Again came the little sharp crack, and she stopped. For an instant she was disturbed; certain possibilities opened before her, and she regarded them. Then she crushed them down, impatiently and half timorously. She stood up abruptly.
"I"m going to bed," she said. "This is too ridiculous--"
"No, no; don"t leave me ... Maggie ... I don"t like it."
She sat down again, wondering at his childishness, and yet conscious that her own nerves, too, were ever so slightly on edge. She would not look at him, for fear that the meeting of eyes might hint at more than she meant. She threw her head back on her chair and remained looking at the ceiling. But to think that the souls of the dead--ah, how repulsive!
Outside the night was very still.
The hard frost had kept the world iron-bound in a sprinkle of snow during the last two or three days, but this afternoon the thaw had begun. Twice during dinner there had come the thud of ma.s.ses of snow falling from the roof on to the lawn outside, and the clear sparkle of the candles had seemed a little dim and hazy. "It would be a comfort to get at the garden again," she had reflected.
And now that the two sat here in the windless silence the thaw became more apparent every instant. The silence was profound, and the little noises of the night outside, the drip from the eaves slow and deliberate, the rustle of released leaves, and even the gentle thud on the lawn from the yew branches--all these helped to emphasize the stillness. It was not like the murmur of day; it was rather like the gnawing of a mouse in the wainscot of some death chamber.
It requires almost superhumanly strong nerves to sit at night, after a conversation of this kind, opposite an apparently reasonable person who is white and twitching with terror, even though one resolutely refrains from looking at him, without being slightly affected. One may argue with oneself to any extent, tap one"s foot cheerfully on the floor, fill the mind most painstakingly with normal thoughts; yet it is something of a conflict, however victorious one may be.
Even Maggie herself became aware of this.
It was not that now for one single moment she allowed that the two little sudden noises in the room could possibly proceed from any cause whatever except that which she had stated--the relaxation of stiffened wood under the influence of the thaw. Nor had all Laurie"s arguments prevailed to shake in the smallest degree her resolute conviction that there was nothing whatever preternatural in his certainly queer story.
Yet, as she sat there in the lamplight, with Laurie speechless before her, and the great curtained window behind, she became conscious of an uneasiness that she could not entirely repel. It was just physical, she said; it was the result of the change of weather; or, at the most, it was the silence that had now fallen and the proximity of a terrified boy.
She looked across at him again.
He was lying back in the old green arm-chair, his eyes rather shadowed from the lamp overhead, quite still and quiet, his hands still clasping the lion bosses of his chair-arms. Beside him, on the little table, lay his still smoldering cigarette-end in the silver tray....
Maggie suddenly sprang to her feet, slipped round the table, and caught him by the arm.
"Laurie, Laurie, wake up.... What"s the matter?"
A long shudder pa.s.sed through him. He sat up, with a bewildered look.
"Eh? What is it?" he said. "Was I asleep?"
He rubbed his hands over his eyes and looked round.
"What is it, Maggie? Was I asleep?"
Was the boy acting? Surely it was good acting! Maggie threw herself down on her knees by the chair.
"Laurie! Laurie! I beg you not to go to see Mr. Vincent. It"s bad for you.... I do wish you wouldn"t."
He still blinked at her a moment.
"I don"t understand. What do you mean, Maggie?"
She stood up, ashamed of her impulsiveness.
"Only I wish you wouldn"t go and see that man. Laurie, please don"t."
He stood up too, stretching. Every sign of nervousness seemed gone.
"Not see Mr. Vincent? Nonsense; of course I shall. You don"t understand, Maggie."
_Chapter VII_
I
"What a relief," sighed Mrs. Stapleton. "I thought we had lost him."
The three were sitting once again in Lady Laura"s drawing-room soon after lunch. Mr. Vincent had just looked in with Laurie"s note to give the news. It was a heavy fog outside, woolly in texture and orange in color, and the tall windows seemed opaque in the lamplight; the room, by contrast, appeared a safe and pleasant refuge from the reek and stinging vapor of the street.
Mrs. Stapleton had been lunching with her friend. The Colonel had returned for Christmas, so his wife"s duties had recalled her for the present from those spiritual conversations which she had enjoyed in the autumn. It was such a refreshment, she had said with a patient smile, to slip away sometimes into the purer atmosphere.
Mr. Vincent folded the letter and restored it to his pocket.
"We must be careful with him," he said. "He is extraordinarily sensitive. I almost wish he were not so developed. Temperaments like his are apt to be thrown off their balance."
Lady Laura was silent.
For herself she was not perfectly happy. She had lately come across one or two rather deplorable cases. A very promising girl, daughter of a publican in the suburbs, had developed the same kind of powers, and the end of it all had been rather a dreadful scene in Baker Street.
She was now in an asylum. A friend of her own, too, had lately taken to lecturing against Christianity in rather painful terms. Lady Laura wondered why people could not be as well balanced as herself.
"I think he had better not come to the public _seances_ at present,"
went on the medium. "That, no doubt, will come later; but I was going to ask a great favor from you, Lady Laura."
She looked up.
"That bother about the rooms is not yet settled, and the Sunday _seances_ will have to cease for the present. I wonder if you would let us come here, just a few of us only, for three or four Sundays, at any rate."
She brightened up.
"Why, it would be the greatest pleasure," she said. "But what about the cabinet?"
"If necessary, I would send one across. Will you allow me to make arrangements?"
Mrs. Stapleton beamed.
"What a privilege!" she said. "Dearest, I quite envy you. I am afraid dear Tom would never consent--"
"There are just one or two things on my mind," went on Mr. Vincent so pleasantly that the interruption seemed almost a compliment, "and the first is this. I want him to see for himself. Of course, for ourselves, his trance is the point; but hardly for him. He is tremendously impressed; I can see that; though he pretends not to be. But I should like him to see something unmistakable as soon as possible. We must prevent his going into trance, if possible.... And the next thing is his religion."
"Catholics are supposed not to come," observed Mrs. Stapleton.
"Just so.... Mr. Baxter is a convert, isn"t he...? I thought so."