by Jack London
“I’m almost bursting with vanity from listening to you,” he laughed, passing his arm around her and drawing her against him.
“Yes,” she whispered, “and in this very moment, when you are laughing at all that I have said, you, the feel of you, your soul,—call it what you will, it is you,—is calling for all the love that is in me.”
She leaned more closely against him, and sighed as with fatigue. He breathed a kiss into her hair and held her with firm tenderness.
Aunt Mildred stirred briskly and looked up from the Planchette board.
“Come, let us begin,” she said. “It will soon grow chilly. Robert, where are those children?”
“Here we are,” Lute called out, disengaging herself.
“Now for a bundle of creeps,” Chris whispered, as they started in.
Lute’s prophecy of the manner in which her lover would be received was realized. Mrs. Grantly, unreal, unhealthy, scintillant with frigid magnetism, warmed and melted as though of truth she were dew and he sun. Mr. Barton beamed broadly upon him, and was colossally gracious. Aunt Mildred greeted him with a glow of fondness and motherly kindness, while Uncle Robert genially and heartily demanded, “Well, Chris, my boy, and what of the riding?”
But Aunt Mildred drew her shawl more closely around her and hastened them to the business in hand. On the table was a sheet of paper. On the paper, rifling on three supports, was a small triangular board. Two of the supports were easily moving casters. The third support, placed at the apex of the triangle, was a lead pencil.
“Who’s first?” Uncle Robert demanded.
There was a moment’s hesitancy, then Aunt Mildred placed her hand on the board, and said: “Some one has always to be the fool for the delectation of the rest.”
“Brave woman,” applauded her husband. “Now, Mrs. Grantly, do your worst.”
“I?” that lady queried. “I do nothing. The power, or whatever you care to think it, is outside of me, as it is outside of all of you. As to what that power is, I will not dare to say. There is such a power. I have had evidences of it. And you will undoubtedly have evidences of it. Now please be quiet, everybody. Touch the board very lightly, but firmly, Mrs. Story; but do nothing of your own volition.”
Aunt Mildred nodded, and stood with her hand on Planchette; while the rest formed about her in a silent and expectant circle. But nothing happened. The minutes ticked away, and Planchette remained motionless.
“Be patient,” Mrs. Grantly counselled. “Do not struggle against any influences you may feel working on you. But do not do anything yourself. The influence will take care of that. You will feel impelled to do things, and such impulses will be practically irresistible.”
“I wish the influence would hurry up,” Aunt Mildred protested at the end of five motionless minutes.
“Just a little longer, Mrs. Story, just a little longer,” Mrs. Grantly said soothingly.
Suddenly Aunt Mildred’s hand began to twitch into movement. A mild concern showed in her face as she observed the movement of her hand and heard the scratching of the pencil-point at the apex of Planchette.
For another five minutes this continued, when Aunt Mildred withdrew her hand with an effort, and said, with a nervous laugh:
“I don’t know whether i did it myself or not. I do know that I was growing nervous, standing there like a psychic fool with all your solemn faces turned upon me.”
“Hen-scratches,” was Uncle Robert’s judgement, when he looked over the paper upon which she had scrawled.
“Quite illegible,” was Mrs. Grantly’s dictum. “It does not resemble writing at all. The influences have not got to working yet. Do you try it, Mr. Barton.”
That gentleman stepped forward, ponderously willing to please, and placed his hand on the board. And for ten solid, stolid minutes he stood there, motionless, like a statue, the frozen personification of the commercial age. Uncle Robert’s face began to work. He blinked, stiffened his mouth, uttered suppressed, throaty sounds, deep down; finally he snorted, lost his self-control, and broke out in a roar of laughter. All joined in this merriment, including Mrs. Grantly. Mr. Barton laughed with them, but he was vaguely nettled.
“You try it, Story,” he said.
Uncle Robert, still laughing, and urged on by Lute and his wife, took the board. Suddenly his face sobered. His hand had begun to move, and the pencil could be heard scratching across the paper.
“By George!” he muttered. “That’s curious. Look at it. I’m not doing it. I know I’m not doing it. look at that hand go! Just look at it!”
“Now, Robert, none of your ridiculousness,” his wife warned him.
“I tell you I’m not doing it,” he replied indignantly. “The force has got hold of me. Ask Mrs. Grantly. Tell her to make it stop, if you want it to stop. I can’t stop it. By George! look at that flourish. I didn’t do that. I never wrote a flourish in my life.”
“Do try to be serious,” Mrs. Grantly warned them. “An atmosphere of levity does not conduce to the best operation of Planchette.”
“There, that will do, I guess,” Uncle Robert said as he took his hand away. “Now let’s see.”
He bent over and adjusted his glasses. “It’s handwriting at any rate, and that’s better than the rest of you did. Here, Lute, your eyes are young.”
“Oh, what flourishes!” Lute exclaimed, as she looked at the paper. “And look there, there are two different handwritings.”
She began to read: “This is the first lecture. Concentrate on this sentence: ‘I am a positive spirit and not negative to any condition.’ Then follow with concentration on positive 1ove. After that peace and harmony will vibrate through and around your body. Your soul—The other writing breaks right in. This is the way it goes: Bullfrog 95, Dixie 16, Golden Anchor 65, Gold Mountain 13, Jim Butler 70, Jumbo 75, North Star 42, Rescue 7, Black Butte 75, Brown Hope 16, Iron Top 3.”
“Iron Top’s pretty low,” Mr. Barton murmured.
“Robert, you’ve been dabbling again!” Aunt Mildred cried accusingly.
“No, I’ve not,” he denied. “I only read the quotations. But how the devil—I beg your pardon—they got there on that piece of paper I’d like to know.”
“Your subconscious mind,” Chris suggested. “You read the quotations in to-day’s paper.”
“No, I didn’t; but last week I glanced over the column.”
“A day or a year is all the same in the subconscious mind,” said Mrs. Grantly. “The subconscious mind never forgets. But I am not saying that this is due to the subconscious mind. I refuse to state to what I think it is due.”
“But how about that other stuff?” Uncle Robert demanded. “Sounds like what I’d think Christian Science ought to sound like.”
“Or theosophy,” Aunt Mildred volunteered. “Some message to a neophyte.”
“Go on, read the rest,” her husband commanded.
“This puts you in touch with the mightier spirits,” Lute read. “You shall become one with us, and your name shall be ‘Arya,’ and you shall—Conqueror 20, Empire 12, Columbia Mountain 18, Midway 140—and, and that is all. Oh, no! here’s a last flourish, Arya, from Kandor—that must surely be the Mahatma.”
“I’d like to have you explain that theosophy stuff on the basis of the subconscious mind, Chris,” Uncle Robert challenged.
Chris shrugged his shoulders. “No explanation. You must have got a message intended for some one else.”
“Lines were crossed, eh?” Uncle Robert chuckled. “Multiplex spiritual wireless telegraphy, I’d call it.”
“It IS nonsense,” Mrs. Grantly said. “I never knew Planchette to behave so outrageously. There are disturbing influences at work. I felt them from the first. Perhaps it is because you are all making too much fun of it. You are too hilarious.”
“A certain befitting gravity should grace the occasion,” Chris agreed, placing his hand on Planchette. “Let me try. And not one of you must laugh or giggle, or even think ‘laugh’ or ‘giggl
e.’ And if you dare to snort, even once, Uncle Robert, there is no telling what occult vengeance may be wreaked upon you.”
“I’ll be good,” Uncle Robert rejoined. “But if I really must snort, may I silently slip away?”
Chris nodded. His hand had already begun to work. There had been no preliminary twitchings nor tentative essays at writing. At once his hand had started off, and Planchette was moving swiftly and smoothly across the paper.
“Look at him,” Lute whispered to her aunt. “See how white he is.”
Chris betrayed disturbance at the sound of her voice, and thereafter silence was maintained. Only could be heard the steady scratching of the pencil. Suddenly, as though it had been stung, he jerked his hand away. With a sigh and a yawn he stepped back from the table, then glanced with the curiosity of a newly awakened man at their faces.
“I think I wrote something,” he said.
“I should say you did,” Mrs. Grantly remarked with satisfaction, holding up the sheet of paper and glancing at it.
“Read it aloud,” Uncle Robert said.
“Here it is, then. It begins with ‘beware’ written three times, and in much larger characters than the rest of the writing. BEWARE! BEWARE! BEWARE! Chris Dunbar, I intend to destroy you. I have already made two attempts upon your life, and failed. I shall yet succeed. So sure am I that I shall succeed that I dare to tell you. I do not need to tell you why. In your own heart you know. The wrong you are doing—And here it abruptly ends.”
Mrs. Grantly laid the paper down on the table and looked at Chris, who had already become the centre of all eyes, and who was yawning as from an overpowering drowsiness.
“Quite a sanguinary turn, I should say,” Uncle Robert remarked.
“I have already made two attempts upon your life,” Mrs. Grantly read from the paper, which she was going over a second time.
“0n my life?” Chris demanded between yawns. “Why, my life hasn’t been attempted even once. My! I am sleepy!”
“Ah, my boy, you are thinking of flesh-and-blood men,” Uncle Robert laughed. “But this is a spirit. Your life has been attempted by unseen things. Most likely ghostly hands have tried to throttle you in your sleep.”
“Oh, Chris!” Lute cried impulsively. “This afternoon! The hand you said must have seized your rein!”
“But I was joking,” he objected.
“Nevertheless … ” Lute left her thought unspoken.
Mrs. Grantly had become keen on the scent. “What was that about this afternoon? Was your life in danger?”
Chris’s drowsiness had disappeared. “I’m becoming interested myself,” he acknowledged. “We haven’t said anything about it. Ban broke his back this afternoon. He threw himself off the bank, and I ran the risk of being caught underneath.”
“I wonder, I wonder,” Mrs. Grantly communed aloud. “There is something in this… . It is a warning … Ah! You were hurt yesterday riding Miss Story’s horse! That makes the two attempts!”
She looked triumphantly at them. Planchette had been vindicated.
“Nonsense,” laughed Uncle Robert, but with a slight hint of irritation in his manner. “Such things do not happen these days. This is the twentieth century, my dear madam. The thing, at the very latest, smacks of mediaevalism.”
“I have had such wonderful tests with Planchette,” Mrs. Grantly began, then broke off suddenly to go to the table and place her hand on the board.
“Who are you?” she asked. “What is your name?”
The board immediately began to write. By this time all heads, with the exception of Mr. Barton’s, were bent over the table and following the pencil.
“It’s Dick,” Aunt Mildred cried, a note of the mildly hysterical in her voice.
Her husband straightened up, his face for the first time grave.
“It’s Dick’s signature,” he said. “I’d know his fist in a thousand.”
“‘Dick Curtis,’” Mrs. Grantly read aloud. “Who is Dick Curtis?”
“By Jove, that’s remarkable!” Mr. Barton broke in. “The handwriting in both instances is the same. Clever, I should say, really clever,” he added admiringly.
“Let me see,” Uncle Robert demanded, taking the paper and examining it. “Yes, it is Dick’s handwriting.”
“But who is Dick?” Mrs. Grantly insisted. “Who is this Dick Curtis?”
“Dick Curtis, why, he was Captain Richard Curtis,” Uncle Robert answered.
“He was Lute’s father,” Aunt Mildred supplemented. “Lute took our name. She never saw him. He died when she was a few weeks old. He was my brother.”
“Remarkable, most remarkable.” Mrs. Grantly was revolving the message in her mind. “There were two attempts on Mr. Dunbar’s life. The subconscious mind cannot explain that, for none of us knew of the accident to-day.”
“I knew,” Chris answered, “and it was I that operated Planchette. The explanation is simple.”
“But the handwriting,” interposed Mr. Barton. “What you wrote and what Mrs. Grantly wrote are identical.”
Chris bent over and compared the handwriting.
“Besides,” Mrs. Grantly cried, “Mr. Story recognizes the handwriting.”
She looked at him for verification.
He nodded his head. “Yes, it is Dick’s fist. I’ll swear to that.”
But to Lute had come a visioning;. While the rest argued pro and con and the air was filled with phrases,—“psychic phenomena,” “self-hypnotism,” “residuum of unexplained truth,” and “spiritism,”—she was reviving mentally the girlhood pictures she had conjured of this soldier-father she had never seen. She possessed his sword, there were several old-fashioned daguerreotypes, there was much that had been said of him, stories told of him—and all this had constituted the material out of which she had builded him in her childhood fancy.
“There is the possibility of one mind unconsciously suggesting to another mind,” Mrs. Grantly was saying; but through Lute’s mind was trooping her father on his great roan war-horse. Now he was leading his men. She saw him on lonely scouts, or in the midst of the yelling, Indians at Salt Meadows, when of his command he returned with one man in ten. And in the picture she had of him, in the physical semblance she had made of him, was reflected his spiritual nature, reflected by her worshipful artistry in form and feature and expression—his bravery, his quick temper, his impulsive championship, his madness of wrath in a righteous cause, his warm generosity and swift forgiveness, and his chivalry that epitomized codes and ideals primitive as the days of knighthood. And first, last, and always, dominating all, she saw in the face of him the hot passion and quickness of deed that had earned for him the name “Fighting Dick Curtis.”
“Let me put it to the test,” she heard Mrs. Grantly saying;. “Let Miss Story try Planchette. There may be a further message.”
“No, no, I beg of you,” Aunt Mildred interposed. “It is too uncanny. It surely is wrong to tamper with the dead. Besides, I am nervous. Or, better, let me go to bed, leaving you to go on with your experiments. That will be the best way, and you can tell me in the morning.” Mingled with the “Good-nights,” were half-hearted protests from Mrs. Grantly, as Aunt Mildred withdrew.
“Robert can return,” she called back, “as soon as he has seen me to my tent.”
“It would be a shame to give it up now,” Mrs. Grantly said. “There is no telling what we are on the verge of. Won’t you try it, Miss Story?”
Lute obeyed, but when she placed her hand on the board she was conscious of a vague and nameless fear at this toying with the supernatural. She was twentieth-century, and the thing in essence, as her uncle had said, was mediaeval. Yet she could not shake off the instinctive fear that arose in her—man’s inheritance from the wild and howling ages when his hairy, apelike prototype was afraid of the dark and personified the elements into things of fear.
But as the mysterious influence seized her hand and sent it meriting across the paper, all the unusual passed out of the sit
uation and she was unaware of more than a feeble curiosity. For she was intent on another visioning—this time of her mother, who was also unremembered in the flesh. Not sharp and vivid like that of her father, but dim and nebulous was the picture she shaped of her mother—a saint’s head in an aureole of sweetness and goodness and meekness, and withal, shot through with a hint of reposeful determination, of will, stubborn and unobtrusive, that in life had expressed itself mainly in resignation.
Lute’s hand had ceased moving, and Mrs. Grantly was already reading the message that had been written.
“It is a different handwriting,” she said. “A woman’s hand. ‘Martha,’ it is signed. Who is Martha?”
Lute was not surprised. “It is my mother,” she said simply. “What does she say?”
She had not been made sleepy, as Chris had; but the keen edge of her vitality had been blunted, and she was experiencing a sweet and pleasing lassitude. And while the message was being read, in her eyes persisted the vision of her mother.
“Dear child,” Mrs. Grantly read, “do not mind him. He was ever quick of speech and rash. Be no niggard with your love. Love cannot hurt you. To deny love is to sin. Obey your heart and you can do no wrong. Obey worldly considerations, obey pride, obey those that prompt you against your heart’s prompting, and you do sin. Do not mind your father. He is angry now, as was his way in the earth-life; but he will come to see the wisdom of my counsel, for this, too, was his way in the earth-life. Love, my child, and love well.—Martha.”
“Let me see it,” Lute cried, seizing the paper and devouring the handwriting with her eyes. She was thrilling with unexpressed love for the mother she had never seen, and this written speech from the grave seemed to give more tangibility to her having ever existed, than did the vision of her.
“This IS remarkable,” Mrs. Grantly was reiterating. “There was never anything like it. Think of it, my dear, both your father and mother here with us tonight.”
Lute shivered. The lassitude was gone, and she was her natural self again, vibrant with the instinctive fear of things unseen. And it was offensive to her mind that, real or illusion, the presence or the memorized existences of her father and mother should he touched by these two persons who were practically strangers—Mrs. Grantly, unhealthy and morbid, and Mr. Barton, stolid and stupid with a grossness both of the flesh and the spirit. And it further seemed a trespass that these strangers should thus enter into the intimacy between her and Chris.
