Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  “Not at all,” — replied Mr. Harland, almost testily— “She is a woman whose life has been immersed in study and contemplation, and because she has allowed herself to forego many of the world’s pleasures she can be made happy by a mere nothing — a handful of roses — or the sound of sweet music—”

  “Are they ‘nothings’?” — interrupted Santoris.

  “To business men they are—”

  “And business itself? Is it not also from some points of view a ‘nothing’?”

  “Santoris, if you are going to be ‘transcendental’ I will have none of you!” said Mr. Harland, with a vexed laugh— “What I wish to say is merely this — that my little friend here, for whom I have a great esteem, let me assure her! — is not really capable of forming an opinion of the condition of a man like myself, nor can she judge of the treatment likely to benefit me. She does not even know the nature of my illness — but I can see that she has taken a dislike to my physician, Brayle—”

  “I never ‘take dislikes,’ Mr. Harland,” — I interrupted, quickly— “I merely trust to a guiding instinct which tells me when a man is sincere or when he is acting a part. That’s all.”

  “Well, you’ve decided that Brayle is not sincere,” — he replied— “And you hardly think him clever. But if you would consider the point logically — you might enquire what motive could he possibly have for playing the humbug with me?”

  Santoris smiled.

  “Oh, man of ‘business’! YOU can ask that?”

  We were at the end of luncheon, — the servants had retired, and Mr. Harland was sipping his coffee and smoking a cigar.

  “You can ask that?” he repeated— “You, a millionaire, with one daughter who is your sole heiress, can ask what motive a man like Brayle, — worldly, calculating and without heart — has in keeping you both — both, I say — you and your daughter equally — in his medical clutches?”

  Mr. Harland’s sharp eyes flashed with a sudden menace.

  “If I thought—” he began — then he broke off. Presently he resumed— “You are not aware of the true state of affairs, Santoris. Wizard and scientist as you are, you cannot know everything! I need constant medical attendance — and my disease is incurable—”

  “No!” — said Santoris, quietly— “Not incurable.”

  A sudden hope illumined Harland’s worn and haggard face.

  “Not incurable! But — my good fellow, you don’t even know what it is!”

  “I do. I also know how it began, and when, — how it has progressed, and how it will end. I know, too, how it can be checked — cut off in its development, and utterly destroyed, — but the cure would depend on yourself more than on Dr. Brayle or any other physician. At present no good is being done and much harm. For instance, you are in pain now?”

  “I am — but how can you tell?”

  “By the small, almost imperceptible lines on your face which contract quite unconsciously to yourself. I can stop that dreary suffering at once for you, if you will let me.”

  “Oh, I will ‘let’ you, certainly!” and Mr. Harland smiled incredulously,— “But I think you over-estimate your abilities.”

  “I was never a boaster,” — replied Santoris, cheerfully— “But you shall keep whatever opinion you like of me.” And he drew from his pocket a tiny crystal phial set in a sheath of gold. “A touch of this in your glass of wine will make you feel a new man.”

  We watched him with strained attention as he carefully allowed two small drops of liquid, bright and clear as dew to fall one after the other into Mr. Harland’s glass.

  “Now,” — he continued— “drink without fear, and say good-bye to all pain for at least forty-eight hours.”

  With a docility quite unusual to him Mr. Harland obeyed.

  “May I go on smoking?” he asked.

  “You may.”

  A minute passed, and Mr. Harland’s face expressed a sudden surprise and relief.

  “Well! What now?” asked Santoris— “How is the pain?”

  “Gone!” he answered— “I can hardly believe it — but I’m bound to admit it!”

  “That’s right! And it will not come back — not to-day, at any rate, nor to-morrow. Shall we go on deck now?”

  We assented. As we left the saloon he said:

  “You must see the glow of the sunset over Loch Coruisk. It’s always a fine sight and it promises to be specially fine this evening, — there are so many picturesque clouds floating about. We are turning back to Loch Scavaig, — and when we get there we can land and do the rest of the excursion on foot. It’s not much of a climb; will you feel equal to it?”

  This question he put to me personally.

  I smiled.

  “Of course! I feel equal to anything! Besides, I’ve been very lazy on board the ‘Diana,’ taking no real exercise. A walk will do me good.”

  Mr. Harland seated himself in one of the long reclining chairs which were placed temptingly under an awning on deck. His eyes were clearer and his face more composed than I had ever seen it.

  “Those drops you gave me are magical, Santoris!” — he said— “I wish you’d let me have a supply!”

  Santoris stood looking down upon him kindly.

  “It would not be safe for you,” — he answered— “The remedy is a sovereign one if used very rarely, and with extreme caution, but in uninstructed hands it is dangerous. Its work is to stimulate certain cells — at the same time (like all things taken in excess) it can destroy them. Moreover, it would not agree with Dr. Brayle’s medicines.”

  “You really and truly think Brayle an impostor?”

  “Impostor is a strong word! No! — I will give him credit for believing in himself up to a certain point. But of course he knows that the so-called ‘electric’ treatment he is giving to your daughter is perfectly worthless, just as he knows that she is not really ill.”

  “Not really ill!”

  Mr. Harland almost bounced up in his chair, while I felt a secret thrill of satisfaction. “Why, she’s been a miserable, querulous invalid for years—”

  “Since she broke off her engagement to a worthless rascal” — said Santoris, calmly. “You see, I know all about it.”

  I listened, astonished. How did he know, how could he know, the intimate details of a life like Catherine’s which could scarcely be of interest to a man such as he was?

  “Your daughter’s trouble is written on her face” — he went on— “Warped affections, slain desires, disappointed hopes, — and neither the strength nor the will to turn these troubles to blessings. Therefore they resemble an army of malarious germs which are eating away her moral fibre. Brayle knows that what she needs is the belief that someone has an interest not only in her, but in the particularly morbid view she has taught herself to take of life. He is actively showing that interest. The rest is easy, — and will be easier when — well! — when you are gone.”

  Mr. Harland was silent, drawing slow whiffs from his cigar. After a long pause, he said —

  “You are prejudiced, and I think you are mistaken. You only saw the man for a few minutes last night, and you know nothing of him—”

  “Nothing, — except what he is bound to reveal,” — answered Santoris.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You will not believe me if I tell you,” — and Santoris, drawing a chair close to mine, sat down,— “Yet I am sure this lady, who is your friend and guest, will corroborate what I say, — though, of course, you will not believe HER! In fact, my dear Harland, as you have schooled yourself to believe NOTHING, why urge me to point out a truth you decline to accept? Had you lived in the time of Galileo you would have been one of his torturers!”

  “I ask you to explain,” said Mr. Harland, with a touch of pique— “Whether I accept your explanation or not is my own affair.”

  “Quite!” agreed Santoris, with a slight smile— “As I told you long ago at Oxford, a man’s life is his own affair entirely. He can do what he likes w
ith it. But he can no more command the RESULT of what he does with it than the sun can conceal its rays. Each individual human being, male and female alike, moves unconsciously in the light of self-revealment, as though all his or her faults and virtues were reflected like the colours in a prism, or were set out in a window for passers-by to gaze upon. Fortunately for the general peace of society, however, most passers-by are not gifted with the sight to see the involuntary display.”

  “You speak in enigmas,” said Harland, impatiently— “And I’m not good at guessing them.”

  Santoris regarded him fixedly. His eyes were luminous and compassionate.

  “The simplest truths are to you ‘enigmas,’” he said, regretfully— “A pity it is so! You ask me what I mean when I say a man is ‘bound to reveal himself.’ The process of self-revealment accompanies self-existence, as much as the fragrance of a rose accompanies its opening petals. You can never detach yourself from your own enveloping aura neither in body nor in soul. Christ taught this when He said:— ‘Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’ Your ‘light’ — remember! — that word ‘light’ is not used here as a figure of speech but as a statement of fact. A positive ‘light’ surrounds you — it is exhaled and produced by your physical and moral being, — and those among us who have cultivated their inner organs of vision see IT before they see YOU. It can be of the purest radiance, — equally it can be a mere nebulous film, — but whatever the moral and physical condition of the man or woman concerned it is always shown in the aura which each separate individual expresses for himself or herself. In this way Dr. Brayle reveals his nature to me as well as the chief tendency of his thoughts, — in this way YOU reveal yourself and your present state of health, — it is a proved test that cannot go wrong.”

  Mr. Harland listened with his usual air of cynical tolerance and incredulity.

  “I have heard this sort of nonsense before,” — he said— “I have even read in otherwise reliable scientific journals about the ‘auras’ of people affecting us with antipathies or sympathies for or against them. But it’s a merely fanciful suggestion and has no foundation in reality.”

  “Why did you wish me to explain, then?” asked Santoris— “I can only tell you what I know, and — what I see!”

  Harland moved restlessly, holding his cigar between his fingers and looking at it curiously to avoid, as I thought, the steadfast brilliancy of the compelling eyes that were fixed upon him.

  “These ‘auras,’” he went on, indifferently, “are nothing but suppositions. I grant you that certain discoveries are being made concerning the luminosity of trees and plants which in some states of the atmosphere give out rays of light, — but that human beings do the same I decline to believe.”

  “Of course!” and Santoris leaned back in his chair easily, as though at once dismissing the subject from his mind— “A man born blind must needs decline to believe in the pleasures of sight.”

  Harland’s wrinkled brow deepened its furrows in a frown.

  “Do you mean to tell me, — do you DARE to tell me” — he said— “that you see any ‘aura,’ as you call it, round my personality?”

  “I do, most assuredly,” — answered Santoris— “I see it as distinctly as I see yourself in the midst of it. But there is no actual light in it, — it is mere grey mist, — a mist of miasma.”

  “Thank you!” and Harland laughed harshly— “You are complimentary!”

  “Is it a time for compliments?” asked Santoris, with sudden sternness— “Harland, would you have me tell you ALL?”

  Harland’s face grew livid. He threw up his hand with a warning gesture.

  “No!” he said, almost violently. He clutched the arm of his chair with a nervous grip, and for one instant looked like a hunted creature caught red-handed in some act of crime. Recovering himself quickly, he forced a smile.

  “What about our little friend’s ‘aura’?”-he queried, glancing at me— “Does she ‘express’ herself in radiance?”

  Santoris did not reply for a moment. Then he turned his eyes towards me almost wistfully.

  “She does!” — he answered— “I wish you could see her as I see her!”

  There was a moment’s silence. My face grew warm, and I was vaguely embarrassed, but I met his gaze fully and frankly.

  “And I wish I could see myself as you see me,” — I said, half laughingly— “For I am not in the least aware of my own aura.”

  “It is not intended that anyone should be visibly aware of it in their own personality,” — he answered— “But I think it is right we should realise the existence of these radiant or cloudy exhalations which we ourselves weave around ourselves, so that we may ‘walk in the light as children of the light.’”

  His voice sank to a grave and tender tone which checked Mr. Harland in something he was evidently about to say, for he bit his lip and was silent.

  I rose from my chair and moved away then, looking — from the smooth deck of the ‘Dream’ shadowed by her full white sails out to the peaks of the majestic hills whose picturesque beauties are sung in the wild strains of Ossian, and the projecting crags, deep hollows and lofty pinnacles outlining the coast with its numerous waterfalls, lochs and shadowy creeks. A thin and delicate haze of mist hung over the land like a pale violet veil through which the sun shot beams of rose and gold, giving a vaporous unsubstantial effect to the scenery as though it were gliding with us like a cloud pageant on the surface of the calm water. The shores of Loch Scavaig began to be dimly seen in the distance, and presently Captain Derrick approached Mr. Harland, spy-glass in hand.

  “The ‘Diana’ must have gone for a cruise,” — he said, in rather a perturbed way— “As far as I can make out, there’s no sign of her where we left her this morning.”

  Mr. Harland heard this indifferently.

  “Perhaps Catherine wished for a sail,” — he answered. “There are plenty on board to manage the vessel. You’re not anxious?”

  “Oh, not at all, sir, if you are satisfied,” — Derrick answered.

  Mr. Harland stretched himself luxuriously in his chair.

  “Personally, I don’t mind where the ‘Diana’ has gone to for the moment,” — he said, with a laugh— “I’m particularly comfortable where I am. Santoris!”

  “Here!” And Santoris, who had stepped aside to give some order to one of his men, came up at the call.

  “What do you say to leaving me on board while you and my little friend go and see your sunset effect on Loch Coruisk by yourselves?”

  Santoris heard this suggestion with an amused look.

  “You don’t care for sunsets?”

  “Oh yes, I do, — in a way. But I’ve seen so many of them—”

  “No two alike” — put in Santoris.

  “I daresay not. Still, I don’t mind missing a few. Just now I should like a sound sleep rather than a sunset. It’s very unsociable, I know, — but—” here he half closed his eyes and seemed inclined to doze off there and then.

  Santoris turned to me.

  “What do you say? Can you put up with my company for an hour or two and allow me to be your guide to Loch Coruisk? Or would you, too, rather not see the sunset?”,

  Our eyes met. A thrill of mingled joy and fear ran through me, and again I felt that strange sense of power and dominance which had previously overwhelmed me.

  “Indeed, I have set my heart on going to Loch Coruisk” — I answered, lightly— “And I cannot let you off your promise to take me there! We will leave Mr. Harland to his siesta.”

  “You’re sure you do not mind?” — said Harland, then, opening his eyes drowsily— “You will be perfectly safe with Santoris.”

  I smiled. I did not need that assurance. And I talked gaily with Captain Derrick on the subject of the ‘Diana’ and the course of her possible cruise, while he scanned the waters in search of her, — and I watched with growing impatience our gradual approach t
o Loch Scavaig, which in the bright afternoon looked scarcely less dreary than at night, especially now that the ‘Diana’ was no longer there to give some air of human occupation to the wild and barren surroundings. The sun was well inclined towards the western horizon when the ‘Dream’ reached her former moorings and noiselessly dropped anchor, and about twenty minutes later the electric launch belonging to the vessel was lowered and I entered it with Santoris, a couple of his men managing the boat as it rushed through the dark steel-coloured water to the shore.

  VIII. VISIONS

  The touch of the earth seemed strange to me after nearly a week spent at sea, and as I sprang from the launch on to the rough rocks, aided by Santoris, I was for a moment faint and giddy. The dark mountain summits seemed to swirl round me, — and the glittering water, shining like steel, had the weird effect of a great mirror in which a fluttering vision of something undefined and undeclared rose and passed like a breath. I recovered myself with an effort and stood still, trying to control the foolish throbbing of my heart, while my companion gave a few orders to his men in a language which I thought I knew, though I could not follow it.

  “Are you speaking Gaelic?” I asked him, with a smile.

  “No! — only something very like it — Phoenician.”

  He looked straight at me as he said this, and his eyes, darkly blue and brilliant, expressed a world of suggestion. He went on: —

  “All this country was familiar ground to the Phoenician colonists of ages ago. I am sure you know that! The Gaelic tongue is the genuine dialect of the ancient Phoenician Celtic, and when I speak the original language to a Highlander who only knows his native Gaelic he understands me perfectly.”

  I was silent. We moved away from the shore, walking slowly side by side. Presently I paused, looking back at the launch we had just left.

  “Your men are not Highlanders?”

  “No — they are from Egypt.”

  “But surely,” — I said, with some hesitation— “Phoenician is no longer known or spoken?”

  “Not by the world of ordinary men,” — he answered— “I know it and speak it, — and so do most of those who serve me. You have heard it before, only you do not quite remember.” I looked at him, startled. He smiled, adding gently:— “Nothing dies — not even a language!”