But for her matters had not ended there. At first she had put down his non-reappearance at the club to disappointment in her; then, to her horror, she realized that she was going to have a baby. Instantly she jumped to the conclusion that he was purposely avoiding her because he suspected that he might have given her one. She did not know his address and, although she asked all sorts of people, none of them knew it either. It was not until some weeks later that a friend of his came to the club and was able to tell her that he had gone off to America quite suddenly, without even saying goodbye to his circle of boon companions.
Meanwhile her life had become one long agony of anxiety and fear. In vain she lit candles and prayed morning, noon and night to Our Lady for a natural release from her condition; her prayers remained unanswered. At length she confided in one of the other, older, girls and learned that she could be got out of her trouble; but it was going to cost a lot of money. As she was as hard-up as ever, and the matter was urgent, there was only one thing for it; her friend arranged for her to borrow the bulk of the money from a money-lender, and she had to begin accepting the offers of men who came to the club, whether she liked them or not, as the only means of repaying the instalments on the loan.
She soon learned that such encounters were not always unpleasant, but in most instances she found them loathsome and degrading. Moreover, as the club was very far from being thought of as a centre of prostitution, advances of that kind were made to the girls there only occasionally, and it soon became apparent to her that Barney had treated her with exceptional generosity; which meant that a considerable time must elapse before she was entirely free from her debt.
Those months remained vivid in her memory: the horror and pain of the illegal operation; her misery at having to give up practising her religion because she could not bring herself to confess to having committed so grievous a sin; the nausea that had at times assailed her from having to submit to the caresses of half-drunken men; the awful strain of having to pretend to enjoy it when, tired from a long evening's dancing and aching for her bed, she had been driven miles out into the country by some stranger to be made love to in the back of his car; and the shame aroused in her by the sneering looks or lecherous grins of slatternly chambermaids who had shown her up with men to tawdry bedrooms in dubious little hotels.
And her penance had lasted longer than it need have done, since, to bring some cheer into her life, she had given way to the understandable weakness of using part of the money she earned to buy better clothes and many small luxuries which she could not before afford. With the interest on her debt, it had been ten months before she had managed to get clear finally. Then, shortly afterwards, during a fortnight's holiday at the seaside, she had met Teddy Morden; and he had taken her to London, freeing her from her past, and giving her his love, his name and a happy married life.
Yet even four years as a contented wife had not made her feelings about Barney Sullivan less bitter. It was his act which had resulted in those ten months during which she had hardly known a day free from anxiety, or disgust with herself at the life she had been forced into leading! It never entered her mind that if a man paid a girl to go to bed with him he was entitled to assume that she knew how to look after herself, and was not responsible for what might become of her afterwards. As she saw it, he should have known that he might have put her in the family way and come to the club again to find out if she was all right; instead of which, as it appeared to her, he had deliberately refrained from doing so from fear that she might be pregnant by him, then gone off to America leaving her to her unhappy fate. In consequence, in her mind he had become the symbol of all that is mean and contemptible in a man.
With a little start she suddenly realized that Mr. Silcox had come to the end of his talk. During the ten minutes that followed several members of the audience asked him questions, which he answered with easy assurance. Then Mrs. Wardeel moved a vote of thanks to him which met with decorous applause, after which she said:
'Now, dear fellow followers of the Way, let us rearrange the chairs and see what Mrs. Brimmings has in store for us. No doubt some of you will have heard of Mrs. Brimmings. From the accounts I have had she is a remarkably gifted medium and under her control, the Chinese Mandarin Chi-Ling - whose last incarnation took place some two hundred years ago - she is able to make contact with not only the first, but also the second and third, astral planes. We are most fortunate in having her with us tonight.'
Everyone stood up. The unoccupied chairs were put back against the wall and the rest formed into a large circle, in the middle of which a chair was placed for Mrs. Brimmings. As Mrs. Wardeel led her forward to it, Barney saw that she was a small, faded elderly woman with grey hair scragged back into a bun, and wearing rather shoddy clothes. It occurred to him that she might easily be taken for a charwoman, and a moment later she said to Mrs. Wardeel in accents that reinforced that impression:
'May I 'ave a rug, dear. Me poor feet get so cold when I'm out of me body.'
A rug was duly fetched and wrapped round her, then the company settled down and, crossing their arms, all linked hands with their neighbours. Before taking her place in the circle Mrs. Wardeel switched out all the lights except one with a heavy blue shade, thus darkening the room to a faint bluish gloom, in which the medium could be seen only as a dark shape; then she said in a deep whisper:
'For the two new friends who are with us tonight, I shall give the usual warning, Whatever may happen, no one must break the circle by letting go the hand of his neighbour. To do so would be to place the medium in grave danger by bringing her spirit back to her body too suddenly. And no one should address her unless called on to do so.'
After that, silence fell, broken only by an occasional half-suppressed cough or the faint creak of one of the wooden chairs as someone eased his position. To Barney the silence seemed to continue for a long time, which he judged to be about twenty minutes, although in fact it was little more than ten. But it had the effect of creating a definite atmosphere of tension and expectancy.
At length a faint blob of light appeared high up in a corner of the room. It flickered about uncertainly for a little then, to Barney's surprise, descended on his own forehead. With difficulty he suppressed an exclamation; but, almost instantly, it moved again and came to rest for a moment on the forehead of a man nearly opposite to him, after which it disappeared.
'Ah!' Mrs. Wardeel gave a heavy sigh of satisfaction, then declared in an audible whisper. 'All is favourable. Our two new friends are accepted on probation to sit with us in the mystic circle.'
Again silence fell. It lasted for about five minutes and Barney was becoming a little bored when, without the least warning, an illuminated trumpet appeared a few feet above the medium's head and from it there came a long musical note.
In a flash it was gone, but the faintly seen form of the medium seemed to be writhing from side to side and she was breathing heavily. After a moment she became quite still and from her came a voice utterly unlike her normal one, which said with a slight foreign accent, but clearly and with authority:
'Once more you disturb my meditations. Beware that you do not do so without good cause. Yet I will always descend among those swathed in the bonds of a present incarnation to bring them that need me comfort and reassurance.'
There was a pause, then the voice went on. 'You who are now called Josephine Carden. Why do you still seek to get into touch with him who was your husband? You have already been told by a companion of mine, known as Little Violet, that all is well with him, and that he wishes to forget his last time here, so that he may the sooner make progress towards a higher state.'
A low sob came from a fat woman not far away from Barney on his left, and her body threatened to slump forward, but was held back by her neighbours keeping a firm grip on her hands.
'Hush, dear,' murmured Mrs. Wardeel. 'That was most unkind of the Mandarin; but another time some other guide may bring you comfort.'
'Silence wo
man!' shouted the Mandarin. 'My time is not to be wasted or my judgment questioned by such as you. Silcox! Henry Silcox, I have good tidings for you. The Master K.H. has consented to your passing the Second Grade of Initiation.'
The little man who had given the talk gave a gasp and murmured, 'I am humbly grateful. I shall do my utmost to be worthy.'
There came a short pause, then the voice spoke again. 'Better-ton. There is one here named Betterton?'
'Yes, yes!' exclaimed the other newcomer, opposite Barney, on whose forehead the light had also rested.
'You seek knowledge of the wife who recently cast off her fleshly envelope. She is happy. She is united again with the girl child who was sufficiently filled with grace to leave you while in her last life still young in years. Your wife bids you marry again for the sake of the other children.'
So it went on for about twenty minutes, the strong, vibrant, slightly foreign voice throwing out bits of information or commands to some dozen people in the audience. Then silence fell again. Some minutes passed and the medium began to groan. Mrs. Wardeel broke the circle, went over to her and softly stroked her forehead until she came round, then asked:
'Are you feeling all right, Mrs. Brimmings? Can we put the lights up now?�
'Yes, dear.' Mrs. Brimmings spoke again with the voice of a cockney char. 'Mister Chi-Ling always takes a lot out of me; but I'll be meself again soon as I've 'ad a cup-o'-tea an' a bite to eat.'
As Mr. Silcox switched on the lights, Barney made a quick assessment of the performance he had seen; and he was fully convinced that it was a performance. It had been well put on and superficially convincing; but he had little doubt that the light and the trumpet were permanent properties of the room frequently put to use at these meetings. So, too, could a sound apparatus be installed beneath Mrs. Brimmings's chair through which someone outside the room had made Chi-Ling's pronouncements; or else the medium was quite a different personality from that which she normally appeared, and was a clever actress, highly skilled in voice production. As for the Mandarin's messages, suitable ones could easily be cooked up to sound impressive to the older members of the circle with whose circumstances Mrs. Wardeel should have had little difficulty in becoming acquainted. That, too, doubtless applied to the newcomer, Betterton, whereas to himself, about whom Mrs. Wardeel had had no means of finding anything out, no message had been given.
Counting heads, he reckoned that Mrs. Wardeel must have netted about thirty guineas on the evening. Silcox, he thought, was probably honest and had given his talk for nothing, while Mrs. Brimmings's rake-off for her collaboration was, perhaps, a fiver; so that left a handsome profit and, as the meetings were held weekly, he decided that Mrs. Wardeel was running quite a useful little racket.
As the circle broke up he released Mary's hand and asked her, 'Have you ever received a message at one of these sittings?'
She shook her head. 'No, not yet; although I always concentrate during them, hoping to hear something of a person I knew who has not long been dead.'
'Passed over, you mean,' he corrected her with a grin.
She gave him a queer look, his levity giving her cause to wonder more than ever what had brought him to such a gathering. But she turned away without reply, and they mingled with the others who were now filing out of the room.
Crossing the hall, the little crowd entered a smaller room at one side of which there was a buffet with tea, coffee and light refreshments. There a babble of conversation had broken out, and two other men, one the fat Indian with the pebble glasses and hideous protruding teeth, and another whom Mary greeted as Mr. Nutting, came up to her. Anxious not to lose touch with her, Barney swiftly forestalled the others in getting her a cup of coffee and a plate of sandwiches. When he rejoined her she asked him if she had heard aright that he was Lord Larne, and on his smilingly confirming that, she introduced him to Mr. Nutting and the Indian, whose name was Krishna Ratnadatta.
For a short while the four of them talked together about the seance, then Nutting, who proved to be an earnest bore, buttonholed Barney and, to his annoyance, entered on a long description of how he had been led to take the Path of Discipleship. But Barney listened to him with only half an ear so, although Ratnadatta was speaking to Mary in a low confidential voice, he happened to overhear him say:
These meetings off Mrs. Wardeel's, they are for the young enquirer very well. Yes, very well for those who, in this incarnation, are at the beginning off the Path. But you, Mrs. Mauriac, I am told by the insight that I haf been given, are already well advanced upon it.'
Barney's interest at once being aroused, he managed to keep Mr. Nutting going with an occasional appreciative nod, while concentrating on the continuance of the conversation between Mary and the Indian, to whom she replied:
'I should like to think so, Mr. Ratnadatta.'
'That it ees so, I know, Mrs. Mauriac,' were the Indian's next words. 'At the two previous meetings after weech we haf talked together I haf by your quick understanding been much impressed. Such understanding ees not given to those who in previous incarnations haf not learnt a lot. Haf you at times perhaps had glimpses off your previous lives?�
'No,' said Mary, 'I'm afraid I can't claim that I have.'
'No matter. Some off us bring down with us from our Vase of Memory much more than others. But that ees no criterion off how well filled up with past experience a person's vase may be. In some case the Great Ones decree that far memory be obscured, for a while, for good purpose. So it ees with you I think. To yourself you owe it to reopen your waking mind to the subconscious, so that you may bring new strengths for progress on the astral plane.'
'I am endeavouring to recall my dreams and write them down, as the lecturer last week told us that we should.'
'Good; very good. Such training ees valuable; but to succeed that way require much time.' Mr. Ratnadatta paused for a moment then went on. 'There are other roads; channels by weech a person can reach the astral plane with swiftness, but such are great secrets and you will not learn off them here.'
'Could you perhaps . . . ?' Mary said hesitantly.
'It ees possible. But on yourself everything would depend. You would haf to give all your mind to the great work. Perhaps your circumstances do not permit that, eh? Your husband, you haf tell me, passed on two years ago; but perhaps you haf children, or parents to take great part off your thought?'
Out of the corner of his eye, Barney saw Mary shake her head. 'No, I have no family and am quite alone in the world.'
'Good, very good. Then, if you haf the will to devote yourself, I will giff thought to introducing you to another circle. Not like this, but one in weech power can be called down; real power by those who haf penetrate far into the mysteries.'
'I'd be most terribly grateful if you would.'
'First we must talk more together, before I can make final decision. For this are you agreeable to meet me on Saturday evening?'
'Yes; at any time you like.'
'Good; very good. Meet me plees then at entrance to Sloane Square Tube Station at eight o'clock, and I giff you dinner.'
Flashing his protruding teeth at Mary in an oily smile, Mr. Ratnadatta bowed to her politely and moved away. Murmuring an apology to the verbose Mr. Nutting, Barney swiftly recaptured her and, seeing that the party was beginning to break up, asked:
'May I see you home, Mrs. Mauriac; or, anyhow, to your Tube or bus stop?'
She hesitated only a second before replying, 'Yes, if you like. Thank you. I shall be walking; but it's no great distance as I have a flat in the Cromwell Road.'
Having made their adieux to Mrs. Wardeel, they collected their coats and left the house together. Barney was a fluent and amusing talker, but on this occasion he confined himself to serious comment on the evening's events, as he feared that if he showed levity about the seance, or showed curiosity about his companion's private life, she might resent it. But while he talked his mind was functioning independently and again assessing Mrs. Wardeel's set
-up.
He knew well enough that, apart from the typical old lag, it is extremely difficult to pick out, simply by their faces, criminals from law-abiding citizens. But from the general behaviour of the people at the meeting, he had come to the conclusion that the majority were either quite harmless, serious students of the occult, or sensation seekers. Only the Indian had struck him as possibly being a dangerous type, and his view had been reinforced by Ratnadatta's saying to Mary that he could introduce her to another circle of much higher-powered occultists. It seemed just possible that the Indian had made the same proposal to Morden, and that through accepting it he had got himself involved in Black Magic, then tried too late to break away and been murdered to prevent him betraying the dark secrets of the cult.
Mary, with still vivid memories of her late husband's nightmares, in which he had mentioned an Indian, had encouraged Ratnadatta's advances from her first visit to Mrs. Wardeel's, in the hope that he might be the man Teddy had had on his mind; and now, while listening to Barney's small-talk about the meeting, she was congratulating herself on being, as she believed, on the right track, and having an appointment to meet Ratnadatta privately on Saturday, which might enable her definitely to link him with the crime.
Barney had already decided that he, too, must cultivate the Indian with the object of also putting himself in the way of securing an invitation to join this more secret circle; but that would take time, and the lovely Mrs. Margot Mauriac, with whom he was walking, was already on the brink of receiving such an invitation. If, therefore, he could keep in touch with her, that might prove a short cut to learning a lot more about Ratnadatta. And in this instance, he felt with pleasurable anticipation that, for once, duty opened a most attractive prospect.
In consequence, when they reached the tall old house half-way along the Cromwell Road, in which Mary had rented a furnished flat on the fourth floor, he said with his most winning manner:
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