Author of _The Garden of Allah_, _Bella Donna_, _Egypt and Its
Monuments_, _The Holy Land_, etc.
1911
I
When Evelyn Malling, notorious because of his sustained interest in
Psychical Research and his work for Professor Stepton, first met the
Rev. Marcus Harding, that well-known clergyman was still in the full
flow of his many activities. He had been translated from his labors in
Liverpool to a West End church in London. There he had proved hitherto
an astonishing success. On Hospital Sundays the total sums collected
from his flock were by far the largest that came from the pockets of
any congregation in London. The music in St. Joseph's was allowed by
connoisseurs, who knew their Elgar as well as their Goss, their Perosi
as well as their Bach, and their Wesley, to be remarkable. Critical
persons, mostly men, who sat on the fence between Orthodoxy and Atheism,
thought highly of Mr. Harding's sermons, and even sometimes came down
on his side. And, of all signs surely the most promising for a West End
clergyman's success, smart people flocked to him to be married, and Arum
lilies were perpetually being carried in and out of his chancel, which
was adorned with Morris windows. He was married to a woman who managed
to be admirable without being dull, Lady Sophia, daughter of the late
Earl of Mansford, and sister of the present peer. He was comfortably off.
His health as a rule was good, though occasionally he suffered from some
obscure form of dyspepsia. And he was still comparatively young, just
forty-eight.
Nevertheless, as Evelyn Malling immediately perceived, Mr. Harding was
not a happy man.
In appearance he was remarkable. Of commanding height, with a big frame,
a striking head and countenance, and a pair of keen gray eyes, he looked
like a man who was intended by nature to dominate. White threads appeared
in his thick brown hair, which he wore parted in the middle. But his
face, which was clean-shaven, had not many telltale lines. And he did not
look more than his age.
The sadness noted by Malling was at first evasive and fleeting, not
indellibly fixed in the puckers of a forehead, or in the down-drawn
corners of a mouth. It was as a thin, almost impalpable mist, that can
scarcely be seen, yet that alters all the features in a landscape ever
so faintly. Like a shadow it traveled across the eyes, obscured the
forehead, lay about the lips. And as a shadow lifts it lifted. But it
soon returned, like a thing uneasy that is becoming determined to
discover an abiding-place.
Malling's first meeting with the clergyman took place upon Westminster
Bridge on an afternoon in early May, when London seemed, almost like
a spirited child, to be flinging itself with abandon into the first
gaieties of the season. Malling was alone, coming on foot from Waterloo.
Mr. Harding was also on foot, with his senior curate, the Rev. Henry
Chichester, who was an acquaintance of Malling, but whom Malling had
not seen for a considerable period of time, having been out on his estate
in Ceylon. At the moment when Malling arrived upon the bridge the two
clergymen were standing by the parapet on the Parliament side, looking
out over the river. As he drew near to them the curate glanced suddenly
round, saw him, and uttered an involuntary exclamation which attracted
Mr. Harding's attention.
"Telepathy!" said Chichester, shaking Malling by the hand. "I believe I
looked round because I knew I should see you. Yet I supposed you to be
still in Ceylon." He glanced at the rector rather doubtfully, seemed to
take a resolution, and with an air almost of doggedness added, "May I?"
and introduced the two men to one another.
Mr. Harding observed the new-comer with an interest that was
unmistakable.
"You are the Mr. Malling of whom Professor Stepton has spoken to me," he
said,--"who has done so much experimental work for him?"
"Yes."
"The professor comes to my church now and then."
"I have heard him say so."
"You saw we were looking at the river? Before I came to London I was at
Liverpool, and learned there to love great rivers. There is something in
a great river that reminds us--"
He caught his curate's eye and was silent.
"Are you walking my way?" asked Malling. "I am going by the Abbey and
Victoria Street to Cadogan Square."
"Then we will accompany you as far as Victoria Station," said the rector.
"You don't think it would be wiser to take a hansom?" began Chichester.
"You remember--"
"No, no, certainly not. Walking always does me good," rejoined Mr.
Harding, almost in a tone of rebuke.
The curate said nothing more, and the three men set out toward Parliament
Square, Malling walking between the two clergymen.
He felt embarrassed, and this surprised him, for he was an extremely
self-reliant man and entirely free from shyness. At first he thought that
possibly his odd discomfort arose from the fact that he was in company
with two men who, perhaps, had quite recently had a difference which they
were endeavoring out of courtesy to conceal from him. Perhaps there had
been a slight quarrel over some parish matter. Certainly when he first
spoke with them there had been something uneasy, a suspicion of strain,
in the manner of both. But then he remembered how, before Chichester had
turned round, they had been leaning amicably above the river.
No, it could not be that. He sought mentally for some other reason. But
while he did so he talked, and endeavored to rid himself promptly of the
unwelcome feeling that beset him.
In this effort, however, he did not at first succeed. The "conditions"
were evidently unsatisfactory. He wondered whether if he were not walking
between the two men he would feel more comfortable, and presently, at a
crossing, he managed to change his place. He was now next to Mr. Harding,
who had the curate on his other side, and at once he felt more at his
ease. The rector of St. Joseph's led the conversation, in which Malling
joined, and at first the curate was silent. But presently Malling noticed
a thing that struck him as odd. Chichester began to "chip in" now and
then, and whenever he did so it was either to modify what Mr. Harding
had just said, or to check him in what he was saying, or abruptly to
introduce a new topic of talk. Sometimes Mr. Harding did not appear to
notice these interruptions; at other times he obviously resented them;
at others again he yielded with an air of anxiety, almost of fear, to
his curate's attenuations or hastened to follow his somewhat surprising
leads down new conversational paths. Malling could not understand
Chichester. But it became evident to him that for some reason or other
the curate was painfully critical of his rector, as sometimes highly
sensitive people are critical of members of their own family. And Mr.
Harding was certainly aware of this critical attitude, and at moments
seemed to be defiant of it, at other moments to be almost terrorized
by it.
All that passed, be it noted, passed as between gentlemen, rather
glided in the form of nuance than trampled heavily in more blatant
guise. But Evelyn Malling was a highly trained observer and a man in
whom investigation had become a habit. Now that he was no longer ill at
ease he became deeply interested in the relations between the two men
with whom he was walking. He was unable to understand them, and this
fact of course increased his interest. Moreover he was surprised by the
change he observed in Chichester.
Although he had never been intimate with Henry Chichester, he had known
him fairly well, and had summed him up as a very good man and a decidedly
attractive man, but marred, as Malling thought, by a definite weakness of
character. He had been too amiable, too ready to take others on their own
valuation of themselves, too kind-hearted, and too easily deceived. The
gentleness of a saint had been his, but scarcely the firmness of a saint.
Industrious, dutiful, and conscientious, he had not struck Malling as a
man of strong intellect, though he was a cultivated and well-educated
man. Though not governed by his own passions,--when one looked at him one
had been inclined to doubt whether he had any,--he had seemed prone to be
governed by those about him, at any rate in little matters of every day.
His charm had consisted in his transparent goodness, and in an almost gay
kindliness which had seemed to float round him like an atmosphere. To
look into his face had been to look at the happiness which comes only to
those who do right things, and are at peace with their own souls.
What could have happened to change this charming, if too pliant,
personality into the critical, watchful, almost--so at moments it seemed
to Malling--aggressive curate who was now, always in a gentlemanly way,
making things rather difficult for his rector?
And the matter became the more mysterious when Malling considered Mr.
Harding. For here was a man obviously of dominant personality. Despite
his fleeting subservience to Chichester, inexplicable to Malling, he was
surely by far the stronger of the two, both in intellect and character.
Not so saintly, perhaps, he was more likely to influence others. Firmness
showed in his forcible chin, energy in the large lines of his mouth,
decision in his clear-cut features. Yet there was something contradictory
in his face. And the flitting melancholy, already remarked, surely hinted
at some secret instability, perhaps known only to Harding himself,
perhaps known to Chichester also.
When the three men came to the turning at the corner of the Grosvenor
Hotel, Chichester stopped short.
"Here is our way," he said, speaking across Mr. Harding to Malling.
The rector looked at Malling.
"Have you far to go?" he asked, with rather a tentative air.
"I live in Cadogan Square."
"Of course. I remember. You told us you were going there."
"Good-by," said Chichester. "We are taking the underground to South
Kensington."
"I think I shall walk," said the rector.
"But you know we are due--"
"There is plenty of time. Tell them I shall be there at four."
"But really--"
"Punctually at four. I will walk on with Mr. Malling."
"I really think you had better not," began Chichester. "Over-exertion--"
"Am I an invalid?" exclaimed Mr. Harding, almost sharply.
"No, no, of course not. But you remember that yesterday you were not
quite well."
"That is the very reason why I wish to walk. Exercise always does my
dyspepsia good."
"Let us all walk," said the curate, abruptly.
But this was obviously not Mr. Harding's intention.
"I want you to go through the minutes and the accounts before the
meeting," he said, in a quieter but decisive voice. "We will meet at the
School at four. You will have plenty of time if you take the train. And
meanwhile Mr. Malling and I will go on foot together as far as Cadogan
Square."
Chichester stood for a moment staring into Mr. Harding's face, then he
said, almost sulkily:
"Very well. Good-by."
He turned on his heel, and was lost in the throng near the station.
It seemed to Malling that an expression of relief overspread his
companion's face.
"You don't mind my company for a little longer, I hope?" said the rector.
"I shall be glad to have it."
They set out on their walk to Cadogan Square. After two or three minutes
of silence the rector remarked:
"You know Chichester well?"
"I can hardly say that. I used to meet him sometimes with some friends of
mine, the Crespignys. But I haven't seen him for more than two years."
"He's a very good fellow."
"An excellent fellow."
"Perhaps a little bit limited in his outlook. He has been with me at St.
Joseph's exactly two years."
The rector seemed about to say more, then shut his large mouth almost
with a snap. Malling made no remark. He was quite certain that snap was
merely the preliminary to some further remark about Chichester. And so it
proved. As they came to St. Peter's Eaton Square, the rector resumed:
"I often think that it is a man's limitations which make him critical
of others. The more one knows, the wider one's outlook, the readier
one is to shut one's eyes to the foibles, even to the faults, of one's
neighbors. I have tried to impress that upon our friend Chichester."
"Doesn't he agree with you?"
"Well--it's difficult to say, difficult to say. Shall we go by Wilton
Place, or--?"
"Certainly."
"Professor Stepton has talked to me about you from time to time, Mr.
Malling."
"He's a remarkable man," said Malling almost with enthusiasm.
"Yes. He's finding his way to the truth rather by the pathway of science
than by the pathway of faith. But he's a man I respect. And I believe
he'll get out into the light. You've done a great deal of work for him, I
understand, in--in occult directions."
"I have made a good many careful investigations at his suggestion."
"Exactly. Now"--Mr. Harding paused, seemed to make an effort, and
continued--"we know very little even now, with all that has been done,
as to--to the possibilities--I scarcely know how to put it--the
possibilities of the soul."
"Very little indeed," rejoined Malling.
He was considerably surprised by his companion's manner, but was quite
resolved not to help him out.
"The possibilities of one soul, let us say, in connection with another,"
continued the rector, almost in a faltering voice. "I often feel as if
the soul were a sort of mysterious fluid, and that when we what is called
influence another person, we, as it were, submerge his soul fluid in our
own, as a drop of water might be submerged in an ocean."
"Ah!" said Malling, laconically.
Mr. Harding shot a rather sharp glance at him.
"You don't object to my getting on this subject, I hope?" he observed.
"Certainly not."
"Perhaps you think it rather a strange one for a clergyman to select?"
"Oh, no. I have known many clergymen deeply interested in Stepton's
investigations."
Mr. Harding's face, which had been cloudy, cleared.
"It seems to me," he said, "that we clergymen have a special reason
for desiring Stepton, and all Stepton's assistants, to make progress.
It is true, of course, that we live by faith. And nothing can be more
beautiful than a childlike faith in the Great Being who is above all
worlds, in the _anima mundi_. But it would be unnatural in us if we did
not earnestly desire that our faith be proved, scientifically proved,
to be well-founded. I speak now of the faith we Christians hold in a
life beyond the grave. I know many people who think it very wrong in a
clergyman to mix himself up in any occult experiments. But I don't agree
with them."
It was now Malling's turn to look sharply at his companion.
"Have you made many experiments yourself, may I ask?" he said very
bluntly.
The clergyman started, and was obviously embarrassed by the question.
"I! Oh, I was speaking generally. I am a very busy man, you see. What
with my church and my parish, and one thing and another, I get very
little time for outside things. Still I am greatly interested, I confess,
in all that Stepton is doing."
"Does Mr. Chichester share your interest?" said Malling.
"In a minor degree, in a minor degree," answered the rector, rather
evasively.
They were now in Sloane Street and Malling said:
"I must turn off here."
"I'll go with you as far as your door if you've no objection," said the
rector, who seemed very loath to leave his companion. "It's odd how men
change, isn't it?"
"As they grow older? But surely development is natural and to be
expected?"
"Certainly. But when a man changes drastically, sheds his character and
takes on another?"
"You are talking perhaps of what is called conversion?"
"Well, that would be an instance of what I mean, no doubt. But there
are changes of another type. We clergymen, you know, mix intimately with
so many men that we are almost bound to become psychologists if we are
to do any good. It becomes a habit with many of us to study closely our
fellow-men. Now I, for instance; I cannot live at close quarters with a
man without, almost unconsciously, subjecting him to a minute scrutiny,
and striving to sum him up. My curates, for example--"
"Yes?" said Malling.
"There are four of them, our friend Chichester being the senior one."
"And you have 'placed' them all?"
"I thought I had, I thought so--but--"
Mr. Harding was silent. Then, with a strange abruptness, and the air of a
man forced into an action against which something within him protested,
he said:
"Mr. Malling, you are the only person I know who, having been acquainted
with Henry Chichester, has at last met him again after a prolonged
interval of separation. Two years, you said. People who see a man from
day to day observe very little or nothing. Changes occur and are not
noticed by them. A man and his wife live together and grow old. But does
either ever notice when the face of the other begins first to lose its
bloom, to take on that peculiar, unmistakable stamp that the passage of
the years sets on us all? Few of us really see what is always before us.
But the man who comes back--he sees. Tell me the honest truth, I beg of
you. Do you or do you not, see a great change in Henry Chichester?"
The rector's voice had risen while he spoke, till it almost clamored for
reply. His eyes were more clamorous still, insistent in their demand upon
Malling. Nevertheless voice and eyes pushed Malling toward caution.
Something within him said, "Be careful what you do!" and, acting
surprise, he answered:
"Chichester changed! In what way?"
The rector's countenance fell.
"You haven't observed it?"
"Remember I've only seen him to-day and walking in the midst of crowds."
"Quite true! Quite true!"
Mr. Harding meditated for a minute, and then said:
"Mr. Malling, I daresay my conduct to-day may surprise you. You may think
it odd of me to be so frank, seeing that you and I have not met before.
But Stepton has told me so much about you that I cannot feel we are quite
strangers. I should like you to have an opportunity of observing Henry
Chichester without prejudice. I will say nothing more. But if I invite
you to meet him, in my house or elsewhere, will you promise me to come?"
"Certainly, if I possibly can."
"And your address?"
Malling stopped and, smiling, pointed to the number outside a house.
"You live here?"
Mr. Harding took a small book and a pencil from his pocket and noted down
the address.
"Good-by," he said. "I live in Onslow Gardens--Number 89."
"Thank you. Good-by."
The two men shook hands. Then Mr. Harding went on his way toward South
Kensington, while Malling inserted his latch-key into the door of Number
7b, Cadogan Square.