Stella Fregelius: A Tale of Three Destinies

by H. Rider Haggard

  CHAPTER XXII

  THE EVIL GATE

  Such was the end of the diary of Stella.

  Morris shut the book with something like a sob. Then he rose andbegan to tramp up and down the length of the long, lonely room, whilethoughts, crowded, confused, and overwhelming, pressed in upon his mind.What a woman was this whom he had lost! Who had known another so pure,so spiritual? Surely she did not belong to this world, and thereforeher last prayer was so quickly answered, therefore Heaven took her.Many reading those final pages might have said with the philosopher sheimagined that the shock of love and the sorrow of separation had turnedher brain, and that she was mad. For who, so such might argue, wouldthink that person otherwise than mad who dared to translate into action,and on earth to set up as a ruling star, that faith which day by daytheir lips professed.

  Yet it would seem after that this "dreamer and mystic" Stella believedin nothing which our religion, accepted by millions without cavil, doesnot promise to its votaries. Its revelations and rewards marked theextremest limits of her fantasy; immortality of the personal soul, itsfoundation stone, was the rock on which she built. A heaven where thereis no earthly marriage, but where each may consort with the souls mostloved and most desired; where all sorrows are forgotten, all tearsare wiped away, all purposes made clear, reserved for those who denythemselves, do their duty, and seek forgiveness of their sins--thisheaven conceived by Stella, is it not vowed to us in the pages of theGospel? Is it not vowed again and again, sometimes with more detail,sometimes with less; sometimes in open, simple words, sometimes wrappedin the mystic allegory of the visions of St. John; but everywhere andcontinually held before us as our crown and great reward? And the rest,such things as her belief in guardian angels, and that it had been givento her mortal eyes to behold and commune with a beloved ghost, is therenot ample warrant for them in those inspired writings? Were not the deadseen of many in Jerusalem on the night of fear, and are we not told of"ministering spirits sent forth to do service for the sake of themthat shall inherit salvation?" and of the guardian angels, who lookcontinually upon the Father?

  Now it all grew clear to Morris. In Stella he beheld an example ofthe doctrines of Christianity really inspiring the daily life of thebeliever. If her strong faith animated all those who served under thatbanner, then in like circumstances they would act as she had acted.They would have no doubts; their fears would vanish; their griefs becomforted, and, to a great extent, even the promptings and passions oftheir mortality would be trodden under foot. With Stella they would beready to neglect the temporary in their certainty of the eternal, andeven to welcome death, to them in truth, and not in mere convention, theGate of Life.

  Many things are promised to those who can achieve faith. Stella achievedit and became endued with some portion of the promise. Spiritual faith,not inherited, nor accepted, but hard-won by personal struggle andexperience; that was the key-note to her character and the explanationof her actions. Yet that faith, when examined into, was nothing exotic;no combination of mysticism and mummery, but one founded upon the dailycreed of the English and its fellow churches, and understood and appliedto the circumstances of a life which was as brief as it seemed to beunfortunate. This was Morris's discovery, open and obvious enough, andyet at first until he grew accustomed to it, a thing marvellous inhis eyes; one, moreover, in which he found comfort; since surely thatstraight but simple path was such as his feet might follow.

  And she loved him. Oh! how she had loved him. There could be no doubt;there were her words written in that book, not hastily spoken beneaththe pressure of some sudden wind of feeling, but set down in black andwhite, thought over, reasoned out, and recorded. And then their purport.They were a paean of passion, but the dirge of its denial. They dweltupon the natural hopes of woman only to put them by.

  "Yet how can I choke the truth and tread down the human heart within me?Oh! the road that my naked feet must tread is full of thorns, and heavythe cross that I must bear. . . . So I go to my marriage, such as itis, so I bend my back to the burden, so I bow my head to the storm, andthrough it all I thank God for what He has been pleased to send me. Imay seem poor, but how rich I am who have been dowered with a love thatI know to be eternal as my eternal soul."

  That was her creed, those were the teachings of her philosophy. And thiswas the woman who had loved him, who died loving him. Her very wordscame back, spoken but a few seconds before the end:--"Remember everyword which I have said to you. Remember that we are wed--truly wed; thatI go to wait for you, and that even if you do not see me, I will, if Imay, be near you always."

  "I go to wait for you. I will be near you always." Here was anotherinspiration. For three years or more he had been thinking of her asdead. Or rather he had thought of her in that nebulous, undefinedfashion in which we consider the dead; the slumberous people who forgeteverything, who see nothing; who, if they exist at all, are like stonesupon the beach rolled to and fro blind and senseless, not of their owndesire, but by the waves of a fearful fate that itself is driven onwith the strength of a secret storm of Will. And this fate some call theBreath of God, and some the working of a soulless force that compels theuniverse, past, present, and to be.

  But was this view as real as it is common? If Stella were right, if ourreligion were right, it must be most wrong. That religion told us thatthe Master of mankind descended into Hades to preach to the souls ofmen. Did he preach to dumb, ocean-driven stones, to frozen forms andfossils who had once been men, or to spirits, changed, but active andexistent?

  Stella, too, had walked in the valley of doubt, by the path which allwho think must tread; it was written large in the book of her life. Butshe had not fainted there; she had lived through its thunder-rains,its arid blasts of withering dust, its quivering quicksands, and itsmirage-like meadows gay with deceitful, poisonous flowers. At last shehad reached the mountain slopes of Truth to travel up them higher--everhigher, till she won their topmost peak, where the sun shone undimmedand the pure air blew; whence the world seemed far away and heaven verynear. Yes, and from that heaven she had called down the spirit of herlost sister, and thenceforward was content and sure.

  She had called down the spirit of her sister. Was it not written in thepages which she thought that no eye but hers would see?

  Well, if such spirits were, hers--Stella's--must be also. And if theycould be made apparent, why should not hers share their qualities?

  Morris paused in his swift walk and trembled: "I will be near youalways." For aught he knew she was near him now--present, perhaps, inthis very room. While she was still in life, what were her aspirations?This was one of them, he remembered, as it fell from her lips: "Still tobe with those whom I have loved on earth, although they cannot seeme; to soothe their sorrows, to support their weakness, to lull theirfears." And if this were so; if any power were given her to fulfil herwill, whom would she sooner visit than himself?

  Stay! That was her wish on earth, while she was a woman. But would shestill wish it afterwards? The spirit was not the flesh, the spirit couldsee and be sure, while the flesh must be content with deductions andhazardings. If she could see, she would know him as he was; everyfailing, every secret infirmity, every infidelity of heart, might bean open writing to her eyes. And then would she not close that book inhorror?

  A great writer has said in effect that no man would dare to affront theears of his fellows--men much worse than himself perhaps--with the truedetails of his hidden history. Knowing all the truth, they would shrinkfrom him. How much more then at such sights and sounds would a purespirit, washed clean of every taint of earth, fly from his soiledpresence, wailing and aghast? Nay, men are hypocrites, who, in greateror less degree, themselves practice the very sins that shock them, butspirits, knowing all, would forgive all. They are above hypocrisy. Ifthe Lord of spirits can weigh the "dust whereof we are made" and stillbe merciful, shall his bright messengers trample it in scorn andhate? Will they not also consider the longings of the heart and itsuprightness, and be pitiful
towards the failings of the flesh? WouldStella hate him because he remained as he was made--as herself she mightonce have been? Because having no wings with which to rule the air hemust still tramp onwards through the foetid, clinging mud of earth?

  Oh! how he longed to see her, that he might win her faith; win it beyondall doubt by the evidence of his earthly eyes and senses. "If I die,search and you shall see," she had once said to him, and then added,"No, do not search, but wait." Wait! How could he wait? "At your deathI will be with you." Why he might live another fifty years! That book ofher recorded thoughts had aroused in him such a desire for the sight, orat least the actual knowledge of her continued being, that his blood wasaflame as with a madness. And yet how should he search?

  "Stella," he whispered, "come to me, Stella!" But no Stella came; nowings rustled, no breath stirred; the empty room was as the room hadbeen. Its silence seemed to mock him. Those who slept beneath its marblefloor were not more silent.

  Was he mad that he should claim the power to work this miracle--to charmthe dead back through the Gates of Death as Orpheus charmed Eurydice?Yet Stella did this thing--but how? He turned to the volume and pageof her diary which dealt with the drawing down of Gudrun. Yes, hereshe spoke of continual efforts and of "that long, long preparation"--ofprayer and fasting also. Here, too, was the whole secret summed up in adozen words: "To see a spirit one must grow akin to spirits." Well, itcould be done, and he would do it. But look further on where she said:"I shall call her back no more, lest the thing should get the mastery ofme, and I become unfitted for my work on earth. . . . I will stop whilethere is yet time, while I am still mistress of my mind, and have thestrength to deny myself this awful joy."

  Was there not a warning in these words, and in those other words: "No,do not search, but wait." Surely they told of risk to him who, being yeton earth, dared to lift a corner of the veil which separates flesh andspirit. "Should get the mastery of me." If he saw her once would he beable to do as Stella did, and by an effort of his will separate himselffrom a communion so fearful yet so sweet? "Unfitted for my work."Supposing that it did get the mastery of him, would he not also beunfitted for his work on earth?

  His work? What work had he now? It seemed to be done; for attendingscientific meetings, receiving dividends, playing the country squire'sonly son and the wealthy host whilst awaiting the title which Marywished for--these things are not work, and somehow his days were soarranged that he was never allowed to go beyond them. All furtherresearches and experiments were discouraged. What did it matter ifhe were unfitted for that which he could no longer do? His work wasfinished. There it stood before him in that box, stamped "Monk'saerophone. The Twin. No. 3412."

  No; he had but one ambition left. To pierce the curtain of thick nightand behold her who was lost to him; her who loved him as man had beenseldom loved.

  The fierce temptation struck him as a sudden squall strikes a ship withall her canvas spread. For a moment mast and rigging stood the strain,then they went by the board. He would do it if it killed him; but thetask must be undertaken properly, deliberately, and above all in secret.To-morrow he would begin. When he had satisfied himself; when he hadseen; then he could always stop.

  A few minutes later Morris stood beside his wife's bed. There shelay, in the first perfection of young motherhood and beauty, a lovely,white-wrapped vision with straying golden hair; her sweet, rounded facepink with the flush of sleep, and the long lashes lying like littleshadows on her cheek.

  Morris looked at her, and his doubts returned. What would Stella say?he thought to himself. It almost seemed to him that he could hear hervoice, bidding him forbear; bidding him render unto his wife thosethings which were his wife's: all honour, loyalty, and devotion. If heentered on this course could he still render them? Was there not sucha thing as moral infidelity, and did not such exercises as he proposedpartake of its nature? Perhaps, perhaps. On the whole it might be wellto put all this behind him.

  It was three o'clock, he was tired out, and must sleep. The morningwould be a more fitting time to ponder such weighty questions of theunwritten matrimonial law.

  In due course, the morning came--indeed, it was not far off--and withit wiser counsels. Mary woke early and talked about the baby, which wasteething; indeed, so soon as the nurse was up she sent for it that thethree of them might hold a consultation over a swollen gum. Also shediscussed the date of their departure to Beaulieu, for again Christmaswas near at hand; adding, however, somewhat to Morris's relief, thatunless the baby's teeth went on better she really did not think thatthey could go, as it would be most unwise to take her out of the careof Dr. Charters and trust her to the tender mercies of foreign leeches.Morris agreed that it might be risky, and mentioned that in a letterwhich he had received from the concierge at Beaulieu a few days before,that functionary said that the place was overrun with measles andscarlatina.

  "Morris!" ejaculated Mary, sitting bolt upright in bed, "and you nevertold me! What is more, had it not been for baby's teeth, which broughtit to your mind, I believe you never would have told me, and I mighthave taken those unprotected little angels and--Oh! goodness, I can'tbear to think of it."

  Morris muttered some apologies, whereon Mary, looking at himsuspiciously through her falling hair, asked:

  "Why did you forget to show me the letter? Did you suppress it becauseyou wanted to go to Beaulieu?"

  "No," answered Morris with energy; "I hate Beaulieu. I forgot, that isall; because I have so much to think about, I suppose."

  "So much? I thought that things were arranged now so that you hadnothing at all to think about except how to spend your money and behappy with me, and adore the dear angels--Yes, I think that perhaps thenurse had better take her away. Touch the bell, will you? There, she'sgone. Keep her well wrapped up, and mind the draught, nurse.

  "No, don't get up yet, Morris; I want to talk to you. You have been verygloomy of late, just like you used to be before you married, mooningabout and staring at nothing. And what on earth do you do sitting up toall hours of the morning in that ghosty old chapel, where I wouldn't bealone at twelve o'clock for a hundred pounds?"

  "I read," said Morris.

  "Read? Read what? Novels?"

  "Sometimes," answered Morris.

  "Oh, how can you tell such fibs? Why, that last book by LadyWhat's-her-name which came in the Mudie box--the one they say is soimproper--has been lying on your table for over two months, and youcan't tell me yet what it was the heroine did wrong. Morris, you are notinventing anything more, are you?"

  Here was an inspiration. "I admit that I am thinking of a little thing,"he said with diffidence, as though he were a budding poet with a sonneton his mind.

  "A little thing? What little thing?"

  "Well, a new kind of aerophone designed to work uninfluenced by itstwin."

  "Well, and why shouldn't it? Everything can't have a twin--only Isuppose there would be nothing to hear."

  "That's just the point," replied Morris in his old professional manner."I think there would be plenty to hear if only I could make the machinesensitive to the sounds and capable of reproducing them."

  "What sounds?" asked Mary.

  "Well, if, for instance, one could successfully insulate it from theearth noises, the sounds which permeate space, and even those that havetheir origin upon the surfaces of the planets and perhaps of the moredistant stars."

  "Great heavens!" exclaimed Mary, "imagine a man who can want to letloose upon our poor little world every horrible noise that happens inthe stars. Why, what under heaven would be the use of it?"

  "Well, one might communicate with them. Conceivably even one might hearthe speech of their inhabitants, if they have any; always presumingthat such an instrument could be made, and that it can be successfullyinsulated."

  "Hear the speech of their inhabitants! That is your old idea, but youwill never succeed, that's one blessing. Morris, I suspect you; you wantto stop at home here to work at this horrible new machine; to work foryears, and year
s, and years without the slightest result. I suppose thatyou didn't invent that about the measles and the scarlatina, did you?The two of them together sound rather clumsy, as though you might havedone so."

  "Not a bit, upon my honour," answered Morris. "I will go and get theletter," and, not sorry to escape from further examination, he went.

  Whether the cause were Mary's doubts and reproaches, or the infant'sgums, or the working of his own conscience,--he felt that a man witha teething baby has no right to cultivate the occult. For quite a longperiod, a whole fortnight, indeed, Morris steadily refrained from anyattempt to fulfil his dangerous ambition to "pierce the curtain ofthick night." Only he read and re-read Stella's diary--that secret,fascinating work which in effect was building a wall between him and thehealthy, common instincts of the world--till he knew whole pages of itby heart. Also he began a series of experiments whereof the object wasto produce an improved and more sensitive aerophone.

  That any instrument which the intellect of man could produce wouldreally succeed in conveying sounds which, if they exist at all, are bornin the vast cosmic areas that envelope our earth and its atmosphere, hebelieved to be most improbable. Still, such a thing was possible, forwhat is not? Moreover, the world itself as it rushes on its fearfuljourney across the depths of space has doubtless many voices that havenot yet been heard by the ears of men, some of which he might be able todiscover and record. At the least he stood upon the threshold of a newknowledge, and now a great desire arose in him to pass its doors, if sohe might, for who could tell what he would learn or see behind them? Andby degrees, as he worked, always with one ulterior object in his mind,his scruples vanished or were mastered by the growth of his longing,till this became his ruling passion--to behold the spirit of Stella.Now he no longer reasoned with himself, but openly, nakedly, in hisown heart gave his will over to the achievement of this monstrous andunnatural end.

  How was it to be done? That was now the sole dilemma which tormentedhim--as the possible methods of obtaining the drink he craves, or thedrug that gives him peace and radiant visions, torment the dipsomaniacor the morphia victim in his guarded prison. He thought of hisinstruments, those magic machines with the working of which Stella hadbeen familiar in her life. He even poured petitions into them in thehope that these might be delivered far beyond the ken of man, only tolearn that he was travelling a road which led to a wall impassable; thewall that, for the lack of a better name, we call Death, which bars thenatural from the spiritual.

  Wonderful as were his electrical appliances, innumerable as might betheir impalpable emanations, insoluble as seemed the mystery of theirpower of catching and transmitting sounds by the agency of ether, theywere still physical appliances producing physical effects in obedienceto the laws of nature. But what he sought lay beyond nature and wassubject to some rule of which he did not even know the elements, andmuch less the axioms. Herein his instruments, or indeed, any that mancould make, were as futile and as useless as would be the prayers of anarchbishop addressed to a Mumbo-jumbo in a fetish house. The link waswanting; there was, and could be, no communication between the two.The invisible ether which he had subdued to his purposes was still aconstituent part of the world of matter; he must discover the spiritualether, and discover also the animating force by which it might beinfluenced.

  Now he formed a new plan--to reach the dead by his petitions, by theinvocation of his own spirit. "Seek me and you shall find me," she hadsaid. So he sought and called in bitterness and concentration of heart,but still he did not find. Stella did not come.

  He was in despair. She had promised, and her promise seemed to bebroken. Then it was that in turning the pages of her diary he cameacross a passage that had escaped him, or which he had forgotten. It ranthus:

  "In the result I have learned this, that we cannot compel the departedto appear. Even if they hear us they will not, or are not suffered toobey. If we would behold them we must create the power of vision in ourown natures. They are about us always, only we cannot see or feel theirpresence; our senses are too gross. To succeed we must refine our sensesuntil they acquire an aptitude beyond the natural. Then without any willor any intervention on their parts, we may triumph, perhaps even when_they_ do not know that we have triumphed."