The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance Part 23

"I don't know how,"--replied Harland,--"A drop or two of harmless-looking fluid worked wonders for me--and in a few moments I felt almost well. He tells me my illness is not incurable."

A curious expression difficult to define flitted over Brayle's face.

"You had better take care," he said, curtly--"Invalids should never try experiments. I'm surprised that a man in your condition should take any drug from the hand of a stranger."

"Most dangerous!" interpolated Catherine, feebly--"How could you, father?"

"Well, Santoris isn't quite a stranger,"--said Mr. Harland--"After all, I knew him at college--"

"You think you knew him,"--put in Brayle--"He may not be the same man."

"He is the same man,"--answered Mr. Harland, rather testily--"There are no two of his kind in the world."

Brayle lifted his eyebrows with a mildly affected air of surprise.

"I thought you had your doubts--"

"Of course!--I had and have my doubts concerning everybody and everything"--said Mr. Harland, "And I suppose I shall have them to the end of my days. I have sometimes doubted even your good intentions towards me."

A dark flush overspread Brayle's face suddenly, and as suddenly paled.

He laughed a little forcedly.

"I hardly think you have any reason to do so," he said.

Mr. Harland did not answer, but turning round, addressed me.

"You enjoyed yourself at Loch Coruisk, didn't you?"

"Indeed I did!" I replied, with emphasis--"It was a lovely scene!--never to be forgotten."

"You and Mr. Santoris would be sure to get on well together," said Catherine, rather crossly--"'Birds of a feather,' you know!"

I smiled. I was too much taken up with my own thoughts to pay attention to her evident ill-humour. I was aware that Dr. Brayle watched me furtively, and with a suspicious air, and there was a curious feeling of constraint in the atmosphere that made me feel I had somehow displeased my hostess, but the matter seemed to me too trifling to consider, and as soon as the conversation became general I took the opportunity to slip away and get down to my cabin, where I locked the door and gave myself up to the freedom of my own meditations. They were at first bewildered and chaotic--but gradually my mind smoothed itself out like the sea I had looked upon in my vision,--and I began to arrange and connect the various incidents of my strange experience in a more or less coherent form. According to psychic consciousness I knew what they all meant,--but according to merely material and earthly reasoning they were utterly incomprehensible. If I listened to the explanation offered by my inner self, it was this:--That Rafel Santoris and I had known each other for ages,--longer than we were permitted to remember,--that the brain-pictures, or rather soul-pictures, presented to me were only a few selected out of thousands which equally concerned us, and which were stored up among eternal records,--and that these few were only recalled to remind me of circ.u.mstances which I might erroneously think were all entirely forgotten. If, on the other hand, I preferred to accept what would be called a reasonable and practical solution of the enigma, I would say:--That, being imaginative and sensitive, I had been easily hypnotised by a stronger will than my own, and that for his amus.e.m.e.nt, or because he had seen in me the possibility of a 'test case,' Santoris had tried his power upon me and forced me to see whatever he chose to conjure up in order to bewilder and perplex me. But if this were so, what could be his object? If I were indeed an utter stranger to him, why should he take this trouble?

I found myself hara.s.sed by anxiety and dragged between two opposing influences--one which impelled me to yield myself to the deep sense of exquisite happiness, peace and consolation that swept over my spirit like the touch of a veritable benediction from heaven,--the other which pushed me back against a hard wall of impregnable fact and bade me suspect my dawning joy as though it were a foe.

That night we were a curious party at dinner. Never were five human beings more oddly brought into contact and conversation with each other. We were absolutely opposed at all points; in thought, in feeling and in sentiment, I could not help remembering the wonderful network of s.h.i.+ning lines I had seen in that first dream of mine,--lines which were apparently mathematically designed to meet in reciprocal unity. The lines on this occasion between us five human beings were an almost visible tangle. I found my best refuge in silence,--and I listened in vague wonderment to the flow of senseless small talk poured out by Dr.

Brayle, apparently for the amus.e.m.e.nt of Catherine, who on her part seemed suddenly possessed by a spirit of wilfulness and enforced gaiety which moved her to utter a great many foolish things, things which she evidently imagined were clever. There is nothing perhaps more embarra.s.sing than to hear a woman of mature years giving herself away by the childish vapidness of her talk, and exhibiting not only a lack of mental poise, but also utter tactlessness. However, Catherine rattled on, and Dr. Brayle rattled with her,--Mr. Harland threw in occasional monosyllables, but for the most part was evidently caught in a kind of dusty spider's web of thought, and I spoke not at all unless spoken to. Presently I met Catherine's eyes fixed upon me with a sort of round, half-malicious curiosity.

"I think your day's outing has done you good," she said--"You look wonderfully well!"

"I AM well!" I answered her--"I have been well all the time."

"Yes, but you haven't looked as you look to-night," she said--"You have quite a transformed air!"

"Transformed?"--I echoed, smiling--"In what way?"

Mr. Harland turned and surveyed me critically.

"Upon my word, I think Catherine is right!" he said--"There is something different about you, though I cannot explain what it is!"

I felt the colour rising hotly to my face, but I endeavoured to appear unconcerned.

"You look," said Dr. Brayle, with a quick glance from his narrowly set eyes--"as if you had been through a happy experience."

"Perhaps I have!" I answered quietly--"It has certainly been a very happy day!" "What is your opinion of Santoris?" asked Mr. Harland, suddenly--"You've spent a couple of hours alone in his company,--you must have formed some idea."

I replied at once, without taking thought.

"I think him quite an exceptional man," I said--"Good and great-hearted,--and I fancy he must have gone through much difficult experience to make him what he is."

"I entirely disagree with you,"--said Dr. Brayle, quickly--"I've taken his measure, and I think it's a fairly correct one. I believe him to be a very clever and subtle charlatan, who affects a certain profound mysticism in order to give himself undue importance--"

There was a sudden clash. Mr. Harland had brought his clenched fist down upon the table with a force that made the gla.s.ses ring.

"I won't have that, Brayle!" he said, sharply--"I tell you I won't have it! Santoris is no charlatan--never was!--he won his honours at Oxford like a man--his conduct all the time I ever knew him was perfectly open and blameless--he did no mean tricks, and pandered to nothing base--and if some of us fellows were frightened of him (as we were) it was because he did everything better than we could do it, and was superior to us all. That's the truth!--and there's no getting over it. Nothing gives small minds a better handle for hatred than superiority--especially when that superiority is never a.s.serted, but only felt."

"You surprise me,"--murmured Brayle, half apologetically--"I thought--"

"Never mind what you thought!" said Mr. Harland, with a sudden ugly irritation of manner that sometimes disfigured him--"Your thoughts are not of the least importance!"

Dr. Brayle flushed angrily and Catherine looked surprised and visibly indignant.

"Father! How can you be so rude!"

"Am I rude?" And Mr. Harland shrugged his shoulders indifferently--"Well! I may be--but I never take a man's hospitality and permit myself to listen to abuse of him afterwards."

"I a.s.sure you--" began Dr. Brayle, almost humbly.

"There, there! If I spoke hastily, I apologise. But Santoris is too straightforward a man to be suspected of any dishonesty or chicanery--and certainly no one on board this vessel shall treat his name with anything but respect." Here he turned to me--"Will you come on deck for a little while before bedtime, or would you rather rest?"

I saw that he wished to speak to me, and willingly agreed to accompany him. Dinner being well over, we left the saloon, and were soon pacing the deck together under the light of a brilliant moon. Instinctively we both looked towards the 'Dream' yacht,--there was no illumination about her this evening save the usual lamp hung in the rigging and the tiny gleams of radiance through her port-holes,--and her graceful masts and spars were like fine black pencillings seen against the bare slope of a mountain made almost silver to the summit by the singularly searching clearness of the moonbeams. My host paused in his walk beside me to light a cigar.

"I'm sure you are convinced that Santoris is honest," he said--"Are you not?"

"In what way should I doubt him?"--I replied, evasively--"I scarcely know him!"

Hardly had I said this when a sudden self-reproach stung me. How dare I say that I scarcely knew one who had been known to me for ages? I leaned against the deck rail looking up at the violet sky, my heart beating quickly. My companion was still busy lighting his cigar, but when this was done to his satisfaction he resumed.

"True! You scarcely know him, but you are quick to form opinions, and your instincts are often, though perhaps not always, correct. At any rate, you have no distrust of him? You like him?"

"Yes,"--I answered, slowly--"I--I like him--very much."

And the violet sky, with its round white moon, seemed to swing in a circle about me as I spoke--knowing that the true answer of my heart was love, not liking!--that love was the magnet drawing me irresistibly, despite my own endeavour, to something I could neither understand nor imagine.

"I'm glad of that," said Mr. Harland--"It would have worried me a little if you had taken a prejudice or felt any antipathy towards him.

I can see that Brayle hates him and has imbued Catherine with something of his own dislike."

I was silent.