“Oh, quite right,” she laughed. “Carbolic soap is one of mother’s manias. Keep up that pose and mother will love you!”
CHAPTER V
THE CARD ON THE DOOR
The time came when Walter, a very sick boy, could be brought up on deck and cared for. It is so easy to account for any sort of secret illness on shipboard that few except casual inquiries were made. The ship’s doctor, a good old fellow using the trip as a vacation from regular practice, knew exactly what to do. Unknown to the mother Walter received his daily tipple, only a touch, to be sure, but enough to prevent the complete horrors of unrequited thirst. The grateful Walter lay on his chair disturbing nobody, and, in his weak way, lived. Mr. Richard and the doctor had good chats together, all of which were stored up by the layman for future use.
Mrs. Wells and Mr. Richard fell into each other’s arms, figuratively, at the first encounter. Geraldine sewed tranquilly and listened to the contributions to the thesis of the ultimate spirituality of all material things, with side excursions on telepathy, hypnotism and dreams. When Geraldine later had twitted Mr. Richard (whose given name, by the way, they could not agree upon, she claiming it should be something simple and easy to remember like Robert or John, and he sticking up for a distinctive cognomen like Llewellyn or Gladstone)—when she had jested over his fine acting with the mater he had looked at her with his mildly-serious gaze. “I could not do that,” he had said, “not with your mother. I am a Platonist, I suppose. This world, to me, is a beautiful illusion of the senses, a weak copy of the eternal verities. Your mother is a very remarkable woman. I could not fool her long on her favourite theme. No; we’re in deadly earnest—both of us!”
In the middle of one of their discussions on the mystery of mind Mrs. Wells suddenly turned to Geraldine and cried excitedly, “I have it, my dear; I have it!”
Geraldine sewed on and waited. The mother struck an attitude of deep concentration. Somehow Geraldine felt apprehensive. No member of the family had ever attempted a prolonged practical joke on Mrs. Wells. She had plenty of good humour but no appreciation of fooling directed against herself. Therefore the palming off of a stranger under an assumed name had grown to be a burden to Geraldine, especially dangerous now that Mrs. Wells had received the said stranger into the intimate purlieus of her pet theories. One could not play jestingly with Mind! Geraldine was particularly anxious on this afternoon because Mr. Richard had appeared in grey coat and white trousers, white hose and shoes.
“Do you believe, Mr. Richard,” asked Mrs. Wells, her eyes firmly fixed on his white trousers, “that conversation can be heard by the subliminal self and be transferred later to consciousness?”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” Mr. Richard assured her. “That is a very common experience. Half our requests to repeat are not due to bad hearing. Our hearing is well-nigh infallible, like any other recording machine. Consciousness has been busy with something else, that is all. Give it time and it will get the message. When anyone asks me, ‘What did you say?’ I always wait a second or two. Quite often my remark doesn’t need to be repeated; he picks it up out of sub-consciousness, where it has been perfectly printed.”
“The white trousers bring it all back,” announced Mrs. Wells solemnly.
“Yes?”