The Judgement Of Love Part 12

"What is he then?"

"A gentleman of many talents."

"Are you in love with him?"

The question was sharp and while Astara considered what she should reply Vulcan said: "There is no need to answer. I know that you have never been in love!"

"H .. how do you ... know that ?"

'By looking at you. By being aware of what you are thinking and feeling. Your innocence protects you far more effectively than any armour could do."

Astara was so surprised that she dropped her pose to look at him.

"How can you ... know such things?"

"Perhaps my initiation into many mysteries has made me more perceptive than most people."

"Into how many have you been initiated?"

"We were talking about you!"

"I thought rather we were talking about your travels and the things you have seen and done."

"I have no wish to talk about myself, and now as I suspect your sheaf is feeling heavy you can get down for a moment. I want you to look at my picture."

"Very well."

She put down the sheaf as he suggested and walked from the dais to the easel.

She saw at once that he had done a great deal to the picture since yesterday.

Now Persephone stood out almost like a pillar of light; in fact the light seemed almost to be centred in her and come from her.

She was painted in a strange way that Astara had never seen before, but she knew it was meant to evoke emotion rather than to portray an image.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

"Do I really look like that ?"

"Better in many ways. I find it hard to show how unsure you are within yourself."

Astara looked at him with startled eyes. "Unsure?" she questioned.

He looked at her and her eyes were held by his as he said: "I feel as if you are being pushed to the edge of a precipice. You are afraid, and yet at the same time you feel that what you have to do is inevitable."

"And what .... do I have to ... do ?"

"I have no crystal ball by which I can read the future, " Vulcan answered, "but if you wish me to guess, I imagine you will do what you are expected to do."

"Why should I do that?"

"Because you are a woman, because I doubt if there is any alternative."

"And if there ... was?"

"Then - I think you might take it. There is something in you as yet undeveloped which would make you less compliant than most people might think."

"That is what I ... want to be!" she said pa.s.sionately, "but you are right ... I am afraid!"

He was still as if he was undecided about something, then he walked to the wall where a number of canva.s.ses stood.

He turned one round and she saw it depicted vividly, almost violently, the dance of the Dervishes.

The painting was done in a way that made one feel rather than see what was happening: the unrestrained movements of their hypnotised bodies, the howling of their voices, the bared teeth, the extended nostrils, the dilated eyes.

It was horrible, and yet as he had said mesmeric.

"Is it what you expected?" Vulcan asked.

"From ... you? Yes!" Astara replied.

He turned round another canvas.

Here was something quite different: the peace and quiet and strange symbolism of a Zen Buddhist garden, the raked white gravel in rhythmic lines, the stones which depicted the river of life and the reincarnation of man.

There was a serenity and again a strange light which made Astara think she saw what was not actually there, but rather in her mind.

"You have studied Zen Buddhism?" she asked.

"So you knew that is what it is?" he parried.

She nodded.

She thought he looked at her curiously before he turned round yet another picture.

This depicted a sacrifice in the Temple of Kali: the blood of the slaughtered animals, the stench, and the l.u.s.tful partic.i.p.ation of the worshippers were almost too vivid, too unpleasant to look at for more than a moment.

As if he understood what he had made her feel Vulcan put the canvas back and said: "That is enough for now. As you see there are half-a-dozen more which I will show to you another time, so my picture of Mecca will not be missed."

"I want to see them all !" &tam. insisted, but Vulcan shook his head.

"The light is going and I must finish your picture." "And after that ?" she asked.

"I shall take it to the "engravers. The others have already been done."

He spoke in an absent-minded way and she knew he was already engrossed with his painting.

She stepped back onto the dais and picked up the sheaf of wheat.

She wondered what he felt about her.

She had the feeling that when this last picture was complete he would have no interest in anything that he had already done and accomplished, but only in what lay in the future.

He was a strange man and different from anyone she had ever met before.

Yet in a way there was something familiar about him, something that she recognised though it seemed intangible, which was comprehensible in the same manner that she understood what he was trying to say in his pictures.

She knew that he was right when he said they were painted only for the few and Astara wondered if even Sir Roderick would appreciate them.

She knew he preferred a more conventional type of painting, the Rubens, the Van d.y.k.es, the Leonardo Da Vincis which they had seen on their travels.

He had excellent taste, but it was a taste that was based on what was accepted by the experts, and she was quite certain that Vulcan's work would not fit into that category.

And yet, she told herself, there would be certain people like her father who would have acclaimed it as a new type of art which would bring a new sort of understanding to those who searched for it.

Deep in her thoughts-she must have stood for a long time without realising she was doing so. Suddenly Vulcan said: "I have finished! To do any more would be a mistake."

"Really finished?" Astara asked.

"Come and see for yourself!"

She obeyed him and she thought that the whole picture seemed to blaze with the light that came from Persephone - while she in her turn evoked something beyond herself, something she looked for in the sky.

It was uncanny, and yet brilliant, what he had managed to convey with a brush-stroke, and a touch of light where one least expected it.

She was silent for so long that at last Vulcan said : "Tell me ! I want to hear."

"There are ... no words, " Astara answered in a low voice, "but it makes me a ...part of it ... and yet it is a part ... of me."

"That is what I wanted."

He looked at the picture, then at the others lying against the wall.

"As soon as this one is engraved," he said, "I shall take them all to Paris. Are you coming with me?"

She looked up at him, feeling she could not have heard him aright and saw his lips smiling and there was an expression in his eyes that held her spellbound.

"That will be a new experience for you," he said, "and one I want to give you."

He put his arms round her as he spoke and drew her to him, and his mouth came down on hers.

Vaguely, a long way away at the very back of her mind, she thought she ought to resist him, but it was too late. , His lips held her completely captive and she knew that this was what she wanted; this was why she had been waiting.

She felt a strange, unaccountable sensation rise through her body, through her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and up her throat.

It was as if her whole being moved to become part of him.

She felt too as if they were both enveloped in a blinding light - the light that was in the pictures, the light that came from Persephone, the light of the G.o.ds.

It was so wonderful, so unexpected, and yet in a way so sacred that she felt as if she was revitalised and reborn in the light, and yet it was Vulcan's arms, his lips and him. , He held her closer and still closer.

His mouth moved a little and she thought he would set her free, but he merely kissed her more insistently, more demandingly, and she felt as if she and he became indivisible j and she was no longer herself.

Finally, after what might have been an hour, or a century, he raised his head and looked down at her face, his eyes searching hers as if he sought for something, though she was not certain what it was.

Then she knew he had found it and he was kissing her again.

Kissing her until her feet were no longer on the ground, until she touched the stars, the light that came from the sun and the moon and she was not human but divine.

At last he raised his head and because she was so bewildered, bemused and dazzled by him she could only hide her face against his shoulder and feel that if he took his arms from her she would fall down on the ground at his feet.

"My sweet! My little Aphrodite!" he said in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "You have come into my life and I can never let you go!"

CHAPTER FIVE.

A ripple of sunshine was flooding through Astara and as she felt his lips on her hair, she raised her face to say: "I love ... you!"

The words were very faint, and there was a note of astonishment in them as if they were too wonderful and too incredible even to be spoken.

"That is what I want to hear," Vulcan said, "and now, my darling, everything is very simple and there need be no more mysteries between us."

Astara forced herself to try and think clearly.

She had been kissed and become part of a man who did not even know her name and had no idea who she was!

A man who had asked her to go with him to Paris having, as was obvious from what he had said before, no intention of offering her marriage.

In a voice that did not seem to be her own, she said: "I ... must go back ... but I ... promise that I will . . come and see you ... tomorrow and then ... perhaps we can ... make plan"

She felt as if every word was difficult to utter.

Her whole being was throbbing with the sensations he had aroused in her the room was filled with strange music, and she could hardly make herself heard above it.

"I will go to London very early," Vulcan said, "and be back at about this time. Then, as you say, we can make plans."

"I ... must ... go now," Astara murmured.

"Why?" he asked, and he was kissing her again pa.s.sionately, demandingly.

She felt as if he took her mind as well as her body and made it his.

It was impossible to think of anything but the sensations that once again rye in her, leaving her breathless, at the same time throbbing with an ecstasy that was not only physical but spiritual.