Book: The Necromancers

R >> Robert Hugh Benson >> The Necromancers




Two things, however, prevailed to keep the matter before his mind.
The first was his own sense of loss, his own experience, sore and hot
within him, of the unapproachable emptiness of death; the second,
Maggie's attitude. When a plainly sensible and controlled young woman
takes up a position of superiority, she is apt, unless the young man
in her company happens to be in love with her--and sometimes even when
he is--to provoke and irritate him into a camp of opposition. She is
still more apt to do so if her relations to him have once been in the
line of even greater tenderness.

Laurie then was not in the most favorable of moods to receive the
dicta of the Vicar.

They were announced to him immediately after Mrs. Baxter had received
from Maggie's hands her first cup of tea.

"Mr. Rymer tells me it's all nonsense," she said.

Laurie looked up.

"What?" he said.

"Mr. Rymer tells me Spiritualism is all nonsense. He told me about
someone called Eglingham, who kept a beard in his portmanteau."

"Eglinton, I think, auntie," put in Maggie.

"I daresay, my dear. Anyhow, it's all the same. I felt sure it must be
so." Laurie took a bun, with a thoughtful air.

"Does Mr. Rymer know very much about it, do you think, mother?"

"Dear boy, I think he knows all that anyone need know. Besides, if you
come to think of it, how could Cardinal Newman possibly appear in a
drawing-room? Particularly when Mrs. Stapleton says he isn't a
Christian any longer."

This had a possible and rather pleasing double interpretation; but
Laurie decided it was not worth while to be humorous.

"What about the Witch of Endor?" he asked innocently, instead.

"That was in the Old Testament," answered his mother rapidly. "Mr.
Rymer said something about that too."

"Oh! wasn't it really Samuel who appeared?"

"Mr. Rymer thinks that things were permitted then that are not
permitted now."

Laurie drank up his cup of tea. It is a humiliating fact that extreme
grief often renders the mourner rather cross. There was a distinct air
of crossness about Laurie at this moment. His nerves were very near
the top.

"Well, that's very convenient," he said. "Maggie, do you know if
there's any book on Spiritualism in the house?"

The girl glanced uneasily near the fire-place.

"I don't know," she said. "Yes; I think there's something up there. I
believe I saw it the other day."

Laurie rose and stood opposite the shelves.

"What color is it? (No, no more tea, thanks.)"

"Er ... black and red, I think," said the girl. "I forget."

She looked up at him, faintly uneasy, as he very deliberately drew
down a book from the shelf and turned the pages.

"Yes ... this is it," he said. "Thanks very much.... No, really no
more tea, thanks, mother."

Then he went to the door, with his easy, rather long steps, and
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.

* * * * *

When the ladies' footsteps had ceased to sound overhead, Laurie went
to the French window, opened it, and passed on to the lawn.

He was astonished at the warmth of the September night. The little
wind that had been chilly this afternoon had dropped with the coming
of the dark, and high overhead he could see the great masses of the
leaves motionless against the sky. He passed round the house, and
beneath the yews, and sat down on the garden bench.

It was darker here than outside on the lawn. Beneath his feet were the
soft needles from the trees, and above him, as he looked out, still
sunk in his thought, he could see the glimmer of a star or two between
the branches.

It was a fragrant, kindly night. From the hamlet of half a dozen
houses beyond the garden came no sound; and the house, too, was still
behind him. An illuminated window somewhere on the first floor went
out as he looked at it, like a soul leaving a body; once a sleepy bird
somewhere in the shrubbery chirped to its mate and was silent again.

Then as he still labored in argument, putting this against that, and
weighing that against the other, his emotion rose up in an
irresistible torrent, and all consideration ceased. One thing
remained: he must have Amy, or he must die.

* * * * *

It was five or six minutes before he moved again from that attitude of
clenched hands and tensely strung muscles into which his sudden
passion had cast him.

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 space 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 pass her room.




_Chapter III_


I

Lady Laura Bethell, 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 emancipated 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 passion 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,
emancipating 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 banality 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."

"Now how nice of you to say that! Do you know, I was wondering as we
talked. Now do tell me exactly what is in your mind, Mr. Baxter."

Mrs. Stapleton was conscious of a considerable sense of pleasure.
Usually she found this kind of man very imperceptive and gross. Laurie
seemed perfectly at his ease, dressed quite in the proper way, and had
an air of presentableness that usually only went with Philistinism.
She determined to do her best.

"May I speak quite freely, please?" he asked, looking straight at her.

"Please, please," she said, with that touch of childish intensity that
her friends thought so innocent and beautiful.

"Well, it's like this," said Laurie. "I've always rather disliked all
that kind of thing, more than I can say. It did seem to me
so--well--so feeble, don't you know; and then I'm a Catholic, you see,
and so--"

"Yes; yes?"

"Well, I've been reading Mr. Stainton Moses, and one or two other
books; and I must say that an awful lot of it seems to me still great
rubbish; and then there are any amount of frauds, aren't there, Mrs.
Stapleton, in that line?"

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