XIII
VICTOR TESTS HIS THEORY
He was still at breakfast, deeply engaged with his alluring vision, when Mrs. Joyce and his mother entered the room. As he rose to greet them Mrs. Joyce asked, "Have you seen Mr. Bartol?"
"Not yet – but he is up. I am to see him soon. Where is Leo?"
"She is not feeling very brisk this morning, and is taking her coffee in bed."
He said no more, but resumed his seat, richer by this added proof of the deep perturbation through which the girl had passed. He was disappointed, and eager to see her, but the conviction that she had been sleepless from love of him put him among the clouds. He would have forgotten his appointment with Bartol had not the maid reminded him of it. Even then he tried to avoid it. "You're sure he wanted me? Didn't he mean my mother?"
"I'm quite sure he said Mister Ollnee."
"Mother, what do you suppose he wants of me?"
"I don't know, Victor. Perhaps he wants to talk over the trial."
"Come back and tell us as soon as you can," commanded Mrs. Joyce. "I'm crazy to know what he did last night, and what he really thinks of us?"
Victor promised to report, and went away to his interview with a vague alarm disturbing the blissful self-satisfaction of the early morning.
He found Bartol seated at a big table with a writing-pad before him and four or five open volumes disposed about as if for reference. He, too, looked old and worn and rather grim, but he greeted his guest politely. "Good-morning. Have you seen your mother this morning?"
"Yes, I have just left her at breakfast."
"How is she?"
"She seems quite herself – a little pale, perhaps."
"Be seated, please. I want to go over our case with you. First of all, I want you to tell me once more, and in full detail, all you know of your mother's life. Begin at the beginning and leave nothing out. Don't theorize or try to explain – give me the facts as you have observed them."
This was not the kind of business to which a love-exalted youth would set himself, but Victor squared himself before the brooding face and deep-set eyes of his host, and entered once more upon the story of the "ghost-room," which had been the one dark spot in his childhood, and which became again in a moment the overshadowing torment of his young manhood.
As he talked the intent look of the man before him, his short, sharp, significant questions inspired him. He poured forth in eloquent and moving phrase the story of his sudden awakening to a knowledge that his mother was a paid medium, and under persecution by the press of the city. He told of his sittings with her, wherein he had savagely determined to unmask her for her own good. He admitted his complete failure. He related his experiences during the time she lay in deathly trance, and his voice lost its smooth flow as he approached the most marvelous experience of all, when the vast and murmuring wind blew through the small room and Altair came with sad, sweet face, to bewitch him and to shake his conceptions of the universe to their foundation stones. He confessed his bewilderment and confusion, and ended by saying: "It's all unnatural, diseased. I can't believe it is the real side of things."
"I wonder that you kept your head at all," remarked Bartol. "Your youth and good, hot blood protect you. Have you talked with your mother about our sitting?"
"Only a few words. She came to my room last night and told me she had only a dim recollection of what took place. She said The Voices wanted to talk to me – but I didn't want them to talk to me – and said so – and she went away."
Bartol mused. "Belief is not a matter of evidence; it is a habit of mind. I find myself unable to follow the evidence of my own senses. My tests of your mother last night convinced me at the moment that she had the right to claim supernormal powers. She seemingly turned matter into a mere abstraction, and made the learning of physicists the chatter of children." As he spoke his memory of what he had seen freshened and his excitement increased. His voice deepened and his eyes glowed. "Here are my notes of what took place, and I have spent the night in comparing my observations with those of Sir William Crookes concerning the medium Home. In a certain very real sense the phenomena I witnessed were quite as marvelous as those Crookes chronicled." He rose and began to walk up and down the room. "And yet this morning I do not believe – I cannot believe – that writing was precipitated in a closed book held in my hand, that a pen rose of its own volition and tapped upon the table.
"The tendency of any mind, any science, is to harden, to crystallize, to reach a stopping point. The student is prone to think that the knowledge of the physical universe which we have must be the larger part of all that is knowable – and that soon we will have gathered it all into our text-books. Of course this is the sheerest self-delusion. A little thought will make clear that all we know is as nothing compared to that which remains to be known. Up to ten o'clock last night I was one of those who believe that the domain of nature is pretty thoroughly mapped out, staked, and plowed by the investigator, but this morning I find my horizons again extended. It would be foolish to say that an hour's experiments and a night of reading along new lines had overturned all the landmarks of biologic science; but I confess that the world for me has greatly changed. I held in my hand last night a force in action for which science has no name and no place – and yet thirty years ago Sir William Crookes wrote of this same force in the spirit with which he discussed other elements and powers, and yet his testimony is not accepted by his fellows even to-day.
"Your mother met every test cheerfully and instantly, and demonstrated to me, as Home did to Crookes, as Slade did to Zöllner, that matter, as we think we know it, does not exist. She convinced me not merely of her honesty, but of her high powers as a psychic. A calm, persistent, logical purpose ran through all her manifestations, and her Voices – whatever they may mean to you – advised me to sit again with her and to have you and Miss Wood, Mrs. Joyce, and Marie always in the circle. This I intend to do. I feel at this moment as if no other business mattered. I have been here at my desk since midnight, reading, comparing notes, trying to convince myself that I have not gone suddenly mad.
"If I was not utterly deceived, if your fresh, keen young eyes are of any use whatsoever, if the words of Crookes, Wallace, Lombroso, and their like are of any weight, then we have in your mother a rare and subtle organism whose powers are of more importance than the rings of Saturn or the canals of Mars."
Victor was awed, carried out of himself and his small concerns by the deep voice of the great lawyer as he formulated his impassioned yet restrained musings. It was evident that he welcomed this opportunity of putting his thoughts into words, of ordering his words into argument. Half in reverie and half in conscious statement to the entranced youth, he poured forth his troubled soul.
"I was a materialist when your mother entered my house. I believed that the man who died went out like a candle. The grave was the end. To me the so-called revelations of Buddha, Gautama, Christ, were the vague dreams of the heart-sick, the stricken mourners of the earth – not one of them brought a beam of hope – but in this modern spirit of experimentation, in the work of Crookes and his like, I see a ray of light. Your mother's impersonations of my wife, her messages – Voices – may be due to mind-reading, to clairvoyance, but the method of their delivery certainly lies beyond any known law. In that glows my hope. Grant the possibility of direct writing, of the power of the mind to think its will upon paper without the aid of hand or pen, and a whole new world is opened up, the horizons of life are infinitely extended."
He paused abruptly. "I was weary of my days. Yesterday I moved as a creature of habit. This morning it seems that I have a new interest. I am convinced that in defending your mother I am defending something precious to the human race; but I must be very sure of my ground. I must scrutinize every phase of her power, and you must help me. You are young and well-trained. You have a good mind, and I am persuaded you will go far. Your mother worships you, lives for you. Now, you and I together must make such study of her mediumship as America has never seen – a study which shall have nothing to do with any ism, fad, or prejudice. Will you help me?"
Victor, overwhelmed by the confidence of the great lawyer, by the honor which this plea laid upon his young shoulders, could only stammer, "I will do my best."
Bartol thanked him. "I see now, as I never did before, that this power is a subtle, personal, psychical adjustment, and the part you are to play is a double one. First, you are her son, and your presence and influence are indispensable. Secondly, you are vigorous and alert, comparatively free from the wrecking effect of bereavement such as mine. I confess I cannot trust myself in the face of the supposed appeal of my dead. I am like the doctor who refuses to practise upon his own child – my desires blind me. At the same time I see that we cannot thrust strangers upon your mother, especially in her present excited state. What I propose is a series of private experiments, including chemical tests, instantaneous photographs, and the like, which shall convince both judge and jury of the reality of these phenomena. This case will come before my friend, Judge Matthews, and we have in him a just and penetrating mind. If I can make him feel my own present conviction we may rest our case safely with any unprejudiced jury."
He paused and picked up a volume from the table. "Crookes is explicit. He says he saw the lath move without visible cause, he saw Home thrust his hand into the hearth and stir the coals, he saw the accordion play without any reason; and in all this he is sustained by other men testing each phenomenon by means of electrical registering devices. Now we must duplicate these. We must go into court armed with photographs, records, and witnesses. We will make this a cause célèbre– doing our small part to forward this superb and fearless European movement. I intend to be both lawyer and physicist hereafter," he ended, with a smile.
That the great lawyer was now completely engaged upon his mother's defense Victor exultantly perceived, and it gave him a feeling of pride and security, but this was followed by a sense of being uprooted. The sight of this man, inspired yet confounded by what had come to him in a single sitting, brought new and disturbing force to all that had happened to himself. Was it possible that thought could be precipitated like dew upon a sheet of paper?
"Now," resumed Bartol, "I have made a further discovery. There is a brotherhood of what we may call true experimentalists – beginning with Marc, Thury, and the Count de Gasparin, and running to Flammarion and Richet, in Paris; the Dialectical Society, Sir William Crookes, Alfred Russell Wallace, Sir Oliver Lodge, in England; thence back to the Continent, to Zöllner, Aksakof, Ochorowicz, De Rochas, Maxwell, Morselli, and Lombroso. I need a condensed record of these experiments, and a synopsis of each theory. Once within this group, you will learn by cross-reference the names of all those whom each of these experimentalists regard as reliable. You can work here or take the books to your room – perhaps, on the whole, Morselli's record is first in importance. Bring me a clear and full abstract of that as soon as you can."
"I do not read Italian," confessed Victor; "but Leo – Miss Wood – does; perhaps she will help me."
"Very good. Now as to the mechanical side of this matter. I have a nephew who is an expert photographer and a clever electrician. With your permission, I will send for him and see what he can do. He is a man of high standing in his profession, and a quiet personality – one that will not irritate or alarm your mother. Shall I bring him in and give her over to all?"
"Certainly. I'm sure mother wants you to have full charge."
"Very well. We will set to work at once, for our case may come up this week. At its lowest terms, the Aiken charge involves – to us – the admission that our client is highly suggestible and that she has been used as an unconscious stool-pigeon by Pettus. For the present we must proceed upon this basis. Suggestion is more or less accepted at the present time, and we may be able to get the jury to admit our plea; but I will not conceal from you the fact that your mother stands in danger of severe punishment. The Star has singled her out as a scapegoat, and is behind the Aikens. They will push her hard. I do not think they will follow her here, but if they do I shall send you to my nephew's home. – Now to Morselli. We must know just where he stands on this amazing branch of biology. Will you make this synopsis to-day?"
Victor's eyes glowed with the fire of his awakened pride and resolution. "If you'll let me help you, Mr. Bartol, I'll show you what my training has been. I'm quick in some things. I will collate and put in order all the latest deductions of science – " He stopped. "But what exactly do you intend to do with my mother?"
"I mean to confine her in such wise as to demonstrate precisely what she can do and what she cannot. I must divide what is conscious from that which is unconscious. I must understand precisely how she produces these messages, voices, and faces. We are agreed that she is not consciously deceptive?" He questioned Victor with a glance.
"I know she is honest."
"Very well, we must demonstrate her honesty. We must photograph her so-called materializations side by side with her own body, and we must register the work of these invisible hands, and in every possible way demonstrate that she is the medium and not the originating cause of these messages. In no other way can we save her from disgrace and a prison cell."
The youth went away with a humming sound in his head. The thought of his gentle little mother herded with vile women within the gray walls of a penitentiary filled him with such horror that his face went drawn and white. "It shall not be! I will not have it so!" he said, and yet he saw no other way in which to prevent it. All depended upon the man whose impassioned words still rang in his ears, and his admiration for the lawyer rose to that love which youth yields to the highest manhood.
Mrs. Joyce met him in the hall, excited, eager. "What did he say?"
Victor passed his hand over his face in bewilderment. "I must think," he protested. "He said so much – Where is mother?"
"She is on the porch – waiting. Let us go out to her."
He followed her with troubled face, but the bright sunshine and the songs of the birds miraculously restored him. He looked up and down the piazza hoping to see Leo, but she was not in sight. He took a seat in silence, and Mrs. Joyce saw his mother grow pale in sympathy as she read the trouble in his face.
Mrs. Joyce urged him to tell what had passed between them, and he replied:
"I can't do it. All I can say is this: he believes mother is honest, and that she has some strange power. He will defend her in court; but he intends to study into the whole business very closely, and he wants us to help him."
"Of course we'll help him," responded Mrs. Joyce, readily.
Mrs. Ollnee went to the heart of the problem. "Just what does he want to do, Victor?"
"It is necessary to prove absolutely that you have nothing to do with these phenomena."
"But I do have everything to do with them," she replied; "that's what being a medium means. However, I know what he needs better than you do. He wants to prove that the messages are supra-normal. Very well, I am ready for any test."
"It will be a fierce one, mother. He intends to use electricity and machines for recording movements and instantaneous photography."
"I am willing, provided he will proceed in co-operation with your father and Watts."
"He will never do that," declared Victor. "He will not begin by granting the very thing he's trying to prove."
It was upon this most solemn conference that Leo descended, pale and restrained, and though Victor sprang up with new-born love in his face, she did not flush with responding warmth. Her mood of the moonlit walk had utterly vanished, and he found himself checked, chilled, and thrust down from his high place of exaltation.
It was as if she (ashamed of her own weakness) had resolved to punish him for presumption. He smarted under her indifference, but made no open protest, though his hand (in the pocket of his coat) rested upon the jeweled sign of her self-surrender.
She lost a little of her indifference when she learned that Bartol had been kept awake all night by the significance of the phenomena he had witnessed, and she joined heartily in declaring that he must be met in every demand. "Oh, I wish I might see the experiments," she exclaimed.
"He wishes you to do so," replied Victor, eagerly. "The Voices told him to have you in the circle, you and Mrs. Joyce – "
"And Marie," added Mrs. Ollnee. "Marie is psychic."
"When do we try?" asked Leo, meeting his eyes a little unsteadily, so it seemed to him.
Again Mrs. Ollnee answered for him. "To-night; Mr. Bartol is telephoning now, arranging for it."
"How do you know?" asked Victor.
"Your father is speaking to me."
"I hear him!" exclaimed Mrs. Joyce, listening intently.
"What does he say?" asked Leo.
Mrs. Ollnee again replied. "He says: 'Be brave – trust us. We will protect you.'"
Looking across at the girl, in whose cheeks the roses were beginning to bloom again, the youth resented the interposition of the supernatural. He was eager to approach her, to hint at the memory of her secret, sweet embrace. As he studied the exquisite curve of her lips their touch burned again upon his flesh, and he rose with sudden reassertion of himself. "Come, Leo, let's return to Morselli."
He had never called her by her first name before, and it produced a shock in them both. She looked her reproof, but he pretended not to see it, and neither Mrs. Joyce nor Mrs. Ollnee seemed to think his familiarity worthy of remark.
Leo coldly answered: "I can only give a little time. We must go home to-day."
Mrs. Joyce promptly said, "We can't desert the ship now, Leo."
"But we have nothing to wear!" the girl retorted.
"We'll send down and have some things brought up. Really, this work for Mr. Bartol is more important than clothes."
"I suppose it is," Leo admitted. "But at the same time one should have a decent regard to the conventions."
The colloquy which followed filled Victor with dismay. It appeared that Leo was really eager to get away, as if she felt herself to be in a false position. "I can't afford to drop my daily affairs in the city. Why can't these experiments be put off for a day or two."
"I don't think we ought to ask a great and busy lawyer to accommodate himself to our piffling social plans," replied Mrs. Joyce. "A few minutes ago you were wild to join these experiments, now you are crazy to go home."
Victor, who imagined himself in full possession of the reason for her pause, said nothing; but his eyes spoke, and the girl was restless under his glance.
She gave in at last. "Well, if you will send for the things I need – "
Victor had come from Bartol's study mightily resolved to do speedily and well any work that might fall to his hand, but as he found himself seated close beside the daylight girl and listening to her voice transposing Morselli into English his resolution weakened. What were ghosts, inventions, theories, compared to the satin-smooth curve of the maiden's cheek or the delicate flutter of her lashes?
Try as he would, his attention wandered. The book smelled of the clinic, the girl of the dawn. Morselli's problem was all of the night, while on every side the young lover beheld trees flashing green mirrors to the sun, and flowers riding like dainty boats on the billows of a soft western wind. Moreover, the girl's voice was like to the purling of brooks.
Twice she reproved him for his wandering wits and laggard pen, and the second time he said: "I can't help it. The time and place invite to other occupations. Let's go for a walk."
"A brave student, you are!" she mocked. "Mr. Bartol will find you a valuable aid in his scientific investigations!"
Her look, her flushed cheek, and the hint of her bosom set him a-tremble. The memory of his midnight visitor returned, filling him with springtime madness.
"Don't you make game of me," he stammered, warningly. "If you do – I'll – "
She raised an amused glance. "What? What will you do, boy?"
"Boy!" Her pose, her smile were challenges that struck home. With swift, outflung arm, he encircled her waist and drew her to his breast. "Boy, am I?"
She beat upon him, pushed him with her small hands. "Let me go, brute!"
He laughed at her, exulting in his strength. "Oh, I am a brute now, am I? Well, I'm not. I'm a man and your master. I want a kiss."
She ceased to struggle, but into her face and voice came something which paralyzed his arms. Repentant and ashamed, he released her and stood before her humbly, while she denounced him for "a rowdy with the manners of a burglar." "This ends our acquaintance," she added, and she spurned the book on the floor as if it were his worthless self.
He was scared now, and boyishly pleaded, "Don't go – don't be angry; I was only joking."
She knew better than this. She had seen elemental fire flaming from his eyes, and dared not remain. With proud lift of head she walked away, leaving him penitent, bewildered, crushed.