chapter 20 The Battle of Blythe Road
THE BATTLE OF BLYTHE ROAD
Back in London, Florence Farr, Maude Gonne, Yeats, and Stoker are rehearsing the same Portal Ritual in preparation for an upcoming initiation. In the cold light of day, the modest London temple’s cross and vault look small and tatty compared to the magnificent furnishings of Mathers’s Paris temple.
Stoker is standing in for the candidate. He hangs on the cross, while the others, scripts in hand, rehearse their lines and blocking. All are in street clothes. Farr, Yeats, and Gonne are wearing their ceremonial Egyptian headdresses. Yeats and Gonne casually share a cigarette.
Stoker is understandably uncomfortable and anxious to get on with the rehearsal. He shouts from the cross. “Why am I always the damned candidate at these rehearsals?”
Yeats tries to calm Stoker. “Because you’re here, for which we are all eternally grateful.”
Taking playful advantage of Stoker’s helpless position, Gonne slowly runs her finger across his chest. She then disappears behind the cross.
“Besides, darling, we are all a bit aroused to see you so deliciously helpless.” As she talks, she roughly pulls tight the rope loops that hold his wrists to the crossbeam.
“That will be quite enough, children. Let’s take our positions.” Farr tries to get everyone working together to carry on with the rehearsal. “Bill, I believe it is your line.”
Yeats takes a puff on his cigarette then hands it off to Gonne.
He takes the chalice and dagger from Farr and dips the dagger blade into the cup.
He approaches the crucified Stoker and carelessly exhales smoke in his face.
“Fear not, Abraham. I’ll be careful. Wouldn’t want to actually cut you.
Dracula may be lurking near enough to smell your blood. ”
Stoker is not amused. “Well Dracula’s bloody well made more money than any of your Celtic fairy ditties. You know, Bill, it’s damned hard to actually fill your belly with the written word. You might have to actually try it someday!”
Farr throws up her hands. “Dear god, people! Can’t we have two Irishmen in the same room?”
Maude Gonne still wants to tease the crucified Stoker.
“Oh dear. Brother Bramsy is being cross with us.” She approaches Stoker seductively.
Cigarette in one hand, she licks the palm of her other and slicks Stoker’s hair down over his eyebrows, making him look ridiculous.
She then playfully nips his ear with her teeth, then sticks her smoldering cigarette between his lips.
“Bramsy’s never more alluring than when he strains against the ropes. ”
Farr stamps her foot. “People! That will be quite enough. I have a dress rehearsal for a real play in three hours, and I won’t be late.”
Through the cigarette smoke, Stoker sees something at the entrance to the lodge room.
His eyes widen and his quivering mouth drops open as he tries in vain to speak.
He is so flustered by what he sees, he doesn’t even notice that the smoldering cigarette has dropped from his lips and fallen between his vest and shirt. “What in bloody hell?”
In the doorway stands a figure dressed in full Scottish highland dress: black buckled shoes; argyle knee socks with a dagger tucked neatly in one sock; kilt of the MacGregor tartan, sporran dangling in front with a topaz stag design; thick, black, leather belt holding a heavy highland dirk the size of a small sword; and a black jacket over a white shirt with a stiff Eton collar.
The intruder’s face is concealed under an oversized black leather mask, a replica of the Egyptian jackal-headed god, Anubis.
Farr, Gonne, and Yeats turn in amazed disbelief. Stoker squirms on the cross.
From behind the Anubis mask roars the voice of Aleister Crowley. “Royal is my Race is the motto of the lawful owner of this sacred vault! Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers!”
Stoker screams, “Crowley! You bastard!”
Farr is the calmest of the four. “Oh, for Christ’s sake! Take off that mask! We know it’s you, Brother Crowley, and you cannot be here. You are forbidden to see this room. You must immediately leave.”
Crowley draws his dirk. “I have every right to be here, and you have none. The master himself has ushered me through the Portal from which you so shamefully tried to bar me.”
With his free hand he pulls an envelope from under his belt and throws it to the floor. “And, as full Adeptis Minor and the master’s direct envoy, I am sent to deliver Letters of Expulsion to you and all here assembled and seize and reclaim the sacred vault for the master.”
“Mathers sent you?” Yeats asks, somewhat amused.
Gonne turns to Stoker on the cross. “Dear god, Bramsy, you were right. Mathers has lost his mind completely.”
Stoker now notices his shirt is smoldering. “Whhaaaa! Please! I’m on fire. Get me down . . . someone . . . please! You bastard, Crowley! . . . Someone, help me! I’ll kill you, Crowley. I’ll kill you!”
Farr turns her back on Crowley and addresses the others. “I, for one, shall not allow myself to be expelled by a madman and his lunatic messenger. We have a quorum. I hereby move we expel MacGregor Mathers and Mr. Aleister Crowley effective immediately.”
Gonne seconds the motion, and Farr continues. “It has been regularly moved and seconded that MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley be expelled from the Order of the Golden Dawn and cast back into the outer darkness. All in favor raise your right hand.”
Farr sets the example and raises her hand. Instantly Gonne and Yeats do the same. Stoker, still crucified, cannot raise his hand. He’s on fire and blabbers incoherently. “Oh, aye! Aye! For Christ’s sake!”
Farr turns to Crowley. “There it is mister Crowley. Now get out before I fetch a constable.”
Crowley raises his dirk and with his other hand points to the envelope on the floor. “I expelled you before you took the vote. Your votes don’t count.”
“Yes they do!” Farr insists nonchalantly. “We didn’t open the envelope!”
“Doesn’t matter,” Crowley whines like a little boy.
“It does matter!” Farr snaps like an angry mother.
Stoker punctuates the absurdity of the moment. “For god’s sake! Someone get me down from this god-damned cross. I’m on fire!”
Crowley whirls the dirk above his head and lunges toward Gonne and Yeats. Farr steps to the side and backs out of the way. In the chaos, she escapes out the door unnoticed.
Crowley chases Gonne and Yeats around the cross and the outside of the vault, all the while shouting, “Off! Off! The Mount of Heredom! Off Mount Abiegunus! Flee in shame from the Tomb of our Father Christian Rosencrutz!”
He finally herds Gonne and Yeats out the door. He then slowly turns and faces crucified Stoker, whose shirt is now smoking away nicely. Crowley reaches down to his sock and removes the dagger. He holds it by the blade as if ready to throw it.
Stoker is terrified. “You’re more insane than Mathers! Wait! What are you going to do? You wouldn’t dare . . .”
Crowley slips off the Anubis mask. “Get off my cross!”
He then expertly hurls the dagger. It plunges into the head of the cross just inches above Stoker’s head.
Stoker faints dead away. Crowley puts the Anubis mask back on and picks up the ceremonial goblet.
He pours the wine down Stoker’s shirt to extinguish the fire.
He then proceeds to cut Stoker’s ropes with his dirk. Stoker falls limply to the floor.
“What’s all this then?” A constable stands in the doorway.
Behind him peek Farr, Gonne, and Yeats. They are still wearing their Egyptian headpieces (very askance).
The constable surveys the scene: Crowley in his Highland outfit and jackal mask; Stoker on the floor drenched in wine; the cross, the ropes, the vault, the cup, the dagger.
He heaves a heavy sigh and calmly asks, “What seems to be the problem here?”
Minutes later, curious neighbors gather near the entrance of the building.
First out the door is wine-drenched Stoker, pawing at his scorched vest; Gonne and Yeats cling to each other as their Egyptian headdresses dangle from their heads.
Then comes Crowley in his kilt and Anubis mask, followed by the constable with Florence Farr talking so feverishly she is making no sense at all.
“Menaced us with his dirk. This is our temple! It’s our cross! Our sacred vault! He had no right. We expelled him. We expelled them both! But he said he expelled us first, but we hadn’t opened the envelope . . . you see? We expelled them first.”
The neighbors stare with curious amusement. The constable closes and locks the door and tells the tiny crowd to, “Move along now. Nothing to see here.”
In Paris, Moina, robed in full magical regalia, stands before a large, triangular, black mirror. She takes off her skullcap and removes a magical square from atop her head. It is smeared with her menstrual blood. She opens the door of her candlelit bedroom temple and steps into the parlor.
Mathers is seated at the writing desk making an entry in his diary. Moina throws the bloody talisman on his notes. “Your buffoon errand boy has botched his assignment. It seems you are the one who’s been expelled.”