Maisie was really stupefying. Every one knows that she was in love with Basil from the first, and is, and always will be. How was it that she could speak of another woman who loved him without jealousy, and, as things were, without envy ? It was true, perhaps, after all, that he had some huge hypnotic power, and held them helpless, filed away like so many letters. But Maisie was bubbling over with energy and joy; it was absurd to think of her as vampirised, as a victim. I asked her about it point-blank.
" My dear Lou," she laughed, " don't be too utterly gaga I My Will is to sing, and Lala's is to help him in his work-why should we clash ? Why should there be any ill-feeling ? She's helping me by helping him to help me; and I'm helping her by showing that his Law has helped me, and can help others. We're the best friends in the world, I and Lala; how could anything else be possible ? "
Well, of course, she was herself doing a notoriously impossible feat. The point of view of Basil and his crowd is simply upside down to all ordinary people. At the same time, one can't deny that the result is amazingly invigorating to contemplate. I could quite understand his idea of developing mankind into what is practically a new species, with new faculties, and the old fears, superstitions, and follies discarded for ever.
I couldn't stand it another second. Maisie had given him-and herself-up, and yet she possessed both herself and him : I had clung to him and to myself, and I had lost both-Lost, lost for ever ! I got up to go home ; and before I reached the street I realised with desolate disgust and despair the degree of my degradation, of my damnation ; and I hugged desperately my hideous perverse pride in my own frightful fate, and rejoiced as the horrible hunger for heroin made itself known once more, gnawing at my entrails. I licked my lips at the thought that I was on my way to the man whom my love had done so much to destroyand myself with him.
To begin with, no more of this diary why should I put myself out for King Lamus ? " Every step he treads is smeared with blood," as Gretel once said. Yes, in some infernal way he had made me one of his victims. " All right-you shall get enough magical diary to let you know that I'm out of your clutchesI'll put down just those things which will tell you how I hate you-how I have outwitted you-and you shall read them when my Dead Soul has got a Dead Body to match it."
september 14
I expected Peter would be in ; impatient to know if I'd wangled McCall. Instead, he turned up after
twelve, full of champagne and-SNOW !
My aunt, what a lucky day !
He was boiling with passion, grabbed me like a hawk.
"Well, old girl," he shouted, "what luck with McCall ? "
I produced my package.
" Hurrah, all our troubles are over !"
We opened our last three half-bottles of fizz to celebrate the occasion, and he gave me some coke. And I thought I didn't like it ! It's the finest stuff there is. A sniff to the right and a sniff to the left and a big heap right on my tongue; and that wasn't all.
" I tell you what's been wrong," he said in the morning. " Who the hell could expect to be right in a place like this ? I've got right on to the ropes. We need never run short any more. We'll go down to Barley Grange and have another honeymoon. You're my honeysuckle, and I'm your bee."
He went and flung open the door and shouted for the woman to pack our things while we went out to breakfast, and have the bill ready.
" What infernal fools we are," he cried as we went sailing down the street to the Wisteria where you can get real French coffee and real Englil bacon.
We looked at ourselves in the long mirror. We could see how ill we had been, but all that was gone.
Decision and self-confidence had come back; and love had come back with them. I could feel love mingling its turbulent torrent with my blood like the junction of the Rhone and the Arve in Geneva.
We walked into a shop and bought a car on the spot, and took it away then and there. There was one at the Grange, but we wanted a racer.
We drove back to Greek Street in a flood of delight. It was a bright, fresh autumn morning; everything had recovered its tone. Winter could never come. There was no night except as a background for the moon and the stars, and to furnish the scenery of our heavenly hell.
September 17
The Grange is certainly the finest house in the world. There is only one drawback. We didn't want callers. County society is all right in its way ; but tigers don't hunt in packs, especially on the honeymoon. So we had to send the word around that the precarious state of my health made it impossible for us to receive. Rather an obvious lie, motoring the way we were. The 'plane had come back from Deal, but we didn't do any flying.
Cockie gave various reasons; but they were un-convincing. We roared with laughter at their absurdity.
The truth was that he was nervous.
It didn't make us ashamed. After what he had done, he could rest on his oars. It was only temporary, of course. We'd made ourselves rottenly ill in that gaga place in Greek Street. We couldn't expect to get back to the top of our form in a week.
Besides, we didn't want that kind of excitement. We had enough in other ways. We found we could see things. That ass, Basil, was always talking about the danger of magic, and precaution, and scientific methods and all that bunk. We were seeing more spirits and demons every day than he ever saw in ten years. They are nothing to be afraid of. I should like to see the old Boy himself. I'd
Sefitember 18
We found a book in the library one rainy afternoon. It told us how to make the Devil appear.
Cockie's grandfather was great on that stuff. There's a room in the north tower where he did his stunts.
We went up after dinner. Everything had been left more or less the way it was. Uncle Mortimer never troubled to alter anything.
There was a legend about this room too. For one thing, grandfather was a friend of Bulwer Lytton's. We found a first edition of A Strange Story, with an inscription.
Lytton had taken him for the model of Sir Philip Derval, the white magician who gets murdered. Lytton said so in this copy.
It was all very weird and exciting. The room was full of the strangest objects. There was a table painted with mysterious designs and characters and a huge cross-hilted sword ; two silver crescents separated by two copper spheres and a third for the pommel. The blade was two-edged, engraved with Arabic or some-thing.
Cockie began to swing it about. We thought flashes of light came from the point, and there was a buzzing, crackling sound.
" Take this," said Cockie, " there's something devilish rum about it."
I took it out of his hand. Of course, it was only my fancy; but it seemed to weigh nothing at all, and it gave a most curious thrill in one's hand and arm.
Then there was a golden cup with rubies round the brim. And always more inscriptions.
And there was a little wand of ebony with a twisted flame at the top ; three tongues, gold, silver, and some metal we'd never seen before.
And there were rows and rows of old books, mostly Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
There was a big alabaster statue of Ganesha, the elephant god.
" This is the place," I said, " to get hold of the devil."
" That's all right," said Cockie, " but what about a little she-devil for me ? "
" Oh," I said, " if I'm not satisfactory, you'd better give me a week's salary in lieu of notice."
We laughed like mad.
Something in the room made our heads swim. We began kissing and wrestling.
It's all very well to laugh at magic, but after all certain ideas do belong to certain things ; and