The Necromancers - Robert Hugh Benson (100 best novels of all time txt) 📗

anxious.... Mrs. Stapleton of course you know.... And you will just sit and talk to us ... like friends ... won't you.... No, no! no formal speech at all ... just a few words ... and you will allow us to ask you questions...."

And so on.

Meanwhile Laurie observed the high-priest carefully and narrowly, and was quite unable to see any of the unpleasant qualities he had expected. He sat easily, without self-consciousness or arrogance or unpleasant humility. He had a pair of pleasant, shrewd, and rather kind eyes; and his voice, when he said a word or two in answer to Lady Laura's volubility, was of that resonant softness that is always a delight to hear. In fact, his whole bearing and personality was that of a rather exceptional average man--a publisher, it might be, or a retired lawyer--a family man with a sober round of life and ordinary duties, who brought to their fulfillment a wholesome, kindly, but distinctly strong character of his own. Laurie hardly knew whether he was pleased or disappointed. He would almost have preferred a wild creature with rolling eyes, in a cloak; yet he would have been secretly amused and contemptuous at such a man.

"The sitting is off for Sunday, by the way, Lady Laura," said the new-comer.

"Indeed! How is that?"

"Oh! there was some mistake about the rooms; it's the secretary's fault; you mustn't blame me."

Lady Laura cried out her dismay and disappointment, and Mrs. Stapleton played chorus. It was too tiresome, they said, too provoking, particularly just now, when "Annie" was so complacent. (Mrs. Stapleton explained kindly to the two young gentlemen that "Annie" was a spirit who had lately made various very interesting revelations.) What was to be done? Were there no other rooms?

Mr. Vincent shook his head. It was too late, he said, to make arrangements now.

While the ladies continued to buzz, and Mr. Jamieson to listen from the extreme edge of his chair, Laurie continued to make mental comments. He felt distinctly puzzled by the marked difference between the prophet and his disciples. These were so shallow; this so impressive by the most ordinary of all methods, and the most difficult of imitation, that is, by sheer human personality. He could not grasp the least common multiple of the two sides. Yet this man tolerated these women, and, indeed, seemed very kind and friendly towards them. He seemed to possess that sort of competence which rises from the fact of having well-arranged ideas and complete certitude about them.

And at last a pause came. Mr. Vincent set down his cup for the second time, refused buttered bun, and waited.

"Yes, do smoke, Mr. Vincent."

The man drew out his cigarette-case, smiling, offering it to the two men. Laurie took one; the clergyman refused.

"And now, Mr. Vincent."

Again he smiled, in a half-embarrassed way.

"But no speeches, I think you said," he remarked.

"Oh! well, you know what I mean; just like friends, you know. Treat us all like that."

Mrs. Stapleton rose, came nearer the circle, rustled down again, and sank into an elaborate silence.

"Well, what is it these gentlemen wish to hear?"

"Everything--everything," cried Lady Laura. "They claim to know nothing at all."

Laurie thought it time to explain himself a little. He felt he would not like to take this man at an unfair advantage.

"I should just like to say this," he said. "I have told Mrs. Stapleton already. It is this. I must confess that so far as I am concerned I am not a believer. But neither am I a skeptic. I am just a real agnostic in this matter. I have read several books; and I have been impressed. But there's a great deal in them that seems to me nonsense; perhaps I had better say which I don't understand. This materializing business, for instance.... I can understand that the minds of the dead can affect ours; but I don't see how they can affect matter--in table-rapping, for instance, and still more in appearing, and our being able to touch and see them.... I think that's my position," he ended rather lamely.

The fact was that he was a little disconcerted by the other's eyes. They were, as I have said, kind and shrewd eyes, but they had a good deal of power as well. Mr. Vincent sat motionless during this little speech, just looking at him, not at all offensively, yet with the effect of making the young man feel rather like a defiant and naughty little boy who is trying to explain.

Laurie sat back and drew on his cigarette rather hard.

"I understand perfectly," said the steady voice. "You are in a very reasonable position. I wish all were as open-minded. May I say a word or two?"

"Please."

"Well, it is materialization that puzzles you, is it?"

"Exactly," said Laurie. "Our theologians tell us--by the way, I am a Catholic." (The other bowed a little.) "Our theologians, I believe, tell us that such a thing cannot be, except under peculiar circumstances, as in the lives of the saints, and so on."

"Are you bound to believe all that your theologians say?" asked the other quietly.

"Well, it would be very rash indeed--" began Laurie.

"Exactly, I see. But what if you approach it from the other side, and try to find out instead whether these things actually do happen. I do not wish to be rude, Mr. Baxter; but you remember that your theologians--I am not so foolish as to say the Church, for I know that that was not so--but your theologians, you know, made a mistake about Galileo."

Laurie winced a little. Mr. Jamieson cleared his throat in gentle approval.

"Now I don't ask you to accept anything contrary to your faith," went on the other gently; "but if you really wish to look into this matter, you must set aside for the present all other presuppositions. You must not begin by assuming that the theologians are always right, nor even in asking how or why these things should happen. The one point is, Do they happen?"

His last words had a curious little effect as of a sudden flame. He had spoken smoothly and quietly; then he had suddenly put an unexpected emphasis into the little sentence at the end. Laurie jumped, internally. Yes, that was the point, he assented internally.

"Now," went on the other, again in that slow, reassuring voice, flicking off the ash of his cigarette, "is it possible for you to doubt that these things happen? May I ask you what books you have read?"

Laurie named three or four.

"And they have not convinced you?"

"Not altogether."

"Yet you accept human evidence for a great many much more remarkable things than these--as a Catholic."

"That is Divine Revelation," said Laurie, sure of his ground.

"Pardon me," said the other. "I do not in the least say it is not Divine Revelation--that is another question--but you receive the statement that it is so, on the word of man. Is that not true?"

Laurie was silent. He did not quite know what to say; and he almost feared the next words. But he was astonished that the other did not press home the point.

"Think over that, Mr. Baxter. That is all I ask. And now for the real thing. You sincerely wish to be convinced?"

"I am ready to be convinced."

The medium paused an instant, looking intently at the fire. Then he tossed the stump of his cigarette away and lighted another. The two ladies sat motionless.

"You seem fond of a priori arguments, Mr. Baxter," he began, with a kindly smile. "Let us have one or two, then.

"Consider first the relation of your soul to your body. That is infinitely mysterious, is it not? An emotion rises in your soul, and a flush of blood marks it. That is the subconscious mechanism of your body. But to say that, does not explain it. It is only a label. You follow me? Yes? Or still more mysterious is your conscious power. You will to raise your hand, and it obeys. Muscular action? Oh yes; but that is but another label." He turned his eyes, suddenly somber, upon the staring, listening young man, and his voice rose a little. "Go right behind all that, Mr. Baxter, down to the mysteries. What is that link between soul and body? You do not know! Nor does the wisest scientist in the world. Nor ever will. Yet there the link is!"

Again he paused.

Laurie was aware of a rising half-excited interest far beyond the power of the words he heard. Yet the manner of these too was striking. It was not the sham mysticism he had expected. There was a certain reverence in them, an admitting of mysteries, that seemed hard to reconcile with the ideas he had formed of the dogmatism of these folk.

"Now begin again," continued the quiet, virile voice. "You believe, as a Christian, in the immortality of the soul, in the survival of personality after death. Thank God for that! All do not, in these days. Then I need not labor at that.

"Now, Mr. Baxter, imagine to yourself some soul that you have loved passionately, who has crossed over to the other side." Laurie drew a long, noiseless breath, steadying himself with clenched hands. "She has come to the unimaginable glories, according to her measure; she is at an end of doubts and fears and suspicions. She knows because she sees.... But do you think that she is absorbed in these things? You know nothing of human love, Mr. Baxter" (the voice trembled with genuine emotion) ... "if you can think that...! If you can think that her thought turns only to herself and her joys. Why, her life has been lived in your love by our hypothesis--you were at her bedside when she died, perhaps; and she clung to you as to God Himself, when the shadow deepened. Do you think that her first thought, or at least her second, will not be of you...? In all that she sees, she will desire you to see it also. She will strive, crave, hunger for you--not that she may possess you, but that you may be one with her in her own possession; she will send out vibration after vibration of sympathy and longing; and you, on this side, will be tuned to her as none other can be--you, on this side, will be empty for her love, for the sight and sound of her.... Is death then so strong?--stronger than love? Can a Christian believe that?"

The change in the man was extraordinary. His heavy beard and brows hid half his face, but his whole being glowed passionately in his voice, even in his little trembling gestures, and Laurie sat astonished. Every word uttered seemed to fit his own case, to express by an almost perfect vehicle the vague thoughts that had struggled in his own heart during this last week. It was Amy of whom the man spoke, Amy with her eyes and hair, peering from the glorious gloom to catch some glimpse of her lover in his meaningless light of earthly day.

Mr. Vincent cleared his throat a little, and at the sound the two motionless women stirred and rustled a little. The sound of a hansom, the spanking trot and wintry jingle of bells swelled out of the distance, passed, and went into silence before he spoke again. Then it was in his usual slow voice that he continued.

"Conceive such a