Part 7

Mrs. Joyce dimly remembered having seen him in the house before, so she replied, very civilly, "Mrs. Ollnee lies in what seems to be deep trance, although the doctors say that life is extinct."

"Will you let me see her?" he inquired. "I know a great deal about these conditions. My daughter was subject to them."

"You may come in," she said, for his manner was gentle. "This is her son, Victor."

Victor was vexed by the stranger's intrusion, but could not gainsay Mrs. Joyce.

"My name is Beebe, Doctor Beebe," he explained. "Mrs. Ollnee has given me many a consoling message, and I believe I've been of help to her. You're her son, eh?"

"I am," replied Victor, shortly.

"You were the vein of her heart," the old man solemnly assured him. "Her guides were forever talking of you. And now may I see her?"

Mrs. Joyce, after a moment's hesitation, led him to the door of the room and stood aside for him to enter. After looking down into the silent face for a long time he asked, in stately fashion, "May I make momentary examination of the body?"

Mrs. Joyce glanced at Victor. "I see no objection to your feeling for her pulse or listening for her breath."

"I wish to lift her eyelids," he explained.

"You must not touch her!" Victor broke forth. "Two doctors have examined her already. Why should you?"

"Because I, too, am one of the mystic order. I am a healer. Life's mysteries are as an open book to me."

As he spoke a folded paper appeared to develop out of thin air above the bed, and fell gently upon the coverlet.

Mrs. Joyce started. "Where did that come from?"

The healer smiled. "From the fourth dimension." Calmly taking up the folded paper, he opened it. "This is a message to you, young man."

"To me?" Victor exclaimed. "From whom?"

"It is signed 'Nelson.'"

"Let me see it!" demanded Mrs. Joyce.

"What does it say?" asked Victor.

Mrs. Joyce handed it to him. "Read it for yourself. It is from your grandfather."

He read: "_Your mother is with us, but she will return to you for a little while. Her work is not yet ended. Your stubborn neck must bow. There is a great mission for you, but you must acquire wisdom. Learn that your plans are nothing, your strength puny, your pride pitiful. We love you, but we must chastise you. Do not attempt to leave the city._

"_NELSON._"

As he stood reading this letter it seemed to Victor that a cold wind blew upon him from the direction of his mother's body, and his blood chilled. "This is some of your jugglery," he said, turning angrily upon Beebe.

"I assure you, no," replied the healer, quietly. "It came from behind the veil. It is a veritable message from the shadow world. I may have had something to do with its precipitation, for I, too, am psychic, but not in any material way did I aid the guide."

The whole affair seemed to Victor a piece of chicanery on the part of this intruder, and he bluntly said: "I wish you'd go. You can do no good here. You have no business here."

Beebe seemed not to take offense. "It's natural in you young fellows to believe only in the world of business and pleasure, but you'll be taught the pettiness and uselessness of all that. Your guides have a work for you to do, and the sooner you surrender to their will the better. You are fighting an invisible but overwhelming power."

He addressed Mrs. Joyce. "This message is conclusive. Mrs. Ollnee, our divine instrument, has not abandoned the body. Her spirit will return to its envelope soon." He turned back to Victor. "As for you, young sir, there is warfare and much sorrow before you. Good-day." And with lofty wafture of the hand he took himself from the room.

Not till he had passed entirely out of hearing did Victor speak, then he burst forth. "The old fraud! I wonder how many more such visitors we are to have? I wish we could take her away from this place."

"We might take her to my house," said Mrs. Joyce, "but I would not dare to do so without the consent of the doctors."

"Did you see how that man produced that message?"

Leo replied, "It developed right out of the air."

"It was a direct materialization," confessed Mrs. Joyce. "My own feeling is that your grandfather sent it to assure us of your mother's return."

Victor silently confronted them, his anxiety lost in wonder. He had been told spiritualists were an uneducated lot, and to have these cultured and intelligent women calmly express their acceptance of a fact so destructive of all the laws of matter as this folded note, blinded him. He shifted the conversation. "Isn't it horrible that I should be here without a dollar and without a single relative? I don't even know that I have a relation in the world. My mother told me that she had a brother somewhere in the West, but I don't think she ever gave me his address. There must be aunts or uncles somewhere in the East, but I have never heard from them. It seems as though she had kept me purposely ignorant of her family. You've been very good and kind to me, Mrs. Joyce, but I can't ask anything more of you. I can't ask you to stay here in this gloomy little hole. Please go home. I'll fight it out here some way alone."

"My dear boy," said Mrs. Joyce, "I insist on staying. I cannot leave Lucy in her present condition, and I refuse to leave you alone. She is coming back to you soon, and then we will plan for the future. As for the message, you will do well to take its word to heart. It is plainly a warning that you must not leave the city."

"But, Mrs. Joyce, think what it involves to believe that that letter dropped out of the air!"

"The world has grown very vast and very mysterious to me," she solemnly responded. "I've had even more wonderful things than that take place in my own home."

Mrs. Joyce saw that to go would be best, at least for the time, and together she and Leo went down the stairway and out into the street, leaving the stubborn youth to confront his problem alone with the phlegmatic Mrs. Post.

VII

THE RETURN OF THE SPIRIT

Youth is surrounded by mystery--nothing but magic touches him; but it is a beautiful, natural, hopeful magic. The mists of morning rise unaccountably, the rains of autumn fall without cause. The lightning, the snows, the grasses appear and vanish before the child's eyes like magical conjurations, until at last, for the most part, he accepts these miracles as commonplace because they happen regularly and often. In a world that is incomprehensible to the greatest philosopher, the lad of twenty comes and goes unmoved by the essential irresolvability of matter.

So it had been with Victor. Under instruction he had come to speak of electricity as a fluid, of steel as a metal, as though calling them by these names explained them. He discussed the ether, calmly considering it a sort of finely attenuated jelly, something which quivered to every blow and was capable of transmitting motion instantaneously. Sound, heat, and light were modes of motion, he had been told, and these words satisfied him. Food taken into the body produced power, and this power was transmitted from the stomach to the brain, and from the brain to the muscles, and so the limbs were moved. But just how the meat and potatoes got finally from the brain to the nerves and so into the swing of a baseball bat did not trouble him. Why should it?

Life and age were mere words. Death he had heard described by clergymen as something to be prepared for, a dark and dismal event reserved for old people, but which did occasionally catch a man in his arrogant youth, generally in the midst of his sins. Life meant having a good time, a succeeding in sport, business, or love. Of course certain philosophic phrases like "continuous adjustment of the organism to the environment" and "the change of the organism from the simple to the complex" had stuck in his mind. But any real thought as to what these changes actually meant had been put aside quite properly, for the pastimes and ambitions of the student to whom study is an incidental price for a joyous hour at play.

But now, here in this room, beside the motionless body of his mother, he began to think. He had a good mind. His father had left him a rich legacy in his splendid body, but also something mental--latent to this hour--which produced an irritating impatience with the vague and the mysterious. He resented the intrusion of an insoluble element into his thinking. He was repelled by the discovery that his mother was abnormal, and from the point of view of this "ghost-room" his life at the university was becoming sweeter, more precious, more normal every hour.

Then, too, his afternoon of reading at the library had put into his mind several new and all-powerful conceptions which had germinated there like the seeds which the Indian "adept" plants in pots of sand, rising, burgeoning, blossoming on the instant. He knew the names of some of those men whose words might be counted on the side of his mother's endowment, for they were famous in physical or moral science, but he had not known before that they admitted any real belief in the kind of things which his mother professed to perform.

The conception that the human soul was (as the ancients believed) a ponderable, potent entity capable of separating itself from the body, came to him with overwhelming significance. "If mother still lives," he said to the nurse, "where is she? What form has she taken?"

Mrs. Post, in her own way, was capable of expressing herself. "She is not there. So much we know. Her body is here. It is like a cloak which she has thrown down. She herself is invisible, but she will return and take up her body, and then you will see it grow warm again and her eyes will light up like lamps, and she will rise and speak to you."

Of course he did not believe this. That her body was a cast-off garment was easy to comprehend, but that her spirit hovered near and would re-enter its former habitation was incredible.

All day he remained there, pacing to and fro, or sitting bent and somber over his problem. At noon he got a little lunch for himself and for the nurse. At two o'clock Mrs. Joyce returned to take him for a drive in her car. But this he again refused. Thereupon she went away, promising to look in again later in the evening.

At dusk he stole down into the street to mail a letter to Frensen, wherein he had written: "I am a good deal of a broken reed to-day, but I am going to fight. I wish you were here to talk things over with me. I'm surrounded by people who believe in the supernatural, and I need some one like yourself to brace me up."

This was true. He had been thrust into the midst of those who dwelt upon the amazing and the inexplicable in human life. The city, which had been to him so vast, so ugly, and so menacing in a material way, now became mysterious in an entirely different way. He had now a sense of its infinite drama, its network of purpose. There was some comfort, however, in the thought that amid these swarms of people his own activities were inconspicuous. To-morrow he and his mother would be forgotten in some new sensation.

The air was delicately fresh and wholesome, and the faces of the girls he met had singular power to comfort him. The life of the city, sweeping on multitudinously, refreshed him like the spray of a mighty torrent foaming amid rocks and shadowed by lofty canyon walls. He returned to his vigil stronger and better for this momentary communion with the crowd.

Mrs. Joyce came again at nine and insisted on remaining for the night. She had quite thrown off her own gloom, being perfectly certain in her own mind that Lucy Ollnee would return with a marvelous story of her wanderings "on the other plane."

She began to make plans for Victor, "subject," she said, "to revision by your 'guides.'"

"You've said that before," he retorted, "but I have no 'guides.' I don't believe in 'guides,' and I don't intend to be ruled by a lot of spooks."

"Be careful," she warned. "They know your every thought and they may resent your attitude."

"Well, let them! What do I care? Suppose, for argument's sake, that these Voices _do_ come from my father and my grandfather. What do they know of this great city? They were country folks. How can they direct me in what I am to do?"

"They know a great deal better than any of us."

"But how can they?"

"Because they are free from the limitations of the flesh."

"I don't see how that is going to help them. Their minds are just the same as they were, aren't they?"

"Indeed no! We grow inconceivably in knowledge and power to discern the moment we drop the flesh."

"I don't see why? If they are existing they're in a world so different from this that their experience here won't help them over there, and their experience over there is of no value to us here, and even if it were, they could not express it."

During their talk the night had deepened into darkness, and now, as they reached a pause in their discussion, a measured rapping could be heard, as though some one were striking with a small wand upon the brass rod of the bed.

Without knowing exactly why, a thrill very like fear passed over Victor, but Mrs. Joyce smiled. "They are here! Don't you hear them? They want to communicate with us."

The youth's high heart sank. His boyish dread of darkness began to people this death-chamber with monstrous shadows, with malignant forces. He was very grateful for the presence of this cheery and undismayed believer in the spirit world. Without her he would have been panic-stricken.

She rose to enter the bedroom, and he followed as far as the threshold.

It was very dark in there, and for a moment he could see nothing, could hear nothing. Then a faint whisper made itself distinctly audible just above his head. "_Victor, my boy_," it said.

He did not reply for a moment, and Mrs. Joyce eagerly called, "Did you hear that whisper, Victor?"

"Yes, I heard it," he replied.

"It was Lucy. Was it you, Lucy?" asked Mrs. Joyce.

"_Yes_," came the answer.

"Are you still out of the body, Lucy?"

"_Yes._"

"What shall we do?"

"_Wait._"

"Is there anything you want to say to Victor?"

"_No, not now. Father will speak._"

Silence again fell, and in this pause Mrs. Joyce took the chair which stood close beside the bed and motioned Victor to another near the foot. He sat with thrilling nerves, moved, trembling in spite of himself. The room was now quite dark, save for a faint patch of light on the ceiling and another on the carpet. His mother's body could not be distinguished from the covering of the bed.

As they waited, a singular, cold, and aromatic breeze began to blow over the bed from the dark corner, and then a small, brilliant, bluish flame arose near the sleeper's head, and, floating upward to the ceiling, vanished silently. It was like the flame of a candle twisted and leaping in a breeze.

"The spirit light!" exclaimed Mrs. Joyce, ecstatically. "Wasn't it beautiful? And see, there is a hand holding it!" she whispered, as another flame arose. "Can't you see it?"

"I see the light, but no hand," he replied.

"I can see more. I see the dim form of an old man outlined on the wall. It must be your grandsire, Nelson Blodgett. Am I right?" she asked, apparently of the dark.

Victor could now perceive a thin, bluish, wavering shape, like a cloud of cigar smoke, and from this a whisper seemed to come, strong and clear. "_Yes, I have come to speak to my grandson._"

"Don't you see him now?" asked Mrs. Joyce.

"I see nothing," he repeated; and as he spoke the misty shape vanished.

"But you heard the whisper, did you not?" Mrs. Joyce persisted.

He did not reply to her, but rose and bent above his mother. "Mother, did you speak?" he asked.

Mrs. Joyce excitedly restrained him. "Sit down! You must not touch her now."

"Why not?"

"Because it is very dangerous while the spirits are using her organism."

"I don't know what you mean!" he retorted, angrily. "I know that that voice sounded exactly like my mother's voice, and I want to know--"

"_Silence, foolish boy!_" was sternly breathed into his ear.

A cloud passed over the sky, and as the room became perfectly black a fluttering gray-blue cloud developed out of the darkest corner. It had the movement of steam-wreaths, with each convolution faintly edged with light. At one moment it resembled a handful of lines, fine as cobweb, looping and waving, as if blown upward from below, and the next moment it floated past like the folds of some exquisite drapery, lifting and falling in gentle undulations. At last it rose to the height of a man, drifted across the bed, and there hung poised over the head of the sleeper. As it swung there for an instant Victor could plainly detect a man's figure and face. His eyelids were closed and his features vague, but his chin and the spread of his shoulders were clearly defined. "Who are you?" Victor demanded, as if the apparition were an intruder.

The answer came in a flat, toneless voice, neither male nor female in quality. "_I am your father._"

Victor leaped up impulsively, his hair on end with fright, and the apparition vanished precisely as though an open door had been closed between it and the observer.

Again Mrs. Joyce clutched him. "Be careful! Sit down; don't stir!"

"Somebody is playing a joke on me," he insisted, hotly. "I'm going to strike a light."

Again a voice, this time almost full-toned, but with a metallic accompaniment, as though it had passed through a horn, poured into his ear, "_You shall bow to our wisdom._"

He braced himself to receive a blow, and answered through his set teeth: "I will not. I am master of myself, and I don't intend to take orders from you."

"_You are fighting great powers. You will fail_," the voice replied. "_Your heart is defiant. Expect punishment._"

Victor threw out his left hand in rage. It came into contact with something in the air, something light and hollow, which fell crashing to the floor, and a faint, gasping, indrawn breath from the sleeper on the bed followed it. For an instant all was silent; then Mrs. Joyce cried out:

"She has returned! Your mother has returned! Don't strike a light. Wait a moment." She moved forward a little. "May I touch her?" she asked.

Victor thought she was speaking to him, but before he could reply the invisible one whispered: "_Yes. Approach slowly._"

Mrs. Joyce laid her hand on the sleeper's brow. "She's warmer, Victor! She's breathing! She has certainly come back to us."

"_Approach_," whispered the voice in Victor's ear.

He moved forward now, in awe and wonder, and stood beside the bed. Slowly the room lightened, and out of the darkness the pallid face of his mother developed like the shadowy figures on a photographic plate. She was lying just as before, save for one hand, which Mrs. Joyce had taken. He laid his own vital, magnetic palm upon her arm, and finding it still cold and pulseless, called out:

"Mother, do you hear me? It is Victor."

Her fingers moved slightly in response, and this minute sign of life melted his heart. He fell upon his knees beside her bed, weeping with gratitude and joy.

VIII

VICTOR REPAIRS HIS MOTHER'S ALTAR

In consenting to the removal of his mother to Mrs. Joyce's home Victor had no intention of receding from his position. On the contrary, he considered it merely a temporary measure--for the night, or at most for a few days. He entered the car, thinking only of her wishes, and when he watched her sink to sleep in her spacious and luxurious bed under Mrs. Joyce's generous roof he couldn't but feel relieved at the thought that she was safe and on the way back to health. It was only when he left her and went to his own splendid chamber that his nervousness returned.

Every day, every hour plunged him deeper into debt to these strangers; and the fact that they were treating him like a young duke was all the more disturbing. He fancied Carew saying of him, as he had said of another, "Oh, he's merely one of Mrs. Joyce's pensioners," and the thought caused him to burn with impatience.

Nevertheless he slept, and in the morning he forgot his perplexities in the joy of taking his breakfast with Leonora. He admired her now so intensely that his own weakness, irresolution, and inactivity seemed supine. He was impatient to be doing something. His hands and his brain seemed empty. With no games, no tasks, he was disordered, lost.

They were alone at the table, these young people, and naturally fell to discussing Mrs. Ollnee's marvelous return to life. This led him to speak of his own plans. "My course at Winona fitted me for nothing," he acknowledged, bitterly. "I should have gone in for something like mechanical engineering, but I didn't. I had some fool notion of being a lawyer, and mother, I can see now, was all for having me a preacher of her faith. So here I am, helpless as a blind kitten."

It was proof of his essential charm that Leonora not only endured his renewed harping on this harsh string, but encouraged him to continue. "I know you chafe," she said. "I had that feeling till I began my course in cooking, and just to assure myself that I am not entirely useless and helpless in the world, I'm now going in for a training as a nurse."

"A nurse!" he exclaimed. "Oh, that explains something."

"What does it explain?"

"I wondered how you could be so calm and so efficient yesterday."

She seemed pleased. "Was I calm and efficient? Well, that's one result of my study. I can at least keep my head when anything goes wrong."

"I don't think I like your being a trained nurse," he said.

She smiled. "Don't you? Why not?"

"You're too fine for that," he answered, slowly. "You were made to command, not to serve. You should be the queen of some castle."

His frankly expressed admiration did not embarrass her. She accepted his words as if they came from a boy. "Castles are said to be draughty and dreadfully hard to keep in order, and besides, a queen's retainers are always getting sick, or killed, or something, so I think I'll keep on with my training as a nurse."

"But there must be a whole lot of unpleasant, nasty drudgery about it."

"Sickness isn't nice, I'll admit, but there is no place in the world where care and sympathy mean so much."

"You don't intend to go out and nurse among strangers?"

"I may."

"I bet you don't--not for long. Some fellow will come along and say 'No more of that,' and then you'll stay home."

"What sort of fiction do you read?" she asked, with the air of an older sister.

"The truthful sort. Your nursing is nothing but a fad."

"What a wise old gray-beard you are!"

He was nettled. "You need not take that superior tone with me. I'm two years older than you are."

"And ten years wiser, I suppose you would declare if you dared."

"I didn't say that."

"No; your tone was enough. I admit you know a great deal more about baseball than I do."

He winced. "That was a side-winder, all right. If I knew as much about the carpenter's trade or the sale of dry goods as I do about 'the national game' I'd stand a chance of earning my board."

"Why not join the league?" she suggested. "They pay good wages, I believe."

He took this seriously. "I thought of that, but even if I could get into a league team, which is hardly probable, it wouldn't lead anywhere. You see, I'm getting up an ambition. I want to be rich and powerful."

"Football players have always been my adoration," she responded, heartily. "You'd look splendid in harness. Why don't you go in for that?"

"You may laugh at me now," he replied, bluntly. "But give me ten years--"

"Mercy, I'll be too old to admire even a football captain by that time."

"You'll be only thirty-one."

She sobered a little. "Men have the advantage. You will be young at thirty-three, and I'll be--well, a matron. No, I'm afraid I can't wait that long. I must find my admirable short-stop or half-back, whichever he is to be, long before that."