happiness lay before him; but he also knew that some day, in some way it must all end, though he did not know how or when.

  He cut across the corner of the road and found himself before the heavy, iron-studded door under its low arch. Lilith had never allowed the door to be cleaned, and it and all the façade were covered with a patina of London grime that seemed to protect the place from observation. Externally, it was part and parcel of the district and passed unnoticed. That door would open in a minute on another world. He raised the heavy ring-shaped knocker and gave the three beats with which he always announced his arrival. Then he turned and looked back down the road by which he had come, and saw across the water the shadowy outline of his own house all in darkness. He waited, wondering whether the door would be opened to him by Meatyard or Lilith, holding himself in till he knew.

  The door opened more quickly than he expected, and the little gnomelike man with the bat-ears greeted him. He was disappointed. He liked Lilith to open the door to him; and yet, on the other hand, he liked to see her standing tall and straight and beautiful beside the hearth as he came to her across the wide expanse of the luxurious room. Perhaps, after all, it was worth while forgoing the welcome at the door in order to have the experience of drawing near to her as she stood awaiting him, and feeling the atmosphere of her presence grow stronger and stronger as he approached.

  The little man left him to let himself in to the inner hall; and as he turned from closing the doors he saw, as he had known he would, the tall, graceful figure of the woman who awaited him; but, as did not happen in his day-dreams, he was seized, as always, by an agony of shyness. He strode hastily across the wide parquetry, his heavy tread disturbing the tranquil room like a stone thrown into a pool. He came up to the woman who awaited him, and stood helplessly. He wanted to take her hand, but could not bring himself to do it. He wanted to tell her how happy he was to be there, but the words would not come. He had had a sight of himself as he knotted his tie that morning; the tie was stringy, the collar frayed. His face was lined and ugly and ill-tempered; his manners, he was told on every hand, were disagreeable. How could he hope to please this beautiful woman and keep the friendship so generously given him? Why had she given it? He did not know. It was beyond his comprehension. It was only the knowledge that she would put out a hand and draw him to her across the gulf that enabled him to face the agony he went through every time he came back to her after absence.

  The firm white hand with the strange rings came out; he took it in his; they stood for a moment without speaking, but all the frozen, twisted emotion in him was easing, and unwinding and flowing out towards her.

  “How are you?” she said in that deep, velvety contralto he loved so much, her eyes smiling at him.

  “All the better for seeing you,” he said, his hand tightening on hers. Then there was tea and cigarettes, and quiet fireside warmth and tranquillity. He lay back in the deep chair among the cushions and watched the fire, feeling her beside him. And presently animation returned, and he wanted to talk and tell her things; and his inferiority complex faded from him—such things
as an international reputation and the F.R.S. and the F.R.C.P. never entered his head, he only thought of himself as an ugly, clumsy brute who was always doing the wrong thing—until things began to change, and he found his manhood and ease and breadth of vision, and such joy as had made the sons of the morning shout together. Then he left the world behind and entered into a new life and a new personality and felt within him the dawning of new powers—and all this was the magic of Lilith Le Fay, whom the world he had left would call wicked.

  He looked at her as she sat tranquil in the firelight, her faintly Assyrian profile turned towards him, her long white hands with the great rings lying along the arms of her chair, her feet in silver mules resting on the edge of the wide hearth. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. Great pictures, great music could not compare with her. She had taught him the meaning and the value of beauty, and how it enriches the soul, and he had applied the lesson to their relationship.

  He had given up his Saturday morning clinics and was free till Monday. She never told him in advance what she meant to do, but he had a feeling that this time it was important. He knew that the moon was full and the tide was high and the Vernal Equinox approaching, and he felt an anticipatory qualm. He was never really at his ease with Lilith Le Fay except when he was working at the strange rites at which he was fast becoming expert. His magic would soon match hers. He knew now how to send the power across, and how to receive it as she sent it back to him. If only—if only he could get over his shyness with her and be absolutely at his ease and sure of himself and of her—what possibilities opened up! And tonight, when he knew the big thing was coming, a bad attack of shyness attacked him.

  The woman sitting quietly at the other side of the hearth was well aware of it. But she could look past it into the heart of the man, and was in no wise disturbed; she knew, however, only too well that his shyness and self-distrust made his working of the magic uncertain and prevented power coming through in the way it should. If he had been utterly ruthless, or utterly unscrupulous, or utterly sure of his technique and impersonal with her, it would have worked smoothly; it was his conscience that was making a coward of him, as she had always feared it would.

  How was she to break through those inhibitions and set him free without letting loose an avalanche of emotion? If she once made Malcolm lose his head, life would be unlivable for him unless she gave herself to him, and that would spoil the magic, for magic is worked on tension. She could only do as she had done before—use him boldly and ruthlessly, though there was pity in her heart. It was the best thing, for marriage with Malcolm was out of the question and a liaison would not content him.

  It would have been the easiest thing in the world to break through the barrier between them if she had chosen to use the direct route; she had only to put out her hand and caress him; but the reactions of that had to be considered, and they were not fair to the man. She must let him struggle on as best he might and trust to the inhibitions going down as the power came through in the ritual. It was, after all, the best way to work, the way they had always worked in the old temples, where the priestesses were brought from the House of the Virgins for the purposes of the ritual only. She could not make this man happy as a man and at the same time work magic with him.

  They shared the light evening meal which was all that was permitted when work was afoot, and then returned to the fireside for coffee and cigarettes; and as they sat in the dim light of the reading lamps, the silences grew longer between them until both sat gazing at the fire, oblivious of each other.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  At length the woman spoke.

  “The tide will be rising by now,” she said. “They are expecting a flood, I think. I saw the sandbags out all along the Grosvenor Road.”

  The man roused himself and looked at her.

  “The moon is rising, too,” she added. “It will soon clear the housetops and come shining into the room.”

  They waited in silence for another half-hour, and then a silver haze began to appear at the upper part of the great east window and a long ray of light stole in and lay like a pool on the dark shining floor.

  “The power is beginning to gather,” said Lilith Le Fay. “Shall we go and robe?”

  Without a word the man went off to the spacious bathroom all black marble and shining silver that had so startled him the first time he had seen it. There, collar and tie, shoes and clothes soon lay in an untidy heap, and he stood forth mother-naked in front of the big mirror. He considered himself critically. He thought he looked considerably better without his clothes than with them. His experience of nudes had been gained in the dissecting room, and he appraised his body with the eye of an anatomist rather than of an artist, but what he saw gave him satisfaction. He was a good specimen of the human animal. His own strength appealed to him.

  It crossed his mind that the woman upstairs might be making a similar survey before the other big mirror as she stripped preparatory to the rite, and he hastily pulled his mind back from any such thoughts. But the mind is an even more unruly member than the tongue, and although he might refine and intellectualise his ideas, they still played round the same subject.

  “How extraordinarily opposite we are in every way,” he thought as he girded his robe about him. “I'm fair and she's dark; I'm thickset and she's slender. I'm as rough as they make them, and she's everything that's sophisticated. I'm a bit of a gorilla, and she's—no, she's not any of the things with which women are usually compared. She's more like a hawk or a snake or a leopard.”

  He stared thoughtfully at his own face as he adjusted the folds of the head-dress about it.

  “I'm the butchering priest all right,” he thought. “How in the world do we manage to keep the peace, she and I? She's everything I'm not.”

  He stooped to strap the golden sandals on to his sinewy feet, then, straightening himself, looked in the glass again.

  “Yes, by God, I am the priest!” he said to himself as he saw before him an image that looked like the embodiment of ruthless elemental power.

  “I'm a primitive type,” he thought. “I wonder if that's why she has a use for me? I believe it is.”

  Then he turned, and passed through the communicating door into the empty bedroom of the woman he loved.

  He paused and looked around, noting all the silken luxury.

  “The very essence of femininity,” he thought, “and yet she is not wholly feminine by any manner of means. There is something curiously male about her.”

  He felt the thick white carpet soft about his feet round the sandalstraps as he crossed to the corner cupboard that concealed the entrance to the hidden part of the building.

  “I wonder what I should have been like,” he thought as he climbed the stairs, “if I had had a different upbringing? Supposing I hadn't had a conscience? and hadn't cared what I'd done to obtain the things I was after? Supposing in love affairs I'd had the same ruthless drive I've had in my work? Where would I have got to, I wonder? What sort of experiences would I have had? What sort of a man should I have become? Very different from what I am now, I suspect. Damn it all—I've had less than half a life!”

  He was by nature a truculent individual who would tackle anybody and any difficulty that came in his way, but he was terrified of the hidden forces that he dared not risk unleashing. He knew that Lilith Le Fay feared neither man, god, nor devil, and would fearlessly cope with his demons, and, in fact, harness them to her service, but he shrank from letting them loose on her. Yet all the time he knew that it was with the elemental force in himself that she wanted to work, and that if he would not unleash it he was of no help to her.

  He passed through the robing room and saw lying across a chair a shimmering pearl-grey robe, its folds partly concealing a pile of chiffon and lace. Now, for the first time, seeing that heap of clothing on the chair, he realised how completely she could divest herself of her human personality when she assumed the symbolic robes and stand forth simply
as the impersonation of a force. As such, and as such only, she wished him to see her, yet how was he to separate the force from the woman? He did not know. He could not do it. She meant altogether too much to him.

  He knocked softly on the door of the temple; it opened, and he saw Lilith Le Fay's arm hold back the curtain for his entry. He walked in, crossed to the altar, and stood with his back to her, resting his hands on the black velvet altar cloth in the little circle of light cast by the altar lamp.

  “What a pair of stranglers hands!” he thought as he stood looking down at them. He noticed that the Pillars of Equilibrium had been shifted, and stood upon either side of him.

  He heard a bell struck softly nine times, and the soft swish of draperies as the woman passed him, but he never raised his eyes. Then a pair of hands appeared in the circle of light before his own.

  They were by no means delicate hands, though long-fingered and supple. The bizarre rings that usually decorated them had been removed, and so had the nail lacquer. They were just a pair of woman's hands, firmmuscled and white-skinned.

  Then the hands were lifted as the woman stepped back a pace from the altar, and he too stepped back a pace and lifted his own as the ritual required; and as the ritual also required, he raised his eyes and looked into hers.

  They were calmly expressionless and intent. There was nothing of the human woman about her, she was simply the priestess, she cared for one thing and one thing only, the strange force she served, and at the realisation there rose in him a sudden wave of intense bitterness. Why should he be thus frustrated and life denied him? He, a man, had a right to a man's life simply because he was a man. Life owed him that much, and he claimed it. He had had enough of the denials and frustrations of the social code; he wanted a woman—this woman, and he would get her if he could. Something that was elementally savage rose up in him, something that he had always known was there and that he knew to be dangerous—dangerous to him as well as to her. He had used it before now in scientific fights, but never in personal ones, and never on a woman. But it was breaking loose now, and he was encouraging it, for he was sick of frustrations and denials, and repudiated the code that imposed them.