GENERISIS
presents THE GOLDEN DAWN
Episode
8 - IN the DOCK!
Hearing
of Crowley's intent to pursue the debacle of Isis-Urania through English
courts, I grew disheartened, then indifferent. Compelled as a boy to read
plenty of Dickens, anticipating the Gradgrindery of British justice as
inevitability I reckoned that, by such time as my landlord's case came for
hearing I should be well away to University or even back across the Atlantic.
What matter of witchery was, therefore, performed upon the courts I remain in
ignorance of, as from its quarter... however accomplished, it was within the
week that we received our summons to the Royal Courts, from which edifice
Crowley's flat could be seen on those mornings not so typically foggy. As a
matter of fact, justice was so prompt that the effects of the rout on my
landlord and I remained visible, if subdued; purple and crimson decorations
from bobby's cudgel and witches' nail having given way only to subdued tones of
mustard and jagged lines of scab.
Bennett,
the worst afflicted, made a vain stab at keeping appearances up by donning a
high collar of the sort associated with the Georgian dandies - this concealed
some welts of the most notable lividity. Crowley, however, made no attempt to
hide his bruises... remarking alternately that they must intimidate the
magistrate or else arouse his sympathies. The expression of the bewigged and
bepowdered High Magistrate, however, vacillated between contempt and boredom; I
again whispered as to the prudence of obtaining legal assistance, even at this
late hour, to which the Beast replied that he would see the inside of Reading
Gaol before being driven, by barristers, to Carey Street. "Where the
Bankruptcy Courts of London are to be found," Crowley spat, "and
their number is Seventy and Four." Before I could ask whether this was an
address or the population of such infernal engines, the Magistrate called to
his Bailiff for the Assizes.
"In
the matter of Crowley et. al. versus Isis-Urania Temple, Farr versus Crowley
and sundry cross-complaints," the Bailiff pronounced, "is counsel for
the Farr party present?"
A
slender, rather dapper man in an expensive suit arose. "Sir, I am Edward
Fitch, Barrister, of the firm of Canker, Bancroft, Belisle and Casement for
the... for these good women here..."
"And
for one not very reputable Irishman," Crowley declared aloud, drawing not
only the attention of the court, but of Yeats himself whose expression was
such, as my landlord surmised, as that arising only after a breakfast upon
Sodom Apples.
"Mister
Crowley," the Magistrate intoned, "is it your intent to proceed as
your own counsel?"
Crowley
rose stiffly. "It is!"
"Then,
Counselor Fitch as attorney for the plaintiff of first cause," declared
the Magistrate, "you may call your first witness. You needn't remain
standing, sir," he added, inclining his chalky nose towards Crowley,
"unless you have an objection to the barrister's question."
"My
objection is, is..." but with a sort of sigh, Crowley slunk back towards
his seat, waving his hand as if to move along the proceedings.
"I
call Arthur Machen to take the stand," declared Fitch.
The
man who'd fled Isis-Urania upon appearance of our brigade approached the bench
with his hat held over his genital organs, as if to repulse a psychic attack.
As he laid his hand on the Bible, Crowley leaped up.
"Sirrah,
I must object, and most strenuously. This is a most notorious devil's-advocate,
author of The Great God Pan and other monstrous fictions; his oath before God
makes mockery of English justice."
"Mr.
Crowley, be seated! Whether or not the witness is capable in the eyes of God is
relevant only to God unless... for example... have you witnessed him in the act
of making devotions to Satan?"
"Well
of course I have!" Crowley thundered, although from his seat. "I've
invoked many demons in Machen's company... Beelzebub and the common host,
Hittite nymphs and those of Jebusites, as well as Chinese spirits and those of
the African Obeah. I'm as proud to have done so as Machen is not... he is,
Sirrah, a player of all hands so the issue is not faith but integrity..."
For
the first time I saw the agent of justice hesitate; the Magistrate even
unfolded his handkerchief, thinking to wipe his brow, then thinking the better
of it.
"That
is an issue to be raised upon cruci... on cross examination," he corrected
himself. "Counselor... proceed."
"Pedophile!"
Crowley hissed - whether to the Magistrate or opposing barrister is one of
those matters upon which my memory fails.
"Mr.
Machen," Fitch continued, "it was you who gave notice of an
occurrence in extremis to the Kensington authorities?"
Machen's
reply was that this was so and the substance of his subsequent testimony was
limited to recitation of the taking of the Temple and its putative defense
before the witness abjectly fled the premises. Machen swore he had seen only
three men in black hoods; he knew Crowley by his voice and Bennett through the
Rod of Correction waved before him; had it been my inclination I, perhaps,
might have disassociated myself from the repulsed invasion for not only Machen
but all of the plaintiffs save Yeats had not seen my face. But, with Crowley
representing us as injured parties to whom... on countersuit... satisfaction
must be due, I realized that such plea must be accepted as admission of the
greater guilt and so, with Bennett, I consigned my fate to Crowley's
capabilities.
His
cross-examination of the witness was, however, predicated less upon events at
Isis-Urania than Machen's own escapades as a rather low-ranking Golden Dawn
initiate; as if the witness was impaneled not before a court of common law but,
in fact, before one of those occult tribunals which, at the time, I believed
consigned to the province of romantic history.
Somewhat
to my astonishment, Aleister Crowley proved halfway competent as a barrister in
a rough, bludgeoning sort of way. His rudimentary grasp of protocol was
bulwarked with self-control that must have exacted a considerable psychic toll.
Fitch objected infrequently and, being overruled more often than not as my
landlord skillfully wove episodes of Machen's life into those of his fictions,
seemed almost to withdraw into the old grain of his bench, leaving his witness
subject towards implication that the truth was no more than another character
to be manipulated.
"So,
Mr. Machen... you derive your income from tales of the strange and supernatural
but account some spiritual practices... let us say Theosophy, for one
example... to be fraudulent."
No,
not exactly a fraud," Machen rallied, "... I admit the possibility of
the supernatural, especially as literary conceit, but do reckon how rappers and
wielders of trumpets may enter queer... and probably undesirable psychic
haunts."
"You
have... in the service of literature, let us allow... participated in seances
as well as other rituals, thus exposing yourself to these nebulous forces of
which we speak?"
"I...
you know we have, Crowley, at Chancery Lane we... well yes, isn't it... yes?...
the admittal you seek?" retreated the hapless author.
"For
which reason you have resorted to mental doctors?" Crowley persisted.
Now
Edward Fitch objected, but was sharply overruled by the Magistrate who directed
Machen to continue.
"Well
in my circumstances I... I appeal to your Honor's sensibilities," the
witness babbled, "I have only recently lost my wife, we were very close...
It is... I... every reality hides another, an existence we mortals cannot
comprehend, let alone experience... so in a sense there is nothing real,
neither you nor I nor this court..."
Crowley
listened with apparent patience, arms folded across his chest as if waiting out
some unpleasant duty to its end, glancing, occasionally, to the Magistrate to
imply his compassion for the poor lunatic. "I have no further questions of
this witness," he said when Machen's apologies finally trailed off and
Fitch, quite behind in his case after this first inning, grimly summoned the
holder of the lease on the Isis-Urania flat, Dr. Westcott's surrogate, Florence
Farr.
I
confess to having had scant opportunity to assess the persons of Isis-Urania in
that short instance before one of Coroner Westcott's weird sisters availed
herself of the opportunity to blind me. Aleister Crowley had briefed me that
Farr was not long over an infamous affair with Bernard Shaw, a playwright of
somewhat more substantial repute than the jealous Yeats... also an atheist of
scientific bert whose catholicity of skepticism had not prevented him from
carrying out an affair of the flesh with Annie Besant, Blavatsky's successor,
contiguous to his episodes with Farr.
The
barrister Edward Fitch was, it seemed, fairly smitten with his principle
client; this could not escape Crowley's attention. "See what I'll do for
her," he promised, the prospect leaving me rather more discouraged than
gratified.
Later,
Crowley denied he ever desired giving me any nudge in Farr's direction. The
last time that I encountered him, in the company of Commander Fleming two years
back... no, could it have been three?... he'd insisted that it was Florance
who'd pursued him for the child he could give her. "Some are born to
genius, some to parenthood," the magickian said, by then having evolved
quite into the dirigible himself, "and then, dear boy, there are those who
fall through the cracks between, and so are suitable to neither."
The
Commander, by the way, seemed embarrassed for his charge but, as they were
engaged upon that confidential mission involving Hess, Fleming dared not
antagonize the Beast. Instead, he'd waited until Crowley had passed out of
earshot, then confided "...some day, after this is done (by which he meant
the war), I'll write a book myself, old chap... and, as the first requirement
is that one must have a doughty villain, I think that I have my beginning...
no?" I may have mentioned that opus of Mr. Maugham, now out-of-print...
that is only one example of what my doctor calls impertinence of memory among
the aging. The most recent impulses are lost while the more distant are quite
preserved, though more often wrongly than one cares to admit.
So
again... as I recollect... Fitch next asked of Florence Farr: "Madam, upon
the evening in question what exactly did transpire? Simply the facts,"
he'd added, evidence that Charles Russell had briefed him on this witness'
proclivities, "we need not repeat background material. These three
gentlemen arrived at your abode, masked... wielding swords for the intent of
mayhem and robbery?"
"Objection!"
Aleister Crowley rose, making a sweeping gesture towards the evidence laid out
upon a table. "You have seen the exhibits in question, they are Highland
ceremonial artifacts, used for ritual purposes only... you couldn't kill a
chicken with one. I've tried..." he winked, placing his both thumbs under
the crimson suspenders he'd chosen, a mannerism that perversely recalled
Senator Bryan to me.
"Crowley!"
the Magistrate warned, "I see these devices as plainly as you and shall my
make determination therefrom. Counselor... proceed!"
"That,
in fact, the objective of these children of night was the seizure, by violence,
of confidential documents that were your sole property," Fitch concluded
with the sort of smirk endemic to the graduates of certain private academies on
either shore of the Atlantic.
"In
that Dr. Westcott entrusted them to me, yes."
"She
is an actress, Cameron," my landlord whispered, "should the role
dictate Miss Farr shall raise her chin so as to give His Lordship an
inclination of her bosom, or drop a tear... or scratch your eye out. But this
time," he winked, "I shall be the stage manager holding her cues.
"I
have no further questions," Fitch admitted and the Magistrate cast a wary
eye at counsel for Defendants.
"Mr.
Crowley..."
The
magickian arose, pacing the length of the floor, lingering before the table of
evidence, affording the Magistrate opportunity to daub his forehead with his
handkerchief despite the fact that his powder was beginning to smear.
"Miss
Farr," Crowley began, "is it not so that you are really Mrs. Edward
Emery, wife of an American actor?
"Must
I answer?" Farr turned towards the Magistrate with so plaintive an
expression that he seemed to forget the law for just a moment, then gave a
regretful nod. "Very well! We married on the last day of eighty four but
separated eleven years ago.
"So
at the age of... Forty?" Crowley estimated. "Without a husband,
unsatisfied... such unfortunates are often visited by hysteria and cruel
delusions, are they not?"
"Mr.
Crowley, I may not have a husband but..."
"But
what?"
Sensing
my landlord's snare, Farr looked down, gathering her thoughts and making a face
to project sentiments nobler in the estimation of the court.
"But
I... I am an artist!"
"Quite!"
Crowley replied. If he was disappointed that Florence had not confessed to an
affair... with Shaw, with Yeats or any other... he, too, was capable of
maintaining a courtly mask. "A professional actress... a player of the
harp and parts, and a writer of fiction too. I quite admired your 'Dancing
Faun', it exhibits a strong, powerful imagination."
"Why
thank you!" the actress replied.
"Imagination
that must, like a fine horse, be taken out and exercised frequently lest it
decline. Imagination... wielded from the stage, upon the printed page... or in
the dock. I have nothing more to ask from this witness."
Florence
Farr departed with a proud face, yet the nagging suspicion of having been
bested flickered about her eyes and lips. "Flattery is the catnip with
which the common kittens of limelight are trapped," Crowley allowed.
"This next, however, is a panther that shall require a stronger hand, or
foot... were we in a better place," he added as Maud Gonne swore her oath
before God and the English Crown, "I'd likely hurl a shoe at that
one."
Fitch's
questioning of Maud Gonne was almost identical to that of Farr; a peaceful
evening in Kensington discussing spiritual matters interrupted violently by
masked maniacs. "Not a word of the Society," Crowley whispered,
"nor the Executive Difficulty, nor the Coroner."
"She's
quite formidable, for a lady," I allowed, "do you also intend to
conquer this one through flattery."
"Hardly,"
my landlord replied, and with such vehemence that the Magistrate felt obliged
to gavel our party into silence. "Such Irishwomen understand only the
shillelagh. Watch!"
Fitch,
having elicited from Maud Gonne the same conjecture that ours had been an
episode of mindless barbarism, Crowley began his cross-examination.
"Madam...
let us commence on the issue of character, for if the character of accusers is
compromisable, must it not also follow that details have been withheld from
their testimony? Is it not so, then, that your own purity has been repeatedly,
basely compromised by... that man!"
And
the magickian pointed to a seething Yeats, "who is..."
"He
is my spiritual husband," replied Maud Gonne. "I have an aversion to
profane love."
Crowley
turned towards the Magistrate; I could not see but sensed he was rolling his
eyes or making some grimace of dignity afflicted to underscore this ridiculous
conceit. "Then, since you whelped one bastard in '91 and another four
years later, are we to assume a miraculous conception?"
Being
another stage professional, Maud Gonne betrayed no trauma save for a slight
downturning of her lips and one hand that fluffed through her hair... as if
seeking a hatpin, I recall fearing at that time. Not so her swain, who popped
from his seat like a jack o'pulpit to exclaim: "I object!"
Edward
Fitch also rose, belatedly, "I ah... also object..."
The
Magistrate folded his hands. "Mr. Yeats... I presume... you have no
standing to object and if another such incident arises I shall have the Bailiff
remove you from these premises. The objection of Counsel, however, I choose to
sustain. Mr. Crowley, kindly pursue another more relevant line of inquiry or
dismiss this witness."
"As
you will." The magickian assumed a thoughtful pose. "Miss Gonne is it
not true you support both rebel Irish and the Boers? That, eight years ago, you
were kicked out of Russia with Princess Radziwill, mistress of Cecil Rhodes,
for conspiring with the French against Czar Nicholas? That on the night in
question you and Willie Yeats, if not exactly intimate, had shared a few
draughts of opium?"
"It
was Moroccan hemp. Gonne protested, glaring first towards Crowley, then the
Magistrate. "And it was exquisite..."
Crowley
lifted his eye, but could extract no pertinent, damaging testimony from Gonne
whom he swiftly dismissed with a supercilious wave. Next in the dock was the
muscular stranger, whose name was revealed to be Hunter, and whose brief
testimony so replicated that of the women that Crowley declined to cross
examine with a supercilious wave... preferring to save his ammunition for the
next witness, the despicable Yeats himself.
From
the questioning of Edward Fitch, one may have well assumed Yeats a banker or
petty official. The gathering at Blythe Road was an innocent congregation of
seekers, the invasion occasioned by a madman's whim. And then Crowley was
permitted his innings.
"Let
us, for the moment, consider the rose," Crowley commenced as the
Magistrate, seeming to choose Fitch culpable, favored the barrister with an
ugly scowl. "In your Alchemical tales you describe a certain sleeper,
Robartes, consumed by his spirit and mask... is it not correct to describe this
work as an act of malice directed against the Scots gentleman MacGregor
Mathers... "a lifeless mask with dim eyes" I believe you put
it..."
"I
know Mathers, as you do, and he is no Highlander at all, only English as
yourself. I merely chose to exercise poetic license..."
"As
in the Secret Rose where a gleeman... that would be the Tarot Fool for the
edification of this Court... is forcibly baptized then crucified, wolves
nibbling his feet and birds pecking out his eyes?"
"A
mystical society is not intended to be a reformatory," Yeats protested.
"Is it your point that I utilize symbol and allegory with a skill you can
only envy? If so, I plead guilty..."
"As
guilty as you stand also," pressed the magickian, "of executing this
slander as an act of revenge for Mathers having justifiably dismissed your
crude interpretation of the esteemed Englishman and poet William Blake by
confining his contraries in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell with your gyres,
your wheel of barbed wire as used in the American West... finally compressing
the whole of genius into an eggshell whereas Mathers foresaw an
explosion?"
"The
Prae..." Willie himself exploded but... suddenly fathoming Crowley's
intent... checked his tongue which fairly fluttered in its throat, spewing
forth a goulash of stuttering syllables. "Pre... a Pretender! he is,
Mathers! No Scotsman, why he's blind on the subject of Blake as... as..."
"As
you are physically blind without these," Crowley smirked as he passed the
dock, removing Willie's pince nez. "Is it not also true that, on the night
in question, your glasses were knocked quite off of your nose. Isn't it also
true that, without your spectacles, you're blind as a bat? How many
fingers?" my landlord taunted, waving the index and middle fingers of his
right fist before the poet's spinning eyes.
Yeats,
glaring at his interrogator with rage undisguised by his failure of vision,
brushed the inquiry off with a wave, affording Crowley the opportunity to
conclude cross-examination by returning to the witness his spectacles with a
theatrical flourish. Fitch, with evident relief, proclaimed to the court
that... with the inexplicable absence of Kensington police... he would not be
calling any further witnesses and the Magistrate ordered an hour's recess.
"I've
a further surprise for Mr. Yeats," Crowley declared over his chops at the
establishment to which we'd retired for lunch. "Not to worry young
man," and he'd gripped my shoulder firmly, and rather greasily,
"yours shall still be testimony of gravitation, quite... but I have found
a creature in the enemy's own camp, one of your sort... an American but not so
afflicted with the bathetic love of democratic principles. I took the
opportunity to converse with the fellow, he's as against the rabblement and for
kings as I."
"An
American? Has he been to Chancery Lane?" I asked, thinking instinctively
of my enemy, Viereck.
"Well,
I did gather the young fellow also has a bias against the supernatural. It sets
him against Willie so I merely omitted a few details regarding our
society." And then my landlord sighed... quite out of character, for he
had set a cunning trap for Yeats who, by identification of Mathers as
Praemonstrator of the Golden Dawn, would have exposed himself to charges of
betraying his Hermetic oath that even Coroner Westcott could not have protected
him from.
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