The Upas Tree, Florence Louisa Barclay [the little red hen read aloud .TXT] 📗

Infant, out of reach of the tempting strings.

"I am not going to play," he said. "The very first time I really play, must be in the studio, and Helen must be there. But I will just sound the open strings."

He looked down upon the 'cello and waited, the light of expectation brightening in his face.

Aubrey Treherne noted the remarkable correctness of the position he had unconsciously assumed.

Then Ronnie, raising the bow, drew it, with unfaltering touch, across the silver depths of lower C.

A rich, full note, rising, falling, vibrating, filled the room. The Infant of Prague was singing. A master-hand had waked its voice once more.

Ronnie's head swam. A hot mist was before his eyes. His breath came in short sobs. He had completely forgotten the sardonic face of his wife's cousin, in the chair opposite.

Then the hot mist cleared. He raised the bow once more, and drew it across G.

G merged into D without a pause. Then, with a strong triumphant sweep, he sounded A.

The four open strings of the 'cello had given forth their full sweetness and power.

"Helen, oh, Helen!" said Ronnie.

Then he looked up, and saw Aubrey Treherne.

He laughed, rather unsteadily. "I thought I was at home," he said. "For the moment it seemed as if I must be at home. I was experiencing the purest joy I have known since I left Helen. What do you think of my 'cello, man? Isn't it wonderful?"

"It is very wonderful," said Aubrey Treherne. "Your Infant is all you hoped. The tone is perfect. But what is still more wonderful is that you--who believe yourself never to have handled a 'cello before--can set the strings vibrating with such unerring skill; such complete mastery. Of course, to me, the mystery is no mystery. The reason of it all is perfectly clear."

"What is the reason of it all?" inquired Ronnie, eagerly.

"In a former existence, dear boy," said Aubrey Treherne, slowly, "you were a great master of the 'cello. Probably the Infant of Prague was your favourite instrument. It called to you from its high place in the 'cello room at Zimmermann's, as it has been calling to you for years; only, at last, it made you hear. It was your own, and you knew it. You would have bought it, had its price been a thousand pounds. You could not have left the place without the Infant in your possession."

Ronald's feverish flush deepened. His eyes grew more burningly bright.

"What an extraordinary idea!" he said. "I don't think Helen would like it, and I am perfectly certain Helen would not believe it."

"You cannot refuse to believe a truth because it does not happen to appeal to your wife," said Aubrey. "Grasp it clearly yourself; then educate her up to a proper understanding of the matter. All of us who are worth anything in this world have lived before--not once, nor twice, but many times. We bring the varied experiences of all previous existences, unconsciously to bear upon and to enrich this one. Have you not often heard the expression 'A born musician'? What do we mean by that? Why, a man born with a knowledge, a sense, an experience, of music, who does not require to go through the mill of learning all the rudiments before music can express itself through him, because the soul of music is in him. He plays by instinct--some folk call it inspiration. Technical, skill he may have to acquire--his fingers are new to it. The understanding of notation he may have to master again--the brain he uses _consciously_ is also of fresh construction. But the sub-conscious self, the _Ego_ of the man, the real eternal soul of him, leaps back with joy to the thing he has done perfectly before. He is a born musician; just as John the Baptist was a born prophet, because, into the little body prepared by Zacharias and Elisabeth, came the great _Ego_ of Elijah reincarnate; to reappear as a full-grown prophet on the banks of the Jordan--the very spot from which he had been caught away, his life-work only half-accomplished, nine centuries before. Even our good Helen, if she knows her Bible, could hardly question this, remembering Whom it was Who said: 'If ye will receive it, this _is_ Elijah which was for to come; and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.'"

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Ronnie. "What a theory! But indeed Helen would question it; and not only so, but she would be exceedingly upset and very much annoyed."

"Then Helen would fully justify the 'If' of the greatest of all teachers. She would come under the heading of those who refuse to receive a truth, however clearly and unmistakably expressed."

"Lor!" exclaimed Ronnie, in undisguised perplexity. "You have completely cornered me. But then I never set up for being a theologian."

"No; you are a born artist and musician. Music, tone, sound, colour, vibrate in every page of your romances. Had your parents taught you harmony, the piano, and the fiddle, your music would have burst forth along its normal lines. As they merely taught you the alphabet and grammar, your creative faculty turned to literature; you wrote romances full of music, instead of composing music full of romance. It is a distinction without a difference. But, now that you have found your mislaid 'cello, and I am teaching you to KNOW YOURSELF, you will do both."

Ronald stared across at Aubrey. His head was throbbing. Every moment he seemed to become more certain that he had indeed, many times before, held the Infant of Prague between his knees.

But there was a weird, uncanny feeling in the room. Helen seemed to walk in, to seat herself in the empty chair; and, leaning forward, to look at him steadily, with her clear earnest eyes. She seemed to repeat impressively: "Aubrey is not a good man, Ronnie. He is not a man you should trust."

"Well?" asked Aubrey, at last. "Do you recognise the truth?"

Then, with an effort, Ronnie answered as he believed Helen would have answered; and her face beside him seemed to smile approval.

"It sounds a plausible theory," he said slowly; "it may possibly be a truth. But it is not a truth required by us now. Our obvious duty in the present is to live this life out to its fullest and best, regarding it as a time of preparation for the next."

Aubrey's thin lips framed the word "Rubbish!" but, checking it unuttered, substituted: "Quite right. This existence _is_ a preparation for the next; just as that which preceded was a preparation for this."

Then Ronnie ceased to express Helen, and gave vent to an idea of his own.

"It would make a jolly old muddle of all our relationships," he said.

"Not at all," replied Aubrey. "It merely readjusts them, compensating for disappointments in the present, by granting us the assurance of past possessions, and the expectation of future enjoyment. In the life which preceded this, Helen was probably _my_ wife, while _you_ were a beautiful old person in diamond shoe-buckles, knee-breeches, and old lace, who played the 'cello at our wedding."

"Confound you!" cried Ronnie, in sudden fury, springing up and swinging the 'cello above his head, as if about to bring it down, with a crashing blow, upon Aubrey. "Damned old shoe-buckle yourself! Helen was never your wife! More likely you blacked her boots and mine!"

"Oh, hush!" smiled Aubrey, in contemptuous amusement. "Excellent young men who make innocent love in rose-gardens, never say 'damn.' And in those days, dear boy, we did not use shoe-blacking. Pray calm yourself, and sit down. You are upsetting the internal arrangements of your Infant. If you swing a baby violently about, it makes it sick. Any old Gamp will tell you that."

Ronnie sat down; but solely because his knees suddenly gave way beneath him. The floor on which he was standing seemed to become deep sand.

"Keep calm," sneered Aubrey Treherne. "Perhaps you would like to know my excellent warrant for concluding that Helen was my wife in a former life? She came very near to being my wife in this. She was engaged to me before she ever met you, my boy. Had it not been for the interference of that strong-minded shrew, Mrs. Dalmain, she would have married me. I had kissed my cousin Helen, as much as I pleased, before you had ever touched her hand."

The incandescent lights grew blood-red, leaping up and down, in wild, bewildering frolic.

Then they steadied suddenly. Helen's calm, lovely figure, in a shaft of sunlight, reappeared in the empty chair.

Ronnie handed the Infant to her; rose, staggered across the intervening space, and struck Aubrey Treherne a violent blow on the mouth.

Aubrey gripped his arms, and for a moment the two men glared at one another.

Then Ronnie's knees gave way again; his feet sank deeply into the sand; and Aubrey, forcing him violently backward, pinned him down in his chair.

"I would kill you for this," he whispered, his face very close to Ronnie's; blood streaming from his lip. "I would kill you for this, you clown! But I mean to kiss Helen again; and life, while it holds that prospect, is too sweet to risk losing for the mere pleasure of wiping you out. Otherwise, I would kill you now, with my two hands."

Then a black pulsating curtain rolled, in impenetrable folds, between Ronnie and that livid bleeding face, and he sank away--down--down--down--into silent depths of darkness and of solitude.


CHAPTER VI


AUBREY PUTS DOWN HIS FOOT

Ronnie's first sensation as he returned to consciousness, was of extreme lassitude and exhaustion.

His eyelids lifted heavily; he had some difficulty in realising where he was.

Then he saw his 'cello, leaning against a chair; and, a moment later, Aubrey Treherne, lying back in the seat opposite, enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke.

"Hullo, West!" said Aubrey, kindly. "You put in your half-hour quite unexpectedly. You were trying, in a sleepy fashion, to tell me how you came to purchase this fine 'cello; but you dropped off, with the tale unfinished."

Ronnie looked in silence at his wife's cousin.

"Are you the better for your sleep?"

"I am fagged out," said Ronnie, wearily.

Aubrey went to a cupboard, poured something into a glass, and handed it to Ronald.

"Drink this, my boy. It will soon wake you up."

Ronnie drank it. Its tint was golden, its odour, fragrant; but otherwise, for aught he knew, it might have been pure water.

He sat up and took careful note of his surroundings.

Then an idea seemed to strike him. He leaned forward and twanged the strings of his 'cello. They were not in tune.

"Will you lend me your tuning-fork?" he said to Aubrey.

But Aubrey had expected this.

"Sorry," he said. "I don't possess one, just now. I gave away mine last week. You can tune your 'cello by the organ."

"I don't know how to tune a 'cello," said Ronnie.

"Let me show you," suggested Aubrey, with the utmost friendliness.

He walked over to the organ, drew out the 'cello stop, sounded a note, then came back humming it.

Then he took up the Infant and carefully tuned the four strings, talking easily meanwhile.

"You see? You screw up the pegs--so. The notes are A, D, G, C."

"What have you done to your lip?" said Ronald, suddenly.