There are more similarities to come, but
first here is a summary of the remainder of the Sorcerer story:
How the story ends
The arrival at the language school of a young
man called Humphrey gives Meg Lambert someone other than Esmé Scarron to think
about. Humphrey is a worthy, dependable type and only 10 or so years older than
Meg. Her mother likes him very much. Unfortunately he is engaged, and his
fiancée Ruth soon comes out to join him at the guesthouse/language school in
Austria.
Meg, her mother and some of the other students
including Humphrey and Ruth take a short sightseeing trip to Venice.
An attempt by Ruth to make Meg see reason about
Scarron backfires; her well-meaning criticism pushes Meg into doing something
drastic. She tells Scarron on the phone that she will give him her final answer
in person at his palazzo. Then, in revenge for the pressure to forget Scarron,
she hits back by telling the others in her party a big lie: she says that she has
just got engaged to him over the phone. This hurts her mother terribly and confounds
the others.
Scarron sets out for Venice. He has asked his ex-wife and daughter to keep away from his palazzo, but this backfires and they go there to sabotage his plans. This is their big chance to take some revenge for what he has done to them. They reveal many of Scarron’s secrets to the Lamberts, including his age and his experiments on his son and daughter.
Scarron makes one last attempt to capture Meg
by bombarding her with more waves of pity, but it doesn’t work.
Meg and her mother are horrified and
devastated. They see Scarron for the monster he is. They make their escape from
the palazzo in a panic, leaving the three vile and terrible people alone in their
private hell.
Meg and Humphrey soon come to an arrangement,
so there is a very happy ending for Meg and her mother.
Two crucial interventions
Two minor characters in this story decide to
intervene in Meg’s affairs. One intervention has a very bad effect and the
other a very good one.
Ruth senses that Humphrey has become
interested in Meg, whom she dislikes and disapproves of. She is eager to tell
Meg that she is making a big mistake by getting involved with Scarron, as he is
completely unsuitable for her. When she learns that her mother and Humphrey
wanted Ruth to have a word with her, Meg is very hurt; she is also jealous of
Ruth because of Humphrey, so enjoys paying her back by dropping the engagement
bombshell. Ruth’s intervention got the exact opposite of the result that she
had hoped for.
A very annoying young man called Robin helps
to save the day. He too decides to intervene in Meg’s affairs. Just before Meg
is about to set off for Scarron’s palazzo, Robin, who is not very fond of Ruth
and dislikes Scarron, tells her that Humphrey has just broken off his
engagement. Unlike Meg’s engagement announcement, this is true: Humphrey has
realised that he feels much more for Meg than he ever has for Ruth.
Robin’s intervention has a very good result.
The timely news gives Meg an option for the
future other than Scarron, which helps to strengthen her against his influence
at the final meeting - rather as having Mr Rochester in her heart helps to
protect Jane Eyre against the influence of St. John Rivers.
At one level, some of these actions can be
seen as petty back-stabbing and manoeuvring by ordinary young people whose
motives are personal and only semi-conscious.
At a deeper level, they can be seen as part
of the battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, a battle
in which Robin and Ruth and the others are completely unaware that they are
taking part.
Both Stella Gibbons and Madeleine L’Engle
believed in angelic and demonic forces that operate on and through people.
To return to Scarron’s influence, Meg endures
a stealthy night attack in Venice after she has phoned him. It comes down from
the mountains through which he is travelling to Venice in his car. Stella
Gibbons tells us that fear and the anger and need for revenge that Meg feels after
Ruth’s intervention have given the evil influence a foothold in her spirit.
The after-effects of a bad experience
Meg Lambert and her mother are very badly
affected by their meeting with Scarron and his family. They are also afraid
that he will pursue them as they escape from his palazzo. Luckily, they soon
find a gondola to take them back to the guesthouse where they are staying.
Mrs Lambert is in a very bad state indeed; she
has to be helped to disembark by Meg and the gondolier. She is exhausted and
very pale. Meg is unsteady too.
Madeleine L’Engle’s books contain similar
scenes:
Vicky Austin is so shaky after the incident
in Ring of Endless Light in which Zachary Grey takes her up in a small plane
and terrifies her by buzzing a big passenger jet that she has to be helped off
the plane. She couldn’t have managed it alone.
Polly O’Keefe is shaky too after the incident
in A House Like a Lotus in which Zachary takes her out in a kayak way beyond
the safety zone and nearly gets them both drowned.
Accidents, narrow escapes and near misses are
in themselves enough to cause overwhelming fear and shock in people, making
them very pale, weak and shaky.
However, sometimes it is not just the physical
danger alone that causes these symptoms.
Being in contact with evil, sensing that some evil entity or intention is
behind a person’s action can have a withering, blighting effect too.
The cult member awakens
When Meg finally realises how she has been
played, her reactions are similar to those of someone who realises that they
have been fooled by a cult leader.
She is no longer troubled by pity;
indignation replaces it. She now understands that she been made a fool of,
deceived, taken in and treated very badly - by someone alarmingly skilled.
Those horrible people had nearly got her. But
she had escaped, and that was all that really mattered.
Meg did have a lucky escape, and her ordeal
lasted for just a short time. She was not badly damaged and is the sort of
person who would recover quickly and forget all about it, all the more as she has
a good home to go back to and a new life with Humphrey to occupy her.
Similarly, Zachary Grey goes too far with
Vicky Austin and she finally accepts that he is no good to her. She too has her
caring, supportive family and another interested young man to fall back on.
Many cult members and victims of energy
vampires and occultists are not so lucky.
Even more to come
There are a few more uncanny common elements
and similarities to be described, and there is still more to be said about Esmé
Scarron and his occult activities.
