Part 31

Shortly after eight o'clock, Flora took a chair in front of the cabinet. Vixley rose, fastened black shutters in front of the windows, closed the door, put out the gas and turned down the lamp in the box, shading it with a cloth curtain. The room was now so dark that one could scarcely distinguish anything, until, when eyes became somewhat accustomed to it, figures indistinct and shadowy could be vaguely recognized. Flora Flint spoke:

"I must ask you all to keep perfect silence, please. The spirits won't manifest themselves unless the conditions are favorable and the circle is in a receptive state. We can't do anything unless there's harmony, and if there's any antagonistic vibrations present there's no use attempting anything in the way of demonstration."

After this prologue, she began, accompanied by the faithful, the dreariest tune in the world:

"We are _waiting_, we are _waiting_, we are _waiting_, just now, Just now we are _waiting_, we are _waiting_ just now;

To _receive_ you, to _receive_ you, to _receive_ you just now, Just now to _receive_ you, to _receive_ you just now.

Show your _faces_, show your _faces_, show your _faces_, just now, Just now show your _faces_, show your _faces_ just now!

Come and _bless_ us, come and _bless_ us, come----"

The fourth stanza was here interrupted by three sharp knocks.

"Is that you, Starlight?" the medium asked. Two raps signified assent. "Are you happy, to-night?" Two more knocks.

"Starlight's always happy!" Vixley remarked aloud.

"Yes, she _is_ a bright little thing," the medium assented. "She passed out when she was only twelve; they say she's very pretty. Are there any spirits with you, Starlight?"

Two more raps.

"Who's there--Wampum?"

Two raps were given with terrific force. Everybody laughed.

"Wampum's feeling pretty good, to-night," said Vixley.

"Anybody else?" Flora asked.

Yes, some one else.

"Who? Is it Mr. Torkins?"

Yes.

The voice of a little old dried-up lady on the front row was heard, saying, "Oh, that's Willie! I'm _so_ glad he's come. Are you happy, Willie?"

Yes, Willie was happy. Had he seen Nelly? Yes, he had seen Nelly, and Nelly was also happy. And so, for a time, it went on, like an Ollendorf lesson.

Starlight was then asked if she could not control the medium, orally. She consented, and soon, in a chirping voice the medium twittered forth:

"Hello! Good evenin', folkses! Oh, I'se so glad to see you all, I is! Hello, Mis' Brickett, you's got a new bonnet, isn't you? It's awfully nice! Oh, I'se so happy. I got some candy, too. It's _spirit_ candy; it's lots better'n yours." Here she laughed shrilly and the company snickered.

Mabel could scarcely hold herself in check and had to be pinched. Starlight resumed her artless prattle, with Vixley as interlocutor. The two exchanged homely badinage and pretended to flirt desperately. But she refused this time to sit upon his knee. Finally an old man asked if Walter were there.

"Well, I just _guess_!" said Starlight. "He's my beau, he is! He giv'd me this candy. Want some?" A chocolate drop flew into the middle of the room.

"That's real materialized candy!" Vixley explained. "We're liable to have a good seance, to-night!"

Starlight, after giving a few messages, announced that the spirits had consented to materialize, and requested the company to sing. Flora went into the cabinet, Madam Spoll turned the light still lower, and Vixley, stating that the medium would now go into a dead trance, took the chair in front of the cabinet. A doleful air was started by the believers on the front seats:

"I have a father in the spirit land, I have a father in the spirit land, My father calls me, I must go To meet him in the spirit land!"

then,

"I have a mother in the spirit land,"

and so on, through the whole family, brother, sister and friend.

The darkness was now thick and velvety. The sitters could not see what they touched, and, gazing intently into the void, their eyes filled it with shifting colors and spots of light conjured up by the reflex action of the retina, as if their eyes were shut. As the song ended, there came an awed silence to add to the stifling darkness as they waited for the first manifestation from the cabinet.

Then the hush was broken by excited whispers, and a tall form, dimly luminous, was seen in the opening of the curtains.

"Why, here's the Professor!" said Vixley, shattering the solemnity, and making of this advent a friendly visitation. "Good evening, Professor, we're glad to see you. It's good to have you here again!"

A deep, slow voice replied, articulating its words painfully, "Good eve-ning, friends, I'm ver-y glad to be here to-night!" Every word was chopped into distinct syllables. The figure moved forward a little. It was a typical ghost, a vague, unearthly, draped figure, wavering, indistinct. The face melted into amorphous shadows. It glided here and there noiselessly.

The Professor was an affable celebrity, but somewhat verbose. He spoke to several of the company by name, and interspersed his greetings with jocular remarks to Little Starlight who was supposed to be flitting invisibly about the room. "She's a lit-tul darlink, ev-ery-bod-y loves lit-tul Star-light," he said, in answer to Vixley's comment.

He retreated silently to the cabinet, and the curtains closed upon him. Some one asked if they couldn't see the "Egyptian Hand" and Starlight's voice from the cabinet gave assent. Forthwith it appeared and made a hurried circle of the front part of the room, shedding a ghostly, phosphorescent glow, and, on its way, patting the heads of the faithful.

"Oh, I feel something so nice and soft!" cried Mrs. Brickett. "It's perfectly 'eavenly--right on top of my head--what is it?"

"That's _hair_!" Starlight called out.

The Professor bellowed from the cabinet, "Oh, ho, ho, ho! You must-unt mind lit-tul Star-light! She's so love-ly we don't mind her, do we?"

Vixley gave the cue for another song to cover the next entrance. This time it was _My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean_, its special appositeness seeming to lie in the line, "Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me!"

Another shorter form appeared and stood wavering in front of the curtains, then, without a word, withdrew.

"That's Stella," said Vixley. "She's only come to get progression. She ain't very strong yet, so she can't stay but a minute, but we're always glad to see her and help her along all we can with our thought."

A woman, with a sob, rose to go forward.

"No, not to-night, Mrs. Seeley; the medium ain't strong enough!" said Vixley.

How he recognized these spectral visitors nobody asked. They looked just alike, except, perhaps, for height; all were wavering, white and mysterious, without distinguishable faces. At the entrance of another, like all the rest, Professor Vixley startled the company by saying, suavely and patronizingly:

"This is Mr. McKinley, friends. It's good to see you, Mr. McKinley. I'm glad you come. We're _always_ glad to see you. Come again, come any time you feel like it." He explained, after the spirit vanished, that Mr. McKinley had had great difficulty in finding any medium sympathetic enough for him to control, and he wandered from circle to circle, hoping to establish communication with the earth-plane.

The next visitor was no less than Queen Victoria. "That's good!" said Vixley, "we're awful glad to see you, sure!" It now transpired that the spirits whispered their names to him in entering. His conversation became a bit dreary and monotonous and he failed to rise to his obvious opportunities.

A few forms, after this, came farther from the cabinet, and their friends were permitted to embrace them. These favored few sat on the front seats. Whispered dialogues took place--innocuous talk of troubles and happiness, perturbed commonplaces that, had they not been sometimes accompanied with genuine tears, would have been nothing but ridiculous. The spirits were all optimistic and willing to help. Their advice, usually, consisted of the statement that "conditions would soon be more favorable." At intervals the singers broke out into new songs, There's a Land that is Fairer than Day--_Nearer, My God, to Thee!_--and so on. The air became oppressively close. The audience began to whisper, cough and shuffle. Mabel, desirous of excitement, had nudged Dougal again and again, but he had muttered "Not yet!" at each hint.

The song _Over There_ had just ended, and the hush of expectancy had fallen over the company when another form appeared and took a step towards Vixley.

"She says her name is Felicia," he announced. "Does anybody recognize her?"

"I do!" an unctuously mellow voice replied.

"She says she has a message for you," said Vixley, "but she don't want to give it out loud before all these people. Will you come up here?"

Mr. Payson made his way with difficulty, in the dark, past those on his row and came forward.

"You can touch her, if you want to; she's completely materialized. Very strong indeed for one outside Flora's band. She ain't got much vitality, though, and you mustn't tax her too much."

The old man reached forward and touched a cold hand.

"Is it you, Felicia?" he asked tremulously.

"Yes, dear!" was the answer, in a thick, hoarse whisper. "I'm glad to see you here. You must come often. I've tried so hard to get you. I want to help you."

"You have a message for me?"

She whispered, "Yes; it's about the child."

"What is it?" His voice was eager.

"I've found him."

"Oh, I'm so glad! I've longed so to find him and do what was right by him. You know, don't you?" All this was spoken so low that but few could make out the words.

"Yes, I know. I know you love him."

"Where is he, Felicia?"

"He's in this city. I shall bring him to you. Then we'll be so happy, all three of us--you and I and our dear son!"

Payson's voice rang out sharply in an angry exclamation:

"It's all a damned fraud!" he cried. "This is not a spirit at all!" He took a step forward.

On the instant, before even Vixley could move, Dougal had jumped up and run forward. As he dashed up the aisle he pressed the key of his electric torch and cast a bright light upon the group by the cabinet. The draped form had started back, Payson faced her, Vixley had risen from his chair fiercely, Flora Flint's startled face peered through the curtains.

"Come on, Max!" Dougal shouted, and threw himself bodily upon the person wrapped in the sheet. Maxim grappled at almost the same time, but before him Vixley sprang in and rained blow after blow upon Dougal, who fell, dropping his torch. Vixley then locked with Maxim. Starr and Benton had run up, hurtling past Spoll, who had risen to block the way. They were just too late to save Dougal, who had fallen, still holding his captive fast. It was too dark to see what was happening, but Vixley's oaths led them on, crashing over chairs, creeping and fighting through the now terrified crowd. A match was struck somewhere behind them, and, before it flared out, Starr and Benton fell on Vixley together and bore him to the floor.

The room was now horrid with confusion. A racket of moving chairs told that every one had arisen in panic. Women screamed, and there was a rush for the door. It seemed hours before there was a light, then Madam Spoll reached up and turned up the light. At that moment Ringa flew past her--she was thrown down and the lamp fell crashing upon the seat of a chair beside her. There was an explosion on the instant. She was drenched with blazing oil, and the flames enveloped her.

Her screams rose over the tumult so piercingly that every one turned, saw her, and fell back in fear and terror. She clambered to her feet clumsily, shrieking in agony, ran for the door, tore it open and fled down-stairs, to fall heavily at the bottom, writhing.

Benton was that moment free, and the only man to keep his senses. He burst right through the room, throwing men and women to right and left and broke out the door after her, and down the stairs, tearing a table-cloth from a table as he ran through the hall. He wrapped it about her, the flames scorching his face and hands as he did so. The woman was struggling so in her blind terror and torture that it was for a moment impossible to help her. Then, in a few heroic moments he conquered the fire. At last he called to the crowd above for help, and they carried her up into a small side room and laid her upon a bed.

Starr, meanwhile, still clung to Vixley while Maxim had held Ringa off. Spoll was busy extinguishing the fire on the carpet. Then some one at last lighted the chandelier, showing a score of white, frenzied faces, men and women in wild disarray, chairs broken and strewn upon the floor, a smoking, blackened place on the carpet where the remains of the lamp had fallen. The room smelled horribly.

Vixley lay in a welter of ornaments that had been swept from the mantel in his struggle. He was still cursing.

Dougal had held his captive fast through all that turmoil, yelling continuously for a light. Now Mabel and Elsie, who had flattened themselves against the wall, joining their screams to the din, crept trembling up to him to see what he had caught. He turned the limp figure in his arms and sought amongst the folds of the sheet, and turned them away at the face. Elsie gave a little cry.

It was Fancy Gray.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*A RETURN TO INSTINCT*

Clytie Payson had come home after a two weeks' stay at Lonely with Mrs. Maxwell, poised, resolute, calm. She seemed sustained by some inward faith manifesting itself only in a higher degree of self-consciousness, as of one inspired by a purpose.

At breakfast, on the morning after the materializing seance, Mr. Payson read the morning journal interestedly, so intensely absorbed in its columns that he scarcely spoke to his daughter. But he did not mention the evening's event, and was moody and morose. The affair had received an extensive notice. Madam Spoll, it seemed, still lingered at the point of death. Although Mr. Payson's name was not mentioned, he was much disturbed and apprehensive of publicity. Clytie, noticing his abstraction, did not disturb him with questions.

After her father had left the house she went up to her workroom, put on her pink pinafore and commenced her bookbinding. She worked at the bench near the window where she could occasionally look out upon the shadows that swept over Mount Tamalpais. The day was alternately bright and lowering; it promised rain before night.

At ten, as she was pausing from her work, with a lingering look out into her garden, she saw a young woman coming up the path. It was Fancy Gray, looking about her as if uncertain whether or not she had found the right place. Fancy wore a black-and-white shepherd's plaid suit, bright and tightly-fitted, which picked her out, in an errant glance of sunshine, against the dull green shrubbery. She stopped for a moment to look at the sun-dial, raising her white-gloved hand to her red and white hat, then passed on toward the house, out of sight.

Clytie went down-stairs herself to answer the bell, and opened the door with a look of pleasure on her face.

Fancy hesitated. "Are you busy, Miss Payson?"

"Of course not!" Clytie held out both her hands. "If I were, I'd be so glad to have you interrupt me, Miss Gray. Do come in! How charming you look! I'm so glad to see you."

Fancy accepted the welcome, looking long into Clytie's eyes, as if she expected to find in them something of special significance. Her own were steady, and had in them an evidence of resolve.

"I've been hoping you'd come to see me, Miss Gray," Clytie began.

Fancy stopped on the threshold.

"Fancy Gray, please!" she corrected, with an elusive smile.

"Fancy Gray--I'm glad to be permitted to use such a lovely name."

"Make it Fancy, straight. Then I'll be more natural. I'm always stiff and stupid when people call me Miss Gray. I always feel as if they were talking about me behind my back." Fancy's smile broke out now, as if in spite of herself.

"I'd love to call you Fancy! It's good of you to let me!" Clytie answered.

Her smile was as delicious, in this gallant interchange. Fancy's smile seemed as much a part of her natural expression as the brightness of her open eyes; it was embracing, like a baby's. Clytie's had the effect of a particularly gracious favor, almost a condescension, a special gift of the moment.

Fancy stopped again at the entrance to the library.

"Say, this is awfully orderly," she said, "haven't you got some place that isn't so tidy and clean? I'm afraid I wouldn't be comfortable here, and I want to talk to you."

Clytie looked at her amusedly. "So you're one of those persons who think dust is artistic? Come up into my workroom, then. You'll find that untidy enough."

Up-stairs they went, to the workroom.

"My!" said Fancy. "If you call this place untidy, you ought to see my room! Why, it's as neat as a pin!" She entered, nevertheless, and looked about her with curiosity at everything.

"Haven't you a looking-glass here?" she asked in astonishment.

"No, but I'll get you one."

Fancy laughed. "I couldn't live an hour without a mirror," she confessed. "You're really queer, aren't you! And you don't even wear jewelry! I'm afraid modesty isn't my favorite stunt. It's very becoming to you, though. I suppose it doesn't go with painted hair." She sighed.

"I don't believe that even you could improve on nature, Fancy!"

"I'm sure nature intended me for a blonde, and got careless. Did you ever know a brunette who didn't want to be a blonde?" She looked at Clytie's tawny hair with evident admiration.

Clytie shook her head, smiling. "I'd give you my hair for your complexion."

"Done!" Fancy rubbed her handkerchief across her pink cheeks, and handed the bit of cambric to Clytie. After this comedy pantomime, she took the little silver watch from her chatelaine pin, opened the back door, where, inside, was a bright and shiny surface, and regarded her face, pouting. Then she looked across at Clytie.

"You're so pretty, Miss Payson! You're four times and a half as pretty as I am!"

Clytie ventured to touch her little finger to the dent in Fancy's upper lip. Fancy retreated a step. "My dear," Clytie asserted, "if I had _that_, I'd be sure that men would be crazy for me till I was seventy years old!"

Fancy shook her head. "I guess I can't beat that. That's what Gay calls 'the pink penultimate.' And the worst of it is, I suppose it's true! But I'll never be seventy if I can help it." She turned away, suddenly grown serious. The room grew dark. It was as if Fancy's mood had turned off the sunshine.

"What are you doing, now?" Clytie asked.

"Oh, just drifting." Fancy's voice was not hopeful.

Clytie took her hand. "Why don't you come here and stay with me for a while? I'd love to have you."

Fancy gently released her fingers in Clytie's and did not look at her.

"Oh, I wish you wouldn't be quite so kind to me, Miss Payson; I can't stand it!" Her mouth trembled; her gaze was serious.

"But it would be so kind of you to come!" Clytie urged.

Fancy smiled wanly. "I can't do it, Miss Payson, I won't explain. I never explain. It bores me. But I simply can't."

"Well, you know, if you ever do want to come--"

"I'll come, sure!" Fancy looked at her now, with fire in her eyes, not flaming, but burning deep. "Whenever I forget what a thoroughbred is like, I'll come! Whenever I need a teaspoonful of flattery to last me over night, I'll come! Whenever I want to know how much finer and kinder women are than men, I'll come! Whenever--"

She would have gone on, but Clytie interrupted her. "Whenever you want to make me very happy, whenever you want to do me the greatest favor in your power, you'll come!"

Fancy's eyes narrowed and twinkled. "I'm all out of breath trying to keep up with you! I give it up. Take the pot!" She turned to the bench and examined the tools in a box.

"Ugh!" she commented. "They look like dentists' instruments!"

"I don't believe _you_ ever had to suffer from them! It doesn't seem possible!" said Clytie.

In response, Fancy engagingly showed her double row of small, white, zigzag teeth. Then, with a sudden access of frivolity, she favored Clytie with an exhibition of her little, pointed tongue, which she erected and waved sidewise. This done, she dropped into a chair again. The sun had returned and visited the room, making a brilliant object of her jaunty figure as she sat under the window. She wore the fine gold chain with the swastika that Clytie had given her. She fingered it as she spoke.

"Miss Payson," she said, "I'm going to ask you something that perhaps is none of my business."

"Ask what you please," said Clytie, but she looked at Fancy with something like alarm.

"Have you seen Mr. Granthope lately?"

Clytie shook her head. "No."

"Could you tell me why not?"

"I'm afraid I can't, Fancy."

"I'm terribly worried about it. I'm sure there's some trouble. Oh, Miss Payson, I know he's awfully unhappy. And I can't bear that!"

Clytie walked to the window and looked out, standing there with her hands behind her back. There was a faint line come into her forehead. "I'd rather not talk about it," she said quietly.

"But I'm sure that if there is any misunderstanding, I might help you. Oh, Miss Payson, I don't want to be impertinent, but I can't bear it to think that he isn't happy. Can't you tell me about it?"

Clytie turned slowly, a look of pain deepening on her face. "I can only tell you this, that I was mistaken in him."

"Mistaken? How?"

"Not in quality, so much as in quantity, if you know what I mean. I know what he's capable of, what he has done, and what he can do. I don't feel any anger or resentment, for what I know, now, that he has done. I feel only pity and sorrow for him."

"But what _has_ he done? That's just what I want to know. You mean that it was something definite?"

"Yes."

"And--you believed it of him?" Fancy could not restrain her surprise.

"I had to believe it. Oh, Fancy, don't you understand? It was the sort of thing that no woman could forget. It was of no importance except as showing that he wasn't so far along as I had thought. It merely means that I'll have to wait for him. And I shall wait for him. I'm so sure of him that I can wait, though it hurt so at first that I couldn't possibly see him. That's all."

Fancy bit her lip. There was a little, determined shake of her head that Clytie did not see. "Miss Payson," she said, "you must tell me what it was. I've heard Professor Vixley say a thing or two that aroused my suspicions." She went on slowly, with an effort. "I know that Frank adores you--that he has, ever since that night you came with him to his office, after his accident."

"Oh, but this was after that," Clytie said wearily. "It was something he told Vixley."

"After that! Why, Frank hasn't had anything to do with Vixley or Madam Spoll since then, except to try to get them to leave your father alone."

"I saw his own handwriting, Fancy; the very notes of what I had talked about to him--even the little intimate things--they nearly killed me. And Professor Vixley told me himself that Frank had been giving him information right along, up to only a few weeks ago--while we had been so happy together--oh, to think of it!"

Fancy's face had varied in phase, like the opening and shutting of the clouds. Now it was eager, rapt "Oh, I understand, now!" she cried, jumping up.