The Necromancers - Robert Hugh Benson (best summer books txt) 📗

invisible radiance that was to his perception as common light to common eyes. The world of which he had had experience—for he found himself unable to see that which he had never experienced—lay before his will like a movable map: this or that person or place had but to be desired, and it was present.

And then came the return; and the Horror....

He began in this way.

He understood that he wished to awake, or, rather, to be reunited with the body that lay there in deep sleep before the fire. He observed it for a moment or two, interested and pleased, the face sunk a little on the hand, the feet lightly crossed on the fender. He looked at his own profile, the straight nose, the parted lips through which the breath came evenly. He attempted even to touch the face, wondering with gentle pleasure what would be the result....

Then, suddenly, an impulse came to him to enter the body, and with the impulse the process, it seemed, began.

That process was not unlike that of falling asleep. In an instant perception was gone; the lighted room was gone, and that obedient world which he had contemplated just now. Yet self-consciousness for a while remained; he still had the power of perceiving his own personality, though this dwindled every moment down to that same gulf of nothingness through which he had found his way.

But at the very instant in which consciousness was passing there met him an emotion so fierce and overwhelming that he recoiled in terror back from the body once more and earth-perceptions; and a panic seized him.

It was such a panic as seizes a child who, fearfully courageous, has stolen at night from his room, and turning in half-simulated terror finds the door fast against him, or is aware of a malignant presence come suddenly into being, standing between himself and the safety of his own bed.

On the one side his fear drove him onwards; on the other a Horror faced him. He dared not recoil, for he understood where security lay; he longed, like the child screaming in the dark and beating his hands, to get back to the warmth and safety of bed; yet there stood before him a Presence, or at the least an Emotion of some kind, so hostile, so terrible, that he dared not penetrate it. It was not that an actual restraint lay upon him: he knew, that is, that the door was open; yet it needed an effort of the will of which his paralysis of terror rendered him incapable....

The tension became intolerable.

"O God ... God ... God...." he cried.

And in an instant the threshold was vacated; the swift rush asserted itself, and the space was passed.

Laurie sat up abruptly in his chair.

IV

Mr. Vincent was beginning to think about going to bed. He had come in an hour before, had written half a dozen letters, and was smoking peacefully before the fire.

His rooms were not remarkable in any way, except for half a dozen objects standing on the second shelf of his bookcase, and the selection of literature ranged below them. For the rest, all was commonplace enough; a mahogany knee-hold table, a couple of easy chairs, much worn, and a long, extremely comfortable sofa standing by itself against the wall with evident signs, in its tumbled cushions and rubbed fabric, of continual and frequent use. A second door gave entrance to his bedroom.

He beat out his pipe slowly, yawned, and stood up.

It was at this instant that he heard the sudden tinkle of the electric bell in the lobby outside, and, wondering at the interruption at this hour, went quickly out and opened the door on to the stairs.

"Mr. Baxter! Come in, come in; I'm delighted to see you."

Laurie came in without a word, went straight up to the fire-place, and faced about.

"I'm not going to apologize," he said, "for coming at this time. You told me to come and see you at any time, and I've taken you at your word."

The young man had an odd embarrassed manner, thought the other; an air of having come in spite of uneasiness; he was almost shamefaced.

The medium impelled him gently into a chair.

"First a cigarette," he said; "next a little whisky, and then I shall be delighted to listen.... No; please do as I say."

Laurie permitted himself to be managed; there was a strong, almost paternal air in the other's manner that was difficult to resist. He lit his cigarette, he sipped his whisky; but his movements were nervously quick.

"Well, then...." and he interrupted himself. "What are those things, Mr. Vincent?" He nodded towards the second shelf in the bookcase.

Mr. Vincent turned on the hearthrug.

"Those? Oh! those are a few rather elementary instruments for my work."

He lifted down a crystal ball on a small black polished wooden stand and handed it over.

"You have heard of crystal-gazing? Well, that is the article."

"Is that crystal?"

"Oh no: common glass. Price three shillings and sixpence."

Laurie turned it over, letting the shining globe run on to his hand.

"And this is—" he began.

"And this," said the medium, setting a curious windmill-shaped affair, its sails lined with looking-glass, on the little table by the fire, "this is a French toy. Very elementary."

"What's that?"

"Look."

Mr. Vincent wound a small handle at the back of the windmill to a sound of clockwork, set it down again, and released it. Instantly the sails began to revolve, noiseless and swift, producing the effect of a rapidly flashing circle of light across which span lines, waxing and waning with extraordinary speed.

"What the—"

"It's a little machine for inducing sleep. Oh! I haven't used that for months. But it's useful sometimes. The hypnotic subject just stares at that steadily.... Why, you're looking dazed yourself, already, Mr. Baxter," smiled the medium.

He stopped the mechanism and pushed it on one side.

"And what's the other?" asked Laurie, looking again at the shelf.

"Ah!"

The medium, with quite a different air, took down and set before him an object resembling a tiny heart-shaped table on three wheeled legs, perhaps four or five inches across. Through the center ran a pencil perpendicularly of which the point just touched the tablecloth on which the thing rested. Laurie looked at it, and glanced up.

"Yes, that's Planchette," said the medium.

"For ... for automatic writing?"

The other nodded.

"Yes," he said. "The experimenter puts his fingers lightly upon that, and there's a sheet of paper beneath. That is all."

Laurie looked at him, half curiously. Then with a sudden movement he stood up.

"Yes," he said. "Thank you. But—"

"Please sit down, Mr. Baxter.... I know you haven't come about that kind of thing. Will you kindly tell me what you have come about?"

He, too, sat down, and, without looking at the other, began slowly to fill his pipe again, with his strong capable fingers. Laurie stared at the process, unseeing.

"Just tell me simply," said the medium again, still without looking at him.

Laurie threw himself back.

"Well, I will," he said. "I know it's absurdly childish; but I'm a little frightened. It's about a dream."

"That's not necessarily childish."

"It's a dream I had tonight—in my chair after dinner."

"Well?"

Then Laurie began.

For about ten minutes he talked without ceasing. Mr. Vincent smoked tranquilly, putting what seemed to Laurie quite unimportant questions now and again, and nodding gently from time to time.

"And I'm frightened," ended Laurie; "and I want you to tell me what it all means."

The other drew a long inhalation through his pipe, expelled it, and leaned back.

"Oh, it's comparatively common," he said; "common, that is, with people of your temperament, Mr. Baxter—and mine.... You tell me that it was prayer that enabled you to get through at the end? That is interesting."

"But—but—was it more than fancy—more, I mean, than an ordinary dream?"

"Oh, yes; it was objective. It was a real experience."

"You mean—"

"Mr. Baxter, just listen to me for a minute or two. You can ask any questions you like at the end. First, you are a Catholic, you told me; you believe, that is to say, among other things, that the spiritual world is a real thing, always present more or less. Well, of course, I agree with you; though I do not agree with you altogether as to the geography and—and other details of that world. But you believe, I take it, that this world is continually with us—that this room, so to speak, is a great deal more than that of which our senses tell us that there are with us, now and always, a multitude of influences, good, bad, and indifferent, really present to our spirits?"

"I suppose so," said Laurie.

"Now begin again. There are two kinds of dreams. I am just stating my own belief, Mr. Baxter. You can make what comments you like afterwards. The one kind of dream is entirely unimportant; it is merely a hash, a réchauffée, of our own thoughts, in which little things that we have experienced reappear in a hopeless sort of confusion. It is the kind of dream that we forget altogether, generally, five minutes after waking, if not before. But there is another kind of dream that we do not forget. It leaves as vivid an impression upon us as if it were a waking experience—an actual incident. And that is exactly what it is."

"I don't understand."

"Have you ever heard of the subliminal consciousness, Mr. Baxter?"

"No."

The medium smiled.

"That is fortunate," he said. "It's being run to death just now.... Well, I'll put it in an untechnical way. There is a part of us, is there not, that lies below our ordinary waking thoughts—that part of us in which our dreams reside, our habits take shape, our instincts, intuitions, and all the rest, are generated. Well, in ordinary dreams, when we are asleep, it is this part that is active. The pot boils, so to speak, all by itself, uncontrolled by reason. A madman is a man in whom this part is supreme in his waking life as well. Well, it is through this part of us that we communicate with the spiritual world. There are, let us say, two doors in it—that which leads up to our senses, through which come down our waking experiences to be stored up; and—and the other door...."

"Yes?"

The medium hesitated.

"Well," he said, "in some natures—yours, for instance, Mr. Baxter—this door opens rather easily. It was through that door that you went, I think, in what you call your 'dream.' You yourself said it was quite unlike ordinary dreams."

"Yes."

"And I am the more sure that this is so, since your experience is exactly that of so many others under the same circumstances."

Laurie moved uncomfortably in his chair.

"I don't quite understand," he said sharply. "You mean it was not a dream?"

"Certainly not. At least, not a dream in the ordinary sense. It was an actual experience."

"But—but I was asleep."

"Certainly. That is one of the usual conditions—an almost indispensable condition, in fact. The objective self—I mean the ordinary workaday faculties—was lulled; and your subjective self—call it what you like—but it is your real self, the essential self that survives death—this self, simply went through the inner door, and—and saw what was to be seen."

Laurie looked at him intently. But there was a touch of apprehension in his face, too.

"You mean," he said slowly, "that—that all I saw—the limitations of space, and so forth—that these were facts and not fancies?"

"Certainly. Doesn't your theology hint at something of the kind?"

Laurie was silent. He had no idea of what his theology told him on the point.

"But why should I—I of all people—have such an experience?" he asked suddenly.

The medium smiled.

"Who can tell that?" he said. "Why should one man be an artist, and another not? It is a matter of temperament. You see you've begun to develop that temperament at last; and it's a very marked one to begin with. As for—"

Laurie interrupted him.

"Yes, yes," he said. "But there's another point. What about that fear I had when I tried to—to awaken?"

There passed over the medium's face a shade of gravity. It