Part 12

She was stung by his question. "Yes, my son, generally; but sometimes they drive me into ways I do _not_ believe in. Often they are in opposition to my own will."

He was silenced for the moment, and his mind took a new turn. "When did Altair first come?"

"Soon after I met Leo. She came with Leo. She attends Leo."

"Have you seen her?"

"No. I am always in deepest trance when she shows herself. I hear her voice, though."

"Mother," he said, earnestly, "if Mr. Bartol gets us out of this scrape will you go away with me into some new country and give up this business?"

"You don't seem to understand, Victor. I can no more escape from these Voices than I can run away from my own shadow. I don't want to run away. I love the thought of them. I have innumerable sweet friends on the other side. To close the door in their faces would be cruel. It would leave me so lonely that I should never smile again."

"Then they mean more to you than I do!" he exclaimed.

"No, no! I don't mean that!" she passionately protested. "You mean more to me than all the _earthly_ things, but these heavenly hosts are very dear--besides, I shall go to them soon and I want to feel sure that I can come back to you when I have put aside the body. I fear now that our separation was a mistake. In trying to shield you from the transient disgrace of being a medium's son, I have put your soul in danger. I was weak--I own it. I was an earthly mother. I wanted my boy to be respected and rich and happy here in the earth-life. I did not realize the danger I ran of being forever separated from you by the veil of death. Oh, Victor, you must promise me that should I pass out suddenly you will try to keep the spirit-way open between us--will you promise this?"

Strange scene! Strange mother! All about them the orioles were whistling, the robins chirping, and farther away the beasts of the barn-yard were bawling their wants in cheerful chorus, but here on this vine-shaded porch a pale, small woman sought a compact with her son which should outlast the grave and defy time and space.

He gave his word. How could he refuse it? But his pledge was half-hearted, his eyes full of wavering. It irked him to think that in a month of bloom and passion, a world of sunny romance, a world of girls and all the sweet delights they conveyed to young men, he should be forced to discuss matter which relates to the charnel-house and the chill shadow of the tomb.

He rose abruptly. "Don't let's talk of this any more. Let's go for a walk. Let's visit the garden."

She was swifter of change than he. She could turn from the air of the "ghost-room" to the glory of the peacock as swiftly as a mirror reflects its beam of light, and she caught a delightful respite from the flowers. She was accustomed to the lavish greenhouses of her wealthy patrons, but here was something that delighted her more than all their hotbeds. Here were all the old-fashioned out-of-door plants and flowers, the perennials of her grandfather, to whom hot-houses were unknown. This Colonial garden was another of Bartol's peculiarities. He had no love for orchids, or any exotic or forced blooms. His fancy led to the glorification of phloxes, to the ripening of lilacs, and to the preservation of old-time varieties of roses--plants with human association breathing of romance and sorrow--hence his plots were filled with hardy New England roots flourishing in the richer soils of the Western prairies.

These colors, scents, and forms moved Victor markedly, for the reason that in La Crescent, as a child, he had been accustomed to visit a gaunt old woman, the path to whose door led through cinnamon roses, balsam, tiger-lilies, sweet-william, bachelor-buttons, pinks, holly-hocks, and the like--a wonderland to him then--a strange and haunting pleasure now as he walked these graveled ways and mingled the memories of the old with the vivid impressions of the new.

Back to the house they came at last to luncheon, and there, sitting in the beautiful dining-room, so cool, so spacious, so singularly tasteful in every detail, they gazed upon each other in a delight which was tinged with pain. Such perfection of appointment, such service, all for them (two beggars), was more than embarrassing; it provoked a sense of guilt. The pretty, low-voiced, soft-soled maid came and went, bringing exquisite food in the daintiest dishes (enough food for six), anticipating every want, like the fairy of the story-books. "Mother," said the youth, "this is a story!"

Mrs. Ollnee was accustomed to the splendor of Mrs. Joyce's house, but she was almost as much moved as Victor. She perceived the difference between the old-world simplicity of this flawless establishment and the lavish, tasteless hospitality of men like Pettus.

Who had planned and organized this wide-walled, low-toned room, this marvelously effective cuisine? How was it possible for such service to go on during the master's absence with apparently the same unerring precision of detail?

These questions remained unanswered, and they rose at last with a sense of having been, for the moment at least, in the seats of those who command the earth wisely.

Hardly were they returned to their hammocks on the porch when a swiftly driven car turned in at the gate.

"It is Louise!" exclaimed Mrs. Ollnee.

"And Leo!" added Victor.

With streaming veils the travelers swept up to the carriage steps covered with dust, yet smiling.

"How are you?" called Mrs. Joyce; and then with true motor spirit, addressed the driver: "What's the time, Denis?"

"Two hours and ten minutes from North Avenue."

"Not so bad, considering the roads."

Leo had sprung out and was throwing off her cloak and veil. "I hope we're not too late for luncheon. Mr. Bartol has the _best_ cook, and I'm famished."

Her coming swept Victor back into his other and normal self, and he took charge of her with a mingling of reverence and audacity which charmed her. He went out into the dining-room with her and sat beside her while she ate. "I hope you're going to stay," he said, earnestly.

"Stay! Of course we'll stay. It's hot as July in the city--always is with the wind from the southwest. Isn't it heavenly out here?"

"Heavenly is the word; but who did it? Who organized it?"

"Mrs. Bartol. She had the best taste of any one--and her way with the servants was beyond imitation. They all worship her memory."

"I can't make myself believe I deserve all this," he said. "Your coming puts the frosting on my bun."

It was as if some new and utterly different spirit, or band of them, had come with this glowing girl. She radiated the vitality and the melody of youth. Without being boisterous or silly, she filled the house with laughter. "There's something about Hazeldean that always makes me happy. I don't know why," she said.

"You make all who inhabit this house happy," said Mrs. Ollnee. "I can hear spirit laughter echoing to yours."

"Can you? Is it Margaret?"

"Yes, Margaret and Philip."

Victor did not smile; on the contrary, his face darkened, and Mrs. Joyce changed the tone of the conversation by asking: "Did you see the paper this morning? They say you have skipped to join Pettus." This seemed so funny that they all laughed, till Victor remembered that both these women had lost much money through Pettus.

Mrs. Joyce sobered, too. "The Star is against you, Lucy, and you must keep dark for a time. They are denouncing you as a traitor and all the rest of it. Did Paul, or any one, advise you last night?"

"No, nothing was said. I suppose they are considering the matter also. Those deceiving spirits must be hunted out and driven away."

"I'm going to lie down for a while," Mrs. Joyce announced. "My old waist-line is jolted a bit out o' plumb. Leo, will you stretch out, too?"

"No indeed. What I need is a walk or a game of tennis. I'm cramped from sitting so long."

So it fell out that Victor (penniless youth, hedged about with invisible walls, pikes, and pitfalls) was soon galloping about a tennis court in the glories of a new pair of flannel trousers and a lovely blue-striped outing shirt, trying hard not to win every game from a very good partner, who was pouting with dismay while admiring his skill.

"It isn't right for any one to 'serve' as weird a ball as you do," she protested. "It's like playing with loaded dice. I begin to understand why you were not renowned as a scholar."

"Oh, I wasn't so bad! I stood above medium."

"How could you? It must have taken all your time to learn to play tennis in the diabolical way you do--it's conjury, that's what it is!"

They were in the shade, and the fresh sweet wind, heavy with the scent of growing corn and wheat, swept steadily over the court, relieving it from heat, and Victor clean forgot his worriments. This girlish figure filled his eyes with pictures of unforgetable grace and charm. The swing of her skirts as she leaped for the ball, the free sweep of her arm (she had been well instructed), and the lithe bending of her waist brought the lover's sweet unease. When they came to the net now and again, he studied her fine figure with frank admiration. "You are a corker!" was his boyish word of praise. "I don't go up against many men who play the game as well as you do. Your 'form' is a whole lot better than mine. I am a bit lucky, I admit. You see, I studied baseball pitching, and I know the action of a whirling sphere. I curve the ball--make it 'break,' as the English say. I can make it do all kinds of 'stunts.'"

"I see you can, and I'll thank you not to try any new ones," she protested. "Can you ride a horse?"

His face fell a bit. "There I am a 'mutt,'" he confessed. "I never was on a horse except the wooden one in the Gym."

"I'm glad I can beat you at something," she said, with exultant cruelty. "I know you can row."

"Shall we try another set?" he asked.

"Not to-day, thank you. My self-respect will not stand another such drubbing. I'm going in for a cold plunge. After that you may read to me on the porch."

"I'll be there with the largest tome in the library," he replied.

Mrs. Joyce stopped him as he was going up-stairs to his room. "Victor, don't worry about me. While it looks as though I have lost a good deal of money through Pettus, I am by no means bankrupt. I am just about where I was when I met your mother. She has not enriched me--I mean The Voices have not--neither have they impoverished me. It's just the same with Leo. She's almost exactly where she was when she came East. It would seem as if they had been playing with us just to show us how unsubstantial earthly possessions are."

There was a certain comfort in this explanation, and yet the fact that her losses had not eaten in upon her original capital did not remove the essential charge of dishonesty which the man Aiken had brought against the ghostly advisers. Florence and Thomas Aiken could not afford to be so lenient. They were disinherited, cheated of their rightful legacy, by the lying spirits.

He was anxious, also, to know just how deeply Leo was involved in the People's Bank; and when she came down to the porch he led her to a distant chair beside a hammock on the eastern side of the house, and there, with a book in his hand, opened his interrogations.

He began quite formally, and with a well-laid-out line of questions, but she was not the kind of witness to permit that. She broke out of his boundaries on the third query, and laughingly refused to discuss her losses. "I am holding no one but myself responsible," she said. "I was greedy--I couldn't let well enough alone, that's all."

"No, that is not all," he insisted. "My mother is charged with advising people to put money into the hands of a swindler--"

"I don't believe that. I think she was honest in believing that Pettus would enrich us all. She was deceived like the rest of us."

"But what becomes of the infallible Voices?"

She laughed. "They are fallible, that's all. They made a gross blunder in Pettus."

"Mr. Bartol suggests that my mother may have been hypnotized by Pettus and made to work his will, and I think he's right. He thinks the whole thing comes down to illusion--to hypnotic control and telepathy."

She looked thoughtful. "I had a stage of believing that; but it doesn't explain all, it only explains a small part. Does it explain Altair to you?"

His glance fell. "Nothing explains Altair--nor that moaning wind--nor the writing on the slates."

"And the letter--have you forgotten that?"

"Half an hour ago, as we were playing tennis, I _had_ forgotten it. I was cut loose from the whole blessed mess--now it all comes back upon me like a cloud."

"Oh, don't look at it that way. That's foolish. I think it's glorious fun, this investigating."

He acknowledged her rebuke, but added, "It would be more fun if the person under the grill were not one's own mother."

"That's true," she admitted; "and yet, I think you can study her without giving offense. I began in a very offensive way--I can see that now--but she met my test, and still meets every test you bring. The faith she represents isn't going to have its heart plucked out in a hurry, I can tell you that."

"The immediate thing is to defend her against this man Aiken. Mr. Bartol said he would order up a lot of books, and I'm to cram for the trial. If you have any book to suggest, I wish you'd write its title down for me."

"What's the use of going to books? The judges will want the facts, and you'll have to convince them that she is what she claims to be."

"How can we do that? We can't exhibit her in a trance?"

"You might. Perhaps her guides will give her the power." She glowed with anticipatory triumph. "Imagine her confounding the jury! Wouldn't that be dramatic! It would be like the old-time test of fire."

He was radiant, too, for a moment, over the thought. Then his face grew stern. "Nothing like that is going to happen. She would fail, and that would leave us in worse case than before. Our only hope is to convince the jury that she is not responsible for what her Voices say. We've got to show she's auto-hypnotic."

"I hope the trial will come soon."

"So do I, for here I am eating somebody else's food, with no prospect of earning a cent or finding out my place in the world. I don't know just what my mother's idea was in educating me in classical English instead of some technical course, but I'm perfectly certain that I'm the most helpless mollusk that was ever kicked out of a school."

Real bitterness was in his voice, and she hastened to add a word of comfort. "All you need is a chance to show your powers."

"What powers?"

"Latent powers," she smiled. "We are all supposed to have latent powers. I am seeking a career, too."

He forgot himself in a return of his admiration of her. "Oh, you don't have to seek. A girl like you has her career all cut out for her."

She caught his meaning. "That's what I resent. Why should a woman's career mean only marriage?"

"I don't know--I guess because it's the most important thing for her to do."

"To be some man's household drudge or pet?"

"No, to be some man's inspiration."

"Fudge! A woman is never anybody's inspiration--after she's married."

"How cynical you are! What caused it?"

"Observing my married friends."

"Oh, I am relieved! I was afraid it was through some personal experience--"

This seemed funny to them both, and they laughed together. "There's nothing of 'the maiden with reluctant feet' about me," she went on. "I simply refuse to go near the brink. I find men stupid, smelly, and coarse."

"I hate girls in the abstract--they giggle and whisper behind their hands and make mouths; but there is one girl who is different." He tried to be very significant at the moment.

She ignored his clumsy beginning of a compliment. "All the girls who giggle should marry the men who 'crack jokes'--that's my advice."

"'Pears like our serious conversation is straggling out into vituperation."

"Whose fault is it?"

"Please don't force me to say it was not my fault. I'm like Lincoln--I joke to hide my sorrows."

"Don't be irreverent."

Through all this youthful give and take the boy and girl were studying each other minutely, and the phrases that read so baldly came from their lips with so much music, so much of hidden meaning (at least with displayed suggestion), that each was tingling with the revelation of it. The words of youth are slight in content; it is the accompanying tone that carries to the heart.

She recovered first. "Now let's stop this school-boy chatter--"

"You mean school-girl chatter."

"Both. Your mother is in a very serious predicament. We must help her."

He became quite serious. "I wish you would advise me. You know so much more about the whole subject than I do. I'm eager to get to work on the books. I suppose it is too much to expect that they will come up to-day?"

"They might. I'll go and inquire."

"No indeed, let me go. Am I not an inmate here?" He disappeared into the house, leaving her to muse on his face. He began to interest her, this passionate, self-willed, moody youth. She perceived in him the soul of the conqueror. His swift change of temper, his union of sport-loving boy and ambitious man made him as interesting as a play. "He'll make his way," she decided, using the vague terms of prophecy into which a girl falls when regarding the future of a young man. It's all so delightfully mysterious, this path of the youth who makes his way upward to success.

A shout announced his return, and looking up she perceived him bearing down upon her with an armful of books.

"Here they are!" he exulted. "Red ones, blue ones, brown ones--which shall we begin on?"

"Blue--that's my color."

"Agreed! Blue it is." He dumped them all down on the wide, swinging couch and fell to turning them over. "Dark blue or light blue?"

"Dark blue."

He picked up a fat volume. "_Mysterious Psychic Forces._ Know this tome?"

"Oh yes, indeed! It's wonderfully interesting."

"I choose it! This color scheme simplifies things. Now, here's another--_The Dual Personality_. How's that?"

"Um! Well--pretty good."

"_Dual Personality_ to the rear. Here's a brown book--_Metaphysical Phenomena_."

"That's a good one, too."

"I'm sorry they didn't bind it in blue--and here's a measly, yellow, paper-bound book in some foreign language--Italian, I guess, author, Morselli."

"Oh, that's a book I want to read. Let me take it?"

"Do you read Italian?"

"After a fashion."

"Then I engage you at once to translate that book to me. What is it all about?"

He abandoned his seat on the couch and drew a chair close to hers. "Begin at the first page and read very slowly all the way through. I wish it were a three volume edition."

She looked at him with side glance. "You're not in the least subtle."

"I intended to have you understand that I enjoy the thought of your reading to me. Did you catch it?"

"I caught it. No one else ever suggested that I was stupid."

"I didn't call you stupid. I think you're haughty and domineering, but you're not stupid."

"Thank you," she answered, demurely.

Eventually they drew together, and she began to read the marvelous story of the crucial experiments which Morselli and his fellows laid upon Eusapia Palladino. Two hours passed. The robins and thrushes began their evensong, the shadows lengthened on the lawn, and still these young folk remained at their reading--Victor sitting so close to his teacher's side that his cheek almost touched her shoulder. The sunset glory of the material world was forgotten in the tremendous conceptions called up by the author of this far-reaching book.

Sweeter hours of study Victor never had. Seeing the rise and fall of his interpreter's bosom and catching the faint perfume of her hair, he heard but vaguely some of the sentences, and had to have them repeated, what time her eyes were looking straight into his. At such moment she reminded him of the dream-face that had bloomed like a rose in the black night, for she was then very grave. Less ardent of blood than he, she succeeded in giving her whole mind to the great Italian's thesis, and the point of view--so new and so bold--stirred her like a trumpet.

"I like this man," she said. "He is not afraid."

Once or twice Mrs. Joyce looked out at them, but they made such a pretty picture she had not the heart to disturb them.

At seven o'clock she was forced to interrupt: "What _are_ you children up to?"

"Improving our minds," answered Leo. "Are we starting back? What time is it?"

Mrs. Joyce smiled. "That question is a great compliment to your company. It's dinner-time."

"Are we starting now?"

"No; we're going to stay all night."

"Fine!" shouted Victor. "I was wondering how I could put in the evening."

"It's time to dress," warned Mrs. Joyce. "This is no happy-go-easy establishment. I never saw such perfection of service as Alexander always has. I can't get it, or if I get it I can't keep it; while here, with the master gone half the time, the wheels go like a chronometer."

"It's all due to Marie. She worshiped Mrs. Bartol, and she venerates Mr. Bartol."

Mrs. Joyce cut her short. "Skurry to your room. We must not be late."

As they were going into the house together, Leo said: "I think we would better not let our elders read this book of Morselli's. It's too disturbing for them--don't you think so?"

"It certainly is a twister. However, mother doesn't read any foreign language, so she's safe."

XII

A MOONLIGHT CALL AND A VISION

Upon rising from the dinner table the young people returned to their books, and at ten o'clock Leo lifted her eyes from her page. "Did some one drive up?"

Victor looked at her dazedly. "I didn't hear anybody. Proceed."

"Mercy! It's ten o'clock. Where are Aunt Louise and your mother? I hear Mr. Bartol's voice!" she exclaimed, rising hastily. "Let's go get the latest news."

The master of the house entered before the young people could shake off the spell of what they had been imagining.

"What a waste of good moonlight!" he exclaimed, with smiling sympathy. "Why aren't you youngsters out on the lawn?"

"It's all your fault," responded Leo. "We've been absorbing one of the books you sent up."

"Have you? It must have been a wonderful romance. I can't conceive of anything but a love-story keeping youth indoors on a night like this."

Victor defended her. "We've been reading of Morselli's wonderful experiments. It's in Italian, and Miss Wood has been translating it for me."

"What luck you have!" exclaimed Mr. Bartol. "I engage her to re-translate it for me at the same rate."

Mrs. Ollnee and Mrs. Joyce came in as he was speaking, and Mrs. Joyce, after disposing herself comfortably, said, "Well, what is your report?"

He confessed that he had been too busy with other matters to give the Aiken accusation much thought. "However, I sent an armful of books out to my assistant attorney." He waved his hand toward Victor.

"You don't mean to read books," protested Mrs. Joyce, energetically, "when you've the very source of all knowledge right here in your own house? Why don't you study your client and convince yourself of her powers?--then you'll know what to do and say."

"I had thought of that," he said, hesitantly. "But--"

"You need not fear," Mrs. Joyce assured him. "It's true Lucy cannot always furnish the phenomena on the instant. In fact, the more eager she is the more reluctant the forces are; but you can at least try, and she is not only willing but eager for the test."

Bartol turned to Mrs. Ollnee. "Are you prepared now--to-night?" he asked.

"Yes, this moment," she answered.

Mrs. Joyce exulted. "The power is on her. I can see that. See how her hand trembles! One finger is signaling. Don't you see it?"

Mr. Bartol rose. "Come with me into my study. Mrs. Joyce may come some other time. I do not want any witnesses to-night," he added, with a smile.