During those minutes he had willed with his whole power that she should come to him now and here, down in this warm and fragrant darkness, hidden from all eyes--in this sweet silence, round which sleep kept its guard. Such things had happened before; such things must have happened, for the will and the love of man are the mightiest forces in creation. Surely again and again it had happened; there must be somewhere in the world man after man who had so called back the dead--a husband sobbing silently in the dark, a child wailing for his mother; surely that force had before, in the world"s history, willed back again from the mysterious dark of s.p.a.ce the dear personality that was all that even heaven could give, had even compelled into a semblance of life some sort of body to clothe it in. These things must have happened--only secrets had been well kept.
So this boy had willed it; yet the dark had remained empty; and no shadow, no faintly outlined face, had even for an instant blotted out the star on which he stared; no touch on his shoulder, no whisper in his ear. It had seemed as he strove there, in the silence, that it must be done; that there was no limit to power concentrated and intense. Yet it had not happened....
Once he had shuddered a little; and the very shudder of fear had had in it a touch of delicious, trembling expectation. Yet it had not happened.
Laurie relaxed his muscles therefore, let his breath exhale in a long sigh, and once more remembered the book he had read and Mrs.
Stapleton"s feverish, self-conscious thought.
Half an hour later his mother, listening in her bed, heard his footsteps pa.s.s her room.
_Chapter III_
I
Lady Laura Beth.e.l.l, spinster, had just returned to her house in Queen"s Gate, with her dearest friend, Mrs. Stapleton, for a few days of psychical orgy. It was in her house, as much as in any in London, that the modern prophets were to be met with--severe-looking women in shapeless dresses, little men and big, with long hair and cloaks; and it was in her drawing-room that tea and Queen cakes were dispensed to inquirers, and papers read and discussed when the revels were over.
Lady Laura herself was not yet completely emanc.i.p.ated from what her friends sometimes called the grave-clothes of so-called Revelation.
To her it seemed a profound truth that things could be true and untrue simultaneously--that what might be facts on This Side, as she would have expressed it, might be falsehoods on the Other. She was accustomed, therefore, to attend All Saints", Carlton Gardens, in the morning, and psychical drawing-rooms or halls in the evening, and to declare to her friends how beautifully the one aspect illuminated and interpreted the other.
For the rest, she was a small, fair-haired woman, with penciled dark eyebrows, a small aquiline nose, gold pince-nez, and an exquisite taste in dress.
The two were seated this Tuesday evening, a week after Mrs. Stapleton"s visit to the Stantons, in the drawing-room of the Queen"s Gate house, over the remnants of what corresponded to five-o"clock tea. I say "corresponded," since both of them were sufficiently advanced to have renounced actual tea altogether. Mrs.
Stapleton partook of a little hot water out of a copper-jacketed jug; her hostess of boiled milk. They shared their Plasmon biscuits together. These things were considered important for those who would successfully find the Higher Light.
At this instant they were discussing Mr. Vincent.
"Dearest, he seems to me so different from the others," mewed Lady Laura. "He is such a man, you know. So often those others are not quite like men at all; they wear such funny clothes, and their hair always is so queer, somehow."
"Darling, I know what you mean. Yes, there"s a great deal of that about James Vincent. Even dear Tom was almost polite to him: he couldn"t bear the others: he said that he always thought they were going to paw him."
"And then his powers," continued Lady Laura--"his powers always seem to me so much greater. The magnetism is so much more evident."
Mrs. Stapleton finished her hot water.
"We are going on Sunday?" she said questioningly.
"Yes; just a small party. And he comes here tomorrow, you remember, just for a talk. I have asked a clergyman I know in to meet him. It seems to me such a pity that our religious teachers should know so little of what is going on."
"Who is he?"
"Oh, Mr. Jamieson ... just a young clergyman I met in the summer. I promised to let him know the next time Mr. Vincent came to me."
Mrs. Stapleton murmured her gratification.
These two had really a great deal in common besides their faith. It is true that Mrs. Stapleton was forty, and her friend but thirty-one; but the former did all that was possible to compensate for this by adroit toilette tactics. Both, too, were accustomed to dress in soft materials, with long chains bearing various emblems; they did their hair in the same way; they cultivated the same kinds of tones in their voices--a purring, mewing manner--suggestive of intuitive kittens.
Both alike had a pa.s.sion for proselytism. But after that the differences began. There was a deal more in Mrs. Stapleton besides the kittenish qualities. She was perfectly capable of delivering a speech in public; she had written some really well-expressed articles in various Higher periodicals; and she had a will-power beyond the ordinary. At the point where Lady Laura began to deprecate and soothe, Mrs. Stapleton began to clear decks for action, so to speak, to be incisive, to be fervent, even to be rather eloquent. She kept "dear Tom," the Colonel, not crushed or beaten, for that was beyond the power of man to do, but at least silently acquiescent in her program: he allowed her even to entertain her prophetical friends at his expense, now and then; and, even when among men, refrained from too bitter speech. It was said by the Colonel"s friends that Mrs. Colonel had a tongue of her own. Certainly, she ruled her house well and did her duty; and it was only because of her husband"s absence in Scotland that during this time she was permitting herself the refreshment of a week or two among the Illuminated.
At about six o"clock Lady Laura announced her intention of retiring for her evening meditation. Opening out of her bedroom was a small dressing-room that she had fitted up for this purpose with all the broad suggestiveness that marks the Higher Thought: decked with ornaments emblematical of at least three religions, and provided with a faldstool and an exceedingly easy chair. It was here that she was accustomed to spend an hour before dinner, with closed eyes, emanc.i.p.ating herself from the fetters of sense; and rising to a due appreciation of that Nothingness that was All, from which All came and to which it retired.
"I must go, dearest; it is time."
A ring at the bell below made her pause.
"Do you think that can be Mr. Vincent?" she said, pleasantly apprehensive. "It"s not the right day, but one never knows."
A footman"s figure entered.
"Mr. Baxter, my lady.... Is your ladyship at home?"
"Mr. Baxter--"
Mrs. Stapleton rose.
"Let me see him instead, dearest.... You remember ... from Stantons."
"I wonder what he wants?" murmured the hostess. "Yes, do see him, Maud; you can always fetch me if it"s anything."
Then she was gone. Mrs. Stapleton sank into a chair again; and in a minute Laurie was shaking hands with her.
Mrs. Stapleton was accustomed to deal with young men, and through long habit had learned how to flatter them without appearing to do so.
Laurie"s type, however, was less familiar to her. She preferred the kind that grow their hair rather long and wear turn-down collars, and have just found out the hopeless ba.n.a.lity of all orthodoxy whatever.
She even bore with them when they called themselves unmoral. But she remembered Laurie, the silent boy at lunch last week, she had even mentioned him to Lady Laura, and received information about the village girl, more or less correct. She was also aware that he was a Catholic.
She gave him her hand without rising.
"Lady Laura asked me to excuse her absence to you, Mr. Baxter. To be quite truthful, she is at home, but had just gone upstairs for her meditation."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, you know; we think that so important, just as you do. Do sit down, Mr. Baxter. You have had tea?"
"Yes, thanks."
"I hope she will be down before you go. I don"t think she"ll be very long this evening. Can I give her any message, Mr. Baxter, in case you don"t see her?"
Laurie put his hat and stick down carefully, and crossed his legs.
"No; I don"t think so, thanks," he said. "The fact is, I came partly to find out your address, if I might."
Mrs. Stapleton rustled and rearranged herself.
"Oh! but that"s charming of you," she said. "Is there anything particular?"
"Yes," said Laurie slowly; "at least it seems rather particular to me.
It"s what you were talking about the other day."