Morgan le Fay. I am witch. I have made this thing. There is, can be, no such room as this in this world, therefore this room is not in this world, therefore we are in some other world. Mrs. Fletcher gone, how wonderful, all the slight pretence, the slight as slight pretence that things are “all right” and Mrs. Fletcher polite but I’m glad she’s gone for she took off just that edge, “madame, would you like a hot-water bottle,” took away the reality of the non-reality, “madame your hot water’s ready,” and the gold film that lay over the house was a little desecrated by her presence. The house was itself now, sunk on its haunches like a lion, tame now, knowing its masters, its lovers, knowing its keepers, its children. Hermione and Vane were children of the old house, the house that was haunted that Mrs. Fletcher had so at the last hated that she had burst into agonizing tears and said she never had known of a gentleman’s house where foxes stole the bacon. Foxes. No hunting. Tracts of moor, tracts of bushes, an adder, great hieratic creature curled in the hollow under the little out-house and Mrs. Fletcher finally deciding that some devil dwelt there. Did he? Someone, something lived in the great house, someone, something smote the beams and some note far and far sounded like some harp, some note, some string of notes, so that Vane seated at his table lifted his head and said “do you hear something?” Hermione had heard something but it was a breath of hearing like the sound you hear as a child in a sea shell of the whole sea. Monks had been driven from this cliff edge by daemons or was it finally that the daemons had been exorcised by monks for now the little church was gone too and the rocks still held the print of waters, of waters, of waters — you might, you did climb down to find Vane staring from unutterable height, white face, moon face stupid against a cone of sky, and waves that walked in. . walked in. . waves here and feet. It was evident that this was rock ledge of Laconian Artemis, some Artemis of the sea, some statue ought obviously to have been there. The house now crouched like a lion feeling its young turn under its supine belly.
“I love the house, Cyril.” “Do you?” “You know I do. Why did Mrs. Fletcher hate it?” “People do. They can rarely rent it.” “Have you bought it?” “I will if you would like it.” “Like it?” Belly of a supine lion, she was Morgan le Fay and she had made this house, this interior, how could she then so like it? “I mean I don’t know that I exactly like it—” “There you are. You’re like Preston, all those people who were here last summer—” “Didn’t they?” “They were angry with it — it felt it—” “It would, somehow.” “I don’t quite understand the knockers, that’s all.” “The knockers? But they’re the easiest, the simplest—” “People say so—”
The “knockers” knocked according to Cornish tradition, things it seemed to Hermione quite in tradition, not odd there at all, things tradition said out of the forsaken tin-mines — Phoenicians had come here. . Mithraic. . inimical. . not to her inimical. “I don’t understand having a child. It seems to me that I must be having a colt, a frog. It seems to me I must be having a dragon, a butterfly.” Why did she say that?
Morgan le Fay drift in to dinner in an old long semi-precious frock, drift in and seated at the head of the table, queen it over the long room, the odd coloured strips of oriental tapestry, the books and books and the luxury of the great fire making things dance and sing and the beams dance and quiver so that the fire-light is the very quivering of those gold strings that sounded, that they had both heard sounding sounding, leaving almost strips of light in the air, quivering air-strings of vibrant metal, strings, harps. “I think it’s much better since the Fletcher left, more at one, more a piece.” Chatter a little and let this precious red goblet that Vane must have to-night, bring some human colour to your gill-white pallor, Morgan le Fay for they will find you out, and swiftly, they will find you out and swiftly. Chatter a little, laugh, make him think for a moment you have forgotten. “Chilly. Funny and it’s only August.” Outside the deep sea full and sweet and fertile, lay and lifted to an odd sky that was not as other skies (it was 1918) and years were odd things then for the stars wheeled differently, years wheeled differently, hosts of spirits ascended to heaven but here and there daemons watched and sat and guarded mysteries for God, even God who demanded the sacrifice of spirits wheeling toward heaven, knew his people, his odd witches, his eternal guardians of the mystery of wisdom. Wisdom was an adder that had lifted a lithe head so that Mrs. Fletcher on the way to the little out house had fallen screaming into the low prickly gorse, had had actually to be rescued ignominiously, had sobbed and wailed in hysteria of repression, “but gentlemen’s houses—” Gentlemen’s houses were free of adders and raised heads to greet Hermione. God keeps his little secrets. God, you have made me one with you here and the farm girl came regularly, laid dishes, took away plates, cooked their own farm-fowl in their own rare red tomatoes, vegetables, odd red and rich things, different, eating. Hermione eat and don’t sing. Remember some of the testaments of the wise, try to recall wisdom for you are one of the children of Wisdom and God has told you one or another of his little secrets. Hermione, lift the goblet and sip the red wine and smile and be suave for God has told you some of his little secrets but you are in a world of men and men can blight you, men can ruin you. Morgan le Fay try to collect all the little threads of magic for God will take care of you only if you take care of yourself. Men, men, men, men. There were thousands of men. War dripped its rose-red petals, life upon life and love upon love and lilies rose up across the broken trenches. Guns creep nearer, nearer, will the guns prevail? Morgan le Fay drink deep, breathe deep, don’t lose your little witch-like pathos and your witch-like beauty. Not beauty as the world sees it but beauty as Mithra might see it. Morgan le Fay. . “what’s that, Cyril?” “I don’t know, the usual—” “Is it some big — boat?” “How do I know?” Guns, guns, guns, booming in the heavy stillness, guns, horror, listening, all the reality of the witch-world broken in a moment. “O Mamm I must be off. It may be, like last week, another bit of wreckage.” Gone. Little Hezzie from the farm had gone. Adventure. Guns. Boats. Even here, Morgan le Fay. .