The preacher"s sneer broke forth. "I can"t see but you scientists are quite as dogmatic, quite as bigoted as the theologians."
Serviss laughed. "It does look a little that way. However, I"m not as uninformed as I seem. It happens that I am in close personal contact with men whose specialty is the study of morbid psychology, and I know the quality of those who act as mediums for the return of the dead."
The intensity of the interest on the part of the little group before him was astonishing, not to say appalling. "It is evident that the mother and her pastor are both of the new dispensation or worse," was his thought, but his natural courtesy led him to say, placably: "There are mysteries in the world, I admit--in chemistry as in biology--but they seem to me to be different in very essence from the "mysteries"
of spiritualism and all allied "psychic phenomena," which appear to me essentially absurd, ign.o.ble--"ratty," to use a slang phrase--a faith founded upon things done in the dark, always in the dark."
The preacher flamed out at this. "I knew you would get round to that; that is the reason why I began by drawing you out on the X-ray. How little do we know of motion! The X-ray moves in straight lines, I understand, while light has a wave motion. Hence they are antagonistic. May it not be that the spirits of those gone before manifest by means of an unknown force which light neutralizes? May this not be the explanation why the phenomena of the spirit world require darkness?"
"It may," answered Serviss, dryly; "but there is a far easier explanation--But, see here," he returned to his boyish humor, "this is my vacation. I came out here to escape "shop," and here we are wasting time on X-rays and spiritism, and boring our patient hostess besides.
Miss Lambert, won"t you play for us and clear the air of our controversial dust?"
The girl, who had been sitting during this conversation in rigid immobility, intent on every word, now turned towards Clarke as if asking his consent. The mother, too, seemed to wait anxiously for the minister"s answer, as if wondering whether he would willingly cut short his interrogation.
His eyes were still glowing with the heat of controversy, but he gravely said: "I hope you will give me another opportunity to discuss this matter. It is very important to me."
"Certainly, with pleasure," answered Serviss, glad to rid himself of the discussion of the moment.
As Viola stood slowly turning the leaves of her music, three loud knocks sounded upon the inner door, as if an insistent neighbor had entered and signalled for help. The mother rose and went out hurriedly, but the clergyman merely glanced after her, and said to the girl:
"You would better play, Viola."
The girl dashed into a stormy Polish march, which she played very well, but with a mechanical precision which seemed to offend Clarke, who rose and laid his hand on her arm. "Wait, you"re not in the mood yet." He turned to Serviss. "The spirit of our discussion is upon her.
She is very sensitive to such things. I will sing first--if you don"t object," he added, in a new tone, a touch of apology in his voice, and he gave out the effect of addressing an unseen auditor--some one in the inner room.
"I shall be delighted," replied Serviss, with formal politeness, though he began to apprehend something morbidly forbidding in the minister and in his influence on the girl. An extraordinary intimacy was revealed, not so much in the words he spoke as in the tones he used. "Here is the girl"s lover," he decided.
There was no timidity or hesitation in Viola"s manner as she struck the first chords of an old ballad, and Clarke, transformed by a new and lofty mood, sang, with notable beauty of phrasing, "The Banks o"
Ben Lomond." Something in the melancholy of the lover"s cry seemed to fit with this singular young preacher"s mood. His voice searched the heart, his eyes misted with feeling, and when he finished Serviss applauded most fervently, "Bravo!" and impulsively offered his hand.
"My dear fellow, you have a wonderful voice. _You_ are the one to go to New York; you"d make Carolus look to his laurels. Sing something else--something of Strauss. Do you know Strauss?"
Clarke smiled with wistful sadness. "I sing very few ballads. My voice was given me to use in Christ"s service, not for the gratification of my pride."
Serviss recoiled before this sanctimonious speech, and the light went out of his face. A disgust which he could not entirely conceal crossed his lips. "My dear sir, you can"t serve the Lord better than by singing beautiful songs to the weary people of this earth. To wear out a voice like that on pinchbeck hymn tunes is a crime." Then, as if becoming conscious of a neglect of the girl, he added: "Now that you are in the mood, Miss Lambert, you must try that sonata again."
The girl seemed not to be offended by his enthusiasm over the minister"s singing, and with a word in a low voice to Clarke, who placed a sheet of music before her, she began to play, opening the composition with unexpected breadth and dignity of phrasing. Serviss listened with growing amazement. Her hands were not large, but they had ample spread and were under perfect control. There was power in the poise of her head and in the rhythmic swaying of her body, but her playing was curiously unfeminine. There was no touch of girlish grace, of sentiment, in her performance, and with a sudden enlightenment Serviss inwardly exclaimed: "Aha! A clerical Svengali! This musical preacher has trained his pupil till she plays as _he_ would play if he had the digital facility. It"s all fine, but it is not the girl," and the question of their relationship again engaged him.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "SERVISS LISTENED WITH GROWING AMAZEMENT"]
When the final stormy note was still, Viola remained on her stool, as though waiting for her critic to applaud.
Serviss broke the silence by exclaiming: "See here, you people are making game of me. You are both professionals in disguise. Come now, "fess up," he challenged Clarke. "You are Senor Del Corte, barytone of the Salt-Air Opera Company; and you, Miss Lambert, belong to the Arion Ladies" Orchestra. I have found you both out!"
The girl smiled with pleasure, but Clarke remained so una.s.sailably serious that Serviss was moved to further deeps of audacity. "Don"t tell me you are a comedian, also! You certainly have me guessing. Who are you, really?"
Clarke answered, resentfully: "I am the pastor of the Presbyterian church in this village, as Miss Lambert has told you, and she is my organist."
Again that thump three times repeated sounded upon the door. Serviss, baffled and silenced by Clarke"s impenetrable gravity, and by something inexplicably submissive, yet watchful, in the face of the girl, felt himself confronted by an intangible, sinister, and inescapable influence. The young clergyman seemed to darken and oppress both women. It was as if they were all leagued in a conspiracy to deceive and cajole. This bewilderment lasted but a moment, and he rose from his chair with a spring. "Well, now, play something else--give us a bit of rag-time; that last piece has left us all a little dashed--try a cake-walk."
Clarke interposed. "Miss Lambert does not play those trashy melodies.
I consider them essentially irreligious."
Serviss resented the preacher"s tone, but quickly answered: "They"re not exactly reverent, I"ll admit; but without them American music would be but a poor reflection of the German."
As if to save his reputation the preacher sang "The Palms," and sang it magnificently; and the girl accompanied him with such accuracy and good judgment that Serviss was able to infer long hours of practice, and this did not please him.
"His influence on her and on this household is not good," he decided.
"That chap is decidedly morbid. If he is married, so much the worse.
He"s far too handsome to be a safe guide to an impressionable young girl. There is some mystery here," and he recalled that Viola"s face was troubled when first he saw it. And at the close of this song, without a glance at the preacher, he offered a parting hand to Viola.
"If I can be of any aid in putting you in touch with a teacher in New York, please write me. I think you have my card. You play with astonishing power and brilliancy. You would certainly interest a man like Greer."
Her face flamed with color--all her sullen restraint vanished, all her girlish charm came back. "Oh, do you think so? Do you suppose I could get him to teach me?"
"I don"t say that--he is a very busy man--but I think you are decidedly to be encouraged. But I may be able to hear you again before I go. I want to hear you play alone."
"I wish you would come again." There was a subtle entreaty in her voice, almost a prayer; and in her uplifted face was expressed the respect and confidence of a child. His heart was moved with pity as well as with admiration, and, turning to the mother, he added: "I shall probably remain over Sunday, and it would be a pleasure if I might come again to your pretty home."
Mrs. Lambert"s face glowed with pleasure. "It will be a great honor to have you, sir."
In this spirit he went away, without again taking Clarke"s hand, with a last glance at the girl"s face as she stood at the open door to let him pa.s.s. He turned from the gate with a sense of having been permitted a glance into the very heart of a secret drama which might at any moment become a tragedy. His interest was profoundly stirred, his sympathies wholly enlisted in behalf of this girl, so young and so aspiring.
As he stood above the roaring water he formulated a theory with regard to the relationship of the personalities he had just left behind him.
"The girl is being persecuted by this man Clarke, who is madly in love with her. She has an inner repugnance to him; but he is a clergyman, and that means a great deal to a girl in the adoration stage. Her mother, a nice, religious sort of person, favors the preacher, of course; but the father probably despises him. Clarke is evidently losing his hold on the rock-ballasted keel of his creed, and in his shipwreck he may carry that girl down with him; such cases are all too common. If he is married, he is all the more dangerous. But it is not my duty to interfere." He ended, resolute to put the whole problem from him: "The girl has legal guardians--on them rests the blame if she is corrupted. To reform this world has never been my call."
But he could not rid himself of a growing sense of responsibility. His mind returned again and again to the complication into which he had suddenly been thrust. "Perhaps this desire on the part of the girl to go away to study is only an instinctive desire to escape. It would be like that preacher to have a worn, little, commonplace wife. What can Lambert be thinking of to let such a man come into his home and direct the daily life of both his wife and daughter? He is neglecting his plain duty."
He fell asleep, fancying himself on the way up the trail to the mine, and when he woke to find the good, rectifying rays of the morning sun filling his room the theories of the night were absurd. He desired to see the girl again, not to warn her of her peril, but because she was piquant and lovely, as befitted her romantic surroundings.
VI
IN THE MARSHALL BASIN
It must have been about eleven o"clock next morning when Serviss rode up and dismounted at the Lambert gate, and in the flaming light of mid-day the sense of mystification, the feeling that the girl was in the coils of some invisible menace, had entirely vanished. The preacher had sunk to the role of a conceited clerical a.s.s who regarded science as an enemy to his especial theories and the visible universe as an outlying province of Calvinism; while Viola, who came to the door, was again most humanly charming, delighting his eyes like the morning.
She smiled blithely and spoke collectedly, in response to his greeting; but when he asked her to be his guide to the wonders of the region her face clouded in dismay.
"Oh, I"m sorry; I wish I could; but I must carry a message up to my father at the mine."
"Very well, why not take me? I infer you go on horseback?"
She hesitated. "Yes, but it"s a long, hard ride--and you said you were tired of the saddle."
"I was yesterday; but I feel quite rested now. By all means let me accompany you. I should particularly enjoy mounting high to-day. I should also like to meet your father."
"Very well, I will speak to mother," she replied, with shining face, and disappeared within.