Yet it was upset. Mr. Andersen, one of the guests, had at that moment knocked it over.
"That certainly," observed the lady, "would be an exercise of Will of a very singular and remarkable kind. It belongs to the class of phenomena which the Orientals accounted for by the invention of their so-called Slaves. Solomon had such Slaves. Mohammed had them. Every great man had them."
"Do you think," asked Jocelyn anxiously, "that they exist now?"
"The Slaves? Certainly not." This lady, it is evident, knew a great deal. "But the power - yes - oh yes! - that exists if we can attain to it." She was a woman about thirty years of age, with large full eyes. "If I choose to exercise my Will, Sir Jocelyn, you will advance towards me whether you like it or not."
"I very much doubt that; but," said Jocelyn recklessly, "if I choose to exercise my Will, you shall recede from me."
"Really!" said the lady scornfully; "we will try, if you please. My Will against your Will. You shall advance, but I will not recede."
No one had ever before suspected young Sir Jocelyn of any pretence at supernatural powers, so that they all laughed, and expected instant discomfiture. Yet a remarkable thing happened. The lady sat in a chair before him, and Jocelyn fixed his eyes upon hers, which met his with a dilated glare. He did not advance, but presently the lady's chair began to move backward, very slowly. She sprang up with a shriek of fright, and the chair fell over.
"What have you done?" she cried. "Some one was pulling the chair."
"Very clever indeed," observed a man who was addicted to feats of legerdemain and deception. "Very clever, Sir Jocelyn; you have deceived even me. But you will not do it twice, otherwise I shall find out how you did it."
"No," he replied, half ashamed, "not twice. A trick," he added,-'.'ought-not to be done over again."
"A trick?" said the lady. "But no - that was no trick. If the chair were not actually pulled, why, you must have the power, Sir Jocelyn. Yes; you have the Will that causes even inanimate matter to move. It was not me, but the chair that you repelled."
He deprecated, modestly, the possession of so strong a Will. The story, however, without the names, has been preserved, and may be read among the papers of the Psychical Society. It is one of their choicest and best authenticated anecdotes. But the real simple truth is not known to them, and in revealing it one does but set the narrative, so to speak, upon a different platform. It is no longera mysterious Agent.
"It is a long time," observed the Mr. Andersen who had upset the glass - he was a bright and sprightly Americanised Dane - "it is a long time since I did busy myself with the secrets and mysteries of the unseen world; but, if you please, I will give you, of the final result at which I arrived, an account."
"You did get a result, then?" said the lady of the strong Will.
"You shall hear. I was out camping one night; all the fellows had gone to sleep except me, and I was keeping watch by the campfire with my six-shooter, and the big dog for company. The sky above us was as clear and pure as a young maiden's heart, and the tall trees stood up against the sky like sentinels, dark and steadfast, and the whole air was as still - as still as a fellow keeps when he want to see if the other fellow will copper a queen or not. But I fell to thinking and thinking; and there was some one far away that I wanted so much to see and to know what ... that person - might be thinking and doing - "
""And you saw her!" cried the lady.
"I remembered," he went on, not regarding the interruption, "how the fellow who taught us the mesmeric passes told me what an ever so strong mesmeric power I possessed, and I thought that here, if ever, was a high old time to try that power. I looked round at the still sky, and the quiet trees, and the sleeping fellows, and I just began to wish. Then the big dog lifted up his head and made as though he'd like to give a howl, and he looked at my face, and it seemed as if he believed he'd best swallow that howl. The more he didn't howl the more I wished; and I wished and I wished and I wished till it seemed as if the whole world was standing still to judge how wonderful I was wishing, and then there came a faint rustle, way off among the tops of the trees, and I thought there was something, maybe, beginning to come out of it all. And I wished and I wished and I wished. And -" here he paused in a manner which thrilled his hearers.
"Well? " asked Jocelyn, giving voice to the general expectation.
"And, by Jupiter, Sir Jocelyn," said the narrator, "by Jupiter nothing never came of it!"
VI
Before coming to the ball at Lady Hambledon's, Jocelyn took the most careful precautions to prevent any possible mistake. He put the Cap before him and lectured it solemnly.
"Now, you understand, there is to be no fooling this evening. I am going to Lady Hambledon's - don't confound her with any other Hambledon - Lady Hambledon in Brook Street; the Stauntons are going to be there: you will arrange an opportunity for me to speak to - the young lady; you will do your best to - to stimulate - to give me a shove if I get stuck; you will also, if that is possible, predispose the young lady in my favour. I don't think there is anything more you can do. See that, this evening at least, you make no blunders. Remember the housekeeper's purse." By this time he had learned to avoid the phrase "I wish" as most dangerous and misleading, when a servant of limited intellect interprets every wish literally.
He went off, however, comforted with the conviction that really he had said all that was necessary to say. If this Cap, or the Slave of the Cap, was not a fool and an imbecile, his orders would be executed to the letter. He was a little excited, of course; anybody would have been so under the circumstances. Not only was his happiness at stake - at fiveand-twenty one's whole future happiness is very often at stake - but he was about to test and prove the power of the Cap. Hitherto that power had not been exercised to his advantage in anyway. He should now ascertain exactly whether he was going to be a real wizard, or quite a common person like any other young Baronets. On the stairs he overheard a whispered conversation which made him feel uneasy.
"I saw the Stauntons go up just now," said one.
"And I saw Annesley go up just before them," said another.
"Everybody says that he is hard hit. Came here after her, of course."
Nothing absolutely to connect Annesley with Nelly. Yet he was uneasy. Certainly, Annesley would not be hard hit by Caroline. Two people full of ideas cannot marry and be happy. No, it must be Nelly. He fortified himself with the thought of his Cap, and went on upstairs.
The first thing he saw was Nelly herself, dancing with Annesley. "Confound him!" said Jocelyn, "He is as graceful as an ostrich!" On the other side of the room sat Mrs. Staunton. To her he made his way, and reached her just at the moment when Caroline was brought back to the same spot by her partner in the last dance. He could do nothing less than ask Caroline for the valse which had just begun. She was disengaged.
At this juncture there fell upon him the strangest feeling possible. It was exactly as if he was being guided. He felt as if some one were leading him, and he seemed to hear a whisper saying, "Everything is arranged according to your Excellency's commands." The consciousness of supernatural presence in a London ball-room is a very strange thing. There is an incongruity in it; it makes one act and feel as if in a dream. It was in a waking dream that Jocelyn performed that dance. Presently - he was not in the least surprised now, whatever should happen - he found himself sitting in the conservatory with Caroline. She was discoursing in a broad philosophical spirit on the futility of human hopes and opportunities.
Then he heard his own voice asking her: "What is the use of opportunities unless one knows how to use them?"
"What indeed?" replied Caroline; "but surely, Sir Jocelyn, it is only the weaker sort to whom that happens? The strong" - here she directed an encouraging glance at him - can always use, and can even make, if need be, their opportunities."
"Yes:" Jocelyn forced the conversation a step lower, 'but ifa girl won't give a fellow a chance."
"I think," said Caroline, "that an
y man can find his chance, if he likes to seize it."
There was a pause - Jocelyn felt himself impelled to speak. It was as if some one was pushing him towards a precipice. When he afterwards thought of himself and his extraordinary behaviour at this moment, he could only account for it by the theory that he was compelled to speak and to conduct himself in this wonderful way. "You must have seen," he whispered, "you must have seen all this time, that I have been hoping for a chance and was unable to get one. There was always your mother or your sister in the way. And I did hope - I mean - I did think that the Cap - I mean that I did rather fancy that one might perhaps get a chance here, though it isn't exactly what I ordered and wished. But I can't help it. In fact, I made up my mind last Sunday that it must be to-night or never. But what with the crush, and seeing other fellows cut in - Annesley and the others
Caroline interrupted this incoherent speech, which, however, could have but one meaning. "This is not the only place or the only time in the world."
"Well," said Jocelyn, "may I call to-morrow? But then - oh! this isn't what I wanted - may I call -" his eyes wandered, and he began a kind of love-babble, yet with a look of bewilderment.
Caroline listened calmly. She remembered another love-scene years before, when much the same kind of thing was said to her, though her lover then had a far different expression in his eyes. They were burning eyes, and terrified her. Jocelyn's were bewildered eyes, and made her feel just a little contemptuous. Even the coldest women like some fierceness in their wooer.
"Hush!" she said, "you will be overheard. Take me now back to mamma. We are going immediately. You may come to-morrow at five."
He pressed her hand, and took her back. Nelly was with her mother, Annesley in attendance. She glanced at her sister, and caught in reply a smile so full of meaning, that she did not hesitate to bestow a look upon Jocelyn of the sweetest sympathy. Her pretty eyes and this sympathetic look of sisterly - yes! sisterly - pleasure, completed the business. It wanted nothing but Nelly's sympathy to round off the situation and fill up his cup of misery.
Then they went away. Jocelyn retired to a comparatively secluded place on the landing, and there, leaning against a door, he began to curse his fate and folly. He was so absorbed in railing at fortune and in self-pity, that he absolutely forgot the very existence of the Cap. The situation was too desperate; in a lesser stress of circumstances he would have remembered it; but as yet he did not even connect the Cap with the present fearful disaster, of which the worst was that it could not possibly be worse; it was hopeless; he had told a girl to whom he was utterly indifferent, that he was in love with her; without being drunk, or blinded for a space by her charms, he had addressed words to her which he had intended for her sister. "Oh," he groaned, "I wish I were somehow, anyhow, out of this horrible situation!"
As he spoke, he involuntarily straightened his legs and leaned back with a jerk. The door opened, and he fell back with a fearful crash of broken glass upon the back stairs and a tray of ices on the way to the-tea-room.
Unlucky Jocelyn! To fall downstairs backwards is at best undignified, but who can describe the indignity and discomfort of falling in such circumstances as this? He was helped to his feet by some of the servants, and slipped away as quickly as he could.
The cool night air restored him a little; he found himself able to think coherently; and he now understood that the whole of this miserable evening's work was due to his infernal Cap.
He took it out of the cabinet as soon as he reached his chambers.
"You fool! you beast! you blind, blundering blockhead!" he thus addressed the Cap. "It is all your doing. The wrong girl? Yes: of course it was the wrong girl. Didn't give you her name? You ought to have known it. Girl you talked so long with?" - All this time he seemed to be hearing and answering excuses. "Talked so long with -" He sank in a chair and groaned. Alas! it was his own fault; he had forgotten to name the girl; the Slave of the Cap knew that he wanted one of the Stauntons, and supposed that he wanted the one with whom he had conversed so much on Sunday. How should he know?
He mixed a glass of whisky and seltzer.
"I wish," he said desperately, "that the stuff would poison me."
He drank off half the tumbler. Heavens! it was methylated spirits, not seizer (the bottles were alike in shape), that he had poured into the whisky. His wish was very nearly gratified. Fortunately the quantity he had drunk proved the cause of his safety. Over the bad quarter of an hour which followed let us drop the veil of pity.
But he was to have another and as rude a lesson in the activity of his slave. He awoke in the middle of the night, with a sort of nightmare, in which Caroline was lecturing him and saying, "I am to be your companion all your life. You will never cease listening to the voice of instruction." The weight of his horrible blunder became intolerable to him. He threw off the clothes and sat up in the bed. "I wish," he gasped, "I wish I was dead." Something seized him by the throat. He could not breathe. He sprang from the bed and rushed to the window for air. He was choking. He battled with the fit, or whatever it was, which held him for three or four minutes and left him purple in the face and trembling in the limbs.
"It is spasmodic asthma," he said, when he had recovered a little. "My father had it, and his father had it. I knew it would come some day." At the same time, it was odd that it should come just when he was wishing to be dead. And the constriction of the pipes did seem astonishingly like the fingers of some one trying to throttle him.
VII
"Dear Sir Jocelyn" (it was a note from Mrs Staunton), - "I shall be very glad to see you to-day at twelve. Caroline tells me you have something important - may I guess what it is? - to say to me. - Yours very sincerely,
"Julia Staunton"
Jocelyn received this note with the cup of tea which he took in bed, according to vicious morning usage. He read it and groaned. It meant, this harmless note, nothing short of a life-long lecture from a female philosopher; and he a perfectly frivolous young man!
He fell back upon his pillow and groaned. Then he foolishly began to wish, forgetting his Cap, "I wish the confounded letter could be washed out of existence," he said, and with an impatient gesture threw out his arms and upset the cup of tea over the paper. It would take ten minutes to get another cup. "It's that accursed Cap," he said; "it always takes one up wrong. I've a good mind to burn it." He dressed himself in the vilest temper. Had he heard the conversation at that moment going on between Caroline and her mother, he would have been more angry still.
" I do not pretend," said the young lady, "to feel any violent attachment for him - that kind of thing is over for me. There was a time as you know - "
"My dear," said her mother, "that is so long ago, and you were so very young, and it was before your uncle died."
"Yes, it is so long ago", said Caroline "I am seven-andtwenty now - two years older than Jocelyn. Poor boy! he is weak, but I think I shall have a docile husband; unless, to be sure, he turns stubborn, as weak men sometimes do. In that case -" Her face hardened, and her mother felt that if Caroline's husband should prove stubborn, there would be a game of "Pull devil, pull baker."
There was, Jocelyn felt, no way out of it at all, unless the way of flight, which is always open to everybody. And then, what a tremendous fool he would seem! As for the truth it could not possibly be told. That, at any rate, must be concealed; and at this point he began to understand some of the inconveniences, besides that of being misunderstood, in keeping a private demon. It is not, nowadays, that you would be burned if it were found out. Quite the contrary: all the clergymen in the world would be delighted at finding an argument so irrefragable against atheists and rationalists. The thing was wrong, of course, but beautifully opportune. But it would be so supremely ridiculous. A Slave of the Cap, Jinn, or Afreet, who could only find his master money by stealing the housekeeper's purse; who interpreted a wish, without the least regard to consequences, literally and blindly; who led his master into the most ridiculous scra
pes, even to getting him engaged to the wrong girl: a blundering, stupid slave - this, if you please, would be simply ridiculous. As for Nelly, his chance with her was hopelessly gone, even if, by any accident, he could break off with her sister. Yet, he thought, he should like to know if there was any truth in the report about her and Annesley. "I wish," he said, "I wish now, that I had never know her."
Then it became apparent to him that he really never had known her at all. She could not suspect his intentions because she had no opportunity of guessing them; and he remembered that though he had known the Stauntons a good while, he had never once got an opportunity of talking with her alone, except at a dance, and then her card was always filled up for the whole time she stayed. Sympathetic eyes are very sweet, but they do not mean an understanding without being told that a man is in love with one. To do Nelly justice, she had never thought of Jocelyn in this way. He was an agreeable young man to dance with; he came to afternoon tea and talked with Caroline, or rather listened; she thought he was not very clever, but he seemed nice.
Mrs Staunton received Jocelyn with great cordiality. "Let me," she said, "hear at once, my dear Jocelyn, what you wish to say to me." It was a sign of the very worst that she addressed him by his Christian name, without the handle, for the first time.
"Caroline has told me that last night -"
"Yes," said Jocelyn. "I wish she hadn't." The last words sotto voce .
"She did not tell me all," replied Mrs. Staunton. "In fact, very little; but I gathered. -"
"I told her," said Jocelyn, in a tone most melancholy and even sepulchral - "I told her that I loved her."
"Yes - I gathered so much - and indeed, I was not surprised. To love my Caroline betrays, as well as becomes, a liberal education. Yet I need not disguise from you, Jocelyn," the young lady's mamma continued, "that from one point of view - the only one, I am bound to confess - the match is undesirable. You are of ancient family; you have rank; you have, I am assured, excellent morals and the best principles; but, my dear boy, you have - pardon me for reminding you of it - so scanty a fortune."
The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy: 19th Century (European Literary Fantasy Anthologies) Page 29
