A few weeks after Freddy's death a curious thing happened to Margaret,
a thing which shook her nerves and disturbed the automatic calm into
which she had drilled her thoughts.
She was still a hard-working pantry-maid, doing the same daily round of
apparently unwarlike work. She was thankful that she had got it to do,
and considered herself lucky, for the waiting lists of able and eager
V.A.D.'s, whose names were down at hospitals and convalescent homes,
ran into many figures, girls who were longing to be given any sort of
occupation, however humble, which would place them amongst the women of
England who were really in touch with the agony of the world. Margaret
had still the promise before her of promotion, the hope that eventually
she would reach the wards. Time would make its demands on the long
lists of V.A.D.'s who were unemployed and eager for work. It would not
be long before they would all be required. Someone else would step
into her humble post when she was promoted. It was merely a case of
patience and pluck; the voluntary hospitals were dependent on voluntary
aid. She gave hers gladly.
It was a very lonely, self-contained Margaret who wandered about London
during her "off-hours." Two hours gave her very little time for making
expeditions or seeing the sights of London, which were all unknown to
her, so she spent the greater part of her time in the secluded
garden-square close to her lodgings. It always reminded her of a small
public garden in Paris, in the old-fashioned quarter of the city, in
which she had lived for a year with a French family while she was
perfecting her French. The odd mixture of people who frequented it,
and monopolized the seats in it for hours at a time, interested her.
The work which they brought with them was as diverse as it was
peculiar. Not a few of the regular habitués made a home of it, even on
wet days, only returning to their shelter to sleep. Youth and elegance
seldom entered it, except, it might be, when a pair of lovers, of
non-British birth, drifted into it, seeking refuge from the madding
crowd.
A London church, as black and white with smoke and the wearing winds of
time as the marble churches of Lombardy, raised its belfry, of
unnamable architecture, picturesquely above the square on one side,
while a portion of its graveyard, which had been incorporated in the
garden-square, and which seemed to Margaret in its shabby condition
much older and more pathetically forlorn than the temple-tombs under
the Theban hills, attracted the aged and the melancholy.
Margaret was the only lady who ever patronized the bench-seats in this
secluded city oasis. Her V.A.D. uniform, and perhaps her air of
unconscious dignity, defended her from any unpleasantness. She had
never met with disrespect or lack of courtesy.
One of her chosen companions, an elderly, haggard woman, with a keen
sense of humour and traces of lost beauty, who always brought a bundle
of old rags and clothes to pick down, had made friends with her almost
immediately. She proved a source of great amusement to Margaret. The
woman's occupation had caused her much speculation.
She soon discovered, for the woman was not at all reticent, that she
had been a low comedian and a dancer at Drury Lane Theatre, and like
most comedians, high tragedy was her passion, and had been her ambition.
Margaret's off-hours flew on wings while she listened to the woman's
accounts of her dramatic experiences. She had seen her days of
prosperity and undoubtedly enjoyed much admiration. She was no
grumbler and still retained an appetite for life. The sparrows and the
fat pigeons which waited for the crumbs which fell from the pockets of
the clothes she unpicked were her friends; her dreams of the past were
her recreations.
When Margaret discovered that her desire for theatre-going was still
unabated and unsatisfied, and that she considered that there was no
pleasure on earth which wealth could bring her to be compared to the
excitement of a "first night," as viewed from the gallery, she
determined to give her a treat. She had not been to the theatre for
many years; the necessary shilling for the gallery was never
forthcoming; picking down old uniforms was not a lucrative occupation.
Margaret contrived to put the necessary shilling in her way by leaving
it lying on the seat when she got up.
When she appeared in the garden-square the next day, the aged comedian
told her about her "find," and asked her anxiously if she had lost a
shilling. Margaret lied nobly; yet her lie was only half a lie, for
she certainly had not lost it. She had vividly realized the finding of
it.
Margaret never laid out a shilling to better account. It was returned
to her fourfold as she listened to the glowing descriptions and the
good criticisms of the first performance of one of the most popular
war-plays which had been played in London.
And so the days passed and ran into each other, impersonal and
unselfish days. The story of Margaret's individual life was marking
time; but if her romance was arrested, her sympathies were expanding.
It was impossible for her to be dull, and she did not allow herself to
be sad. Freddy's example forbade self-pity or repining.
Of society in London she knew nothing and cared less. The war had put
"society" out of fashion. If she could count amongst her friends many
strange and questionable characters, they helped and cheered her as
nothing else could have done. More than one poor home in which there
was little food and much courage looked forward to the visits of the
tall, dark girl, whom they called by no other name than "Our V.A.D."
It was her intimate acquaintance with the inner life of some of
London's poor, and the example they unconsciously set her by their
cheerful acceptance of their pitiful circumstances and hideous
surroundings, which made Margaret see how contemptible it would be to
indulge in self-pity or repining. They expected so little, while she
wanted so much--perfect happiness as well as worldly prosperity. They
contrived to get enjoyment out of life even when it seemed to her that
they would be better dead. She had a thousand things in life which had
been denied to them. How could she expect to be given everything?
There she was face to face with crowds of human beings who exaggerated
their joys and rose above their afflictions. The unconquerable courage
of the poor--that was what life in London was teaching Margaret.
* * * * * *
It was one wet afternoon when she was seated in a Lyons' tea-shop, in a
crowded part of a West End shopping district, waiting for a cup of
coffee to be brought to her, that the strange incident happened. To
make use of her time, she had taken out a small writing-tablet which
she carried in a bag with her knitting, and was beginning to write a
letter to her Aunt Anna. She had written the first words, "Dear Aunt
Anna," and had paused before writing further. Her pencil was close to
her tablet; her mind was thinking of what she was going to say.
Suddenly her hand began writing very fast, automatically, something
after the manner in which an actor writes on the stage. Margaret let
it write swiftly and uninterruptedly, without either considering it
strange that it should be doing so, or wondering, at the time, what she
was writing. Her thoughts had, in a curious way, become subservient to
her actions. Afterwards, when she tried to remember what she had felt,
she could recollect no impression.
When the quick movement of her hand stopped and the automatic writing
ceased, her powers of thought seemed suddenly to reassert themselves.
Probably what she had been writing was mere unintelligible scribble.
Margaret had never heard of the writing of the "unseen hand." She was
more nervous than she was aware of; there was a heavy beating at her
heart, a wonder in her mind. She looked with apprehension at the sheet
of paper on the tablet. Her hand had certainly written something, but
the writing was not her own. It was untidy and broken. She tried to
read it, but the first words made her so nervous that she could not go
any further. They brought the colour flying to her face, but it
quickly left it; she became wide-eyed; her hands trembled. It was
horrible to think that some outside influence had taken possession of
her actions. She fought for self-control, and managed to read the
message.
"The rays of Aton, which encompass all lands, will protect him, the
enemy will fear him because of them. The living Aton, beside Whom
there is no other, this hath He ordained. The Light of Aton will
scatter the enemy and turn his hand from victory. When the chicken
crieth in the egg-shell, He giveth it life, delighting that it should
chirp with all its might. The same Aton, Who liveth for ever, Who
slumbers not, neither does He sleep, knows the wishes of your heart.
The Lord of Peace will not tolerate the victory of those who delight in
strife. His rays, bright, great, gleaming, high above all earth. . . ."
There the writing became almost indecipherable; many words were quite
meaningless; only the end of the last line was distinct:
"To the mistress of his happiness, Aton, the Loving Father, giveth
counsel."
When Margaret had finished reading the amazing thing that her hand had
written, she was faint and frightened. What had come over her? How
could she account for the mysterious thing which had happened?
The state of her nerves prevented her thinking connectedly or sensibly.
The meaning of the message scarcely formed any part of her
bewilderment; it was the automatic writing itself which disturbed her.
It made her very unhappy. She had never heard of anything like it
happening to anyone else. She wished that she had only dreamed it; but
there the words were, lying on the tablet before her. If she was real,
they were real.
It was so long since she had read anything about Akhnaton's
Aton-worship that she could not have composed the sentences in exactly
the manner of the Pharaoh's writing if she had set herself down in a
retired place and tried very hard to remember his style and his
language. Here, in this modern and vulgar tea-room, filled with men
and youths in khaki and shop-girls in cheap and showy finery, she had
suddenly and unconsciously written a thing which had absolutely nothing
to do with her thoughts or surroundings.
The girl who brought her coffee and was standing waiting to make out
her bill, looked at her sympathically and asked her if she felt ill.
At the sound of her voice, Margaret dragged her thoughts back to the
fact that she had been waiting for a cup of coffee.
"No," she said, jerkily. "I am not ill, only a little tired, thank
you."
"You're working hard, I suppose? One coffee, threepence," she jotted
down. "Are you in a hospital? I wish I was nursing, instead of doing
this."
Margaret looked at her blankly for a moment. She wished that she would
not talk to her; she felt afraid of her own answers.
"No, I'm not nursing--I'm a pantry-maid in a private convalescent
hospital."
"Well, I never!" the girl said; she was not ignorant of Margaret's good
breeding. "Do you like the work?"
"It's very like your work, I suppose. I never stop to think about
whether I like it or not. Someone has to do it, and I've been given
it--every little helps."
"Isn't that splendid?" the girl said. "And I don't suppose you ever
worked before?"
"Not in that way," Margaret said. She smiled a queer sort of smile, as
her thoughts flew back to her work in the hut, the cleaning and sorting
of delicate fragments and amulets which had been made and treasured by
a people of whom the girl had probably never even heard, the mascots
and art-treasures of a forgotten civilization, which had lasted for
thousands of years.
Margaret paid for her coffee, and looked at the clock. She had only a
few minutes in which to drink it. She poured in all the cream which
she had ordered to cool it, but still it was too hot to drink. While
she waited she wondered whether her hand would write anything else if
she left it lying on her writing pad. Nervously she took up her pencil
and while she tried to sip her coffee, she left her right hand lying on
the pad just as it had been before.
Nothing happened. Her hand never moved; she was extremely conscious of
her own feelings and expectations.
She looked at the writing on the tablet once more. Yes, it was totally
and absolutely unlike her own. She tore off the sheet on which it was
written and folded it up and put it safely in her note-case. If she
was to drink her coffee, there was no more time for thought.
Hurriedly she left the crowded tea-rooms and started off in the
direction of her hospital.
It was well for her that she had to hurry, and that her thoughts for
the next few hours had to be given to the carrying-out of everyday
things. With practised mind-control she put the incident of the
"unseen hand" away from her as far as she could. When it came creeping
back again, like leaking water, into the foreground of her thoughts,
she fought it splendidly.
Freddy had so extremely disliked her dabbling, as he called it, in
occult matters, that for his sake, for his memory, she must not allow
herself to be mastered by it. She had scarcely ever allowed herself to
think even about her vision in the Valley for this very reason, and had
refused to be drawn into the wave of fortune-telling by palmistry and
by crystal-gazing and psychic sciences which the war had given birth to
in London. The nurses and the staff generally at the hospital spent a
great deal of time and money on palmists.
Margaret could honestly say to herself that no one had sought those
strange experiences less than she had, no one had been less interested
in Spiritualism and black magic, as it used to be called, than she had
been--and, indeed, still was. Michael had called her his practical
mystic, yet she had never felt herself to be one.
For Freddy's sake she would not encourage this new phase of the
super-mind which had suddenly come to her. He had considered
spiritualism a dangerous and undesirable study. With only his memory
to cling to, she would do nothing which would cause him any trouble.
Here again was the Lampton ancestor-worship developing to its fullest.