The Necromancers, Robert Hugh Benson [miss read books .TXT] 📗

disappeared. They heard his steps in the inner hall. Then a door closed overhead.

Mrs. Baxter contentedly poured herself out another cup of tea.

"Poor boy," she said. "He's thinking of that girl still. I'm glad he's got something to occupy his mind."

The end room, on the first floor, was Laurie's possession. It was a big place, with two windows, and a large open fire, and he had skillfully masked the fact that it was a bedroom by disposing his furniture, with the help of a screen, in such a manner as completely to hide the bed and the washing arrangements.

The rest of the room he had furnished in a pleasing male kind of fashion, with a big couch drawn across the fire, a writing-table and chairs, a deep easy chair near the door, and a long, high bookcase covering the wall between the door and the windows. His college oar, too, hung here, and there were pleasant groups and pictures scattered on the other walls.

Maggie did not often come in here, except by invitation, but about seven o'clock on this evening, half an hour before she had to go and dress, she thought she would look in on him for a few minutes. She was still a little uncomfortable; she did not quite know why: it was too ridiculous, she told, herself, that a sensible boy like Laurie could be seriously affected by what she considered the wicked nonsense of Spiritualism.

Yet she went, telling herself that Laurie's grief was an excuse for showing him a little marked friendliness. Besides, she would like to ask him whether he was really going back to town on Thursday.

She tapped twice before an answer came; and then it seemed a rather breathless voice which spoke.

The boy was sitting bolt upright on the edge of the sofa, with a couple of candles at his side, and the book in his hands. There was a strained and intensely interested look in his eyes.

"May I come in for a few minutes? It's nearly dressing time," she said.

"Oh--er--certainly."

He got up, rather stiffly, still keeping his place in the book with one finger, while she sat down. Then he too sat again, and there was silence for a moment.

"Why, you're not smoking," she said.

"I forgot. I will now, if you don't mind!"

She saw his fingers tremble a little as he put out his hand to a box of cigarettes at his side. But he put the book down, after looking at the page.

She could keep her question in no longer.

"What do you think of that," she said, nodding at the book.

He filled his lungs with smoke and exhaled again slowly.

"I think it's extraordinary," he said shortly.

"In what way?"

Again he paused before answering. Then he answered deliberately.

"If human evidence is worth anything, those things happen," he said.

"What things?"

"The dead return."

Maggie looked at him, aware of his deliberate attempt at dramatic brevity. He was watching the end of his cigarette with elaborate attention, and his face had that white, rather determined look that she had seen on it once or twice before, in the presence of a domestic crisis.

"Do you really mean you believe that?" she said, with a touch of careful bitterness in her voice.

"I do," he said, "or else--"

"Well?"

"Or else human evidence is worth nothing at all."

Maggie understood him perfectly; but she realized that this was not an occasion to force issues. She still put the tone of faint irony into her voice.

"You really believe that Cardinal Newman comes to Mr. Vincent's drawing room and raps on tables?"

"I really believe that it is possible to get into touch with those whom we call dead. Each instance, of course, depends on its own evidence."

"And Cardinal Newman?"

"I have not studied the evidence for Cardinal Newman," remarked Laurie in a head-voice.

"Let's have a look at that book," said Maggie impulsively.

He handed it to her; and she began to turn the pages, pausing now and again to read a particular paragraph, and once for nearly a minute while she examined an illustration. Certainly the book seemed interestingly written, and she read an argument or two that appeared reasonably presented. Yet she was extraordinarily repelled even by the dead paper and ink she had in her hands. It was as if it was something obscene. Finally she tossed it back on to the couch.

Laurie waited; but she said nothing.

"Well?" he asked at last, still refraining from looking at her.

"I think it's horrible," she said.

Laurie delicately adjusted a little tobacco protruding from his cigarette.

"Isn't that a little unreasonable?" he asked. "You've hardly looked at it yet."

Maggie knew this mood of his only too well. He reserved it for occasions when he was determined to fight. Argument was a useless weapon against it.

"My dear boy," she said with an effort, "I'm sorry. I daresay it is unreasonable. But that kind of thing does seem to me so disgusting. That's all.... I didn't come to talk about that.... Tell me--"

"Didn't you?" said Laurie.

Maggie was silent.

"Didn't you?"

"Well--yes I did. But I don't want to any more."

Laurie smiled so that it might be seen.

"Well, what else did you want to say?" He glanced purposely at the book. Maggie ignored his glance.

"I just came to see how you were getting on."

"How do you mean? With the book?"

"No; in every way."

He looked up at her swiftly and suddenly, and she saw that his agony of sorrow was acute beneath all his attempts at superiority, his courteous fractiousness, and his set face. She was filled suddenly with an enormous pity.

"Oh! Laurie, I'm so sorry," she cried out. "Can't I do anything?"

"Nothing, thanks; nothing at all," he said quietly.

Again pity and misery surged up within her, and she cast all prudence to the winds. She had not realized how fond she was of this boy till she saw once more that look in his eyes.

"Oh! Laurie, you know I didn't like it; but--but I don't know what to do, I'm so sorry. But don't spoil it all," she said wildly, hardly knowing what she feared.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You know what I mean. Don't spoil it, by--by fancying things."

"Maggie," said the boy quietly, "you must let me alone. You can't help."

"Can't I?"

"You can't help," he repeated. "I must go my own way. Please don't say any more. I can't stand it."

There followed a dead silence. Then Maggie recovered and stood up. He rose with her.

"Forgive me, Laurie, won't you? I must say this. You'll remember I'll always do anything I can, won't you?"

Then she was gone.


IV


The ladies went to bed early at Stantons. At ten o'clock precisely a clinking of bedroom candlesticks was heard in the hall, followed by the sound of locking doors. This was the signal. Mrs. Baxter laid aside her embroidery with the punctuality of a religious at the sound of a bell, and said two words--

"My dears."

There were occasionally exclamatory expostulations from the two at the piquet-table, but in nine cases out of ten the game had been designed with an eye upon the clock, and hardly any delay followed. Mrs. Baxter kissed her son, and passed her arm through Maggie's. Laurie followed; gave them candles, and generally took one himself.

But this evening there was no piquet. Laurie had stayed later than usual in the dining-room, and had wandered rather restlessly about when he had joined the others. He looked at a London evening paper for a little, paced about, vanished again, and only returned as the ladies were making ready to depart. Then he gave them their candlesticks, and himself came back to the drawing room.

He was, in fact, in a far more perturbed and excited mood than even Maggie had had any idea of. She had interrupted him half-way through the book, but he had read again steadily until five minutes before dinner, and had, indeed, gone back again to finish it afterwards. He had now finished it; and he wanted to think.

It had had a surprising effect on him, coming as it did upon a state of mind intensely stirred to its depths by his sorrow. Crossness, as I have said, had been the natural psychological result of his emotions; but his emotions were none the less real. The froth of whipped cream is real cream, after all.

Now Laurie had seen perfectly well the extreme unconvincingness of Mrs. Stapleton, and had been genuine enough in his little shrug of disapproval in answer to Maggie's, after lunch; yet that lady's remarks had been sufficient just to ignite the train of thought. This train had smoldered in the afternoon, had been fanned ever so slightly by two breezes--the sense of Maggie's superiority and the faint rebellious reaction which had come upon him with regard to his personal religion. Certainly he had had Mass said for Amy this morning; but it had been by almost a superstitious rather than a religious instinct. He was, in fact, in that state of religious unreality which occasionally comes upon converts within a year or two of the change of their faith. The impetus of old association is absent, and the force of novelty has died.

Underneath all this then, it must be remembered that the one thing that was intensely real to him was his sense of loss of the one soul in whom his own had been wrapped up. Even this afternoon as yesterday, even this morning as he lay awake, he had been conscious of an irresistible impulse to demand some sign, to catch some glimpse of that which was now denied to him.

It was in this mood that he had read the book; and it is not to be wondered at that he had been excited by it.

For it opened up to him, beneath all its sham mysticism, its intolerable affectations, its grotesque parody of spirituality--of all of which he was largely aware--a glimmering avenue of a faintly possible hope of which he had never dreamed--a hope, at least, of that half self-deception which is so tempting to certain characters.

Here, in this book, written by a living man, whose name and address were given, were stories so startling, and theories so apparently consonant with themselves and with other partly known facts--stories and theories, too, which met so precisely his own overmastering desire, that it is little wonder that he was affected by them.

Naturally, even during his reading, a thousand answers and adverse comments had sprung to his mind--suggestions of fraud, of lying, of hallucination--but yet, here the possibility remained. Here were living men and women who, with the usual complement of senses and reason, declared categorically and in detail, that on this and that date, in this place and the other, after having taken all possible precautions against fraud, they had received messages from the dead--messages of which the purport was understood by none but themselves--that they had seen with their eyes, in sufficient light, the actual features of the dead whom they loved, that they had even clasped their hands, and held for an instant the bodies of those whom they had seen die with their own eyes, and buried.