by Bram Stoker
“Stop! Stop!” cried Colonel Ogilvie. “I am obliged to you for your zeal in my service; and I think I can promise you that if in every way you suit, you may look on the permanent post as your own. I shall want you to begin your duties this very night. But this is a special job; and with special reward, for it is difficult and arduous.”
“I am willing sir, whatever it may be.”
“That is well said. You are the sort of man I want.”
“My orders sir?”
“I want you to take me to Casde Douglas to-night — now — as soon as you can get ready. I wish to get there as soon as I can. You will want to have everthing right, for we must have no break-down if we can help it. And you must have good lamps.”
“Twill be all right, sir. We shan’t, I expect, break down. But if we do — the motor is a new one and I did not make it — I shall put it right I am a first-rate mecbaniden and an accomplished driver...”
“All right; but don’t talk. Get the car ready, and we shall start at once.”
“We can start at once, so far as the car and I are concerned. But we lack something as yet. We must have a pilot.” “A pilot! I thought you knew the way.”
“On paper, yes; and I doubt not I could get there all right — in time. But you want to go quick; and we would lose time finding out the way. Remember we are going in the dark.” Then turning to the proprietor he said:
“Perhaps you can help us here, sir. Have you any one who can pilot?” “Not a chauffeur; but I have a coachman who knows all round here for a couple of days’ journey. I have no doubt that he knows that road amongst the others. He could sit beside you and direct you how to go!” “Right! Can you get him soon?”
“At once. He lives over the stables. I shall send for him now.” He rang the bell and when the servant came gave his message. And so that matter was settled and the journey arranged. The chauffeur went to have a last look over the motor car, and to bring it round to the door.
All the time of the interview Colonel Ogilvie stood silent, keeping erect and rigid. He was so stern and so master of himself that Judy wished now that he had less self-control. She feared the new phase even more than the old. Then care for what had still to be done took hold of her. She took her sister away to prepare a little basket of food and wine for Colonel Ogilvie and the men with him; they would need some sustenance on their long, arduous journey. Those kindly offices kept both women busy whilst Colonel Ogilvie was putting on warm clothes for the night travelling. Presently Mrs. Ogilvie joined him. When they were alone she said to him somewhat timidly:
“You will be tender, dear, with Joy? The child is young, and a harsh word spoken in anger at a time when she is high-strung and nervous and tired and frightened might be a lasting sorrow to her!” She half expected that he would resent her speaking at all. She was surprised as well as pleased when, putting his hands kindly on her shoulders, he said:
“Be quite easy in your mind on that subject, wife. Joy has all my love; and, whatever comes, I shall use no harsh word to her. I love her too well to give her pain, at the moment or to think of afterwards. She shall have nothing but care and tenderness and such words as you would yourself wish spoken!” The mother was comforted for the moment. But then came a thought, born of her womanhood, that the keenest pain which could be for the woman would be through her concern for the man. She had little doubt as to what her husband’s action would be if his surmises as to Mr. Hardy should prove to be correct. And such would mean the blighting of poor Joy’s life. She would dearly have loved to remonstrate with her husband on the subject; and she would have done so, whatever might have been the consequences to herself, but that she feared that any ill-timed expostulation might be harmful to her daughter. All the motherhood in her was awake, and nerved her to endure in silence. The only other words she said as she kissed her husband were:
“Good-bye for a while, dear. God keep you in all dangers of the road — and — and in all the far greater dangers that may come to you at the end of it.
My love to Joy! Be good to her, and never forget that she can suffer most through any one dear to her. Bring her home to me, safe and — and happy! I...” Her voice broke and she wept on his shoulder. Colonel Ogilvie was a determined man, and in some ways a harsh and cruel one; but he was a man, and understood. He took his wife in his arms and kissed her fondly, stroking her dark hair wherein the silver threads were showing. Then he passed out in silence.
By the door of the car he found Judy who said:
“I have put in your supper — you will want it dear — and also supper for the men. And oh! Lucius, don’t forget, for poor Joy’s sake, that this day you hold her heart — which is her life — in your hand!”
This added responsibility filled the cup of Colonel Ogilvie’s indignation. Already his conscience was quickening and his troubles — the agitation to his feelings — were almost more than he could bear. He would have liked to make some cynical remark to Judy; but before he could think of anything sufficiently biting, the motor which had been throbbing violently started.
Before the angry man could attempt to get back his self-possession he was gazing past the two shrouded figures before him and across the luminous arc of the lamps out into the night. The darkness seemed to sweep by him as he rushed on his way to Scotland.
When he had gone Judy turned to her sister and said:
“I was going to give him Jo/s dressing bag and a change of dress to take with him. She will want them, poor dear, after a long day of travel and a night in a strange place. But I have thought of a better plan.”
“And that?” asked the anxious mother.
“To take them myself! Moreover it won’t be any harm my being present in case the Colonel gets on the rampage. It will restrain him some. Now you go and lie down, dear. Don’t say anything — except your prayers in case you feel you must say something. But sleep will be your best help in this pretty tough proposition. I’ll go and get a hustle on that Dutch landlord. He’s got to find an automobile and a chauffeur, and a pilot if necessary for me too!”
CHAPTER 19
DECLARATION OF WAR
Joy Ogilvie was so tired out that her body lay like a log all night How her mind was occupied she only knew afterwards. For the memory of dreams is an unconscious memory at the time; it is only when there is opportunity of comparison with actualities that dreams can be re-produced. Then, as at first, the dreams are real — as they are forever whilst memory lasts. Indeed regarding dreams and actualities, one might almost appeal to scientific analogy; and in comparing the world of imagination — which is the kingdom of dreams — with the material world, might adduce the utterance of Sir Oliver Lodge in comparing the density of aether with that of matter in the modern scientific view: “Matter is turning out to be a filmy thing in comparison with aether.”
This might well serve as a scientific comparison. Nay more, it might well be an induction. The analogies of nature are so marvellously constant, as exemplified by the higher discoveries in physics, that we might easily wander farther than in taking the inner world of Thought as compared with the outer world of Physical Being, as an analogy to the Seen and Unseen worlds.
In the meantime we may take it that Joy’s dreams that night were in some way reflective of the events of the day. No girl of healthy emotional power could fail to be influenced by such a sequence of experiences of passion and fear as she had gone through. The realised hoping of love, the quick-answering abandonment of expressed passion; long, long minutes of the bliss of communion with that other soul — minutes whose sweetness or whose length could not be computed until the leisure of thought gave opportunity. Unconscious cerebration goes on unceasingly; and be sure that with such data as she had in her mind, the workings of imagination were quick and by no means cold. Again she lived the moments of responsive passion; but so lived them that she had advanced further on the road to completed passion when the unconsciousness to physical surroundings began to disappear and on the senses the ac
tualities began to consciously impress themselves. The dawn, stealing in between the chinks of the folded shutters, made strange lines on the floor without piercing through the walls of sleep. The myriad sounds of waking life from distant field and surrounding street brought no message to the closed eyes of weariness. The sun rose, and rose, and rose; and still she lay there unmoving.
At last that unaccountable impulse which moves all living things to sentience at the ending of sleep, stirred her. The waking grew on her. At first, when her eyes partially opened, she saw, but without comprehending, the dim room with its low ceiling; the wide window, masked in with shutters whose edges were brilliant with the early light; the odd furniture and all the unfamiliar surroundings. Then came the inevitable self-question: “where am I?”
The realization of waking from such dreaming as hers is a rude and jarring process, and when it does come, comes with something of a shock. For what seemed a long time Joy lay in a sort of languorous ecstasy whilst memory brought back to her those moments of the previous day which were sweeter even than her dreams. Again she heard the footsteps of the man she loved coming up rapidly behind her. Again she saw as she turned, in obedience to some new impulse which swayed her to surrender, the face of the man looking radiant with love and happiness. Again she felt the sweet satisfaction of living and loving when his arms closed round her and her arms closed round him and they strained each other strictly. Again there came to her the thrill which seemed to lift her from her earthly being as his mouth touched hers and they kissed each other in the absolute self-abandonment of reciprocated passion — the very passing memory of which set her blood tingling afresh; the thrill which set her soul floating in the expanse of air and made all conventions of the artificial world seen far below seem small and miserable and of neither power nor import. Again she was swept by that tide of wild desires, vague and nebulous as yet, inchoate, elusive, expansive, all-absorbing, which proclaimed her womanhood to herself. That desire of wife to husband, of sex to sex, of woman to man, which is the final expression of humanity — the love song of the children of Adam. It was as though memory and dreaming had become one. As if the day had merged in the night, and the night again in the coming day, each getting as it came all the thoughts and wishes and fancies and desires which follow in the train of the all-conquering Love-God.
In such receptive mood Joy awoke to life. When she realised where she was; and when the import of her new surroundings had broken in upon her, all the forces of her youth and strength began at once to manifest themselves. She slid softly from her bed — the instinct of self protection forbade noise or else she would have jumped to the floor. Doing must follow dreaming! The attitude of standing, once again helped to recall the previous evening, and she remembered that she had thought then that she must not open the windows in the morning because they faced directly other windows across a narrow street.
She remembered also that the next room, through which she had entered, had windows on two sides. Those on one side opened as did her own; but those on the other side looked out on an open space. And so, without further thought, she opened the door between and passed into the outer room. It too, like her own, was dark from the closed shutters. Instinctively she went softly, her bare feet making no sound on the carpet. With the same instinctive caution she had opened the door noiselessly; when the self-protective instinct has once been awakened, it does not easily relapse to sleep. She went over to one of the windows and tried to look out through the chinks. The day was bright outside and the sun was shining; the fog had entirely disappeared. In the sudden desire to breathe the fresh morning air, and to free in the sunlight her soul cramped by the long darkness of fog and night, she threw open the heavy shutters.
Athlyne slept so soundly that he never stirred. He lay on the sofa on his left side with his face out to the room. He too had been dreaming; and to his dreams the happiness of the day had brought a vivifying light. Through all his weariness of mind and body came to his spirit the glow of those moments when he knew that his love was reciprocated; when his call to his mate had been answered — answered in no uncertain voice. And so he, too, had lain with bodily nature all quiescent, whilst the emotional side of his mind ranged freely between memory and expectation. And in due process the imaginative power of the mind had worked on the nerves — and through them on the body — till he too lay in a languorous semi-trance — the mind ranging free whilst the abnormally receptive body quivered in unison. It was a dangerous condition of being in which to face the situation which awaited him.
The sound of the opening shutter wakened him, fully and all at once. The moment his eyes opened he saw a figure between him and the window; and at the knowledge that some stranger was in his room the habit of quick action which had prevailed in his years of campaigning re-asserted itself. On the instant he flung aside his blanket and sprang from his bed.
At the sound of a step on the floor Joy turned. The light streaming in through the unshuttered window showed them in completeness each to the other. The light struck Athlyne full in front. There was instant recognition, even in the unaccustomed garb, of that tall lithe form; of those fine aquiline features, of those dark flashing eyes. As to Joy, who standing against the light made her own shadow, Athlyne could have no doubt. He would have realised her presence in darkness and silence. As she stood in her fine linen, the morning light making, a sort of nimbus round the opacity of the upper part of her body, she looked to him like some fresh realization — some continuation in semi-ethereal form — of the being of his dreams. There was no pause for thought in either of the lovers. The instant of recognition was the realization of presence — unquestioning and the most natural thing in the world that the other should be there. Delight had sealed from within the ears of Doubt Unhesitatingly they ran to each other, and before a second had passed were locked tightly in each other’s arms.
In the secret belief of the Conventional world — that belief which is the official teaching of the churches of an artificial society, and not merely the world of Adam and Eve (and some others) — the ceremony of Marriage in itself changes the entire nature of the contracting parties. Whatever may have been the idiosyncrasies of these individuals such are forthwith changed, foregone, or otherwise altered to suit that common denominator of Human Nature which alone is officially catalogued in the records of the just It were as though the recorded promise of two love-stricken sufferers, followed by the formal blessings of the Church in any of its differentiations — or of the Registrar — should change baser mortals to more angelic counterpart; just as the “Philosopher’s Stone” which the mediaeval alchemist dreamed of and sought for, was expected to change baser metals to gold.
Perhaps it is because this transmutation is so complete that so many of those marriages which the Church does sanctify turn out so differently from the anticipations of the contractors and blessors!
But Dame Nature has her own church and her own ritual. In her case the Blessing comes before the Service; and the Benediction is but the official recognition that two souls — with their attendant bodies — have found a perfect communion for themselves. Those who believe in Human Nature — and many of them are seriously minded people too — realise and are thankful for the goodness of God who showers the possibilities of happiness with no stinting and no uncertain hand. “After all” they say “what about Eden?” There was no church’s blessing there — not even a Registrar; and yet we hold that Adam and Eve were united in Matrimony. Nor were their children or their children’s children made one with organised formality. What was it then that on these occasions stood between fornication and marriage? What could it be but the Blessing of God! And if God could make marriage by His Blessing in Eden, when did He forego that power. Or if indeed there be only a “Civil Contract” — as so many hold to-day — what proofs or writings must there be beyond that mere “parole” contract which is recognised in other matters by the Law of the Land.
So, the believers in natural religion and natura
l law — those who do not hold that personal licence, unchecked and boundless, is an appanage or logical result of freedom. To these, freedom is in itself a state bounded on all sides by restrictive laws — as must ever be, unless Anarchy is held to be the ultimate and controlling force. And in the end Anarchy is the denial of all Cosmic law — that systematised congeries of natural forces working in harmony to a common end.
But law, Cosmic or Anarchic, (if there be such a thing, and it may be that Hell — if there is one — has its own laws — ) or any grade between these opposites, is a matter for coolness and reflection. Inter arma silent leges is a maxim of co-ordinate rulings in the Court of Cosmic law. And the principle holds whether the arms be opposed or locked together in any form of passion. When Love lifts the souls, whose bodies are already in earthly communion, I.aw ceases to be. From the altitude of accomplished serenity the mightiest law is puny; just as from a balloon the earth looks flat, and even steeples and towers have no perspective.
So it was with the two young people clasped in each other’s arms. The world they lived in at the moment was their world, bounded only by the compass of their arms. After all what more did they want — what could they want. They were together and alone. Shame was not for them, or to them, who loved with all their hearts — whose souls already felt as one. For shame, which is a conven- rional ordering of the blood, has no place — not even a servitor’s in the House of Love: that palace where reigns the love of husbandhood and wifehood, of fatherhood and motherhood — that true, realised Cosmos — the aim, the objective, the heaven of human life.
Their circumstances but intensified the pleasure of the embrace. Athlyne and Joy had both felt the same communion of spirits when they embraced at their first meeting out of Ambleside when their souls had met. This had been intensified when they sat in close embrace after lunch beyond Dairy, when heart consciously beat to heart. Now it was completed in this meeting, unexpected and therefore more free and unhampered by preparatory thoughts and intentions, when body met body in a close if tentative communion. The mere paucity of raiment had force and purpose. They could each feel as they hung together closely strained, the beating of each other’s heart; the rising and falling of each other’s lungs. Their breaths commingled as they held mouth to mouth. In such delirious rapture — for these two ardent young people loved each other with a love which both held to be but the very beginning of an eternal bond and which took in every phase, actual and possible, of human beings — there was no place for forethought or afterthought. It was the hour of life which is under the guidance of Nature; to be looked forward to with keen if ignorant anticipation; and which is to be looked back on for evermore as a time when the very heavens opened and the singing of the Angelic choir came through unmuffled.
