Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  Beloved, —

  I call you by this name as I have always called you through many cycles of time, — it should sound upon your ears as familiarly as a note of music struck in response to another similar note in far distance. You are not satisfied with the proofs given you by your own inner consciousness, which testify to the unalterable fact that you and I are, and must be, as one, — that we have played with fate against each other, and sometimes striven to escape from each other, all in vain; — it is not enough for you to know (as you do know) that the moment our eyes met our spirits rushed together in a sudden ecstasy which, had we dared to yield to it, would have outleaped convention and made of us no more than two flames in one fire! If you are honest with yourself as I am honest with myself, you will admit that this is so, — that the emotion which overwhelmed us was reasonless, formless and wholly beyond all analysis, yet more insistent than any other force having claim on our lives. But it is not sufficient for you to realise this, — or to trace through every step of the journey you have made, the gradual leading of your soul to mine, — from that last night you passed in your own home, when every fibre of your being grew warm with the prescience of coming joy, to this present moment, even through dreams of infinite benediction in which I shared — no! — it is not sufficient for you! — you must ‘know’ — you must learn — you must probe into deeper mysteries, and study and suffer to the last! Well, if it must be so, it must, — and I shall rely on the eternal fitness of things to save you from your own possible rashness and bring you back to me, — for without you now I can do nothing more. I have done much — and much remains to be done — but if I am to attain, you must crown the attainment — if my ambition is to find completion, you alone can be its completeness. If you have the strength and the courage to face the ordeal through which Aselzion sends those who seek to follow his teaching, you will indeed have justified your claim to be considered higher than merest woman, — though you have risen above that level already. The lives of women generally, and of men too, are so small and sordid and self-centred, thanks to their obstinate refusal to see anything better or wider than their own immediate outlook, that it is hardly worth while considering them in the light of that deeper knowledge which teaches of the REAL life behind the seeming one. In the ordinary way of existence men and women meet and mate with very little more intelligence or thought about it than the lower animals; and the results of such meeting and mating are seen in the degenerate and dying nations of to-day. Moreover, they are content to be born for no other visible reason than to die — and no matter how often they may be told there is no such thing as death, they receive the assertion with as much indignant incredulity as the priesthood of Rome received Galileo’s assurance that the earth moves round the sun. But we — you and I — who know that life, being ALL Life, CANNOT die, — ought to be wiser in our present space of time than to doubt each other’s infinite capability for love and the perfect world of beauty which love creates. I do not doubt — my doubting days are past, and the whips of sorrow have lashed me into shape as well as into strength, but YOU hesitate, — because you have been rendered weak by much misunderstanding. However, it has partially comforted me to place the position fully before you, and having done this I feel that you must be free to go your own way. I do not say ‘I love you!’ — such a phrase from me would be merest folly, knowing that you must be mine, whether now or at the end of many more centuries. Your soul is deathless as mine is — it is eternally young, as mine is, — and the force that gives us life and love is divine and indestructible, so that for us there can be no end to the happiness which is ours to claim when we will. For the rest I leave you to decide — you will go to the House of Aselzion and perhaps you will remain there some time, — at any rate when you depart from thence you will have learned much, and you will know what is best for yourself and for me.

  My beloved, I commend you to God with all my adoring soul and am

  Your lover, Rafel Santoris

  A folded paper fell out of this letter, — it contained full instructions as to the way I should go on the journey I intended to make to the mysterious House of Aselzion — and I was glad to find that I should not have to travel as far as I had at first imagined. I began at once to make my plans for leaving the Harlands as soon as possible, and before going to bed I wrote to my friend Francesca, who I knew would certainly expect me to visit her in Inverness-shire as soon as my cruise in the Harlands’ yacht was over, and briefly stated that business of an important nature called me abroad for two or three weeks, but that I fully anticipated being at home in England again before the end of October. As it was now just verging on the end of August, I thought I was allowing myself a fairly wide margin for absence. When I had folded and sealed my letter ready for posting, an irresistible sense of sleep came over me, and I yielded to it gratefully. I found myself too overcome by it even to think, — and I laid my head down upon the pillows with a peaceful consciousness that all was well, — that all would be well — and that in trying to make sure of the intentions of Fate towards me both in life and love, I could not be considered as altogether foolish. Of course, judged by the majority of people, I know I am already counted as worse than foolish for the impressions and experiences I here undertake to narrate, but that kind of judgment does not affect me, seeing that their own daily and hourly folly is so visibly pronounced and has such unsatisfactory and frequently disastrous results, that mine — if it indeed be folly to choose lasting and eternal things rather than ephemeral and temporal ones, — cannot but seem light in comparison. Love, as the world generally conceives of it, is hardly worth having — for if we become devoted to persons who must in time be severed from us by death or other causes, we have merely wasted the wealth of our affections. Only as a perfect, eternal, binding force is love of any value, — and unless one can be sure in one’s own self that there is the strength and truth and courage to make it thus perfect, eternal and binding, it is better to have nothing to do with what after all is the divinest of divine passions, — the passion of creativeness, from which springs all thought, all endeavour, all accomplishment.

  When I woke the next morning I did not need to be told that the ‘Dream’ had set her wonderful sails and flown. A sense of utter desolation was in the air, and my own loneliness was impressed upon me with overwhelming bitterness and force. It was a calm, brilliant morning, and when I went up on deck the magnificent scenery of Loch Scavaig was, to my thinking, lessened in effect by the excessive glare of the sun. The water was smooth as oil, and where the ‘Dream’ had been anchored, showing her beautiful lines and tapering spars against the background of the mountains, there was now a dreary vacancy. The whole scene looked intolerably dull and lifeless, and I was impatient to be away from it. I said as much at breakfast, a meal at which Catherine Harland never appeared, and where I was accustomed to take the head of the table, at Mr. Harland’s request, to dispense the tea and coffee. Dr. Brayle seemed malignly amused at my remark.

  “The interest of the place has evidently vanished with Mr. Santoris, so far as you are concerned!” he said— “He is certainly a remarkable man, and owns a remarkable yacht — but beyond that I am not sure that his room is not better than his company.”

  “I daresay you feel it so,” — said Mr. Harland, who had for some moments been unusually taciturn and preoccupied— “Your theories are diametrically opposed to his, and, for that matter, so are mine. But I confess I should like to have tested his medical skill — he assured me positively that he could cure me of my illness in three months.”

  “Why do you not let him try?” suggested Brayle, with an air of forced lightness— “He will be a man of miracles if he can cure what the whole medical profession knows to be incurable. But I’m quite willing to retire in his favour, if you wish it.”

  Mr. Harland’s bristling eyebrows met over his nose in a saturnine frown.

  “Well, are you willing?” he said— “I rather doubt it! And if you are, I’m not. I’ve
no faith in mysticism or psychism of any kind. It bores me to think about it. And nothing has puzzled me at all concerning Santoris except his extraordinarily youthful appearance. That is a problem to me, — and I should like to solve it.”

  “He looks about thirty-eight or forty,” — said Brayle, “And I should say that is his age.” “That his age!” Mr. Harland gave a short, derisive laugh— “Why, he’s over sixty if he’s a day! That’s the mystery of it. There is not a touch of ‘years’ about him. Instead of growing old, he grows young.”

  Brayle looked up quizzically at his patron.

  “I’ve already hinted,” he said, “that he may not be the Santoris you knew at Oxford. He may be a relative, cleverly masquerading as the original man—”

  “That won’t stand a moment’s argument,” interposed Mr. Harland— “And I’ll tell you how I know it won’t. We had a quarrel once, and I slashed his arm with a clasp-knife pretty heavily.” Here a sudden quiver of something, — shame or remorse perhaps — came over his hard face and changed its expression for a moment. “It was all my fault — I had a devilish temper, and he was calm — his calmness irritated me; — moreover, I was drunk. Santoris knew I was drunk, — and he wanted to get me home to my rooms and to bed before I made too great a disgrace of myself — then — THAT happened. I remember the blood pouring from his arm — it frightened me and sobered me. Well, when he came on board here the other night he showed me the scar of the very wound I had inflicted. So I know he’s the same man.”

  We all sat silent.

  “He was always studying the ‘occult’” — went on Mr. Harland— “And I was scarcely surprised that he should ‘think out’ that antique piece of jewellery from your pocket last night. He actually told me it belonged to you ages ago, when you were quite another and more important person!”

  Dr. Brayle laughed loudly, almost boisterously.

  “What a fictionist the man must be!” he exclaimed. “Why doesn’t he write a novel? Mr. Swinton, I wish you would take a few notes for me of what Mr. Santoris said about that collar of jewels, — I should like to keep the record.”

  Mr. Swinton smiled an obliging assent.

  “I certainly will,” — he said. “I was fortunately present when Mr. Santoris expressed his curious ideas about the jewels to Mr. Harland.”

  “Oh, well, if you are going to record it,” — said Mr. Harland, half laughingly— “you had better be careful to put it all down. The collar — according to Santoris — belonged to Dr. Brayle when his personality was that of an Italian nobleman residing in Florence about the year 1537 — he wore it on one unfortunate occasion when he murdered a man, and the jewels have not had much of a career since that period. Now they have come back into his possession—”

  “Father, who told you all this?”

  The voice was sharp and thin, and we turned round amazed to see Catherine standing in the doorway of the saloon, white and trembling, with wild eyes looking as though they saw ghosts. Dr. Brayle hastened to her.

  “Miss Harland, pray go back to your cabin — you are not strong enough—”

  “What’s the matter, Catherine?” asked her father— “I’m only repeating some of the nonsense Santoris told me about that collar of jewels—”

  “It’s not nonsense!” cried Catherine. “It’s all true! I remember it all — we planned the murder together — he and I!” — and she pointed to Dr. Brayle— “I told him how the lovers used to meet in secret, — the poor hunted things! — how he — that great artist he patronised — came to her room from the garden entrance at night, and how they talked for hours behind the rose-trees in the avenue — and she — she! — I hated her because I thought you loved her — YOU!” and again she turned to Dr. Brayle, clutching at his arm— “Yes — I thought you loved her! — but she — she loved HIM! — and—” here she paused, shuddering violently, and seemed to lose herself in chaotic ideas— “And so the yacht has gone, and there is peace! — and perhaps we shall forget again! — we were allowed to forget for a little while, but it has all come back to haunt and terrify us—”

  And with these words, which broke off in a kind of inarticulate cry, she sank downward in a swoon, Dr. Brayle managing to save her from falling quite to the ground.

  Everything was at once in confusion, and while the servants were busy hurrying to and fro for cold water, smelling salts and other reviving cordials, and Catherine was being laid on the sofa and attended to by Dr. Brayle, I slipped away and went up on deck, feeling myself quite overpowered and bewildered by the suddenness and strangeness of the episodes in which I had become involved. In a minute or two Mr. Harland followed me, looking troubled and perplexed.

  “What does all this mean?” he said— “I am quite at a loss to understand Catherine’s condition. She is hysterical, of course, — but what has caused it? What mad idea has she got into her head about a murder?”

  I looked away from him across the sunlit expanse of sea.

  “I really cannot tell you,” I said, at last— “I am quite as much in the dark as you are. I think she is overwrought, and that she has perhaps taken some of the things Mr. Santoris said too much to heart. Then” — here I hesitated— “she said the other day that she was tired of this yachting trip — in fact, I think it is simply a case of nerves.”

  “She must have very odd nerves if they persuade her to believe that she and Brayle committed a murder together ages ago” — said Mr. Harland, irritably;— “I never heard of such nonsense in all my life!”

  I was silent.

  “I have told Captain Derrick to weigh anchor and get out of this,” — he continued, brusquely. “We shall make for Portree at once. There is something witch-like and uncanny about the place” — and he looked round as he spoke at the splendour of the mountains, shining with almost crystalline clearness in the glory of the morning sun— “I feel as if it were haunted!”

  “By what?” I asked.

  “By memories,” he answered— “And not altogether pleasant ones!”

  I looked at him, and a moment’s thought decided me that the opportunity had come for me to broach the subject of my intended departure, and I did so. I said that I felt I had allowed myself sufficient holiday, and that it would be necessary for me to take the ordinary steamer from Portree the morning after our arrival there in order to reach Glasgow as soon as possible. Mr. Harland surveyed me inquisitively.

  “Why do you want to go by the steamer?” he asked— “Why not go with us back to Rothesay, for example?”

  “I would rather lose no time,” — I said — then I added impulsively:— “Dear Mr. Harland, Catherine will be much better when I am gone — I know she will! You will be able to prolong the yachting trip which will benefit your health, — and I should be really most unhappy if you curtailed it on my account—”

  He interrupted me.

  “Why do you say that Catherine will be better when you are gone?” he demanded— “It was her own most particular wish that you should accompany us.”

  “She did not know what moved her to such a desire,” I said, — then, seeing his look of astonishment, I smiled; “I am not a congenial spirit to her, nor to any of you, really! but she has been most kind, and so have you — and I thank you ever so much for all you have done for me — you have done much more than you know! — only I feel it is better to go now — now, before—”

  “Before what?” he asked.

  “Well, before we all hate each other!” I said, playfully— “It is quite on the cards that we shall come to that! Dr. Brayle thinks my presence quite as harmful to Catherine as that of Mr. Santoris; — I am full of ‘theories’ which he considers prejudicial, — and so, perhaps, they ARE — to HIM!”

  Mr. Harland drew closer to me where I stood leaning against the deck rail and spoke in a lower tone.

  “Tell me,” he said,— “and be perfectly frank about it — what is it you see in Brayle that rouses such a spirit of antagonism in you?”

  “If I giv
e you a straight answer, such as I feel to be the truth in myself, will you be offended?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “No” — he answered— “I shall not be offended. I simply want to know what you think, and I shall remember what you say and see if it proves correct.”

  “Well, in the first place,” I said— “I see nothing in Dr. Brayle but what can be seen in hundreds of worldly-minded men such as he. But he is not a true physician, for he makes no real effort to cure you of your illness, while Catherine has no illness at all that demands a cure. He merely humours the weakness of her nerves, a weakness she has created by dwelling morbidly on her own self and her own particular miseries, — and all his future plans with regard to her and to you are settled. They are quite clear and reasonable. You will die, — in fact, it is, in his opinion, necessary for you to die, — it would be very troublesome and inconvenient to him if, by some chance, you were cured, and continued to live. When you are gone he will marry Catherine, your only child and heiress, and he will have no further personal anxieties. I dislike this self-seeking attitude on his part, and my only wonder is that you do not perceive it. For the rest, my antagonism to Dr. Brayle is instinctive and has its origin far back — perhaps in a bygone existence!”

  He listened to my words with attentive patience.

  “Well, I shall study the man more carefully,” — he said, after a pause;— “You may be right. At present I think you are wrong. As for any cure for me, I know there is none. I have consulted medical works on the subject and am perfectly convinced that Brayle is doing his best. He can do no more. And now one word to yourself;” — here he laid a hand kindly on mine— “I have noticed — I could not help noticing that you were greatly taken by Santoris — and I should almost have fancied him rather fascinated by you had I not known him to be absolutely indifferent to womenkind. But let me tell you he is not a safe friend or guide for anyone. His theories are extravagant and impossible — his idea that there is no death, for example, when death stares us in the face every day, is perfectly absurd — and he is likely to lead you into much perplexity, the more so as you are too much of a believer in occult things already. I wish I could persuade you to listen to me seriously on one or two points—”