Lady Henry said that the memory of that experience was so firmly grafted on her mind that she could always recall with perfect clarity the exact appearance of this appalling creature. In after years, when grown up, she realized from pictures that what she had seen was a Faun or Satyr.
Such pictures or statues always sent a thrill of horror through her. She attributed this apparition to the fact that she and her companion were playing close to the site of a Roman camp, and the road was an old Roman road.
She went on to say that the Grand d.u.c.h.ess had given her courage to tell this incredible story. It was as absolutely real to her as was the pa.s.sing of the Centaurs to the Grand d.u.c.h.ess.
The whole scene stood out in brilliant light as a picture before her, whenever she thought of it, which she very often did. She never mentioned it to any one, as she felt that no one would believe her. She could always smell again the scent of summer, and the odor of pine trees, and hear the trickling of water from a tiny stream. She could always see a wide, white road, ribbon-like stretching away to the horizon. Then, suddenly, she and her young companion stood face to face with a presence, a hideous, unspeakable shape, that was neither man nor beast.
She believed that there was a real world beyond the glamour and vision of our ordinary senses, and sometimes this veil was lifted for a few seconds. She believed that much of the tradition of mythical creatures represented solid fact, and that it was possible there were failures of creation still extant. Again, might there not be races fallen out of evolution, but retaining as a survival certain powers that to us appear miraculous. A very gifted being was Miminie Erskine Wemyss, who married Lord Henry Grosvenor. One of my earliest memories is the thrill her beauty gave me when first I saw her, as she walked into church, a silver prayer-book, slung on a silver chain, depending from her arm.
CHAPTER X
THE INVISIBLE HANDS
All through my life there have come to me moments never to be forgotten.
Often the incidents that so deeply impressed me were utterly trivial in themselves, still they were sacramental, inasmuch as they proved to me, absolutely and conclusively, the immortality of the soul, and the power possessed by the soul after so-called death to concern itself with terrestrial happenings. Such moments are sacramental, in the sense that Nature is sacramental, in its showing forth of G.o.d"s glory, and the manifestation of His handiwork.
I was sitting near the library window, reading, in the fading light of a quiet November afternoon. It was one of those utterly still, mournful days, with a gray, brooding sky, save where, in the west, a pale primrose sunset was bathing the horizon in light. I was reading "Man and the Universe," by Sir Oliver Lodge, and had arrived at page 137, which ends Chapter VI.
In those days, the year was 1908, I always tried to arrange at least one week of perfect quiet for the study of a new book which I had just ordered. I would calculate on which day the post would bring it to my country home, and I would arrange my life accordingly. This may sound rather ridiculous, but the truth is that a book like "Man and the Universe" is such a pure intellectual treat to me, that I like to gloat over it, to taste it slowly, and imbibe it gradually. I try to spin out the joy of it as long as possible by reading slowly, and thinking over the problems presented.
At last I put the book down on a table by my side. I was in no hurry. It lay on its back, open, the pages uppermost; just where I had stopped reading. I fell to wondering on the words I had just read.
"A reformer must not be in haste. The kingdom cometh not by observation, but by secret working as of leaven. Nor must he advocate any compromise repugnant to an enlightened conscience. Bigotry must die, but it must die a natural, not a violent death. Would that the leaders in Church and State had always been able to receive an impatient enthusiast in the spirit of the lines--
"Dreamer of dreams! no taunt is in our sadness, What e"er our fears our hearts are with your cause, G.o.d"s mills grind slow; and thoughtless haste were madness, To gain Heaven"s ends we dare not break Heaven"s laws."
I must have sat thinking for quite ten minutes when my attention was suddenly attracted by a sound. The sound of paper leaves being rustled.
The room was so dead still that the faintest sound would have called my attention, but this sound was by no means faint. I turned my head and looked at the book I had been reading, because, from it, unmistakably the noise proceeded.
I beheld a most enthralling phenomenon. Unseen hands were turning over the pages.
A thrill of intense excitement ran through me, and I stared at the book in breathless interest. The hands seemed to be searching for some particular pa.s.sage. The number of the page upon which the pa.s.sage was printed was not, apparently, known to the searcher. I will try to describe what actually happened.
Several leaves of the book were turned over rather rapidly, each leaf making the usual sound which accompanies such an ordinary physical action. Then, as if fearing that the pa.s.sage required had been overlooked or pa.s.sed by, several leaves were turned back again.
This manifestation continued for at least ten minutes, and I could see nothing but the pages of the book being turned quite methodically, as by a human hand.
At moments there was rather a long pause in the search, and at the first pause I thought the demonstration might be over, but once again the invisible ent.i.ty resumed the search, and I found myself saying, "He found something there that interested him. That is why he stopped." For no reason I can give I felt certain my visitor was a male spirit.
On the second pause in the search occurring I had no doubt that again he had found something that interested him. The whole manifestation was very leisurely and wonderfully human. As I sat watching the book being manipulated by unseen fingers, every smallest action suggested design.
One could not doubt as to what was taking place. At length there came a pause longer than usual. The book lay flat on its back wide open. There was now no quiver of the leaves. The invisible ent.i.ty had found what he wanted and gone.
I curbed my curiosity for five minutes more, then feeling convinced that I was again alone I stretched out my hand, took the book and, rising, carried it close to the window.
There was still enough light to read by, and the leaves were open at pages 172-173.
I had only read as far as page 137.
I scanned them eagerly, and at once discovered that a mark had been made on the margin of page 172. A long cross had been placed against a paragraph. The mark was such as might have been made by a sharp finger-nail. The words marked were--
"I want to make the distinct a.s.sertion that a really existing thing never perishes, but only changes its form."
To-day the mark is as clearly visible on the page as on the day it was made. I can form no conjecture as to who the ent.i.ty was, but he certainly knew the contents of the book. No one watching the search could doubt that, or that he was desirous of impressing upon the readers of the book a certain fact stated therein, which must have previously attracted his attention.
In the year 1900 we took a house for the winter months in the West End of London.
It was a small house though joined on either side by great mansions, and once upon a time it had actually been a farmhouse standing amid smiling fields.
It retained many relics of its ancient origin in fine oak paneling and quaint nooks and corners, and had been for many of its latter years the town residence of a man whose type had practically died out, the perfect type of our old English aristocracy.
The bedroom I occupied was exceedingly comfortable and warm. The bed, placed against the wall, was exactly opposite to the fireplace, so that lying on my right side I looked straight at the fire and could see the whole room.
I was constantly on the alert, as I knew how full of history such a house must be, but for several weeks I neither saw nor heard anything in the least unusual.
One night, quite unexpectedly, a change occurred. I no longer had the room to myself. A stranger occupied it with me.
It was a cold, snowy night, and I was lying in bed facing the fire and courting sleep, when I heard a sudden noise which was totally different to the sounds made by the dying fire. Take a large sheet of stiff writing paper in your hand and crush it up between your fingers and you will hear the sound I heard. Quite a loud and distinct noise if you happen to be in a very quiet room, at an hour when all the household has retired to bed.
Naturally, I instantly opened my eyes and looked out into the room, which was lit brightly enough by the fire to make all the objects it contained quite distinct.
An armchair was drawn up close to the fire; half an hour before I had been seated in it warming my toes before getting into bed; now it was again filled.
In it sat a man turned sideways towards me. He was lying back with his legs stretched straight out in front of him towards the fire. One of his arms hung over the arm of the chair, and in his clenched hand was a large piece of paper or parchment.
His finely cut profile was clearly outlined, he was clean shaven, and he stared into the fire, his chin sunk in a high black stock.
His hair was powdered and tied behind by a large black bow, and he wore bright blue cloth knee breeches, white stockings, silver buckled shoes, and many gold b.u.t.tons on his blue coat. I did not take in all those details at once; I had ample leisure to do so later. For, I suppose, a full two minutes, I stared very hard at him, and lay very still, knowing full well I was looking at a ghost. Then very cautiously I drew the bedclothes over my head, and shut out the startling vision. I was invaded by wild panic.
I have never been one of those timid women who are frightened by their own shadows. I require to be face to face with a tangible danger before I put faith in its existence, yet, I confess that at that moment I knew what actual fear meant. My heart beat thickly, then seemed to stop, and I was instantly bathed in cold perspiration. I knew that the servants were all in bed two flights of stairs below me, and my husband was out of London, so no calling for help was any use. I therefore forced a sort of spurious desperate courage, and began to be angry with myself for being thus afraid when no cause for fear existed. I treated myself to a scornful lecture. "You who profess to know all about ghosts, you who have actually seen several ghosts, you coward to quail before this one!
Don"t you know perfectly well that he won"t hurt you, that he has a perfect right to sit in that chair, and that it is your duty to speak to him should he show any desire for conversation?"
"I am so terribly alone," pleaded my other self in feeble self-defense.
"Well, what of it? If the whole household was in the room what could they do? You are not a child. Uncover your head and look the specter boldly in the face."
The stillness and hush of deep night, at the hour when sleepers slumber soundest, was upon the house. The traffic of London was m.u.f.fled in a heavy fall of snow. I could hear nothing but the feeble crackling of the expiring fire in the grate, but gradually I rallied my courage and faculties and peeped stealthily out.
There sat that dark form between me and the fire; there he lay in an att.i.tude of moody carelessness, watching the cooling embers as they faded from scarlet to pink, from pink to yellow, and then fell tinkling into heaps of white ashes. No statue was ever stiller. He did not move in the least, but sat more like an effigy of a man carved out of stone than a creature of flesh and blood.
I closed my eyes and re-opened them, to test the fact whether I was awake or asleep and dreaming. No, I was broad wake and the room was still fairly well lit, and there sat the phantom before the fire, the proud, well-set head with its powdered curls distinctly visible in the red glow of the firelight. I should think an hour must have pa.s.sed thus, whilst I gazed at the figure before me, taking in every detail. There was no indication that he knew or cared for my presence. The figure sat like a stone.
I came to the conclusion that the phantom was about thirty years of age, and a sailor who had lived in the days of Nelson, judging by his clothes and the pictures I had seen. I noticed particularly his hand clenched on the paper. A white hand, with strong cruel-looking fingers. There is so much character in hands. The face may be drilled into a mere mask, but hands tell tales of their owners. I could imagine the hand that had crushed the paper closing murderously on the throat of an adversary, or gripped hard on the hilt of a dagger.
There were moments when the awful inertia of the figure began to play havoc with my nerves, when I would have given anything to make that impa.s.sive form move from out its dreary att.i.tude of sullen brooding; anything to cause the profile of the face, with all its gloom and pride, to turn and front me, so that I might know the worst. But the figure never turned, never stirred, but sat with stately head bowed under a weight of thought.