They went on along these lines with a sort of antiphonal reproachfulness and Grant’s face, even in that dim light, could be seen to grow redder and redder. At last he turned helplessly to Sophy, who muttered: “Hadn’t you better?” and was strangely gratified when he said at once and at large: “If you really want it, of course. I didn’t mean to be disobliging. It’s only that I’ll feel such an ass.”
The Van der Veghels broke into delighted laughter and the Baron developed a more extravagant flight of fancy. They would take a photograph: a group at the centre of which would be Grant, reading aloud. In the background, the god Mithras himself would preside over the work he had inspired. This extraordinary variant on Victorian group photography was put into operation after a playful argument between the Van der Veghels about their active and passive roles. Finally they agreed that the Baroness would take the first picture and she went excitedly into action. The wretched Grant, with open book, was placed upon an obscure stone protrusion to the left of Mithras, Alleyn on his one hand and Sophy, who was beginning to get the giggles, on the other. Behind Sophy posed Major Sweet and behind Alleyn, Kenneth Dorne.
“And you, Gerrit, my darlink,” the Baroness instructed her husband—“because you are so big, yes? — at the rear.”
“Afterwards we exchange,” he urged.
“So.”
“And all to concentrate upon the open page.”
“Ach. So.”
Major Sweet, always unpredictable, took a serious view of this business. “How,” he objected, “are we to concentrate on something we can scarcely see?”
And indeed, it was well urged. The head of the little god, like the altar and all the other effigies in these regions, was cleverly lit from a concealed niche, but his surroundings were deep in shadow, none more so than the area in which the group was deployed. The Van der Veghels explained that all would be revealed by the flashlamp. Their great desire was that the god should be incorporated in the group and to this end a little make-believe was to be excused. Grant’s discomfort had become so evident that Alleyn and Sophy Jason, simultaneously but without consultation, decided upon a note of high comedy.
“Ah yes,” Alleyn suddenly offered. “Even if we can’t see it, we’re all to gaze upon the book? Fair enough. And I expect Mr. Grant knows the passage by heart. Perhaps he could recite it for us in the dark.”
“I can do nothing of the sort, damn you,” Grant said warmly. The Baroness explained. Afterwards they would move into a more luminous spot and Grant would then, without subterfuge, read the appropriate passage.
In the meantime, the Baroness reiterated, would they all concentrate upon the almost imperceptible page.
After a good deal of falling about in the dark the group assembled. “Would it be pretty,” Alleyn suggested, “if Miss Jason were to point out a passage in the book and I were to place my arm about the author’s shoulders, eagerly seeking to read it?”
“What a good suggestion,” Sophy cried. “And Major Sweet could perhaps bend over on the other side.”
“Delighted, I’m sure,” said the Major with alacrity and did bend very closely over Sophy. “Damn’ good idea, what,” he whistled into her ear.
“It recalls,” Alleyn said, “Tchékhov reading aloud to Stanislavsky and the Moscow Arts players.”
This observation was received with loud applause from the Baroness. Sophy and Alleyn crowded up to Grant.
“You shall suffer for this,” Grant said between his teeth. “Both of you.”
“On the book, on the book, all on the book!” gaily chanted the Baroness. “Nobody to move. Gerrit, you must step a little back and Mr. Dorne, are you there, please?”
“Oh, God, yes, I’m here.”
“Good. Good. And so, all are ready? Freeze, please. I shoot.”
The camera clicked but the darkness was uninterrupted. The Baroness, who had uttered what was no doubt a strong expletive in her own language, now followed it up with a reproach to her husband. “What did I tell you, my darlink! They are useless these local bulps. No! Do not answer. Do not move. I have another in my pocket. Not to move anybody, please, or speak. I find it.”
Sophy giggled. Major Sweet immediately groped for her waist.
“Serve you bloody well right,” whispered Grant to Sophy. He had detected this manoeuvre. From somewhere not far away but beyond the Mithraeum there came the sound, distorted as all sounds were in that region, by echoes, as of a high-pitched voice.
There followed a seemingly interminable interval broken after a time by a distant thud as of a heavy door being shut. The Baroness fiddled and muttered. Kenneth detached himself from the group and took a flashlight shot of the god. He was urged back into position and at last the Baroness was ready.
“Please. Please. Attention. Freeze, please. Again, I shoot.”
This time the light flashed, they were all blinded and the Baroness gave out loud cries of satisfaction and insisted upon taking two more. Against mounting impatience the group was then re-formed with the Baroness replacing her husband and over-hanging Major Sweet like some primitive earthmother. The Baron had better luck with his flashlamp and all was accomplished.
“Although,” he said, “it would have been nicer to have included our cicerone, would it not?”
“Must say, he’s taking his time,” Major Sweet grumbled. “Damned odd sort of behaviour if you ask me.”
But Kenneth pointed out that Sebastian Mailer was probably keeping his aunt company in the atrium. “After all,” he said to Grant, “he handed over to you, didn’t he?”
Grant, under pressure from the Van der Veghels, now moved into the area of light and with every sign of extreme reluctance read the Mithraic passage from Simon to this most strangely assorted audience. He read rapidly and badly in an uninflected voice, but something of the character of his writing survived the treatment.
“—Nothing had changed. The dumpy god with Phrygian cap, icing-sugar ringlets, broken arms and phallus rose from his matrix of stony female breasts. A rather plebeian god one might have said, but in his presence fat little Simon’s ears heaved with the soundless roar of a sacrificial bull, his throat and the back of his nose were stung by blood that nineteen centuries ago had boiled over white-hot stone, and his eyes watered in the reek of burning entrails. He trembled and was immeasurably gratified.”
The reading continued in jerks to the end of the appropriate passage. Grant shut the book with a clap, passed it like a hot potato to the Baroness and hitched his shoulders against obligatory murmurs from his audience. These evaporated into an uneasy silence.
Sophy felt oppressed. For the first time claustrophobia threatened her. The roof seemed lower, the walls closer, the regions beyond them very much quieter as if the group had been deserted, imprisoned almost, so many fathoms deep in the ground. “For tuppence,” she thought, “I could do a bolt like Lady Braceley.”
Grant repeated his suggestion that the others might like to explore and that he himself would remain for ten minutes in the Mithraeum in case anyone preferred to rejoin him there before returning to the upper world. He reminded them that there were side openings and an end one, leading into surrounding passages, and the insula.
Kenneth Dorne said he would go up and take a look at his aunt. He seemed to be more relaxed and showed a tendency to laugh at nothing in particular. “Your reading was m-a-a-r-velous,” he said to Grant and smiled from ear to ear, “I adore your Simon.” He laughed immoderately and left by the main entrance. Major Sweet said he would take a look-see round and rejoin them above. “I have,” he threatened, “a bone to pick with Mailer. Extraordinary behavior.” He stared at Sophy. “Thinking of looking round at all?” he invited.