"Now how nice of you to say that! Do you know, I was wondering as we talked. Now do tell me exactly what is in your mind, Mr. Baxter."
Mrs. Stapleton was conscious of a considerable sense of pleasure.
Usually she found this kind of man very imperceptive and gross. Laurie seemed perfectly at his ease, dressed quite in the proper way, and had an air of presentableness that usually only went with Philistinism.
She determined to do her best.
"May I speak quite freely, please?" he asked, looking straight at her.
"Please, please," she said, with that touch of childish intensity that her friends thought so innocent and beautiful.
"Well, it"s like this," said Laurie. "I"ve always rather disliked all that kind of thing, more than I can say. It did seem to me so--well--so feeble, don"t you know; and then I"m a Catholic, you see, and so--"
"Yes; yes?"
"Well, I"ve been reading Mr. Stainton Moses, and one or two other books; and I must say that an awful lot of it seems to me still great rubbish; and then there are any amount of frauds, aren"t there, Mrs.
Stapleton, in that line?"
"Alas! Ah, yes!"
"But then I don"t know what to make of some of the evidence that remains. It seems to me that if evidence is worth anything at all, there must be something real at the back of it all. And then, if that is so, if it really is true that it is possible to get into actual touch with people who are dead--I mean really and truly, so that there"s no kind of doubt about it--well, that does seem to me about the most important thing in the world. Do you see?"
She kept her eyes on his face for an instant or two. Plainly he was really moved; his face had gone a little white in the lamplight and his hands were clasped tightly enough over his knee to whiten the knuckles. She remembered Lady Laura"s remarks about the village girl, and understood. But she perceived that she must not attempt intimacy just yet with this young man: he would resent it. Besides, she was shrewd enough to see by his manner that he did not altogether like her.
She nodded pensively once or twice. Then she turned to him with a bright smile. "I understand entirely," she said. "May I too speak quite freely? Yes? Well, I am so glad you have spoken out. Of course, we are quite accustomed to being distrusted and feared. After all, it is the privilege of all truth-seekers to suffer, is it not? Well, I will say what is in my heart.
"First, you are quite right about some of our workers being dishonest sometimes. They are, Mr. Baxter, I have seen more than one, myself, exposed. But that is natural, is it not? Why, there have been bad Catholics, too, have there not? And, after all, we are only human; and there is a great temptation sometimes not to send people away disappointed. You have heard those stories, I expect, Mr. Baxter?"
"I have heard of Mr. Eglinton."
"Ah! Poor Willie.... Yes. But he had great powers, for all that....
Well, but the point you want to get at is this, is it not? Is it really true, underneath it all? Is that it?"
Laurie nodded, looking at her steadily. She leaned forward.
"Mr. Baxter, by all that I hold most sacred, I a.s.sure you that it is, that I myself have seen and touched ... _touched_ ... my own father, who crossed over twenty years ago. I have received messages from his own lips ... and communications in other ways too, concerning matters only known to him and to myself. Is that sufficient? No"; (she held up a delicate silencing hand) "... no, I will not ask you to take my word. I will ask you to test it for yourself."
Laurie too leaned forward now in his low chair, his hands clasped between his knees.
"You will--you will let me test it?" he said in a low voice.
She sat back easily, pushing her draperies straight. She was in some fine silk that fell straight from her high slender waist to her copper-colored shoes.
"Listen, Mr. Baxter. Tomorrow there is coming to this house certainly the greatest medium in London, if not in Europe. (Of course we cannot compete with the East. We are only children beside them.) Well, this man, Mr. Vincent--I think I spoke of him to you last week--he is coming here just for a talk to one or two friends. There shall be no difficulty if you wish it. I will speak to Lady Laura before you go."
Laurie looked at her without moving.
"I shall be very much obliged," he said. "You will remember that I am not yet in the least convinced? I only want to know."
"That is exactly the right att.i.tude. That is all we have any right to ask. We do not ask for blind faith, Mr. Baxter--only for believing after having seen."
Laurie nodded slowly.
"That seems to me reasonable," he said.
There was silence for a moment. Then she determined on a bold stroke.
"There is someone in particular--Mr. Baxter--forgive me for asking--someone who has pa.s.sed over--?"
She sank her voice to what she had been informed was a sympathetic tone, and was scarcely prepared for the sudden tightening of that face.
"That is my affair, Mrs. Stapleton."
Ah well, she had been premature. She would fetch Lady Laura, she said; she thought she might venture for such a purpose. No, she would not be away three minutes. Then she rustled out.
Laurie went to the fire to wait, and stood there, mechanically warming his hands and staring down at that sleeping core of red coal.
He had taken his courage in both hands in coming at all. In spite of his brave words to Maggie, he had been conscious of a curious repulsion with regard to the whole matter--a repulsion not only of contempt towards the elaborate affectations of the woman he had determined to consult. Yet he had come.
What he had said just now had been perfectly true. He was not yet in the least convinced, but he was anxious, intensely and pa.s.sionately anxious, goaded too by desire.
Ah! surely it was absurd and fantastic--here in London, in this century. He turned and faced the lamp-lit room, letting his eyes wander round the picture-hung walls, the blue stamped paper, the Empire furniture, the general appearance of beautiful comfort and sane modern life. It was absurd and fantastic; he would be disappointed again, as he had been disappointed in everything else. These things did not happen--the dead did not return. Step by step those things that for centuries had been deemed evidence of the supernatural, one by one had been explained and discounted. Hypnotism, water divining, witchcraft, and the rest. All these had once been believed to be indisputable proofs of a life beyond the grave, of strange supernormal personalities, and these, one by one, had been either accounted for or discredited. It was mad of him to be alarmed or excited. No, he would go through with it, expecting nothing, hoping nothing. But he would just go through with it to satisfy himself....
The door opened, and the two ladies came in.
"I am delighted that you called, Mr. Baxter; and on such an errand!"
Lady Laura put out a hand, tremulous with pleasure at welcoming a possible disciple.
"Mrs. Stapleton has explained--" began Laurie.
"I understand everything. You come as a skeptic--no, not as a skeptic, but as an inquirer, that is all that we wish.... Then tomorrow, at about half-past four."
_Chapter IV_
I
It was a mellow October afternoon, glowing towards sunset, as Laurie came across the south end of the park to his appointment next day; and the effect of it upon his mind was singularly unsuggestive of supernatural mystery. Instead, the warm sky, the lights beginning to peep here and there, though an hour before sunset, turned him rather in the direction of the natural and the domestic.
He wondered what his mother and Maggie would say if they knew his errand, for he had sufficient self-control not to have told them of his intentions. As regards his mother he did not care very much. Of course she would deprecate it and feebly dissuade; but he recognized that there was no particular principle behind, beyond a sense of discomfort at the unknown. But it was necessary for him to argue with himself about Maggie. The angry kind of contempt that he knew she would feel needed an answer; and he gave it by reminding himself that she had been brought up in a convent-school, that she knew nothing of the world, and that, lastly, he himself did not take the matter seriously. He was aware, too, that the instinctive repulsion that she felt so keenly found a certain echo in his own feelings; but he explained this by the novelty of the thing.
In fact, the att.i.tude of mind in which he more or less succeeded in arraying himself was that of one who goes to see a serious conjurer.
It would be rather fun, he thought, to see a table dancing. But there was not wholly wanting that inexplicable tendency of some natures deliberately to deceive themselves on what lies nearest to their hearts.
Mr. Vincent had not yet arrived when he was shown upstairs, even though Laurie himself was late. (This was partly deliberate. He thought it best to show a little nonchalance.) There was only a young clergyman in the room with the ladies; and the two were introduced.