by Sax Rohmer
Don, who was lighting his pipe, stared at her so long that the match burned his fingers and dropped into his cap, which lay beside him on the floor.
Flamby’s visitors speedily acquired the homely trick of hanging up their hats on the floor. “Flamby!” he said reproachfully, “I know you are joking, but I don’t like you to say such a thing even in jest.”
“Dulce est desipere,” replied Flamby, “but I am not jesting. Oh, that beastly Latin! Do you remember when I quoted Portia to you? It makes me go all goosey to think of some of the awful things I have said to people.”
“You have said one thing, Flamby, which I must request you to explain,” said Don gravely. “Paul is utterly incapable of harbouring an evil thought about anyone, and equally incapable of misjudging character.”
“Ah, I knew you would say that, Don, and it is just that which worries me so.”
“I don’t understand.”
Flamby snuggled her knees up tighter against her round chin and stared wistfully straight before her. A ray from the afternoon sun intruded through the window and touched her wonderful hair into magic flame. “Paul has altered the lives of a lot of people, hasn’t he?” she asked.
“He has. I cannot doubt that he will become the centre of a world-wide movement. I received a letter only two days ago from a man who was with us at Oxford, and who entered the Church, assuring me that he had only awaited such a lead to resign his office and seek independently to spread the true doctrine. He is only one of many. I know several Army chaplains who have been troubled with serious doubts for years. They will rally to Paul as the Crusaders rallied to Peter the Hermit.”
“I read his book,” said Flamby, still staring unseeingly before her, “and something inside myself told me that every word of it was true. I know that I have lived before, everybody knows it, but everybody isn’t able to realise it. Dad told me that re-incarnation was the secret of life once when I asked him who his father was. He said, ‘Never mind about that. Damn your ancestors!...’ Oh! I didn’t mean to say it! But, really he said that. ‘It is your spiritual ancestry that counts,’ he told me. ‘There are plenty of noble blackguards, and it wasn’t his parents who made a poet of Keats.’ Dad convinced me in a wonderful way. He pointed out that a child born of a fine cultured family and one whose father was a thief and his mother something worse didn’t start level at all. One was handicapped before he had the sense to think for himself; ‘before he weighed in,’ was how dad put it. ‘If there is a just God,’ he said— ‘and every man finds out sooner or later that there is, to his joy or to his sorrow — there are no unfair handicaps. It wouldn’t be racing. Why should an innocent baby be born with the diseases and deformities of it’s parents? Why should some be born blind?’ What he called ‘the hell-fire and brimstone’ theory used to make him sick. He considered that most missionaries ought to be publicly executed, and said that in the Far East where he had lived you could see their work ‘like the trail of a tin tabernacle across a blasted heath.’ That sounds like swearing, but it’s Shakespeare.”
“I don’t see,” said Don, as Flamby became silent, “what this has to so with Paul’s misjudgment of you, or your misjudgment of Paul. It simply means that you agree with him. You are such an extraordinarily clever girl, and have had so extraordinary a training, that I cannot pass lightly by anything you say seriously. What has led you to believe that Paul thinks ill of you, and why does it worry you that I think him incapable of such a thing?”
Flamby absently flicked cigarette ash upon the carpet. “According to The Gates,” she said, speaking very slowly and evidently seeking for words wherewith to express her meaning, “everybody’s sorrows and joys and understanding or lack of understanding are exactly in proportion to the use they have made of their opportunities, not just in one life but in other lives before.”
Don nodded without speaking.
“A man who had come as near to perfection as is possible in this world would have found his perfect mate, what Paul calls his ‘Isis-self.’”
“Embodied, in Paul’s case, in Yvonne.”
“He would be in no doubt about it, and no more would she. If she was below him he would raise her, if she was above him he might marry, but he would not mistake another woman for the right one. And things that convinced other men would not convince a true initiate. So I am worried about Paul, because if he is not a true initiate, where did he learn the things that are in The Gates?”
Don’s face was very grave. “You have been studying strange books, Flamby. What have you been reading?”
“Heaps of things.” Flamby blushed. “I managed to get a Reader’s ticket for the British Museum. I am interested, you see. But there are things in Paul’s book and other things promised in the next which — oh! — I’m afraid I can’t explain — —”
“You cannot account for such knowledge in an ordinary mortal, and evidently something has occurred which has led you to regard Paul as less than a god. Tell me about it, Flamby.”
III
Don stood up, and walking across the room looked out of the window into the quadrangle. The story of the Charleswood photographs, which Flamby had related with many a pause and hesitance, had seemed to cast upon the room a shadow — the shadow of a wicked hypocrite. Both were silent for several minutes.
“And you are sure that Paul has seen these photographs?” said Don.
“You must have noticed the change in him yourself.”
“I had noticed it, Flamby. I am afraid you are right. I will go down to Devonshire to-night and — —”
“You will not!”
Don turned, and Flamby, her face evenly dusky and her eyes very bright, was standing up watching him. “Please don’t be angry,” she said approaching him, “because I spoke like that. But I could never forgive you if you told him. If he can think such a thing of me I don’t care. What have I ever said or done that he should dare to think such a thing!”
Don took both her hands and found that she was trembling. She looked aside, biting her lower lip. In vain she sought to control her emotions, knowing that they had finally betrayed her secret to this man in whose steadfast eyes she had long ago read a sorrowful understanding. At that moment she came near to hating Paul, and this, too, Don perceived with the clairvoyance of love. But because he was a very noble gentleman indeed, and at least as worthy of honour as the immortal Bussy d’Amboise, he sought not to advantage himself but to plead the cause of his friend and to lighten the sorrow of Flamby. “Have you tried hard not to care so much?”
Flamby nodded desperately, her eyes wells of tears.
“And it was useless?”
“Oh!” she cried, “I am mad! I hate myself! I hate myself!” She withdrew her hands and leapt on to the settee wildly, pressing her face against the cushions.
Don inhaled a deep breath and stood watching her. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his tunic. “Have you considered, Flamby, what a hopeless thing it is.”
“Of course, of course! I should loathe and despise any other girl who was such a wicked little fool. Dad would have killed me, and I should have deserved it!”
“Don’t blame Paul too much, Flamby.”
“I don’t. I am glad that he can be so mean,” she sobbed. “It helps me not to like him any more!”
“Paul is no ordinary man, Flamby, but neither is he a magician. How could you expect him to know?”
“He never even asked me.”
Don, watching her, suddenly recognised that he could trust himself to pursue this conversation no further. “Tell me why you wanted to see Orlando James again,” he said.
Flamby looked up quickly, and Don’s hands clenched themselves in his pockets when he saw her tear-stained face. “I am afraid,” she replied, “to tell you — now.”
“Why are you afraid now, Flamby?”
“Because you will think — —”
“I shall think nothing unworthy of you, Flamby.”
“I went,” said Flamby, twist
ing a little lace handkerchief in her hands, “because I was afraid — for Paul.”
“For Paul!”
“You are beginning to wonder already.”
“I am beginning to wonder but not to doubt. In what way were you afraid?”
“He is so sure.”
“Sure that he has found the truth?”
“Not that, but sure that he is right in making it known.”
Don hesitated. He, too, had had his moments of doubt, but he perceived that Flamby’s doubts were based upon some matter of which at present he knew nothing. “Paul believes quite sincerely that he has been chosen for this task,” he said. “He believes his present circumstances, or Karma, to be due to a number of earlier incarnations devoted to the pursuit of knowledge.”
“Do you think if that was true he would make so many mistakes about people?” asked Flamby, and her voice had not yet recovered entire steadiness.
“I have told you that he is not a magician, Flamby, but you have still to tell me why you wanted to see Orlando James.”
“I don’t believe I can tell you, after all.” Flamby had twisted the little handkerchief into a rope and was tugging at it desperately.
“Why?”
“Well — I might be wrong, and then I should never forgive myself. It is something you ought to know, but I can see now that I cannot tell you.”
Don very deliberately took up his pipe from the table. “Here’s an ash-tray,” said Flamby in a faint voice. “Shall we go out to tea and see if we can cheer ourselves up a bit?”
“I think we might,” replied Don, smiling in almost the old way. “Some place where there is a band.”
* * * * * *
As a direct result of this conversation, Paul received a letter two days later from Don. It touched whimsically upon many matters, and finally, “I have decided to add Orlando James to my list of undesirable acquaintances,” wrote Don. “Don’t let this harsh decision influence your own conduct in any way, but if at any time you chance to go walking with him and meet myself, pardon me if I fail to acknowledge either of you.”
Paul read this paragraph many times. He received the letter one morning whilst Yvonne was out, she having gone into the neighbouring village, and when she came back he spoke of it to her. “Have you seen anything of Orlando James recently?” he asked.
Yvonne turned and began to arrange some fresh flowers in a bowl upon the cottage window-ledge. “No,” she replied. “I have seen him rarely since the portrait was finished. Why?”
“I was merely wondering. He seems to be establishing a queer sort of reputation. Thessaly has thrown out hints more than once and Don quite frankly dislikes him.”
“What kind of reputation, Paul?”
“Oh, the wrong kind for a portrait painter,” replied Paul lightly. “I shall send him a cheque for the picture.”
“But he has refused to accept any payment whatever.”
“It was very flattering on his part to declare that its exhibition was worth so much to him, and to decline a fee, but nevertheless I shall send him a cheque to-night. Did you remember to go to the Post Office?”
“Yes.” Yvonne turned slowly. “Here are the stamps.”
“I can see,” said Paul, “that either I must return to London or have Edwards come down here and put up somewhere in the neighbourhood. I have more work than I can handle unassisted.”
“Let us go back to town, then, if you think it is hindering you to stay here.”
“There is no occasion for you to return, Yvonne.”
“Yes, but — I don’t want to stay, Paul, if you are going. Really, I would rather not.” There was something pathetic, almost fearful, in the insistency of her manner, and Paul had a glimpse again of that intangible yet tauntingly familiar phantom in his wife’s bearing. A revelation seemed to be imminent, but it eluded him, and the more eagerly he sought to grasp it the further did it recede. “You don’t want to leave me behind, do you?” said Yvonne.
“Want to leave you behind!” cried Paul, standing up and crossing to where she stood by the window. “Yvonne!” He held her close in his arms, but there was no fire in the violet eyes, only a tired, pathetic expression.
IV
The pageant proceeded merrily; these were merry days. And because it was rumoured that men who fought hard also drank hard, the brethren of the blue ribbon at last perceived their opportunity and seized upon it with all the vigour and tenacity which belong to those reared upon a cocoa diet. Denying the divinity of the grape, they concealed their treason against Bacchus beneath a cloak of national necessity, and denied others that which they did not want themselves. They remained personally immune because no one thought of imposing a tax upon temperance-meetings, hot-water bottles and air-raid shelters. “Avoid a man who neither drinks nor smokes,” was one of Don’s adages. “He has other amusements.”
Paul continued his pursuit of the elusive thread interwoven in modern literature, and made several notable discoveries. “Contemplation of the mountainous toils of Balzac and Dumas fills me with a kind of physical terror,” he said to Don on one occasion. “It is an odd reflection that they would have achieved immortality just the same if they had contented themselves respectively with the creation of Madame Marnefle and the girl with the golden eyes, D’Artagnan and Chicot. The memory of Dumas is enshrined in his good men, that of Balzac in his bad women. One represents the active Male principle, the Sun, the other the passive Feminine, or the Moon. I have decided that Dumas was the immediate reincarnation of a musketeer, and Balzac of a public prosecutor.”
“Pursuing this interesting form of criticism,” said Don, “at once so trenchant and so unobjectionable, to what earlier phase should you ascribe the wit of G. K. Chesterton for example?”
“To the personal influence of Dr. Johnson and his contemporaries. H. G. Wells would seem to have had no earthly experiences since he was a priest of Bel, or if he had they were comparatively colourless. Rudyard Kipling knew and loved the spacious times of Elizabeth. How clearly we can trace the Roman exquisite in Walter Pater and the bravo in George Moore. Stevenson was a buccaneer in whom repentance came too late, and who suffered the extreme penalty probably under Charles II. The author of The Golden Bough was conceivably a Chaldean librarian, and from the writings of Anatole France steps forth shadowy a literary religieux of the sixteenth century; but it is when we come to consider such cases as those of Spencer and Darwin that we meet with insurmountable obstacles. The patientiotype process of Victor Hugo defies this system of analysis also, as does the glorious humanity of Mark Twain, and although Pinero proclaims himself a wit of the Regency, Bernard Shaw’s spiritual pedigree is obscure. Nevertheless, all are weavers of the holy carpet, and our lives are drawn into the loom. All began weaving in the childhood of the world and each has taken up the thread again at his appointed hour.”
Paul spent a great part of his time in Jules Thessaly’s company. Thessaly had closed his town house, and was living in chambers adjoining Victoria Street. His windows commanded a view of an entrance to Westminster Cathedral, “from whence upward to my profane dwelling,” he declared, “arises an odour of sanctity.” From Thessaly’s flat they set out upon many a strange excursion, one night visiting a private gaming-house whose patrons figured in the pages of Debrett, and, perhaps on the following evening, Thessaly’s car would take them to a point in the West India Dock Road, from whence, roughly attired, they would plunge into the Asiatic underworld which lies hidden beneath the names of Three Colt Street and Pennyfields. They visited a foul den in Limehouse where a crook-backed Chinaman sat rocking to and fro before a dilapidated wooden joss in the light of a tin paraffin lamp, listened to the rats squealing under the dirty floor and watched men smoke opium. They patronised “revue” East and West, that concession to the demand of youth long exiled from feminine society which had superseded the legitimate drama. “There are three ingredients essential to the success of such an entertainment,” Thessaly pronounced: “fat legs, thin leg
s, and legs.” They witnessed a knuckle-fight in Whitechapel between a sailorman and a Jewish pugilist. The referee was a member of a famous sporting club, and the purse was put up by a young peer on leave from the bloody shambles before Ypres. “Our trans-Tiber evenings,” Paul termed these adventures.
He had seized upon a clue to the ills of the world and he pursued it feverishly. “If men realised, as they realise that physical illness follows physical excess, that for every moment of pain unnecessarily inflicted upon any living creature — a horse, a dog, a cage-bird — they must suffer themselves a worse pang, would not the world be a better place?” he asked. “That fighting peer is accounted a fine fellow by his companions, and in an earlier life, when the unshaped destinies of men were being rough-hewn with sword and axe, he was a fine fellow. But that earlier influence now is checking his development. If he could realise that he will probably be reborn a weakling doomed to suffer the buffets of the physically strong, he would doubtless reconsider his philosophy. He has lost track of himself. Our childish love of animals, which corresponds to a psychic pre-natal phase, is a memory which becomes obscured as the fleshly veil grows denser — which the many neglect, but which the wise man cherishes.”
“Heredity plays its part, too,” said Thessaly.
“Quite so. It is difficult, sometimes almost impossible, to distinguish between the influences of heredity and those of pre-existence.”
“More especially since few of us know our own fathers, and none of us our grandfathers. If our family tree record a line of abstemious forbears, and we mysteriously develop a partiality for neat rum and loose company, we hesitate whether to reproach ourselves for the vices of a previous existence or to disparage the morality of our grandmother.”
Strange stories won currency at this time, too. Arising as he had done out of a cataclysm, Paul Mario by many was accepted as the harbinger of a second Coming. His claims were based upon no mere reiteration of ancient theories, but upon a comprehensible system which required no prayer-won faith from its followers, but which logically explained life, death, and those parts of the Word of Jesus Christ which orthodoxy persisted in regarding as “divine mysteries.” Paul’s concept of God and the Creation was substantially identical with that of Jacob Boehme and the Hermetic Philosophers. He showed the Universe to be the outcome of a Thought. Unexpressed Will desired to find expression, to become manifest. Such was the birth of Desire. Since in the beginning this Will was an Eye which beheld nothing because nothing outside Itself existed, It fashioned a Mirror and therein saw all things in Itself. This Mirror was the Eternal Mother, the Will the Eternal Father. The Eternal Father, beholding Himself and His wonders mirrored in the Eternal Mother, willed that being passive they should become active. Thought became materialised, force and space begot Motion and the Universe was. As illustrating the seven qualities through which the Divine energy operated, Paul quoted the following lines: —
