X
A VISIT TO HAZEL GROVE
Bartol, attended by porters and greeted by conductors and brakemen, led the way to the parlor-car in a stern abstraction, which was his habit. Victor studied him closely and with growing admiration. He was not tall, but his head was nobly formed and his broad mask of face lion-like in its somber dreaming. In repose it was sad, almost bitter, and in profile clear-cut and resolute. His dress was singularly tasteful and orderly, with nothing of the careless celebrity in its color or cut, and yet no one would accuse him of being the dandy. He was naturally of this method, and gave little direct thought to toilet or dress.
Mrs. Ollnee looked upon him as her rescuer, one who had snatched her from loathsome captivity; but his manner did not invite repeated and profuse thanks. With a few words of polite explanation, he took a seat behind his wards, unfolded his newspaper, and forgot them till the conductor came through the car; then he remembered them and paid their fares.
Mrs. Ollnee was not merely awed by his powerful visage and searching eyes; she was profoundly stirred by some psychic influence which emanated from him. She whispered to Victor: "He is very sad. He is all alone. He has lost his wife and both his children. He has no hope, and often feels like leaving this life."
Victor did not take this communication as a "psychometric reading," for he had been able to discern almost as much with his own eyes, and, besides, all of its definite information Mrs. Joyce might have furnished; but his mother added something that startled him. She said: "The Voices say, 'Obey this man; study him. He will raise you high!'"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I don't know," she replied. "That is the way I hear it. I hear other Voices – they say to me, 'Comfort him.'"
Victor was not in a mood for "voices," and cut her short by asking in detail about her arrest. "Who came for you? A policeman?"
"Yes, but not in uniform. They were very nice about it. At first I was terribly frightened. I was afraid I should have to go in the patrol-wagon, but we were allowed to ride in the car, the policeman sitting with the driver – "
Victor groaned. "Oh, mother, why did you give out business advice!"
"I gave what was given to me," she responded.
"Think of the disgrace of being in that court-room!"
"I didn't mind the disgrace," she replied; "but it swarmed with horrible spirits. Each one of those poor criminals had a cloud of other base, distorted, half-formed creatures hovering about him. It was like being in a cage with a host of obscene bats fluttering about." She shuddered. "It was horrible! It was a sweet relief when you and Leo came, for a new and happy band came with you. You helped my band drive away the cloud of low beings that oppressed me; and now there is something calming and serenely helpful all about me. It comes from Mr. Bartol. I am no longer afraid; I am perfectly serene."
Victor made no attempt at elucidating her exact meaning; there was something depressing to him in this continued dependence upon spirit guidance, a guidance that had led them into so much trouble and discredit. He sat by the window, watching the faintly-outlined moonlit landscape flowing past, feeling himself to be a very small insect riding on the chariot of the king of tempests, with no power to check the speed or direct the course of his inflexible driver. His own future was but a flutter of vague shadows, his boyhood a serene, sun-warm meadow, now swiftly receding into the darkness of night. Would anything so beautiful ever come again?
His mother, sitting as if entranced, was looking down at her folded hands, her brow unlined; but a plaintive droop in the lines of her sensitive mouth told that she was wearied and secretly disheartened.
"Poor little mother!" he said, laying a hand on her arm, "you are tired."
The tears came to her eyes, but she smiled back radiantly. "I don't care what comes, if only you believe in me," she said, simply; and he took her hand in both of his and pressed it like a lover.
At last Mr. Bartol folded his paper and put away his glasses. "Well, we are nearing Hazel Grove," he announced, smilingly. "It's only a little village, a meeting of cross-roads, but I think you'll like the country; it's the fine old rolling prairie of which you've heard."
The moon was riding high as they alighted from the coach upon the platform of a low, wooden station in the midst of green fields. A clump of trees, and the lights in dimly discerned houses, gave only a faint suggestion of a town; but an open carriage was waiting for them, and entering this, they were driven away into the most delicious and fragrant silence.
Instantly the last trace of Victor's anger and unrest fell away from him. Of this simple quality had been the scenes of his life at school. In such peace and serenity his earlier years had been spent; indeed, all his life, save for the few tumultuous days in the city – and he was immediately restored and comforted by the sounds, sights, and odors of the superb spring night.
"Isn't it glorious!" he cried. "I feel as if I were reaching God's country again."
The swiftly stepping horses whirled them up the street through a bunch of squat buildings and out along a gently rising lane to the south. Ten minutes later the driver turned into a large, tree-shaded drive, and over a curving graveled drive approached a spreading white house, whose porticos shone pleasantly in the moonlight. A row of lighted windows glowed with hospitable intent, and tall vases of flowers showed dimly.
"Here we are!" called Mr. Bartol, with genial cordiality. "Welcome to Hazeldean."
To dismount before this wide porch in the midst of the small innumerable voices of the night was like living out some delicious romance. To come to it from the reek and threat of the court-room made its serene expanse a heavenly refuge, and the beleaguered mother paused for a moment at the door to look back upon the lawn, where opulent elms and maples dreamed in the odorless gloom. "I have never seen anything so peaceful," she breathed. "Only heavenly souls inhabit here."
The interior was equally restful and reassuring. Large rooms with simple and substantial furnishings led away from a short entrance hall. The ceilings were low and dark, and the lamps shaded. Books were everywhere to be seen, many of them piled carelessly convenient to lights and chairs, as if it were both library and living-room.
The first word Victor spoke related to the books, and Mr. Bartol replied with a smile.
"They are not especially well chosen. I fear you'll find them a mixed lot. I read nothing but law in the city – here I indulge my fancy. You'll wonder what my principle of selection is, and, if you ask me, I must answer – I haven't any. I buy whatever commends itself to me at the moment. One thing leads to another – romance to history, history to poetry, poetry to the drama, and so on." He greeted a very tidy maid who entered the room. "Good-evening, Marie. This is Mrs. Ollnee, and this is her son, Mr. Victor Ollnee. Please see that they are made comfortable." Then again to his guests. "You must be tired."
"I am so, Mr. Bartol," replied Mrs. Ollnee, "and if you'll pardon me I'll go to my room."
"Certainly – and you may go, too, if you feel like it," he said to Victor.
"I am not sleepy," replied Victor.
"Very well," replied his host. "Be seated and we'll discuss the situation for a few minutes."
He led the way to a corner where two wide windows opening on the lawn made delicious mingling of night air and study light, and offering his guest a cigar, took a seat, saying: "I run out here whenever the city becomes a burden. I find I need just such a corrective to the intense life of the city. It is my rule to give no thought to legal troubles while I am here; hence the absence of codes and all legal literature. You are a college man, Mrs. Joyce tells me."
"I was at Winona last Saturday, and expected to stay there till June, when I was due to graduate. Then the devil broke loose, and here I am. When will my mother's case come up?"
"Not for some weeks, I fear. If you wish to return to your studies we can arrange that."
"No. I'm done with school. I'm only worried about my mother. What do you think of her case, Mr. Bartol?"
"I'm not informed sufficiently to say," he replied, slowly. "The whole subject of hypnotic control seems to be involved. I must know more of your mother before I can even hazard an opinion. The theories of suggestion are all rather vague to me. I have only what might be called a newspaper knowledge of them; but I have some information as to your mother's profession I gained from my friend Mrs. Joyce, so that I am not entirely uninformed. Besides, it is a lawyer's business to know everything, and I shall at once proceed to bore into the subject."
Mrs. Ollnee returning brought him to his feet in graceful acknowledgment of her sex, and placing a chair for her, he said, "I hope you don't mind tobacco."
"Not at all," she replied, quite as graciously.
He placed a chair for her so that the light fell upon her face, and she knew that he intended to study her as if she were a page of strange text.
"I'm glad you like it here," he said, in answer to her repeated admiration of his home, "for I suspect you'll have to stay here for the present. The city is passing through one of those moral paroxysms which come once in a year or two. Last year it was the social evil; just now it concerns itself with what the reformers are pleased to call 'the occult fakers.' The feeling of a jury would be against you at present, and as I have promised Mrs. Joyce to take charge of your defense, I think it well for you to go into retirement here while I take time to inform myself of the case."
"I do not like to trouble you."
"It is no trouble, my dear madam. Here is this big home, empty and completely manned. A couple of guests, especially a hearty young man, will be a godsend to my cook. She complains of not having men to feed. Don't let any question of expense to me trouble you."
"Thank you most deeply."
"Don't thank me; thank Louise Joyce, who is both client and friend, and the one to whom I owe this pleasure." He bowed. "I never before had the opportunity of entertaining a 'psychic,' and I welcome the opportunity."
She did not quite know how to take him, and neither did Victor; and perceiving that doubt, Bartol added: "I am quite sincere in all this. I hear a good deal, obscurely, of this curious phase of human life, but never before have I been confronted by one who claims the power of divination."
"Pardon me, sir, I do not claim such power."
"Do you not! I thought that was precisely your claim."
"No, sir, I am a medium. I report what is given to me. I divine nothing of myself. I am an instrument through which those whom men call 'the dead' speak."
"I see," he mused. "I will not deceive you," he began again, very gravely. "This charge against you is likely to prove serious, and you must be quite frank with me. I may require a test of your powers."
"I am at your service, sir. Make any test of me you please – this moment if you like."
"I will not require anything of you to-night. Writers tell me that 'mediums' are a dark, elusive, and uncanny set, Mrs. Ollnee, and I must confess that you upset my preconceptions."
"There are all kinds of mediums, as there are all kinds of lawyers, Mr. Bartol. I am human, like the others."
"If you will permit me, I will take up your defense along the lines of hypnotic control on the part of this man Pettus."
"I cannot presume to advise you, sir, but you must know that to me these Voices come from the spirit world. I am the transmitter merely – for instance, at this moment I hear a Voice and I see behind you the form of a lady, a lovely young woman – "
"Mother!" called Victor, warningly. "Don't start in on that!"
"Proceed," said Bartol; "I am interested."
The psychic, leaning forward slightly, fixed her wide, deep-blue eyes upon him. "The maid conducted me to the room which had been your wife's, but I could not stay there. This lady who stands beside you took me by the hand and led me away to another room. She is nodding at me now."
"Do you mean the maid led you from the room?"
"No, I mean the spirit now standing behind you led me here. She says her name is Margaret Bartol. She said: 'Comfort my dear husband. Restore his faith.' She is smiling at me. She wants me to go on."
Bartol's face remained inscrutably calm. "Where does the form seem to be?"
"At your right shoulder. She says, 'Tell him Walter and Hattie are both with me.' She listened a moment. She says, 'Tell him Walter's mind is perfectly clear now.'"
Victor thought he saw the lawyer start in surprise, but his voice was cold as he said, "Go on."
"She says: 'Tell him the way is open. I am here. Ask him to speak to me.'"
Bartol then spoke, but his tone plainly showed that he was testing his client's hallucination and not addressing himself to the imaginary ghost. "Are you there, Margaret?"
"Yes," came the answer, clearly though faintly.
The renowned lawyer gazed at the medium with eyes that burned deep, and presently he asked, "What have you to say to me?"
Again came the clear, silvery whisper: "Much. Trust the medium. She will comfort you."
Victor thrilled to the importance of this moment, and much as he feared for his mother's success, he could not but admire the courage which blazed in her steady eyes. She was no longer afraid of this mighty man of the law, to whom heaven and hell were obsolete words. She was panoplied with the magic and mystery of death, and waited calmly for him to continue.
At last he said: "Go on. I am listening."
Again through the flower-scented, silent room the sibilant voice stole its way. "Father."
"Who is speaking?"
"Margaret."
"Margaret? What Margaret?"
"Your 'rascal' Peggy."
Bartol certainly started at this reply, which conveyed an expression of mirth, but his questions continued formal.
"What is your will with me?"
"Mamma is here – and Walter."
"Can they speak?"
"They will try."
Again silence fell upon the room – a silence so profound that every insect's stir was a rude interruption. At length another whisper, clearer, louder, made itself heard: "Alexander, be happy. I live."
"Who are you?"
"Your wife."
"You say so. Can you prove your identity?"
The whisper grew fainter. "I will try. It is hard. Good-by."
Bartol raised his hand to his head with a gesture of surprise. "I thought I felt a touch on my hair."
"The lady touched you as she passed away," Mrs. Ollnee explained. "She has gone. They are all gone now."
"I am sorry," he said, in polite disappointment. "I wanted to pursue the interrogation. Is this the usual method of your communications?"
"This is one way. They write sometimes, and sometimes they speak through a megaphone; sometimes they materialize a face or a hand."
He remained in profound thought for a few moments, then starting up, spoke with decision: "You are tired. Go to bed. We'll have plenty of time to take up these matters to-morrow. Please feel at home here and stay as long as you wish."
A little later he took Victor to his room, and as they stood there he remarked, "Of course, all this may be and probably is mind-reading and ventriloquism – subconscious, of course."
"But the writing," said Victor. "You must see that. That is the weirdest thing she does. It is baffling."
"My boy, the whole universe is baffling to me," his host replied, and into his voice came that tone of tragic weariness which affected the youth like a strain of solemn music. "The older I grow the more senseless, hopelessly senseless, human life appears; but I must not say such things to you. Good-night."
"Good-night," responded Victor, with swelling throat. "We owe you a great deal."
"Don't speak of it!" the lawyer commanded, and closed the door behind him.
Victor dropped into a chair. What a day this had been! Within twenty-four hours he had seen and loved the dream-face of Altair and had been blown upon by the winds from the vast chill and empty regions of space. He had resented Leo's voice in the night, but had returned to her in the light of the morning. On the dreamy lagoon he had been her lover again, pulling at the oar with savage joy, and on the grass in the sunlight he had been the man unafraid and victorious. Then came the hurried return, the visit to the court, the rescue of his mother – and here now he lay in the charity bed of his mother's lawyer! "Truly I am being hurried," he said; and recalling Miss Aiken's final menacing remark, he added: "And if that girl and her brother can do it mother will be sent to prison." Much as he feared these accusing witnesses, he acknowledged a kind of fierce beauty in Florence Aiken's face.
As he lay thus, thinking deeply yet drowsily upon his problems, he heard a faint ticking sound beneath his head. It was too regular and persistent to be a chance creaking of the cloth, and he rose and shook the pillow to dislodge the insect which he imagined might have flown in at the window.
The ticking continued. "I wonder if that is a fly?"
The ticking seemed to reply, "No," by means of one decided rap. To test it, he asked, "Are you a spirit?"
The tick counted one, two, three – "Yes."
"Some one to speak to me?"
Tick, tick, tick– "Yes."
The answer was so plainly intelligent that the boy, silent with amazement, not unmixed with fear, lay for a few minutes in puzzled inaction. At length he asked, "Who is it – Father?"
"Tick" – No.
"Grandfather?"
"No."
He hesitated before asking the next question. "Is it Altair?"
"No."
He thought again. "Is it Walter Bartol?"
The answer was joyously instant. "Yes, yes, yes!"
"Do you wish to speak to me?"
"Yes."
"About your father?"
"Yes."
"Through my mother?"
Now came one of those baffling changes. The answer was faintly slow, "Tick, tick," betraying uncertainty – and succeeding queries elicited no response.
Victor, excited and eager, would have gone to his mother for aid had he known where to find her room. The mood for marvels was upon him now, and Altair and Margaret, and all the rest of the impalpable throng, seemed waiting in the dusk and silence to communicate with him. Hopelessly wide awake, he lay, while the big clock on the landing rang its little chime upon the quarter hours, but no further sign was given him of the presence of his intangible visitor; and at last the experience of the day became as unsubstantial as his dreams.
He was awakened by the cackling of fowls and the bleating of calves and lambs. The sun was shining through the leafy top of a tree which lay almost against his window, and happy shadows were dancing like fairies on the coverlet of his bed.
"It sounds like a real farm!" he drowsily murmured, filled with the peace of those cries, which typify the most ancient and unchanging parts of the cottager's life.
He had known only the poetic side of farm life. He had seen it, heard it, tasted it only as the lad out for a holiday, and it all seemed serene and joyous to him. To his mind the luxury of quietly dozing to the music of a barn-yard was the natural habit of the farmer. He did not attempt to rise till he heard the voice of his host from the lawn beneath his window.
A half an hour later he found Bartol in the barn-yard surveying a span of colts which his farmer was leading back and forth before him. They were lanky, thin-necked creatures, but Victor knew enough of horses to perceive in them signs of a famous breed of trotters.
"You are a real farmer," he said, as he came up to his host.
Bartol seemed pleased. "I made it pay five per cent. last year," he responded, with pride. "Of course that means counting in my time as a farmer, and not as a lawyer. How did you sleep?"
"Pretty well – when I got at it. I was a little excited and didn't go off as I usually do when I hit the pillow."
"No wonder! I had a restless night myself." He nodded to the hostler. "That will do," and turned away. "I gave a great deal of thought to your mother's case. The fact seems to be that the human organism is a great deal more complicated than we're permitted ourselves to admit, and the tendency of the ordinary man is to make the habitual commonplace, no matter how profoundly mysterious it may be at the outset. Of course at bottom we know very little of the most familiar phenomenon. Why does fire burn and water run? No one really knows."
They were facing the drive, which curved like a lilac ribbon through the green of the lawn, and the estate to Victor's eyes had all the charm of a park combined with the suggestive music of a farmstead.
"It's beautiful here!" he exclaimed.
"I'm glad you like it, and I hope you and your mother will stay till we have put you both straight with the world."
"If I could only do something to pay my freight, Mr. Bartol. I feel like a beggar and a fool to be so helpless. I was not expecting to be kicked out of college, and I'm pretty well rattled, I'll confess."
"You keep your poise notably," the lawyer replied, with kindly glance. "To be so suddenly introduced to the mystery and the chicanery of the world would bewilder an older and less emotional man."
They breakfasted in a big room filled with the sunlight. Through the open windows the scent of snowy flowers drifted, and the food and service were of a sort that Victor had never seen. A big grape-fruit, filled with sugar and berries; corn-cakes, crisp and golden; bacon delicately broiled, together with eggs (baked in little earthen cups), and last of all, coffee of such fragrance that it seemed to vie with the odor of the flowers without. Each delicious dish was served deftly, quietly, by a sweet-faced maid, who seemed to feel a filial interest in her master.
The service was a revelation of the perfection to which country life can be brought by one who has both wealth and culture; and Victor wondered that any one could be sad amid such radiant surroundings.
"I can't see why you ever return to the city," he said, with conviction.
Bartol smiled. "That's the perversity of our human nature. If I were forced to live here all the time the farm might pall upon me, just as if all seasons were spring. As it is, I come back to it from the turmoil of the town with never-cloying appetite. Per contra, these maids and my farm-hands find a visit to the city their keenest delight. To them the parks and the artificial ponds are more beautiful than anything in nature." His tone changed. "In truth, I live on and do my work more from force of habit than from zest. So far as I can, I get back to the simple animal existence, where sun and air and food are the never-failing pleasures. I try to forget that I am a pursuer of criminals. I return to my work in the city, as I say, because it helps to keep my appetite for the rural things. I can't afford to let silence and green trees pall upon me. If I were a little more of a believer," he smiled, "I would say that you and your mother had been sent to me, for of late I have been in a deeper slough of despair than at any time since the death of my wife. I am curious to see how all this is going to affect your mother. She may find it very lonely here."
"Oh, I'm sure she will not."
"Well, now, I must be off. But before I go I will show you the catalogues of my library; and perhaps I can bring home some books which will bear on these occult subjects. I have given orders that no information as to you shall go off the place; and your mother is safe here. You may read, or hoe in the garden, or ride a horse."
"I wish I might go to the city with you."
"My judgment is against it. Stay here for a few days till we see which way the wind is blowing." And with a cheery wave of his hand he drove away, leaving Victor on the porch with the feeling of being marooned on an island – a peaceful and beautiful island, but an island nevertheless.