II
The table, a small, round rosewood one, stood, bare of any cloth, upon the hearthrug. The two ladies sat, motionless statues once more, upon the side furthest from the fire, with their hands resting lightly upon the surface. Laurie sat on one side and the medium on the other. Mr. Vincent had received his paper and pencil almost immediately, and now sat resting his right hand with the pencil upon the paper as if to write, his left hand upon his knee as he sat, turned away slightly from the center.
Laurie looked at him closely....
And now he began to be aware of a certain quite indefinable change in the face at which he looked. The eyes were open—no, it was not in them that the change lay, nor in the lines about the mouth, so far as he could see them, nor in any detail, anywhere. Neither was it the face of a dreamer or a sleepwalker, or of the dead, when the lines disappear and life retires. It was a living, conscious face, yet it was changed. The lips were slightly parted, and the breath came evenly between them. It was more like the face of one lost in deep, absorbed, introspective thought. Laurie decided that this was the explanation.
He looked at the hand on the paper—well shaped, brownish, capable—perfectly motionless, the pencil held lightly between the finger and thumb.
Then he glanced up at the two ladies.
They too were perfectly motionless, but there was no change in them. The eyes of both were downcast, fixed steadily upon the paper. And as he looked he saw Lady Laura begin to lift her lids slowly as if to glance at him. He looked himself upon the paper and the motionless fingers.
He was astonished at the speed with which the situation had developed. Five minutes ago he had been listening to talk, and joining in it. The clergyman had been here; he himself had been sitting a yard further back. Now they sat here as if they had sat for an hour. It seemed that the progress of events had stopped....
Then he began to listen for the sounds of the world outside, for within here it seemed as if a silence of a very strange quality had suddenly descended and enveloped them. It was as if a section—that place in which he sat—had been cut out of time and space. It was apart here, it was different altogether....
He began to be intensely and minutely conscious of the world outside—so entirely conscious that he lost all perception of that at which he stared; whether it was the paper, or the strong, motionless hand, or the introspective face, he was afterwards unaware. But he heard all the quiet roar of the London evening, and was able to distinguish even the note of each instrument that helped to make up that untiring, inconclusive orchestra. Far away to the northwards sounded a great thoroughfare, the rolling of wheels, a myriad hoofs, the pulse of motor vehicles, and the cries of street boys; upon all these his attention dwelt as they came up through the outward windows into that dead silent, lamp-lit room of which he had lost consciousness. Again a hansom came up the street, with the rap of hoofs, the swish of a whip, the wintry jingle of bells....
He began gently to consider these things, to perceive, rather than to form, little inward pictures of what they signified; he saw the lighted omnibus, the little swirl of faces round a news-board.
Then he began to consider what had brought him here; it seemed that he saw himself, coming in his dark suit across the park, turning into the thoroughfare and across it. He began to consider Amy; and it seemed to him that in this intense and living silence he was conscious of her for the first time without sorrow since ten days ago. He began to consider.
Something brought him back in an instant to the room and his perception of it, but he had not an idea what this was, whether a movement or a sound. But on considering it afterwards he remembered that it was as that sound is that wakes a man at the very instant of his falling asleep, a sharp momentary tick, as of a clock. Yet he had not been in the least sleepy.
On the contrary, he perceived now with an extreme and alert attention the hand on the paper; he even turned his head slightly to see if the pencil had moved. It was as motionless as at the beginning. He glanced up, with a touch of surprise, at his hostess's face, and caught her in the very act of turning her eyes from his. There was no impatience in her movement: rather her face was of one absorbed, listening intently, not like the bearded face opposite, introspective and intuitive, but eagerly, though motionlessly, observant of the objective world. He looked at Mrs. Stapleton. She too bore the same expression of intent regarding thought on her usually rather tiresome face.
Then once again the silence began to come down, like a long, noiseless hush.
This time, however, his progress was swifter and more sure. He passed with the speed of thought through those processes that had been measurable before, faintly conscious of the words spoken before the sitting began—
"... If possible, the silence of thought."
He thought he understood now what this signified, and that he was experiencing it. No longer did he dwell upon, or consider, with any voluntary activity, the images that passed before him. Rather they moved past him while he simply regarded them without understanding. His perception ran swiftly outwards, as through concentric circles, yet he was not sure whether it were outwards or inwards that he went. The roar of London, with its flight of ocular visions, sank behind him, and without any further sense of mental travel, he found himself perceiving his own home, whether in memory, imagination, or fact he did not know. But he perceived his mother, in the familiar lamp-lit room, over her needlework, and Maggie—Maggie looking at him with a strange, almost terrified expression in her great eyes. Then these too were gone; and he was out in some warm silence, filled with a single presence—that which he desired; and there he stopped.
He was not in the least aware of how long this lasted. But he found himself at a certain moment in time, looking steadily at the white paper on the table, from which the hand had gone, again conscious of the sudden passing of some clear sound that left no echo—as sharp as the crack of a whip. Oh! the paper—that was the important point! He bent a little closer, and was aware of a sharp disappointment as he saw it was stainless of writing. Then he was astonished that the hand and pencil had gone from it, and looked up quickly.
Mr. Vincent was looking at him with a strange expression.
At first he thought he might have interrupted, and wondered with dismay whether this were so. But there was no sign of anger in those eyes—nothing but a curious and kindly interest.
"Nothing happened?" he exclaimed hastily. "You have written nothing?"
He looked at the ladies.
Lady Laura too was looking at him with the same strange interest as the medium. Mrs. Stapleton, he noticed, was just folding up, in an unobtrusive manner, several sheets of paper that he had not noticed before.
He felt a little stiff, and moved as if to stand up but, to his astonishment, the big man was up in an instant, laying his hands on his shoulders.
"Just sit still quietly for a few minutes," said the kindly voice. "Just sit still."
"Why—why—" began Laurie, bewildered.
"Yes, just sit still quietly," went on the voice; "you feel a little tired."
"Just a little," said Laurie. "But—"
"Yes, yes; just sit still. No; don't speak."
Then a silence fell again.
Laurie began to wonder what this was all about. Certainly he felt tired, yet strangely elated. But he felt no inclination to move; and sat back, passive, looking at his own hands on his knees. But he was disappointed that nothing had happened.
Then the thought of time came into his mind. He supposed that it would be about ten minutes past six. The sitting had begun a little before six. He glanced up at the clock on the mantelpiece; but it was one of those bulgy-faced Empire gilt affairs that display everything except the hour. He still waited a moment, feeling all this to be very unusual and unconventional. Why should he sit here like an invalid, and why should these three sit here and watch him so closely?
He shifted a little in his chair, feeling that an effort was due from him. The question of the time of day struck him as a suitably conventional remark with which to break the embarrassing silence.
"What is the time?" he said. "I am afraid I ought to be—"
"There is plenty of time," said the grave voice across the table.
With a sudden movement Laurie was on his feet, peering at the clock, knowing that something was wrong somewhere. Then he turned to the company bewildered and suspicious.
"Why, it is nearly eight," he cried.
Mr. Vincent smiled reassuringly.
"It is about that," he said. "Please sit down again, Mr. Baxter."
"But—but—" began Laurie.
"Please sit down again, Mr. Baxter," repeated the voice, with a touch of imperiousness that there was no resisting.
Laurie sat down again; but he was alert, suspicious, and intensely puzzled.
"Will you kindly tell me what has happened?" he asked sharply.
"You feel tired?"
"No; I am all right. Kindly tell me what has happened."
He saw Lady Laura whisper something in an undertone he could not hear. Mr. Vincent stood up with a nod and leaned himself against the mantelpiece, looking down at the rather indignant young man.
"Certainly," he said. "You are sure you are not exhausted, Mr. Baxter?"
"Not in the least," said Laurie.
"Well, then, you passed into trance about five minutes—"
"What?"
"You passed into trance about five minutes past six; you came out of it five minutes ago."
"Trance?" gasped Laurie.
"Certainly. A very deep and satisfactory trance. There is nothing to be frightened of, Mr. Baxter. It is an unusual gift, that is all. I have seldom seen a more satisfactory instance. May I ask you a question or two, sir?"
Laurie nodded vaguely. He was still trying hopelessly to take in what had been said.
"You nearly passed into trance a little earlier. May I ask whether you heard or saw anything that recalled you?"
Laurie shut his eyes tight in an effort to think. He felt dimly rather proud of himself.
"It was quite short. Then you came back and looked at Lady Laura. Try to remember."
"I remember thinking I had heard a sound."
The medium nodded.
"Just so," he said.
"That would be the third," said Lady Laura, nodding sagely.
"Third what?" said Laurie rather rudely.
No one paid any attention to him.
"Now can you give any account of the last hour and a half?" continued the medium tranquilly.
Laurie considered again. He was still a little confused.
"I remember thinking about the streets," he said, "and then of my own home, and then..." He stopped.
"Yes; and then?"
"Then of a certain private matter."
"Ah! We must not pry then. But can you answer one question more? Was it connected with any person who has crossed over?"
"It was," said Laurie shortly.
"Just so," said the medium.
Laurie felt suspicious.
"Why do you ask that?" he said.
Mr. Vincent looked at him steadily.
"I think I had better tell you, Mr. Baxter; it is more straightforward, though you will not like it. You will be surprised to hear that you talked very considerably during this hour and a half; and from all that you said I should suppose you were controlled by a spirit recently crossed over—a young girl who on being questioned gave the name of Amy Nugent—"
Laurie sprang to his feet, furious.
"You have been spying, sir. How dare you—"
"Sit down, Mr. Baxter, or you shall not hear a word more," rang out the imperious, unruffled voice. "Sit down this instant."
Laurie shot a look at the two ladies. Then he remembered himself. He sat down.
"I am not at all angry, Mr. Baxter," came the voice, suave and kindly again. "Your thought was very natural. But I think I can prove to you that you are mistaken."
Mr. Vincent glanced at Mrs. Stapleton with an almost imperceptible frown, then back at Laurie.
"Let me see, Mr. Baxter.... Is there anyone on earth besides yourself who knew that you had sat out, about ten days ago or so, under some yew trees in your garden at home, and thought of this young girl—that you—"
Laurie looked at him in dumb dismay; some little sound broke from his mouth.
"Well, is that enough, Mr. Baxter?"
Lady Laura slid in a sentence here.
"Dear Mr. Baxter, you need not be in the least alarmed. All that has passed here is, of course, as sacred as in the confessional. We should not dream, without your leave—"
"One moment," gasped the boy.
He drove his face into his hands and sat overwhelmed.
Presently he looked up.
"But I knew it," he said. "I knew it. It was just my own self which spoke."
The medium smiled.
"Yes," he said, "of course that is the first answer." He placed one hand on the table, leaning forward, and began to play his fingers as if on a piano. Laurie watched the movement, which seemed vaguely familiar.
"Can you account for that, Mr. Baxter? You did that several times. It seemed uncharacteristic of you, somehow."
Laurie looked at him, mute. He remembered now. He half raised a hand in protest.
"And ... and do you ever stammer?" went on the man.
Still Laurie was silent. It was beyond belief or imagination.
"Now if those things were characteristic—"
"Stop, sir," cried the boy; and then, "But those too might be unconscious imitation."
"They might," said the other. "But then we had the advantage of watching you. And there were other things."
"I beg your pardon?"
"There was the loud continuous rapping, at the beginning and the end. You were awakened twice by these."
Laurie remained perfectly motionless without a word. He was still striving to marshal this flood of mad ideas. It was incredible, amazing.
Then he stood up.
"I must go away," he said. "I—I don't know what to think."
"You had better stay a little longer and rest," said the medium kindly.
The boy shook his head.
"I must go at once," he said. "I cannot trust myself."
He went out without a word, followed by the medium. The two ladies sat eyeing one another.
"It has been astonishing ... astonishing," sighed Mrs. Stapleton. "What a find!"
There was no more said. Lady Laura sat as one in trance herself.
Then Mr. Vincent returned.
"You must not lose sight of that young man," he said abruptly. "It is an extraordinary case."
"I have all the notes here," remarked Mrs. Stapleton.
"Yes; you had better keep them. He must not see them at present."
Chapter V
I
As the weeks went by Maggie's faint uneasiness disappeared. She was one of those fortunate persons who, possessing what are known as nerves, are aware of the possession, and discount their effects accordingly.
That uneasiness had culminated a few days after Laurie's departure one evening as she sat with the old lady after tea—in a sudden touch of terror at she knew not what.
"What is the matter, my dear?" the old lady had said without warning.
Maggie was reading, but it appeared that Mrs. Baxter had noticed her lower her book suddenly, with an odd expression.
Maggie had blinked a moment.
"Nothing," she said. "I was just thinking of Laurie; I don't know why."
But since then she had been able to reassure herself. Her fancies were but fancies, she told herself; and they had ceased to trouble her. The boy's letters to his mother were ordinary and natural: he was reading fairly hard; his coach was as pleasant a person as he had seemed; he hoped to run down to Stantons for a few days at Christmas. There was nothing whatever to alarm anyone; plainly his ridiculous attitude about Spiritualism had been laid by; and, better still, he was beginning to recover himself after his sorrow in September.
It was an extraordinarily peaceful and uneventful life that the two led together—the kind of life that strengthens previous proclivities and adds no new ones; that brings out the framework of character and motive as dropping water clears the buried roots of a tree. This was all very well for Mrs. Baxter, whose character was already fully formed, it may be hoped; but not so utterly satisfactory for the girl, though the process was pleasant enough.
After Mass and breakfast she spent the morning as she wished, overseeing little extra details of the house—gardening plans, the poultry, and so forth—and reading what she cared to. The afternoon was devoted to the old lady's airing; the evening till dinner to anything she wished; and after dinner again to gentle conversation. Very little happened. The Vicar and his wife dined there occasionally, and still more occasionally Father Mahon. Now and then there were vague entertainments to be patronized in the village schoolroom, in an atmosphere of ink and hair-oil, and a mild amount of rather dreary and stately gaiety connected with the big houses round. Mrs. Baxter occasionally put in appearances, a dignified and aristocratic old figure with her gentle eyes and black lace veil; and Maggie went with her.
The pleasure of this life grew steadily upon Maggie. She was one of that fraction of the world that finds entertainment to lie, like the kingdom of God, within. She did not in the least wish to be "amused" or stimulated and distracted. She was perfectly and serenely content with the fowls, the garden, her small selected tasks, her religion, and herself.
The result was, as it always is in such cases, she began to revolve about three or four main lines of thought, and to make a very fair progress in the knowledge of herself. She knew her faults quite well; and she was not unaware of her virtues. She knew perfectly that she was apt to give way to internal irritation, of a strong though invisible kind, when interruptions happened; that she now and then gave way to an unduly fierce contempt of tiresome people, and said little bitter things that she afterwards regretted. She also knew that she was quite courageous, that she had magnificent physical health, and that she could be perfectly content with a life that a good many other people would find narrow and stifling.
Her own character then was one thing that she had studied—not in the least in a morbid way—during her life at Stantons. And another thing she was beginning to study, rather to her own surprise, was the character of Laurie. She began to become a little astonished at the frequency with which, during a silent drive, or some mild mechanical labor in the gardens, the image of that young man would rise before her.
Indeed, as has been said, she had new material to work on. She had not realized till the affaire Amy that boy's astonishing selfishness; and it became for her a rather pleasant psychological exercise to build up his characteristics into a consistent whole. It had not struck her, till this specimen came before her notice, how generosity and egotism, for example, so far from being mutually exclusive, can very easily be complements, each of the other.
So then she passed her days—exteriorly a capable and occupied person, interested in half a dozen simple things; interiorly rather introspective, rather scrupulous, and intensely interested in the watching of two characters—her own and her adopted brother's. Mrs. Baxter's character needed no dissection; it was a consistent whole, clear as crystal and as rigid.
It was still some five weeks before Christmas that Maggie became aware of what, as a British maiden, she ought, of course, to have known long before—namely, that she was thinking just a little too much about a young man who, so far as was apparent, thought nothing at all about her. It was true that once he had passed through a period of sentimentality in her regard; but the extreme discouragement it had met with had been enough.
Her discovery happened in this way.
Mrs. Baxter opened a letter one morning, smiling contentedly to herself.
"From Laurie," she said. Maggie ceased eating toast for a second, to listen.
Then the old lady uttered a small cry of dismay.
"He thinks he can't come, after all," she said.
Maggie had a moment of very acute annoyance.
"What does he say? Why not?" she asked.
There was a pause. She watched Mrs. Baxter's lips moving slowly, her glasses in place; saw the page turned, and turned again. She took another piece of toast. There are few things more irritating than to have fragments of a letter doled out piecemeal.
"He doesn't say. He just says he's very busy indeed, and has a great deal of way to make up." The old lady continued reading tranquilly, and laid the letter down.
"Nothing more?" asked Maggie, consumed with annoyance.
"He's been to the theatre once or twice.... Dear Laurie! I'm glad he's recovering his spirits."
Maggie was very angry indeed. She thought it abominable of the boy to treat his mother like that. And then there was the shooting—not much, indeed, beyond the rabbits, which the man who acted as occasional keeper told her wanted thinning, and a dozen or two of wild pheasants—yet this shooting had always been done, she understood, at Christmas, ever since Master Laurie had been old enough to hold a gun.
She determined to write him a letter.
When breakfast was over, with a resolved face she went to her room. She would really tell this boy a home-truth or two. It was a—a sister's place to do so. The mother, she knew well enough, would do no more than send a little wail, and would end by telling the dear boy that, of course, he knew best, and that she was very happy to think that he was taking such pains about his studies. Someone must point out to the boy his overwhelming selfishness, and it seemed that no one was at hand but herself. Therefore she would do it.
She did it, therefore, politely enough but unmistakably; and as it was a fine morning, she thought that she would like to step up to the village and post it. She did not want to relent; and once the letter was in the post-box, the thing would be done.
It was, indeed, a delicious morning. As she passed out through the iron gate the trees overhead, still with a few brown belated leaves, soared up in filigree of exquisite workmanship into a sky of clear November blue, as fresh as a hedge-sparrow's egg. The genial sound of cock-crowing rose, silver and exultant, from the farm beyond the road, and the tiny street of the hamlet looked as clean as a Dutch picture.
She noticed on the right, just before she turned up to the village on the left, the grocer's shop, with the name "Nugent" in capitals as bright and flamboyant as on the depot of a merchant king. Mr. Nugent could be faintly descried within, in white shirt-sleeves and an apron, busied at a pile of cheeses. Overhead, three pairs of lace curtains, each decked with a blue bow, denoted the bedrooms. One of them must have been Amy's. She wondered which....
All up the road to the village, some half-mile in length, she pondered Amy. She had never seen her, to her knowledge; but she had a tolerably accurate mental picture of her from Mrs. Baxter's account.... Ah! how could Laurie? How could he...? Laurie, of all people! It was just one more example....
After dropping her letter into the box at the corner, she hesitated for an instant. Then, with an odd look on her face, she turned sharply aside to where the church tower pricked above the leafless trees.
It was a typical little country church, with that odor of the respectable and rather stuffy sanctity peculiar to the class; she had wrinkled her nose at it more than once in Laurie's company. But she passed by the door of it now, and, stepping among the wet grasses, came down the little slope among the headstones to where a very white marble angel clasped an equally white marble cross. She passed to the front of this, and looked, frowning a little over the intolerable taste of the thing.
The cross, she perceived, was wreathed with a spray of white marble ivory; the angel was a German female, with a very rounded leg emerging behind a kind of button; and there, at the foot of the cross, was the inscription, in startling black—
AMY NUGENT
THE DEAR AND ONLY DAUGHTER
OF
AMOS AND MARIA NUGENT
OF STANTONS
DIED SEPTEMBER 21st 1901
RESPECTED BY ALL
"I SHALL SEE HER BUT NOT NOW."
Below, as vivid as the inscription, there stood out the maker's name, and of the town where he lived.
So she lay there, reflected Maggie. It had ended in that. A mound of earth, cracking a little, and sunken. She lay there, her nervous fingers motionless and her stammer silent. And could there be a more eloquent monument of what she was...? Then she remembered herself, and signed herself with the cross, while her lips moved an instant for the repose of the poor girlish soul. Then she stepped up again on to the path to go home.
It was as she came near the church gate that she understood herself, that she perceived why she had come, and was conscious for the first time of her real attitude of soul as she had stood there, reading the inscription, and, in a flash, there followed the knowledge of the inevitable meaning of it all.
In a word it was this.
She had come there, she told herself, to triumph, to gloat. Oh! she spared herself nothing, as she stood there, crimson with shame, to gloat over the grave of a rival. Amy was nothing less than that, and she herself—she, Margaret Marie Deronnais—had given way to jealousy of this grocer's daughter, because ... because ... she had begun to care, really to care, for the man to whom she had written that letter this morning, and this man had scarcely said one word to her, or given her one glance, beyond such as a brother might give to a sister. There was the naked truth.
Her mind fled back. She understood a hundred things now. She perceived that that sudden anger at breakfast had been personal disappointment—not at all that lofty disinterestedness on behalf of the mother that she had pretended. She understood too, now, the meaning of those long contented meditations as she went up and down the garden walks, alert for plantains, the meaning of the zeal she had shown, only a week ago, on behalf of a certain hazel which the gardener wanted to cut down.
"You had better wait till Mr. Laurence comes home," she had said. "I think he once said he liked the tree to be just there."
She understood now why she had been so intuitive, so condemnatory, so critical of the boy—it was that she was passionately interested in him, that it was a pleasure even to abuse him to herself, to call him selfish and self-centered, that all this lofty disapproval was just the sop that her subconsciousness had used to quiet her uneasiness.
Little scenes rose before her—all passed almost in a flash of time—as she stood with her hand on the medieval-looking latch of the gate, and she saw herself in them all as a proud, unmaidenly, pharisaical prig, in love with a man who was not in love with her.
She made an effort, unlatched the gate, and moved on, a beautiful, composed figure, with great steady eyes and well-cut profile, a model of dignity and grace, interiorly a raging, self-contemptuous, abject wretch.
It must be remembered that she was convent-bred.