"You need not worry about me," she replied, quietly. "Father will take care of me. If he saw any real danger coming my way he would warn me of it."
"He didn't warn you of the coming of the reporter, did he?"
"No – he had some reason for permitting this cloud to come upon me. He knows best."
"I don't believe I'd put very much faith in 'guides' that didn't keep me out of trouble."
"Perhaps all this is a part of our discipline. They are wiser than we. I accept even this disgrace as a good in disguise. Perhaps it was all intended to bring you to me."
The youth sank back again baffled by this all-inclosing acceptance. "What do you intend to do to-day?" he asked, as she rose and walked over to the little walnut table.
"I am going to ask for advice."
"Now?"
"Yes; and I wish you would sit with me for a few moments and see if we cannot secure direction for the day."
He was beginning to be curious – and his desire to dig deeper into his mother's brain overcame part of his repugnance.
"All right," he boyishly answered, but his heart contracted with sudden fear of finding her false. "Let's see what they're up to."
"Take a seat opposite me," she said, and there was something commanding in her voice.
Drawing a chair up to the old brown table – which he remembered as one of the pieces of furniture in his earliest childhood home – he took a seat.
"Why do you keep this rickety old thing?" he asked, shaking it viciously.
"It was your grandfather's reading-table, and he likes me to keep it. Besides, it is highly magnetized and very sensitive."
"Oh rats!" he irreverently burst forth. "You can't magnetize a piece of wood. Wood is a non-conductor. You can't subvert a physical law just by saying so."
"I don't mean it in that crude sense," she replied, quite mistress of herself. She had taken up and was holding between her hands a small hinged slate.
"What's that for?" asked Victor.
"To vitalize the surface. I am able to give it vitality by my touch." She laid the slate upon the table and placed her spread hand upon it. "Put your hand upon mine, Victor."
He did as she bade him, rebelling at the childish folly of it all. "What do you expect to do?" he asked.
Almost immediately the slate seemed seized by a powerful hand. It began to slide back and forth across the table violently, twisting and clattering. The youth put forth his own great strength and stopped it, but a crunching sound announced that the slate was broken.
His mother said, sharply, "You mustn't do that, Victor." She took up the slate and showed one corner crushed and crumbled. "You can't hold it – you mustn't try – it angers them."
He marveled at the strength which had resisted him, but argued that his mother from long practice had become very muscular. Hysterical people often displayed astounding power.
After preparing a new slate she put it on the table as before, saying to the air, "Please don't be rough, father – Victor can't prevent his skepticism."
Three loud raps answered, and she smiled. He says, "All right. He understands."
"Seems to me he's mighty touchy for one on the heavenly plane," Victor retorted, maliciously. "Seems to me an all-seeing spirit ought to get my point of view."
A vigorous tapping on the table responded to this speech.
"What's that?" asked Victor.
"That is your father saying yes, he does get your point of view."
Victor had a feeling that his mother was receding from him as he faced her across the table. She became the professional medium in her manner and tone. He, too, changed. He hardened, assuming the attitude of the scientific observer – hostile and derisive. His keen hazel-gray eyes grew penetrating and his lips curled in scorn. His tone hurt her, but she persisted in her sitting, and at last the slate began to tremble throughout all its parts, and a grating sound like slow writing with a pencil went on beneath it. Victor could plainly follow the dotting of the i's and the crossing of the t's, till at the end a tapping indicated that it was finished.
"You may take the slate, Victor," said Mrs. Ollnee.
He took it from the table and opened it. On one side, in bold script – a bit old-fashioned – stood these words: "Stay where you are. Let the boy adventure into the city. Await results. I will be near. FATHER."
Victor, astounded, mystified, confronted his mother with wide eyes. "Now, what does that mean?"
"It means that I am to keep this house just as it is and you are to seek work in the city. Is that right, Paul?"
Three taps made answer.
The youth was stunned by the boldness and cleverness of all this. He was pained, too. He perceived no sign of abnormal thinking in his mother's action. She was not hysterical. She was not entranced. Whatever she did she did consciously – and the thought that she could deliberately deceive him was shocking. He breathed quickly and a nervous clutch came into his hands. He resented being fooled. "Let's try that again," he said; and his tone was precisely that of the child who sees a grown person swallow a coin and take it out of his ear. He was angry as well as sad. "Don't put your hand on it," he protested. "I don't like the looks of that."
She submitted, and then as he was putting it down on the table the sound of writing was heard within it. He laid his hand on the slates, and still the writing went on! With amazement he realized that both her hands were in sight and in no wise concerned in the writing. The right rested lightly and quietly on the frame of the slate, but the left, which lay on the opposite corner of the table, was quivering throughout all its minute muscles.
Amazed beyond words, excited, breathing deep, with a shudder of nervous excitement running over his entire body, Victor listened to the mystic pencil. "How do you work that?" he asked, in a whisper.
"I don't know. I have nothing to do with it," she answered; and taking the upper hinge of the slate between her fingers and thumb she slowly raised it.
And still the writing went on!
Victor, holding his breath in awe, bent to look within, but as the opening grew wider the writing stopped.
He snatched the slates from the table and studied the lines, which were made up of minute dots. It was all perfectly legible: "Son. I doubted. Now I know."
Victor sank back into his seat and stared speechlessly at the slate and the table. The problem of his mother's mediumship had taken on new elements of mystery. This physical test brought it into the range of his knowledge and interest. It was no longer a question of her honesty or sanity, it had become a problem in dynamics.
How was that bit of pencil moved? The messages he ignored – they didn't matter – but the method of their production seemed to eliminate all trickery, conscious or unconscious. Why did his mother's left hand quiver – and how could that writing shape itself?
His voice was husky with emotion as he said: "Mother, I don't understand that. You've got to tell me how that is done."
She felt the desperate resolution in his voice and she solemnly answered, "My son, I don't know how it is done."
"But you must know! Who moves that pencil! Your hand quivered all the time."
"Yes, I seem to have some physical connection with it – at times. Other times all that takes place has no more connection with me than the sunlight on the floor. The world is a very mysterious place to me, Victor. I don't pretend to know anything. I do as I am told."
He fell silent again while his mind reviewed the entire process. Then he burst out, vehemently, on a new line. "I can't believe my eyes. You've hypnotized me. Mother, for God's sake don't juggle with me – don't play tricks with me. I won't stand for it. It hurts me – " He paused, confused, baffled, ready to weep.
"Can you, my own son, accuse me of trickery?" she asked.
"You think you're honest, mother – but don't you see you've become an unconscious hypnotist? It's your subconscious self deceiving us both. I don't know how you do it, but I know it must be a fraud."
"Victor," she said, solemnly, "what this power is you shall have full opportunity to determine, but I say to you that for more than twenty years I've been guided by these unseen presences. I've tested their wisdom and lived under their care. So far as this message is concerned I accept it. I was confused and frightened yesterday, but this morning I am calm. I shall do as they bid. I shall stay here while you go down into the city and see what you can find to do, and together we will test these voices."
There was a ring of new-found decision in her tone that quite dashed him. He sat dumbly facing her, helpless in a whirl of mental storm. "Is she more cunning than I thought? Is she playing a more complex game than appears?" These thoughts vaguely shaped themselves. Then his filial self answered: "But what has she to gain? She loves me. She has sacrificed herself to keep me at school – why should she deceive me?"
Here again a third conception came to embitter him. He spoke. "You don't seem to mind my loss of a degree?"
"Yes, I do, Victor. I feel that very deeply, but the higher wisdom of your grandfather resigns me. I cannot tell what is behind it. By his power to read the future he may be preventing some terrible accident, some calamity by fire or water – I have an impression that it is something of that sort."
"No," came a whisper from the air.
She turned her face upward, and, listening intently, asked, "What is the reason, father?"
"Discipline," the whisper replied.
"He says 'discipline,' Victor."
"Discipline!" he echoed. "Why should I be disciplined? What have I done?"
"It is not what you've done – it's what you are to do."
The Voice did not reply to further questions, and the silence gave out a kind of cold contempt, which cut the boy as he waited.
"Let's try that slate business again," he said at last. But to this his mother would not consent.
"It's of no use," she said. "They are gone. There is no 'power' present."
He again faced her with alien, accusing eyes. "When will you try this again?"
"To-night, when you come home."
"Home!" he sneered, looking about. "Do you expect me to call this place home? Do you expect me to hang about this scrubby hole to be disciplined by your Voices?"
The sound of a knock at the door gave her a moment's respite. "The postman," she explained as she rose to go to the door.
She was gone for several minutes and Victor heard her in friendly conversation with a pleasant male voice. Some way this added to his anger and disgust.
She came back with a letter in her hand which she began at once to open. "It is from Louise, I mean Mrs. Joyce."
She read it through with smiling face, then said, "Victor, you must be nice to Louise, she has done everything for us."
This brought him to his feet. "I understand all that now. It is her money I've been living on – I won't touch another cent that comes from her. Understand that! I won't eat another dinner that she pays for."
"Why, Victor, you should not feel that way! What has she done to make you bitter?"
"Nothing. I refuse to live on her charity, that's all, and I want you to find out just how much I owe her – how much you owe her – for I intend to pay her back every dollar with interest."
"But she considers I've already paid her. She feels that I have always given her bounteous return for all her aid."
"I don't figure it that way," he said. "She's just amusing herself – "
She interrupted. "Listen to what she says." She read: "'I want to tell you how much I like your son. He is so vivid and so powerful. I'm sorry he is to miss his degree. Can't you persuade him to go back? I'll be glad to advance what is necessary – '"
"There it is, you see! There's the rich lady helping a poor relation."
"Wait, son!" she pleaded, and read on. "'I feel that I owe you ten times what you've permitted me to do for you.'"
"That's all very nice of her, mother, but I won't have any more of it." He pounded out the sentence with his fist.
She looked up at him with mingled fear and pride. "You are exactly like your father as you say that," she declared. "Oh, Victor, my son! If you leave me in anger I shall be desolate indeed. I can't live without you. Please believe in me – and love me – for you're all I have on this earth."
His anger died away. He saw her again as she really was, a pale, devoted little saint, with troubled brow and quivering lips, one who had shed her very life-blood for him – to doubt her became a monstrous cruelty.
He put his arms about her and hugged her close. "I didn't mean to hurt you, mother – but your world is so strange to me. I'll stay, I'll do the best I can here; only don't work this slate trick any more. Don't sit for any one but me. Will you promise that?"
"May I not sit for Louise?"
"Not without me."
"I dare not promise, Victor. Father may insist. If he does not insist I will do as you wish. I will give it up."
He kissed her. "Dear little mother, you sha'n't live alone any more, and you shall soon have a home that is worthy of you."
She was weeping, and a big lump in his own throat made speech difficult. To cover his emotion he slangily said: "Well, now, it's me to the marts of trade. Perhaps I'll fool The Voices yet."
IV
VICTOR THROWS DOWN THE ALTAR
"How do people get jobs," he asked himself as he set forth. "'Want ads,' I suppose." He went deeper. "What am I fitted for? I can keep books – in a fashion – or I can clerk. My training has not fitted me for any special thing, unless to sell sporting-goods." This was a "lead," and his face brightened. "My work on the team ought to help me in that direction. Good idea! I'll hie me to the sporting-goods houses."
The first two managers with whom he talked, while much impressed by him, were completely manned, but the third was disposed to consider him till he told him his name. "No relation to Mrs. Ollnee, the medium?" he asked, with a grin, while poising his pencil to write.
For an instant Victor hesitated, then took the leap. "Well, yes, I am, but then you don't want to believe that report; it's more than half a lie."
The manager's smile vanished. He left the address half finished. "So you are the son they spoke of?" he said, with a cold, keen glance.
"Yes, I am," Victor boldly answered.
He closed his book. "I don't believe we can trade," he announced. "Of course I don't consider all mediums frauds and liars, but this house is very particular about its help – "
Victor turned and walked away, bitterly rebellious of soul and disheartened. For a time his anger burned so hotly within him that he meditated taking the train and leaving the city and all it held behind him. Again and again his thought returned to the picture his gentle little mother had made as she had said good-by to him at the head of the stairs. To accuse her of conscious deception was like accusing a sweet girl of infanticide. How could she build up a system of fraudulent fortune-telling, so intricate, so subtle, that it baffled the eye of the reporter, who confessed that he had not been able to detect the trickery. "It is only by induction, by inference, that one gets at the modus operandi," he admitted.
In his perturbation he walked away to the east and soon came out upon the lake-front. A bunch of men and boys of all types and sizes were playing ball on the barren ground, and with the athlete's undying love of the sport he rose and edged into the game. He could not resist showing his prowess by means of a few curves, and the crowd with instant perception began to take a vivid interest in him.
A half-hour of this restored his good-nature and he returned to the cañons to the west, determined to find an opening somewhere. He was never dismissed rudely – he was too big and well-dressed for that – but the fact that he had no experience shut him out in most cases, and for the rest the departments were filled with salesmen. Twice when he seemed about to be taken on, his name and his mothers reputation shut the door of opportunity in his face.
At four o'clock he started slowly homeward, discouraged, not so much by his failure as by the fact that everybody seemed to have a knowledge of the article in the Star. It was evident that even when a manager did not at the moment make the connection between his name and Mrs. Ollnee's it would certainly come out later and he would be called upon to defend himself and his mother from the sneers and jeers of his fellow-salesmen. "I'm a marked man, that's sure," he said, in dismay.
All day his mind had dwelt in flashes on the glorious life at Winona, but now his memory of it was poisoned by the thought that he had been a pensioner on the bounty of Mrs. Joyce. "The easy thing would be to change my name and skip out for the plains," he said again, "but I won't. I'll stay and fight it out right here some way."
He was passing the public library at the moment and was moved to go in and look up the "want ads" in the papers. Ten minutes' reading of these filled him with despair. There were so many wanting work! His feet were tired with walking and his brain weary with the movement of the street, therefore he moved on to the reference room where he found an atmosphere of study that was very grateful.
Accustomed to work of this kind, he asked the attendant to bring him catalogues, and was soon surrounded with books and magazines which dealt with the modern study of psychic phenomena. He fell upon one or two of these which gave exhaustive generalizations, and he was astounded to find that European men of science of the loftiest type were engaged in the study of precisely the same phenomena which his mother claimed to produce.
Careless of all else, he remained until six o'clock absorbed and confused by what he read. Words and phrases like "telekinesis," "teleplastic," "parasitic personalities," "externalized motricity," "bio-psychic energy" danced about in his brain like fantastic insects. He fairly staggered with the weight of the conceptions laid upon him, and when at last he went out into the streets he had forgotten his race for place behind the counter.
It was nearly sunset, and his afternoon – his day – had gone for naught! He was as far as ever from securing work – and wages – to keep his little mother and himself from the corrupting care of charity. He was a bit disgusted with himself, too, for wasting valuable time, and yet he was enough of the scholar to feel a glow of delight in the company he had been keeping. There was something large and free in the attitude of those Italian men toward the universe, and before he had walked far he promised himself to go again and continue that line of investigation. As he walked up the avenue he came face to face with the dark, thin-faced girl who had knocked at his mother's door the day before. She seemed about to speak, but he passed her with blank look.
He found his mother at the window waiting for him, and upon seeing him she hurried to meet him at the head of the stairs.
"What luck?" she called, with a smile.
He shook his head. "Nothing doing," and received her caress rather coldly, for he perceived Mrs. Joyce in the room. "It isn't so easy to find a job. I'll be lucky if I dig one up in a week, I suppose."
Mrs. Joyce greeted him cordially. "I've just been making a proposition to your mother, Victor – I hope you'll let me call you Victor – which is, that we all go abroad for a few months till this storm blows over."
He looked at her with gravely interrogating glance. "How could we do that?"
She explained. "You both go as my guests, of course. We can motor through France in June and get up into Switzerland in July."
He sank into a chair and dazedly studied her. "Why should you offer to do all that for us?"
"Because I am very grateful to your mother for what she has done for me. She not only cured my mother of cancer – she has cured me of despair. She has taught me to believe again in the mystery of the world."
"You mean she has done this as – as a medium?"
"Yes – through her guides she has given me faith in the hereafter. Their advice on a hundred different things has made life easy for me. My wealth is largely due to the wisdom of Mr. Astor, who speaks through her. He advises, and so does your grandfather, that I take you all abroad this summer, and I think it a very nice suggestion."
"Oh, the suggestion came from The Voices, did it?" His voice was full of scornful suggestion.
"Yes; but I thought of it myself yesterday as I read that terrible article. You see, I'm told by Mr. Bartol, my lawyer, that the city officials are about to start another campaign against all forms of mediumship. I think it best, and so does your father, that we all leave the city for a time, and escape this persecution."
The beleaguered youth was not a polite deceiver at his best, and this proposal appeared to him not merely chimerical, but immoral, for the reason that his mother must have really proposed it. Through her uncanny power of hypnosis, of suggestion, she had put the idea into her rich friend's head. "I won't consider any such proposition," he bluntly answered. "I don't recognize my mother's claim. You owe her nothing. I don't believe she can cure cancer, and she has no right to advise anybody in business matters."
"You say that because you know nothing of the facts," Mrs. Joyce briskly replied. "I understand your situation perfectly. Your mother has kept me informed of her worries – she has no secrets from me – and I must say I foresaw this antagonism on your part. I felt that you were growing away from her, and yet The Voices advised her to keep you at school and to say nothing. To show you how close they watch you I can tell you that we've been informed of your whereabouts several times to-day. You met a young man at noon, a pale, serious young man, whose name is Gilmer, who said he would help you. Isn't that true?"
He was properly surprised. "Yes, I did meet such a man."
"Then you went to the library and read for a long time?"
He sneered. "Did The Voices tell you that I was turned down everywhere on account of my mother's reputation as a medium?"
"No; but they said you would oppose the idea of our going abroad, and that you were under discipline."
"You're tired, Victor," interposed the mother. "Don't worry over me any more now. I'll get you some coffee."
While she was gone on this errand Mrs. Joyce leaned toward Victor and said: "I can understand a part of your feeling, because there was a time when I lived in the world of definite, commonplace things – but you must not oppose your mother's Voices. They are as real to her as anything in this universe. I've proved their reality again and again. As I say, they have advised me in my investments and always right. In a sense – in a very real sense – I owe a part of my wealth to your mother, and the little that she has permitted me to do in return for her aid is trifling. I want to do more. Please be just to your dear little mother, who is truly a marvelous creature and loves you beyond all other earthly things. She lives only for you. If it were not for you she would pass on to the spirit plane to-night."
Victor listened to her in a sullen meditation. The whole situation was becoming incredibly fantastic, vaporous as the texture of a dream.
Mrs. Joyce went on: "Come to my house to-night for dinner. Never mind the morrow till the morrow comes. Come and talk with some friends of mine – they may help you."
He spoke thickly: "I'm much obliged, Mrs. Joyce. I'm grateful for what you've done for us, but to take her money or yours now would be – would be dishonest. I can't let you feed us any longer – we've got to fight this out alone."
"What will you do with her Voices?" she asked.
"Forget 'em," he answered, curtly.
"They'll force you to remember them," she warningly retorted. "I assure you they hold your fate in their hands."
Mrs. Ollnee, returning, cut short the discussion, which was growing heated.
As he drank his coffee Victor recovered a part of his native courtesy. "I'm going to win out," he said, with kindling eyes. "It would have been a wonder if I had found a job the first day. I'm going to keep going till I wear out my shoes."
A knock at the door made his mother start.
"Another reporter!" she whispered. "They're pestering me still."
Victor rose with a spring. "I'll attend to this reporter business," he said, hotly.
"No," interposed Mrs. Joyce; "let me go, please!"
He submitted, and she went to meet the intruder. Her quiet, authoritative voice could be heard saying: "Mrs. Ollnee is not able to see any one. That cruel and false article of yesterday has completely upset her. – No, I am only her friend and nurse. I have nothing to say except that the article in the Star was false and malignant."
Thereupon she closed and locked the door and came back quite serious. "They've been coming almost every hour, determined to see your mother. I would have taken her away, only she persisted in saying she must remain here till you returned."
"Have you been here all day?" he asked, moved by the thought of her loyalty.
His mother answered. "Louise came about ten this morning – and except for an hour at lunch we've both been here waiting, listening."
This devotion on the part of a rich and busy woman was deeply revealing. The youth was being educated swiftly into new conceptions of human nature. His mother was neither beautiful nor wise nor witty. Why should she attract and hold a lady like Mrs. Joyce? He wondered if she had been quite honest with him. Would her interest be the same if The Voices had not enriched her?
She returned to her invitations. "Now put on your dinner-suit and come with us," she insisted. "My niece, Leo, will be there – surely you will respond to that lure?"
His mother laid her small hand upon his arm. "Let us go, Victor. I am in terror here."
"Why did you stay? Why didn't you go before?" he demanded.
"Because The Voices said 'Wait!' – and besides, I wanted to be here when you came."
He rose. "You go. I will come after dinner and bring you home."
Mrs. Joyce was quick on the trail of his intent. "You refuse to eat my bread! You are rigorous. Very well. Let it be so. Come, Lucy, let us go."
Mrs. Ollnee seemed to listen a moment, then rose. "You'll surely come after dinner, Victor?"
"Yes, I'll come about nine," he replied, in a tone that was hard and cold. And she went away deeply hurt.
Left alone, he walked about the "ghost-room" with bitterness deepening into fury. What were these invisible, intangible barriers which confined him? He stood beside the old brown table which he had hated and feared in his boyhood. What silliness it represented. The pile of slates, some of them still bearing messages in pencil or colored crayon, offered themselves to his hand. He took up one of these and read its oracular statement: "He will come to see the glory of the faith. His neck will bow. It is discipline. Do not worry. FATHER." Here was the source of his troubles!
He dashed the slate to the floor and ground it under his heel. Catching the table by the side and up-ending it, he wrenched its legs off as he would have wrung the neck of a vulture. He breathed upon it a blast of contempt and hate, and, gathering it up in fragments, was starting to throw it into the alley when the door burst open and his mother reappeared, white, breathless, appalled.
"Victor; what are you doing?" she called, with piercing intonation.
He was shaken by her tone, her manner, but he answered, "I'm going to throw this accursed thing into the alley."
She put herself before him with one hand pressed upon her bosom, her breath weak and fluttering.
"You – shall – not! You are killing me. Don't you see that is a part of me. Don't you know – Put it down instantly! My very life and soul are in it."
He dropped the broken thing in a disordered pile at her feet. Her anguish, which seemed both physical and mental, stunned him. As they stood thus confronting each other Mrs. Joyce returned. She seemed to comprehend the situation instantly, and, putting her arm about the little psychic's waist, gently said, "You'd better lie down, Lucy, you are hurt."
Mrs. Ollnee permitted herself to be led to the little couch silently sobbing.
It was growing dusky in the room, and the youth, though still rebellious, was profoundly affected by this action. His hot anger died away and a swift repentance softened him. "Don't cry, mother," he said, clumsily kneeling beside her. "I didn't think you cared so much about the old thing."
Mrs. Joyce broke forth in scorn: "What a crude young barbarian you are! That table is something more than a piece of wood to her. It is a sacred altar. It is the place where the quick and the dead meet. It is sentient with the touch of spirit hands – and you have desecrated it. You have laid violent hands upon your mother's innermost heart. You will destroy her if you keep on in this way."
At these words the youth for the first time caught a glimpse of the vital faith which lay behind and beneath these foolish and ridiculous practices. No matter what that worn table was to him, it stood for his mother's faith – that he now saw – and he was sorry.
"I can rebuild it again," he said. "It is not hopelessly smashed. I will repair it to-morrow."
The symbolism which could be read in his words seemed to comfort his mother and she grew quieter, but her face remained ghastly pale and her breathing troubled.
Mrs. Joyce turned to him again. "You can't deceive her. She knew the instant you laid your destroying hands on that slate."
He did not doubt this. In some hidden way his action had reached and acted upon his mother as she was speeding down the avenue. Her sudden return proved this – and his hair rose at the thought of her clairvoyancy, and in answer to Mrs. Joyce's question, "Why did you do it?" he replied, sullenly, but not bitterly:
"I did it because I detest the thing and all that goes with it. I have hated that table all my life."
"What did you think your mother would do?"
"I didn't stop to think. I only wanted to get the brute out of sight. I wanted to end the whole trade at once."