by Dion Fortune
‘Yes, I can,’ said Mona. ‘I’m not afraid of Pan if you are.’
‘I’d never dream of letting you try to cope with Ambrosius, Mona,’ said Hugh. ‘He’s not a man, he’s a fiend.’
‘“Starving men are dangerous men”,’ said Mona.
‘And liable to turn cannibal,’ added Jelkes. ‘Tell me, Hugh,’ he continued hastily, hoping to change the subject, ‘what are the things that bring Ambrosius up with you?’
‘Danger, anger, and Mona,’ said Hugh curtly.
Before poor Jelkes could make another cast, Mona spoke again.
‘It is my turn to be psychoanalysed now,’ she said. ‘And I’m going to psychoanalyse my day-dreams. They are just as useful as night-dreams if you know how to take them. When I was little I used to imagine myself racing over hills with a boy who was my brother. As we lived in the very centre of an industrial town in the Black Country and I was an only child, it isn’t difficult to trace the root of that dream. When I got older and went to school I was tremendously fascinated by the Greek myths and legends. Fairy tales did not amuse me in the least; neither did stories from English history; but the Greek myths fascinated me, and I fitted my day-dream into them. Instead of running over the hills hand in hand with a brother, I was a Bacchante going out to look for Dionysus and the boy playmate was a Greek athlete who followed me because he admired me. I wore nothing but the fawn-skin because I loved to feel the sun and air.’
‘That day-dream lasted a long time,’ she went on. ‘I put myself to sleep with it every night for years. Then, when I learnt of the Mysteries from you, I became a priestess, a pythoness, and the Greek athlete became the high priest who used me as a pythoness. That is all I remember. I have got no medieval memories, but Hugh has. Now Hugh, you take up the tale. Treat Ambrosius as a day-dream, and tell us about him.’
‘Well, I think Ambrosius was a solitary, supercilious sort of being when he was a lad. Kept himself to himself and felt superior, in spite of being looked down upon locally. I think that wherever he was, he felt he didn’t belong. When they put him in the Church that suited him well enough because he had got nothing to hold him outside it. Then, I think, as he got older he got it in the neck over women. Not because the old Abbot didn’t ride him on a loose rein, but because he couldn’t find a woman to suit him. He used to have a nightmare of a particular type of woman, and he couldn’t find her in the flesh, and no one else was any use to him.’
‘Have you got anything about Greece?’ said Mona abruptly.
‘Well now, I had as a matter of fact been constructing a Greek fantasy. I was thinking how interesting it would be to try you out as a pythoness, or priestess. I could see you walking in a procession, looking as if you came off a Greek vase. And I could see you and me up at an altar, doing a ceremony together and bringing Pan through into manifestation.’
‘So your day-dreams and mine have met, Hugh?’ said Mona.
‘Yes,’ came in a low voice from under the cowl.
‘Then let’s go through with it. If you will come outside, I will dance the Moon-dance for you on the grass in the moonlight,’ and dropping her heavy dark wrap, she went walking down the aisle, her thin soft draperies fluttering and her golden sandals gleaming under the hem.
Jelkes hastily extinguished the candles and hurried after them.
Mona stood erect in the moonlight on the short grass of the barren pasture; the pallid light taking all colour from grass and gown and face so that she looked like a wraith. Hugh, tall and gaunt in his black cowled robe, stood a dozen yards away from her on the edge of the shadow thrown by the chapel, and even in the darkness the knuckles showed white on his clenched hands.
Then Mona began her dance. It was not so much a dance as a series of mime-gestures, for she never moved more than a few steps forward or back. A low, rhythmical humming that hardly seemed to come from human lips at all was her accompaniment, and to its rise and fall she swayed and gestured. Jelkes, knowing the symbol-language of the ancient faiths, was able to read her meaning, and wondered how much of it Hugh was picking up subconsciously. He had wanted Mona to come to an understanding with Hugh, but he had not bargained for anything quite so primitive. Mona was playing with fire, and it was a diabolical thing to do, especially with a man in Hugh’s unbalanced state. Mona was a syren, drawing his very soul out of him. Hugh would never look at any other woman after this.
The dance was mime but Jelkes knew in his heart, and felt that Hugh knew also, that what was going on was very far from make-believe. Jelkes was not psychic but he could picture Mona’s etheric hands going out and touching Hugh and drawing him to her, for he knew that was what she was doing in her imagination.
He pictured to himself the weaving hands drawing lines of light upon the air, and then reaching right out, like tenuous silvery tentacles, and stroking Hugh. He could see Mona’s hands on Hugh’s shoulders, although she was a dozen yards away. And then he saw what he had never expected to see — he saw a grey, shadowy replica of Hugh standing a yard or so in front of himself. Jelkes gasped, feeling as if the universe were turning round on him. True, he had only seen it in his mind’s eye, but nevertheless, he had seen it, and he certainly had not formulated it. The picture had risen spontaneously without any volition on his part.
Mona had ceased her dance and was walking towards them with her normal step, no longer the curious processional pacing with which she had passed down the length of the chapel.
Jelkes knew at once that Mona had done as much as she meant to do for the moment, and was now pulling Hugh back to normal. But Hugh did not respond. He stood silently, looking down from his ungainly height upon Mona’s face, upturned in the moonlight, his own completely hidden in the shadow of his cowl. Jelkes held his breath, wondering what was going to happen next; knowing that Mona had unleashed the wind and must now be prepared to ride the whirlwind.
Suddenly Hugh seized her by the shoulders, left bare by the loose drapery of her sleeves. Then rigid once more, he stared down at her, the expression of his own face invisible inside the cowl. Mona stood quite still, looking back at Hugh, her features clear in the bright moonlight shining over his shoulder. Her eyes were calm and steadfast, but her mouth was twitching slight.
‘Where the devil are you leading me, Mona?!’ he said harshly.
Hugh’s grip was tightening painfully on her arms. She had a feeling that if she did not speak, did not command the situation, those hands would shift to her throat.
‘Back to the beginning of things. Back to elemental nature.’
‘And when we get there?’
‘That I don’t know; but Nature is natural, we have got to trust her.’
‘I hope you know what you’re doing woman!’ he said fiercely. ‘For there is going to be one hell of a crash if you don’t.’
As he spoke, Mona felt the curious cold thrill of fear in the solar plexus that heralds the coming of the god. She caught hold of Hugh’s wrists as he held her, and they stood waiting and listening. The wind was rising and rustling the thicket of overgrown laurels that flanked the chapel, and the moon, sinking to her setting, was just tipping the high gable. The weather-worn remains of the cross that had lost its arms cut the bright disk and threw its pagan shadow across them. They waited; the wind freshened; the moon slowly passed behind the gable and sank from sight.
Jelkes heard Hugh say in a low voice, ‘Where is all this going to end, Mona?’
And Mona answered, ‘I don’t know. We have just got to trust and follow on.’
Jelkes could hardly see the two in the shadows now. Mona’s drapery, grey and wraith-like, shone faintly in the dim, diffused light of the setting moon. Hugh in his black gown was invisible save for the pale blur of his face in the folds of the cowl. His two hands on Mona’s shoulders alone showed up white and distinct. Jelkes expected every second to see the tense immobility of the two shadowy figures change into a desperate struggle as the forces evoked from the depths of the man’s nature broke loose and took charge, and doubted whet
her his own strength would be sufficient to protect Mona. He opened his lips, but no words came. He tried to take a step forward, but found himself unable to move. The whole scene had changed into nightmare. Mona and Hugh were real enough; but that which lay around them was not real; another dimension had opened.
It seemed to Jelkes as if the shadows all around him were alive with forms that Hugh and Mona between them, playing with strange forces, had called to life. Was it possible that they had re-awakened the magic done by Ambrosius? Up here, at the chapel, he must have performed his rites, and things that are made with ritual live on in the memory of Nature.
This was the old magic all right, thought Jelkes, fascinated and horrified; this was what Ambrosius had been up to! That was not Hugh at all, that was Ambrosius, and he had got his hands on Mona. But what was Mona? Jelkes did not know, for that was not Mona either. It was something that was not human, something disembodied that Ambrosius had created with his magic.
All around them, and passing overhead, was the concourse of the elemental forces; powers of the air and spirits of elemental fire; souls of the waters, guardians of the treasures hidden in the veins of the earth, and all the strange familiars that served the medieval magicians. In the middle of it all stood Ambrosius with the thing he had created in his hands — the woman-form built up by his own desires; and around him were the forms of his familiars, keeping the circle secure from intrusion.
Jelkes felt the hair on his neck rising like a dog’s. He was bound in the circle of that sorcery and could move neither hand nor foot, but only watch with horrified eyes what was going on before him — a renegade monk caressing the woman-form he had made by forbidden arts.
Then slowly the sight faded; the buildings and the starlight reappeared. Hugh stepped back from Mona. No one spoke. Hugh looked half-stunned. Mona seemed paralysed. Jelkes felt as if he were coming round from an anaesthetic.
Hugh raised his hands uncertainly and pushed back his cowl; Mona drew a deep gasping breath and the rigidity of her attitude relaxed. Jelkes called up all his willpower and broke through the spell. He walked up to them, put a hand on the shoulder of each and turned them about.
‘Come along,’ he said. ‘We’re going in. We’ve had enough of this.’
They walked beside him without word spoken; his hands on their shoulders guiding them as if they were sleep-walkers.
Back in the stuffy warmth of the living-room, Jelkes turned up the lamp as high as it would go and threw an armful of kindling on the fire. Hugh stared dazedly at the flame of the lamp and rubbed his eyes; then he dived in among the folds of his draperies and got a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and wiped his face, which was dripping with sweat as if he had dipped it in a basin of water. He looked round at Mona, who looked back at him with noncommittal eyes. She had better control of herself than either of the two men, and was like the core of calm at the heart of a cyclone.
Slowly Hugh ungirt his robe, rolled it into a bundle, and threw it into a corner of the sofa. Then he mopped his neck.
‘Mona will make us some tea,’ said Jelkes firmly.
Mona, only too thankful to make her escape, disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Jelkes turned to Hugh.
‘Well, what happened?’ he demanded.
‘God only knows! It was like a dream. I never meant to let things go as far as this. This is what I have been scared of all along. This mustn’t happen again, Jelkes, it isn’t fair to anybody.’
Mona entered with a tray of crockery. She did not look at them, and they did not look at her.
‘What are we going to do about it?’ asked Hugh as she went out again.
‘I’ll speak to her,’ said Jelkes.
‘Somebody certainly ought to. I don’t think she knows what she’s about.’
Mona came in again, a big brown earthenware bowl between her two hands. She paused in the doorway and stood looking at them. Still in her green dress and with the fillet about her hair, she looked, as Hugh had said, like something off a Greek vase. Hugh was staring at her fascinated, oblivious of all else. She stood looking down at Hugh as he half sat, half crouched in the deep chair. Her face was calm. Her eyes were steady, but the usual close-held line of her mouth was relaxed, and her lips were full and very scarlet and in the hollow of her neck a pulse was beating visibly. Jelkes came to the conclusion that Mona knew exactly what she was doing, and that it was not the slightest use to speak to her.
The meal was eaten in silence, save for the necessities of the table. Jelkes and Mona drank the everlasting tea, and Hugh, though he forewent spirits out of deference to Jelkes, felt he owed himself something, and opened a bottle of beer.
The party broke up and went to their rooms as soon as the meal was over. Jelkes wondered whether it was his duty to patrol the passages, but concluded that it was better to leave things to nature and pulled the bedclothes over his head with a profound sigh. What would be, would be, Dei et Diaboli volunti.
Mona sat up in bed, her arms tight folded round her knees to prevent them from shaking, and asked herself what in the world had possessed her to act as she had. Not having the kind of conscience that prevaricates with herself Mona did not deny that Ambrosius, the renegade monk, had a diabolical fascination for her; but to stir up the Ambrosius aspect of Hugh was to play with fire. Ambrosius was Hugh’s repressed subconscious, built up into a secondary personality. If she played the fool with him any more, he might have a nasty breakdown, and even come within genuine reach of certification. She blamed herself bitterly. Why had she let herself get carried away like this? She knew, too, that Jelkes was angry with her, and that vexed her still more, for she had a very great respect for him, and valued his good opinion highly.
She felt certain that Jelkes hated Pan, if the truth were known, and was perpetually making the Sign of the Cross inside himself, thus preventing Pan from manifesting and so throwing everything into confusion. Mona flung angrily away from all restraints, and yet her self-respect prevented her from yielding to Pan in his satyric aspect. The world was too much for her, and she longed for the vales of Arcady.
Hugh, on his side, stood with his hands in his dressing-gown pockets staring out of the window at the starlight. He had had a pretty thorough shake-up, and sleep was far from him. He knew with a sense of delighted triumph that Mona had let herself go far more than she had ever meant to; but he had also sensed the reaction that had been coming on steadily all through supper. He was quite alive to the fact that it was Mona’s fixed intention not to involve herself with him. He, for his part, felt that everything life held for him was bound up with Mona. His negative, hypersensitive nature clung to Mona’s dynamism as the one thing that would enable it to go on living in a world that had been all darkness and coldness. He had come to the point when he was beginning to feel pretty desperate; if Mona wouldn’t have him, he didn’t know what he was going to do.
It seemed to Hugh that surely out of all her richness and abundance the Great Mother could meet his need? Why forget the Mother in the worship of the Father? Are the descending Paraclete and the uprising Pan two opposing forces locked in an everlasting struggle, or are they an alternating current playing between the two poles of spirit and matter?
Hugh did not know. Metaphysics had never been his strong point. He knew what his need was, and he considered it to be a legitimate need, and he did not see why he should be expected to deny it fulfilment.
Why had Mona never mated during her thirty-odd years? What was she asking of men that they did not give her? Were there no priest-initiates now to work with her the rites of Eleusis? Perhaps that was the trouble. And he debated whether it was feasible for him, Hugh Paston, to assume the part of the priest of the Mysteries. Could he, by imagining himself to be the Greek priest-initiate, identify himself with Pan?
He and Mona were not boy and girl on the hills in the sun, but mature man and woman, who asked more of mating than would have satisfied the Greek athlete and his lass. They were priest and priestess. In
Mona’s phantasy the priest had been the initiator who had admitted her to the Mysteries. If he played the part of the high-priest he would soon feel sacerdotal: especially if he could inveigle Mona into playing the part of the pythoness.
Lost in his day-dream, Hugh stood on, oblivious of the passage of time. The bare grey stone of the English building gave place to the white marble of a Greek temple; the pale starlight of an English night to flickering Greek torches. He was the high-priest in the sanctuary awaiting the coming of the priestess. Beyond the curtains, Tyrian-dyed, he could hear the murmur of the crowded, excited temple. The curtains parted, and Mona stood before him in her robe as priestess of Ceres, the curtains falling again immediately behind her. The crowded temple hushed and held its breath. This was the sacrament, the bringing through of power. This was the sacerdotal office. Behind him was the All-Father, the First-Begotten Love, behind her was the Earth-Mother. As in the phantasy, he had become the priest, now the priest became the god — spontaneously, without any volition on his part. He felt power come upon him, he felt himself part of a larger whole, made one with the earth as she swung through the circling heavens. And then he checked and stayed. He could go no further. He lacked his priestess. The power that had sought expression through him could find no passage, for the circuit did not lead to earth but remained insulated in empty space. The reaction hit him hard. He knew that he had been within an ace of the thing he sought, and the missing of it gave him a sense of irritated frustration that promised badly for his nerves next day.
His mind turned back to Arcady. There, and there alone, lay the fulfilment of both promise and dream. The Arcadian Pan with his shepherd’s pipe was no diabolical deity, like the sinister Goat of Mendes of the inflamed medieval imagination. It was the thing behind Ambrosius he must go after — the Greek inspiration that had awakened Ambrosius to his manhood. Hugh wondered whether his own problems were not part of a universal problem, and his own awakening part of a much wider awakening? He wondered how far the realization of an idea by one man, even if he spoke no word, might not inject that idea into the group-mind of the race and set it working like a ferment?
