Her fingers closed on mine nervously.
“But what’s the use of telling me this?” she half whispered— “I don’t believe in God or the Soul!”
I rose from my kneeling attitude.
“Poor Catherine!” I said— “Then indeed it is no use telling you anything! You are in darkness instead of daylight, and no one can make you see. Oh, what can I do to help you?”
“Nothing,” — she answered— “My faith — it was never very much, — was taken from me altogether when I was quite young. Father made it seem absurd. He’s a clever man, you know — and in a few words he makes out religion to be utter nonsense.”
“I understand!”
And indeed I did entirely understand. Her father was one of a rapidly increasing class of men who are a danger to the community, — a cold, cynical shatterer of every noble ideal, — a sneerer at patriotism and honour, — a deliberate iconoclast of the most callous and remorseless type. That he had good points in his character was not to be denied, — a murderer may have these. But to be in his company for very long was to feel that there is no good in anything — that life is a mistake of Nature, and death a fortunate ending of the blunder — that God is a delusion and the ‘Soul’ a mere expression signifying certain intelligent movements of the brain only.
I stood silently thinking these things, while she watched me rather wistfully. Presently she said:
“Are you going on deck now?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll join you all at luncheon. Don’t lose that bit of heather in your dress, — it’s really quite brilliant — like a jewel.”
I hesitated a moment.
“You’re not vexed with me for speaking as I have done?” I asked her.
“Vexed? No, indeed! I love to hear you and see you defending your own fairy ground! For it IS like a fairy tale, you know — all that YOU believe!”
“It has practical results, anyway!” — I answered— “You must admit that.”
“Yes — I know, — and it’s just what I can’t understand. We’ll have another talk about it some day. Would you tell Dr. Brayle that I shall be ready for him in ten minutes?”
I assented, and left her. I made for the deck directly, the air meeting me with a rush of salty softness as I ran up the saloon stairway. What a glorious day it was! Sky, sea and mountains were bathed in brilliant sunshine; the ‘Diana’ was cutting her path swiftly through waters which marked her course on either side by a streak of white foam. I mentally contrasted the loveliness of the scene around me with the stuffy cabin I had just left, and seeing Dr. Brayle smoking comfortably in a long reclining chair and reading a paper I went up to him and touched him on the shoulder.
“Your patient wants you in ten minutes,” — I said.
He rose to his feet at once, courteously offering me a chair, which I declined, and drew his cigar from his mouth.
“I have two patients on board,” — he answered, smiling— “Which one?”
“The one who is your patient from choice, not necessity,” — I replied, coolly.
“My dear lady!” His eyes blinked at me with a furtive astonishment— “If you were not so charming I should say you were — well! — SHALL I say it? — a trifle opinionated!”
I laughed.
“Granted!” I said— “If it is opinionated to be honest I plead guilty! Miss Harland is as well as you or I, — she’s only morbid.”
“True! — but morbidness is a form of illness, — a malady of the nerves—”
I laughed again, much to his visible annoyance.
“Curable by outward applications of electricity?” I queried— “When the mischief is in the mind? But there! — I mustn’t interfere, I suppose! Nevertheless you keep Miss Harland ill when she might be quite well.”
A disagreeable line furrowed the corners of his mouth.
“You think so? Among your many accomplishments do you count the art of medicine?”
I met his shifty brown eyes, and he dropped them quickly.
“I know nothing about it,” — I answered— “Except this — that the cure of any mind trouble must come from within — not from without. And I’m not a Christian Scientist either?”
He smiled cynically. “Really not? I should have thought you were!”
“You would make a grave error if you thought so,” I responded, curtly.
A keen and watchful interest flashed over his dark face.
“I should very much like to know what your theories are” — he said, suddenly— “You interest me greatly.”
“I’m sure I do!” I answered, smiling.
He looked me up and down for a moment in perplexity — then shrugged his shoulders.
“You are a strange creature!” he said— “I cannot make you out. If I were asked to give a ‘professional’ opinion of you I should say you were very neurotic and highly-strung, and given over to self-delusions.”
“Thanks!” — and I made him a demure little curtsy. “I look it, don’t I?”
“No — you don’t look it; but looks are deceptive.”
“There I agree with you,” — I said— “But one has to go by them sometimes. If I am ‘neurotic,’ my looks do not pity me, and my condition of health leaves nothing to desire.”
His brows met in a slight frown. He glanced at his watch.
“I must go,” — he said— “Miss Harland will be waiting.”
“And the electricity will get cold!” I added, gaily. “See if you can feel my ‘neurotic’ pulse!”
He took the hand I extended — and remained quite still. Conscious of the secret force I had within myself I resolved to try if I could use it upon him in such a way as to keep him a prisoner till I chose to let him go. I watched him till his eyes began to look vague and a kind of fixity settled on his features, — he was perfectly unconscious that I held him at my pleasure, — and presently, satisfied with my experiment, I relaxed the spell and withdrew my hand.
“Quite regular, isn’t it?” I said, carelessly.
He started as if roused from a sleep, but replied quickly:
“Yes — oh yes — perfectly! — I had almost forgotten what I was doing. I was thinking of something else. Miss Harland—”
“Yes, Miss Harland is ready for you by this time” — and I smiled. “You must tell her I detained you.”
He nodded in a more or less embarrassed manner, and turning away from me, went rather slowly down the saloon stairs.
I gave a sigh of relief when he was gone. I had from the first moment of our meeting recognised in him a mental organisation which in its godless materialism and indifference to consequences, was opposed to every healthful influence that might be brought to bear on his patients for their well-being, whatever his pretensions to medical skill might be. It was to his advantage to show them the worst side of a disease in order to accentuate his own cleverness in dealing with it, — it served his purpose to pamper their darkest imaginings, play with their whims and humour their caprices, — I saw all this and understood it. And I was glad that so far as I might be concerned, I had the power to master him.
V. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
To spend a few days on board a yacht with the same companions is a very good test of the value of sympathetic vibration in human associations. I found it so. I might as well have been quite alone on the ‘Diana’ as with Morton Harland and his daughter, though they were always uniformly kind to me and thoughtful of my comfort. But between us there was ‘a great gulf fixed,’ though every now and again Catherine Harland made feeble and pathetic efforts to cross that gulf and reach me where I stood on the other side. But her strength was not equal to the task, — her will-power was sapped at its root, and every day she allowed herself to become more and more pliantly the prey of Dr. Brayle, who, with a subconscious feeling that I knew him to be a mere medical charlatan, had naturally warned her against me as an imaginative theorist without any foundation of belief in my own theories. I therefore shut myself within
a fortress of reserve, and declined to discuss any point of either religion or science with those for whom the one was a farce and the other mere materialism. At all times when we were together I kept the conversation deliberately down to commonplaces which were safe, if dull, — and it amused me not a little to see that at this course of action on my part Mr. Harland was first surprised, then disappointed and finally bored. And I was glad. That I should bore him as much as he bored me was the happy consummation of my immediate desires. I talked as all conventional women talk, of the weather, of our minimum and maximum speed, of the newspaper ‘sensations’ and vulgarities that were served up to us whenever we called at a port for the mails, — of the fish that frequented such and such waters, of sport, of this and that millionaire whose highland castle or shooting-box was crammed with the ‘elite’ whose delight is to kill innocent birds and animals, — of the latest fool-flyers in aeroplanes, — in short, no fashionable jabberer of social inanities could have beaten me in what average persons call ‘common-sense talk,’ — talk which resulted after a while in the usual vagueness of attention accompanied by smothered yawning. I was resolved not to lift the line of thought ‘up in the air’ in the manner whereof I had often been accused, but to keep it level with the ground. So that when we left Tobermory, where we had anchored for a couple of days, the limits of the yacht were becoming rather cramped and narrow for our differing minds, and a monotony was beginning to set in that threatened to be dangerous, if not unbearable. As the ‘Diana’ steamed along through the drowsy misty light of the summer afternoon, past the jagged coast of the mainland, I sat quite by myself on deck, watching the creeping purple haze that partially veiled the mountains of Ardnamurchan and Moidart, and I began to wonder whether after all it might not be better to write to my friend Francesca and tell her that her prophecies had already come true, — that I was beginning to be weary of a holiday passed in an atmosphere bereft of all joyousness, and that she must expect me in Inverness-shire at once. And yet I was reluctant to end my trip with the Harlands too soon. There was a secret wish in my heart which I hardly breathed to myself, — a wish that I might again see the strange vessel that had appeared and disappeared so suddenly, and make the acquaintance of its owner. It would surely be an interesting break in the present condition of things, to say the least of it. I did not know then (though I know now) why my mind so persistently busied itself with the fancied personality of the unknown possessor of the mysterious craft which, as Captain Derrick said, ‘sailed without wind,’ but I found myself always thinking about him and trying to picture his face and form.
I took myself sharply to task for what I considered a foolish mental attitude, — but do what I would, the attitude remained unchanged. It was helped, perhaps, in a trifling way by the apparently fadeless quality of the pink bell-heather which had been given me by the weird-looking Highland fellow who called himself Jamie, for though three or four days had now passed since I first wore it, it showed no signs of withering. As a rule the delicate waxen bells of this plant turn yellow a few hours after they are plucked, — but my little bunch was as brilliantly fresh as ever. I kept it in a glass without water on the table in my sitting-room and it looked always the same. I was questioning myself as to what I should really do if my surroundings remained as hopelessly inert and uninteresting as they were at present, — go on with the ‘Diana’ for a while longer on the chance of seeing the strange yacht again — or make up my mind to get put out at some point from which I could reach Inverness easily, when Mr. Harland came up suddenly behind my chair and laid his hand on my shoulder.
“Are you in dreamland?” he enquired — and I thought his voice sounded rather weak and dispirited— “There’s a wonderful light on those hills just now.”
I raised my eyes and saw the purple shadows being cloven and scattered one after another, by long rays of late sunshine that poured like golden wine through the dividing wreaths of vapour, — above, the sky was pure turquoise blue, melting into pale opal and emerald near the line of the grey sea which showed little flecks of white foam under the freshening breeze. Bringing my gaze down from the dazzling radiance of the heavens, I turned towards Mr. Harland and was startled and shocked to see the drawn and livid pallor of his face and the anguish of his expression.
“You are ill!” I exclaimed, and springing up in haste I offered him my chair— “Do sit down!”
He made a mute gesture of denial, and with slow difficulty drew another chair up beside mine, and dropped into it with an air of heavy weariness.
“I am not ill now,” — he said— “A little while ago I was very ill. I was in pain — horrible pain! Brayle did what he could for me — it was not much. He says I must expect to suffer now and again — until — until the end.”
Impulsively I laid my hand on his.
“I am very sorry!” I said, gently— “I wish I could be of some use to you!”
He looked at me with a curious wistfulness.
“You could, no doubt, if I believed as you do,” — he replied, and then was silent for a moment. Presently he spoke again.
“Do you know I am rather disappointed in you?”
“Are you?” And I smiled a little— “Why?”
He did not answer at once. He seemed absorbed in troubled musings. When he resumed, it was in a low, meditative tone, almost as if he were speaking to himself.
“When I first met you — you remember? — at one of those social ‘crushes’ which make the London season so infinitely tedious, — I was told you were gifted with unusual psychic power, and that you had in yourself the secret of an abounding exhaustless vitality. I repeat the words — an abounding exhaustless vitality. This interested me, because I know that our modern men and women are mostly only half alive. I heard of you that it did people good to be in your company, — that your influence upon them was remarkable, and that there was some unknown form of occult, or psychic science to which you had devoted years of study, with the result that you stood, as it were, apart from the world though in the world. This, I say, is what I heard—”
“But you did not believe it,” — I interposed.
“Why do you say that?” he asked, quickly.
“Because I know you could not believe it,” — I answered— “It would be impossible for you.”
A gleam of satire flashed in his sunken eyes.
“Well, you are right there! I did not believe it. But I expected—”
“I know!” And I laughed— “You expected what is called a ‘singular’ woman — one who makes herself ‘singular,’ adopts a ‘singular’ pose, and is altogether removed from ordinary humanity. And of course you are disappointed. I am not at all a type of the veiled priestess.”
“It is not that,” — he said, with a little vexation— “When I saw you I recognised you to be a very transparent creature, devoted to innocent dreams which are not life. But that secret which you are reported to possess — the secret of wonderful abounding exhaustless vitality — how does it happen that you have it? I myself see that force expressed in your very glance and gesture, and what puzzles me is that it is not an animal vitality; it is something else.”
I was silent.
“You have not a robust physique,” — he went on— “Yet you are more full of the spirit of life than men and women twice as strong as you are. You are a feminine thing, too, — and that goes against you. But one can see in you a worker — you evidently enjoy the exercise of the accomplishments you possess — and nothing comes amiss to you. I wonder how you manage it? When you joined us on this trip a few days ago, you brought a kind of atmosphere with you that was almost buoyant, and now I am disappointed, because you seem to have enclosed yourself within it, and to have left us out!”
“Have you not left yourselves out?” I queried, gently. “I, personally, have really nothing to do with it. Just remember that when we have talked on any subject above the line of the general and commonplace your sole object has been to ‘draw’ me for the amuseme
nt of yourself and Dr. Brayle—”
“Ah, you saw that, did you?” he interrupted, with a faint smile.
“Naturally! Had you believed half you say you were told of me, you would have known I must have seen it. Can you wonder that I refuse to be ‘drawn’?”
He looked at me with an odd expression of mingled surprise and annoyance, and I met his gaze fully and frankly. His eyes shifted uneasily away from mine.
“One may feel a pardonable curiosity,” he said, “And a desire to know—”
“To know what?” I asked, with some warmth— “How can you obtain what you are secretly craving for, if you persist in denying what is true? You are afraid of death — yet you invite it by ignoring the source of life! The curtain is down, — you are outside eternal realities altogether in a chaos of your own voluntary creation!”
I spoke with some passion, and he heard me patiently.
“Let us try to understand each other,” he said, after a pause— “though it will be difficult. You speak of ‘eternal realities.’ To me there are none, save the constant scattering and re-uniting of atoms. These, so far as we know of the extraordinary (and to me quite unintelligent) plan of the Universe, are for ever shifting and changing into various forms and clusters of forms, such as solar systems, planets, comets, star-dust and the like. Our present view of them is chiefly based on the researches of Larmor and Thomson of Cambridge. From them and other scientists we learn that electricity exists in small particles which we can in a manner see in the ‘cathode’ rays, — and these particles are called ‘electrons.’ These compose ‘atoms of matter.’ Well! — there are a trillion of atoms in each granule of dust, — while electrons are so much smaller, that a hundred thousand of them can lie in the diameter of an atom. I know all this, — but I do not know why the atoms or electrons should exist at all, nor what cause there should be for their constant and often violent state of movement. They apparently always HAVE BEEN, and always WILL be, — therefore they are all that can be called ‘eternal realities.’ Sir Norman Lockyer tells us that the matter of the Universe is undergoing a continuous process of evolution — but even if it is so, what is that to me individually? It neither helps nor consoles me for being one infinitesimal spark in the general conflagration. Now you believe—”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 763
