Book: The Necromancers

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"Alas! Ah, yes!"

"But then I don't know what to make of some of the evidence that
remains. It seems to me that if evidence is worth anything at all,
there must be something real at the back of it all. And then, if that
is so, if it really is true that it is possible to get into actual
touch with people who are dead--I mean really and truly, so that
there's no kind of doubt about it--well, that does seem to me about
the most important thing in the world. Do you see?"

She kept her eyes on his face for an instant or two. Plainly he was
really moved; his face had gone a little white in the lamplight and
his hands were clasped tightly enough over his knee to whiten the
knuckles. She remembered Lady Laura's remarks about the village girl,
and understood. But she perceived that she must not attempt intimacy
just yet with this young man: he would resent it. Besides, she was
shrewd enough to see by his manner that he did not altogether like
her.

She nodded pensively once or twice. Then she turned to him with a
bright smile. "I understand entirely," she said. "May I too speak
quite freely? Yes? Well, I am so glad you have spoken out. Of course,
we are quite accustomed to being distrusted and feared. After all, it
is the privilege of all truth-seekers to suffer, is it not? Well, I
will say what is in my heart.

"First, you are quite right about some of our workers being dishonest
sometimes. They are, Mr. Baxter, I have seen more than one, myself,
exposed. But that is natural, is it not? Why, there have been bad
Catholics, too, have there not? And, after all, we are only human; and
there is a great temptation sometimes not to send people away
disappointed. You have heard those stories, I expect, Mr. Baxter?"

"I have heard of Mr. Eglinton."

"Ah! Poor Willie.... Yes. But he had great powers, for all that....
Well, but the point you want to get at is this, is it not? Is it
really true, underneath it all? Is that it?"

Laurie nodded, looking at her steadily. She leaned forward.

"Mr. Baxter, by all that I hold most sacred, I assure you that it is,
that I myself have seen and touched ... _touched_ ... my own father,
who crossed over twenty years ago. I have received messages from his
own lips ... and communications in other ways too, concerning matters
only known to him and to myself. Is that sufficient? No"; (she held up
a delicate silencing hand) "... no, I will not ask you to take my
word. I will ask you to test it for yourself."

Laurie too leaned forward now in his low chair, his hands clasped
between his knees.

"You will--you will let me test it?" he said in a low voice.

She sat back easily, pushing her draperies straight. She was in some
fine silk that fell straight from her high slender waist to her
copper-colored shoes.

"Listen, Mr. Baxter. Tomorrow there is coming to this house certainly
the greatest medium in London, if not in Europe. (Of course we cannot
compete with the East. We are only children beside them.) Well, this
man, Mr. Vincent--I think I spoke of him to you last week--he is
coming here just for a talk to one or two friends. There shall be no
difficulty if you wish it. I will speak to Lady Laura before you go."

Laurie looked at her without moving.

"I shall be very much obliged," he said. "You will remember that I am
not yet in the least convinced? I only want to know."

"That is exactly the right attitude. That is all we have any right to
ask. We do not ask for blind faith, Mr. Baxter--only for believing
after having seen."

Laurie nodded slowly.

"That seems to me reasonable," he said.

There was silence for a moment. Then she determined on a bold stroke.

"There is someone in particular--Mr. Baxter--forgive me for
asking--someone who has passed over--?"

She sank her voice to what she had been informed was a sympathetic
tone, and was scarcely prepared for the sudden tightening of that
face.

"That is my affair, Mrs. Stapleton."

Ah well, she had been premature. She would fetch Lady Laura, she said;
she thought she might venture for such a purpose. No, she would not be
away three minutes. Then she rustled out.

Laurie went to the fire to wait, and stood there, mechanically warming
his hands and staring down at that sleeping core of red coal.

He had taken his courage in both hands in coming at all. In spite of
his brave words to Maggie, he had been conscious of a curious
repulsion with regard to the whole matter--a repulsion not only of
contempt towards the elaborate affectations of the woman he had
determined to consult. Yet he had come.

What he had said just now had been perfectly true. He was not yet in
the least convinced, but he was anxious, intensely and passionately
anxious, goaded too by desire.

Ah! surely it was absurd and fantastic--here in London, in this
century. He turned and faced the lamp-lit room, letting his eyes
wander round the picture-hung walls, the blue stamped paper, the
Empire furniture, the general appearance of beautiful comfort and sane
modern life. It was absurd and fantastic; he would be disappointed
again, as he had been disappointed in everything else. These things
did not happen--the dead did not return. Step by step those things
that for centuries had been deemed evidence of the supernatural, one
by one had been explained and discounted. Hypnotism, water divining,
witchcraft, and the rest. All these had once been believed to be
indisputable proofs of a life beyond the grave, of strange supernormal
personalities, and these, one by one, had been either accounted for or
discredited. It was mad of him to be alarmed or excited. No, he would
go through with it, expecting nothing, hoping nothing. But he would
just go through with it to satisfy himself....

The door opened, and the two ladies came in.

"I am delighted that you called, Mr. Baxter; and on such an errand!"

Lady Laura put out a hand, tremulous with pleasure at welcoming a
possible disciple.

"Mrs. Stapleton has explained--" began Laurie.

"I understand everything. You come as a skeptic--no, not as a skeptic,
but as an inquirer, that is all that we wish.... Then tomorrow, at
about half-past four."




_Chapter IV_


I

It was a mellow October afternoon, glowing towards sunset, as Laurie
came across the south end of the park to his appointment next day; and
the effect of it upon his mind was singularly unsuggestive of
supernatural mystery. Instead, the warm sky, the lights beginning to
peep here and there, though an hour before sunset, turned him rather
in the direction of the natural and the domestic.

He wondered what his mother and Maggie would say if they knew his
errand, for he had sufficient self-control not to have told them of
his intentions. As regards his mother he did not care very much. Of
course she would deprecate it and feebly dissuade; but he recognized
that there was no particular principle behind, beyond a sense of
discomfort at the unknown. But it was necessary for him to argue with
himself about Maggie. The angry kind of contempt that he knew she
would feel needed an answer; and he gave it by reminding himself that
she had been brought up in a convent-school, that she knew nothing of
the world, and that, lastly, he himself did not take the matter
seriously. He was aware, too, that the instinctive repulsion that she
felt so keenly found a certain echo in his own feelings; but he
explained this by the novelty of the thing.

In fact, the attitude of mind in which he more or less succeeded in
arraying himself was that of one who goes to see a serious conjurer.
It would be rather fun, he thought, to see a table dancing. But there
was not wholly wanting that inexplicable tendency of some natures
deliberately to deceive themselves on what lies nearest to their
hearts.

Mr. Vincent had not yet arrived when he was shown upstairs, even
though Laurie himself was late. (This was partly deliberate. He
thought it best to show a little nonchalance.) There was only a young
clergyman in the room with the ladies; and the two were introduced.

"Mr. Baxter--Mr. Jamieson."

He seemed a harmless young man, thought Laurie, and plainly a little
nervous at the situation in which he found himself, as might a
greyhound carry himself in a kennel of well-bred foxhounds. He was
very correctly dressed, with Roman collar and stock, and obviously had
not long left a theological college. He had an engaging kind of
courtesy, ecclesiastically cut features, and curly black hair. He sat
balancing a delicate cup adroitly on his knee.

"Mr. Jamieson is so anxious to know all that is going on," explained
Lady Laura, with a voluble frankness. "He thinks it so necessary to be
abreast of the times, as he said to me the other day."

Laurie assented, grimly pitying the young man for his indiscreet
confidences. The clergyman looked priggish in his efforts not to do
so.

"He has a class of young men on Sundays," continued the
hostess--"(Another biscuit, Maud darling?)--whom he tries to interest
in all modern movements. He thinks it so important."

Mr. Jamieson cleared his throat in a virile manner.

"Just so," he said; "exactly so."

"And so I told him he must really come and meet Mr. Vincent.... I
can't think why he is so late; but he has so many calls upon his time,
that I am sure I wonder--"

"Mr. Vincent," announced the footman.

A rather fine figure of a man came forward into the room, dressed in
much better taste than Laurie somehow had expected, and not at all
like the type of an insane dissenting minister in broadcloth which he
had feared. Instead, it was a big man that he saw, stooping a little,
inclined to stoutness, with a full curly beard tinged with grey,
rather overhung brows, and a high forehead, from which the same kind
of curly greyish hair was beginning to retreat. He was in a well-cut
frock-coat and dark trousers, with the collar of the period and a dark
tie.

Lady Laura was in a flutter of welcome, pouring out little sentences,
leading him to a seat, introducing him, and finally pressing
refreshments into his hands.

"It is too good of you," she said; "too good of you, with all your
engagements.... These gentlemen are most anxious.... Mrs. Stapleton of
course you know.... And you will just sit and talk to us ... like
friends ... won't you.... No, no! no formal speech at all ... just a
few words ... and you will allow us to ask you questions...."

And so on.

Meanwhile Laurie observed the high-priest carefully and narrowly, and
was quite unable to see any of the unpleasant qualities he had
expected. He sat easily, without self-consciousness or arrogance or
unpleasant humility. He had a pair of pleasant, shrewd, and rather
kind eyes; and his voice, when he said a word or two in answer to Lady
Laura's volubility, was of that resonant softness that is always a
delight to hear. In fact, his whole bearing and personality was that
of a rather exceptional average man--a publisher, it might be, or a
retired lawyer--a family man with a sober round of life and ordinary
duties, who brought to their fulfillment a wholesome, kindly, but
distinctly strong character of his own. Laurie hardly knew whether he
was pleased or disappointed. He would almost have preferred a wild
creature with rolling eyes, in a cloak; yet he would have been
secretly amused and contemptuous at such a man.

"The sitting is off for Sunday, by the way, Lady Laura," said the
new-comer.

"Indeed! How is that?"

"Oh! there was some mistake about the rooms; it's the secretary's
fault; you mustn't blame me."

Lady Laura cried out her dismay and disappointment, and Mrs.
Stapleton played chorus. It was _too_ tiresome, they said, _too_
provoking, particularly just now, when "Annie" was so complacent.
(Mrs. Stapleton explained kindly to the two young gentlemen that
"Annie" was a spirit who had lately made various very interesting
revelations.) What was to be done? Were there no other rooms?

Mr. Vincent shook his head. It was too late, he said, to make
arrangements now.

While the ladies continued to buzz, and Mr. Jamieson to listen from
the extreme edge of his chair, Laurie continued to make mental
comments. He felt distinctly puzzled by the marked difference between
the prophet and his disciples. These were so shallow; this so
impressive by the most ordinary of all methods, and the most difficult
of imitation, that is, by sheer human personality. He could not grasp
the least common multiple of the two sides. Yet this man tolerated
these women, and, indeed, seemed very kind and friendly towards them.
He seemed to possess that sort of competence which rises from the fact
of having well-arranged ideas and complete certitude about them.

And at last a pause came. Mr. Vincent set down his cup for the second
time, refused buttered bun, and waited.

"Yes, do smoke, Mr. Vincent."

The man drew out his cigarette-case, smiling, offering it to the two
men. Laurie took one; the clergyman refused.

"And now, Mr. Vincent."

Again he smiled, in a half-embarrassed way.

"But no speeches, I think you said," he remarked.

"Oh! well, you know what I mean; just like friends, you know. Treat
us all like that."

Mrs. Stapleton rose, came nearer the circle, rustled down again, and
sank into an elaborate silence.

"Well, what is it these gentlemen wish to hear?"

"Everything--everything," cried Lady Laura. "They claim to know
nothing at all."

Laurie thought it time to explain himself a little. He felt he would
not like to take this man at an unfair advantage.

"I should just like to say this," he said. "I have told Mrs. Stapleton
already. It is this. I must confess that so far as I am concerned I am
not a believer. But neither am I a skeptic. I am just a real agnostic
in this matter. I have read several books; and I have been impressed.
But there's a great deal in them that seems to me nonsense; perhaps I
had better say which I don't understand. This materializing business,
for instance.... I can understand that the minds of the dead can
affect ours; but I don't see how they can affect matter--in
table-rapping, for instance, and still more in appearing, and our
being able to touch and see them.... I think that's my position," he
ended rather lamely.

The fact was that he was a little disconcerted by the other's eyes.
They were, as I have said, kind and shrewd eyes, but they had a good
deal of power as well. Mr. Vincent sat motionless during this little
speech, just looking at him, not at all offensively, yet with the
effect of making the young man feel rather like a defiant and naughty
little boy who is trying to explain.

Laurie sat back and drew on his cigarette rather hard.

"I understand perfectly," said the steady voice. "You are in a very
reasonable position. I wish all were as open-minded. May I say a word
or two?"

"Please."

"Well, it is materialization that puzzles you, is it?"

"Exactly," said Laurie. "Our theologians tell us--by the way, I am a
Catholic." (The other bowed a little.) "Our theologians, I believe,
tell us that such a thing cannot be, except under peculiar
circumstances, as in the lives of the saints, and so on."

"Are you bound to believe all that your theologians say?" asked the
other quietly.

"Well, it would be very rash indeed--" began Laurie.

"Exactly, I see. But what if you approach it from the other side, and
try to find out instead whether these things actually do happen. I do
not wish to be rude, Mr. Baxter; but you remember that your
theologians--I am not so foolish as to say the Church, for I know that
that was not so--but your theologians, you know, made a mistake about
Galileo."

Laurie winced a little. Mr. Jamieson cleared his throat in gentle
approval.

"Now I don't ask you to accept anything contrary to your faith," went
on the other gently; "but if you really wish to look into this matter,
you must set aside for the present all other presuppositions. You must
not begin by assuming that the theologians are always right, nor even
in asking how or why these things should happen. The one point is, _Do
they happen?_"

His last words had a curious little effect as of a sudden flame. He
had spoken smoothly and quietly; then he had suddenly put an
unexpected emphasis into the little sentence at the end. Laurie
jumped, internally. Yes, that was the point, he assented internally.

"Now," went on the other, again in that slow, reassuring voice,
flicking off the ash of his cigarette, "is it possible for you to
doubt that these things happen? May I ask you what books you have
read?"

Laurie named three or four.

"And they have not convinced you?"

"Not altogether."

"Yet you accept human evidence for a great many much more remarkable
things than these--as a Catholic."

"That is Divine Revelation," said Laurie, sure of his ground.

"Pardon me," said the other. "I do not in the least say it is not
Divine Revelation--that is another question--but you receive the
statement that it is so, on the word of man. Is that not true?"

Laurie was silent. He did not quite know what to say; and he almost
feared the next words. But he was astonished that the other did not
press home the point.

"Think over that, Mr. Baxter. That is all I ask. And now for the real
thing. You sincerely wish to be convinced?"

"I am ready to be convinced."

The medium paused an instant, looking intently at the fire. Then he
tossed the stump of his cigarette away and lighted another. The two
ladies sat motionless.

"You seem fond of _a priori_ arguments, Mr. Baxter," he began, with a
kindly smile. "Let us have one or two, then.

"Consider first the relation of your soul to your body. That is
infinitely mysterious, is it not? An emotion rises in your soul, and a
flush of blood marks it. That is the subconscious mechanism of your
body. But to say that, does not explain it. It is only a label. You
follow me? Yes? Or still more mysterious is your conscious power. You
will to raise your hand, and it obeys. Muscular action? Oh yes; but
that is but another label." He turned his eyes, suddenly somber, upon
the staring, listening young man, and his voice rose a little. "Go
right behind all that, Mr. Baxter, down to the mysteries. What is that
link between soul and body? You do not know! Nor does the wisest
scientist in the world. Nor ever will. Yet there the link is!"

Again he paused.

Laurie was aware of a rising half-excited interest far beyond the
power of the words he heard. Yet the manner of these too was striking.
It was not the sham mysticism he had expected. There was a certain
reverence in them, an admitting of mysteries, that seemed hard to
reconcile with the ideas he had formed of the dogmatism of these folk.

"Now begin again," continued the quiet, virile voice. "You believe, as
a Christian, in the immortality of the soul, in the survival of
personality after death. Thank God for that! All do not, in these
days. Then I need not labor at that.

"Now, Mr. Baxter, imagine to yourself some soul that you have loved
passionately, who has crossed over to the other side." Laurie drew a
long, noiseless breath, steadying himself with clenched hands. "She
has come to the unimaginable glories, according to her measure; she is
at an end of doubts and fears and suspicions. She knows because she
sees.... But do you think that she is absorbed in these things? You
know nothing of human love, Mr. Baxter" (the voice trembled with
genuine emotion) ... "if you can think that...! If you can think that
her thought turns only to herself and her joys. Why, her life has been
lived in your love by our hypothesis--you were at her bedside when she
died, perhaps; and she clung to you as to God Himself, when the shadow
deepened. Do you think that her first thought, or at least her second,
will not be of you...? In all that she sees, she will desire you to
see it also. She will strive, crave, hunger for you--not that she may
possess you, but that you may be one with her in her own possession;
she will send out vibration after vibration of sympathy and longing;
and you, on this side, will be tuned to her as none other can be--you,
on this side, will be empty for her love, for the sight and sound of
her.... Is death then so strong?--stronger than love? Can a Christian
believe that?"

The change in the man was extraordinary. His heavy beard and brows hid
half his face, but his whole being glowed passionately in his voice,
even in his little trembling gestures, and Laurie sat astonished.
Every word uttered seemed to fit his own case, to express by an almost
perfect vehicle the vague thoughts that had struggled in his own heart
during this last week. It was Amy of whom the man spoke, Amy with her
eyes and hair, peering from the glorious gloom to catch some glimpse
of her lover in his meaningless light of earthly day.

Mr. Vincent cleared his throat a little, and at the sound the two
motionless women stirred and rustled a little. The sound of a hansom,
the spanking trot and wintry jingle of bells swelled out of the
distance, passed, and went into silence before he spoke again. Then it
was in his usual slow voice that he continued.

"Conceive such a soul as that, Mr. Baxter. She desires to communicate
with one she loves on earth, with you or me, and it is a human and
innocent desire. Yet she has lost that connection, that machinery of
which we have spoken--that connection of which we know nothing,
between matter and spirit, except that it exists. What is she to do?
Well, at least she will do this, she will bend every power that she
possesses upon that medium--I mean matter--through which alone the
communication can be made; as a man on an island, beyond the power of
a human voice, will use any instrument, however grotesque, to signal
to a passing ship. Would any decent man, Mr. Baxter, mock at the
pathos and effort of that, even if it were some grotesque thing, like
a flannel shirt on the end of an oar? Yet men mock at the tapping of a
table...!

"Well, then, this longing soul uses every means at her disposal,
concentrates every power she possesses. Is it so very unreasonable, so
very unchristian, so very dishonoring to the love of God, to think
that she sometimes succeeds...? that she is able, under comparatively
exceptional circumstances, to re-establish that connection with
material things, that was perfectly normal and natural to her during
her earthly life.... Tell me, Mr. Baxter."

Laurie shifted a little in his chair.

"I cannot say that it is," he said, in a voice that seemed strange in
his own ears. The medium smiled a little.

"So much for _a priori_ reasoning," he said. "There remains only the
fact whether such things do happen or not. There I must leave you to
yourself, Mr. Baxter."

Laurie sat forward suddenly.

"But that is exactly where I need your help, sir," he said.

A murmur broke from the ladies' lips simultaneously, resembling
applause. Mr. Jamieson sat back and swallowed perceptibly in his
throat.

"You have said so much, sir," went on Laurie deliberately, "that you
have, so to speak, put yourself in my debt. I must ask you to take me
further."

Mr. Vincent smiled full at him.

"You must take your place with others," he said. "These ladies--"

"Mr. Vincent, Mr. Vincent," cried Lady Laura. "He is quite right, you
must help him. You must help us all."

"Well, Sunday week," he began deprecatingly.

Mrs. Stapleton broke in.

"No, no; now, Mr. Vincent, now. Do something now. Surely the
circumstances are favorable."

"I must be gone again at six-thirty," said the man hesitatingly.

Laurie broke in. He felt desperate.

"If you can show me anything of this, sir, you can surely show it now.
If you do not show it now--"

"Well, Mr. Baxter?" put in the voice, sharp and incisive, as if
expecting an insult and challenging it.

Laurie broke down.

"I can only say," he cried, "that I beg and entreat of you to do what
you can--now and here."

There was a silence.

"And you, Mr. Jamieson?"

The young clergyman started, as if from a daze. Then he rose abruptly.

"I--I must be going, Lady Laura," he said. "I had no idea it was so
late. I--I have a confirmation class."

An instant later he was gone.

"That is as well," observed the medium. "And you are sure, Mr. Baxter,
that you wish me to try? You must remember that I promise nothing."

"I wish you to try."

"And if nothing happens?"

"If nothing happens, I will promise to--to continue my search. I shall
know then that--that it is at least sincere."

Mr. Vincent rose to his feet.

"A little table just here, Lady Laura, if you please, and a pencil and
paper.... Will you kindly take your seats...? Yes, Mr. Baxter, draw up
your chair ... here. Now, please, we must have complete silence, and,
so far as possible, silence of thought."


II

The table, a small, round rosewood one, stood, bare of any cloth, upon
the hearthrug. The two ladies sat, motionless statues once more, upon
the side furthest from the fire, with their hands resting lightly upon
the surface. Laurie sat on one side and the medium on the other. Mr.
Vincent had received his paper and pencil almost immediately, and now
sat resting his right hand with the pencil upon the paper as if to
write, his left hand upon his knee as he sat, turned away slightly
from the center.

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