II
The rooms of Mr. James Morton were conveniently situated up four flights of stairs in one of those blocks of buildings, so mysterious to the layman, that lie not a very long way from Charing Cross. There is a silence always here as of college life, and the place is frequented by the same curious selections from the human race as haunt University courts. Here are to be seen cooks, aged and dignified men, errand-boys, and rather shabby old women.
The interior of the rooms, too, is not unlike that of an ordinary rather second-rate college; and Mr. James Morton's taste did not redeem the chambers in which he sat. From roof to floor the particular apartment in which he sat was lined with bookshelves filled with unprepossessing volumes and large black tin boxes. A large table stood in the middle of the room, littered with papers, with bulwarks of the same kind of tin boxes rising at either end.
Mr. Morton himself was a square-built man of some forty years, clean-shaven, and rather pale and stout, with strongly marked features, a good loud voice, and the pleasant, brusque manners that befit a University and public school man who has taken seriously to business.
Laurie and he got on excellently together. The younger man had an admiration for the older, whose reputation as a rather distinguished barrister certainly deserved it, and was sufficiently in awe of him to pay attention to his directions in all matters connected with law. But they did not meet much on other planes. Laurie had asked the other down to Stantons once, and had dined with him three or four times in return. And there their acquaintance found its limitations.
This morning, however, the boy's interested air, with its hints of suppressed excitement and his marked inattention to the books and papers which were his business, at last caused the older man to make a remark. It was in his best manner.
"What's the matter, eh?" he suddenly shot at him, without prelude of any kind.
Laurie's attention came back with a jump, and he flushed a little.
"Oh!—er—nothing particular," he murmured. And he set himself down to his books again in silence, conscious of the watchful roving eye on the other side of the table.
About half-past twelve Mr. Morton shut his own book with a slap, leaned back, and began to fill his pipe.
"Nothing seems very important," he said.
As the last uttered word had been spoken an hour previously, Laurie was bewildered, and looked it.
"It won't do, Baxter," went on the other. "You haven't turned a page an hour this morning."
Laurie smiled doubtfully, and leaned back too. Then he had a spasm of confidence.
"Yes. I'm rather upset this morning," he said. "The fact is, last night..."
Mr. Morton waited.
"Well?" he said. "Oh! don't tell if me you don't want to."
Laurie looked at him.
"I wonder what you'd say," he said at last.
The other got up with an abrupt movement, pushed his books together, selected a hat, and put it on.
"I'm going to lunch," he said. "Got to be in the Courts at two; and...."
"Oh! wait a minute," said Laurie. "I think I want to tell you."
"Well, make haste." He stood, in attitude to go.
"What do you think of spiritualism?"
"Blasted rot," said Mr. Morton. "Anything more I can do for you?"
"Do you know anything about it?"
"No. Don't want to. Is that all?"
"Well, look here;" said Laurie.... "Oh! sit down for two minutes."
Then he began. He described carefully his experiences of the night before, explaining so much as was necessary of antecedent events. The other during the course of it tilted his hat back, and half leaned, half sat against a side-table, watching the boy at first with a genial contempt, and finally with the same curious interest that one gives to a man with a new disease.
"Now, what d'you make of that?" ended Laurie, flushed and superb.
"D'you want to know?" came after a short silence.
Laurie nodded.
"What I said at the beginning, then."
"What?"
"Blasted rot," said Mr. Morton again.
Laurie frowned sharply, and affected to put his books together.
"Of course, if you take it like that," he said. "But I don't know what respect you can possibly have for any evidence, if...."
"My dear chap, that isn't evidence. No evidence in the world could make me believe that the earth was upside down. These things don't happen."
"Then how do you explain...?"
"I don't explain," said Mr. Morton. "The thing's simply not worth looking into. If you really saw that, you're either mad or else there was a trick.... Now come along to lunch."
"But I'm not the only one," cried Laurie hotly.
"No, indeed you're not.... Look here, Baxter, that sort of thing plays the devil with nerves. Just drop it once and for all. I knew a chap once who went in for all that. Well, the end was what everybody knew would happen...."
"Yes?" said Laurie.
"Went off his chump," said the other briefly. "Nasty mess all over the floor. Now come to lunch."
"Wait a second. You can't argue from particulars to universals. Was he the only one you ever knew?"
The other paused a moment.
"No," he said. "As it happens, he wasn't. I knew another chap—he's a solicitor.... Oh! by the way, he's one of your people—a Catholic, I mean."
"Well, what about him?" "Oh! he's all right," admitted Mr. Morton, with a grudging air. "But he gave it up and took to religion instead."
"Yes? What's his name?"
"Cathcart."
He glanced up at the clock.
"Good Lord," he said, "ten to one."
Then he was gone.
Laurie was far too exalted to be much depressed by this counsel's opinion; and had, indeed, several minutes of delightful meditation on the crass complacency of a clever man when taken off his ground. It was deplorable, he said to himself, that men should be so content with their limitations. But it was always the way, he reflected. To be a specialist in one point involved the pruning of all growth on every other. Here was Morton, almost in the front rank of his particular subject, and, besides, very far from being a bookworm; yet, when taken an inch out of his rut, he could do nothing but flounder. He wondered what Morton would make of these things if he saw them himself.
In the course of the afternoon Morton himself turned up again. The case had ended unexpectedly soon. Laurie waited till the closing of the shutters offered an opportunity for a break in the work, and once more returned to the charge.
"Morton," he said, "I wish you'd come with me one day."
The other looked up.
"Eh?"
"To see for yourself what I told you."
Mr. Morton snorted abruptly.
"Lord!" he said, "I thought we'd done with that. No, thank you: Egyptian Hall's all I need."
Laurie sighed elaborately.
"Oh! of course, if you won't face facts, one can't expect...."
"Look here, Baxter," said the other almost kindly, "I advise you to give this up. It plays the very devil with nerves, as I told you. Why, you're as jumpy as a cat yourself. And it isn't worth it. If there was anything in it, why it would be another thing; but...."
"I ... I wouldn't give it up for all the world," stammered Laurie in his zeal. "You simply don't know what you're talking about. Why ... why, I'm not a fool ... I know that. And do you think I'm ass enough to be taken in by a trick? And as if a trick could be played like that in a drawing-room! I tell you I examined every inch...."
"Look here," said Morton, looking curiously at the boy—for there was something rather impressive about Laurie's manner—"look here; you'd better see old Cathcart. Know him...? Well, I'll introduce you any time. He'll tell you another tale. Of course, I don't believe all the rot he talks; but, at any rate, he's sensible enough to have given it all up. Says he wouldn't touch it with a pole. And he was rather a big bug at it in his time, I believe."
Laurie sneered audibly.
"Got frightened, I suppose," he said. "Of course, I know well enough that it's rather startling—"
"My dear man, he was in the thick of it for ten years. I'll acknowledge his stories are hair-raising, if one believed them; but then, you see—"
"What's his address?"
Morton jerked his head towards the directories in the bookshelf.
"Find him there," he said. "I'll give you an introduction if you want it. Though, mind you, I think he talks as much rot as anyone—"
"What does he say?"
"Lord!—I don't know. Some theory or other. But, at any rate, he's given it up."
Laurie pursed his lips.
"I daresay I'll ask you some time," he said. "Meanwhile—"
"Meanwhile, for the Lord's sake, get on with that business you've got there."
Mr. Morton was indeed, as Laurie had reflected, extraordinarily uninterested in things outside his beat; and his beat was not a very extended one. He was a quite admirable barrister, competent, alert, merciless and kindly at the proper times, and, while at his business, thought of hardly anything else at all. And when he was not at his business, he threw himself with equal zest into two or three other occupations—golf, dining out, and the collection of a particular kind of chairs. Beyond these things there was for him really nothing of value.
But, owing to circumstances, his beat had been further extended to include Laurie Baxter, whom he was beginning to like extremely. There was an air of romance about Laurie, a pleasant enthusiasm, excellent manners, and a rather delightful faculty of hero-worship. Mr. Morton himself, too, while possessing nothing even resembling a religion, was, like many other people, not altogether unattracted towards those who had, though he thought religiousness to be a sign of a slightly incompetent character; and he rather liked Laurie's Catholicism, such as it was. It must be rather pleasant, he considered (when he considered it at all), to believe "all that," as he would have said.
So this new phase of Laurie's interested him far more than he would have allowed, so soon as he became aware that it was not merely superficial; and, indeed, Laurie's constant return to the subject, as well as his air of enthusiastic conviction, soon convinced him that this was so.
Further, after a week or two, he became aware that the young man's work was suffering; and he heard from his lips the expression of certain views that seemed to the elder man extremely unhealthy.
For example, on a Friday evening, not much afterwards, as Laurie was putting his books together, Mr. Morton asked him where he was going to spend the week-end.
"Stopping in town," said the boy briefly.
"Oh! I'm going to my brother's cottage. Care to come? Afraid there's no Catholic church near."
Laurie smiled.
"That wouldn't deter me," he said. "I've made up my mind—"
"Yes?"
"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Laurie. "No—thanks awfully, but I've got to stop in town."
"Lady Laura's again?"
"Yes."
"Same old game?"
Laurie sat down.
"Look here," he said, "I know you don't mean anything; but I wish you'd understand."
"Well?"
The boy's face flushed with sudden nervous enthusiasm.
"Do you understand," he said, "that this is just everything to me? Do you know it's beginning to seem to me just the only thing that matters? I'm quite aware that you think it all the most utter bunkum; but, you see, I know it's true. And the whole thing is just like heaven opening.... Look here ... I didn't tell you half the other day. The fact is, that I was just as much in love with this girl as—as a man could be. She died; and now—"
"Look here, what were you up to last Sunday?"
Laurie quieted a little.
"You wouldn't understand," he said.
"Have you done any more of that business?"
"What business?"
"Well—thinking you saw her—All right, seeing her, if you like."
The boy shook his head.
"No. Vincent's away in Ireland. We've been going on other lines."
"Tell me; I swear I won't laugh."
"All right; I don't care if you do.... Well, automatic handwriting."
"What's that?"
Laurie hesitated.
"Well, I go into trance, you see, and—"
"Good Lord, what next?"
"And then this girl writes through my hand," said Laurie deliberately, "when I'm unconscious. See?"
"I see you're a damned young fool," said Morton seriously.
"But if it's all rot, as you think?"
"Of course it's all rot! Do you think I believe for one instant—" He broke off. "And so's a nervous breakdown all rot, isn't it, and D.T.? They aren't real snakes, you know."
Laurie smiled in a superior manner.
"And you're getting yourself absorbed in all this—"
Laurie looked at him with a sudden flash of fanaticism.
"I tell you," he said, "that it's all the world to me. And so would it be to you, if—"
"Oh, Lord! don't become Salvation Army.... Seen Cathcart yet?"
"No. I haven't the least wish to see Cathcart."
Morton rose, put his pens in the drawer, locked it; slid half a dozen papers into a black tin box, locked that too, and went towards his coat and hat, all in silence.
As he went out he turned on the threshold.
"When's that man coming back from Ireland?" he said.
"Who? Vincent? Oh! another month yet. We're going to have another try when he comes."
"Try? What at?"
"Materialization," said Laurie. "That's to say—"
"I don't want to know what the foul thing means."
He still paused, looking hard at the boy. Then he sniffed.
"A young fool," he said. "I repeat it.... Lock up when you come.... Good night."
Chapter X
I
Mrs. Baxter possessed one of the two secrets of serenity. The other need not be specified; but hers arose from the most pleasant and most human form of narrow-mindedness. As has been said before, when things did not fit with her own scheme, either they were not things, but only fancies of somebody inconsiderable, or else she resolutely disregarded them. She had an opportunity of testing her serenity on one day early in February.
She rose as usual at a fixed hour—eight o'clock—and when she was ready knelt down at her prie-Dieu. This was quite an elaborate structure, far more elaborate than the devotions offered there. It was a very beautiful inlaid Florentine affair, and had a little shelf above it filled with a number of the little leather-bound books in which her soul delighted. She did not use these books very much; but she liked to see them there. It would not be decent to enter the sanctuary of Mrs. Baxter's prayers; it is enough to say that they were not very long. Then she rose from her knees, left her large comfortable bedroom, redolent with soap and hot water, and came downstairs, a beautiful slender little figure in black lace veil and rich dress, through the sunlight of the staircase, into the dining-room.
There she took up her letters and packets. They were not exciting. There was an unimportant note from a friend, a couple of bills, and a Bon Marché catalogue; and she scrutinized these through her spectacles, sitting by the fire. When she had done she noticed a letter lying by Maggie's place, directed in a masculine hand. An instant later Maggie came in herself, in her hat and furs, a charming picture, fresh from the winter sunlight and air, and kissed her.
While Mrs. Baxter poured out tea she addressed a remark or two to the girl, but only got back those vague inattentive murmurs that are the sign of a distracted mind; and, looking up presently with a sense of injury, noticed that Maggie was reading her letter with extraordinary diligence.
"My dear, I am speaking to you," said Mrs. Baxter, with an air of slightly humorous dignity.
"Er—I am sorry," murmured Maggie, and continued reading.
Mrs. Baxter put out her hand for the Bon Marché catalogue in order to drive home her sense of injury, and met Maggie's eyes, suddenly raised to meet her own, with a curious strained look in them.
"Darling, what is the matter?"
Maggie still stared at her a moment, as if questioning both herself and the other, and finally handed the letter across with an abrupt movement.
"Read it," she said.
It was rather a business to read it. It involved spectacles, a pushing aside of a plate, and a slight turning to catch the light. Mrs. Baxter read it, and handed it back, making three or four times the sound written as "Tut."
"The tiresome boy!" she said querulously, but without alarm.
"What are we to do? You see, Mr. Morton thinks we ought to do something. He mentions a Mr. Cathcart."
Mrs. Baxter reached out for the toast-rack.
"My dear, there's nothing to be done. You know what Laurie is. It'll only make him worse."
Maggie looked at her uneasily.
"I wish we could do something," she said.
"My dear, he'd have written to me—Mr. Morton, I mean—if Laurie had been really unwell. You see he only says he doesn't attend to his work as he ought."
Maggie took up the letter, put it carefully back into the envelope, and went on with breakfast. There was nothing more to be said just then.
But she was uneasy, and after breakfast went out into the garden, spud in hand, to think it all over, with the letter in her pocket.
Certainly the letter was not alarming per se, but per accidens—that is to say, taking into account who it was that had written, she was not so sure. She had met Mr. Morton but once, and had formed of him the kind of impression that a girl would form of such a man in the hours of a week-end—a brusque, ordinary kind of barrister without much imagination and a good deal of shrewd force. It was surely rather an extreme step for a man like this to write to a girl in such a condition of things, asking her to use her influence to dissuade Laurie from his present course of life. Plainly the man meant what he said; he had not written to Mrs. Baxter, as he explained in the letter, for fear of alarming her unduly, and, as he expressly said, there was nothing to be alarmed about. Yet he had written.
Maggie stopped at the lower end of the orchard path, took out the letter, and read the last three or four sentences again:
Please forgive me if you think it was unnecessary to write. Of course I have no doubt whatever that the whole thing is nothing but nonsense; but even nonsense can have a bad effect, and Mr. Baxter seems to me to be far too much wrapped up in it. I enclose the address of a friend of mine in case you would care to write to him on the subject. He was once a Spiritualist, and is now a devout Catholic. He takes a view of it that I do not take; but at any rate his advice could do no harm. You can trust him to be absolutely discreet.
Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
James Morton
It really was very odd and unconventional; and Mr. Morton had not seemed at all an odd or unconventional person. He mentioned, too, a particular date, February 25, as the date by which the medium would have returned, and some sort of further effort was going to be made; but he did not attempt to explain this, nor did Maggie understand it. It only seemed to her rather sinister and unpleasant.
She turned over the page, and there was the address he had mentioned—a Mr. Cathcart. Surely he did not expect her to write to this stranger....
She walked up and down with her spud for another half-hour before she could come to any conclusion. Certainly she agreed with Mr. James Morton that the whole thing was nonsense; yet, further, that this nonsense was capable of doing a good deal of harm to an excitable person. Besides, Laurie obviously had a bad conscience about it, or he would have mentioned it.
She caught sight of Mrs. Baxter presently through the thick hedge, walking with her dainty, dignified step along the paths of the kitchen garden; and a certain impatience seized her at the sight. This boy's mother was so annoyingly serene. Surely it was her business, rather than Maggie's own, to look after Laurie; yet the girl knew perfectly well that if Laurie was left to his mother nothing at all would be done. Mrs. Baxter would deplore it all, of course, gently and tranquilly, in Laurie's absence, and would, perhaps, if she were hard pressed, utter a feeble protest even in his presence; and that was absolutely all....
"Maggie! Maggie!" came the gentle old voice, calling presently; and then to some unseen person, "Have you seen Miss Deronnais anywhere?"
Maggie put the letter in her pocket and hurried through from the orchard.
"Yes?" she said, with a half hope.
"Come in, my dear, and tell me what you think of those new teacups in the Bon Marché catalogue," said the old lady. "There seem some beautiful new designs, and we want another set."
Maggie bowed to the inevitable. But as they passed up the garden her resolution was precipitated.
"Can you let me go by twelve," she said. "I rather want to see Father Mahon about something."
"My dear, I shall not keep you three minutes," protested the old lady.
And they went in to talk for an hour and three-quarters.