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

Please forgive me if you think it was unnecessary to write. Of course I have no doubt whatever that the whole thing is nothing but nonsense; but even nonsense can have a bad effect, and Mr. Baxter seems to me to be far too much wrapped up in it. I enclose the address of a friend of mine in case you would care to write to him on the subject. He was once a Spiritualist, and is now a devout Catholic. He takes a view of it that I do not take; but at any rate his advice could do no harm. You can trust him to be absolutely discreet.

Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
James Morton

It really was very odd and unconventional; and Mr. Morton had not seemed at all an odd or unconventional person. He mentioned, too, a particular date, February 25, as the date by which the medium would have returned, and some sort of further effort was going to be made; but he did not attempt to explain this, nor did Maggie understand it. It only seemed to her rather sinister and unpleasant.

She turned over the page, and there was the address he had mentioned—a Mr. Cathcart. Surely he did not expect her to write to this stranger....

She walked up and down with her spud for another half-hour before she could come to any conclusion. Certainly she agreed with Mr. James Morton that the whole thing was nonsense; yet, further, that this nonsense was capable of doing a good deal of harm to an excitable person. Besides, Laurie obviously had a bad conscience about it, or he would have mentioned it.

She caught sight of Mrs. Baxter presently through the thick hedge, walking with her dainty, dignified step along the paths of the kitchen garden; and a certain impatience seized her at the sight. This boy's mother was so annoyingly serene. Surely it was her business, rather than Maggie's own, to look after Laurie; yet the girl knew perfectly well that if Laurie was left to his mother nothing at all would be done. Mrs. Baxter would deplore it all, of course, gently and tranquilly, in Laurie's absence, and would, perhaps, if she were hard pressed, utter a feeble protest even in his presence; and that was absolutely all....

"Maggie! Maggie!" came the gentle old voice, calling presently; and then to some unseen person, "Have you seen Miss Deronnais anywhere?"

Maggie put the letter in her pocket and hurried through from the orchard.

"Yes?" she said, with a half hope.

"Come in, my dear, and tell me what you think of those new teacups in the Bon Marché catalogue," said the old lady. "There seem some beautiful new designs, and we want another set."

Maggie bowed to the inevitable. But as they passed up the garden her resolution was precipitated.

"Can you let me go by twelve," she said. "I rather want to see Father Mahon about something."

"My dear, I shall not keep you three minutes," protested the old lady.

And they went in to talk for an hour and three-quarters.

II

Father Mahon was a conscientious priest. He said his mass at eight o'clock; he breakfasted at nine; he performed certain devotions till half-past ten; read the paper till eleven, and theology till twelve. Then he considered himself at liberty to do what he liked till his dinner at one. (The rest of his day does not concern us just now.)

He, too, was looking round his garden this morning—a fine, solid figure of a man, in rather baggy trousers, short coat, and expansive waistcoat, with every button doing its duty. He too, like Mr. James Morton, had his beat, an even narrower one than the barrister's, and even better trodden, for he never strayed off it at all, except for four short weeks in the summer, when he hurried across to Ireland and got up late, and went on picnics with other ecclesiastics in straw hats, and joined in cheerful songs in the evening. He was a priest, with perfectly defined duties, and of admirable punctuality and conscientiousness in doing them. He disliked the English quite extraordinarily; but his sense of duty was such that they never suspected it; and his flock of Saxons adored him as people only can adore a brisk, businesslike man with a large heart and peremptory ways, who is their guide and father, and is perfectly aware of it. His sermons consisted of cold-cut blocks of dogma taken perseveringly from sermon outlines and served up Sunday by Sunday with a sauce of a slight and delightful brogue. He could never have kindled the Thames, nor indeed any river at all, but he could bridge them with solid stones; and this is, perhaps, even more desirable.

Maggie had begun by disliking him. She had thought him rather coarse and stupid; but she had changed her mind. He was not what may be called subtle; he had no patience at all with such things as scruples, nuances, and shades of tone and meaning; but if you put a plain question to him plainly, he gave you a plain answer, if he knew it; if not, he looked it up then and there; and that is always a relief in this intricate world. Maggie therefore did not bother him much; she went to him only on plain issues; and he respected and liked her accordingly.

"Good morning, my child," he said in his loud, breezy voice, as he came in to find her in his hideous little sitting-room. "I hope you don't mind the smell of tobacco-smoke."

The room indeed reeked; he had started a cigar, according to rule, as the clock struck twelve, and had left it just now upon a stump outside when his housekeeper had come to announce a visitor.

"Not in the least, thanks, father.... May I sit down? It's rather a long business, I'm afraid."

The priest pulled out an arm-chair covered with horsehair and an antimacassar.

"Sit down, my child."

Then he sat down himself, opposite her, in his trousers at once tight and baggy, with his rather large boots cocked one over the other, and his genial red face smiling at her.

"Now then," he said.

"It's not about myself, father," she began rather hurriedly. "It's about Laurie Baxter. May I begin at the beginning?"

He nodded. He was not sorry to hear something about this boy, whom he didn't like at all, but for whom he knew himself at least partly responsible. The English were bad enough, but English converts were indescribably trying; and Laurie had been on his mind lately, he scarcely knew why.

Then Maggie began at the beginning, and told the whole thing, from Amy's death down to Mr. Morton's letter. He put a question or two to her during her story, looking at her with pressed lips, and finally put out his hand for the letter itself.

"Mrs. Baxter doesn't know what I've come about," said the girl. "You won't give her a hint, will you, father?"

He nodded reassuringly to her, absorbed in the letter, and presently handed it back, with a large smile.

"He seems a sensible fellow," he said.

"Ah! that's what I wanted to ask you, father. I don't know anything at all about spiritualism. Is it—is it really all nonsense? Is there nothing in it at all?"

He laughed aloud.

"I don't think you need be afraid," he said. "Of course we know that souls don't come back like that. They're somewhere else."

"Then it's all fraud?"

"It's practically all fraud," he said, "but it's very superstitious, and is forbidden by the Church."

This was straight enough. It was at least a clear issue to begin to attack Laurie upon.

"Then—then that's the evil of it?" she said. "There's no real power underneath? That's what Mr. Rymer said to Mrs. Baxter; and it's what I've always thought myself."

The priest's face became theological.

"Let's see what Sabetti says," he said. "I fancy—"

He turned in his chair and fetched out a volume behind him.

"Here we are...."

He ran his finger down the heavy paragraphs, turned a page or two, and began a running comment and translation: "'Necromantia ex'.... 'Necromancy arising from invocation of the dead'.... Let's see ... yes, 'Spiritism, or the consulting of spirits in order to know hidden things, especially that pertain to the future life, certainly is divination properly so called, and is ... is full of even more impiety than is magnetism, or the use of turning tables. The reason is, as the Baltimore fathers testify, that such knowledge must necessarily be ascribed to Satanic intervention, since in no other manner can it be explained.'"

"Then—" began Maggie.

"One moment, my child.... Yes ... just so. 'Express divination'.... No, no. Ah! here we are, 'Tacit divination, ... even if it is openly protested that no commerce with the Demon is intended, is per se grave sin; but it can sometimes be excused from mortal sin, on account of simplicity or ignorance or a lack of certain faith.' You see, my child—" he set the book back in its place "—so far as it's not fraud it's diabolical. And that's an end of it."

"But do you think it's not all fraud, then?" asked the girl, paling a little.

He laughed again, with a resonance that warmed her heart.

"I should pay just no attention to it all. Tell him, if you like, what I've said, and that it's grave sin for him to play with it; but don't get thinking that the devil's in everything."

Maggie was puzzled.

"Then it's not the devil?" she asked—"at least not in this case, you think?"

He smiled again reassuringly.

"I should suspect it was a clever trick," he said. "I don't think Master Laurie's likely to get mixed up with the devil in that way. There's plenty of easier ways than that."

"Do you think I should write to Mr. Cathcart?"

"Just as you like. He's a convert, isn't he? I believe I've heard his name."

"I think so."

"Well, it wouldn't do any harm; though I should suspect not much good."

Maggie was silent.

"Just tell Master Laurie not to play tricks," said the priest. "He's got a good, sensible friend in Mr. Morton. I can see that. And don't trouble your head too much about it, my child."

When Maggie was gone, he went out to finish his cigar, and found to his pleasure that it was still alight, and after a puff or two it went very well.

He thought about his interview for a few minutes as he walked up and down, taking the bright winter air. It explained a good deal. He had begun to be a little anxious about this boy. It