He knew quite well what that meant. Like all students of the hidden side of things, he was a believer in reincarnation, and he held that each soul that aspires finds its way sooner or later into one or other of the great occult fraternities ; then, life after life, it always returns to the shadow of that fraternity, for “once an Initiate, always an Initiate,” and just as he could have availed himself of the power latent in his Fraternity, so Veronica, in her moment of danger, had found a force overshadowing her, and it was a force with which he was unfamiliar. He cast his mind backwards into the past, seeking some clue that might enlighten him. Like all occultists of a certain degree of initiation, he could remember his past lives as other men remember their childhood, dim and far away, but none the less tangible ; and though, like a child, he might remember people whom he had met in those far off days, he did not always recognize them when they reappeared under their present guise.
He cursed himself for not realizing that something more than rational judgment must have been at work when, out of a whole roomful of women he chose one, and one only, for use in his dangerous adventure ; never deliberating, never comparing, but unhesitatingly laying his finger upon one and saying “Come.”
He analysed his feelings of the past weeks. Subtly but surely the girl had bound him to her. That no conscious act of hers contributed to the binding he readily conceded, but none the less the bond had been forged. True, he had made a collar and chain for her, but though the collar might be about her neck, the staple of the chain was in his own soul. He who was dedicated to the Left-hand Path, who worked with the forces of disruption and separateness, had become drawn into the whirlpool of our common humanity.
He had often lived over again in memory that Roman life of his : seen the white villa and talked with the gentle girl who dwelt in it, and passing from that life back along the chain of memory, seen other lives where they, priest and priestess, had borne their part in the mysteries of many climes and ages, right back to the dim dawn of knowledge in the sun-worship of ancient Atlantis. Undoubtedly the bond had held age after age, and such a bond as that is not a thing to be ignored ; the causes it had set going would actuate events in the present life to an extent undreamed of by the ordinary man ; if he could estimate those forces he would be able to form a very fair idea of the conditions he would have to cope with in working out this problem, and he cursed himself again that his knowledge had not enabled him to avoid involving himself in such a Karmic tangle. Here he was, half-way through a most critical and vital experiment, and the forces of a forgotten Roman summer had wakened to life again and threatened to complicate the whole affair.
Lucas brought his mind forward, life by life, from the remote past to the immediate present, striving to see the course events had taken in past lives so that he might be able to deduce their tendency. He had not recognized in Veronica the presence of the soul whose orbit he had repeatedly touched in the past (and when an occultist says “past” he means the past of an evolution, not the past ‘of an incarnation, which he calls the present). That soul had had an element of greatness in it, and there was nothing big about Veronica, she was more of a child than anything else. He found no clue to the problem till he came to the Roman incarnation, whose images, rising vividly before his mind in that moment of stress in the roadway, wiping out the features of the present-day Veronica, and superimposing themselves as successive exposures are superimposed in a composite photograph, had revealed to him that here was another appearance of the reality that was so intimately interwoven in his fate. Yet beside him sat a mindless bit of pink-and-white whose ears he could cheerfully have boxed, who bore no trace of the greatness of the past, and yet who had a hold upon him.
Lucas stirred impatiently in his chair. If she had been the woman who had worked with him in the past, what a different proposition it would have been, but something had gone wrong in that Roman incarnation to which he had not go the clue, and he was baffled.
He touched Veronica's arm.
“If you have heard enough music, we will have tea and start for home.”
She acquiesced, passive and unresponsive as ever, and they, or rather he, for she took no part in the quest, sought out a tea-shop where food might be obtained. She irritated him beyond measure when she was in this mood. He felt like a man who has ill-treated his dog in private, and then, when he takes it out, finds that the creature's habitual cringing tells the secret to all men. To attempt to bully Veronica into better behaviour would only make her lie down completely ; to cheer her was impossible.
But Veronica's mind was not as passive as he credited it with being. She was brooding deeply over the happenings in the roadway. The story he had told her, trite enough in its way, had made a deep impression, and the images it evoked rose persistently before her mind. She could see the white villa, the sub-tropical gardens, the oxen at the well-wheel, and the slaves who tilled the vine terraces, with the clear, vivid detail that she could see the Surrey cottage. Of course the girl refused her lover, what else could she have done ? Their lives were going different ways, they could not walk together. But she had not forgotten him, Veronica was certain of that ; no, she had remembered the dark patrician Roman as she worked among the outcasts of the city, separated from him by less than a mile, as men count space, but each facing a different way so that they never saw each other.
Had she been right to escape temptation by avoiding him ? The whole temperament of that age was for those who sought righteousness to leave a too sinful world and its contamination, but might not the world, unleavened by their presence, incline to greater and greater extremes of evil ? For the first time in her life, Veronica was thinking rather than feeling, and the unaccustomed experience gave her a sensation of bewilderment. She turned to Lucas, feeling that she needed the steadying of his matter-of-fact demeanour, and found the man's eyes fixed on her face. Spontaneously, unreflectively, she asked the question fermenting in her mind.
“What was his name ?”
And the answer came equally spontaneously, as if but a moment before the subject had been under discussion.
“Justinian. He was called after the general his father served.”
“And hers ?”
“Veronica, the same as yours. (Damn fool that I was not to spot it),” he added, under his breath.
“What became of them—afterwards ?”
“He studied with some of the greatest black magicians of the age, and when his body was worn out, and it wore out pretty quickly, he took another, and went on studying. Later, he had an incarnation at Avignon during the great days of witchcraft, and was burnt in the market place there, together with a number of others.”
“Was that while she was a nun ?”
“How do you know she was a nun ?”
“You said so, didn't you ?”
“I never said anything about it. I lost her trail after I parted from her in the garden.”
“I'm sorry. I got the idea she became a nun. But what happened to him ?”
“He was burnt for witchcraft, I told you that.” He was watching her closely.
“But after ?”
“How do you know there was any after ? The man was dead.”
Veronica looked puzzled. She had felt so sure that the tale was not ended, for the moment she had forgotten that death ends everything, and Lucas, having learnt what he wanted to know, skilfully directed her attention to other subjects.
CHAPTER TEN
FROM THAT DAY THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE man and the girl changed profoundly. For neither of them did the old forces waken as yet, but they stirred in their sleep. The girl found herself intuitively understanding the aims and motives of the man who had appeared so incomprehensible to her, and though her antagonism was in no way lessened, she had, to a very great extent, lost her fear of him, and the sympathy, born of understanding, was, unperceived by herself, dawning faintly in the background of her mind.
For his part, the man watched events with apprehension. Old causes, h
e knew, were actuating from the past, but as to when and how they might come into operation, of that he was ignorant ; and he was engaged in a piece of work that would not permit of disturbance, either he must push through his investigations and finish with the trance-work before the Karma began to operate, or heaven knows what complications might not be introduced into the affair. Moreover, he was still completely ignorant as to the nature of the power that had intervened in the roadway upon Veronica's behalf. Why had it never made itself felt before when he sent Veronica out upon her deadly work ? When would it elect to interfere again ? Now that she had picked up its trail, would it always be present ? These were all questions he was powerless to answer until they should answer themselves, and then it might be too late.
He determined, therefore, to push on with the trance-work, and four nights in succession sent Veronica out upon her astral journeyings. He had never risked working her so hard before, but he dared not delay now that the Karma had begun to stir. Out she had to go, and if she failed to return one night, then so much the better, he would be free from the old problems for the rest of this incarnation, at any rate.
The continuous trance-work was not without its effect upon the girl itself. The strange world into which she passed when she crossed the threshold of consciousness was becoming familiar to her, and its memories were beginning to link on to normal consciousness.
Never again, after the experience in the roadway, did she go out in terror and dread, for she knew that, just beyond the portal, a Presence would meet her and remain at her side till she returned. Of the nature of that Presence she had little conception, but her attitude towards It, inspired, no doubt, by a sense of Its personality, was that of a child towards a formidable but well-loved teacher.
Whereas her first expedition into the realm of the unseen had remained an utter blank in memory, her later expeditions had become increasingly tangible. Memory, at first a thing of shreds and patches, had begun to piece itself together until the pattern of the experience became visible. She was aware that she heard great rituals being enacted, but rituals that differed vastly from her previous concept of such things, based as it was upon church services, for there one person performed the ritual for the benefit of the congregation, but in these the congregation performed the ritual for the benefit of one person.
Though each expedition differed from another, there was a certain system which seemed to prevail in all of them. First, after voyaging through blue-black space, she would perceive a glow of light dawning in the distance, and her soul, apparently set for that point of the compass as the steering-machinery of a torpedo is set, would draw steadily nearer to it. Then she would perceive that the light proceeded from some sort of an enclosure that was guarded by a barrier, but a barrier such as she had never seen upon earth, for this wall was not stationary, but revolving, resembling nothing so much as a band-saw, and reflecting gleams of light from its swiftly-moving surface. Nothing, she felt, could have projected her soul through that whirling circle, but a great, though oftentimes very spasmodic force was exerted beneath her, and with a levering motion she was lifted up and over the barrier and dropped down upon the inner side. There, as in a dream, she found herself floating ; voices, faint and far away, sounded in her ears ; pictures, small and as if seen through badly-focussed opera glasses, crossed her vision ; and then a curious thing happened. It seemed as if a tenuous silver thread connected her soul with the body left behind under Lucas's care, and down this thread the impressions received by her soul were transmitted to the mindless brain at the other end and acted out under its direction. The words she heard stimulated a reflective activity in the vocal cords of the distant throat, and the actions of the prime mover in the ceremonial were repeated by the vacated body. And all this while, consciousness in abeyance, she lay back, as if in deep blue water, and observed, a disinterested spectator, that which her soul perceived and transmitted to her brain. It seemed as if while her body alone, bereft of sensation, or volition, remained with Lucas, her senses alone, bereft of emotion, entered the enclosure ; but herself, her consciousness, all that was she, was diffused where there was neither time nor space, impinging upoñ both body and senses, but coalescing with neither.
But a change had begun to come over the spirit of her dream ; experience had rendered the hidden side of things less unfamiliar to her, and since the event in the roadway and the coming of the Presence, she had become increasingly self-reliant when out of her body ; she was no longer a leaf blown by the winds of space, but was fast developing powers of flight of her own, and a natural curiosity led her to concentrate more and more upon the strange scenes that were enacted before her, so that, as time went on, more and more of her personality began to follow her simulacrum in its scramble over the barrier, till finally, upon the fifth night of consecutive trance, the dream-scene suddenly grew real and materialized before her eyes and she found herself standing upon a broad flagged pavement with cowled figures seated all round her, and her eyes looking straight into those of one who sat upon a raised dais behind an altar. For a long moment they stared into each other's eyes, mutually staggered by the encounter, and then, rising from his seat, the cowled figure pointed a finger at her and a strangely vibrant Word rang out across the rhythms of the ritual. Instantly there was a crash as of a thousand earthquakes ; lightning, tempest and thunder seemed let loose, with herself as the focus of their force. What appeared to be a black tidal wave caught her up and swept her away as a straw in flood time. Gasping, drowning in the darkness, she turned her mind rather than her eyes in search of the Presence that had moved at her elbow, and instantly, as she did so, she felt herself gripped, lifted, and drawn out of the maelstrom and landed upon the bank of the flood, with a voice that boomed in her ears saying :
“Return, my daughter, and We will close the gates behind thee. Seek not to come forth again unless We summon thee.”
Down and down her soul sped in its dive from the heights, and with a crash and a gasp she shot into her body in full consciousness ; behind her, something that was halfway between a guillotine and a portcullis came down with a crash, and she felt rather than saw a great Hand mark it with the Sign of the Cross.
She was flat on her back on the floor, Lucas kneeling on her chest and gripping both her wrists.
“My God,” he said, “What strength you've got ! I thought I should never have been able to hold you. What happened ?”
Veronica examined her bruised wrists and, collecting her scattered wits, told him as well as she could remember, all that had occurred. As she did so, she saw his face turn ashy grey.
“Do you think the man you saw would be likely to remember your face ?”
“He stared at me hard enough,” said Veronica.
“Then you must clear out of here right away and we must chance the Ashlotts gossiping.”
He paused, and then continued as if speaking to himself.
“Now what in the world am I to do with her ? Can't let her go altogether, no, can't possibly do that.” Pause. “I know, the general's fishing box. Put her there. Caretaker look after her. Deaf as a post. Do as she's told and ask no questions. She knows I act for him. Keep quiet if I pay her. What time is it ? Quarter past twelve. No trains to-night. Sunday to-morrow, damn it ; no trains then to that God-forsaken spot. I'll have to take her down by road. Hundred and twenty miles. Council meeting to-morrow at ten ; daren't miss it. Two hundred and forty there and back. Can I do it ? Got to.” Then he seemed to wake up. He went over to a cupboard in the corner and raking about on its lower shelf, drew out a dust-covered haversack.
“Here, Veronica, you can take as much as you can stuff into this. Get your nightgown, hair brush, and washing-tackle, enough to keep you going for a day or two. I'll send your things on after you. Now hustle.”
“But Mr. Lucas, what do you mean ? What are you going to do with me ?”
“Don't ask questions, hurry,” and taking her by the shoulders, he almost flung her out of the room. “Put on your
warmest coat,” he called after her.
Infected by his haste, she was not many minutes in carrying out his commands, but he had already changed into his motor-cycling overalls and was standing in the hall impatiently awaiting her descent.
“Is that the thickest thing you've got ?” he exclaimed at sight of the thin little wrap that had to serve her needs. “Here, take this,” and catching up an old trench coat that always hung upon the hall stand, he thrust her into it, buttoning and buckling it about her as one dresses a child. It was dirty as only a man's macintosh is allowed to get dirty, and reeked of the strong pipe tobacco he always smoked, and Veronica, cased from heel to eyes in its stiff folds, felt as if, in some strange way, the man's personality enwrapped her.
Silently, as was her wont, she followed Lucas out of the door into the close London night, the coat heavy upon her shoulders. They walked quickly, Veronica half smothered by its weight, till they came to the mews where he kept his motor cycle. He unlocked a clumsy door and got the machine out. The roar of its starting woke the echoes and he cursed it savagely, then, bidding Veronica mount behind him, he sent the machine shooting out of the yard almost before she had got her balance. Through the wide emptiness of the night streets they flew, and in an incredibly short time Veronica felt fresh air in her face and saw the loom of Harrow on its hill upon her left.
The wind blew fresh as they cleared the brick-ridden city, and when they got into the hills it cut like a knife. Never, till her dying day would Veronica forget that ride. Lucas had got to do two hundred and forty miles in a little over ten hours, and he wanted to get a rest and a meal between the journeys, for it would not do to come into the council meeting dead beat and occasion questions, so he meant to average thirty miles an hour, and in order to do this, he drove the machine “all out” whenever the road permitted, climbing well up into the forties when the grades were in his favour. Veronica clung like an infant monkey to its parent hurtling through the tree tops, and Lucas set his jaw and prayed that his luck would hold, for he could not have pulled up within the range of his headlight should any obstacle bar the way.
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