This one survived, and it’s for you.
Think of us. Think of Louisa.
Smoke billowed across the lake, and through the shimmer of the heat-haze all the lovely parkland of Easterness betrayed itself for what it was: illusion; a playful, momentary gesture of matter in the immense symmetries of time and space. And yet substantial also, not to be negated; blessedly real in that moment of immediate fire. What a mystery this was, the universal, pyrotechnic brilliance of things, ever contingent, ever the incarnation of intelligence beyond contingency. Simply there.
One by one the copies of her book had charred, unfurled and flowered, and now the last was in her hand – no different, in its green-and-golden binding, from all the rest, save that it was the last, and with it would expire the only record of her work. All the others might be no more than soot, yet if this single volume was held back, the fire would have no significance beyond the enrichment of the soil on which it burned. Louisa stared into the flame.
For a long time she stared and saw many things. She saw herself crossing the lake that first winter morning, and the innocent enthusiasm with which she had inscribed the title page; she saw the skating on the lake – the chestnut-fire, the snow – and Emilia lying on her bed of pain; she watched Mercurius dance like the elusive sprite he was, from chamber to fiery chamber among the burning books; and she met her grandfather’s face, lean and maliciously handsome, savouring the quality of her pain, and taking perverse satisfaction in her appetite for the flames that licked him round. She saw the face of Edwin Frere.
Should she live to be a hundred, this great gap in her life, this hollow, aching unassuageably inside her, could never be filled. No flame could burn away its pain. And she would, she knew, be philosophical. It was her nature. She would again be calm. She would grow calm and wise and old. And – as was surely the case with him – whatever service she might still perform to illuminate the darkness of her fellow creatures and to lend them warmth, she would for ever be alone. But already – as she threw the last copy of her book into the fire – she knew that it was only a book she was burning there: it was not her life.
So intense was the heat the pages instantly combusted. All the life compressed within their binding was immediately transformed – fire reaching from the earth beside the water of the lake, becoming air – all the elements celebrated change. And, Benedicta Natura, she quoted silently to herself, blessed are thy works, for out of that blackness which is true putrefaction all the many colours shall unfold.
Yet it burned, it burned.
Sighing, Henry Agnew rose from where he sat shielding his yellowed eyes from the heat and – before she understood what was happening – with the wide, abandoned flourish of a man inebriated, he flung the pages of his own manuscript to the flame. Flame leapt to receive it. The pages became tongues.
And this was the hardest thing of all to bear that day.
Louisa watched him stare into the fire, tears rolling down his cheeks, and learnt again what she thought was already seared upon her soul: that only the pain of those we love is unendurable. A body might withstand whatever torment for itself, but to watch a loved one suffer tore the secret from the firmest will. Helpless, one wished, impossibly, to take the entirety of pain inside oneself.
In silence she reached for his hand, and they stood together, observing the ineluctable processes by which matter consecrated itself to matter, inherited itself. She felt his hand quaking under hers, and for the first time admitted to full consciousness what she had scarcely dared to glimpse before: that her father could not now have very long to live. He had betrayed the secret as she had not betrayed the secret, and the price of that was written on his flesh. About this too there was nothing, absolutely nothing, she could do.
If there was tragedy here, it was surely his, for her own work was not lost. It had simply become invisible inside her, had taken less palpable and more translucent form that it might endure, entirely on its own impassioned terms, throughout her days. She had merely followed the alchemists’ final advice to destroy the books, which were, in any case, no substitute for experience, and might – if too much value was attached to them – consume the heart. But he…
Had there been any tears to shed, she might have wept for him as his papers turned to soft black moths scribbled on the air. There were none, and so she turned again to the fire, wondering what must now become of the world they had sought so long and patiently to address. It would never, in any case, have heeded them. It was too addicted to fascinations of its own; one day, as matter was tormented ever more insensitively for its secrets, and apparent mastery over the elements increased, one day it might also consign itself to flame. And then, on this small planet would be universal suffering, and, in the Universal Mind, a sadness that one of the great experiments of Nature had failed.
Louisa contemplated this with an equanimity that frightened and astonished her, but what it might mean for the unfolding of a greater plan lay far beyond her powers to say.
Then she felt the grip of her father’s hand tighten, and a tremble pass through his frame. She saw him staring in a rapt trance of concentration at the flames, and there was awe in that gaze. Wondering, she looked back in the fixed direction of his eyes. She looked towards the fire which seemed to hang on the wind, almost without motion, like a candle flame.
The wind gusted again, the flames bent before it, and resumed their dance. A great sigh passed from her father’s lips. And he was whispering.
He was speaking aloud the ancient words in which Hermes Trismegistus, the father of the Art, had once spoken of his encounter with the Divine Intellect. “He looked me long in the face,” he whispered, “so that I trembled before his gaze. Then as he raised his hand again, I saw how in my own spirit that light which consists of countless possibilities became an Infinite All…” And there his old voice faltered. His eyes were watering against the heat, and his frown might have been expressive of intense physical pain, or of the difficult efforts of a failing mind to recover lines once known by heart and half-forgotten now.
For a moment Louisa wondered what he had seen in the fire to call forth these words. Had he seen anything at all – anything other than the phantom of his own lost hopes? There was no means to tell, but she saw the difficulty in his face as he struggled to remember, and prompted him.
“And then,” she offered, trembling now herself, “while I remained utterly outside the sense of a separate self…”
“…he spoke again…” Instantly the old man had seized her cue, and he was smiling now at the returning memory. “…He spoke again, saying, ‘Thou has now seen in the true intellectual spirit the origin and first form of all things… and that beginning to which shall never be an end.’”
His eyes were still fixed on the fire, and the smile had gone, replaced by a wistful yearning, troubled by nothing now, it seemed, save the vast invisible distances between where he stood and where he wished with all his heart to be. And so, hands tightly clasped, father and daughter stood for a long time, golden together in the light of the flame, while there, in the embers of the blaze that burned their secret, the secret thrived.
“There are things that fire won’t burn,” Edward said, “and we have one more duty. I think it’s time we took to the skiff.” He put an arm to my shoulder, the other to Laura’s, and pressed us towards the jetty, but when we arrived there, Laura drew in her breath and said, “I think the two of you should do this alone.”
“Why so?” Edward asked.
Smiling she said, “Because it’s the end of a man’s game,” and, before Edward could demur, turned away. We watched her walk along the lawn, away from the fire with its ring of chattering people, to sit alone on the lakeshore. “I’ll wait for you here,” she called. Edward shrugged, raised his brows at me and said, “I think you’d better take the oars.”
Reclining on cushions in the stern, he trailed a hand through the water as I rowed out into the lake. The sky was a deep, refulgent blue, ruddied a
t his back by the balefire’s glow. Someone had brought a guitar and people were singing. The sound travelled across the water. Woodsmoke mingled with the green lake smell.
“I suppose she was right,” he said.
“If this is what I think it’s about.”
“What else.”
We were silent for a time. Edward lay with his eyes closed, feeling the motion of the boat, listening to the sounds. Then he smiled, and said, “How very odd!”
“What?”
“That you should be my ferryman now.”
“I promise it won’t cost you an obol. And it’s a return trip.”
“Another?”
“Less dramatic, I hope.” I took in his dry smile and said, “Laura told me to ask you about that.”
“She didn’t tell you herself?”
“No. She thought you should.”
Edward sighed and stared down into the dark water. “One had heard of such experiences, of course…but when it happens…” He gazed wistfully across at me. “Rest your oars. Listen.”
He gathered his thoughts, and then, quietly, without drama, he told me his experience of the heart attack – how the pain in his chest and arms had exploded into blackness, then the calm awakening to detachment from his body. In exact detail he described the frantic scene in the room at the Rectory; he told me how, for a few instants, Laura had appeared translucent to him, and then how he had moved swiftly away towards the light. Like a man remembering a dream, he paused there, musing. I sat in rapt silence, waiting for his words.
“I recognized the place I came to,” he said after a time. “It was one of those impossible palaces out of the Splendor Solis. I knew the chequer-board tiles on the floor, the entablatures, the marble statues in their niches, the arcades with their prospects of distant towers and gardens… There was a lovely balance between masonry and air… a sense of a presiding architectural vision that was at once whimsical and informed by the classical spirit…” He paused, reached into his trouser pocket, and took out a packet of cigarettes.
“Edward, for God’s sake!…”
He made a moue, put a finger to his lips, and hissed, “My secret,” then struck a match and drew on the cigarette. “Don’t tell her,” he said, exhaling. “And don’t look at me like that.” After a time he resumed.
“There were people waiting for me. My arrival was expected. I was told that a wedding was about to be celebrated… that I was an honoured guest… and I knew that the other members of the wedding – people I once knew well – were all delighted I had come. There were genial smiles, jokes, the sound of convivial laughter… But I was in poor shape, dishevelled – a bit of a disgrace as usual – and though they weren’t surprised by my condition, I felt badly about it. They were prepared for that… I knew the cleansing would be uncomfortable at first, like shedding skin, or the first sensation of stepping into a hot bath… But I’d never felt so welcome, and I wanted the scouring. I wanted to be new, cleansed, to have fresh raiment, not to soil in any way the candid light around me… I wanted to be at my best for the bride and groom…”
He sighed again, then snorted, shrugged. “I don’t know how long I was there – time was immaterial – but eventually I became aware that there was some consternation around me. It was as though everyone but me understood that a difficulty had arisen. Then I was informed that someone had come for me. There had been some error… A friend of mine was here demanding to see me. I looked up and who should I see standing there but you?”
Edward smiled ruefully across at my astounded gaze. “You were not a welcome sight, I promise you. And you were very insistent, embarrassingly so. You claimed that I had unfinished business… that I had no leave to depart. There was much shaking of heads, regret, and the next thing I knew I was rammed back inside this wreck of a body and the shock was appalling – much worse than the physical pain, though that was bad, very bad…” He closed his eyes again, drew deeply on his cigarette, exhaled. “I was, as I think you may begin to understand, extremely displeased with you. Also, when I finally brought myself to accept your presence – back here, I mean – amazed that you appeared to be entirely innocent of what had happened.” He looked away across the lake. “So here we are,” he said, “and what do you make of all of that?”
I sat in the skiff, marvelling uncertainly at this strangest of all his traveller’s tales. The sound of laughter came from the shore, and Edward was smiling as though he’d heard the joke. Behind him the fire’s reflection wobbled in the lake.
“You’re quite sure it was me?”
“Unmistakably. Who else would have been so tactless?”
“Then if it was, I’m not sorry.”
“I might have guessed you’d lack the grace to apologize.” An eyebrow was lightly raised, the smile ironical.
“I seem to recall your telling me that everything in a dream is an aspect of the dreamer’s own psyche.”
“But I wasn’t dreaming. I’ve dreamt dreams and I’ve been through this experience. I assure you they are not the same.”
“Then are you telling me there’s an after-life?”
“I’m telling you what I know. Not a tittle more, not a jot less.” Again he smiled and looked away. “Of course, you’re at liberty not to believe me.”
“The difficulty is,” I said after a moment, “I half-believe I do.”
“And, putting aside the fact that I’m a famous liar, why should you not? After all, others have experienced something similar. They insist, as I do, that they were dead at the time.”
“Alchemical palaces?” I queried.
A gesture of his hand took in the lake, both shores, the stars.
“Don’t we live in an alchemical palace? But, no, the nature of the zone we enter appears to shape itself in sympathy with our individual tastes. Some are welcomed by long-dead relatives, some see Shiva in his glory, others are met by gentle Jesus himself. I was invited to attend the chymical wedding – an invitation which I was required, unfortunately, to decline. It took a little time to forgive. Beyond that, I make no claims.”
“But you must have given the matter thought?”
“Thought has its limits.” I thought for a moment he would say no more, but he sighed and looked back at me, and I knew now that he was absolutely serious, speaking with no urgent desire to persuade but out of calm conviction. “There are only three things I’m quite sure of. Firstly, that the mirror of experience is more mysterious than I’d even begun to imagine. Secondly, that I would much rather have stayed where I was… Yes, still… for all this happiness. Even now.” He drew again on his cigarette.
In the silence I said, “But this evening has been a kind of wedding, Edward. A better one, because it’s alive. That fire over there – we lit it against the dark.”
“Yes,” he answered quietly, “and I don’t for a moment demean it. But the third thing…”
“What is it?”
He smiled again, a little sadly. “I hesitated only because you can’t yet know it for yourself, and thus my words will make no difference. But the fact is, whatever fear I had of death has quite disappeared. It’s gone. There’s nothing to be afraid of there.”
“But you can’t want it. Not now.”
He gave a little laugh. “Don’t you know yet? I want everything. I want it all. Including a quiet smoke every now and then. And don’t understand me too quickly – I’m entirely conscious of the many privileges of being alive… even without that final consoling certainty.”
I shook my head in affectionate exasperation and said, “I’m sure Laura will be pleased to hear that.”
“I’m not speaking to Laura now. I’m speaking to you, and I’m only doing that because you – or whatever exacting spirit took your form – were quite right. I do have unfinished business here.”
“I hear you’ve been busy.”
“One has to pass the time.”
“You’re writing again?” I risked. And, when he nodded and glanced away, “Verse?”
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br /> “It’s the only serious answer to the silence, wouldn’t you say?”
“And it’s enough now?”
“Of course it’s not enough. But you may recall me suggesting once that we are children sent on an errand who forget our instructions?… For a long time I’ve been stupider than most, and there’s not a great deal of time left… One has to perform one’s duty as best one can.” He examined the tip of his cigarette, allowed a moment to lapse, then said, “And you?”
I took my cue from his casual nonchalance. “Oh, I’ve managed a scribble or two.”
He nodded, blew a smoke ring. “Any good?”
“A start. What about yours?”
“The same.” A breeze ferried more laughter across the lake.
“Not before time.”
“Impertinent little shit,” he muttered lazily.
“Perverse old bastard.”
We beamed at one another before he looked away, upwards at the sky where still, at this late hour, the dense blue was suffused with sunlight. There was an ease between us more complete than I’d experienced before, no contest, no need to prove anything. Though Edward’s manner was recognizably his own, he seemed less identified with it and by it. Such was the nature of his new repose, he felt more immediately accessible, yet also – and with no evident change in his demeanour – more subtly elusive. Thus I could look at him and see a mild old man reclining in a boat, or I could look across and see a figure who appeared to have passed beyond the fascination with ideas into a realm of knowledge where even the last duality of life and death raised no insuperable problem.
The Chymical Wedding Page 61
