I smiled. “I am listening!” I said.
“Well, child, you listen perhaps, but you are not convinced. Realise, if you can, that these fantastic chimeras of a past and future life exist only in the heated imagination of the abnormal idealist. There is nothing beyond our actual sight and immediate living consciousness; — we know we are born and that we die — but why, we cannot tell and never shall be able to tell. We must try and manage the ‘In-Between,’ — the gap dividing birth and death, — as best we can, and that’s all. I wish you would settle down to these facts reasonably — you would be far better balanced in mind and action—”
“If I thought as you do,” — I interrupted him— “I would jump from this vessel into the sea and let the waters close over me! There would be neither use nor sense in living for an ‘In-Between’ leading merely to nothingness.”
He passed his hand across his brows perplexedly.
“It certainly seems useless,” — he admitted— “but there it is. It is better to accept it than run amok among inexplicable infinities.”
We were interrupted here by the sailors busying themselves in preparations for getting the yacht under way, and our conversation being thus broken off abruptly was not again resumed. By eleven o’clock we were steaming out of Loch Scavaig, and as I looked back on the sombre mountain-peaks that stood sentinel-wise round the deeply hidden magnificence of Loch Coruisk, I wondered if my visionary experience there had been only the work of my own excited imagination, or whether it really had foundation in fact? The letter from Santoris lay against my heart as actual testimony that he at least was real — that I had met and known him, and that so far as anything could be believed he had declared himself my ‘lover’! But was ever love so expressed? — and had it ever before such a far-off beginning?
I soon ceased to perplex myself with futile speculations on the subject, however, and as the last peaks of the Scavaig hills vanished in pale blue distance I felt as if I had been brought suddenly back from a fairyland to a curiously dull and commonplace world. Everyone on board the ‘Diana’ seemed occupied with the veriest trifles, — Catherine remained too ill to appear all day, and Dr. Brayle was in almost constant attendance upon her. A vague sense of discomfort pervaded the whole atmosphere of the yacht, — she was a floating palace filled with every imaginable luxury, yet now she seemed a mere tawdry upholsterer’s triumph compared with the exquisite grace and taste of the ‘Dream’ — and I was eager to be away from her. I busied myself during the day in packing my things ready for departure with the eagerness of a child leaving school for the holidays, and I was delighted when we arrived at Portree and anchored there that evening. It was after dinner, at about nine o’clock, that Catherine sent for me, hearing I had determined to go next morning. I found her in her bed, looking very white and feeble, with a scared look in her eyes which became intensified the moment she saw me.
“You are really going away?” she said, faintly— “I hope we have not offended you?”
I went up to her, took her poor thin hand and kissed it.
“No indeed!” — I answered— “Why should I be offended?”
“Father is vexed you are going,” — she went on— “He says it is all my silly nonsense and hysterical fancies — do you think it is?”
“I prefer not to say what I think,” — I replied, gently. “Dear Catherine, there are some things in life which cannot be explained, and it is better not to try and explain them. But believe me, I can never thank you enough for this yachting trip — you have done more for me than you will ever know! — and so far from being ‘offended’ I am grateful! — grateful beyond all words!”
She held my hands, looking at me wistfully.
“You will go away,” — she said, in a low tone— “and we shall perhaps never meet again. I don’t think it likely we shall. People often try to meet again and never do — haven’t you noticed that? It seems fated that they shall only know each other for a little while just to serve some purpose, and then part altogether. Besides, you live in a different world from ours. You believe in things that I can’t even understand — You think there is a God — and you think each human being has a soul—”
“Are you not taught the same in your churches?” I interrupted.
She looked startled.
“Oh yes! — but then one never thinks seriously about it! You know that if we DID think seriously about it we could never live as we do. One goes to church for convention’s sake — because it’s respectable; but suppose you were to say to a clergyman that if your soul is ‘immortal’ it follows in reason that it must always have existed and always will exist, he would declare you to be ‘unorthodox.’ That’s where all the puzzle and contradiction comes in — so that I don’t believe in the soul at all.”
“Are you sure you do not?” I enquired, meaningly.
She was silent. Then she suddenly broke out.
“Well, I don’t want to believe in it! I don’t want to think about it! I’d rather not! It’s terrible! If a soul has never died and never will die, its burden of memories must be awful! — horrible! — no hell could be worse!”
“But suppose they are beautiful and happy memories?” I suggested.
She shuddered.
“They couldn’t be! We all fail somewhere.”
This was true enough, and I offered no comment.
“I feel,” — she went on, hesitatingly— “that you are leaving us for some undiscovered country — and that you will reach some plane of thought and action to which we shall never rise. I don’t think I am sorry for this. I am not one of those who want to rise. I should be perfectly content to live a few years in a moderate state of happiness and then drop into oblivion — and I think most people are like me.”
“Very unambitious!” I said, smiling.
“Yes — I daresay it is — but one gets tired of it all. Tired of things and people — at least I do. Now that man Santoris—”
Despite myself, I felt the warm blood flushing my cheeks.
“Yes? What of him?” I queried, lightly.
“Well, I can understand that HE has always been alive!” and she turned her eyes upon me with an expression of positive dread— “Immensely, actively, perpetually alive! He seems to hold some mastery over the very air! I am afraid of him — terribly afraid! It is a relief to me to know that he and his strange yacht have gone!”
“But, Catherine,” — I ventured to say— “the yacht was not really ‘strange,’ — it was only moved by a different application of electricity from that which the world at present knows. You would not call it ‘strange’ if the discovery made by Mr. Santoris were generally adopted?”
She sighed.
“Perhaps not! But just now it seems a sort of devil’s magic to me. Anyhow, I’m glad he’s gone. You’re sorry, I suppose?”
“In a way I am,” — I answered, quietly— “I thought him very kind and charming and courteous — no one could be a better host or a pleasanter companion. And I certainly saw nothing ‘devilish’ about him. As for that collar of jewels, there are plenty of so-called ‘thought-readers’ who could have found out its existence and said as much of it as he did—”
She uttered a low cry.
“Don’t speak of it!” she said— “For Heaven’s sake, don’t speak of it!”
She buried her face in her pillow, and I waited silently for her to recover. When she turned again towards me, she said —
“I am not well yet, — I cannot bear too much. I only want you to know before you go away that I have no unkind feeling towards you, — things seem pushing me that way, but I have not really! — and you surely will believe me—”
“Surely!” I said, earnestly— “Dear Catherine, do not worry yourself! These impressions of yours will pass.”
“I hope so!” she said— “I shall try to forget! And you — you will meet Mr. Santoris again, do you think?”
I hesitated.
“I do not know.”
�
�You seem to have some attraction for each other,” she went on— “And I suppose your beliefs are alike. To me they are dreadful beliefs! — worse than barbarism!”
I looked at her with all the compassion I truly felt.
“Why? Because we believe that God is all love and tenderness and justice? — because we cannot think He would have created life only to end in death? — because we are sure that He allows nothing to be wasted, not even a thought? — and nothing to go unrecompensed, either in good or in evil? Surely these are not barbarous beliefs?”
A curious look came over her face.
“If I believed in anything,” — she said— “I would rather be orthodox, and believe in the doctrine of original sin and the Atonement.”
“Then you would start with the idea that the supreme and all-wise Creator could not make a perfect work!” I said— “And that He was obliged to invent a scheme to redeem His own failure! Catherine, if you speak of barbarism, this is the most barbarous belief of all!”
She stared at me, amazed.
“You would be put out of any church in Christendom for such a speech as that!” she said.
“Possibly!” I answered, quietly— “But I should not and could not be put out of God’s Universe — nor, I am certain, would He reject my soul’s eternal love and adoration!”
A silence fell between us. Then I heard her sobbing. I put my arm round her, and she laid her head on my shoulder.
“I wish I could feel as you do,” — she whispered— “You must be very happy! The world is all beautiful in your eyes — and of course with your ideas it will continue to be beautiful — and even death will only come to you as another transition into life. But you must not think anybody will ever understand you or believe you or follow you — people will only look upon you as mad, or the dupe of your own foolish imagination!”
I smiled as I smoothed her pillow for her and laid her gently back upon it.
“I can stand that!” I said— “If somebody who is lost in the dark jeers at me for finding the light, I shall not mind!”
We did not speak much after that — and when I said good-night to her I also said good-bye, as I knew I should have to leave the yacht early in the morning.
I spent the rest of the time at my disposal in talking to Mr. Harland, keeping our conversation always on the level of ordinary topics. He seemed genuinely sorry that I had determined to go, and if he could have persuaded me to stay on board a few days longer I am sure he would have been pleased.
“I shall see you off in the morning,” — he said— “And believe me I shall miss you very much. We don’t agree on certain subjects — but I like you all the same.”
“That’s something!” I said, cheerfully— “It would never do if we were all of the same opinion!”
“Will you meet Santoris again, do you think?”
This was the same question Catherine had put to me, and I answered it in the same manner.
“I really don’t know!”
“Would you LIKE to meet him again?” he urged.
I hesitated, smiling a little.
“Yes, I think so!”
“It is curious,” he pursued— “that I should have been the means of bringing you together. Your theories of life and death are so alike that you must have thoughts in common. Many years have passed since I knew Santoris — in fact, I had completely lost sight of him, though I had never forgotten his powerful personality — and it seemt rather odd to me that he should suddenly turn up again while you were with me—”
“Mere coincidence,” — I said, lightly— “and common enough, after all. Like attracts like, you know.”
“That may be. There is certainly something in the law of attraction between human beings which we do not understand,” — he answered, musingly— “Perhaps if we did—”
He broke off and relapsed into silence.
That night, just before going to bed, I was met by Dr. Brayle in the corridor leading to my cabin. I was about to pass him with a brief good-night, but he stopped me.
“So you are really going to-morrow!” he said, with a furtive narrowing of his eyelids as he looked at me— “Well! Perhaps it is best! You are a very disturbing magnet.”
I smiled.
“Am I? In what way?”
“I cannot tell you without seeming to give the lie to reason,” — he answered, brusquely. “I believe to a certain extent in magnetism — in fact, I have myself tested its power in purely nervous patients, — but I have never accepted the idea that persons can silently and almost without conscious effort, influence others for either malign or beneficial purposes. In your presence, however, the thing is forced upon me as though it were a truth, while I know it to be a fallacy.”
“Isn’t it too late to talk about such things to-night?” I asked, wishing to cut short the conversation.
“Perhaps it is — but I shall probably never have the chance to say what I wish to say,” — he replied, — and he leaned against the stairway just where the light in the saloon sent forth a bright ray upon his face, showing it to be dark with a certain frowning perplexity— “You have studied many things in your own impulsive feminine fashion, and you are beyond all the stupidity of the would-be agreeable female who thinks a prettily feigned ignorance becoming, so that I can speak frankly. I can now tell you that from the first day I saw you I felt I had known you before — and you filled me with a curious emotion of mingled liking and repulsion. One night when you were sitting with us on deck — it was before we met that fellow Santoris — I watched you with singular interest — every turn of your head, every look of your eyes seemed familiar — and for a moment I — I almost loved you! Oh, you need not mind my saying this!” — and he laughed a little at my involuntary exclamation— “it was nothing — it was only a passing mood, — for in another few seconds I hated you as keenly! There you have it. I do not know why I should have been visited by these singular experiences — but I own they exist — that is why I am rather glad you are going.”
“I am glad, too,” — I said — and I held out my hand in parting— “I should not like to stay where my presence caused a moment’s uneasiness or discomfort.”
“That’s not putting it quite fairly,” — he answered, taking my offered hand and holding it loosely in his own— “But you are an avowed psychist, and in this way you are a little ‘uncanny.’ I should not like to offend you—”
“You could not if you tried,” I said, quickly.
“That means I am too insignificant in your mind to cause offence,” — he observed— “I daresay I am. I live on the material plane and am content to remain there. You are essaying very high flights and ascending among difficulties of thought and action which are entirely beyond the useful and necessary routine of life, — and in the end these things may prove too much for you.” Here he dropped my hand. “You bring with you a certain atmosphere which is too rarefied for ordinary mortals — it has the same effect as the air of a very high mountain on a weak heart — it is too strong — one loses breath, and the power to think coherently. You produce this result on Miss Harland, and also to some extent on me — even slightly on Mr. Harland, — and poor Swinton alone does not fall under the spell, having no actual brain to impress. You need someone who is accustomed to live in the same atmosphere as yourself to match you in your impressions and opinions. We are on a different range of thought and feeling and experience — and you must find us almost beyond endurance—”
“As you find me!” I interposed, smiling.
“I will not say that — no! For there seems to have been a time when we were all on the same plane—”
He paused, and there was a moment’s tense silence. The little silvery chime of a clock in the saloon struck twelve.
“Good-night, Dr. Brayle!” I said.
He lifted his brooding eyes and looked at me.
“Good-night! If I have annoyed you by my scepticism in certain matters, you must make allowances for temperament and pardo
n me. I should be sorry if you bore me any ill-will—”
What a curious note of appeal there was in his voice! All at once it seemed to me that he was asking me to forgive him for that long-ago murder which I had seen reflected in a vision! — and my blood grew suddenly heated with an involuntary wave of deep resentment.
“Dr. Brayle,” I said,— “pray do not trouble yourself to think any more about me. Our ways will always be apart, and we shall probably never see each other again. It really does not matter to you in the least what my feeling may be with regard to you, — it can have no influence on either your present or your future. Friendships cannot be commanded.”
“You will not say,” he interrupted me— “that you have no dislike of me?”
I hesitated — then spoke frankly.
“I will not,” — I answered— “because I cannot!”
For one instant our eyes met — then came SOMETHING between us that suggested an absolute and irretrievable loss— “Not yet!” he murmured— “Not yet!” and with a forced smile, he bowed and allowed me to pass to my cabin. I was glad to be there — glad to be alone — and overwhelmed as I was by the consciousness that the memories of my soul had been too strong for me to resist, I was thankful that I had had the courage to express my invincible opposition to one who had, as I seemed instinctively to realise, been guilty of an unrepented crime.
That night I slept dreamlessly, and the next morning before seven o’clock I had left the luxurious ‘Diana’ for the ordinary passenger steamer plying from Portree to Glasgow. Mr. Harland kept his promise of seeing me off, and expressed his opinion that I was very foolish to travel with a crowd of tourists and other folk, when I might have had the comfort and quiet of his yacht all the way; but he could not move me from my resolve, though in a certain sense I was sorry to say good-bye to him.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 780
