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 worshippers 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 rushing 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.
It was certainly no conventional portrait and her features were blurred, and yet the eyes were definitely hers.
It was as if he had tried to convey not only the feelings of the Initiate for what he had been through, but also those of Persephone the joy of coming back to the upper earth, the wonder of being united with the light after the four long months of darkness in Hades.
He had made Persephone very young which was correct because the ceremony itself had been one of youth. The young corn, the young G.o.ddess, and yet Astara felt there was more than that in this picture. There was something of herself, of her uncertainty and of her fear.
It was only an impression, but it was unmistakable. She tried to think it was what he had intended to portray long before she had come to the old Mill, but she could not help feeling it was something personal.
"Tell me," his voice said beside her. "Tell me what you think."
"It is not a question of thinking," Astara replied, "but of feeling, and that is what I am doing."
She looked up at him as she spoke and he stared at her for several seconds before he asked : "Why do you say that?"
She smiled.
"I believe you are Aphrodite!" he exclaimed. "You are not real not human! "
"I am as you have painted me," Astara said, "and it makes me a little afraid."
"I knew you were afraid," he answered, "but not of me?" She shook her head.
"Of myself."
"As Persephone was until the light rea.s.sured her," he said.
"As I would like to be rea.s.sured."
She felt as if they were both talking in a dream and she saw the surprise in his dark eyes and knew she was vividly conscious of him as a man.
He was wearing the blue artist"s smock favoured by Parisian painters and he was tall and somehow overpowering. But it was not his physical presence, she thought, but rather the vibrations which seemed to emanate from him which affected her.
With an effort, because she was afraid of what she might say if they went on talking, she said: "I am ready to ... continue if you are."
"No, wait a moment," he replied. "I want to know who you are and why you have come here."
He spoke as if he was forcing himself to think clearly and to come back to earth and commonplace matters.
"Does it matter?" Astara asked. "Moll"s mother sent me. Is that not enough?"
"It should be," he replied, "but I am curious." She moved away as if she was afraid he would force from her what she was not yet ready to tell...
"May I look around your Studio?"
He made a gesture with his hand.
"It is all yours!"
He glanced at his picture and without a word sat down in front of it, as if it drew him and he found it difficult to concentrate on anything else.
Astara walked across the room.
She realised that besides the great north window there was another on the other side looking south.
The curtains had been pulled over it and she saw that the material of which they were made was richly embroidered satin, She thought they looked Chinese and she saw that the rugs on the floor were Persian and of a very fine quality.
She guessed such things had been acquired by Vulcan on his travels.
But the walls which were painted white were bare with the exception of the place over the mantelpiece where there was hung a Rangda or Witch Mask that she knew came from the East, perhaps from the Bali where they believed the masks would keep away evil.
It was all very fascinating and quite unlike what she would have expected in a Mill which had become the home of a parson"s son.
Then she told herself she might have expected that no Worfield would be ordinary nor could there be anything mediocre about them.
She looked at the furniture and saw that some of it was oak.
There was a Jacobean chest exquisitely carved which might have belonged to his parents, a small refectory table and a desk that her uncle would have been proud to own.
She suspected it had been made in the reign of James II.
Everything on it was very neatly arranged which surprised her, since she had thought that all artists were untidy. But there was an almost meticulous tidiness about the papers, a few books and in the centre a strangely shaped ink-pot that was obviously of foreign origin.
In front of this she saw, arranged one upon the other, a number of letters. They were unopened and quite clearly she could recognise, half-hidden beneath another envelope, her own writing.
Astara smiled to herself. This was the explanation why Vulcan had not come to Worfield House. He simply had not read the invitation.
Yet it seemed strange that he should not have opened his letters but had arranged them neatly and carefully on his desk.
She wondered how she could broach the subject to him; how she could persuade him at least to be aware that his uncle wished to see him.
Then she told herself perhaps it would be more amusing to leave things as they were, and let him believe she was just a friend of Moll"s.
As if he knew what she was thinking he said, without turning round : "What are you doing in Little Milden ? I cannot believe that you are working on a farm."
"I am staying in the ... vicinity."
"Then that is my good fortune."
"I am glad you think so, and may I say I admire your house?"
"What particularly do you admire about it, apart, of course, from my pictures? "
"Your curtains are very beautiful." "They came from China."
"You have been to China?"
"Yes. Come back. I want to get the light in your eyes right."You need not hold the sheaf."