Emerald Magic_ Great Tales of Irish Fantasy - Andrew M. Greeley [92]
“Beware of her,”Mina warned. “I sense she has killed a child, and though she regrets it, there is hatred in her for children.”
Maud, who knew too well that the dead child was her own George, killed by her neglect, said nothing. She wondered if the hatred Mina sensed in the Lady in Grey was shared by herself as well, and that her grief was only a sham.Was she perhaps relieved to have the child gone? Had her deepest heart seen little George as an impediment to her freedom as Tommy had been?
So horrified was Maud by the thought that she convinced her French lover to lie with her again, this time in the vault under the memorial chapel of their dead son. She prayed that her child would come back to her and show forgiveness, but there was no sign that George had heard.
When the child conceived in that union was born, it proved to be a girl. Though Maud tried to lavish on Iseult the devotion she had not given to little George, her attempts at motherhood were stayed by the mocking face of the Lady in Grey.
“No child, no lover offers you the excitement you crave. Only I give you what you most desire, Fearless, Flawless, goddess who inflames men’s passions. This is the price you pay.”
Maud and Willie had drifted apart—partly because she could not bear keeping her new secret from him, partly because he was angry with her for quitting the Order of the Golden Dawn. She had told him that this was because she suspected the Order had ties to Freemasonry, which she despised as one of the tools of the British Empire. Her true reason was that the Lady in Grey appeared frequently in their presence, unsettling all.
Maud wondered ifWillie’s anger at her departure from the Order was not intensified in that what he really felt was relief. The Lady in Grey seemed to have her own bond with the poet, and though Maud could sense nothing of their interaction, she knew well by now the Lady’s cruel streak and knew that Willie would be offered no kindness from that quarter.
One night, years after the birth of Iseult,Maud dreamed. A powerful spirit, represented as a towering figure of light, stood beside her bed, beckoning her to follow.Maud rose obediently, and was led into a great throng of spirits, each a living flame possessed of a human shape. Her guide stopped and placed her hand into that of another spirit. When their hands met, Maud saw that the spirit was Willie Yeats.
“You are married now,”th e great spirit said, and Maud knew it was true.
Then the Lady in Grey, her voice filled with mocking laughter, her flame cold and blue, spoke from among the gathered spirits, “And a great lot of good it will do you.”
Maud looked where the Lady pointed and saw that though elsewhere Willie glowed with a pure clear light, the area about his groin was dark and cold.
“You have castrated him,”said the Lady in Grey, “for he loves only you, and though he tries to take other lovers, his virility fails him. Now he convinces himself he lives celibate because his love is the pure love of old, but his heart knows the bitter truth.”
WILLIE
Willie awoke with a vision of Maud kissing him, her form fading from his sight as if the real woman was slowly stepping back. Unlike those erotic dreams he had had of her—and they were legion—this simple kiss left him with no sense of guilt or defilement.
He whistled as he went about his shaving, and went to meet Maud with a light heart. They had plans to spend the day together, visiting old Fenian leaders and learning what they might for the cause.
Maud greeted him with an odd question.
“Had you a strange dream last night?”
Emboldened by his curious contentment, Willie replied, “I dreamed this morning for the first time in my life that you kissed me.”
Maud said nothing to this, but turned the conversation to some mundane matter, but all the day her mood was strange.