G.o.dfrey, who experienced a curious feeling of exhaustion and of emptiness of brain, yawned and apologized for having fallen asleep, whereon the professor and the colonel both a.s.sured him that it was quite natural on so warm a day. Only Madame Riennes smiled like a sphinx, and asked him if his dreams were pleasant. To this he replied that he remembered none.
Miss Ogilvy, however, who looked rather anxious and guilty, did not speak at all, but busied herself with the tea which G.o.dfrey thought very strong when he drank it. However, it refreshed him wonderfully, which, as it contained some invigorating essence, was not strange. So did the walk in the beautiful garden which he took afterwards, just before the carriage came to drive him back to Kleindorf.
Re-entering the drawing-room to say goodbye, he found the party engaged listening to the contents of a number of sheets of paper closely written in pencil, which were being read to them by Colonel Josiah Smith, who made corrections from time to time.
"_Au revoir_, my young brother," said Madame Riennes, making some mysterious sign before she took his hand in her fat, cold fingers, "you will come again next Sunday, will you not?"
"I don"t know," he answered awkwardly, for he felt afraid of this lady, and did not wish to see her next Sunday.
"Oh! but I do, young brother. You will come, because it gives me so much pleasure to see you," she replied, staring at him with her strange eyes.
Then G.o.dfrey knew that he would come because he must.
"Why does that lady call me "young brother"?" he asked Miss Ogilvy, who accompanied him to the hall.
"Oh! because it is a way she has. You may have noticed that she called me "sister"."
"I don"t think that I shall call _her_ sister," he remarked with decision. "She is too alarming."
"Not really when you come to know her, for she has the kindest heart and is wonderfully gifted."
"Gifts which make people tell others that they are going to die are not pleasant, Miss Ogilvy."
She shivered a little.
"If her spirit--I mean the truth--comes to her, she must speak it, I suppose. By the way, G.o.dfrey, don"t say anything about this talisman and the story you told of it, at Kleindorf, or in writing home."
"Why not?"
"Oh! because people like your dear old Pasteur, and clergymen generally, are so apt to misunderstand. They think that there is only one way of learning things beyond, and that every other must be wrong.
Also I am sure that your friend, Isobel Blake, would laugh at you."
"I don"t write to Isobel," he exclaimed setting his lips.
"But you may later," she said smiling. "At any rate you will promise, won"t you?"
"Yes, if you wish it, Miss Ogilvy, though I can"t see what it matters.
That kind of nonsense often comes into my head when I touch old things.
Isobel says that it is because I have too much imagination."
"Imagination! Ah! what is imagination? Well, goodbye, G.o.dfrey, the carriage will come for you at the same time next Sunday. Perhaps, too, I shall see you before then, as I am going to call upon Madame Boiset."
Then he went, feeling rather uncomfortable, and yet interested, though what it was that interested him he did not quite know. That night he dreamed that Madame Riennes stood by his bed watching him with her burning eyes. It was an unpleasant dream.
He kept his word. When the Boiset family, especially Madame, cross-examined him as to the details of his visit to Miss Ogilvy, he merely described the splendours of that opulent establishment and the intellectual character of its guests. Of their mystic attributes he said nothing at all, only adding that Miss Ogilvy proposed to do herself the honour of calling at the Maison Blanche, as the Boisets"
house was called.
About the middle of the week Miss Ogilvy arrived and, as Madame had taken care to be at home in expectation of her visit, was entertained to tea. Afterwards she visited the observatory, which interested her much, and had a long talk with the curious old Pasteur, who also interested her in his way, for as she afterwards remarked to G.o.dfrey, one does not often meet an embodiment of human goodness and charity.
When he replied that the latter quality was lacking to the Pasteur where Roman Catholics were concerned, she only smiled and said that every jewel had its flaw; nothing was quite perfect in the world.
In the end she asked Madame and Juliette to come to lunch with her, leaving out G.o.dfrey, because, as she said, she knew that he would be engaged at his studies with the Pasteur. She explained also that she did not ask them to come with him on Sunday because they would be taken up with their religious duties, a remark at which Juliette made what the French call a "mouth," and Madame smiled faintly.
In due course she and her daughter went to lunch and returned delighted, having found themselves fellow-guests of some of the most notable people in Lucerne, though not those whom Miss Ogilvy entertained on Sundays. Needless to say from that time forward G.o.dfrey"s intimacy with this charming and wealthy hostess was in every way encouraged by the Boiset family.
The course of this intimacy does not need any very long description.
Every Sunday after church the well-appointed carriage and pair appeared and bore G.o.dfrey away to luncheon at the Villa Ogilvy. Here he always met Madame Riennes, Colonel Josiah Smith, and Professor Petersen; also occasionally one or two others with whom these seemed to be sufficiently intimate to admit of their addressing them as "Brother" or "Sister."
Soon G.o.dfrey came to understand that they were all members of some kind of semi-secret society, though what this might be he could not quite ascertain. All he made sure of was that it had to do with matters which were not of this world. Nothing concerning mundane affairs, however important or interesting, seemed to appeal to them; all their conversation was directed towards what might be called spiritual problems, reincarnations, Karmas (it took him a long time to understand what a Karma is), astral shapes, mediumship, telepathic influences, celestial guides, and the rest.
At first this talk with its jargon of words which he did not comprehend, bored him considerably, but by degrees he felt that he was being drawn into a vortex, and began to understand its drift. Even while it was enigmatic it acquired a kind of unholy attraction for him, and he began to seek out its secret meaning in which he found that company ready instructors.
"Young brother," said Madame Riennes, "we deal with the things not of the body, but of the soul. The body, what is it? In a few years it will be dust and ashes, but the soul--it is eternal--and all those stars you study are its inheritance, and you and I, if we cultivate our spiritual parts, shall rule in them."
Then she would roll her big eyes and become in a way magnificent, so that G.o.dfrey forgot her ugliness and the repulsion with which she inspired him.
In the end his outlook on life and the world became different, and this not so much because of what he learned from his esoteric teachers, as through some change in his internal self. He grew to appreciate the vastness of things and the infinite possibilities of existence. Indeed, his spiritual education was a fitting pendant to his physical study of the heavens, peopled with unnumbered worlds, each of them the home, doubtless, of an infinite variety of life, and each of them keeping its awful secrets locked in its floating orb. He trembled in presence of the stupendous Whole, of which thus by degrees he became aware, and though it frightened him, thought with pity of the busy millions of mankind to whom such mysteries are nothing at all; who are lost in their business or idleness, in their eating, drinking, sleeping, love-making, and general satisfaction of the instincts which they possess in common with every other animal. The yearning for wisdom, the desire to know, entered his young heart and possessed it, as once these did that of Solomon, to such a degree indeed, that standing on the threshold of his days, he would have paid them all away, and with them his share in this warm and breathing world, could he have been a.s.sured that in exchange he would receive the key of the treasure-house of the Infinite.
Such an att.i.tude was neither healthy nor natural to a normal, vigorous lad just entering upon manhood, and, as will be seen, it did not endure. Like everything else, it had its causes. His astronomical studies were one of these, but a deeper reason was to be found in those Sunday seances at the Villa Ogilvy. For a long while G.o.dfrey did not know what happened to him on these occasions. The party sat round the little table, talking of wonderful things; Madame Riennes looked at him and sometimes took his hand, which he did not like, and then he remembered no more until he woke up, feeling tired, and yet in a way exhilarated, for with the mysteries of hypnotic sleep he was not yet acquainted. Nor did it occur to him that he was being used a medium by certain of the most advanced spiritualists in the world.
By degrees, however, inklings of the truth began to come. Thus, one day his consciousness awoke while his body seemed still to be wrapt in trance, and he saw that there was a person present who had not been of the party when he went to sleep. A young woman, clad in a white robe, with lovely hair flowing down her back, stood by his side and held his supine fingers in her hand.
She was beautiful, and yet unearthly, she wore ornaments also, but as he watched, to his amazement these seemed to change. What had been a fillet of white stones, like diamonds, which bound her hair, turned to one of red stones, like rubies, and as it did so the colour of her eyes, which were large and very tranquil, altered.
She was speaking in a low, rich voice to Miss Ogilvy, who answered, addressing her as Sister Eleanor, but what she said G.o.dfrey could not understand. Something of his inner shock and fear must have reflected itself upon his trance-bound features, for suddenly he heard Madame Riennes exclaim:
"Have done! the medium awakes, and I tell you it is dangerous while our Guide is here. Back to his breast, Eleanor! Thence to your place!"
The tall figure changed; it became misty, shapeless. It seemed to fall on him like a cloud of icy vapour, chilling him to the heart, and through that vapour he could see the ormolu clock which stood on a bracket in the recess, and even note the time, which was thirteen minutes past four. After this he became unconscious, and in due course woke up as usual. The first thing his eyes fell on was the clock, of which the hands now pointed to a quarter to five, and the sight of it brought everything back to him. Then he observed that all the circle seemed much agitated, and distinctly heard Madame Riennes say to Professor Petersen in English:--
"The thing was very near. Had it not been for that medicine of yours----! It was because that speerit do take his hand. She grow fond of him; it happen sometimes if the medium be of the other s.e.x and attractive. She want to carry him away with her, that Control, and I expect she never quite leave him all his life, because, you see, she materialize out of him, and therefore belong to him. Next time she come, I give her my mind. Hush! Our wonderful little brother wake up--quite right this time."
Then G.o.dfrey really opened his eyes; hitherto he had been feigning to be still in trance, but thought it wisest to say nothing. At this moment Miss Ogilvy turned very pale and went into a kind of light faint.
The Professor produced some kind of smelling-bottle from his pocket, which he held to her nostrils. She came to at once, and began to laugh at her own silliness, but begged them all to go away and leave her quiet, which they did. G.o.dfrey was going too, but she stopped him, saying that the carriage would not be ready till after tea, and that it was too wet for him to walk in the garden, for now autumn had come in earnest. The tea arrived, a substantial tea, with poached eggs, of which she made him eat two, as she did always after these sittings.
Then suddenly she asked him if he had seen anything. He told her all, adding:
"I am frightened. I do not like this business, Miss Ogilvy. Who and what was that lady in white, who stood by me and held my hand? My fingers are still tingling, and a cold wind seems to blow upon me."
"It was a spirit, G.o.dfrey, but there is no need to be afraid, she will not do you any harm."
"I don"t know, and I don"t think that you have any right to bring spirits to me, or out of me, as I heard that dreadful Madame say had happened. It is a great liberty."
"Oh! don"t be angry with me," she said piteously. "If only you understood. You are a wonderful medium, the most wonderful that any of us has ever known, and through you we have learned things; holy, marvellous things, which till now have not been heard of in the world.
Your fame is already great among leading spiritualists of the earth, though of course they do not know who you are."
"That does not better matters," said G.o.dfrey, "you know it is not right."
"Perhaps not, but my dear boy, if only you guessed all it means to me!
Listen; I will tell you; you will not betray me, will you? Once I was very fond of someone; he was all my life, and he died, and my heart broke. I only hope and pray that such a thing may never happen to you.