To spend a few days on board a yacht with the same companions is a very
good test of the value of sympathetic vibration in human associations.
I found it so. I might as well have been quite alone on the 'Diana' as
with Morton Harland and his daughter, though they were always uniformly
kind to me and thoughtful of my comfort. But between us there was 'a
great gulf fixed,' though every now and again Catherine Harland made
feeble and pathetic efforts to cross that gulf and reach me where I
stood on the other side. But her strength was not equal to the
task,--her will-power was sapped at its root, and every day she allowed
herself to become more and more pliantly the prey of Dr. Brayle, who,
with a subconscious feeling that I knew him to be a mere medical
charlatan, had naturally warned her against me as an imaginative
theorist without any foundation of belief in my own theories. I
therefore shut myself within a fortress of reserve, and declined to
discuss any point of either religion or science with those for whom the
one was a farce and the other mere materialism. At all times when we
were together I kept the conversation deliberately down to commonplaces
which were safe, if dull,--and it amused me not a little to see that at
this course of action on my part Mr. Harland was first surprised, then
disappointed and finally bored. And I was glad. That I should bore him
as much as he bored me was the happy consummation of my immediate
desires. I talked as all conventional women talk, of the weather, of
our minimum and maximum speed, of the newspaper 'sensations' and
vulgarities that were served up to us whenever we called at a port for
the mails,--of the fish that frequented such and such waters, of sport,
of this and that millionaire whose highland castle or shooting-box was
crammed with the 'elite' whose delight is to kill innocent birds and
animals,--of the latest fool-flyers in aeroplanes,--in short, no
fashionable jabberer of social inanities could have beaten me in what
average persons call 'common-sense talk,'--talk which resulted after a
while in the usual vagueness of attention accompanied by smothered
yawning. I was resolved not to lift the line of thought 'up in the air'
in the manner whereof I had often been accused, but to keep it level
with the ground. So that when we left Tobermory, where we had anchored
for a couple of days, the limits of the yacht were becoming rather
cramped and narrow for our differing minds, and a monotony was
beginning to set in that threatened to be dangerous, if not unbearable.
As the 'Diana' steamed along through the drowsy misty light of the
summer afternoon, past the jagged coast of the mainland, I sat quite by
myself on deck, watching the creeping purple haze that partially veiled
the mountains of Ardnamurchan and Moidart, and I began to wonder
whether after all it might not be better to write to my friend
Francesca and tell her that her prophecies had already come true,--that
I was beginning to be weary of a holiday passed in an atmosphere bereft
of all joyousness, and that she must expect me in Inverness-shire at
once. And yet I was reluctant to end my trip with the Harlands too
soon. There was a secret wish in my heart which I hardly breathed to
myself,--a wish that I might again see the strange vessel that had
appeared and disappeared so suddenly, and make the acquaintance of its
owner. It would surely be an interesting break in the present condition
of things, to say the least of it. I did not know then (though I know
now) why my mind so persistently busied itself with the fancied
personality of the unknown possessor of the mysterious craft which, as
Captain Derrick said, 'sailed without wind,' but I found myself always
thinking about him and trying to picture his face and form.
I took myself sharply to task for what I considered a foolish mental
attitude,--but do what I would, the attitude remained unchanged. It was
helped, perhaps, in a trifling way by the apparently fadeless quality
of the pink bell-heather which had been given me by the weird-looking
Highland fellow who called himself Jamie, for though three or four days
had now passed since I first wore it, it showed no signs of withering.
As a rule the delicate waxen bells of this plant turn yellow a few
hours after they are plucked,--but my little bunch was as brilliantly
fresh as ever. I kept it in a glass without water on the table in my
sitting-room and it looked always the same. I was questioning myself as
to what I should really do if my surroundings remained as hopelessly
inert and uninteresting as they were at present,--go on with the
'Diana' for a while longer on the chance of seeing the strange yacht
again--or make up my mind to get put out at some point from which I
could reach Inverness easily, when Mr. Harland came up suddenly behind
my chair and laid his hand on my shoulder.
"Are you in dreamland?" he enquired--and I thought his voice sounded
rather weak and dispirited--"There's a wonderful light on those hills
just now."
I raised my eyes and saw the purple shadows being cloven and scattered
one after another, by long rays of late sunshine that poured like
golden wine through the dividing wreaths of vapour,--above, the sky was
pure turquoise blue, melting into pale opal and emerald near the line
of the grey sea which showed little flecks of white foam under the
freshening breeze. Bringing my gaze down from the dazzling radiance of
the heavens, I turned towards Mr. Harland and was startled and shocked
to see the drawn and livid pallor of his face and the anguish of his
expression.
"You are ill!" I exclaimed, and springing up in haste I offered him my
chair--"Do sit down!"
He made a mute gesture of denial, and with slow difficulty drew another
chair up beside mine, and dropped into it with an air of heavy
weariness.
"I am not ill now,"--he said--"A little while ago I was very ill. I was
in pain--horrible pain! Brayle did what he could for me--it was not
much. He says I must expect to suffer now and again--until--until the
end."
Impulsively I laid my hand on his.
"I am very sorry!" I said, gently--"I wish I could be of some use to
you!"
He looked at me with a curious wistfulness.
"You could, no doubt, if I believed as you do,"--he replied, and then
was silent for a moment. Presently he spoke again.
"Do you know I am rather disappointed in you?"
"Are you?" And I smiled a little--"Why?"
He did not answer at once. He seemed absorbed in troubled musings. When
he resumed, it was in a low, meditative tone, almost as if he were
speaking to himself.
"When I first met you--you remember?--at one of those social 'crushes'
which make the London season so infinitely tedious,--I was told you
were gifted with unusual psychic power, and that you had in yourself
the secret of an abounding exhaustless vitality. I repeat the words--an
abounding exhaustless vitality. This interested me, because I know that
our modern men and women are mostly only half alive. I heard of you
that it did people good to be in your company,--that your influence
upon them was remarkable, and that there was some unknown form of
occult, or psychic science to which you had devoted years of study,
with the result that you stood, as it were, apart from the world though
in the world. This, I say, is what I heard--"
"But you did not believe it,"--I interposed.
"Why do you say that?" he asked, quickly.
"Because I know you could not believe it,"--I answered--"It would be
impossible for you."
A gleam of satire flashed in his sunken eyes.
"Well, you are right there! I did not believe it. But I expected--"
"I know!" And I laughed--"You expected what is called a 'singular'
woman--one who makes herself 'singular,' adopts a 'singular' pose, and
is altogether removed from ordinary humanity. And of course you are
disappointed. I am not at all a type of the veiled priestess."
"It is not that,"--he said, with a little vexation--"When I saw you I
recognised you to be a very transparent creature, devoted to innocent
dreams which are not life. But that secret which you are reported to
possess--the secret of wonderful abounding exhaustless vitality--how
does it happen that you have it? I myself see that force expressed in
your very glance and gesture, and what puzzles me is that it is not an
animal vitality; it is something else."