Moon Magic

by Dion Fortune

  “And how about all the years of observation and experimentation?”

  “Oh, that's just routine. I told you I was tired of the central nervous system, didn't I? I am, too, dead sick of it. I'm not such a fool as to say there is nothing else to be learnt about it, but I've got stale at it. I'm going to give it a miss. I'm packing up my job at the hospital. I don't mind remaining on as consultant at some of the smaller places if I can be of use to them, and I'm sticking to the Maudsley. I'm sniffing noses with Malet Place, but they're shy of me. They'd take my name all right, but they're terrified of my iconoclastic views—afraid I'd kick their delicate psychological structures to pieces, and so I would, by God! They need a neurologist like me. I may be a physician by trade, but I'm a surgeon by temperament. Physicians are too damn ladylike for my taste. Give me a good old cut-and-come-again, hack you up, and sew you up, and finish the job and done with it!”

  Then, in a milder voice, he enquired if I were going to give him any tea?

  “Good gracious,” I said, “haven't you had your tea?”

  “I have not. I've been making a martyr of myself writing out your reports. I think I deserve some of your home-made scones, too, considering the way I've sacrificed myself on the altar of science. I haven't upset you, have I, Miss Le Fay, with my revelations?”

  “Certainly not,” said I. “I'm a much tougher-minded person than you are, for all your talk of surgical temperament.”

  Then I gave him a marvellous tea, and he ate every crumb of it. I don't suppose any woman before had ever made a pet of Malcolm, and he was correspondingly appreciative.

  “I'm perfectly happy with you here,” he said as he lay back in his chair replete. “I thought it would worry the life out of me, seeing much of you; but on the contrary, it calms me. Now look here, I've been absolutely frank with you, damnably frank, franker than I ought to be, possibly. I wish you'd do the same by me, and tell me exactly how you feel about me.”

  “I'll do my best, but unless you understand me, you won't understand how I feel as I do.”

  “You told me you were just such another as She—something inhuman—but you're so damned human, and that's what I find so lovely about you. You don't mind my talking like this, do you? It's only talk.”

  “Talk is a valuable safety-valve. Talk away as much as you like.”

  “So I am discovering. I've always been silent as the grave over anything that really mattered, and I can see it was a mistake. I ought to have sworn like a trooper and kicked the furniture about. I do, as a matter of fact, over minor matters. I'm a damned irritable devil, you know, only I don't show it to you. But look here, we're talking about me, not about you. Come along, stick to the point, and tell me what I want to know.”

  “You want to know how I feel about you?”

  “I do. I haven't a notion, except that you're frightfully good to me.”

  “I shall have to begin at the beginning, or you won't understand. I knew I had got to work with somebody. I knew that it did not matter at the start whether I liked him or not—I had not got to think of my own feelings, but only of the work. But I also knew that if the work went all right, I would get fond of the man I worked with; and yet again I had not to think of my own feelings, and I have been practising selfdiscipline so long that I genuinely do not think about my own feelings. I am becoming very attached to you, Dr. Malcolm, but I am not dependent on you for my happiness. You, on the contrary, I am afraid, are becoming very dependent on me.”

  “I am. Damnably so. Never mind. Go on.”

  “That, of course, is a weak link in the chain. But it is a phase that we shall work through and come out of; and I know that I have not got to check you back or repulse you, nor fear the consequences to either of us of your getting so attached to me.”

  “You mean you expect me to get over being fond of you?”

  “No, not that; but I expect you to come in the end to the same place where I am, so that you can be fond of me, but not dependent on me, nor yet possessive.”

  “That, of course, is beyond my comprehension—as I am at present, at any rate. I may change, of course. I am quite prepared to allow for that. But until then I must just take your word for it.”

  “I want you to get to that point where you can love me freely and happily and unpossessively, and I am prepared to go through the difficult intermediate stages with you, till you get there.”

  “I think you are a bit out in your judgment of male human nature, personally; but as I say, I am willing to keep an open mind. So you want me to become a kind of he-She, do you?”

  We both laughed. Malcolm's laugh was getting much less like a snarl, I noticed. His voice, too, was ceasing to rasp and becoming a nice baritone.

  “Do you like me, Miss Le Fay? Tell me that.”

  “Yes, I like you enormously. I think you're a dear. In fact I've really got a very soft spot in my heart for you.”

  He was silent for a moment.

  “Of course that wasn't what I really meant,” he said at length.

  “What do you mean, then?”

  “Never mind. Doesn't matter. Best leave it alone, I expect.”

  “You mean, do you attract me as a man?”

  “Yes, that's it. Do I?”

  I thought for a moment, and he misunderstood my silence.

  “No, of course I don't. How could I? I've had my answer and deserved it.”

  “No, you haven't had your answer,” I replied. “I was trying to think it out so that it would sound comprehensible. To be attracted to you as a man is quite a different thing from being attached to you as a friend and having complete confidence in you as a fellow-worker, both of which things I feel. I understand your meaning, and I am trying to give you a true answer that shall not mislead you either way.

  “I find the dynamic force in you very attractive because it is so interesting. You could give extraordinary experiences, and there is enough of the unregenerate Eve in me to be tempted to experiment with those experiences, though I know I must not, for the sake of the work on which I am engaged. Like you, I am afraid of leading myself into temptation, and that probably prevents me from getting a clear picture of my feelings towards you. I am, both by temperament and training, utterly self-contained and yet I have a need of you.”

  “I'm glad of that,” said Malcolm in a low voice, “that means a lot to me.”

  “I am definitely not in love with you, and yet I like your being in love with me. I feed on your love for me, if you want to know. I draw power from it and it keeps me young. Some people would say I was a vampire, but I shall always be very careful not to take too much from you, for I wouldn't hurt you for the world and it delights me to see you come here and become relaxed and happy and at peace.

  “But all that isn't personal feeling, which is what you really want to know. You spoke as if no woman could have any personal feeling for you, but that is not true. Shallow women couldn't; but for a woman who has eyes to see, you have a very curious kind of attraction. You have a curious kind of beauty, too, the beauty that goes with balanced strength and sheer fitness for function. You have not got a handsome face, but you have got a magnificent head, if you can understand the distinction, and I do not think any one, even a fool, could fail to be aware of the beauty of your hands. They are the most beautiful hands, literally beautiful, that I have ever seen on a man. I should imagine you would be a rather magnificent specimen when you were stripped, too. You are obviously very powerful about the shoulders.

  “But that still does not answer your question. Yes, you do attract me, with a curious kind of attraction-repulsion that is much more powerful than pure attraction. At heart I have a certain amount of fear of you, though I do not like you any the less on that account—on the contrary, in fact. I suppose it is a relic of the days when I knew you as the sacrificial priest, I honestly do not think it is anything else.”

  “You do not think it is due to the way I followed you on the Embankment?”

  “I do not, fo
r that, strictly speaking, was a compliment.”

  “Well, we have certainly exchanged credentials,” said Malcolm, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head and his feet on the hearth, almost horizontal. Though deplorable, his manners were utterly innocent of offense.

  “Have I told you what you want to know?”

  “Yes, I expect you have, though I have not got the wit to understand it.”

  “Have I hurt you, my friend?”

  “A bit. But I asked for it. I don't mind. It's just as well I should know.”

  I got up and went behind his chair, and leaning over him, laid my hand against his cheek.

  “Does that take the sting out of it?” I asked.

  He put hand over mine and pressed it closer.

  “It would take the sting out of anything,” he said.

  The minutes went by, and neither of us moved. At length Malcolm spoke:

  “I expect I am damned ungrateful not to be pleased with what you said to me. Of course I wanted you to say that you felt towards me just as I felt towards you, though I knew perfectly well you didn't. It's just as well you don't, too. I'd obviously have to clear out if you did—the place would be too hot to hold me. As it is, I can just be happy with you in my own queer way. I promise I won't make myself a nuisance if you just don't mind having me around. That's all I need—the small amount of a vitamin that serves to maintain health. One needs very little, but one's in a bad way if one doesn't get that little. You're an extraordinarily understanding person. You seem to know how to give me just what I need. A woman like you is a godsend to any one placed as I am. God bless you for it. What are you standing there for, all this time? You'll get tired. Come and sit on the arm of my chair. Or don't you want to do that?”

  I sat down as he bade me and he leant his head against me, even the eternal cigarette forgotten.

  “I thought you wouldn't mind,” he said.

  We spent the evening like that, Malcolm and I. He never moved and never spoke.

  When it struck eleven I rose. “You're going home to bed,” I said. “You've got a day's work to do tomorrow.”

  He got up too. I think if the truth were known he had been asleep.

  “I feel like a battery that's been put on charge. Just being like that with you has ironed all the creases out of my soul.”

  He came towards me, and I thought he was going to kiss me; but I didn't want that; nor, I was sure, would he in his cooler moments. We did not want to get on those terms if we were going to work together.

  “Run along now, like a good child,” I said, and touched his cheek lightly with my hand to take the sting out of my refusal.

  “Bless you,” I added.

  “I am indeed blessed,” he said, and swung on his heel and away he went.

  Ten minutes later there was a ring on the phone.

  “I say, I must tell you, they're making me an FRS! I found the letter here when I got back. It's the only thing I haven't got—I've got all the foreign distinctions, but I hadn't got that—done too much quarrelling, I expect.”

  “Oh, my dear, I'm, so glad!” I cried, and was, too; far more glad than if I had got the F.R.S. myself.

  “Are you really as glad as all that?” came the voice on the phone. “I care about that much more than about getting the F.R.S. Lilith, I'm awfully fond of you!”

  Click went the phone as he hung up on me.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was some time before I saw Malcolm again. I heard his voice, however, although I did not see him—that brusque rasping voice that lost its harshness and became deep and vibrant when he was with me.

  I was sitting by the fire; the tea-tray was beside me, and I was expecting Malcolm any minute—when the telephone rang. I answered it and heard his voice. It was very curt and formal, and the rasp was very pronounced.

  “I have just rung to tell you I shall not be able to come round this evening. I've had a call to go down and see my wife. She's pretty bad, I believe.”

  “I'm so sorry,” I said. What else could I say?

  “Thanks. I thought you'd understand. I'll look you up when I get back.”

  “Do you expect to be away long?”

  “I've no idea. Some days, I expect. I shall stay till things are finished—one way or the other.”

  “Is it as bad as all that?”

  “She's had a stroke, so they tell me, but I don't know what she's doing with a stroke. I can't tell anything till I get down there. Goodbye, I've got a train to catch.”

  “Goodbye.” This the same man who had said to me the previous evening: “Lilith, I'm awfully fond of you”? At one word from his wife he had swung right back. I felt just a little annoyed with him, and yet I could see the psychology of it—how, to a man of his temperament, loyalties came before feelings; he had laid the finger on the key to his own nature when he had said that he loved making a martyr of himself; the very fact that he felt strongly towards me made him swing further away from me when the claim on his loyalty came uppermost. All the same, I thought he would come back to me eventually; the soul can starve to death as surely as the body.

  I sat and sewed at my iridescent garments, and waited. Then an idea struck me, and I began to sew at Malcolm's robes. It was witch-magic, of course, but I did not see any reason to be ashamed of it.

  Five days went by, and I heard nothing from Malcolm, neither did he seem to be “on the line” psychically. He had gone from me completely. I missed him. I missed him much more than I had realised I should. I also was troubled about him, for I knew he must be going through a very trying time, and there was that bond of sympathy between us that magical work always makes, and I felt for him. I could not be contented and indifferent while I knew Malcolm was suffering.

  Then, late one evening, there came a knock at the door, and there was Malcolm, without hat or overcoat.

  “Good gracious,” I exclaimed, “where have you come from?”

  “I've been back some days,” he replied.

  It was drizzling slightly, and his thick, rough hair was dewed with rain. As he passed his handkerchief over it, I saw that it was appreciably greyer, and his face was ashen.

  “How are you,” I asked.

  “Rotten. Is it too late for a cup of tea and a bit of food? I've had practically nothing all day.”

  “Was it hunger for food that drove you to visit me?”

  “I believe it was. I've been a fool not to come before and let you help me, as I knew you could. I felt better the minute I started down the stairs to come and see you.”

  I wondered whether his wife had died, but he was wearing a coloured tie, and I was certain he was a person who would be very punctilious on a point like that, so I concluded that she was still alive, and presumably out of danger, since he had been able to leave her. I asked no questions, but got him hot food and tea, and let him eat and smoke in silence.

  At the end he said:

  “You won't mind, will you, if I don't tell you about things tonight? It isn't that I don't want to tell you, but I'm not up to it at the moment. I've been through rather a bad time.”

  “My friend,” I said, “you can tell me just as much or just as little as you want to, and I shall never question you, for that is my notion of friendship.”

  We sat in silence for a while. I had not put on the central lighting, and there were only the two reading-lamps and the fire to give light, and the corners of the room were invisible. I could not see Malcolm's face as he lay back in the deep chair; I could only see his sprawling feet in the circle of light thrown by the fire, but I knew by the way those feet lay on the hearth-rug that here was a man absolutely dead beat. I wondered what it was that had brought that man of iron and whipcord to this state of exhaustion.

  “I wish you'd sing to me as you did the other night,” he said. I rose from my chair and faced him across the width of the hearth, but he did not look up. Nevertheless I raised my arms in the ritual gestures as I began my song. Malcolm lay with his ha
nd over his eyes, listening. I sang him first the song of the nostalgia of the soul for the values of Arcady.

  O great god Pan, return to earth again:

  O come at my call, and show thyself to men.

  Shepherd of goats, upon the wild hill's way,

  Lead thy lost flock from darkness unto day.

  Forgotten are the ways of sleep and night;

  Men seek for them whose eyes have lost the light.

  Open the door, the door that hath no key -

  The door of dreams whereby men come to thee.

  The shepherd of goats, oh answer unto me!

  “The door of dreams -” said Malcolm without looking up.

  “Yes, that's right. I know that way don't I, Lilith?”

  “Yes,’ said I, “you know it because you have never forgotten it. Some day I will read your past incarnations for you, and then much will become clear.”

  “Sing me some more. Sing me those songs about Isis and the moon.”

  So I sang to him the song that calls the goddess; and I sang the song that makes the priestess; and I sang of the way a man goes down by the secret twilight path to be sacrificed in order that the priestess may have power.

  “I say, Lilith, you remember my dream of the pool in the cave and the stalagmite? Is that the same sort of thing as the secret well beside the sacred tree? Are the white cypress and the stalagmite the same thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the waters of Persephone—are they the waters of life?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why? I thought she was queen of the dead and the underworld.”

  “She is also the queen of the unborn.”

  “Was that her, that great image I saw?”

  “No, that was Binah, the primordial form of Isis; the second image you saw, the black but comely one, was Persephone.”

  “I saw you as Peresephone.”

  “Yes, that was right; I had worked the Isis ritual with you as far as the Persephone point. I have been Persephone to you.”