Come my songs,
Let us praise ourselves;
I doubt if the smug will do it for us,
The smug who possess all the rest of the universe.
She turned to W. B. to ask if he had read it, but his expression surprised her—a fierce expression, as if he were bracing for something—and seeing him like that, she forgot what she was about to say. She was already struggling with her own set of feelings, and here was a whole other person with his own feelings. She turned to the window to collect herself, and by the time she turned back, the poet had gone.
She went looking for him afterwards, but he must have left the party altogether. She found Nelly and told her that she was tired and she was going home early. Although she knew she should congratulate Ezra and say goodbye to Dorothy, she avoided speaking to either of them. Instead, she made her way to Bassett Road alone.
When the cab stopped outside the house on Bassett Road just before ten that night, Georgie almost ordered the driver to go back to Drayton Gardens. The Bassett Road house was white, suburban, unremarkable, but there was something in its plainness, its unassuming facade, that made her nervous. Who knew what might be inside? She hesitated, but having ordered the car here, she felt too embarrassed to do anything but pay the driver and get out onto the street.
As the car drove away, she walked up the steps to the house and rang the bell. She showed the servant her green card, and he took her down the hall and pointed to a heavy door.
“Please shut it after you, ma’am,” he said.
She entered a completely dark room. When she closed the door, she heard the click of a lock. She could tell she was standing in a large room, although she could not see the walls. All around her she could hear people breathing. She wished her eyes would adjust. She took a few steps forward into the darkness.
Something was moving towards her. It was a figure in a long black robe, with arms out. The figure was cradling a black mass, and offered it to her. She took it. It was a long robe, with a large hood. She shook it out; it smelled of aniseed and another woman’s perfume. Although the fabric was heavy, Georgie found as she pulled the robe on, she felt lighter. She stepped back and walked into someone.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, as the body ducked away. The world seemed to be retreating from her. She wanted to reach out to feel what was in front of her, to understand where she was, but instead she stood and waited.
As her eyes began to adjust, she could see the outlines of a series of figures around the room, a crowd, all wearing hooded robes, all turned to her. Dozens of silent figures. She couldn’t work out which were men and which were women. Eventually, someone came forward and took her hand, and led her slowly to the far end of the room. The figure took a match, struck it, and the flame shuddered as it was carried over to light a bright torch.
Now she could see in front of her a golden altar, laid with red cloth, and on top of that a knife, a rope, and a silver cup.
She turned to look at the other figures in the light. Each one had a hood pulled down to cover his or her face, and each robe displayed a symbol on its front: a bird with human fingers; a planet on fire; a blind man dangling from a tree.
The hooded strangers all faced her. They seemed to expect something from her. She turned back to the altar. She noticed a pair of red shoes on the floor, and she slipped off her own shoes and put the red shoes on. They were a bit too big for her and felt sticky on her stockinged feet.
The figure who had led her to the altar now spoke to her. “I am the Hiereus,” he said. “Do you swear to persevere in the labours of the Divine Science?”
She smiled under her hood. Although he still had his own hood down over his eyes, she was certain from his voice that it was W. B. His robe was black with a white cross on his left breast. He was picking up the knife from the altar, and he dipped it into the silver cup, up to his fingers, and brought it over to her. He placed it in her hand—it was wet—and she could smell red wine on her fingers.
“I am the expounder of mysteries,” he said, and he put his hand around her hand and guided the knife up until the wet blade was against her neck. The touch of his hand on hers was firm, each finger pressing the underside of her hand. “Repeat after me.”
With the blade against her skin, she repeated:
And as I bow my neck under the dagger of the Hiereus
And as I bow my neck under the dagger of the Hiereus
so do I commit myself
so do I commit myself
through the ancient texts found by the countess
through the ancient texts found by the countess
into the hands of the Order’s Divine Guardians.
into the hands of the Order’s Divine Guardians.
He took the knife away and she looked up at him. She wanted to pull his hood back from his face. The people around the room were facing them, all with hoods still pulled low over their eyes, all gathered around and watching her. They were murmuring approval.
FIVE
WINTER 1916
She arrived too early for her shift at the hospital, and while she was wandering around the area, she found herself outside a small jeweller’s shop. There had been air raids recently not far from here, but the possibility that a bomb could fall from the sky onto this particular cobble-strewn, sunlit street felt as likely as the sparrows opening their beaks to debate Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Georgie entered the shop, the glittering of the bell above her head, to find a small array of gold and silver items under glass. She was still alone in the shop as she walked slowly around the glass cases. It was strange to be in a room that wasn’t the hospital, where things might be bought and sold, and there was no muffled speech, no creaking beds or clinking glasses, no strained breathing.
She stopped above a large golden ring. It was a man’s signet ring, but it appeared to be blank, with no engraving.
“See something you like?” A boy of around nineteen had appeared from out the back. It had been a while since she’d seen a young man out of uniform. He was a cautious salesman, staying back from the glass cases.
“Why is there nothing on it?”
“Sorry?” He was not close enough to see which ring she was looking at, and he allowed himself to come a little farther into the room. He peered into the case. “I see what you mean. I’ve no idea. I’ll check the notes.” He went over to a scrapbook that was hanging on a string on the wall, and flicked through the pages. “My brother says . . . it belonged to a Frenchman . . . down in the Pyrenees. No more information than that, I’m afraid. Perhaps his family disowned him, and they had the engraving removed?”
She looked closer at the ring, with its plain round face, but it looked entirely smooth. She thought of W. B., who believed you could access the Great Memory—all the memories of the dead—through symbols. Here was an opportunity to imprint the symbols herself, to stamp them into gold. She noticed the boy watching her.
“Would you like to have a closer look?” He had plucked a key from his pocket. He was wearing thin white gloves, and he unlocked the case with some difficulty, pried the ring from its glass holder, and passed it to her.
It was heavy. She turned it around in her fingers.
“It’s so strange there are no markings,” she said. She wondered what she might imprint on this ring, what memories of the dead she might wake.