bare facts were that Barbara had entered the train at Crawleigh and
remembered nothing until she recovered consciousness a few miles from
Farnborough. A young man, who explained that he had got in at
Winchester, had picked her up from the floor and taken charge of her
until her maid appeared at Waterloo.
When she had been put to bed, Barbara began to recall and reconstruct
forgotten incidents. She had felt giddy and had tried to open the
window.... At Waterloo the young man had insisted on carrying her, and
she had protested that she was too heavy. "I'll take great care of
you."... "You are very good to me."... Scraps of their conversation
floated through her head, and she remembered that he had a caressing
voice which soothed her; they had talked, but she was three parts
asleep. Half-way along the platform, he put her to rest on a seat. "I'm
supposed to have an overstrained heart," he told her, "so I don't like
to take liberties with it." Barbara tried to see his face; but he was
bending over her, and the light was behind him. And then he had
disappeared before she could thank him. "I do hope you'll be all right.
I've given your maid my flask in case you want any more brandy.
Good-bye." Barbara remembered making a great effort to rouse herself and
look at him; but he had dived into the crowd without even telling her
his name. The flask was engraved with a monogram which seemed to be E.
L.; that and his voice were her only clues.
In her oversensitive condition, the voice was haunting. When she fell
asleep, Barbara heard it again; and in the morning she gave orders that,
if he called for the flask, he was to be asked his name and address.
Then she tried to remember whether she had told him anything which would
enable him to identify her; there was a label on her dressing-case, but
he might not have seen it; as soon as her maid and car appeared, he had
no need to ask where she lived. Barbara felt a pang of disappointment at
the thought that she might not meet him again. Two days passed, and no
one enquired for the flask; she decided to wait until she was allowed
out of bed and then to advertise in the _Times_. "E. L. Will the
gentleman who rendered assistance to a lady who was taken ill on the
3.40 p. m. between Winchester and Waterloo communicate...."
She was drafting the advertisement when her mother came into the room.
"My darling, you oughtn't to be writing," protested Lady Crawleigh. "Let
me do it for you, if it's important."
"Oh, it doesn't matter," Barbara answered.
She tore up the paper and lay back in bed. There was nothing to conceal,
but she did not want to talk about her nameless and mysterious rescuer.
Every one would laugh at her, if she said that she had fallen in love
with a voice; and, if she chose to weave a romance for herself, it
passed the time and was no one else's business. When the advertisement
appeared, "E. L." would write to a numbered box at the _Times_ office;
she would ask him to call so that she could thank him in person. And a
charming friendship might result. No one could have carried her more
tenderly or behaved more delightfully.... And, as long as she amused
herself with speculating about him, she could avoid thinking of other
things.
"George has brought you some flowers. He wants to know if you feel up to
seeing him," said Lady Crawleigh.
"Oh, George! Yes!"
He was almost the only one of her friends whom she was willing to meet
in her present mood, though his arrival interrupted the romance which
she was constructing. He was also the only one of her friends who knew
or had troubled to find out that she was ill. Apparently he was fond of
her.... And she was quite ready to be fond of him.
"I hope you're better," he began. "I mustn't stay more than a moment,
but I saw some roses in a shop and I thought they were as good an excuse
as any other."
"You felt you needed an excuse?"
"I wanted very much to see you; and I hoped these might mollify your
mother. Babs, I thought you might like to know that I met Colonel Waring
to-day and we're having some enquiries made through the American
Embassy. Jack was such a friend of us all...." he added vaguely.
"Oh, I do hope that they'll be able to hear something."
"Yes." George looked round the room and held out his hand. "I promised
your mother I wouldn't do more than put my nose in at the door."
"But I _want_ you to stay!"
"And, dearest Babs, you know that's what I want to do more than anything
in the world. But I mustn't tire you, and you mustn't tempt me." He
lifted her hands from the sheets and bent quickly to kiss them. "You
poor child!"
Barbara felt that this time she must explain, if she was not to be
maddened with sympathy.
"You mustn't pity me, George," she began.
"I pity any one who's in suspense.... The colonel's absolutely convinced
that Jack's all right. Good-bye, Babs."
As he turned abruptly and hurried out of the room, Barbara covered her
eyes. George was not only fond of her, he was in love with her; and he
had come on purpose to encourage her, against his own interests, with
hopes of Jack's safety. There was a dramatic irony in his coming; there
would be a further dramatic irony, if she fell in love with him for his
sympathy about Jack and then heard that Jack was safe and sound. Or,
indeed, if she fell in love with any one else. Because she was
overwrought and full of fancies, the shadow of the man in the train was
more real than George's substance; the one voice she could remember and
reproduce, but George's might have belonged to anybody.... This was her
old fear of the punishment which Providence had in store for her, the
image of herself passionately reaching out towards some one and finding
her way barred by Jack's inexorable ghost.
Suspense. "I pity any one who's in suspense."... It was the uncertainty
of the last year which had worn down her strength. And Lady Loring told
her to be patient.... Barbara's mind went back to her dinner of a week
before and to Amy's chance reference to a new clairvoyant. Mrs. Savage
of Knightsbridge.... No other address had been given, but she could find
that from Sonia. All her life Barbara had treated impulse as a thing to
be welcomed, a hint from destiny, a voice from the darkness. When she
awoke next morning, it was to wonder why she had waited so long. On the
first day that she was allowed out of the house she went by herself to
Knightsbridge and asked, without giving her name, for an interview.
At another time the setting and her own preparations would have amused
her. By putting on her most inconspicuous dress and hat, by veiling
herself and by sinking her voice to a whisper, she trusted to escape
recognition; unconsciously she also induced in her own mind a mysterious
expectancy, which was intensified by the atmosphere of the room into
which she was shewn. There were no windows, and it was lighted from the
ceiling; three low couches ran round the walls, which were covered with
yellow silk hangings; occasionally the hangings moved weirdly, as though
some one were peeping behind them. Though there were three women already
waiting, they were as silent as if, they were watching by the dead; and
it had been ingeniously arranged that, while they waited, there should
be nothing to distract their attention from the coming invocation of the
unknown. They, too, were dressed inconspicuously; they, too, wore thick
veils; and the suggestion of stealth and mystery, which they had
received from the room and from those whom they had found there, they
handed on to the newcomer.
Barbara's nerves were still unstrung, and she had less control of
herself than in the old days when she went to the Baroness Kohnstadt's
_séances_; then she had gone to be thrilled, but now she was tempted to
tell the maid that she could not wait and would come back some other
time. But, if she ran away, the other women would guess the reason, and
she could never allow another woman to know that she was frightened....
They were staring at her from behind their veils, and she stared coolly
back at them until the maid returned and whispered to one that Mrs.
Savage could now see her. The hangings moved again; it might have been
the draught from the open door, or Mrs. Savage might be having a
preliminary look at her clients; certainly it was disquieting, for no
one liked to be watched without seeing the watcher.... When next the
maid came in, Barbara looked at the clock and noted that interviews
lasted for half an hour. She wondered what method the clairvoyant
followed--and became suddenly sceptical and disgusted with the whole
enterprise. She had done it so often before! Her hand had been read, her
character told from her writing; one woman had taken her handkerchief
and pressed it to her forehead, another had stared raptly into the
time-honoured crystal ball; she had tried _planchette_ and rappings; and
from it all she had won nothing but an afternoon's excitement....
It was five o'clock; the last of the women had gone, and Barbara was
alone. She pretended to examine the embroidery of the silk hangings and
contrived to look behind them, but there was nothing more alarming than
an expanse of discoloured plaster. Nerves, again.... But the silence and
the waiting were hard to bear; the room was hot, Barbara wanted tea, and
one of the women had been using a cheap, disagreeable scent which
lingered intolerably. Nothing but a refusal to yield to her fear kept
her from running away. She was trying to determine what questions she
would ask the clairvoyant, when the maid returned.
"Mrs. Savage says she can see your ladyship now."
Barbara started and nearly cried out; but the maid was watching her, and
she passed through the door with elaborate outward unconcern. The
second room was similar to the first, for, though there was a window, it
was thickly curtained, and the only light came from a standard lamp in
one corner. For a moment Barbara could see no one; then Mrs. Savage came
forward in a yellow dress which was invisible against the silk hangings.
She wore a low yellow turban, covering her hair and half her forehead,
and stood with her back to the light.
"Good afternoon, Lady Barbara," she said. "Won't you take off your
veil?"
The voice was unfamiliar, but after a moment Mrs. Savage lighted a
cigarette and shewed cavernous dark eyes and an aquiline nose set in a
curiously narrow face which looked as if the cheek-bones had been
crushed together.
"Madame Hilary!"
"Won't you have a cigarette?"
She held out a case, and Barbara took one to gain time. So much had
happened since the meeting in Webster's room that it no longer troubled
her. The woman was certainly a blackmailer, as she had almost proved
when she went to Lord Crawleigh and asked for "temporary assistance."
There would, of course, be a terrible scene, if it were ever discovered
that Barbara had been to her again, and Mrs. Savage would quite possibly
threaten blackmail, if she saw her course clear. On the other hand, now
as before, the relative positions were equally strong and equally weak;
if she even hinted at a threat, she could be reported to the police....
After the two hours of dreary waiting, Barbara felt stimulated by the
prospect of an encounter.
"I never imagined it was you," she said.
"What may I have the honour of doing for you?" asked Mrs. Savage.
Barbara thought for a moment of saying vaguely that she had made a
mistake and of escaping as soon as possible. But after the strain of
waiting she now felt deliciously free from fear. And "Mrs. Savage" or
"Madame Hilary" was not as other clairvoyants; the incident of Jack
Summertown proved that; and the opportunity of consulting her was too
good to be thrown away. Barbara felt that she was not entitled to throw
it away; had she not almost been guided there? Was it coincidence that
Amy Loring, of all unlikely people, should have given her the name at
all? Was it coincidence that, when there were scores of women plying the
same trade, she should come straight and without choice or deliberation
to this one?...
"I'd heard about you," Barbara explained. "I didn't know who it was, of
course, but I wanted to consult you."
She hesitated and tried to determine what she wanted.
"Yes?"
"I didn't know who it was," Barbara repeated. "But I'm glad to find it
_is_ you. Do you remember the man in Mr. Webster's flat?"
"Lord Summertown?"
"Yes. Do you remember what you told him?"
"I told him nothing. It was what _he_ said."
"Well, yes. He said that he was going to die quite soon, that he was
going to be killed in a war. Well, that was months before there was any
talk of war. Do you know what's happened to him?"
Mrs. Savage shrugged her shoulders a little impatiently, as though such
questions were a waste of time.
"He was killed in the war," she said.
She spoke as if she took credit for it, and Barbara shivered.
"Yes.... I saw him just before he went back to barracks. I never saw him
again, but I _felt_ then that he was going to be killed. How did you
know?"
"He told me, as you heard."
"Yes, but...."
Barbara frowned and sat down, rubbing her forehead gently with her hand.
"_I_ tell nothing, but I persuade people to tell me," explained Mrs.
Savage with unconcealed boredom. As she dropped back into the part of
"Madame Hilary," "Mrs. Savage" was reviving her old staccato English and
giving it a hint of a foreign accent. "People come to me to find out
whether their sons and husbands are going to be killed. _I_ do not know.
And I tell them so. Then sometimes they allow me to persuade _them_ to
tell _me_. And, in my turn, I can tell them what they have said. But,
generally, no! They are afraid of hearing the truth. When their sons and
husbands have been killed, when nothing has been heard of them since
long, _then_ they come, because they feel that the truth is less hard
than the waiting. You have a brother?"
"They're still waiting to go out," answered Barbara.
"And you want to know? I can only tell you, if you tell me first; and
you can only tell me, if you know. The lines of life are interlocked. If
their lines cross yours, then you know; but, if they are separated....
You understand? It is not likely that you know anything of a man at the
other end of the world, whom you have never met, unless it has been
ordained that you are to meet him. That is reasonable."
She lighted another cigarette and sat down, looking at Barbara with no
apparent interest.
"You want to find out about some one whose life has crossed yours?" she
resumed carelessly, and her indifference was more disconcerting than
either her stereotyped mysticism or the hostility which she had shewn
when Barbara came into the room.
"I want to find out _generally_," answered Barbara. "All about myself.
What I've done and what I'm doing now doesn't matter, but I want to know
about the future."
Mrs. Savage laughed and shook her head.
"I know your name," she said. "I know who you are, but I know very
little about you. I imagine that your life has been very happy, you have
had everything to make it happy. Perhaps it will not always be happy.
If you learned that you were going to be very ill or die----"
"I've got to die some time. When I'm seventy-five, I shall know that I'm
going to die very soon, because hardly any one lives longer than that.
I'm twenty-two now, and I don't in the least mind knowing that I _can't_
live for more than about another fifty years."
"But, if it were five years? I do not know, of course."
"I'd sooner face it, I think."
Mrs. Savage threw away her cigarette impatiently.
"You're a child! And a silly child! Your friend, Lord Summertown--well,
I suppose none of you told him what he had said. And I suppose he
enjoyed his life to the end. The _whole_ future! Would you like to know
that you will marry in a year and be happy and lose your husband after
three months and lose your child and marry again--perhaps, this time,
some one who will not make you happy? And that then you will have an
illness or this or that?... I am talking for your good, because you are
nothing but a silly child. I _tell_ you that people will not be
persuaded to say to me all they know; they dare not face it. Their
present and future happiness----"
"I'm not so very happy," sighed Barbara.
"You are a child. And your friends are being killed, perhaps some one
whom you love----"
"I want to _know_," Barbara interrupted. "Everything's in such a muddle,
I want to know what's going to happen...." She paused, but Mrs. Savage
only shook her head. "Should I know what I was telling you? No! Lord
Summertown didn't. Well, you need only tell me back the things that
matter. If you ask me questions and I answer them.... Perhaps I _don't_
want to know if I'm going to die within a year, but there are all sorts
of things that I could quite well be told.... Will you do that? Just the
things that matter?"
"But I do not know what matters to you. Do you mean, whether
your--friends will come through the war without injury?"
"Ye-es. That sort of thing. I want to know if I'm going to be _happy_.
Generally."
"And you believe that I can help you?" Mrs. Savage's voice was changing
its quality to a sleepy drone, and Barbara found herself looking into
her eyes. "Only you can tell me what you think will _make_ you happy. I
know nothing about you except what you tell me. Perhaps you are in love
with some man, perhaps you think that he is in danger.... If you will
tell me...."
Barbara never knew at what point she began to come under the influence
of Mrs. Savage's eyes and voice. At one moment she was begging her to
use her powers, at another she was talking very volubly; it was like a
dream in which she fancied herself making a speech; words were pouring
out of her, and she was astonished to find that they made the nonsense
of words in a dream. "The distinction between the articles in
counterpoint, if you think of heliotrope quite accidentally
included...."
"What have I been saying?" she demanded.
Mrs. Savage leaned back wearily and closed her eyes.
"It is like that, when you return to yourself, to the present.... Lord
Summertown was disturbed by that poor girl who cried out."
"But I didn't know.... Did I go off? How long...?" She looked at her
watch and found that she had been in the room for three-quarters of an
hour. "What did I say?"
"You were a good subject."
"But what did I say?" Barbara repeated. It was the sight of her watch
that upset her. In forty-five minutes it was possible to say so much,
and she remembered Jack Summertown's almost indecent want of restraint.
"What shall I tell you," mused Mrs. Savage. "You said much, but you
described an empty life. Few lines crossed yours; there may be more to
come.... But you did not tell me of any loss. Were you afraid of losing
some one?"
"No.... I wanted to know, I wanted to--to straighten things out. But I
want to know everything I said. You _must_ tell me that."
"You child!"
Barbara sprang up in a grip of terror.
"I've said something awful? You're hiding something from me! It's not
fair!"
Mrs. Savage shook her head slowly. She seemed perplexed, and her early
hostility had evaporated until she was almost kindly.
"You wanted to know whether you would be happy," she reminded Barbara.
"You tell me that you are not going to die this year or next; and you
are not going to have any painful or dangerous illnesses. Happy?...
There are ups and downs of happiness, you cannot expect to be happy
always at the same level. If you have been happy so far, you will be
happy again; there will, of course, be ups and downs. What else?"
"I want you to tell me everything I said."
"That I shall not do."
"But why not?"
Mrs. Savage shrugged her shoulders.
"It would not make you any happier. If there is any one thing you want
to know...."
Barbara looked at her and looked away. She felt her nerve going.
"What is your fee?" she asked.
Mrs. Savage was still perplexed in expression, but her eyes had lost
their momentary softening of kindliness.
"I shall charge _you_--no fee," she answered.
Barbara turned and ran out of the room.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PRELUDE TO ROMANCE
"I loved you all my life; but some lives never meet
Though they go wandering side by side through Time."
JOHN MASEFIELD: "THE DAFFODIL FIELDS."
"_Fatalism is a doctrine which does not recognise the determination of
all events by causes in the ordinary sense; holding, on the contrary,
that a certain foreordained result will come about, no matter what may
be done to prevent it...._"
Barbara's first action on reaching home was to go into the library and
consult a dictionary to find out the exact meaning of a word which she
had been repeating to herself ever since she hurried out of Mrs.
Savage's rooms. She had many new ideas to fit into place, but dominating
them all was this sense of hopelessness and inevitability. Whether you
walked on the north pavement or the south was preordained; if you
asserted your supposed free will and crossed from south to north, even
that pitiful show of independence was preordained; God was still pushing
you from behind and, probably, laughing at you--as you laughed at the
kitten which stared at you with head on one side and wondering eyes, to
know what you had done with its reel of cotton. It was preordained that
you should play with that kitten for a moment in eternity and that for a
fraction of a moment you should hide the reel. Fatalism was paralyzing
to the soul, destroying all effort. Nothing mattered any longer....
It was Summertown who had made her a fatalist. His life had been mapped
out until all initiative was taken away. He had died very gallantly--but
he could not help himself; he had lived rather dissolutely, but he could
not help himself. There had been a tragedy and a disappointment in his
life; but the tragedy was set beforehand, and Destiny decided whether he
was to be made or broken by it, whether he was to avert or contribute to
it. Fatalism was the negation of morality. It allowed of neither right
nor wrong, only necessity.
If there were neither right nor wrong, Barbara had no cause for
self-reproach. Destiny had arranged that Jack should come into her life;
that he should anger her and that she should try to punish him; in
obeying Destiny she was not to blame. But, if fatalism relieved her of
responsibility, it also robbed her of resistance; she could do nothing
to shield herself from anything that Destiny might have in store for
her. Nothing had shielded Summertown when he came within range of the
first German bullet....
And the course of Destiny could be laid bare. Though for long she had
not believed it, she and the others had known what would happen to
Summertown, as Mrs. Savage now knew what would happen to her.... And she
had been afraid to insist on being told. All her life she had fancied
that she was a free spirit with head and hands to make herself what she
pleased. Now she was content to be told that, on the whole, she was
preordained to be happy.... Or so Mrs. Savage had thought fit to say;
she might be hiding something; there was no obvious reason why she
refused her fee.
"My darling, haven't you gone up to dress yet?" said Lady Crawleigh at
the door of the library. "You'll be so dreadfully late!"
Barbara knew that whether she was late or punctual had been preordained.
Her mother probably would not believe that; she would feel that every
one had enough free will not to keep other people waiting for dinner.
"I think I should like to dine in bed," she answered wearily.
"Aren't you feeling well?"
"I'm not equal to meeting a lot of people."
"But it's only George and the O'Ranes and one or two more. They'll be so
disappointed. And it's the first time Sonia's dined here since she was
married."
Barbara got up and walked reluctantly to the door. It was preordained,
then, that she should dine.... Once you accepted predestination, there
was no limit to its application. Her maid wanted her to wear a grey
dress, but she preferred something else, anything else; her choice fell
on a blue, but she was conscious that she was compelled from outside to
choose one rather than the other. She could not be troubled to decide
what jewellery she would wear; Destiny must do a little work, must
choose for her. She felt that she was scoring a point against Destiny,
when she refused to wear any; but Destiny had decided beforehand that
she was to have this moment's struggle before deciding not to wear
any....
Her maid was almost in tears at such indifference.