Second Sight

by Neil M. Gunn

  “To tell the truth,” he said, “I was wanting a drink.”

  He said it so simply that she was shocked. Her voice was a note lower and more intense when she replied, “You know I would never give you or anyone else a drink out of their private decanter.” Then she looked around as if she might have been overheard.

  “I know that,” he answered, in a voice light in tone, like his fairness. “But, you see, Mr.Kingsley promised me a drink.”

  “Well, he can give it to you. I can’t.”

  He glanced at the decanter, still on top of the cabinet, and entered. “I see I’ll have to help myself.”

  “No, you won’t!” and she faced him, her back to the decanter.

  “Going to stop me?”

  “Yes.” She was breathing rapidly.

  “Good for you! I have always admired your spirit, haven’t I?”

  “Go away! Go out!”

  He looked about him. “Mr. Kingsley poured some whisky into a glass for me. I didn’t want it then. But I want it now. Did he pour it back?” He smiled at her. “Why this sudden opposition? It’s not your whisky. And I’ll tell Mr. Kingsley to-morrow that I took it.”

  “No!”

  Then he looked into her eyes.

  “Has Mr. Kingsley been talking?”

  “Yes.”

  “You listened at the door?”

  “Yes.”

  “The whole story?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see!… In that case you must know I need the whisky. It’s two miles home. Why refuse me a drink?”

  “It’s Sir John’s whisky.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s not because it’s his drink, in spite of your honesty. The queer thing is—you don’t know why you’re doing this yourself. Isn’t that so?”

  “Go away!” she said to his eyes.

  “You are vexed that it happened. And you are frightened… of what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He dropped his eyes to the rifle barrel and smoothed it with the oiled rag. He had seen her body quiver. “Be sensible, then.” The easy-going good nature in him gave a twist to his smile. “You know they come to the Highlands to be entertained. You know that. Well—we must do what we can. They expect to see ghosts and queer things. All part of the environment. Someone must play up.”

  She was now staring at him, herself forgotten.

  “You don’t believe me?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  She gulped. “You wouldn’t—dare——”

  “What?” His smile searched her out and its good nature terrified her. “Frightened I’m daring the Black Place, down below.” And then on the same tone: “If you don’t give me the whisky, Mairi, I’ll raise Satan himself.”

  “Alick!” There was horror in her voice.

  “You see? You really want to save me. But you don’t know from what. It’s not because you’re afraid of the Devil. Not a bit.” Then quietly, with a penetration that hurt her: “You hate—in your heart—that I should have let him see—that I should have let them in on me. Why?” Slowly his smile came again. “Lord, Mairi, one would almost think you were in love with me! Stand aside now, like a good girl.”

  “No.”

  “No? You’ll be wanting a good old flare up—so that all your bits will crash together. Is that it? It gets like that.” His left eyelid quivered in humour, as he laid the rifle and the rag on the floor. Then he straightened up and faced her; but obviously in no hurry. “I love your spirit, Mairi, me darlin’. It’s a pity that you hate those tricks of mine.”

  They were words he would never use normally. The clairvoyant, underlying-bitter mood in him began to have a disintegrating effect upon her. As she filled her lungs, her whole body trembled. He saw she could not stand it much longer and he put his arms about her to lift her aside. But as they lifted they embraced her, and at that her spirit was released. She struggled with such startling violence that they overbalanced against the cabinet and sent the decanter flying to the floor, where it crashed into pieces and scattered the whisky.

  So appalled was Mairi that she still gripped his jacket with one hand as she listened. Then she came to herself. “Quick! Out before they come! Quick! Quick!”

  But he stood unmoving. There was the sound of a door, of footsteps.

  “Quick, Alick! Get out!” Madly she pushed him towards the gun-room door, but his body resisted. She was too late anyway. The hall door opened and Geoffrey’s head appeared, duly followed by his whole person.

  “What’s—happened?”

  “It’s—it’s the whisky, sir,” said Mairi. “It fell. I pushed it over. I’m sorry.” The gulp in her voice kept back the flood of tears.

  But Geoffrey was watching Alick slowly picking up the rifle and the rag. “It’s whisky all right.” He sniffed audibly. “And it’s you, Alick.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Alick calmly.

  “Were you helping her to push it over?”

  For Mairi had clearly been in some sort of struggle. She started mopping up the whisky with her duster.

  “I’m afraid I was.”

  “Afraid you were, what!”

  Helen entered, followed by Marjory.

  “I say!” said Marjory, sniffing.

  “What’s happened?” Helen stood still, fascinated.

  Sir John and Lady Marway came in, but Harry remained in the doorway, his eyes on Alick.

  “They pushed the whisky over—accidentally,” Geoffrey explained. His humour was hard and sarcastic, for Alick’s unyielding eyes had angered him.

  Mairi leaned back on her heels. “I’m sorry, ma’m,” she said in deep distress, to Lady Marway. “It fell off—there. I hit against it. I’m very sorry.”

  “Was that the way, Alick?” Lady Marway asked calmly.

  “Yes, ma’m,” said Alick.

  Lady Marway surveyed the floor. “You’d better get another cloth.”

  Carrying the broken pieces and her sopping duster, Mairi withdrew.

  They all looked at Alick, who seemed to be waiting for what they had to say. He stood extraordinarily still and expressionless. A solid opaque body, vaguely ominous.

  “Well, I think we may finish our dinner.” Lady Marway regarded Alick with a certain level humour. “You promise no more distractions?” Then, as he did not answer: “Very well, you may go.”

  Without a word he turned and went out at the gun-room door. At the same moment, Harry withdrew from the hall door.

  “Rather sinister figure, don’t you think?” said Geoffrey.

  “Oh, Geoffrey!” Helen looked at him. “Didn’t you see the sweat on his forehead.”

  “Can’t say I did. But possibly you’re right. They had a bit of a struggle.”

  “Struggle?” Sir John’s brows wrinkled.

  “Yes. The rifle was on the floor. And she was somewhat deranged. Didn’t you notice?”

  “Do you mean he was trying to take the whisky from her?”

  Geoffrey’s smile grew more sarcastic. “Possibly he was trying to do that, too! In fact——”

  “Hsh!” said Helen, as Mairi came in with a dry cloth.

  When Lady Marway had sent them back to finish dinner, she inspected the floor and for a moment watched Mairi at work.

  “I am very disappointed about this, Mairi.”

  “Yes, ma’m. I am very sorry.”

  “Was it entirely an accident?”

  “Yes, ma’m.”

  “Alick was not to blame—in any way?”

  “No, ma’m. He was cleaning Mr. Kingsley’s rifle and—and just came in to speak to me.”

  “I see.”

  “I hope, ma’m, you don’t think Alick had anything to do with it?” Her lips quivered.

  “All right, Mairi. I’ll try to forget it.”

  “Thank you, ma’m. It won’t happen again.”

  “I hope not. You can open the window for a little.”

  “Yes, ma’m.”

  When Lady Marway had gone, closing the door b
ehind her, Mairi finished her mopping, then went to the window, held the curtain aside, and heaved up the lower half. She was wondering whether she should draw the curtain open, when a step startled her and she swung round, letting the curtain fall over the open window.

  “All right, Mairi! Don’t be frightened.” Harry stood in the gun-room door. “He seems to have gone.”

  She stared at him, speechless.

  He entered, hesitated for a moment thoughtfully, then gave a half-shrug and, about to go, paused and smiled to her. “Tell me,” he said in a kindly way; “do you believe in second sight?”

  Out of her dark eyes came glancing shafts of fear. She did not speak.

  “You don’t care to answer, perhaps?…Uhm. Difficult, I suppose.” He looked away from her. “Do you—then—like the idea of it?”

  “I hate it!”

  The words came with surprising force. Harry nodded, not looking at her. “I understand. Tell me—do you think he will go straight home?”

  “I don’t know.” From being intense, her voice had become completely non-committal.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Harry nodded. “He must have hated being caught out here, like this. It was bad luck. But—don’t you fret. He’ll be all right.” Then he turned his head, let the friendly smile in his eyes speak for him, and made for the dining-room.

  She looked after him, and, as the door closed, her face came alive again. Listening, she heard the sound of the wind rising. The window curtain fluttered out, then fell back and remained still. She heard the sound die over the fir wood. Lifting her wet cloth and the tray of glasses which she had placed on the writing-table, she went out hurriedly.

  In a little while she came back with the coffee tray and, when she had disposed it properly, gave a swift look around to satisfy herself everything was in order. When she heard voices coming from the dining-room, she immediately started for the gun-room door, her fingers already unfastening her white apron. She gave the impression of one about to hurry into the night.

  Helen and Marjory entered, discussing the manner in which a dinner can be ruined.

  “I think your mother is marvellous, she’s so patient,” said Marjory. “They’ll crack nuts now, to ease their excitement! I must say I think Harry is provocative.”

  “Harry? Surely it’s Geoffrey.”

  “No. It’s Harry—and you. Geoffrey is merely like that. True to himself. He must expose superstition.”

  “Surely, Marjory, that’s absurd—anyway, about Harry and me?”

  “Not a bit. You are creating a situation, as Geoffrey said. Can’t you feel it being created, with the horrid underfeeling that one of us is about to die? Ugh! there’s positively a chill in this room already. I think your mother would like to stop it. I think she is right.”

  Helen, who had lifted a coffee cup and saucer, stood looking at Marjory as she went towards the fire. She forgot to pour coffee into her cup, so arrested was she at the spoken thought of death. The death of one of themselves here. One of themselves! She moved away a pace or two, but the thought went with her. There was a chill in the room. Marjory got down on her knees before the fire.

  “You feel that?” asked Helen in a small voice.

  Marjory looked over her shoulder at her, then with a shrug prepared to stir the fire. “I feel the chill in the room anyway.”

  There was a low whine of wind outside. Helen gave an involuntary shiver, as if an unearthly chill had touched her. And at that moment the curtain behind her, fluttering inward, did touch her, with such soft caressing movement that she gave an abject scream and the coffee cup and saucer shot out of her hand, the saucer landing on the carpet unbroken, but the cup smashing to bits on the polished surround. She was in the middle of the room before she stopped herself and, turning, saw the curtain smoothly falling back.

  Marjory saw it, too; got up off her knees and approached it carefully; then, grabbing it, pulled it aside—and exposed the open window. Letting out a heavy breath, her left hand on her chest, she dropped into the nearest chair and began to laugh, as the others hurried in.

  Helen met them, still panting. “I—I’m sorry. I dropped my coffee cup.”

  Marjory interrupted her laughter. “We’re all going daft!… Who opened the window?”

  “I told Mairi to open it to let out the smell,” said Lady Marway.

  Marjory laughed again. “We felt the chill in the room. Unearthly presence. Then the wind whined up in the pine wood—hsh! there it is again…only it was a much better theatrical effect than that. Helen was standing with her back to the window. Out came the curtain about her—feeling her. Ooh! If she hadn’t a good heart she’d have dropped dead.”

  Geoffrey joined in her laughter, obviously delighted.

  Helen, gone very pale, was about to stoop to pick up the pieces of the broken cup, when Harry forestalled her. “You sit down. I’ll pick it up.”

  She sat and dropped her head back. Lady Marway rang.

  “Feeling all right?” asked her father.

  “Yes.” She tried to smile. “I did get a fright. I am certain my heart stopped for a second. Silly of me. I am ashamed.”

  “Nothing to be ashamed about,” he explained. “It’s the most terrifying thing on earth—to be touched, when you feel there is nothing can touch you. The leap of the beast out of the dark.” He patted her head affectionately, then went and closed the window. “Now, that will keep the jungle out.”

  Lady Marway poured the coffee and Geoffrey, as he handed Marjory her cup, remarked, “An object lesson in the occult!”

  “Did you say object—or abject?”

  “Or both,” suggested Geoffrey, in good form.

  “I think,” said Marjory, still inclined to laugh, “I think abject is the word. When fear gets you it is rather horrible. Ugh.”

  “What’s happened to Mairi, I wonder? I rang. We’re a cup short.” Lady Marway looked slightly annoyed.

  “I’ll get it,” said Helen.

  “No. Wait.”

  “Please.” And Helen got up and walked out before anyone could stop her. Harry looked after her, then back at Lady Marway.

  “It really was nasty for a moment,” said Marjory, a sensible girl. “I was at the fire. Felt the chill in the room. Then Helen screamed and there was the curtain feeling around her. It should have been obvious to any sane person that it was nothing, but——”

  “But for that one moment,” said Geoffrey, “you are not sane. There’s the rub. And she only felt the thing. If for that moment she had imagined she saw the hidden thing as well, she might easily have been really sick.” He glanced slyly at Harry, to whom he offered a cup.

  “Thanks,” said Harry. “You are coming on.”

  Geoffrey laughed, then in a loud whisper to his hostess: “He refuses to be drawn!”

  “Perhaps he is learning wisdom,” she said.

  “No,” replied Geoffrey, shaking his head. “Only a safe reticence. You can see there’s nothing in all this so-called occult or second-sight business but can be explained. But your devotees of the cult—they don’t like it explained. They don’t like to be told—it was only a window curtain moved by the wy-ind. Poetic, what!” He was delighted with himself.

  “Have a cigar?” said Sir John.

  “What’s your opinion about this occult business, Sir John—your frank opinion?” Geoffrey lit his cigar, prepared for pleasant discussion.

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Sir John. “I must admit that, in India, some of these native fellows do queer things.”

  “Yoga and so on?”

  “Well, yes; there’s that, too.”

  “But that’s understandable enough. Control of the body by the mind—beyond what we can do. That’s all right. But have you ever seen anything that to all appearances could not be explained—like, I mean, well, like Harry’s experience?”

  “I wonder what’s keeping that child?” said Lady Marway. She stood for a moment t
houghtfully, then walked out. Before she had quite closed the door, Marjory got up and followed her.

  “Uh—what was that?” said Sir John, his eyes on the door.

  “Have you ever seen anything that could not be explained—anything supernatural?”

  “Well, I have seen the rope trick,” said Sir John.

  Harry’s private concentration broke on an ironic sniff.

  “The rope trick. A trick. Yes.” Geoffrey smiled.

  “It’s mystifying all the same,” said Sir John. “You simply see the rope rising up into the skies and then you see the boy climbing it away up out of sight. There is no preparation or stage apparatus. They can do it anywhere at all—outside on the bare earth, or beside your own bungalow. Anywhere at all. It beat me.”

  “But you never believed it to be a manifestation of the supernatural—something outside natural law?”

  “We all say it is a trick, of course. A conjuror’s trick. Very clever.”

  “Exactly. You know that if it was anything more than that, if it was a real rope and a real boy climbing it—the whole order of life would suffer a vast change.”

  “Yes, but——” began Harry.

  “There would be no need,” continued Geoffrey, “for Mr. Gandhi or passive resistance. There would be no poverty—and you know the incredible poverty one can meet in India. All the deserts would blossom into orange groves.”