CHAPTER XVIII
MARKS TALKS AGAIN
WITH the light of day came doubt again. Nothing real had happened the night before; there had only been illusion. All of us, watchers and celebrants alike, had been strung up by the ritual to the highest pitch of emotion. At that height of emotion, that tenseness of the nerves any illusion, the most complete hallucinations were possible—hallucinations not only of the sight but of all the senses.
Again, why had the flight of some of the celebrants prevented, or checked, the revelation? Was it necessary that all of them should be present, united in a single effort of all their wills, in order to let loose a Lord of the Abyss! Or was it that the presence of all of them, acting and reacting on one another, was necessary to the fullness of illusion?
Again and again I assured myself that that was the truth of the matter, that the final result of this process of stimulating the emotions to an ecstasy was only illusion. Yet in spite of the vigor and perseverance with which I assured myself of this, I could not bring myself to believe it. In my heart of hearts I believed that I had twice seen the loosing of creatures of the Abyss, that at this last celebration of the rites I had nearly seen the loosing of one of its Lords.
When the next evening I found Pamela white and listless after the stress of emotion, I set vigorously about assuring her that nothing had really happened, or been about to happen; there had been nothing but illusion.
She would have none of it.
"No, no," she said. "It wasn't illusion; it wasn't hallucination. A wonderful real thing nearly happened; and it would have happened if those cowards hadn't run away."
There was no moving her from this position; she at any rate was convinced. Her conviction would have had more weight with me had she not lived so long in the atmosphere of No. 19.
I wanted the opinion of Marks on the matter, if I could get it. He had been in the very midst of it all. He had seen whatever had happened. And I could trust his sceptical judgment to give me the truth of the matter as far as the human mind could. But I doubted that he would give me his opinion; and I thought that if I invited him to spend the evening with me, he might come on his guard, with sealed lips. I might get it from him by a careless question.
This summer I had been to very few meetings of the New Bohemians. I had preferred to spend the evenings with Pamela. It seemed to me that I was most likely to find him off his guard there.
On the Sunday I found, or fancied I found, a new and somewhat pressing reason for getting the truth of the matter. I found that I could no longer read in my garden, I could not even walk about in it in any comfort. An in explicable but very real uneasiness invaded me. I had not sat in my chair five minutes when a sudden cold chill ran down my back; and my scalp prickled. I started up, looked about, and listened. I looked to hear the brushing sound of the beast dragging its pendulous belly over the lawn of No. 19. There was no sound. Then it flashed on me that there was indeed no sound. The sparrows had gone. No flutter of wings, no twitter, no chirp came to my ears from all the length of the gardens. The brooding hush which so often hung over the Walden Road at night, had fallen on the gardens in the daylight. I listened and listened. Far away I heard the faint rattle of an electric train; I heard nothing nearer. I listened for three or four minutes, striving to hear a reassuring sound from one of the empty gardens. I heard none; then from one of the gardens at the top of the road came a short, uneasy howl of a dog.
It gave me a most unpleasant thrill; and my scalp prickled again. I stood waiting, very still, expectant of I knew not what; and as I waited the silent garden grew more and more oppressive with a vague sense of horror. At last I could endure it no longer, and I went into the house.
Half an hour later I called for Pamela to take her to Richmond. She had nearly recovered from the last celebration of the rites, and came out smiling with shining eyes. I did not tell her of my fancy about my garden, that its air was charged with oppression. There was no use making her uneasy. But in the train she fell thoughtful, frowning.
"What's the matter?" I said presently.
"There's something gone wrong with the garden," she said. "It's grown uncomfortable—horrible. I can't stay in it."
This was bad hearing indeed. I was not alone in my impression.
"Do you think there's going to be an irruption from the Abyss? Is that beast, or whatever it was, coming again?" I said.
"It doesn't feel like that—as if something were coming. It feels as if the horror were already there," she said slowly, with knitted brow. "Besides, I felt it first yesterday morning; and if the beast had been coming, it would have come and gone by now."
"That's probable. But I tell you what: the garden hasn't yet recovered from the rites," I said in a cheering tone.
"It isn't that," she said. "It's grown worse since yesterday."
It continued to grow worse; and even more disquieting, the oppression and the sense of horror began to spread. It invaded No. 19. Pamela said that the house was growing horrible; it made her shiver as she went about it. Only her bedroom was not infected; in it she was untroubled. Naturally she fell into the way of spending all her time not devoted to household service, in her bedroom; all the time, that is, that she was in the house. At my suggestion—she needed no urging—she spent most of her time out of doors, taking her book or her sewing to one of the green open spaces which adorn Hertford Park, or even to Kew Gardens.
Then the oppression of horror invaded the road itself. At night the brooding hush, grown deeper, always rested on it now, save when a strong wind blew, and the rustling and creaking of the trees in the big garden on the other side of the road broke it. I came to crave for strong winds, though they spoiled my tennis. When I came half-way down the road after sunset, the oppression fell on me. I felt that I was drawing nearer to some awful, malefic presence. I never knew when I should reach my gate with the cold chills racing down my back. Sometimes I bolted into my house.
It is odd, and inexplicable, that the horror never invaded my house or Pamela's bedroom. It disposed of a suspicion I had been inclined to entertain that she and I were the cause of one another's horror. That having grown so close to one another, we infected one another in some obscure way, with our fancies. Together in the road the sense of lowering horror weighed on us in all its fullness; together in my house we were quite free from it. I grew impatient indeed for the meeting of the New Bohemians that I might consult Marks.
On the Thursday morning Mrs. Ringrose added the crowning touch. She brought in my bacon, and instead of bustling out of the room, she stood looking at me uneasily, and shuffled her feet.
"Well, Mrs. Ringrose, what do you want to say to me?" I said smiling at her.
"It's the garden, sir," she said, and paused, rolling up her hands in her apron.
"Well, what about the garden?" I said.
"It gives me the creeps—when I go out into it," she said; and she looked at me with an air of apology for her folly.
"Does it?" I said.
"It's bad enough in the daytime, sir. But at night it's that horrible. Of course you'll think as it's an old woman's fancies; but I never had no such fancies before," she added quickly.
"Fancies are very distressing things," I said. "I tell you what; if you will put all the rubbish into a pail at night, I'll empty it into the dustbin myself. Then you needn't go into the garden after dark."
Her face brightened, but she said, "I don't like to trouble you, sir—I don't really."
"Oh, that's all right. I don't mind. There's no reason why you should be distressed, even if it is fancy."
She thanked me; and we let it go at that.
Marks came late to the New Bohemians; indeed, I had almost given up hope of his com ing. When he came, he seemed to me to have lost something of his usual firm serenity. He was absent-minded, apt to fall into deep thought, and his sonorous laugh only rang out once during the rest of the meeting.
When it came to an end, I came out with him, and asked him to walk with me to the top of Regent Street, for I wanted to talk to him.
We walked to the middle of Trafalgar Square in silence; then I said abruptly, "Has Woodfell been raising one of those principalities of the Abyss you talked about?"
"I don't know—I don't know," he said slowly and rather wearily. "One is worked up to such a stress of emotion that one doesn't know—one can't know. The intelligence—the reasoning powers are in abeyance."
"Well, I believe he has. There has always been something wrong —an uncanniness—about the Walden Road; now it is growing unbearable. It's full of horror."
"What's this? What's this?" he said quickly. "Oh, you'd better come home with me and thresh the matter out quietly!"
"I had rather you came to my place. I don't like to be away from it at night, because of Miss Woodfell. I didn't want to leave it to night; but I had to come to the New Bohemians to find you."
"Very good; let's go to your place. I shall feel this horror for myself—or I shan't."
With that I hailed a taxicab; we got into it, and drove to the Walden Road.
As I paid the cabman, he said with a shiver, "This is a rum neighborhood, guv'ner—shivery I calls it." And he swung round his cab and went off at full speed.
Marks stood still with his head raised as if he were abandoning himself to an impression.
"You were right about the horror," he said, and followed me hastily into the house.
"Why it isn't here," he said in the hall.
"No, it hasn't invaded this house yet," I said; and we went into my study.
I mixed whisky and soda; he stood by the mantelpiece, and filled his giant pipe.
Then he sat down in an easy chair, and said, "We'd better begin by clearing the ground. How much do you know of our attempts to get to the heart of the mysteries?"
I began by telling him of the beast in the garden; then I told him of my watch upon the celebration of the rites—of course I did not tell him that Pamela had watched them with me—then I told him of the rich man's lesson.
I ended by saying, "And I believe that now Woodfell has unloosed one of the principalities of the Abyss."
"It may be," he said slowly. "But where is the Abyss? Is it in ourselves—in each of us? Is it outside us—in the heart of Nature? There is very little in what you have told me against its being inside us; for, look you, it is not only the tricks that the human mind plays itself, it is also the tricks that human mind can play on human mind. Take the matter of the beast in the garden. Woodfell wanted no neighbor. At that time he certainly wanted no neighbor, though now he has grown reconciled to your presence next door to him, as is plain from what he has said to me about you, and from his visits."
"Also he has given his consent to my marriage with Miss Woodfell," I said.
"Indeed? Accept my congratulations," said Marks gravely. "But at the time of your vision, or as you call it exactly your impression, of this beast in the garden of No. 19, he wanted to get rid of you. Your terror was so utter that, had you been the average man, he would have succeeded. Now, as you must have observed, Woodfell has acquired an extraordinary power of imposing his mind on the minds of others. No really open-minded man of science nowadays denies the existence of that power. I tell you that Woodfell could have sat in his study and imposed the impression of that beast on your mind. A human mind playing a trick on a human mind."
"Oh, but the rats, the sparrows! And Miss Woodfell called him to the garden!" I cried.
"Yes; but we are dealing with a force of whose working we know very little. The effort which imposed the impression on you may also have imposed it on every sentient being near. And Woodfell has cultivated the power to an extraordinary degree."
"Ah, but you should have heard his voice—the uncertainty in it—when he began his exorcism," I said.
"Yes; there is that," he said thoughtfully. "But Woodfell wanted to frighten you away; and he may be a better actor than we dream."
"That I don't believe," I said, thinking of his outspoken rages.
"I don't say that he is. I am putting forward the explanation that the Abyss is within us," said Marks.
"The beast in the garden is but one thing," I said. "What about this growing, threatening horror?"
"That is new to me—quite new," said Marks knitting his brow. "But again we all of us suffered a great shock the other night. Five of us were terrified beyond words. They got to the end of the road in their robes before Blumenthal recovered himself and pulled them up. In all their minds that horror lingers; and their thoughts are continually on this place. Why shouldn't that horror infect us. Besides, you and I witnessed the celebration of the rites; our minds are open to it. Why should not that be it?"
"You heard what the cabman said."
"Yes; I heard," said Marks with a sigh.
"And my housekeeper, a very deaf old woman with a failing mind, feels the horror and daren't go into the garden."
"Is that so?"
"Yes; and why doesn't the horror invade this house, or Miss Woodfell's bedroom?"
He shook his head: "That is indeed inexplicable," he said.
"We were silent a while.
"Look here," I said. "What did happen on the night of the full moon? Tell me."
"I don't know—upon my soul! I don't know. Either we were on the verge of the final revelation or the final illusion."
"Well, I'll tell you what I believe," I said gloomily. "I believe that the Abyss is surging behind a very frail barrier—surging to get at us. And the barrier is growing frailer."
"I don't know," said Marks heavily.
We were silent again. I rose and filled our glasses, which had long been empty.
Then I said, "What do you advise me to do?"
"If I were you, I should clear out. I should really—and at once," he said firmly.
"That's all very well," I said. "But I'm not a rich man. I can't afford to buy another house; and if I could, I shouldn't find one to suit me like this—not one within my means—even if I could sell this one; and that I should not be justified in doing."
"Never mind, clear out. What shall it profit a man?" said Marks stubbornly.
"Is it as bad as that?" I said.
"I don't know. These are the forbidden things."
"But there is also Miss Woodfell. I can't leave her," I said.
"Get her away, too; and be quick about it."
"I doubt that she would leave her uncle in this danger. And would he let her go? She is useful to him," I said.
"He would not. He never lets anything interfere with his quest. He won't want a change now," said Marks with conviction. Then he added thoughtfully. "But after all you are safe till the full moon."
Marks was wrong.