"HE _MUST_ REMEMBER"
Dick arrived very early the next morning, having to be off again by the
twelve o'clock train, in order to reach that evening the place where he
was due to spend Christmas.
A telegram from Helen had prepared him for a change in Ronnie, but
hardly for the complete restoration of mental balance which he saw in
his friend, as they hailed one another at the railway station.
Ronnie had breakfasted early, in order to meet Dick's train. He had said
nothing of his plan to Helen, merely arranging his breakfast-hour
overnight with the "valet."
He walked to the station alone; but, arrived there, found the "valet" on
the platform.
"Thought I might be wanted, sir, to carry the doctor's bag," he
explained, touching his hat. But, just as the train rounded the bend, he
remarked: "Better stand back a little, sir," and took Ronnie firmly by
the arm.
Ronnie could have knocked him down; but realised that this would be the
surest way to find himself more than ever hedged in by precautions. So
he stood back, in wrathful silence, and, as Dick's gay face appeared at
the window of a third-class smoker, the "valet" loosed his hold and
disappeared. It may here be recorded that this was the last time Ronnie
saw him. Apparently he found it necessary to carry Dr. Dick's bag all
the way back to town.
"Hullo, old chap!" cried Dick.
"Hullo, Dick!" said Ronnie. "This is better than Leipzig, old man. I'm
all right. I must give you a new thermometer!"
"You shall," said Dick. "After Christmas we'll have a spree together in
town and choose it. No need to tell me you 're all right, Ronnie. It's
writ large on you, my boy. He who runs may read!"
"Well, I wish you'd write it large on other people," said Ronnie, as
they walked out of the station.
"What do you mean?"
"Dick, I'm having a devil of a time! There's a smug chap in a bowler hat
who is supposed to be my valet. When I went to bed last night, I found I
had a decent room enough, opening out of the sitting-room. I was
obviously expected to turn in there, asking no questions; so I turned
in. But the valet person slept in a room communicating with mine. The
latch and the lock of the door between, had been tampered with. The door
wouldn't shut, so I had to sleep all night with that fellow able to look
in upon me at any moment. After I had been in bed a little while, I
remembered something I had left in the sitting-room and wanted. I got up
quietly to fetch it. That door was locked, on the sitting-room side!"
"Poor old boy! We'll soon put all that right. You see you were pretty
bad, while you _were_ bad; and all kinds of precautions were necessary.
We felt sure of a complete recovery, and I always predicted that it
would be sudden. But it is bound to take a little while to get all your
surroundings readjusted. Why not go home at once? Pack up and go back to
Hollymead this afternoon, and have a real jolly Christmas there--you,
and Helen, and the kid."
"The kid?" queried Ronnie, perplexed. "What kid? Oh, you mean my
'cello--the Infant of Prague."
Dick, meanwhile, had bitten his tongue severely.
"Yes, the jolly old Infant of Prague, of course. Is it 'he,' 'she,' or
'it'? I forget."
"It," replied Ronnie, gravely. "In the peace of its presence one forgets
all wearying 'he and she' problems. Yes, I want most awfully to get back
to my 'cello. I want to make sure it is not broken; and I want to make
sure it is no dream, that I can play. But--I don't want to go, unless I
can go alone. Can't you prescribe complete solitude, as being absolutely
essential for me? Dick, I'm wretched! I don't care where I go; but I
want to get away by myself."
"Why, old man?"
"Because my wife still considers me insane."
"Nonsense, Ron! And don't talk of being insane. You were never that.
Some subtle malarial poison, we shall never know what, got into your
blood, affected your brain, and you've had a bad time--a very bad
time--of being completely off your balance; the violent stage being
followed by loss of memory, and for a time, though mercifully you knew
nothing about it, complete loss of sight. But these things returned, one
by one; and, as soon as you were ready for it, you awoke to
consciousness, memory, and reason. There is no possible fear of the
return of any of the symptoms, unless you come again in contact with the
poison; hardly likely, as it attacked you in Central Africa. Of course,
as I say, we shall never know precisely what the poison was."
Then Ronnie spoke, suddenly. "It was the Upas tree," he said. "I camped
near it. My nightmares began that night. I never felt well, from that
hour."
"Rubbish!" said Dr. Dick. "More likely a poisonous swamp. The Upas tree
is a myth."
"Not at all," insisted Ronnie. "It is a horrid reality. I had seen the
one in Kew Gardens. I recognised it directly, yet I camped in its
shadow. Dick, do you know what the Upas stands for?"
"What?"
"Selfishness! It stands for any one who is utterly, preposterously,
altogether, selfish."
"Oh, buck up old man!" cried Dick. "We are all selfish--every mother's
son of us! Perhaps that's why! Most men's mothers spoil them, and their
wives continue the process. But you will be selfish with a vengeance, if
you don't buck up and give that splendid wife of yours a good time now.
She has been through--such a lot. Ronnie, you will never quite
realise--well, _I_ never knew such a woman, excepting, perhaps, Mrs.
Dalmain; and of course she has not your wife's beauty. I haven't the
smallest intention of ever coming under the yoke myself. But I assure
you, old chap, if you had pegged out, as you once or twice seemed likely
to do, I should have had a jolly good try as to whether I couldn't chip
in, by-and-by."
"Confound you!" said Ronnie. But he laughed, and felt better.
* * * * *
Dr. Dick saw Helen alone.
"Well," he said, "so we've pulled him through. Ronnie's all right now.
No more need for watching and planning, and guarding; in fact, the less
he realises the precautions which were necessary, the better. I shall
take Truscott back to town with me. He seems to have done awfully well.
I suppose you have no complaints. Why don't you hire a car and run
straight back home with Ronnie this afternoon. Think what a jolly
Christmas you might have. Show him the boy as a Christmas present! I
believe he is keen to be at home; and the less you thwart him now, the
better. Don't suggest it until I am gone; but send a wire home at once
to say you are probably returning this afternoon. Then your people will
make all needed preparations for the festive day; turkeys and holly, and
all that sort of thing; have fires lighted everywhere, and all in
readiness. My old sweetheart, Mrs. Blake, will put on cherry-coloured
ribbons, and black satin, and be in the hall to receive you! You had
better mention, in the wire, that I am not coming; then she won't waste
her time hanging mistletoe in likely corners."
Helen wrote the telegram, rang, and gave it to a page.
Then she turned to Dr. Dick.
"Ronnie is _not_ fully himself, yet," she said.
Dick looked at her keenly. "How so?"
"He professes to remember, and does remember, everything which happened,
up to the final crash in the studio. Yet he has made no mention to me
of--of our child."
"He is shy about it," suggested Dick. "You speak first."
"I cannot," she replied. "It is for Ronald to do that."
"Ah, you dear women!" moralised the young bachelor. "You remind me of
Nebuchadnezzar--no, I mean Naaman. You bravely ford the rushing waters
of your Abanas and your Pharpars, and then you buck-jump at the little
river Jordan!"
"My dear Dick, I am becoming accustomed to the extraordinary inaptness
of your scriptural allusions. But this is hardly a _small_ matter
between me and Ronnie. I am ready to make every allowance for his
illness and loss of memory; but I don't see how I can start life with
him at home, until he manages to remember a thing of such vital import
in our wedded life. He may be sane on every other point. I cannot
consider him sane on this."
"Shall I tell him?" suggested Dick.
"No, let him remember. He can remember his Infant of Prague; his mind
is full of that again. Why should he not be able to remember my baby
son?"
"Oh, lor!" sighed Dr. Dick. "Why not put that poser to Ronnie direct,
instead of putting it to me? Forgive me for saying so, but you are
suffering just now from a reaction, after the terrible strain through
which you have passed. And Ronnie is wretched too, because he remembers
how you let fly at him that evening, and he thinks you really meant it."
"I did," said Helen. "Of course, had I known how ill he was, poor old
boy, I should have been more patient. But I have a little son to
consider now, as well as Ronnie. I _did_ think him selfish, and I _do_."
"My dear angel," said Dr. Dick, "we are all selfish, every mother's son
of us; and it is you blessed women who make us so."
She looked at him, with softening eyes. "_You_ are not selfish, Dick,"
she said.
"I am," he answered; "and a long chalk worse than Ronnie. I combine
ambition with my selfishness. I jolly well mean to get to the top of the
tree, and I don't care how I get there. I down every one who dares stand
in my way; or--I use them as stepping-stones. There! Isn't that a worse
Upas tree than poor old Ronnie's? Mine is a life untouched by love, or
any gentler feelings. All that sort of thing was killed in me when I was
quite a little chap. It is the story of a broken halo. Perhaps I'll tell
it you some day. Meanwhile, this being Christmas Eve and not Ash
Wednesday, I'll make no more confessions. Don't you want to hear the
result of my psychic investigations, concerning our mirror experiences?"
"Exceedingly," said Helen. "Have you time to tell me now?"
"Heaps of time. It won't take long. Last night I told the whole story to
a man who makes a special study of these matters, and knows more about
things psychic than any other man in England. The Brands asked me to
dinner and arranged to have him also. After dinner he and I went down
alone to the doctor's consulting room, and talked the whole thing out. I
was careful to mention no names. You don't want to be credited with a
haunted room at the Grange, neither do we want Ronnie's name mixed up
with psychical phenomena. Now I will give you this man's opinion and
explanation, exactly as he gave it to me. Only, remember, I pass it on
as his. I do not necessarily endorse it.
"He holds that inanimate objects, such as beds, walls, cupboards,
staircases, have a power of receiving, absorbing and retaining
impressions transmitted to them through contact with human minds in
extreme conditions of stress and tension. This would especially be the
case with intimately personal things, such as musical instruments, or
favourite chairs. Old rooms and ancient furniture might retain these
impressions for centuries; and, under certain circumstances, transmit
them to any mind, with which they came in contact, happening to be
strung up to the right key to respond to the psychic impression. He
considers that this theory accounts for practically all ghost stories
and haunted rooms, passages, and staircases. It reduces all apparitions
to the subjective rather than the objective plane; in other words the
spirit of a murdered man does not return at certain times to the room in
which he was done to death; but his agonised mind, in its last conscious
moments, left an impress upon that room which produces a subjective
picture of the scene, or part of the scene, upon any mind psychically
_en rapport_ with that impress. I confess this idea appeals to me. It
accounts for the undoubted fact that certain old rooms are undeniably
creepy; also that apparitions, unconnected with actual flesh and blood,
have been seen by sane and trustworthy witnesses. It does away with the
French word for ghost--_revenant_. There is no such thing as a
'comer-back,' or an 'earth-bound spirit.' Personally, I do not believe
in immortality, in the usually accepted sense of the word; but I have
always felt that were there such a thing as a disembodied spirit, it
would have something better to do than to walk along old corridors,
frightening housemaids! But, to come to the point, concerning our own
particular experience.
"I carefully told him every detail. He believes that probably the old
Florentine chair and the 'cello had been in conjunction before, and had
both played their part in the scene which was re-acted in the mirror. If
so, poor old Ron was jolly well in for it, seated in the chair, and
holding the 'cello. His already over-excited brain found itself caught
between them. The fitful firelight and the large mirror supplied
excellent mediums for the visualisation of the subjective picture. Of
course, we do not yet know what Ronnie saw. I trust we never shall. It
is to be hoped he has forgotten it. Had you and I seen nothing, we
should unquestionably have dismissed the whole thing as merely a
delirious nightmare of Ronnie's unhinged brain.
"But the undoubted fact remains that we each saw, reflected in that
mirror, objects which were not at that moment in the room. In fact we
saw the _past_ reflected, rather than the _present_. My psychic
authority considers that both our impressions came to us through
Ronnie's mind, and were already fading, owing to the fact that he had
become unconscious. I, coming in later than you, merely saw the
Florentine chair in position. All else in my view of the reflection
appertained to the actual present, into which the long-ago past was then
rapidly merging. But you, coming in a few moments sooner, and being far
more _en rapport_ with the spirit of the scene, saw the tall man in a
red cloak--whom you call the Avenger--strangling the girl. By the way,
why do you call him the Avenger?"
"Because," said Helen, slowly, "there was murder in the cruel face of
the woman, and there was a dagger in her hand. She had struck her blow
before he appeared upon the scene. I know this, because it was the flare
of his crimson cloak, as he rushed in, which first caught my eye, in the
firelight, and made me look into the mirror at all. Before that I was
intent on Ronnie. The Avenger seized the woman from behind; I saw his
brown hands on the whiteness of her throat. Grief and horror were on his
face, as he looked over her shoulder, and past the chair, at the
prostrate heap upon the floor."
"Which heap," said Dick, trying to speak lightly, "was our poor Ronnie."
"No," said Helen, gazing straight before her into the fire, "the heap
upon the floor was _not_ Ronnie."
"But--I am positive!--I saw it myself! I saw you kneeling beside it. I
helped to sort it, afterwards. The actual heap on the floor was the
broken chair, Ronnie mixed up with it; and, on top of both, that unholy
Infant, whose precocious receptivity is responsible for the entire
business. I exonerate the Florentine chair; I exonerate poor Ronnie. I
shall always maintain that that confounded 'cello worked the whole show,
out of its own unaided tummy!"
But Helen did not laugh. She did not even smile. "The heap on the floor
was not Ronnie," she repeated firmly, "nor was I kneeling beside it. The
Italian chair had not fallen over. Not a single thing appertaining to
the present, was reflected in the picture as I first saw it. Dick, there
was a conclusion to my vision of which I have never told you."
"Oh, lor!" said Dick. "When I guaranteed the psychic chap that I was
putting him in full possession of every detail!"
"I am sorry, Dick. But until this moment I have never felt able to tell
you. I cannot do so now, unless you are nice."
"I _am_ nice," said Dick, "_very_ nice! Tell me quick."
"Well, as I knelt transfixed, watching--the heap on the floor moved and
arose. It was a slight dark man, with a white face, and a mass of
tumbled black hair. He lifted from off his breast as he got up, a
violoncello. He did not look at the woman, nor at the man in the crimson
cloak; he stood staring, as if petrified with grief and dismay, at his
'cello. Following his eyes, I saw a dark jagged stab, piercing its
right breast, just above the _f_ hole. The anguish on the 'cellist's
face, was terrible to see. Then--oh, Dick, I don't know how to tell
you!"
"Go on, Helen," he said, gently.
"Then he turned from the 'cello, and looked at _me_; and, Dick, it was
the soul of Ronnie--_my_ Ronnie--in deepest trouble over his Infant of
Prague, which looked at me through those deep sad eyes. I cannot explain
to you how I knew it! He was totally unlike my big fair Ronnie, but--it
was the soul of Ronnie, in great distress, looking at _me_! The moment I
realised this, I seemed set free from the past. The 'cellist, the woman,
the Avenger, all vanished instantly. I saw myself reflected, I saw you,
I saw the studio; I saw Ronnie on the floor. I turned to him at once,
lifted the 'cello from his breast, and drew his head into my lap."
"Was there a jagged hole--"
"No, not a scratch. The stab belonged to a century ago. But, listen
Dick! Several days later, when I had a moment in which to remember
Ronnie's poor Infant of Prague, I examined it in a good light, and found
the place where the hole made by that dagger had been skilfully mended."
"Lor!" said Dr. Dick. "We're getting on! Don't you think you and I and
the Infant might put our heads together, and write a psychic book! But
now--seriously. Do you really believe Ronnie was once a slim, pale
person, with a shock of black hair? And if he and his Infant lived
together in past ages, where were you and I? Are we altogether out of
it? Or are you the lady with the dagger, and I the noble party in the
flaming cloak?"
She smiled, and a look of quiet peace was in her eyes.
"Dick," she said, "I am not troubled at all about the past. My whole
concern is with the present; my earnest looking forward is to the
future. And remember, that which set me completely free to think only of
the present, was when my Ronnie's soul looked out at me from that
strange vision of the past. I cannot say exactly what I believe. But I
know my entire responsibility is to the present; my hope and confidence
are towards the future. I realise, as I have never realised before, the
deep meaning of the words: 'Lord, Thou hast been our Dwelling-place, in
all generations.' I am content to leave it at that."
Dick sat silent; sobered, impressed, by a calm confidence of faith,
which was new to him.
Then he said: "Good for you, Helen, that you can take it so. Personally,
I believe in nothing which I cannot fully explain and understand.
'Faith,' in your sense of the word, has no place in my vocabulary. I was
a very small boy when my faith took to itself wings and flew away; and,
curiously enough, it was while I was singing lustily, in the village
church at Dinglevale: 'As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever
shall be; world without end, Amen'!"
"It will come back again," said Helen. "Dick, I know it will come back.
Some day you will come to me and you will say: 'It has come back.' The
thrusting hand and the prying finger are the fashion nowadays, I know.
But the grand old faith which will win out in the end, is the faith
which stands with clasped hands, in deepest reverence of belief; and,
lifting adoring eyes, is not ashamed to say to the revelation of a Risen
Christ: 'My Lord and my God!'"
Dick stirred uneasily in his chair.
"We have got off the subject," he said, "and it's about time we looked
up Ronnie. But, first of all: how much of all this do you mean to tell
Ronnie?"
"Nothing whatever, if I can help it," replied Helen. "So far as I know,
I hope, after this morning, never to mention the subject again."
"I think you are wise. And now let me give you a three-fold bit of
advice. Smash the mirror; burn the chair; brain the Infant!"
Helen laughed. "No, no, Dick!" she said. "I can do none of those things.
I must take tenderest care of Ronnie's Infant. I have had his valuable
old chair carefully mended; and I must not let him think I fear the
mirror."
"You're a brave woman," said Dick. "Believing what you do, you're a
brave woman to live in the house with that mirror. Or, perhaps, it comes
of believing so much. A certainty of confidence, which asks no
questions, must be to some extent a fortifying thing. By the way, you
will remember that the long rigmarole I gave you was not my own
explanation, but the expert's? Mine is considerably simpler and shorter.
In fact, it can be summed up in three words."
"What is your explanation, Dick?"
"Whisky and soda," said Dr. Dick, bravely. "You mixed it stiffer than
you knew. I was dead beat, and had had no food. I have always been a
fairly abstemious chap; in my profession we have to be: woe betide the
man who isn't. But since I saw that chair standing on its four legs in
the mirror, when it was lying broken on the floor in reality, I have not
touched a drop of alcohol. There! I make you a present of that for your
next temperance meeting. Now let's go out and buck Ronnie up. Remember,
he'll feel jolly flat for a bit, with no temperature. Temperature is a
thing you miss, when it has become a habit."