The Second E. F. Benson Megapack

by E. F. Benson

  She sat by her open window that Sunday night, wishing that she could think that some madness had fallen upon her, which caused her to conceive such inconceivable things. Archie’s laugh still sounded in her ears, gay and boyish, as she had heard it but two minutes before she came up to bed. And she shuddered at the cause of it. Once again, she and Archie had strolled out after dinner, and, on passing the windows of his father’s study, their steps noiseless on the grass, Archie had laid his hand on her arm with a gesture to command silence, and had tiptoed with her across the gravel to his father’s windows. Lord Tintagel was inside, and, even as they looked, he took a bottle out of which he had been pouring something, and locked it up in a cupboard.

  Archie turned a face beaming with merriment on her.

  “Come in,” he whispered, “to say good-night. Leave it all to me. It will be huge fun.”

  He waited a moment, and began talking loudly to her on some indifferent subject for a few seconds. The he said:

  “Come and say good-night to my father, Jessie,” and they entered together.

  Lord Tintagel was seated in his chair by this time: there was just one empty glass on the tray, with a syphon, and no sign of a second one. Archie began walking up and down the room, his eyes looking swiftly and stealthily in every direction.

  “Jessie and I have just come in to say good-night,” he said. “We’re all going up to town tomorrow. Won’t you really come, father?”

  “I’ve already said I won’t,” said Lord Tintagel sharply.

  Archie suddenly saw what he had been looking for.

  “Hullo, here’s a funny thing,” he said. “Here’s a glass on the floor.”

  He picked it up, smelled it, and burst into a peal of laughter.

  “Father, it’s too bad of you!” he said. “There have I been keeping our bargain, while you—”

  He broke off, laughing again.

  “No, I’ll confess,” he said, “because I’m so pleased at having found you out. I’ve been having some quiet drinks up in my bedroom while you’ve been doing the same down here. What did you do with your bottles? I put mine in the lake. I say, that is funny, isn’t it? But it’s rather unsociable. Let’s follow Germany’s example, and call our treaty waste paper.”

  And Archie had laughed over that miserable sordid exposure, just as light-heartedly as he had laughed over the jolly innocent humours at Silorno, and, sick at heart, Jessie had left the two together with the bottle which there was no need to conceal any more.

  She sat long at her window in a miserable state of horror and fear and agitation, now trying to persuade herself that she was taking these things too heavily—Helena had always told her she took things heavily—now letting her fears issue in terrible cohort and looking them in the face. It was her powerlessness to help that most tortured her, her fate of having to stand and watch while Archie pushed out ever farther, with delight and joy, on to the perilous seas. But now there was to her a reality about it all which she had never wholly felt before. Often she had told herself that she was imagining perils, but tonight, in the darkness and the quiet, she felt herself face to face with the grim, deadly facts. Spiritual and ghostly enemies were about, and next moment she had slid on to her knees. No words came: she tried just to open her heart to that light that surely shone through the evil that swarmed about her. Something, ever so faint, glimmered there, and presently she rose again with her soul fixed on that little spark shining within her. In any case, she must make every effort to help, instead of succumbing to her sense of powerlessness.

  At that moment she heard light, swift footsteps on the stairs, and instantly her mind was made up, and she came out into the broad passage just as Archie was opposite her door. His face was eager and alert; there was no trace of intoxication there.

  “Hullo, Jessie,” he said, smiling. “Not gone to bed yet?”

  She had to be wise: mere helpless prayer would avail nothing if she did not exert herself and make use of her wits and her love.

  “No: I didn’t feel sleepy,” she said. “You don’t look sleepy either. Are you going to bed?”

  “No, not yet,” said Archie.

  Jessie came a step closer to him.

  “Oh, Archie, are you going to talk to Martin?” she asked. “Mayn’t I come? I should so love to, for I know all that Martin means to you. You know I did hear him talking to you before. It would be lovely if I could hear you talking together, so that I knew what he said.”

  Archie looked at her.

  “Well, I don’t know why not,” he said. “But you must promise not to interrupt. Perhaps you’ll neither hear nor see anything. But I don’t see why you shouldn’t try. It’s just a seance. Come along, Jessie.”

  He led the way into his bedroom, and shut the door.

  “I shall really rather like you to be here,” he said. “I’m glad you suggested it. For now and then I go into very deep trance, and then I can’t remember what exactly has happened. I only know that there has been round me an atmosphere—to call it that—in which I glow and expand. Sometimes I rather think I struggle and groan: you mustn’t mind that. It’s only the protest of my material earthly self. Come on: let’s begin. I long for Martin to come.”

  Jessie felt her dread and horror of the occult surge up in her, and it required all her resolution to remain here. But the call of her love was imperative: if she was to be permitted to help Archie at all, she must learn what it was that possessed him, and find means to combat it. She had to know first what it was, penetrate, so far as her love had power, into the source of it, diagnose it, if she was to help in curing.

  “What are you going to do?” she said.

  “It’s very simple; you’ll soon see. Sit down, Jessie.”

  He went to the window and drew aside the curtains. He put on the table in front of where he was to sit the silver top of some toilet-bottle, and then went to the door and turned out all the electric lights at the switch-board. The moonlight outside, without shining directly into the room, made the objects in it clearly though duskily visible, and Jessie, where she sat with her back to the light, could see Archie’s face and outline, when her eyes got accustomed to the dimness, quite distinctly. He sat close to her at the end of the writing-table, and just in front of him glimmered the stopper from the toilet-bottle.

  “Now I’m going to look at that till I go off into trance,” he said. “Watch what happens very closely, for I may go into deep trance, and promise me not to move till I come round again. I daresay you will neither hear nor see anything, but I don’t know.”

  For some few minutes, as far as the girl could judge, they sat in silence. Once or twice Archie shifted his position slightly, and she heard his shirt-front creak a little as he breathed quietly and normally. Outside a little wind stirred, and the tassel of the blind tapped against the sill.

  Then there came a change: his breathing grew louder, as if he panted for air, and now and again he moaned, and she saw his head drop forward. This moaning sound was horrible to hear, and, but for her promise, and the insistent urging of her love, she must have got up and roused him. His breath whistled between his lips as he took it in, and his face seemed to be shining with some dew of anguish, and his arms twisted and writhed as if struggling against some overmastering force. Then suddenly all sign of struggle ceased, he sat bent forward, but perfectly still, and from the table in front of him came three loud, peremptory raps, as of splitting wood. From the dusk of the room came others which she could not localize.

  Archie raised his head, and, instead of leaning over the table, sank back in his chair, his arms hanging limp by his side. He began to whisper to himself, and soon Jessie caught the words.

  “Martin, are you here?” he kept repeating. “Martin, are you here? Martin, Martin?”

  There was more light in the room now. It came from a pale greyish efflorescence of illumination, globular in shape, that lay apparently over his left breast. It made its immediate neighbourhood quite bright: she could see t
he stud in his shirt with absolute distinctness. Out of it there came a little wisp of mist that floated up like a stream of smoke above his shoulders. In the air there, independently of this, there was forming another mist-like substance, and the stream that came away from Archie seemed to join this. It began to take shape: it spread upwards and downwards into the semblance of a column, its edges losing themselves in the dark. Lines began to be interwoven within it: it was as if something was forming inside it, like a chicken in an egg. It lost its vagueness of outline, plaiting and weaving itself together: there appeared an arm bare to the shoulder; above that she could see a neck, and slowly above the neck there grew a smiling, splendid face. There seemed to be a grey robe cast about the body, from which the bare arm protruded, but much of this was vague.

  Jessie felt as if some awful paralysis of terror lay over her spirit. The whole room, cool and fresh with the night-air passing through the open window, reeked, to her spiritual sense, with evil and unnameable corruption. Over her conscious superficial self, the mechanism that directed her limbs and worked in her brain, she had complete control: for Archie’s sake she was learning about this hellish visitor who came to him. But within, her soul cried out in a horror of uttermost darkness. Then her will took hold of that too: whatever God permitted must be faced for the sake of love.

  Just then Archie spoke in an odd muffled voice.

  “I’m going very deep,” he said. “But, Martin, you’ve made me so happy all day. You’ve hardly left me at all. You’re getting to be part of me, aren’t you? Let’s talk about Helena. I say, she is a devil, isn’t she?”

  Jessie had not known that anything could be so horrible as the smiling face that the apparition bent on him.

  “But you’ve ceased hating her,” it said. “You love her, don’t you? Always cling to love!”

  “I know, I adore her. I believe she loves me too.” He laughed and licked his lips and his voice sank, so that Jessie could catch no word of what he said. But he spoke for a long time, laughing occasionally, and making horrible little movements with his arms as if he clasped something. Now and then he would perhaps ask a question, for in the same inaudible manner the apparition answered him, laughing sometimes in response. Once or twice in that devilish colloquy she caught a word or two of hideous and carnal import, and her sickened love nearly withered within her. But because love is immortal, and cannot perish though all the blasts of hell rage against it, it still stood firm, though scorched and beaten upon. If she let it die, she felt that she would be no better than that visible incarnation of evil that smiled and bent over Archie.

  Presently that devilish whispering ceased, and she saw that the apparition was beginning to lose its clearness of outline. Slowly it began to disintegrate into the weavings of mist out of which it came, and Archie said, “Good-bye, Martin, but not for long.” Some of these streamers seemed to disperse in the air, others, like an eddying water-spout, seemed to draw back into that focus of light which lay over Archie’s breast. Then that too began to fade, and in the stillness and quiet she again heard the creaking of his shirt as he lay back in his chair with closed eyes. Then the struggles and moanings, the writhings of his arms began again, and again subsided, and he lay quite still. Outside the night-wind stirred and dropped.

  Then Archie spoke in a tired, husky voice.

  “Hullo, Jessie,” he said, “it’s all over. By Jove, it was ripping. But I went awfully deep. I can remember nothing after Martin came. What did he say?”

  Jessie got up.

  “I heard hardly anything,” she said. “He spoke in whispers, and so did you.”

  “Did you see him?” asked Archie.

  “Yes, quite clearly. But I think I’ll go to bed now. You look very tired.”

  He had got up and turned on the electric light, and stood by the door rubbing his eyes.

  “Yes, I am tired,” he said, “but I’m divinely happy. Tell me tomorrow whatever you can remember. Good-night, Jess. You are a good sort.”

  He detained her hand for a moment.

  “We’re cousins, Jess,” he said, “and you’re an awfully good friend. Won’t you give me a kiss?”

  For one second she shrank from him in nameless horror. The next she put it all from her, for her shrinking, no angel of the Lord, but a weak, cowardly impulse, stood full in the path of love, and while it was there she could not reach Archie.

  “Why, of course,” she said, kissing him. “Good-night, Archie; sleep well.”

  She went to her room, and turned on all the lights. She felt as if she had been assisting at some unclean orgy, she felt tainted and defiled by the very presence of that white evil thing that had stood close to her, and whispered and laughed with Archie. As yet she had but looked on it; what lay in front of her was to grapple with it and tear it out of the tabernacle which it had begun to inhabit. As far as she could understand the situation, it was not wholly in possession as yet, for part of it, when it materialized, seemed to form itself in the air, and part only to ooze out of its victim. Through what adventures and combats her way should take her she could form no conception, but what she had gained tonight, which was worth a hundred times the sickness and horror of her soul, was the certain knowledge that some spirit of discarnate evil was making its home in her beloved. It had usurped the guise of Martin, it masqueraded as Martin, Archie thought it was Martin. She remembered how, just a week ago, he had told her that he was like an empty house, denuded of the spirit that dwelt there, a living corpse by which he asked her to sit sometimes. At the time that had seemed to her just the figure by which he expressed the desolation of his heart; now it revealed itself as a true and literal statement. And there had begun to enter into him, as tenant of the uninhabited rooms, the horror that she had seen.

  Jessie fell on her knees by her bedside, and opened her heart to the Infinite Love. It was through Its aid alone that she would be able to accomplish the rescue for which she was willing to give her life and soul.

  CHAPTER XII

  Archie was walking back to the house in Grosvenor Square from Oakland Crescent, on the afternoon of Helena’s wedding. Owing to the acute suspense of the European situation, the plans of the newly married couple had been changed, and, instead of setting off at once in the yacht for a month in the Norwegian fjords, they had gone to a house of Lord Harlow’s in Surrey to await developments in the crisis or some kind of settlement. It was still uncertain whether England would be drawn into the war, though opinion generally regarded that as inevitable, and in this case no doubt Lord Harlow, an ex-Guardsman, would rejoin his regiment. Archie’s mother, after the departure of the bridal couple, had also left town for Lacebury, taking with her Jessie and Colonel Vautier for a few days’ visit; but Archie had decided to stop another night in London.

  There had been the usual crowds and chatterings and excitement, the front pew kept for a princess, the signing of names in the vestry, the red carpets and wedding-marches, and the whole ceremony had filled Archie with the greatest amusement. But the subsequent proceedings had not amused him so much, and Helena’s departure, looking prettier than ever, with her husband, had annoyed and exasperated him. He did not like to think of them together, and, though only a couple of nights ago he and Martin had found good cause for whispers and laughter over this, it was not so diverting when it actually occurred as it had promised to be. Part of that midnight seance which he could not at first remember had found its way into his conscious mind, and he knew that had been talked about, and had ascertained, with considerable relief, that Jessie had not been able to hear it. But now there was a savage bitterness in his mind about it; Helena seemed to have played him false again. She ought to have refused to marry the Bradshaw at the last moment, and it was an ineffectual balm to know she did not care for him. Perhaps, as Jessie had once said (though withdrawing it afterwards), she cared for nobody, but now Archie believed that she cared for him. It maddened him to think that she was the Bradshaw’s “ABC,” and in those circumstances he had ju
dged it better to remain in town for the night, and distract his mind and soothe his longings with the amusement and aids to forgetfulness which London was so ready to offer to a young man who was looking for adventures.

  But London proved disappointing: it did not seem to be thinking of its amusements at all. Archie called to see a friend who last week had shown himself an eager and admirable companion, but, found him today disinclined for another night of similar diversion, for he could neither think nor talk about anything else than the imminence of war. Archie felt himself quite incapable of taking any active interest in that; it weighted nothing in the balance compared with the stern duty of seeking enjoyment and forgetting about Helena. What if England did go to war with Germany? Certainly he hoped she would not; she had made no more than a friendly understanding with her Allies—indeed they were not even Allies, they were but well-disposed nations—but, even if she did, what then? There was an English fleet, was there not, which cost an immense amount of money to render invincible; but it was invincible. Why, then, should he bother about it, since he was not a sailor? It was further supposed that Germany had an invincible army; and there you were! And if England had no army at all to speak of, it was quite clear she could no more fight Germany on land than Germany could fight her by sea. So what on earth prevented a little dinner at a restaurant and an hour at a music-hall and a little supper somewhere and anything that turned up? Something always turned up, and was usually amusing for an hour or two. But his friend thought otherwise, and kept diving out into the street to get some fresh edition of an evening paper hot from the press and crammed with fresh inventions, and Archie left this insane patriot in disgust at his excitement over so detached an affair as a European war. He tried a second friend with no better success; there was a certain excuse for him, as he was a subaltern in the Guards. But for the first friend there was none, as he was only in an office in the city.