Part 23 (1/2)
The errand, in Kate's mind, was as chivalric as any of the olden time, but the knight's progress was lit by the green and red lamps of trade, and threaded only the brazen jungles of traffic. For dragons he had but the overhead monsters of iron and bra.s.s--monsters too intent on their own mad game to take account of such small deer as this footman picking his road beneath. It was half-past eight of the night-watch.
Serviss began to realize that his reawakened interest in this girl was not purely impersonal and scientific. It had become, indeed, a most disquieting, intimate concern, and every step towards the West sharpened the sense of his folly. Had it not been for the memory of that ride up the mountains--his keen remembrance of that day of joyous youth--he could have easily dismissed Viola's case from his mind; but as he permitted himself to dwell upon her rosy, rain-wet face, her bird-like ecstasy of voice, her splendid defiance of the sun and wind, a desire that was as fierce as anger actuated him, making his proffer of aid not a gallantry but a duty. ”I will defend her from herself.
Though a liar, she is still worth redemption. In a certain sense the despicable role she is playing has been forced upon her.”
As he mounted Simeon's steps he observed that awnings covered the adjacent carriage-block, and that some young people, all in party dress, were entering--a merry, chattering group--whereas the Pratt mansion towered gloomily, unlighted, unalluring as a prison.
He was about to touch the bell when the door opened and a porter softly greeted him. ”The meeting has begun, sir. Step right in, sir.
This way, sir. Softly, please.”
Before he was fairly aware of his attendant's meaning Serviss found himself thrust through a heavily curtained archway into a large room dimly lighted by a single lamp at the farther end. It contained about twenty people, and he hesitated in embarra.s.sment and some amazement at the threshold.
Beneath the light, on a reclining-chair, lay a woman with closed eyes and folded hands. Beside this figure stood Clarke in the midst of an address, every word of which was made dramatically effective by a forced calmness, an elocutionary trick.
”Some of you, my friends, may never have seen any of these mysterious things. So many people say to me, 'Nothing supernatural ever happens where I am.' To you I repeat my answer to them. Have you ever tried to enter the right conditions? Here is a caravan of Arabs on the desert. The road, hard-beaten, is wide and dusty, the necks of the camels sway, the drivers shout, there is the smell of sweat, of leather, of oil. The alkaline dust blinds and blisters. Physical weariness and suffering shut out all else. This is no place to look for heavenly visitors. You would be a fool to expect a demonstration there. But at night when the beasts are at rest, when the cool, starry sky bends close, when the tent-flaps are closed, then the old men sit about and commune with their dead--as all primitive, natural peoples do.
”So with you. You say to me, 'I have no heavenly visions in my life.'
I answer: Do you expect them on Broadway or in your business office?
You are on the dusty, weedy, noisy high-road, my friends, and you will never hear a spirit voice or catch the flutter of a hand till you retire to the dusk and the quiet. Enter the land of meditation.
Manifest a willingness to meet the angel visitors half-way, and then the wings of the unseen will rustle about you, the cool and scented winds of the invisible universe will kiss your cheeks. Shadowy voices will be wafted from the dark. Song will break from the silences to comfort and heal you.
”We see only what we _will_ to see--that is a known law of psychology.
Electricity was a force in the world six thousand years before man really saw it. Now we hear it crackle in our hair and stir in our garments. By studying the conditions of its manifestation we are able to call it forth in giant power. So of these invisible ones--they are all about us, eager to bless, to prove their presence. They are here now. Around each one of you there are throngs hovering to manifest their love; they will do so, by the aid of this wonderful psychic who has consented to sit for us to-night. Let me repeat that she does this because the dead demand and the living beseech her to act as their intermediary.” With abrupt, almost ludicrous change to a matter-of-fact tone, he added, ”Henry, turn the light a little lower.”
As the attendant glided to his task, Serviss was mightily moved to rise in his seat and cry out against the foolish, profaning business.
They were putting the girl into the exact att.i.tude of the paid trickster. At college he had attended a few of these seances, where vulgar and immoral women had furthered their trade; and to see Viola, whom he still believed to be essentially sweet, or at least reclaimable, thrown into this most dubious posture, disgusted and angered him. ”But I am an uninvited guest. My rising would precipitate a scene, involving Viola,” he reasoned, and so kept his seat, though his hands clinched and his teeth set with the effort at control.
Some one commenced to play softly upon a harp, and a little sigh like a breeze pa.s.sed over the group. The women had begun to respond to the manager's emotional appeal. ”I can feel them gathering,” he called, softly, from his seat beside the motionless girl. ”The spirit host are about us. I can almost hear the rustle of their wings.”
The harpist stopped abruptly, and an echoing strain of faint music continued to sound, seemingly from the ceiling--a fairy harp exquisitely clear. ”That is my Adele,” announced Clarke, in a voice so convincing in its tone of satisfied longing that the women of his audience again rustled with ecstasy.
”I think he is beautiful!” exclaimed one.
”A voice is whispering to me,” Clarke continued. ”It is asking for some one--I cannot quite make out. Who is it? Again, please. Morton Serviss?” His voice rose in surprise. ”He is not here. You are surely mistaken. Certainly, I will ask. Is Professor Serviss here?”
Serviss replied, with a slight note of annoyance in his voice, ”Yes, I am here.”
Again the little group s.h.i.+vered with excitement--not because they were acquainted with the name and fame of the scientist, but because they antic.i.p.ated some especially wonderful manifestation of the psychic's power. Serviss, irritated and puzzled, waited in silence.
Clarke's voice trembled with his effort to appear calm as he said: ”Professor Serviss, I am glad to welcome you. Won't you please come forward? The 'control' desires it.”
For a full minute, in dead silence, Serviss debated the matter, then rose to comply. Mrs. Lambert met him with cordial hand, saying, in a whisper: ”We did not know you were coming; but they knew. They want you closer to the manifestation.”
He, sick at heart at her connivance in the trick, made no reply, but silently took the seat which Clarke indicated.
Viola lay as silent as a statue, her face faintly showing, a diamond in her corsage emitting a momentary gleam as she breathed tranquilly at long intervals. There was nothing of the professional sibyl in her dress, and her tall figure was very beautiful in this att.i.tude of deep sleep.
Clarke, mindful of effect, made explanation: ”Professor Serviss, as many of you know, is renowned in science, and the 'controls' are especially anxious that he shall have the best possible opportunity to hear and see. Will you play again, Mrs. Robinson?”
As the harp resumed its sadly sweet pulsations, the dead matter in the room seemed to awake. Cracklings, snappings, as of a fire-log, arose from the carpet. Rappings resounded from the walls. The piano began to thrill as if a roguish child were thumping it.