And Shushila: “You won’t agree with that, Professor Stern? Being an American?”
And Leonora: “I think the letters should be in the British Library. We can all have microfilms and photocopies, the problems are only sentimental. And I’d like Christabel to have honour in her own country and Professor Blackadder here, who’s the greatest living Ash scholar, to have charge of the correspondence. I’m not acquisitive, Shushila—all I want is a chance to write the best critique of these letters once they’re available. The days of cultural imperialism are over, I’m glad to say.…”
Afterwards Leonora took his arm. “I’ll buy you a drink,” she said. “You need one, I guess. So do I. You did fine, Professor, better than I thought.”
“It was your influence,” Blackadder said. “What I said was an awful travesty. I apologise, Dr Stern. I didn’t mean to imply that you influenced me to travesty, I meant that you influenced me enough to make me articulate at all—”
“I know what you meant. I bet you like malt whisky, you’re a Scot.”
They found themselves in a dim and beery bar, where Leonora shone like a Christmas tree.
“Now, let me tell you where I think Maud Bailey is.…”
21
MUMMY POSSEST
Look, Geraldine, into the stones of fire
I spread my hands out on the velvet cloth—
Come closer, child, if you would learn to scry
And read the hieroglyphics of my rings!
See, how the stones glow on the milky skin—
Beryl and emerald and chrysoprase—
The gifts of lords and ladies, which I prize
Not for their cost,” but for their mystic sense
The subtle silent speech of Mother Earth.
Your hands, like mine, are sweetly soft and white.
I touch your fingers, and the electric spark
Springs twixt our skins—you sense it? Good. Now see
The shifting lights move on the stones and see
If any vision show itself to you
As, it may be, a mystic Face, all flushed
With floating radiance of actinic light,
Or, it may be, the interlacing boughs
Of God’s unearthly Orchard of Desire.
What do you see? A spider-web of light?
That’s a beginning. Soon the lines will form
The blessed showings of the Spirit World.
Lights are Intelligences in our minds, whose force
We no more comprehend than here, in these
Glittering jewels, we can say how rose
Or sapphire blue or emerald steady shines,
Or what makes all the brilliant colours glow
Along the throat of the Arabian bird,
Whilst here, in milder air, her neck is grey
Or in the Polar void a brilliant white.
Thus in God’s Garden the stones speak and shine.
Here we may read their silences, or scry
Eternal forms in earthly blocks of light.
Take up the crystal ball, sweet Geraldine.
Gaze on the sphere. Observe how left and right,
Above, below, reverse themselves in this
And in its depth a glittering chamber lies
Like a drowned world with downward-pointing flames,
This room in miniature, all widdershins.
Look steadily, and you will see all shift
Under the veils of spirit vision, see
What is not here, but comes from o’er the bourn.
My face, reversed, shall bathe in rosy fronds
As in her rocky cave, Actinia
The sea-anemone, puts out a cloud
Of hidden halo of odylic force—
And after mine, you shall see other Forms
In other lights, come swimming into view,
You shall, I swear it. Still be patient.
The force is fitful, and the vital spark
Which kindles in the Medium and lights
Conductive channels for the venturesome
Friends in the Spirit, leaps and dies again
Like Will-o-the-Wisps, or marsh-lights flickering.
I have called you here to teach you certain things.
You made a good beginning, all agreed.
Last Sunday’s trance was deep and absolute.
I held your fainting form against my breast
Whilst spirits jostled at those pretty lips
To speak their pure consoling speech, though some
Forced through their vileness that your innocence
Could never in its waking hours have framed
In thought or word. To these I cried “Avaunt!”
And fought them off, and in my listening ear
I heard the spirit voices bell-like sing
That you were chosen as their crystal cup
Their bright translucent Vessel, where ev’n I
With all my weary wisdom, might drink deep
A draught of power, and sweetness to refresh.
I mean that now I choose you to conduct
My seances with me, my partner sweet,
My Helper now, and in some future time
Who knows, a Seeress of Power yourself.
You know the ladies who will come tonight.
The Baroness is exigent. She mourns
A fat pug dog, who gambols in the Fields,
The flowery fields Beyond, and can be heard
To yap in satisfaction, as it used.
Beware of Mr Holm. He is a Judge,
In whom the injurious Sprite of scepticism
Dies hard, and rears his head, once laid to rest,
At any sight or sound that’s untoward.
Most promising—that is, in spiritual terms—
Most heart-torn, and most sorrowing, is the young
Countess of Claregrove, who has lost her child,
Her only son, a year since, when he was
Scarce more than lisping Babe of two years’ growth
Snatched by a fever in a summer Tour.
His small voice has been heard in broken sounds—
He makes, he says, perpetual daisy-chains
In wondrous meadows—but she weeps and weeps,
And will not be consoled, and takes with her
Where’er she goes, a lock of his bright hair
Cut from his marble brow as he lay cold.
More than all else she longs to touch his hand,
To kiss his little cheek, to know he is
And was not claimed by Chaos and the Dark.
I tell you this because—I tell you this—
In fine, I tell you this, because I must
Explain how we, to whom the Spirits speak
Eke out their wayward signals and the gifts
Vouchsafed from time to time of sight and touch
And otherworldly hearing, with our own—
How shall I say?—manifestations
We fabricate to demonstrate their Truth.
Sometimes, ’tis true, our Visitors ring Bells,
Lights dance about the room, and heavenly Hands
Touch mortal flesh. Sometimes there are Apports—
Glasses of flowery wine, or fragrant wreaths,
Or snapping Lobsters from the ocean Deep.
Sometimes the Power falters and is dumb.
Yet on these blank days, when my aching frame
Is lumpish flesh of flesh and no voice sounds—
The anxious Seekers gather with their Cares,
Griefs unassuaged, and incredulities—
And I have asked the Spirits and been taught
A way of helping out, to improvise
Display and substitute the mysteries
And thus console the sad, and thus confound
The savage sceptics with a visible Proof.
White gloves and gossamer threads move and amaze
As disembodied hands do; angel-wreaths
Descend on finest thr
eads from chandeliers.
And what one Medium may do, my sweet,
Two may improve on almost endlessly.
Your figure is so fairy-fine, my Love,
Could, at a pinch, glide between these two screens?
Your little hands in kidskin could take hold
In teasing mode, of sceptical male knees
Or stir a crinoline, or brush a beard
With a hint of wholesome perfume, could they not?
What’s that you say? You do not like to lie?
I hope you may remember who you are
And what you were, a pretty parlour-maid
Whose mistress did not like her prettiness
Or soulful stare at the young man o’ the house.
Who helped you then, I ask you, gave you home
And home’s essential comforts, bread and clothes,
Discovered talents in you quite unguessed,
Cosseted you and turned your soulfulness
To use both spiritual and lucrative?
You are grateful? So I should suppose. Well then,
Let Gratitude hold ope the door to Trust!
Our small deceptions are a form of Art
Which has its simple and its high degree
As women know, who lavish on wax dolls
The skills and the desires that large-souled men
Save up for marble Cherubs, or who sew
On lowly cushions thickets of bright flowers
Which done in oils were marvelled at on walls
Of ducal halls or city galleries.
You call these spirit mises en scène a lie.
I call it artfulness, or simply Art,
A Tale, a Story, that may hide a Truth
As wonder-tales do, even in the Best Book.
Consider this. Arts have their Medium—
Coloratura, tempera, or stone.
Through medium of paint the Ideal Form
Of the Eternal Mother shows herself
(Though modelled maybe on some worthless wench
No better than she should be, we may guess).
Through medium of language the great Poets
Keep constant the Ideal, as Beatrice
Speaks still to us, though Dante’s flesh is dust.
So through the Medium of this poor flesh
With sweats and groanings, nauseas and cries
Of animal anguish, the sublimest Souls
Make themselves known to those who sit and wait.
And through this self-same flesh, they urge the skills
That light the phosphor-matches, knot the threads
Or lift the heavy chair from off the rug.
The spirits weave them flesh and robes of air,
Of air and matter of my grosser breath
Whose warmth brushes thy brow in this my kiss—
And if one night they neither come nor weave—
Why you and I may make their motions felt
With subtle fingers and the self-same breath
Lifting the more corporeal veils of flesh …
You catch my meaning?
One night the flute is filled with spirit breath
Swooningly sweet. The next, my breath, or thine,
Tutored by them, must body forth their sound
Since they neglect to whistle, but the notes
The self-same notes breathe still the self-same sigh
Of sweet regret and sweeter hope to come—
Art tells a truth, sweet girl, though all her tales
Are lies i’the law-court, or the chemist’s phial—
We must be artful for the spirit’s truth
In which we’re tutored by them, d’you see?
You must not stare at me with fair large eyes
Full of a question and a glittering tear.
Drink up this cordial glass of wildflower wine—
’Twill settle you—come near—compose yourself
And fix your eyes on mine, your hand in mine,
And feel us breathe together. So. When first
I mesmerised you, and your youthful soul
Opened itself to mine, as morning flowers
Open their cups to the warm Sun, I knew
You were a being set apart, a Soul
Responsive to my powers, and ductile too.
Look up into my eyes, I say. You see
The love of a good woman there, whate’er
The spirit lords may else reveal, my dear.
Draw in the influence fearlessly. Now drowse
And calm your pulses, whilst my stronger arm
Supports your softnesses. Here, Geraldine.
My love is merciless to do you good.
Know you not that we Women have no Power
In the cold world of objects Reason rules,
Where all is measured and mechanical?
There we are chattels, baubles, property,
Flowers pent in vases with our roots sliced off,
To shine a day and perish. But you see,
Here in this secret room, all curtained round
With vaguest softness, all dimly lit
With flickerings and twinklings, where all shapes
Are indistinct, all sounds ambiguous,
Here we have Power, here the Irrational,
The Intuition of the Unseen Powers
Speaks to our women’s nerves, galvanic threads
Which gather up, interpret and transmit
The unseen Powers and their hidden Will.
This is our negative world, where the Unseen,
Unheard, Impalpable, and Unconfined
Speak to and through us—it is we who hear,
Our natures that receive their thrilling force.
Come into this reversed world, Geraldine,
Where power flows upwards, as in the glass ball,
Where left is right, and clocks go widdershins,
And women sit enthroned and wear the robes,
The wreaths of scented roses and the crowns,
The jewels in our hair, the sardonyx,
The moonstones and the rubies and the pearls,
The royal stones, where we are priestesses
And powerful Queens, and all swims with our Will.
All mages have been tricksters. We are no
More and no less than all High Priests have been
Holding the masses to the faith with shows
Of firework and magic to impress
With symbols of Heaven’s brightness those dull eyes
Which won’t conceive our meanings from our speech.
You are calmer now. That’s good. That’s good. I stroke
The blue veins in your arms with my ringed hands
And power flows from me to you. You feel
The benefit of it. You are calm. Quite calm.
You call yourself my Slave. Not so, my dear.
Avoid extravagance of phrase or tone
If you would taste success in this new Sphere.
You are my Pupil and my dear, dear friend,
You are, who knows, the next Sybilla Silt,
But now you must be decorous and show
Deference to the ladies, gentle tact
To the rough male-folk, bring them cups of tea
And smile, and listen, for we need to know
All that their innocent gossiping reveals.
Here, as you see, the gauze lies hid, and here,
The flowers to let fall, and here the gloves
Ready to make the airy passes with.
I need your help with Lady Claregrove’s son.
She is almost mad to feel his touch, and grasp
The tiny fingers. If the room is dark—
And you creep—so—and rest your elbow—so—
Briefly—and touch her cheek—your fingers are
Most exquisitely dimpling and fine.
What’s that you say? How can it do her hurt?
Her will to Faith’s a good, and our small tricks
&
nbsp; Our genial deceptions, strengthen that,
And so are good too, in their harmless way.
Here is a lock of hair—the housemaid’s hair—
As golden as her son’s, and just as fine—
Which at some aptest moment you let fall
You understand me—in her lap—or on
Her clutching fingers—that will do such good—
Will give such Happiness that you and I
May grow and prosper in its lovely warmth.
We shall have gifts and she her moment’s hope,
Nay more, her certainty …
Caetera desunt
22
Val was in the stand at Newmarket, watching the empty track, straining her ears for the sound of the hooves, seeing the small bunch of dust and regular surging turn into a stream of shining muscle and brilliant silk, and then come past in a flash, bay, grey, chestnut, bay, so much waiting for so short a time of thundering life. And then the release of tension, the sweat-streaked beasts with flaring nostrils, the people congratulating or shrugging.
“Who won?” she said to Euan MacIntyre. “It was so quick, I didn’t see.” Though she had cried out with the rest.
“We won,” said Euan. “He won, The Reverberator. He was great.”
Val flung her arms around Euan’s neck.
“We can have a celebration,” said Euan. “Twenty-five to one, not bad, we knew he would come good.”
“I bet on him,” said Val. “To win. I put some money on White Nights, each way, because its name was nice, but I bet on him to win.”
“There,” said Euan. “You see I’ve cheered you up. Nothing like a gamble and a bit of action.”
“You didn’t tell me it was so beautiful,” said Val.
It was a good day, an English day, palely sunny, with patches of mist out at the edges of vision, out at the invisible end of the track, where the horses gathered.
Val had had the idea that racecourses were like the betting shops of her childhood, smelling of beer and fag ends and, it seemed to her, sawdust and male piss.
And this was grass and clean air and a sense of cheerfulness, and the dancing lovely creatures.
“I don’t know if the others are here,” said Euan. “Want to look?”