AND REDISCOVERING REALITIES
I think Lady clutched at my arm, but I can not remember. The one memory
that remains to me of that moment is the face of Doctor Paulus. His
color had turned from ivory to chalk, his mouth was drawn open in a
snarling square and his eyes shrank back hollowly, glaring into
nothingness. For a second he stood so, clawing in front of him with his
hands, a living horror. Then with an effort that shook him from head to
foot, the strong soul of the man commanded him. "It's nothing," he
whispered, "I understand it. Take hold of yourselves." The hands
dropped, and he bent again over Mrs. Tabor. The next moment Sheila had
sprung out in front of us, and was speaking to the voice that we could
not see.
"Miriam Reid," she cried, in a high chanting cadence between song and
speech, "if it's yourself that's here, lie down to your rest again, an'
leave us. Go back to your place in purgatory, darling till the white
angels come to carry ye higher in their own good time. In the name av
God an' Mary, in the name av the Blessed Saints, go back! Go back to
your home between hell an' Heaven, an' come no more among us here!"
"Get some water, Reid," snapped Doctor Paulus. "Quiet that woman, some
of you."
But Sheila had done before we could move or speak to her. With her last
words, she flung her arms wide apart, above her head, and brought them
inward and downward in some strange formal gesture. Then as swiftly and
certainly as if she had planned it all from the beginning, she caught a
little bottle from her breast, and sprinkled its contents in the
upturned face of Mrs. Tabor. We caught hold of her just as she was
making the sign of the Cross. But she was perfectly quiet now, with
nothing more to say or do, and stood motionless like the rest of us,
breathing deep breaths and watching.
The cool shock of the water did its work. Mrs. Tabor's eyelids quivered,
and she gasped faintly. Reid came hurrying back with a glass of water,
and stood at the side of his superior, looking foolishly disappointed
as he realized the anticipation of his errand.
"She comes out of it all right," Doctor Paulus muttered. "No harm. It is
more the trance condition than an ordinary faint." He looked up at
Sheila with a grim smile. "Superstition is a fine thing--sometimes,
under medical direction. Now I leave her to you, Reid, a few minutes. It
is better that at first she sees only her own." He beckoned to the
medium, and the two went out of the room together. Then as we stood
about, Mrs. Tabor caught another breath, and another. Her hands groped a
moment, and her eyes opened. She looked around at us wonderingly, as we
raised her up in her seat.
"Thank God," said Lady softly. And Sheila answered from the other side:
"The Saints be praised."
She sat very quietly for a little time, looking about her. Lady had
wiped the water from her face, and she seemed her natural self again,
the girlish color returning to her cheeks and a certain bird-like
vivacity in her whole pose. Then, as if memory of a sudden returned to
her, she crumpled over, hiding her tragic little face in her hands. She
began to cry softly at first in little sobbing, heart-broken gasps,
which took on gradually a wailing intensity very dreadful to hear.
"Oh, my dear, my dear, my dear!" she repeated over and over again, in a
desolate and ceaseless iteration that grew into a horror and which alone
we dared not stop. Doctor Paulus, we knew, must be within call and
listening. I think that all of us wondered why he did not return; we
resented this permitted continuance of suffering. Finally it was Lady
who made the first move among us.
She dropped on her knees beside her mother, putting her arm tenderly
about the convulsed little form, and pressing her cheek close against
her mother's own. "Mother, dear," she whispered very softly.
A pause came in Mrs. Tabor's sobbing and she stretched one hand half as
if to push Lady away, half as if to hold her as something real and
tangible.
"Where is the doctor?" she asked.
Evidently Doctor Paulus had been listening, for at the murmured question
he stepped in and came across the room to Mrs. Tabor. She faced him
shrinkingly, but nerved herself for the question.
"Why have you taken her from me?" she asked brokenly, at last.
Doctor Paulus' face was very kind and very serious.
"I know that now it seems so," he answered, "but all that will for you
pass away. It is not that we have taken the daughter that is dead away.
For you see now, and you will understand how all that came only out of
yourself, like a picture that you made of your own sorrow. It was in a
circle, how you made by grieving this grief like a thing from outside
coming to make you grieve the more. A circle that seems as well to begin
at one point as at another, is it not so? And this cruel light so
suddenly has made you see the true beginning. So now it is all gone
because you have known that it was never there at all." He moved his
broad hands suddenly as one waving away smoke. "There is not any longer
for you that other world which never was, which was a burden and a
trouble always to you because it was made out of trouble. But this good
world you have again, and of that only the good part, all your dear ones
here truly returned because that evil nothing is gone from between. Is
it not so?"
She had been facing him like a creature at bay, silent and resisting,
the horror in her strained little by little into desperation as he
spoke. I do not know what held us from interference, for the man was
blindly tottering on toward a precipice, clumsily ignorant of the
condition he must face; and every fatuous word grated like sand between
the teeth. One had a desire to lay physical hands upon him.
"Doctor," Reid broke out, "for God's sake--"
Doctor Paulus never turned his head. "Be still, young man," he said
quietly, and Reid's voice died into a stammer as he went steadily on.
"If it was cruel, this way to show you wholly the truth, so we must hurt
once not to have to hurt more. But it is better to have the truth now,
is it not so? For you have all these that are living, and you will be
well again. Oh, there is no miracle; all does not in a moment change.
Now and then still you will hear the voices and see these things which
are not. But you will know now that they are only of yourself, and so
they will go away. This we understand in the good old story of casting
out devils. And it is good to be sure that the daughter is at rest, from
the beginning. I want you to understand it all very clearly. You have
been sick, but you are going to be well, not well all at once, remember,
but better day by day, and when discouraging days come I want you to
remember this: that even when things seem confused and unhappy and
unreal, yet it does not make any difference. For you have your loved
ones about you and they will help and when things are bad and you are a
little afraid, you can call for Doctor Paulus. I have never given my
word falsely or for encouraging alone. Time and these loved ones will
help, but most of all your own will will make your life what it should
be, will bring you back to happiness."
It is impossible to describe the convincing strength of the man as he
stood towering among us; the very compellent force of his individuality
was reflected in the dawning belief in Mrs. Tabor's eyes. Like a child
she laid her little hand in the doctor's great one.
"I am going to try, Doctor," she said. "I see that I have been sick, but
with all you dear people I shall get well." And for the first time her
eyes left the doctor's face and turned to the rest of us who had drawn a
little apart, but as they met mine their expression changed and a
flicker of the old terror came into them, a terror that was reflected in
my own heart.
"George," she asked sharply, "what is Mr. Crosby doing here?"
"Why, my dear--" Mr. Tabor stammered.
"I know. I remember now." She struggled to her feet, and the old terror
was upon her face. "I meant to tell you about it. Mr. Crosby has not
been honest with us. I came into the room a while ago and found him with
Lady, and--" She broke off suddenly, looking quickly from one to another
of our startled faces. "What is the matter with you all?" she cried;
then in that level, hollow tone we had learned to fear. "I see now. You
know--you have known all along; and that was the secret you were keeping
from me."
No one spoke. She looked downward at her hands, then glanced again in a
puzzled way from one to another of us. Mr. Tabor was the picture of
despair, old and white and worn, his whole strength shaken by the vision
of our final failure. Lady stood erect, her color coming and going,
tragedy in her eyes; and near her Sheila, a gaunt and sturdy comfort,
sure in the inherited wisdom of homely faith. And as I looked at these
two women, each in her own way upheld beyond her strength or her
understanding, I made my resolve. I glanced at Doctor Paulus, but he
made no sign. If I must take the responsibility of an answer upon myself
I determined that at the worst I would leave no issue of the fight
unknown; if we had failed, we must measure the whole depth of our
failure.
"Mrs. Tabor," I said, "there is no secret any more. Lady is going to
marry me."
She gave me one look. "All that I had left," she whispered; and then
again she began to cry, but this time softly, turning away from us
toward the window at the end of the room. Sheila followed and put an arm
about her, and the two stood together apart from us under the fading
light, while above their heads the canary burst out into a mockery of
song. No one knew what to say or do; but after a little, Reid's itch for
efficiency drove him into speech.
"It all comes right down to this, mother--" he began. A look from Lady
dried the words upon his tongue, and the silence fell once more. Then
slowly and confidently Lady came over to me and slipped her dear hand
into mine.
"You are right, Laurence," she said, "the truth is best for all of us
now."
"Mrs. Tabor," said Doctor Paulus, "you do not lose your daughter, but
gain, I think, a very good son. Indeed it is Mr. Crosby who has helped
us much to our knowledge that you were going to be well and strong
again."
The calm strange voice broke in at just the precise instant to relieve
the tension. Mrs. Tabor looked up.
"Oh, you need not be afraid, Doctor," she said, as she wiped away her
tears, "but you do well to remind me. I know--I know there's nothing
really the matter with me except that I'm a little tired. And goodness
gracious, what are you good people standing there so stiff and solemn
for? It's all right! you've made me understand. Turn the lights on,
Sheila--and-- Lady, what have you done with my ring?" She came across to
where we stood together, and took a hand of each in her own. She glanced
over her shoulder at Paulus, "And you mustn't any of you think of going
away this weather. The house is big enough to hold us--and, Mr. Crosby,
I'm going to put you in Miriam's room."
THE END