Part 7 (1/2)
It was what she had felt when she had been in Greece with her father and mother that last year before they met their deaths.
She had known that light that had seemed different from any other anywhere in the world, and though it was difficult to put into words, she had felt as if Apollo was there.
She found him in everything she saw; in the waves of the sea, in the fish churning in the nets, in the gleaming eyes of the Greeks themselves, and even in the bare rocks which rose almost threateningly above the valleys.
A light that seemed to have been crystallised and to be more intense, more pure and more spiritual than any other she had known.
Aloud she asked: ”Why are you painting this picture?”
”It is for a book,” Vulcan answered briefly. ”What book? Have you written it yourself?” ”Of course!”
”What is it about?”
”I doubt if you would be interested.”
”I am interested.”
He looked at her again.
”You are perfect! I am prepared to go down on my knees and make any sacrifice to you, or whoever sent you, because you are what I wanted.”
”I am glad I can be so ... useful.”
”Useful!” he explained. ”It is much more than that ! I was in despair of ever getting this picture finished on time. But now you are here and I am not certain how I can express my grat.i.tude. ”
”In time for what?” Astara asked.
”Publication day.”
”I asked you what your book is about.”
He smiled and she thought it took the hardness from his face.
It was in fact, she told herself, a hard face, the face of a man who might have fought and struggled against tremendous odds.
Then she reminded herself that according to Sir Roderick Vulcan had just been a waster, a wanderer over the face of the earth with no set purpose.
It was not surprising that Sir Roderick who always applied himself so diligently, spurred on by his ambition to succeed, should despise someone who appeared to him to be just drifting.
”I would like you to tell me what subject you are writing about,” Astara insisted, ”especially as you tell me I am so ... useful.”
”You are useful, and let me tell you that you are at the moment taking part in the mysteries of Eleusis.
Astara smiled. It was what she had expected.
Her father had told her of the great ceremonies that had taken place at Eleusis near Athens, when people gathered from the ends of the earth to attend the mysteries in the Temple and for some of them to be initiated.
She knew that the wors.h.i.+ppers gathered there on the nineteenth day of the month at the Double Gate below the Acropolis, for the fourteen-mile journey along the Sacred Way.
They wore purple robes, carried long sticks of fennel and were crowned with myrtle.
The most important part of the long and exhausting ceremony came when Persephone appeared holding a sheaf of corn as one would hold a child.
The Initiates had been kept in darkness, as it were of the underworld, and had been deafened by the sound of rus.h.i.+ng waters, by thunder, by music, and by other alarming devices which would lead them into an emotional state where they would be receptive to the final mystery.
Invisible hands had clutched at them and in horror they had been brought almost to the state of madness.
No-one knew, Astara had been told by her father, how long an Initiate wandered in the darkness, until suddenly he emerged into a light that seemed to be brought of would be candles, the brightness of a shrine and Persephone holding in her arms a sheaf of corn.
She would give an ear of corn to the Initiate and a jug filled with water. Then as she commanded: ”Let the rain fall! Let the seed flower!” the priests danced round him, for he himself had become part of spring and light.
As it all flashed through Astaras mind, she now knew how Vulcan was painting her.
Yet she wondered how any living painter could depict those sacred moments that were so mysterious that they were untranslatable into words.
Her silence must have surprised Vulcan for after a moment he asked: ”Are you no longer curious, or are you just tired?”
”A little tired, perhaps,” Astara admitted.
”Then you may rest, ” he said, ”but only for a short while. I must go on painting just in case I am not blessed by your appearance another day. ”
Astara put down the sheaf of wheat on a chair, feeling that in fact it had suddenly become very heavy in her arms.
She had sat for two artists in Rome who had painted her portrait, neither to Roderick s satisfaction, and she knew of old how exhausting it was to keep in one position for very long.
She stepped down from the dais and as she did so she asked ”May I look at your painting? ”
She knew that many artists would refuse, but Vulcan replied indifferently : ”If you wish, but I do not suppose for one moment it is the sort of picture you expect.”
He spoke almost contemptuously and she had an idea that he supposed she would appreciate only something very conventional and pink-and-white.
She moved to the easel, and what she saw astonished her.
Persephone was in the foreground, but she realised that Vulcan Worfield had tried to portray the mysticism and symbolism she represented.
He was painting it by a method different from that of any other painter she had ever seen, relying on the strokes of his brush and by light and shade to project into the mind what he tried to convey.
There seemed to be no actual form behind the figure of Persephone, and yet in some strange manner it hinted at what the Initiate had pa.s.sed through in the darkness.
One could almost hear the crack of the whips, the stones which had fallen on him, the smoke which had choked him. the snakes which had clung to him.
Here was everything that aroused terror and then in the foreground illuminating Persephone 'was the light of initiation.
The picture was not finished, but even so the whole story was there, and yet Astara wondered if she was seeing with her eyes or only in her mind.
”Well?” Vulcan asked. ”Why not say you are disappointed as I know you must be?”
He spoke almost jeeringly, and Astara knew that he did not imagine for one moment that she would have the least conception of what he was trying to convey.
She did not answer, but just stood there, seeing also that he had portrayed her in a manner that made her almost afraid.