To tell the truth, Victor dreaded being left alone with his mother in
this way. He was fully aware now of the invisible barrier between them.
No matter what explanation was finally offered, she could never be the
same to him again, for whether it was her subconscious self which had
cunningly lured them all to the verge of disaster, or some
uncontrollable impulse coming from without, in the light any
explanation, she was no longer the sweet, gentle, normal mother he had
hitherto thought her to be.
It was not a question of being in possession of strange abilities, it
was a question of being obsessed by some diabolical power--of being the
prey of malignant demons avid to destroy.
The more deeply he thought upon all that had come to him, the more
bewildered he became; and to avoid this tumult, which brought no result,
he went out and wandered about the farm. His experience was like
visiting a foreign country, for the men were either Swiss or German; and
the walls of the farm-yard quite as un-American in their massiveness
and their formal arrangement--a vivid contrast to the flimsy structures
of the neighboring village. The servants (that is what they were,
servants) treated him with the trained deference of those who for
generations have touched their caps to the more fortunate beings of the
earth, and these signs of subordination were distinctly soothing to the
youth's disturbed condition of mind. Instantly, and without effort, he
assumed the air of the young aristocrat they thought him.
He strolled down the road to the village, which was a collection of
small frame cottages in neat lawns, surrounding a few general stores and
a greasy, fly-specked post-office. Here was the unimaginative, the
prosaic, perfectly embodied. Old men, bent and gray, were gossiping from
benches and boxes under the awnings. Clerks in their shirt-sleeves were
lolling over counters. A few farmers' teams stood at the iron
hitching-posts with drowsy, low-hanging heads. Neither doubt nor dismay
nor terror had footing here. The majesty of dawn, the mystery of
midnight, did not touch these peaceful and phlegmatic souls. The spirit
of man was to them less than an abstraction and the tumult of the city a
far-off roar as of distant cataracts.
Furthermore, these matter-of-fact folk had abundant curiosity and no
reverence, and they all stared at Victor with round, absorbent gaze, as
if with candid intent to take full invoice of his clothing, and to know
him again in any disguise. He heard them say, one after the other, as he
passed along, "Visitor of Bartol's, I guess." And he could understand
that this explanation really explained, for Bartol's "Castle" was the
resting-place of many strange birds of passage.
Bartol was, indeed, the constant marvel of Hazel Grove. Why had he
bought the place? Why, after it was bought, should he spend so much
money on it? And finally, why should he employ "foreigners"? These were
a few of the queries which were put and answered and debated in the
shade of the furniture store and around the air-tight store of the
grocery. His farm was their never-failing wonder tale. The building of a
new wall was an excitement, each whitewashing of a picket fence an
event. They knew precisely the hour of departure of each blooded ram or
bull, and the birth of each colt was discussed as if another son and
heir had come to the owner.
Naturally, therefore, all visitors to "Hazeldean" came in for study and
comment--especially because it was well known that Bartol stood high in
the political councils of the party (was indeed mentioned for senator),
and that his guests were likely to be "some punkins" in the world. "This
young feller is liable to be the son of one of his millionaire clients,"
was the comment of the patient sitters. "Husky chap, ain't he?"
Feeling something of this comment, and sensing also the sleepy
materialism of the inhabitants, Victor regained much of his own
disbelief in the miraculous, and yet just to that degree did the pain in
his heart increase, for it made of his mother something so monstrous
that the conception threatened all his love and reverence for her. Pity
sprang up in place of the filial affection he had once known. He began
to make new excuses for her. "It must be that she has become so
suggestible that every sitter's mind governs her. In a sense, that
removes her responsibility." And so he walked back, with all his
pleasure in the farm and village eaten up by his care.
His mother was waiting for him on the porch, and as he came up, asked
with shining face:
"Isn't this heavenly, Victor?"
"It is very beautiful," he replied, but with less enthusiasm than she
expected.
"To think that yesterday I was threatened with the prison, and
now--this! We have much to thank Mr. Bartol for."
"That's just it, mother. What claim have we on this big, busy man? What
right have we to sit here?"
The brightness of her face dimmed a little, but she replied bravely: "I
have always paid my way, Victor, and I am sure last night's message
meant much to Mr. Bartol. I always help people. If I bring back a belief
in immortality do I not make fullest recompense to my host? My gift is
precious, and yet I cannot sell it--I can only give it--and so when I am
offered bed and board in return for my work I am not ashamed to take it.
The kings of the earth are glad to honor those who, like myself, have
the power to penetrate the veil."
Never before had she ventured upon so frank a defense of her vocation,
and Victor listened with a new conception of her powers. As she
continued she took on dignity and quiet force.
"The medium gives more for her wages than any earthly soul; and when you
consider that we make the grave a gateway to the light, that our hands
part the veil between the seen and the unseen, then you will see that
our gifts are not abnormal, but supernormal. God has given us these
powers to comfort mankind, to afford a new revelation to the world."
"Why didn't you make me a medium?" he asked, thrusting straight at her
heart. "Why did you send me away from it all?"
Her eyes fell, her voice wavered. "Because I was weak--an earthly
mother. My selfish love and pride overpowered me. I could not see you
made ashamed--and besides my controls advised it for the time."
He took a seat where he could look up into her face. "Mother, tell me
this--haven't you noticed that your controls generally advise the things
you believe in?"
She was stung by his question. "Yes, my son, generally; but sometimes
they drive me into ways I do _not_ believe in. Often they are in
opposition to my own will."
He was silenced for the moment, and his mind took a new turn. "When did
Altair first come?"
"Soon after I met Leo. She came with Leo. She attends Leo."
"Have you seen her?"
"No. I am always in deepest trance when she shows herself. I hear her
voice, though."
"Mother," he said, earnestly, "if Mr. Bartol gets us out of this scrape
will you go away with me into some new country and give up this
business?"
"You don't seem to understand, Victor. I can no more escape from these
Voices than I can run away from my own shadow. I don't want to run away.
I love the thought of them. I have innumerable sweet friends on the
other side. To close the door in their faces would be cruel. It would
leave me so lonely that I should never smile again."
"Then they mean more to you than I do!" he exclaimed.
"No, no! I don't mean that!" she passionately protested. "You mean more
to me than all the _earthly_ things, but these heavenly hosts are very
dear--besides, I shall go to them soon and I want to feel sure that I
can come back to you when I have put aside the body. I fear now that
our separation was a mistake. In trying to shield you from the transient
disgrace of being a medium's son, I have put your soul in danger. I was
weak--I own it. I was an earthly mother. I wanted my boy to be respected
and rich and happy here in the earth-life. I did not realize the danger
I ran of being forever separated from you by the veil of death. Oh,
Victor, you must promise me that should I pass out suddenly you will try
to keep the spirit-way open between us--will you promise this?"
Strange scene! Strange mother! All about them the orioles were
whistling, the robins chirping, and farther away the beasts of the
barn-yard were bawling their wants in cheerful chorus, but here on this
vine-shaded porch a pale, small woman sought a compact with her son
which should outlast the grave and defy time and space.
He gave his word. How could he refuse it? But his pledge was
half-hearted, his eyes full of wavering. It irked him to think that in a
month of bloom and passion, a world of sunny romance, a world of girls
and all the sweet delights they conveyed to young men, he should be
forced to discuss matter which relates to the charnel-house and the
chill shadow of the tomb.
He rose abruptly. "Don't let's talk of this any more. Let's go for a
walk. Let's visit the garden."
She was swifter of change than he. She could turn from the air of the
"ghost-room" to the glory of the peacock as swiftly as a mirror reflects
its beam of light, and she caught a delightful respite from the flowers.
She was accustomed to the lavish greenhouses of her wealthy patrons, but
here was something that delighted her more than all their hotbeds. Here
were all the old-fashioned out-of-door plants and flowers, the
perennials of her grandfather, to whom hot-houses were unknown. This
Colonial garden was another of Bartol's peculiarities. He had no love
for orchids, or any exotic or forced blooms. His fancy led to the
glorification of phloxes, to the ripening of lilacs, and to the
preservation of old-time varieties of roses--plants with human
association breathing of romance and sorrow--hence his plots were filled
with hardy New England roots flourishing in the richer soils of the
Western prairies.
These colors, scents, and forms moved Victor markedly, for the reason
that in La Crescent, as a child, he had been accustomed to visit a gaunt
old woman, the path to whose door led through cinnamon roses, balsam,
tiger-lilies, sweet-william, bachelor-buttons, pinks, holly-hocks, and
the like--a wonderland to him then--a strange and haunting pleasure now
as he walked these graveled ways and mingled the memories of the old
with the vivid impressions of the new.
Back to the house they came at last to luncheon, and there, sitting in
the beautiful dining-room, so cool, so spacious, so singularly tasteful
in every detail, they gazed upon each other in a delight which was
tinged with pain. Such perfection of appointment, such service, all for
them (two beggars), was more than embarrassing; it provoked a sense of
guilt. The pretty, low-voiced, soft-soled maid came and went, bringing
exquisite food in the daintiest dishes (enough food for six),
anticipating every want, like the fairy of the story-books. "Mother,"
said the youth, "this is a story!"
Mrs. Ollnee was accustomed to the splendor of Mrs. Joyce's house, but
she was almost as much moved as Victor. She perceived the difference
between the old-world simplicity of this flawless establishment and the
lavish, tasteless hospitality of men like Pettus.
Who had planned and organized this wide-walled, low-toned room, this
marvelously effective cuisine? How was it possible for such service to
go on during the master's absence with apparently the same unerring
precision of detail?
These questions remained unanswered, and they rose at last with a sense
of having been, for the moment at least, in the seats of those who
command the earth wisely.
Hardly were they returned to their hammocks on the porch when a swiftly
driven car turned in at the gate.
"It is Louise!" exclaimed Mrs. Ollnee.
"And Leo!" added Victor.
With streaming veils the travelers swept up to the carriage steps
covered with dust, yet smiling.
"How are you?" called Mrs. Joyce; and then with true motor spirit,
addressed the driver: "What's the time, Denis?"
"Two hours and ten minutes from North Avenue."
"Not so bad, considering the roads."
Leo had sprung out and was throwing off her cloak and veil. "I hope
we're not too late for luncheon. Mr. Bartol has the _best_ cook, and I'm
famished."
Her coming swept Victor back into his other and normal self, and he took
charge of her with a mingling of reverence and audacity which charmed
her. He went out into the dining-room with her and sat beside her while
she ate. "I hope you're going to stay," he said, earnestly.
"Stay! Of course we'll stay. It's hot as July in the city--always is
with the wind from the southwest. Isn't it heavenly out here?"
"Heavenly is the word; but who did it? Who organized it?"
"Mrs. Bartol. She had the best taste of any one--and her way with the
servants was beyond imitation. They all worship her memory."
"I can't make myself believe I deserve all this," he said. "Your coming
puts the frosting on my bun."
It was as if some new and utterly different spirit, or band of them, had
come with this glowing girl. She radiated the vitality and the melody of
youth. Without being boisterous or silly, she filled the house with
laughter. "There's something about Hazeldean that always makes me happy.
I don't know why," she said.
"You make all who inhabit this house happy," said Mrs. Ollnee. "I can
hear spirit laughter echoing to yours."
"Can you? Is it Margaret?"
"Yes, Margaret and Philip."
Victor did not smile; on the contrary, his face darkened, and Mrs. Joyce
changed the tone of the conversation by asking: "Did you see the paper
this morning? They say you have skipped to join Pettus." This seemed so
funny that they all laughed, till Victor remembered that both these
women had lost much money through Pettus.
Mrs. Joyce sobered, too. "The Star is against you, Lucy, and you must
keep dark for a time. They are denouncing you as a traitor and all the
rest of it. Did Paul, or any one, advise you last night?"
"No, nothing was said. I suppose they are considering the matter also.
Those deceiving spirits must be hunted out and driven away."
"I'm going to lie down for a while," Mrs. Joyce announced. "My old
waist-line is jolted a bit out o' plumb. Leo, will you stretch out,
too?"
"No indeed. What I need is a walk or a game of tennis. I'm cramped from
sitting so long."
So it fell out that Victor (penniless youth, hedged about with invisible
walls, pikes, and pitfalls) was soon galloping about a tennis court in
the glories of a new pair of flannel trousers and a lovely blue-striped
outing shirt, trying hard not to win every game from a very good
partner, who was pouting with dismay while admiring his skill.
"It isn't right for any one to 'serve' as weird a ball as you do," she
protested. "It's like playing with loaded dice. I begin to understand
why you were not renowned as a scholar."
"Oh, I wasn't so bad! I stood above medium."
"How could you? It must have taken all your time to learn to play tennis
in the diabolical way you do--it's conjury, that's what it is!"
They were in the shade, and the fresh sweet wind, heavy with the scent
of growing corn and wheat, swept steadily over the court, relieving it
from heat, and Victor clean forgot his worriments. This girlish figure
filled his eyes with pictures of unforgetable grace and charm. The swing
of her skirts as she leaped for the ball, the free sweep of her arm (she
had been well instructed), and the lithe bending of her waist brought
the lover's sweet unease. When they came to the net now and again, he
studied her fine figure with frank admiration. "You are a corker!" was
his boyish word of praise. "I don't go up against many men who play the
game as well as you do. Your 'form' is a whole lot better than mine. I
am a bit lucky, I admit. You see, I studied baseball pitching, and I
know the action of a whirling sphere. I curve the ball--make it 'break,'
as the English say. I can make it do all kinds of 'stunts.'"
"I see you can, and I'll thank you not to try any new ones," she
protested. "Can you ride a horse?"
His face fell a bit. "There I am a 'mutt,'" he confessed. "I never was
on a horse except the wooden one in the Gym."
"I'm glad I can beat you at something," she said, with exultant cruelty.
"I know you can row."
"Shall we try another set?" he asked.
"Not to-day, thank you. My self-respect will not stand another such
drubbing. I'm going in for a cold plunge. After that you may read to me
on the porch."
"I'll be there with the largest tome in the library," he replied.
Mrs. Joyce stopped him as he was going up-stairs to his room. "Victor,
don't worry about me. While it looks as though I have lost a good deal
of money through Pettus, I am by no means bankrupt. I am just about
where I was when I met your mother. She has not enriched me--I mean The
Voices have not--neither have they impoverished me. It's just the same
with Leo. She's almost exactly where she was when she came East. It
would seem as if they had been playing with us just to show us how
unsubstantial earthly possessions are."
There was a certain comfort in this explanation, and yet the fact that
her losses had not eaten in upon her original capital did not remove the
essential charge of dishonesty which the man Aiken had brought against
the ghostly advisers. Florence and Thomas Aiken could not afford to be
so lenient. They were disinherited, cheated of their rightful legacy, by
the lying spirits.
He was anxious, also, to know just how deeply Leo was involved in the
People's Bank; and when she came down to the porch he led her to a
distant chair beside a hammock on the eastern side of the house, and
there, with a book in his hand, opened his interrogations.
He began quite formally, and with a well-laid-out line of questions, but
she was not the kind of witness to permit that. She broke out of his
boundaries on the third query, and laughingly refused to discuss her
losses. "I am holding no one but myself responsible," she said. "I was
greedy--I couldn't let well enough alone, that's all."
"No, that is not all," he insisted. "My mother is charged with advising
people to put money into the hands of a swindler--"
"I don't believe that. I think she was honest in believing that Pettus
would enrich us all. She was deceived like the rest of us."
"But what becomes of the infallible Voices?"
She laughed. "They are fallible, that's all. They made a gross blunder
in Pettus."
"Mr. Bartol suggests that my mother may have been hypnotized by Pettus
and made to work his will, and I think he's right. He thinks the whole
thing comes down to illusion--to hypnotic control and telepathy."
She looked thoughtful. "I had a stage of believing that; but it doesn't
explain all, it only explains a small part. Does it explain Altair to
you?"
His glance fell. "Nothing explains Altair--nor that moaning wind--nor
the writing on the slates."
"And the letter--have you forgotten that?"
"Half an hour ago, as we were playing tennis, I _had_ forgotten it. I
was cut loose from the whole blessed mess--now it all comes back upon me
like a cloud."
"Oh, don't look at it that way. That's foolish. I think it's glorious
fun, this investigating."
He acknowledged her rebuke, but added, "It would be more fun if the
person under the grill were not one's own mother."
"That's true," she admitted; "and yet, I think you can study her without
giving offense. I began in a very offensive way--I can see that now--but
she met my test, and still meets every test you bring. The faith she
represents isn't going to have its heart plucked out in a hurry, I can
tell you that."
"The immediate thing is to defend her against this man Aiken. Mr. Bartol
said he would order up a lot of books, and I'm to cram for the trial. If
you have any book to suggest, I wish you'd write its title down for me."
"What's the use of going to books? The judges will want the facts, and
you'll have to convince them that she is what she claims to be."
"How can we do that? We can't exhibit her in a trance?"
"You might. Perhaps her guides will give her the power." She glowed with
anticipatory triumph. "Imagine her confounding the jury! Wouldn't that
be dramatic! It would be like the old-time test of fire."
He was radiant, too, for a moment, over the thought. Then his face grew
stern. "Nothing like that is going to happen. She would fail, and that
would leave us in worse case than before. Our only hope is to convince
the jury that she is not responsible for what her Voices say. We've got
to show she's auto-hypnotic."
"I hope the trial will come soon."
"So do I, for here I am eating somebody else's food, with no prospect of
earning a cent or finding out my place in the world. I don't know just
what my mother's idea was in educating me in classical English instead
of some technical course, but I'm perfectly certain that I'm the most
helpless mollusk that was ever kicked out of a school."
Real bitterness was in his voice, and she hastened to add a word of
comfort. "All you need is a chance to show your powers."
"What powers?"
"Latent powers," she smiled. "We are all supposed to have latent powers.
I am seeking a career, too."
He forgot himself in a return of his admiration of her. "Oh, you don't
have to seek. A girl like you has her career all cut out for her."
She caught his meaning. "That's what I resent. Why should a woman's
career mean only marriage?"
"I don't know--I guess because it's the most important thing for her to
do."
"To be some man's household drudge or pet?"
"No, to be some man's inspiration."
"Fudge! A woman is never anybody's inspiration--after she's married."
"How cynical you are! What caused it?"
"Observing my married friends."
"Oh, I am relieved! I was afraid it was through some personal
experience--"
This seemed funny to them both, and they laughed together. "There's
nothing of 'the maiden with reluctant feet' about me," she went on. "I
simply refuse to go near the brink. I find men stupid, smelly, and
coarse."
"I hate girls in the abstract--they giggle and whisper behind their
hands and make mouths; but there is one girl who is different." He tried
to be very significant at the moment.
She ignored his clumsy beginning of a compliment. "All the girls who
giggle should marry the men who 'crack jokes'--that's my advice."
"'Pears like our serious conversation is straggling out into
vituperation."
"Whose fault is it?"
"Please don't force me to say it was not my fault. I'm like Lincoln--I
joke to hide my sorrows."
"Don't be irreverent."
Through all this youthful give and take the boy and girl were studying
each other minutely, and the phrases that read so baldly came from their
lips with so much music, so much of hidden meaning (at least with
displayed suggestion), that each was tingling with the revelation of it.
The words of youth are slight in content; it is the accompanying tone
that carries to the heart.