“Then why do you lie to Willie so persistently? Why not tell him that the child you mourn is not some little adopted Georgette but your own son, George? Why let kind Willie persist in viewing you as a pure goddess? Why not tell him of your French lover, father of that dead son?”
“It would hurt him!”
“It would hurt you.”
The retort was as cutting as a blade.
“It would destroy your myth. Maud Gonne, the Joan of Arc of Ireland, pure and passionate, giving herself and her small fortune to the Cause would be transformed into pathetic Maud Gonne, mistress to a second-rate French journalist, bedmate to a man who would pimp her for his revolutionary cause, yet is so weak he collapses into whining misery if she leaves him.”
“That isn’t how it is between us.”
“You lie if you deny it. I speak only the truth. I am the truth. You, for all your pretensions of fiery honesty and righteous passion are the lie. You are cold with the chill of fearlessness. Only those who fear are brave. You do not fear—not even death. Or so you say . . . Is that lack of fear why you did not hesitate to barter away your father’s life? Since death is something not to fear, did you fool yourself that you were doing your Tommy no harm?”
“No!”
Maud’s scream of anguish was so intense that it ripped through the veil that separated her from Willie. She saw him move toward her, felt him touch her arm, heard the sound of his words but could make no sense of them. Only the words of the Lady in Grey reached her ears, though she raised her fists to cover them.
“You cannot have forgotten, have you?”th e Lady taunted. “Have you forgotten the young girl chafing under the restrictions set by her indulgent father—that same father who gave you and your sister free dom to play wild when others would have bundled you off to some boarding school? That father who taught you not to fear anything—even death.”
“I don’t want to hear this!”
“Why?”cam e the mocking reply. “Is there then something you fear?”
Maud could not manage the slightest sound. Her sense of herself was dissolving into minute fragments. The Lady in Grey spoke on relentlessly.
“You called your father ‘Tommy,’ as if he were a boy your own age. When you were reaching womanhood, you felt strange, perverse pride when Tommy escorted you on some outing. Together you laughed when you—father and daughter—were mistaken for newlywed man and wife. Yet when Tommy asserted his father’s role, when he insisted that you not encourage flirtations, you were angered. Or was it something else that angered you? Something else that made you act against him?”
“No! No! No!”
“Had you learned that your Tommy had a lover?”c ontinued the relentless interrogation.“Had you learned that this woman was heavy with his child? I think you did know this, and that you resented how your Tommy went to this woman to ease his needs. You were angered that he sought to command you when he was not even in command of himself. You were jealous that he could care for another. So what did you do?”
“No! Say nothing more. I demand it.”
The Lady in Grey’s lips shaped a mocking smile; her words flowed unceasing. “On a night full of storm, storms you did not fear, for you fear nothing, you lingered over the fire, brooding over the restrictions Tommy had placed on you—and on other things. There was a book among your father’s belongings, one of those he had collected for its beauty—for he had an eye for beauty in all things . . .”
“No!”
Protest had become plea, and with a cruel smile the Lady in Grey interrupted her narration.
“I will tell it or you will, Fearless,”said the Lady in Grey.
“I will tell,”M aud said, drawing on the private strength that had always been her own. She saw the Lady in Grey grow taller as she did so, and knew the link between them. But she had promised, so she spoke.
“There was a book of occult writings among my father’s treasures. It contained incantations and bits of lore, but he had not purchased it for these.He had bought the book because of the richness of its illuminated engravings and the gilt edge of its bindings. Always interested in building my resources, I had read the book and knew its contents well.
“Among the spells within the book was a prayer for calling upon the Devil and receiving his aid. I spoke that prayer aloud with all the anger in my heart. As I finished the clock struck midnight. I knew then my bargain had been taken. The Devil had become my ally. When my father fell ill some days later, I knew the sickness would be his death, though the doctor had not yet spoken the words ‘typhoid fever.’ I dreamed of Tommy’s funeral in perfect detail and felt nothing more than idle curiosity.”
She stopped, but the Lady in Grey was not finished with her.
“As you won your freedom from Tommy,”th e Lady in Grey said, no approval in her cold eyes for Maud’s courage in articulating this horrid memory, “so you later won it from the uncle appointed your guardian, though it meant alienating his own daughter from him, and taking your sister from a quiet life that might have suited her and saved her from the unhappy marriage she later made. No matter the cost to others. You must have again the wild freedom of a child, running with the wind in the heather.”
Maud laid her face in her hands and realized that her skin was as cold as that of her adversary.
“Shall we talk of other deaths you have brought, Fearless? Of the men who, inspired by your words, have gone to fight and die? Of the peasants who have been evicted for defying their masters and have later died in ditches? Of little George, whom you mourn now in your costume of black? Would George have grown ill if his mother had spared time for him—but she must deny him in favor of revolution . . .”
“Why are you tormenting me?”
“I am not. If you fear nothing, you cannot fear the truth about yourself. It cannot torment you.”
“You are evil . . .”
“You know best.”
WILLIE
Willie gazed in horrified fascination at what his magic had wrought. Maud stood transfixed, staring at her own reflection in the window glass, speaking unintelligibly, not hearing when he spoke to her.
When a touch on her arm did nothing, he went past her and pulled the curtain over the glass. She continued to interact with the reflection she could no longer see.
Growing frightened,Willie reviewed his rituals, seeking one that would break the first summoning.When those symbols did nothing, he began drawing signs for a ritual meant to sharpen his own perception of what lay beyond the veil.
The first few sketched symbols had no effect, but then Willie thought of an elaborate combination evoking Maud’s birth planet conjoined with Venus followed by his own conjoined with Mars, following the whole with Mercury, for Hermes is the guide to travelers and the patron of magic.
At the conclusion of this ritual, Willie felt a trembling, then a wash of cold and dampening of sound. Then, with outline blurred and substance cloudy, yet clear enough not to be mistaken for a product of his imagination,Willie saw the Lady in Grey.
I have parted the veil, he thought, pride and apprehension mingling in his breast.
He could hear but fragments of the conversation between Maud and the Lady in Grey, the words as faint to his ear as if heard across a broad field, where an occasional word was tossed to him by the wind.
“Maud!”h e cried. “Tell me what she is saying!”
MAUD
As a butterfly might feel the touch of a summer zephyr, so Maud felt Willie’s mystic workings—she was aware of them, but they did not distract her from her object.
She faced the Lady in Grey and spoke of the cost of truth.
“Parnell,”Maud said slowly, “ruined himself and his cause by his actions. He loved well, but not wisely.”
“As did you,”th e other replied.
“The agent of Parnell’s ruination was truth—not love.”
“And what his enemies did with that truth.”
“They would do more to me,”Maud
said, “for I am a woman, and my sex is held to higher standards. Parnell’s enemies forced him into exile. I would not be so lucky. I would be paraded through the streets, and even those who have been helped by my actions would drown me in their poison.”
“True.”
“Even so, I do not fear for myself or my reputation. I gave up fearing for my petty respectability when I left Uncle William’s house and went on the stage.”
“That is so.”
“The Irish people need those leaders who remain to them more now that Parnell is dead,”M aud said. “They need inspiration, or the cause will be lost, buried in the earth even as Parnell has been buried. The factions since his exile have been pulling us apart. Now that Par-nell can never return, factionalism will grow worse as his successors seek to claim leadership.”
The Lady in Grey picked up the thread, her voice coaxing, “Can you rob the people of inspiration at such a critical time? Can you set the Lady of the Sidhe up for attack when she is most needed? Can you deny them their Irish Joan of Arc?”
Maud shook her head.
“I cannot. I feel that my debasement would end the Irish national cause as surely as if Ireland were sunk into the sea.”
They stared at each other in silent consideration. Now Maud heard Willie’s voice calling as though across a great distance,“Maud, tell me what she is saying!”
She remembered that Willie knew nothing of who the Lady in Grey truly was.“I cannot tell him who you are!”M aud protested aloud.
“Lie to him,”th e other sneered. “You’re good at that. I warn you. Shape your lies not too far from the truth, for William Butler Yeats is already sensitive, and this rending of the veil will sharpen his ear to lies.”
Maud nodded, then turned away from the Lady in Grey. As she pulled closed the rent in the veil, she felt as never before the other’s cold hand upon her heart.
WILLIE
At last she heard him!
Maud turned and, stumbling slightly, felt her way into the nearest chair. She reached for her cup of tea, surely cold by then, but drank it thirstily and poured another from the still-warm pot.
Shaking slightly, the slender length of her hand quested after the sugar bowl. Willie took it from her and spooned a liberal measure into the steaming tea, his heart wrung with pity for that tremor in a hand usually so steady.
“Maud,”h e asked gently, eager to gather impressions while they were fresh in her mind. “What did you see? What did she say to you?”
“The Lady in Grey,”M aud murmured as if partially entranced. “She said she was me, a part of me, from a past life.”
Willie nodded, his mind racing.
I wonder if Russell’s talk of reincarnation colors Maud’s memories? That does not invalidate the experience. She mentioned the woman soon after Russell’s departure. His words may be what brought the woman to mind. Unconsciously, Maud may have been aware of their connection even before my agency brought them face-to-face.
“A past life?”he prompted.
“In Egypt,”Maud replied, speaking more quickly now. “She—or I—was a priestess responsible for oracles in a great temple. She had a lover, a priest, and he persuaded her to give false oracles to serve some purpose of his—for money.”
The last phrase was added hastily, and Willie felt a flicker of unease, as if Maud might have said something she did not wish him to hear and had added the words to distract him.
Does she think I would be jealous of this past-life lover? Willie thought. Perhaps she is right to so dread. I am jealous, but I can hide that jealousy.
“I don’t understand this next,”M aud went on, casting him a pretty look of appeal. “The Lady in Grey spoke as to how this betrayal of her sacred trust was so great a violation of her vows that the part of her that had been responsible for the betrayal split off from the greater soul and became a wandering spirit.”
Willie felt a surge of satisfaction that quite drowned his momentary jealousy.His studies with the Theosophical Society had included just such theory. Although Maud was interested in psychic phenom- ena, hers was not a scholar’s interest. It was unlikely she had encountered the theory before. Therefore, not only was her report reasonable, it confirmed established thought.
“I have studied this phenomenon,”h e said, patting her hand. “You must take care. Although rejected by the greater soul, the fragment will always seek reunion. It must always be refused. The generative seed of its being is an evil deed—so evil the soul could not bear to embrace it. To accept the fragment back into the whole, no matter how great the pity you feel for the exile, is to risk being flooded by that evil.”
Maud looked at him and smiled strangely.
“Don’t worry, Willie. I’m not afraid. Haven’t I told you before that I am never afraid?”
She rose, her trembling completely gone, and even the sorrow that had weighted her before her arrival diminished. She looked stronger, and, in that strength, more distant. Willie felt a twinge of longing for the weaker Maud, who had needed his comfort, but he put the feeling from him as selfish.
“I must be going now,”Maud said.“Where is my wrap?”
Despite his protestations that they must further analyze her experience, Maud departed soon after, promising to let him call on her the next day. She would not allow him to see her to the street, saying she was perfectly capable of finding a cab.
Willie went to the window to watch her depart. As he pulled back the curtain, he found a face was looking at him from the glass. The cold shock sent him reeling back a pace, the curtain falling limp from his hand, but the face and the woman to whom it belonged remained standing before him.
She resembled Maud and yet was not precisely the same. A veil of some gauzy stuff was drawn across the lower half of her face. He could see her lips, full and beautifully shaped,moving behind it.
“You have never really believed,”said the Lady in Grey, and her voice was Maud’s, underlaid with a mocking note he had before heard only in nightmare. “If you had believed, you would never have summoned me to face her. I shall give you something to remember me by—and to remind you of the dangers of parting the veil.”
Bending slightly, the Lady in Grey extended one hand toward Willie’s groin. The cold caress of her fingers slipped through the fabric and touched him intimately, even as he had fantasized in shameful dreams that Maud would touch him. Cold emanated from those elegant fingers, spreading through his masculine parts and lingering long after the Lady in Grey had given him a saucy smile and vanished.
MAUD
Initially,Maud was pleased to have spoken with her other self. Aware that Tommy’s cautions about fear seemed to have been the genesis of the Lady’s independence, Maud took another of his teachings as her guide when dealing with the Lady in Grey.
“Will is a strange, incalculable force,”sh e remembered Tommy saying. “It is so powerful that if, as a boy, I had willed to be the Pope of Rome, I would have been the Pope.”
But Tommy had not possessed a fixed will, and so had achieved little. Maud was determined not to make the same mistake. Her will would be strong enough to make the Lady in Grey her agent.
Maud took to sending the Lady in Grey to infiltrate the dreams of her adversaries and through the Lady’s agency persuading the reluctant ones to join Maud’s cause. In this way,Maud reasoned, the Lady would do good, and so would not be the evil influence Willie feared.
The Lady in Grey seemed pleased by these missions, going forth in whatever guise would best reach her target’s subconscious self: sometimes as Maud herself, sometimes as the devious and lovely Queen Maeve, sometimes armed and armored as the Irish Joan of Arc. Maud’s influence grew. Despite the loss of Parnell, the cause of Irish Independence grew stronger.
Yet there were difficulties between Maud and the Lady as well. For one, though Maud would fain have let the Lady in Grey resume haunting her only with an occasional vision, Willie’s parting of the veil seemed to have given the Lady more freedom to ap
pear at her own impulse. Her appearances grew more frequent the more Maud relied on her services.
The Lady in Grey only appeared in certain circumstances, most often when someone who was psychically sensitive was present. After some embarrassing errors, Maud realized that no one but herself could see the Lady. Only the most sensitive seemed even to know she was there.
Soon after the Lady in Grey first appeared,Willie brought Maud to meet the head of the Order of the Golden Dawn. Willie seemed hopeful that the Order might do something to help Maud banish the Lady, but though MacGregor Mathers had been willing to lecture Maud from his copious hoard of odd knowledge, it was his wife, Mina, who seemed to be more aware of the Lady in Grey.
“Beware of her,”Mina warned. “I sense she has killed a child, and though she regrets it, there is hatred in her for children.”
Maud, who knew too well that the dead child was her own George, killed by her neglect, said nothing. She wondered if the hatred Mina sensed in the Lady in Grey was shared by herself as well, and that her grief was only a sham.Was she perhaps relieved to have the child gone? Had her deepest heart seen little George as an impediment to her freedom as Tommy had been?
So horrified was Maud by the thought that she convinced her French lover to lie with her again, this time in the vault under the memorial chapel of their dead son. She prayed that her child would come back to her and show forgiveness, but there was no sign that George had heard.
When the child conceived in that union was born, it proved to be a girl. Though Maud tried to lavish on Iseult the devotion she had not given to little George, her attempts at motherhood were stayed by the mocking face of the Lady in Grey.
“No child, no lover offers you the excitement you crave. Only I give you what you most desire, Fearless, Flawless, goddess who inflames men’s passions. This is the price you pay.”
Maud and Willie had drifted apart—partly because she could not bear keeping her new secret from him, partly because he was angry with her for quitting the Order of the Golden Dawn. She had told him that this was because she suspected the Order had ties to Freemasonry, which she despised as one of the tools of the British Empire. Her true reason was that the Lady in Grey appeared frequently in their presence, unsettling all.
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