CHAPTER X
Archie went straight up to his room: his brimming glass was difficult to carry quite steadily, and he reduced its contents half-way upstairs. William had orders always to put whisky and soda in his room in case he wanted to sit up and write; but sometimes William forgot, or, at any rate, did not obey, and Archie wondered if the man did it on purpose, with perhaps the same excellent intentions as those which flowered so decorously in his father's mind. But to-night all was as it should be, and, as it was very hot, Archie undressed and put on his pyjamas before settling down to work. Writing, the absorbing joy of creation, the delicate etching of sentences that bit into the plate, still possessed him when he had taken the requisite evening dose.
But to-night, though he had got his material ready, his hand could not accomplish the fashioning of it, and he got up and walked with bare feet, once or twice up and down the room, wondering why he could not link up his thoughts to his power of expression. He was nearly at the end of one of those sea-stories, which he had begun at Silorno, and he knew exactly what he meant to say. The brain-centre that dictated was charged, and sufficiently stimulated, and yet he could get nothing on to paper that was worth putting there, though he was ready to write, and wanted to write… He had not drunk too much and made himself fuddled; he had not drunk too little, and left the bitter weeds of daily consciousness uncovered, like rocks at low tide.
He sat and thought, wrote and impatiently erased again, and at last put down his pen. Perhaps even this, the only living interest that just now existed for him, was being taken from him also, and was following down the channel which had emptied itself into Helena. She had taken from him everything else that meant life: it would be like her consistency to take that also, and leave him nude and empty. It was not that she wanted the gift which she—in his vague, excited thought—seemed to be robbing him of; it was only that she and the memory of how she had treated him was a vampire to his blood. She had sucked him empty, drained him dry of happiness, of joy of life, of human interests. More than that, his love, the best thing which he had to give her, and for which she had no use, she now seemed to have treated with some devilish alchemy, so that it turned bitter; hate, like some oozy scum, rose from the depths ol it, and covered its crystal with poisonous growth.
This would never do; the rocks at low tide had become uncovered, and, while he slipped and stumbled among them, bruising himself at every step with the thought of Helena, he could never get that abstraction and detachment which he knew were the necessary conditions of his writing. And all power of achieving that seemed taken from him; he felt himself an impotent atom, unable to order the workings of his own brain, defenceless against any thoughts that might assault him.
The house was perfectly quiet; the stillness of the midsummer night had flowed into its open windows and drowned it deep in that profound tranquillity that was yet tense with the energy of the spinning world and the far-flung orbits of the myriad stars. The moon had long since sunk, but the galaxy of uncounted worlds flared on their courses, driven onwards by the inexhaustible eternity of creative forces that ran through the stars, even as it ran through the humblest herb that put forth its unnoticed blossom on the wayside. But Archie, in this bitter stagnation that paralysed him, seemed to himself to have no part in life: all that current of energy that bubbled through the world, with its impulses of good and evil, love and hate, seemed to have been cut off from him. He neither loved nor hated any more. There was the nightmare of this death in life: at any price, and under whatever inspiration, he longed to be in the current again. Tonight even drink had failed him.
He had walked across to the window, and came back to his chair at the table where was spread the sheet of paper covered with the scrawlings and erasures which were all the last two hours had to show. And at this precise moment, as he looked at them in a dull despair, an idea flashed across the blank field of his brain. Perhaps there might still be some spark of life, of individuality latent without him, which he could reach by that surrender of his conscious self which had been familiar to him in his childhood. There, just in front of him, below his shaded lamp, lay his cigarette-case, with one bright point of light on it, and, lying back in his chair with half-closed eyes he gazed at this in order to produce that hypnotic condition in which the subconscious self comes to the surface.
Almost at once the mysterious spell began to act. Across the field of his vision there began to pass waves of light and shadow, moving upwards with a regular motion, while through them like a buoy moored in a rough sea there remained steadfast that bright speck on his cigarette-case, now for a moment submerged in a wave of shadow, but appearing again. Upwards and upwards moved the waves, and then it seemed that it was they which were stationary, while he himself was sinking down through them, as through crystal-clear waters, looking up at the sunny surface which rose ever higher and more remote above him. As he sank into this dim, delicious world, the sensation of being alive again and in touch with living intelligences grew momently more vivid. It was the very seat and hearth of life that in him before had been cold and numbed; now, though surface perceptions were gradually withdrawn, his essential being tingled with the rapture of returning vitality.
Once or twice during this descent his ears, through which there poured the roar of rushing waters, had been startled as by some surface perception of the sound of loud rappings somewhere in the room; but they had not disturbed his steadfast gaze at the point of light; and once again he had heard a voice faintly familiar near him that said "I am coming." But he was far too intent on his progress to let the interruption break in upon it, and indeed those sounds seemed to be less an interruption than a confirmation to his surface-senses of what was happening to him.… And then he knew, as he sank down to rest at last on the bottom of that unsounded sea, who it was who was filling him with the sense of life again, for, echoing not only in his ears, but somewhere in his soui, he heard the same voice, which he now clearly recognized, and which had spoken to him years ago at Grives, say, "Archie, I am here."
Archie was conscious on two separate planes of consciousness. All round him and high above him were the gleams and aqueous shadows of the subconscious world, but here and there those seemed to be pierced, and through them, as through rents of mist, he had glimpses of the material plane. He could see, for instance, part of the sheet of paper in front of him, and he could see the far corner of his table. And by it, very faint and unfocusable, part of it in the mists of the subconscious world, part in the harder outlines of reality, there was standing the figure of a young man. How it was dressed he could not see, or did not care to notice, but when for a moment the mist cleared off its face, he recognized the strong likeness to himself, even as he had recognized the likeness to himself in the photograph which he had found in the cache. But here was no photograph: instead, mysteriously translated into outlines and features visible to mortal eyes, was the semblance of Martin himself. It wavered and flickered, like the blown flame of a candle, but it was there, standing at the corner of his table. And, as it spoke, he saw the mouth move and the throat throb.
"I have managed to come back, Archie," he said, "because you were in such trouble, and because you didn't understand the warning you had. Do you understand now?"
The whole explanation flashed on him.
"The dream?" he said. "The white statue of Helena and the worms?"
"Surely. It was odd you didn't understand. You only loved the white statue. You loathed what came out of it, just as you loathe what has come out of the white statue since."
Archie leaned forward, peering into the mist that at this moment quite enveloped the figure.
"But I love her, too, Martin," he cried. "I long for her."
Out of the mist came the unseen voice:
"You long for what she looks like," it said. "You hate what she is."
"That may be. But the whole thing makes me utterly miserable."
Table and figure, the white paper and the tray with syphon and whisky became suddenly visible.
"You must learn not to be miserable," said that compassionate mouth. "Be very patient, Archie. You think you are stumbling through absolute darkness, but in reality, you are flooded with light. I can't see the darkness which you feel is so impenetrable: I only see you walking towards the ineffable radiance, always moving towards it. Occupy yourself, and try to grow indifferent to that part of Helena which you hate. Cling to love always. Just cling to love. Never hate; some time you may get to love what you hated."
The voice sank lower.
"The power is failing," it said. "I am losing touch with you."
"Oh, don't go," said Archie. "Martin, stop with me. Talk to me. I want to say so much to you."
He reached out his hand, and for a moment, out of the sunlit mists that had gathered again he felt, perfectly clearly, the touch of fingers that pressed his. But they died away into nothing as he clasped them, and the voice faded to the faintest whisper.
"I will come again, dear Archie," it said. "It is easiest at night."
The lines of shadow and light that undulated before his eyes grew thinner and more transparent, and he could see the drawn-back window-curtains and the black square of the night through them. The bright point at which he had been looking withdrew on to the surface of his cigarette-case, and slowly the whole room emerged into its normal appearance. Archie became suddenly conscious of a profound physical fatigue, and, leaving all thought and reflection till to-morrow, put out his light and stepped into bed. But instead of the empty desolation that had made a wilderness round him, waters of healing had broken out in his soul, and the desert blossomed.…
Archie slept that night the clean out-door sleep which he had been used to at Silorno, and woke next morning, not with the crapulous drowsiness that now usually accompanied his wakings, but with the alert refreshment that slumber in the open air gave him. He sprang into full possession of his faculties and complete memory of what he had experienced the night before. He was quite aware that any scientific interpreter (science being best defined as the habit of denying what passes the limits of materialistic explanation) would have said that, tired with the effort to write, he had fallen asleep over his table and dreamed. But he knew better than that: the experience with its audible and visible phenomena, was not a dream, nor did it ever so faintly resemble one. A dream at best was a fantastic unreality; what he had experienced at his writing-table last night was based upon the firm foundations of reality itself. It was no hash-up of his own conscious or sub-conscious reflections, no extract distilled from his own mind. It came from without and entered into him, and, unlike most of the communications that purported to reach the minds of sensitives from the world that lay beyond the perception of their normal senses, there was guidance and help in it. Often, if not invariably, these messages from beyond were trivial and nugatory; it was a just criticism to say that the senders of them did not appear possessed of much worth the trouble of sending. But Martin's visit had not been concerned with trifles like that: he had sympathized, as a brother might, with Archie's trouble; he had explained, so that Archie could not longer doubt, the manner of the warning he had received before but not understood; he had spoken of Archie as being wrapped, according to his own sensations, in impenetrable darkness, though, to one who looked from beyond, he was ever moving towards the ineffable radiance. It was the same discarnate intelligence that, when he was a child, had conveyed to him the knowledge of that cache under the pine-tree, which was unknown to any living being (as men count living) and that could not have been conveyed to him through any telepathic channel except one that had its source and spring not in this world. And now, from the same source, had come this message from one who saw through the gross darkness of Archie's emptiness and bitter heart, and had promised to be with him again. Archie had no doubt whatever, as he got up with an alertness that had not been his for weeks, of the genuineness of the communication. It linked on with Martin's previous visits, and the glimpses he had received of the materialized form of his visitor confirmed exactly the recognition, years before, of the photograph he had found in the cache which Martin had told him of. And the Power in whose hands were all things had compassionated his trouble and had allowed, in pity for his need, the gateless barrier to be again unbarred, and a spirit, individual and recognized, to pass to and fro between him and the realms of the light invisible.
It was just when his soul despaired that this happened; when he felt himself denuded of all that he had loved, empty, and cast out from life itself. Just in that hour had Martin been permitted to come back to him.…
He found his mother and Jessie at breakfast when he went down; his father, as usual, had not appeared, and again, as last night when he came out of the dining-room after a prolonged sitting, he felt kindly and affectionate. But this was not from the sottish satisfaction of wine: the light came from that subtle window in his soul, from which once more the shutters had been thrown back. The moment Jessie saw him she felt the quality of that change; he was like the Archie of Silorno again.
"Good morning, mother darling," he said, kissing her. "Good morning, Jessie. How bright and early we all are! And has everybody slept as serenely as I?"
"You didn't sleep very long, Archie, did you?" asked the girl, whose room was next his. "I heard you hammering at something after I had gone to bed, and I awoke once and heard you talking to somebody."
Archie, at the side-table helping himself to sausage, paused a moment. He made up his mind that for the present, anyhow, he preferred that Jessie should not know about the return of Martin. Perhaps he would tell her quietly when alone.…
"Hammering?" he said. "Yes, there was a despatch-case, and I couldn't find the key. So I whacked it open. About talking—yes, I was writing last night, and I believe I read it aloud to myself before I went to bed. I never know what a thing is like unless I read it aloud."
"Oh, do read it aloud to me," said the girl.
"When it's in order: it wasn't quite in order when I read it over. But I was sleepy and went to bed."
Jessie said no more, but for some reason this account left her unsatisfied. The hammering had not sounded quite like the forcing of the lock of a despatch-case; it had been like sharp blows on wood, and for a moment she had thought that Archie was tapping loudly on the door that separated their rooms. It had stopped, and began again a little later. As for the talking, it had sounded precisely like two voices; one undeniably Archie's, the other low and indistinct.
Archie changed the subject the moment he had given this explanation, and made some very surprising observations.
"Helena is married on the 10th of August, isn't she?" he asked. "I must get her a wedding present. And I shall come to her wedding. That will convey my good wishes in the usual manner, won't it? I want to assure her of them."
Both of the women looked at him in the intensest surprise. To Lady Tintagel he had never mentioned Helena's name since the day she had accepted Lord Harlow, while to Jessie, only last night, he had loaded her with the bitterest reproaches, and had spoken of the abject despair and emptiness which had come upon him in consequence of what she had done. And he looked at each of them in turn with that vivid, brilliant glance which had been so characteristic of him.
"Yes, I make a public recantation," he said. "It suddenly dawned on me last night that I have been behaving just about as stupidly as a man can behave. I've said nothing to you, mother, but Jessie knows. I want her to try to forget what, for instance, I said to her last night. I can do better than that, and at any rate I propose to try. All the time that I haven't been mad with resentment I've been dead. Well, I hereupon announce the resurrection of Archibald. That's all I've got to say on the subject."
At that moment, swift as an arrow's flight, and certain as an intuition, there came to Jessie the odd idea that it was not Archie who was speaking at all. It might be his lips and tongue that fashioned the audible syllables, but it was not he in the sense that it had been he down by the lake last night. Savage and bitter as he had been there, he was authentic: now, all that he said, despite the absolute naturalness of his manner, seemed to ring false. She could not account for this impression in the least. It was not the suddenness of the change in his attitude, though that surprised her: it was some remoter quality, which her brain could not analyse. Something more intimate to herself than her brain had perceived it, and mere thought, mere reason, were blind to it.
Archie did not accompany his mother and Jessie to church that morning, but waited for Lord Tintagel's appearance, and the discussion of the good resolutions which were to be so beneficial to each of them. He sat in his father's study, and, having to wait some time before he made a shaky and disastrous entrance, thought over, in connection with the events of last night, what he himself had said that morning at breakfast. That surely was the gist of Martin's message to him: he must try to grow indifferent to that part of Helena which he hated; he must learn not to be miserable, to grasp the fact that the darkness in which he seemed to walk appeared to Martin no darkness at all, but a flood of light from the ineffable radiance. It was in the glow of that revelation that he had spoken at breakfast, trusting in the truth of it, and yet, as he sat now, waiting for his father, he knew he did not feel the truth of it. But, in obedience to Martin, that was how he had to behave. He must behave like that—this was what Martin meant—until he felt the soul within him grow up, like some cellar-sown plant, into the light. Hopefully and bravely had he announced his intention, but now, when in cooler mood he scrutinized it, he began to feel how tremendous was the task set him, how firmly rooted was that passionate resentment which must be alchemized into love. It had been true—Martin saw that so well—that it was the white statue, the fair form he had loved, and loved still with no less ardour than before. That, it seemed, according to his interpretation, Archie must keep: it was the other that must be transformed. But it would have been an easier task, he thought, to let his love slide into indifference, then raise his hate to the same level. But that was not the King's road, the Royal Banners did not flame along such mean-souled ways as these. He must cling to such love for Helena as he had, and transform the hate. But, first and foremost, cling to the love.…
It was thus that he stated to himself the message that Martin seemed to have brought him last night, and, stated thus, it was a spiritual aspiration of high endeavour, and it did not occur to him how, stated ever so little differently, and yet following the lines of the communication, it assumed a diabolical aspect. The love which he had for Helena was a carnal love, that sprang from desire for her enchanting prettiness; that love he was to cling to, not sacrifice an iota of it. The hate that he felt for her, arising from her falseness, her encouragement of him for just so long as she was uncertain whether she could capture a man who was nothing to her, but whose position and wealth she coveted, Archie was to transform into indifference; he was to get over it. But, though it was hate, it had a spiritual quality, for it was hatred of what was mean and base; whereas his love for her had no spiritual quality: it was no more than lust, and to that under the name of love he was to cling.… Here, then, was another interpretation of the words he had heard last night, and, according to it, it would have been fitter to attribute the message to some intelligence far other than the innocent soul of the brother who had so mysteriously communicated with him in childlike ways. But that interpretation (and here was the subtlety of it) never entered Archie's head at all. A message of apparent consolation and hope had come to him when he was feeling the full blast of his bitterness, the wind that blew from the empty desert of his heart and his stagnant brain. He had called for help from the everlasting and unseen Cosmos that encompasses the little blind half-world of material existence, and from it, somewhere from it, a light had shone into his dark soul, no mere flicker, or so it seemed this morning, like that spurious sunshine which he and his father basked in together, but rays from a more potent luminary.
Till now Archie, with the ordinary impulse of a disappointed man, had tried to banish from his mind (with certain exterior aids) the picture of the face and the form that he loved. But now he not only need not, but he must not, do that any longer: he had to cling to love. And while he waited for his father he kept recalling certain poignant moments in the growth of Helena's bewitchment of him. One was the night when they sat together for the last time in the dark garden at Silorno, and he wondered whether the suggestion of a cousinly kiss would disturb her. What had kept him back was the knowledge that it would not be quite a cousinly kiss on his part.… Then there was the moment when he had caught sight of her on the platform at Charing Cross: she had come to meet his train on his arrival from abroad.… Best of all, perhaps, for there his passion had most been fed with the fuel of her touch, had been the dance at his aunt's that same night, when the rhythm of the waltz and the melodious command of the music had welded their two young bodies into one. It was not "he and she" who had danced: it was just one perfect and complete individual. Here, on this quiet Sunday morning, the thought of that made him tingle and throb. It was that sort of memory which Martin told him he must keep alive.… It was his resentment, his anger, that must die, not that. Helena had chosen somebody else, but he must long for her still.
Lord Tintagel appeared, unusually white and shaky, and, as lunch-time was approaching, he rang for the apparatus of cocktails.
"I sat up late last night, Archie," he said, "bothering myself over those Russian shares. It's really of you and your mother I am thinking. It won't be long before all the mines in Russia will matter nothing to me, for a few feet of earth will be all I shall require. But, before I went to bed, I came to the conclusion that I was wrong to worry. I think the scare will soon pass, and the shares recover. Indeed, I think the wisest thing would be not to sell, and cut my loss, but to buy more, at the lower price. I shall telegraph to my broker to-morrow. But I got into no end of a perplexity about it, and I feel all to bits this morning."
He mixed himself a cocktail with a shaking hand, and shuffled back to his chair.
"Help yourself, Archie," he said. "Let me see, we were going to have a talk about something this morning. What was it? That worry about my Russians has put everything out of my head."
Once again, as last night, it struck Archie as immensely comical that this white-faced, shaky man, who was his father, should be pulling himself together with a strong cocktail in order to discuss the virtues of temperance, and make the necessary resolutions whereby to acquire them. He felt neither pity nor sympathy with him, nor yet disgust; it was only the humour of the situation, the farcical absurdity of it, that appealed to him.
"We were going to make good resolutions not to drink quite so much," he said.
Lord Tintagel finished his cocktail and put the glass down.
"To be sure; that was it," he said. "It's time we took ourselves in hand. Your grandfather gave me a warning, and I wish to God I had taken it. But we'll help each other eh, Archie? That will make it easier for both of us."
"I don't care a toss whether I take alcohol or not," said Archie. "As you remarked last night, father, I hardly touched it till a month ago."
Lord Tintagel laughed.
"But you've shown remarkable aptitude for it since," he said. "You found no difficulty at all in getting the hang of the thing."
Faintly, like a lost echo, there entered into Archie's mind the inherent horror of such an interview between father and son. But it was drowned by the inward laughter with which the scene inspired him, and his spirit, whatever it was that watched the play, looked on as from some curtained box, where, unseen, it could giggle at unseemliness, at some uncensored farce. Last night the same thing had amused him, but then he was in that contented oblivion of his troubles which alcohol lent him, whereas now it was morning and the time when he was least likely to take any but the most bitter and savage view of a situation. But all morning he had been possessed by the sunny lightness of heart with which Martin's communication of last night had inspired him. He must be patient, disperse and blow away by the great winds of love the hatred and intolerance that had been obscuring his soul. And surely it was not only for Helena that he must feel that nobler impulse: all that touched his daily life must be treated with the same manly tenderness. Nothing must shock him, nothing must irritate him, for such emotions were narrow and limited, incompatible with the oceanic quality of love. All this seemed directly inspired by Martin, who had brought him the first ray of true illumination. And yet, while he sunned himself in the light, there was something that apparently belonged to his bitter, his disappointed self that cried out for recognition, insisting that these dreams of love and tolerance were of a fibre infinitely coarser than its own rebellious attitude. It strove and cried, and the smooth edification of Martin's voice silenced it again.
The suggested compact between father and son soon framed itself into a treaty. There was to be nothing faddish or unreasonable about it: wine should circulate in its accustomed manner at dinner; but here, once and for all, was the end of trays brought to Lord Tintagel's study. A glass or two of claret should be allowed at lunch, but the cocktails and the whiskies in the evening were to be closed from henceforth. And the arrangement entered into appeared to be of a quality that sacrificed the desire of each for the sake of the other, or so at least it passed in their minds. Archie stifled the snigger of his inward laughter, and thought how clear was his duty to save his father, even at this late day, from falling wholly into the pit he had digged, while to his father the compact represented itself as an effort to save Archie from the path he had begun to tread. But, even as they agreed on their abstemious proceedings, there occurred to the minds of both of them a vague, luminous thought, like the flash of summer lightning far away which might move nearer.…
Once again Archie was seized with the ironic mockery that all the time had quaked like a quick-sand below his seriousness.
"I haven't had my cocktail yet, father," he said. "I'll drink success to our scheme. You've had yours, you know. Our plan dates from now, when I've had mine. After that—no more."
His father's eyes followed him as he mixed the gin and vermouth.
"Well, upon my word, Archie," he said, "you ought to ask me to have a drink with you."
Archie somehow clung to the fact that his father had had a cocktail and that he had not.
"Have another by all means," he said, "and I'll have two. But do be fair, father."
And once again the horrible sordidness of these proceedings struck, as it seemed, his worse self, that part of himself that had all those weeks been uninspired by Martin. Martin was all love and tolerance: he gave no directions on such infinitesimal subjects as cocktails or whiskies. He, outside the material plane, was concerned only with the motive, the spiritual aspiration, with love and all its ineffable indulgences.
Jessie was leaving for town early next morning, and once again, as twenty-four hours ago, she and Archie strolled out after dinner into the dusk. But to-night, his father and he had followed the two ladies almost immediately into the drawing-room, and the two younger folk had left their elders playing a game of piquet together. That was quite unlike the usual procedure after dinner, for Lord Tintagel generally dozed for a little in his chair, and then retired to his study. But to-night he showed no inclination either to doze or to go away, and it was by his suggestion that the card-table had been brought out. He seemed to Jessie rather restless and irritable, and had said that it was impossible to play cards with chattering going on. That had been the immediate cause of her stroll with Archie. The remark had been addressed very pointedly to Archie, and also very rudely. But Archie, checking his hot word in reply, almost without an effort, had apologized for the distraction, quietly and sufficiently.
"Awfully sorry, father," he had said. "I didn't mean to disturb you. Come out for a stroll, Jessie."
So there they were in the dusk again, and again Archie took Jessie's arm.
"Father's rather jumpy to-night," he said. "But I think he wanted to get rid of us: he may wish to talk to my mother. So it was best to leave them, wasn't it?"
Jessie's heart swelled. She knew from last night all that Archie was suffering, but the whole day he had been like this—gentle, considerate, infinitely sensitive to others, incapable of taking offence.
"Yes, much best," she said. "You know, Archie, you do behave nicely."
He knew what she meant. He knew how easy it would have been to make some provocative rejoinder to his father. But simply, he had not wanted to. Martin, and Martin's counsel, was still like sunlight within him.
"Oh, bosh," he said. "The gentle answer is so much easier than any other. I should have had to pump up indignation. But he was rather rude, wasn't he? Isn't it lucky that one doesn't feel like that?"
Archie drew in a long breath of the vigorous night-air. To himself it seemed that he drew in a long breath of the inspiration that had come to him last night.
"Jessie, I'm going to save father," he said. "We had an awfully nice talk this morning, and it was so pathetic. He has been a heavy drinker for years, you know. His father was so before him. So one mustn't think it is his fault, any more than it was my fault that I had consumption when I was little. It isn't a vice, it's a disease. Well, I've made a compact with him. I found that he had got it into his head—God knows how—that I—I know you'll laugh—was beginning to take to that beastly muck too. So I saw my opportunity. He's fond of me, you know; he really is, and it had seriously occurred to him that I was getting the habit. So I took advantage of that. I said I wouldn't have any more whiskies and cocktails if he wouldn't. We made a bargain about it. Without swagger, it was rather a good piece of work, don't you think?"
Jessie knew exactly what she honestly felt, and what she honestly felt she could not possibly say. For though it was a good bargain on Archie's part, the virtue of it would affect not only Lord Tintagel, but Archie himself. But the knowledge of this added to the sincerity of her reply.
"Oh, Archie," she said, "that was brilliant of you. Do you—do you think your father will keep to it?"
"He can't help it," said Archie triumphantly. "I'm going to be down here, except when I go up to town for Helena's wedding, and I'm always in and out of his room. I should know if he doesn't keep to it."
He paused, thinking out further checks on his father.
"There's William, too," he said. "William's devoted to me, simply, as far as I can tell, because he saved my life when I was a tiny kid. If I ask William to tell me whether my father gets drinks through him quietly when I'm not there, I'm sure he will let me know. How would that be?"
Jessie had an uncomfortable moment. The idea of getting a servant to report to Archie on his father's proceedings was as repugnant to her as, she thought, it must be to Archie. Possibly his main motive, that of taking care of his father, was so dominant in him that he did not pause to consider the legitimacy of any means. But, somehow, it was very unlike Archie to have conceived so backstairs an idea.
"Oh, I wouldn't quite do that," she said. "You wouldn't either, Archie."
"I don't see why not. The cure is more important than the means."
Jessie suddenly felt a sort of bewilderment. It could scarcely have been Archie who said that, according to her knowledge of Archie.
"But surely that's impossible," she said. "What would you feel if you found your father had been setting William to spy and report on you?"
Archie's voice suddenly rose.
"Oh, what nonsense!" he said. "You speak as if I was going to break my bargain with my father. I never heard such nonsense."
Once again the sense of bewilderment came over Jessie. That wasn't like Archie.…
"I don't imply anything of the kind," she said. "But I do feel that it's impossible for you to get William to have an eye on your father, and report to you. And I'm almost certain that you really agree with me."
Archie considered this, and then laughed.
"I suppose I do," he said. "But the ardour of the newly born missionary was hot within me. Are missionaries born or made, by the way? Anyhow, I'm a missionary now. Nobody could have guessed that I was going to be a missionary."
Their stroll to-night was only up and down the broad gravel walk in front of the windows. It was very hot and all the drawing-room windows were open, so also were those of Lord Tintagel's study and the windowed door that led into the garden. As they passed this Archie saw a footman bring in a tray on which weie set the usual evening liquids, and he guessed that his father had forgotten or had omitted to say that the syphon and some ice was all that would be needed. He thought for a moment, intently and swiftly.
"Jessie, they've brought in that beastly whisky again," he said. "I must tell them to take it away: my father mustn't see it. Just go down opposite the drawing-room windows, will you, and make sure my father is still playing cards, while I take the bottle away. Make me a sign."
Archie waited outside till this was given, and then went into his father's room. The man had gone away, and he took up the whisky-bottle with the intention of putting it back in the dining-room. But, even as his fingers closed on it, without warning, his desire for drink swooped down on him like the coming of a summer storm. He half filled a glass with the spirit, poured soda-water on the top and gulped it down. That was what he wanted, and then, with a swift cunning, he rinsed out the glass with soda-water, drank that also, and, filling it half up again with water, put it on the table by the chair where he usually sat. Then there was the bottle to dispose of, and he went out into the hall to take it to the dining-room. But, even as he crossed the foot of the stairs, another notion irresistibly possessed him, and up he went three steps at a time, and concealed it behind some clothes in his chest of drawers. He had discovered an excellent reason for doing that, for, if he left it in the dining-room, his father might find it there. It was much safer in his room. Then, tingling and content, and feeling that Martin would approve (indeed it seemed that he had prompted) this missionary enterprise, he rejoined Jessie again, his eyes sparkling, his mouth gay and quivering.
"I've done it," he said. "I thought at first of taking the bottle to the dining-room, but my father might have found it there."
"What did you do with it?" asked Jessie.
Archie took no time to consider.
"I rang the bell and told James to take it away again to the pantry," he said.
"That was clever of you, Archie."
"I know that. They're still playing cards, aren't they? Let's have one more turn, then. Jessie, I wish you weren't going away to-morrow."
"I must. I promised my father to get back. And Helena wants me."
"Oh well, that settles it," said Archie. "Helena must have all she wants. That is part of Helena, isn't it?"
For a moment Jessie thought that he was speaking with the bitterest irony, but immediately afterwards she withdrew that, for it struck her that Archie was, in some inexplicable way, perfectly sincere; there was the unmistakable ring of truth in his voice; he meant what he said. And, as if to endorse that, he went on:
"We all do what Helena wants: you, I, the Bradshaw, all of us. She wants to be loved, isn't that it? and to want to be loved is a royal command; all proper people must obey. I have been a rebel you know, and,—oh Jessie, how awfully ashamed I am! I let myself hate Helena; I encouraged myself to hate her. But I've returned to my allegiance, thank God."
She turned an enquiring face to him.
"Archie, dear," she said, "I am so thankful that you are so changed. You're utterly different from what you have been. Last night you were bitter and terrible: you made my heart ache. But all to-day you've been absolutely your old self again. And it's so immense and so sudden. Can't you tell me at all what caused it? I should love to know, if you feel like telling me."
He took her arm again.
"I'll tell you one thing," he said. "You did me a lot of good last night when you made me realize your friendship. That helped; I do believe that helped."
Jessie could not quite accept this, though it warmed her heart that Archie thought of that.
"But you always knew my friendship," she said.
"I know I did. But I appreciated it most when I felt absolutely empty. There's something more than that, though.…"
He paused.
"Ah, do tell me," said Jessie.
He could not make up his mind on the instant, for he knew Jessie's repugnance to the whole idea of those supernatural communications. But he felt warm and alert and expansive; besides, her friendship, which he truly valued, yearned for his confidence, which is the meat and drink of friendship. Sometimes it was necessary to deceive your friends; it had been necessary for him to deceive her about the disposal of the whisky-bottle; but, though she might not approve, he could at least tell her what had made sunshine all day for him, and what was making it now.
"It's this," he said. "Martin came to me last night. I talked to him; I saw him. It has put me right: he has made me see things quite differently. He told me to be patient, to cling to love always, to let my hate be turned into love. I can't express to you at all what a difference that made to me. I felt he knew; he could see, as he said, that the darkness in which I thought I walked was not darkness at all. I know you have no sympathy with his coming to me: it seems to you either nonsense or something very dangerous. But I know you have sympathy with the result of it."
Suddenly his explanation of the voices she had heard last night occurred to him.
"When you told me this morning that you had heard talking in my room," he said, "I did not mean to tell you about Martin, and so I invented something—oh yes, that I had been reading aloud what I had written, to account for it. It wasn't true, but I had to tell some fib. And did you really hear conversation going on? That's awfully interesting."
"I thought I did," said she. "And there was knocking or hammering. Did you invent something about that too?"
"Oh yes," said Archie. "But I don't really know what the knocking was. As I was going off into trance, I heard loud knocking of some sort, but I didn't let it disturb the oncoming of the trance. It deepened, and then Martin came, and I talked with him and saw him."
"Oh Archie, how do you know it was he?" she cried, wildly enough, hardly knowing what she meant, but speaking from the dictate of some nightmare that screamed and struggled in her mind.
"Why, of course it was he," said Archie. "I recognized him, superficially, that is to say, from my knowledge of my own face, just as I recognized the photograph in the cache at Grives from its likeness to me. But I know it was he in some far more essential and inward manner. It was Martin."
"Will he come again?" asked the girl.
"I hope so, many times. Indeed, he promised to. I needed him, he got permission to come to me in my need. Is he not ministering to it? Haven't you seen the immense change in me?"
Undeniably she had seen that, and for a moment a little pang of human disappointment came over her.
"I'm afraid, then, the knowledge of my friendship hasn't had much to do with it," she said.
"Jessie, don't think I undervalue that," said Archie, speaking quite frankly and sincerely. "I thank you for it tremendously; I love to know it is there. I may count on it always, mayn't I?"
They still stood a moment under the star-swarming sky, sundered by the night from all other presences.
"I needn't assure you of that," she said. "And, Archie, I may be utterly wrong in what I feel about Martin's communications to you. Who knows what conditions exist for the souls of those we have loved, and whom we neither of us believe have died with the decay of the perishable body? But, my dear, do be careful. If in some miraculous way you have been given access which is denied to almost all mankind, do use it only in truth and love and reverence."
"You're frightened about it," said Archie.
"I know I am. If Martin can come to you, why should not other spirits? Other spirits, intelligences terrible and devilish, might deceive you into thinking that they were he. You remember at Silorno he said he couldn't come again."
"I know; but I wasn't in sore need then," said he.
They had again come opposite Lord Tintagel's study, and, even as they passed, Archie saw him with his finger on the bell. Instantly he guessed that he was ringing to know why the whisky had not been brought. The footman would come and say that he had brought it.…
Archie felt an exhilarated acuteness of brain: the situation had only to be put before him for him to see the answer to it. In his presence, remembering the contract of the morning, his father could not ask for the whisky.
"Come in and say good-night to my father, Jess," he said.
They entered together and immediately afterwards the footman came in from the hall-door. Lord Tintagel looked at him, then back at Archie, who was watching.
"It's nothing, James," he said. "I rang for something, but it doesn't matter."
The man left the room and immediately afterwards Jessie said good-night and went also. Archie turned to his father with a broad, kindly smile.
"Father, I believe I'm a great thought-reader," he said. "I believe I can tell you what you rang for."
His father's grim face relaxed.
"You young devil," he said.
Archie laughed.
"I've guessed right, then," he said. "You surely don't want to drink success to our contract again."
"But I don't know why James didn't bring the whisky as usual," said he. "I—I forgot to tell him not to."
"But I didn't," said Archie.
"I see. Well, a bargain's a bargain. Only now there doesn't seem to be any particular reason for not going to bed."
Archie yawned rather elaborately, and went to the table where, earlier in the evening, he had put down his glass half filled with soda. He drank it, sniffing to see if there was any taint of spirit about it. But he had rinsed it thoroughly.
"I came in during my stroll with Jessie and took some soda," he said. "Not a bad drink, but I think it makes one sleepy. I shall go to bed, too."
Jessie left early next morning, expecting to be gone before anybody else made an appearance. But, just as she got into the motor, Archie, rosy and suffused with sleep, like a child that has lain still and grown all night, came flying downstairs in dressing-gown and pyjamas.
"Had to come down and say good-bye, Jessie," he said. "Do come back; come down for next Sunday, and we'll go up together for Helena's wedding. Promise!"
Jessie looked at that "morning face" which glowed with the exuberance of boyish health and happiness. She herself had slept very badly, dozing for a little and then being awakened by the sound of talking next door, and of peremptory resounding tappings. And here was Archie, radiant and fresh and revitalized, and her love glowed at the thought that he wanted her, even though it was but friendship that he sought and friendship that he had to offer.
"Yes, Archie, I should love to come," she said.
"That's ripping. I say, shall I drive with you to the station just as I am? Why shouldn't I? Pyjamas and dressing-gown are perfectly decent if William will fetch me my slippers, which I seem to have forgotten, unless he lends me his boots."
"Your bath's ready, my lord," said William with a broad grin.
"Well, perhaps I'll have it then. Good-bye, Jess. Come early on Saturday."