Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far,
Thro' all yon starlight keen,
Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star,
In raiment white and clean.
He lifts me to the golden doors;
The flashes come and go;
All heaven bursts her starry floors,
And strews her lights below.
_St. Agnes' Eve, Tennyson_.
Miss Waghorn, of late, had been unusually trying, and especially full
of complaints. Her poor old memory seemed broken beyond repair. She
offered Madame Jequier her weekly payment twice within ten minutes,
and was quite snappy about it when the widow declined the second
tender.
'But you had the receipt in your hand wizin ten minutes ago, Mees
Wag'orn. You took it upstairs. The ink can hardly be now already yet
dry.' But nothing would satisfy her that she had paid until they went
up to her room together and found it after much searching between her
Bible and her eternal novel on the writing-table.
'Forgive me, Madame, but you do forget sometimes, don't you?' she
declared with amusing audacity. 'I like to make quite sure---
especially where money is concerned.' On entering the room she had
entirely forgotten why they came there. She began complaining,
instead, about the bed, which had not yet been made. A standing source
of grumbling, this; for the old lady would come down to breakfast many
a morning, and then go up again before she had it, thinking it was
already late in the day. She worried the _pensionnaires_ to death,
too. It was their duty to keep the salon tidy, and Miss Waghorn would
flutter into the room as early as eight o'clock, find the furniture
still unarranged, and at once dart out again to scold the girls. These
interviews were amusing before they became monotonous, for the old
lady's French was little more than 'nong pas' attached to an
infinitive verb, and the girls' Swiss-German explanations of the
alleged neglect of duty only confused her. 'Nong pas faire la
chambre,' she would say, stamping her foot with vexation. 'You haven't
done the room, though it's nearly dejooner time!' Or else--'Ten
minutes ago it was tidy. Look at it now!' while she dragged them in
and forced them to put things straight, until some one in authority
came and explained gently her mistake. 'Oh, excuse me, Madame,' she
would say then, 'but they do forget _so_ often.' Every one was very
patient with her as a rule.
And of late she had been peculiarly meddlesome, putting chairs
straight, moving vases, altering the lie of table-cloths and the angle
of sofas, opening windows because it was 'so stuffy,' and closing them
a minute later with complaints about the draught, forcing occupants of
arm-chairs to get up because the carpet was caught, fiddling with
pictures because they were crooked either with floor or ceiling, and
never realising that in the old house these latter were nowhere
parallel. But her chief occupation was to prevent the children
crossing their legs when they sat down, or pulling their dresses
lower, with a whispered, 'You _must_ not cross your legs like that; it
isn't ladylike, dear.'
She had been very exasperating and interfering. Tempers had grown
short. Twice running she had complained about the dreadful noise the
_pensionnaires_ made at seven o'clock in the morning. 'Nong pas creer
comme ca!' she called, running down the passage in her dressing-gown
and bursting angrily into their rooms without knocking--to find them
empty. The girls had left the day before.
But to-day (the morning after the Star Cave adventure) the old lady
was calmer, almost soothed, and at supper she was composed and gentle.
Sleep, for some reason, had marvellously refreshed her. Attacks that
opened as usual about Cornish Cream or a Man with a long Beard, she
repelled easily and quietly. 'I've told you that story before, my
dear; I know I have.' It seemed her mind and memory were more orderly
somehow. And the Widow Jequier explained how sweet and good-natured
she had been all day--better than for years. 'When I took her drops
upstairs at eleven o'clock I found her tidying her room; she was
sorting her bills and papers. She read me a letter she had written to
her nephew to come out and take her home--well written and quite
coherent. I've not known her mind so clear for months. Her memory,
too. She said she had slept so well. If only it would last,
_helas_!'
'There _are_ days like that,' she added presently, 'days when
everything goes right and easily. One wakes up happy in the morning
and sees only the bright side of things. Hope is active, and one has
new courage somehow.' She spoke with feeling, her face was brighter,
clearer, her mind less anxious. She had planned a visit to the Bank
Manager about the mortgages. It had come as an inspiration. It might
be fruitless, but she was hopeful, and so knew a little peace. 'I
wonder why it is,' she added, 'and what brings these changes into the
heart so suddenly.'
'Good sleep and sound digestion,' Mrs. Campden thought. She expressed
her views deliberately like this in order to counteract any growth of
fantasy in the children.
'But it is strange,' her husband said, remembering his new story; 'it
may be much deeper than that. While the body sleeps the spirit may get
into touch with helpful forces----' His French failed him. He wumbled
painfully.
'Thought-forces possibly from braver minds,' put in Rogers. 'Who
knows? Sleep and dreaming have never really been explained.' He
recalled a theory of Minks.
'_I_ dream a great deal,' Miss Waghorn observed, eager to take part.
'It's delightful, dreaming--if only one could remember!' She looked
round the table with challenge in her eager old eyes. But no one took
her up. It involved such endless repetition of well-known stories. The
Postmaster might have said a word--he looked prepared--but, not
understanding English, he went on with his salad instead.
'Life is a dream,' observed Monkey, while Jinny seemed uncertain
whether she should laugh or take it seriously.
The Widow Jequier overheard her. There was little she did not
overhear.
'Coquine!' she said, then quoted with a sentimental sigh:--
La vie est breve,
Un peu d'amour.
Un peu de rive
Et puis--bonjour!
She hung her head sideways a moment for effect. There was a pause all
down the long table.
'I'm sure dreams have significance,' she went on. 'There's more in
dreaming than one thinks. They come as warnings or encouragement. All
the saints had dreams. I always pay attention to mine.'
'Madame, _I_ dream a great deal,' repeated Miss Waghorn, anxious not
to be left out of a conversation in which she understood at least the
key-word _reve_; 'a very great deal, I may say.'
Several looked up, ready to tell nightmares of their own at the least
sign of encouragement. The Postmaster faced the table, laying down his
knife and fork. He took a deep breath. This time he meant to have his
say. But his deliberation always lost him openings.
_I_ don't,' exclaimed Jinny, bluntly, five minutes behind the others.
'When I'm in bed, I sleep.' The statement brought laughter that
confused her a little. She loved to define her position. She had
defined it. And the Postmaster had lost his chance. Mlle. Sandoz, a
governess who was invited to supper as payment for a music lesson
given to his boy, seized the opening.
'Last night I dreamed that a bull chased me. Now what did _that_ mean,
I wonder?'
'That there was no danger since it was only a dream!' said the
Postmaster sharply, vexed that he had not told his own.
But no one applauded, for it was the fashion to ignore his
observations, unless they had to do with stamps and weights of
letters, parcels, and the like. A clatter of voices rose, as others,
taking courage, decided to tell experiences of their own; but it was
the Postmaster's wife in the hall who won. She had her meals outside
with the kitchen maid and her niece, who helped in the Post Office,
and she always tried to take part in the conversation from a distance
thus. She plunged into a wordy description of a lengthy dream that had
to do with clouds, three ravens, and a mysterious face. All listened,
most of them in mere politeness, for as cook she was a very important
personage who could furnish special dishes on occasion--but her sister
listened as to an oracle. She nodded her head and made approving
gestures, and said, 'Aha, you see,' or 'Ah, voila!' as though that
helped to prove the importance of the dream, if not its actual truth.
And the sister came to the doorway so that no one could escape. She
stood there in her apron, her face hot and flushed still from the
kitchen.
At length it came to an end, and she looked round her, hoping for a
little sympathetic admiration, or at least for expressions of wonder
and interest. All waited for some one else to speak. Into the pause
came her husband's voice, 'Je n'ai pas de sel.'
There was no resentment. It was an everyday experience. The spell was
broken instantly. The cook retired to her table and told the dream all
over again with emphatic additions to her young companions. The
Postmaster got his salt and continued eating busily as though dreams
were only fit for women and children to talk about. And the English
group began whispering excitedly of their Magic Box and all it had
contained. They were tired of dreams and dreaming.
Tante Jeanne made a brave effort to bring the conversation back to the
key of sentiment and mystery she loved, but it was not a success.
'At any rate I'm certain one's mood on going to bed decides the kind
of dream that comes,' she said into the air. 'The last thought before
going to sleep is very important. It influences the adventures of the
soul when it leaves the body every night.'
For this was a tenet of her faith, although she always forgot to act
upon it. Only Miss Waghorn continued the train of ideas this started,
with a coherence that surprised even herself. Somehow the jabber about
dreams, though in a language that only enabled her to catch its
general drift, had interested her uncommonly. She seemed on the verge
of remembering something. She had listened with patience, a look of
peace upon her anxious old face that was noticed even by Jane Anne.
'It smoothed her out,' was her verdict afterwards, given only to
herself though. 'Everything is a sort of long unfinished dream to her,
I suppose, at _that_ age.'
While the _famille anglaise_ renewed noisily their excitement of the
Magic Box, and while the talk in the hall went on and on, re-hashing
the details of the cook's marvellous experience, and assuming entirely
new proportions, Miss Waghorn glanced about her seeking whom she might
devour--and her eye caught Henry Rogers, listening as usual in
silence.
'Ah,' she said to him, 'but _I_ look forward to sleep. I might say I
long for it.' She sighed very audibly. It was both a sigh for release
and a faint remembrance that last night her sleep had been somehow
deep and happy, strangely comforting.
'It is welcome sometimes, isn't it?' he answered, always polite and
rather gentle with her.
'Sleep unravels, yes,' she said, vaguely as to context, yet with a
querulous intensity. It was as if she caught at the enthusiasm of a
connected thought somewhere. 'I might even say it unties,' she added,
encouraged by his nod, 'unties knots--if you follow me.'
'It does, Miss Waghorn. Indeed, it does.' Was this a precursor of the
Brother with the Beard, he wondered? 'Untied knots' would inevitably
start her off. He made up his mind to listen to the tale with interest
for the twentieth time if it came. But it didn't come.
'I am very old and lonely, and _I_ need the best,' she went on
happily, half saying it to herself.
Instantly he took her up--without surprise too. It was like a dream.
'Quite so. The rest, the common stuff----'
'Is good enough----' she chimed in quickly--
'For Fraulein, or for baby, or for mother,' he laughed.
'Or any other,' chuckled Miss Waghorn.
'Who needs a bit of sleep----'
'But yet can do without it----' she carried it on.
Then both together, after a second's pause--
'If they must----' and burst out laughing.
Goodness, how did _she_ know the rhyme? Was it everywhere? Was thought
running loose like wireless messages to be picked up by all who were
in tune for acceptance?
'Well, I never!' he heard her exclaim, 'if that's not a nursery rhyme
of my childhood that I've not heard for sixty years and more! I
declare,' she added with innocent effrontery, 'I've not heard it since
I was ten years old. And I was born in '37--the year----'
'Just fancy!' he tried to stop her.
'Queen Victoria came to the throne.'
'Strange,' he said more to himself than to any one else. She did not
contradict him.
'You or me?' asked Monkey, who overheard.
'All of us,' he answered. 'We all think the same things. It's a dream,
I believe; the whole thing is a dream.'
'It's a fact though,' said Miss Waghorn with decision, 'and now I must
go and write my letters, and then finish a bit of lace I'm doing. You
will excuse me?' She rose, made a little bow, and left the table.
Mother watched her go. 'What _has_ come over the old lady?' she
thought. 'She seems to be getting back her mind and memory too. How
very odd!'
In the afternoon Henry Rogers had been into Neuchatel. It seemed he
had some business there of a rather private nature. He was very
mysterious about it, evading several offers to accompany him, and
after supper he retired early to his own room in the carpenter's
house. And, since he now was the principal attraction, a sort of
magnet that drew the train of younger folk into his neighbourhood, the
Pension emptied, and the English family, deprived of their leader,
went over to the Den.
'Partir a l'anglaise,' laughed the Widow Jequier, as she saw them file
away downstairs; and then she sighed. Some day, when the children were
older and needed a different education, they would all go finally.
Down these very stairs they would go into the street. She loved them
for themselves, but, also, the English family was a permanent source
of income to her, and the chief. They stayed on in the winter, when
boarders were few and yet living expenses doubled. She sighed, and
fluttered into her tiny room to take her finery off, finery that had
once been worn in Scotland and had reached her by way of Cook and
_la petite vitesse_ in the Magic Box.
And presently she fluttered out again and summoned her sister. The
Postmaster had gone to bed; the kitchen girl was washing up the last
dishes; Miss Waghorn would hardly come down again. The salon was
deserted.
'Come, Anita,' she cried, yet with a hush of excitement in her voice,
'we will have an evening of it. Bring the _soucoupe_ with you, while I
prepare the little table.' In her greasy kitchen apron Anita came.
Zizi, her boy, came with her. Madame Jequier, with her flowing garment
that was tea-gown, garden-dress, and dressing-gown all in one, looked
really like a witch, her dark hair all askew and her eyes shining with
mysterious anticipation. 'We'll ask the spirits for help and
guidance,' she said to herself, lest the boy should overhear. For Zizi
often helped them with their amateur planchette, only they told him it
was electricity: _le magnetisme_, _le fluide_, was the term they
generally made use of. Its vagueness covered all possible explanations
with just the needed touch of confusion and suggestion in it.
They settled down in a corner of the room, where the ivy from the
ceiling nearly touched their heads. The small round table was
produced; the saucer, with an arrow pencilled on its edge, was
carefully placed upon the big sheet of paper which bore the letters of
the alphabet and the words _oui_ and _non_ in the corners. The light
behind them was half veiled by ivy; the rest of the old room lay in
comparative darkness; through the half-opened door a lamp shone upon
the oil-cloth in the hall, showing the stains and the worn, streaked
patches where the boards peeped through. The house was very still.
They began with a little prayer--to _ceux qui ecoutent_,--and then
each of them placed a finger on the rim of the upturned saucer,
waiting in silence. They were a study in darkness, those three
pointing fingers.
'Zizi, tu as beaucoup de fluide ce soir, oui?' whispered the widow
after a considerable interval.
'Oh, comme d'habitude,' he shrugged his shoulders. He loved these
mysterious experiments, but he never claimed much _fluide_ until the
saucer moved, jealous of losing his reputation as a storehouse of
this strange, human electricity.
Yet behind this solemn ritual, that opened with prayer and invariably
concluded with hope renewed and courage strengthened, ran the tragic
element that no degree of comedy could kill. In the hearts of the two
old women, ever fighting their uphill battle with adversity, burned
the essence of big faith, the faith that plays with mountains. Hidden
behind the curtain, an indulgent onlooker might have smiled, but tears
would have wet his eyes before the smile could have broadened into
laughter. Tante Jeanne, indeed, _had_ heard that the subconscious mind
was held to account for the apparent intelligence that occasionally
betrayed itself in the laboriously spelled replies; she even made use
of the word from time to time to baffle Zizi's too importunate
inquiries. But after _le subconscient_ she always tacked on _fluide_,
_magnetisme_, or _electricite_ lest he should be frightened, or she
should lose her way. And of course she held to her belief that spirits
produced the phenomena. A subconscious mind was a cold and comfortless
idea.
And, as usual, the saucer told them exactly what they had desired to
know, suggested ways and means that hid already in the mind of one or
other, yet in stammered sentences that included just enough surprise
or turn of phrase to confirm their faith and save their self-respect.
It was their form of prayer, and with whole hearts they prayed.
Moreover, they acted on what was told them. Had they discovered that
it was merely the content of their subconscious mind revealing thus
its little hopes and fears, they would have lost their chief support
in life. God and religion would have suffered a damaging eclipse. Big
scaffolding in their lives would have collapsed.
Doubtless, Tante Jeanne did not knowingly push the saucer, neither did
the weighty index finger of the concentrated cook deliberately exert
muscular pressure. Nor, similarly, was Zizi aware that the weight of
his entire hand helped to urge the dirty saucer across the slippery
surface of the paper in whatever direction his elders thus indicated.
But one and all knew 'subconsciously' the exact situation of
consonants and vowels--that _oui_ lay in the right-hand corner and
_non_ in the left. And neither Zizi nor his mother dared hint to their
leader not to push, because she herself monopolised that phrase,
saying repeatedly to them both, 'mais il ne faut _pas_ pousser!
Legerement avec les doigts, toujours tres legerement! Sans ca il n'y a
pas de valeur, tu comprends!' Zizi inserted an occasional electrical
question. It was discreetly ignored always.
They asked about the Bank payments, the mortgages, the future of their
much-loved old house, and of themselves; and the answers, so vague
concerning any detailed things to come, were very positive indeed
about the Bank. They were to go and interview the Manager three days
from now. They had already meant to go, only the date was undecided;
the corroboration of the spirits was required to confirm it. This
settled it. Three days from to-night!
'Tu vois!' whispered Tante Jeanne, glancing mysteriously across the
table at her sister. 'Three days from now! That explains your dream
about the three birds. Aha, tu vois!' She leaned back, supremely
satisfied. And the sister gravely bowed her head, while Zizi looked up
and listened intently, without comprehension. He felt a little alarm,
perhaps, to-night.
For this night there _was_ indeed something new in the worn old
ritual. There was a strange, uncalculated element in it all,
unexpected, and fearfully thrilling to all three. Zizi for the first
time had his doubts about its being merely electricity.
'C'est d'une puissance extraordinaire,' was the widow's whispered,
eager verdict.
'C'est que j'ai enormement de fluide ce soir,' declared Zizi, with
pride and confidence, yet mystified. The other two exchanged frequent
glances of surprise, of wonder, of keen expectancy and anticipation.
There was certainly a new 'influence' at work to-night. They even felt
a touch of faint dread. The widow, her ruling passion strong even
before the altar, looked down anxiously once or twice at her
disreputable attire. It was vivid as that--this acute sense of another
presence that pervaded the room, not merely hung about the little
table. She could be 'invisible' to the Pension by the magic of old-
established habit, but she could not be so to the true Invisibles. And
they saw her in this unbecoming costume. She forgot, too, the need of
keeping Zizi in the dark. He must know some day. What did it matter
when?
She tidied back her wandering hair with her free hand, and drew the
faded garment more closely round her neck.
'Are you cold?' asked her sister with a hush in her voice; 'you feel
the cold air--all of a sudden?'
'I do, _maman_,' Zizi answered. 'It's blowing like a wind across my
hand. What is it?' He was shivering. He looked over his shoulder
nervously.
There was a heavy step in the hall, and a figure darkened the doorway.
All three gave a start.
'J'ai sommeil,' announced the deep voice of the Postmaster. This meant
that the boy must come to bed. It was the sepulchral tone that made
them jump perhaps. Zizi got up without a murmur; he was glad to go,
really. He slept in the room with his parents. His father, an overcoat
thrown over his night things, led him away without another word. And
the two women resumed their seance. The saucer moved more easily and
swiftly now that Zizi had gone. 'C'est done _toi_ qui as le fluide,'
each said to the other.
But in the excitement caused by this queer, new element in the
proceedings, the familiar old routine was forgotten. Napoleon and
Marie Antoinette were brushed aside to make room for this important
personage who suddenly descended upon the saucer from an unknown star
with the statement--it took half an hour to spell--'Je viens d'une
etoile tres eloignee qui n'a pas encore de nom.'
'There _is_ a starry light in the room. It was above your head just
now,' whispered the widow, enormously excited. 'I saw it plainly.' She
was trembling.
'That explains the clouds in my dream,' was the tense reply, as they
both peered round them into the shadows with a touch of awe. 'Now,
give all your attention. This has an importance, but, you know, an
importance--' She could not get the degree of importance into any
words. She looked it instead, leaving the sentence eloquently
incomplete.
For, certainly, into the quaint ritual of these two honest, troubled
old women there crept then a hint of something that was uncommon and
uplifting. That it came through themselves is as sure as that it spelt
out detailed phrases of encouragement and guidance with regard to
their coming visit to the Bank. That they both were carried away by it
into joy and the happiness of sincere relief of mind is equally a
fact. That their receptive mood attuned them to overhear
subconsciously messages of thought that flashed across the night from
another mind in sympathy with their troubles--a mind hard at work that
very moment in the carpenter's house--was not known to them; nor would
it have brought the least explanatory comfort even if they had been
told of it. They picked up these starry telegrams of unselfish
thinking that flamed towards them through the midnight sky from an
eager mind elsewhere busily making plans for their benefit. And,
reaching them subconsciously, their deep subconsciousness urged the
dirty saucer to the spelling of them, word by word and letter by
letter. The flavour of their own interpretation, of course, crept in
to mar, and sometimes to obliterate. The instruments were gravely
imperfect. But the messages came through. And with them came the great
feeling that the Christian calls answered prayer. They had such
absolute faith. They had belief.
'Go to the Bank. Help awaits you there. And I shall go with you to
direct and guide.' This was the gist of that message from 'une etoile
tres eloignee.'
They copied it out in violet ink with a pen that scratched like the
point of a pin. And when they stole upstairs to bed, long after
midnight, there was great joy and certainty in their fighting old
hearts. There was a perfume of flowers, of lilacs and wistaria in the
air, as if the whole garden had slipped in by the back door and was
unable to find its way out again. They dreamed of stars and starlight.