Across the Stream

Archie sat for a few minutes on the hall-table, instead of going upstairs, for he meant, with a certain object in view, to go back to his father's room, on some trivial errand, and, as he waited, the big clock ticked him back into boyhood. There was the fire-place by which Abracadabra sat on the last of her appearances; there the screen behind which, as he had subsequently ascertained, William had hidden with a trumpet and the servants' dinner-bell, there the side-door into the gardens through which, pleasingly excited, he had hurried with the box for coffin of the dead bird which the cat had killed… A hundred memories crowded about him, and not one, save where Blessington was concerned, held any romance or tenderness for him. They were as meaningless as pictures taken out from the empty house and leaning against the railings in the street: in the house itself, his bitter, lonely spirit, there was nothing left but the places where once they hung.

He went back to his father's room, crossing the hall with light foot, and turning the handle of the door with swiftness and silence. There was his father by the table, filling his glass again. It was just that which Archie wished to verify.

"I only came back for a book," he said. "Good-night again."

CHAPTER X

Archie went straight up to his room: his brimming glass was difficult to carry quite steadily, and he reduced its contents half-way upstairs. William had orders always to put whisky and soda in his room in case he wanted to sit up and write; but sometimes William forgot, or, at any rate, did not obey, and Archie wondered if the man did it on purpose, with perhaps the same excellent intentions as those which flowered so decorously in his father's mind. But to-night all was as it should be, and, as it was very hot, Archie undressed and put on his pyjamas before settling down to work. Writing, the absorbing joy of creation, the delicate etching of sentences that bit into the plate, still possessed him when he had taken the requisite evening dose.

But to-night, though he had got his material ready, his hand could not accomplish the fashioning of it, and he got up and walked with bare feet, once or twice up and down the room, wondering why he could not link up his thoughts to his power of expression. He was nearly at the end of one of those sea-stories, which he had begun at Silorno, and he knew exactly what he meant to say. The brain-centre that dictated was charged, and sufficiently stimulated, and yet he could get nothing on to paper that was worth putting there, though he was ready to write, and wanted to write.

He had not drunk too much and made himself fuddled; he had not drunk too little, and left the bitter weeds of daily consciousness uncovered, like rocks at low tide.

He sat and thought, wrote and impatiently erased again, and at last put down his pen. Perhaps even this, the only living interest that just now existed for him, was being taken from him also, and was following down the channel which had emptied itself into Helena. She had taken from him everything else that meant life: it would be like her consistency to take that also, and leave him nude and empty. It was not that she wanted the gift which she – in his vague, excited thought – seemed to be robbing him of; it was only that she and the memory of how she had treated him was a vampire to his blood. She had sucked him empty, drained him dry of happiness, of joy of life, of human interests. More than that, his love, the best thing which he had to give her, and for which she had no use, she now seemed to have treated with some devilish alchemy, so that it turned bitter; hate, like some oozy scum, rose from the depths of it, and covered its crystal with poisonous growth.

This would never do; the rocks at low tide had become uncovered, and, while he slipped and stumbled among them, bruising himself at every step with the thought of Helena, he could never get that abstraction and detachment which he knew were the necessary conditions of his writing. And all power of achieving that seemed taken from him; he felt himself an impotent atom, unable to order the workings of his own brain, defenceless against any thoughts that might assault him.

The house was perfectly quiet; the stillness of the midsummer night had flowed into its open windows and drowned it deep in that profound tranquillity that was yet tense with the energy of the spinning world and the far-flung orbits of the myriad stars. The moon had long since sunk, but the galaxy of uncounted worlds flared on their courses, driven onwards by the inexhaustible eternity of creative forces that ran through the stars, even as it ran through the humblest herb that put forth its unnoticed blossom on the wayside. But Archie, in this bitter stagnation that paralysed him, seemed to himself to have no part in life: all that current of energy that bubbled through the world, with its impulses of good and evil, love and hate, seemed to have been cut off from him. He neither loved nor hated any more. There was the nightmare of this death in life: at any price, and under whatever inspiration, he longed to be in the current again. Tonight even drink had failed him.

He had walked across to the window, and came back to his chair at the table where was spread the sheet of paper covered with the scrawlings and erasures which were all the last two hours had to show. And at this precise moment, as he looked at them in a dull despair, and idea flashed across the blank field of his brain. Perhaps there might still be some spark of life, of individuality latent without him, which he could reach by that surrender of his conscious self which had been familiar to him in his childhood. There, just in front of him, below his shaded lamp, lay his cigarette-case, with one bright point of light on it, and, lying back in his chair with half-closed eyes he gazed at this in order to produce that hypnotic condition in which the subconscious self comes to the surface.

Almost at once the mysterious spell began to act. Across the field of his vision there began to pass waves of light and shadow, moving upwards with a regular motion, while through them like a buoy moored in a rough sea there remained steadfast that bright speck on his cigarette-case, now for a moment submerged in a wave of shadow, but appearing again. Upwards and upwards moved the waves, and then it seemed that it was they which were stationary, while he himself was sinking down through them, as through crystal-clear waters, looking up at the sunny surface which rose ever higher and more remote above him. As he sank into this dim, delicious world, the sensation of being alive again and in touch with living intelligences grew momently more vivid. It was the very seat and hearth of life that in him before had been cold and numbed; now, though surface perceptions were gradually withdrawn, his essential being tingled with the rapture of returning vitality.

Once or twice during this descent his ears, through which there poured the roar of rushing waters, had been startled as by some surface perception of the sound of loud rappings somewhere in the room; but they had not disturbed his steadfast gaze at the point of light; and once again he had heard a voice faintly familiar near him that said "I am coming." But he was far too intent on his progress to let the interruption break in upon it, and indeed those sounds seemed to be less an interruption than a confirmation to his surface-senses of what was happening to him… And then he knew, as he sank down to rest at last on the bottom of that unsounded sea, who it was who was filling him with the sense of life again, for, echoing not only in his ears, but somewhere in his soul, he heard the same voice, which he now clearly recognized, and which had spoken to him years ago at Grives, say, "Archie, I am here."

* * * * *

Archie was conscious on two separate planes of consciousness. All round him and high above him were the gleams and aqueous shadows of the subconscious world, but here and there those seemed to be pierced, and through them, as through rents of mist, he had glimpses of the material plane. He could see, for instance, part of the sheet of paper in front of him, and he could see the far corner of his table. And by it, very faint and unfocusable, part of it in the mists of the subconscious world, part in the harder outlines of reality, there was standing the figure of a young man. How it was dressed he could not see, or did not care to notice, but when for a moment the mist cleared off its face, he recognized the strong likeness to himself, even as he had recognized the likeness to himself in the photograph which he had found in the cache. But here was no photograph: instead, mysteriously translated into outlines and features visible to mortal eyes, was the semblance of Martin himself. It wavered and flickered, like the blown flame of a candle, but it was there, standing at the corner of his table. And, as it spoke, he saw the mouth move and the throat throb.

"I have managed to come back, Archie," he said, "because you were in such trouble, and because you didn't understand the warning you had. Do you understand now?"

The whole explanation flashed on him.

"The dream?" he said. "The white statue of Helena and the worms?"

"Surely. It was odd you didn't understand. You only loved the white statue. You loathed what came out of it, just as you loathe what has come out of the white statue since."

Archie leaned forward, peering into the mist that at this moment quite enveloped the figure.

"But I love her, too, Martin," he cried. "I long for her."

Out of the mist came the unseen voice:

"You long for what she looks like," it said. "You hate what she is."

"That may be. But the whole thing makes me utterly miserable."

Table and figure, the white paper and the tray with syphon and whisky became suddenly visible.

"You must learn not to be miserable," said that compassionate mouth. "Be very patient, Archie. You think you are stumbling through absolute darkness, but in reality, you are flooded with light. I can't see the darkness which you feel is so impenetrable: I only see you walking towards the ineffable radiance, always moving towards it. Occupy yourself, and try to grow indifferent to that part of Helena which you hate. Cling to love always. Just cling to love. Never hate; some time you may get to love what you hated."

The voice sank lower.

"The power is failing," it said. "I am losing touch with you."

"Oh, don't go," said Archie. "Martin, stop with me. Talk to me. I want to say so much to you."

He reached out his hand, and for a moment, out of the sunlit mists that had gathered again he felt, perfectly clearly, the touch of fingers that pressed his. But they died away into nothing as he clasped them, and the voice faded to the faintest whisper.

"I will come again, dear Archie," it said. "It is easiest at night."

* * * * *

The lines of shadow and light that undulated before his eyes grew thinner and more transparent, and he could see the drawn-back window-curtains and the black square of the night through them. The bright point at which he had been looking withdrew on to the surface of his cigarette-case, and slowly the whole room emerged into its normal appearance. Archie became suddenly conscious of a profound physical fatigue, and, leaving all thought and reflection till to-morrow, put out his light and stepped into bed. But instead of the empty desolation that had made a wilderness round him, waters of healing had broken out in his soul, and the desert blossomed…

Archie slept that night the clean out-door sleep which he had been used to at Silorno, and woke next morning, not with the crapulous drowsiness that now usually accompanied his wakings, but with the alert refreshment that slumber in the open air gave him. He sprang into full possession of his faculties and complete memory of what he had experienced the night before. He was quite aware that any scientific interpreter (science being best defined as the habit of denying what passes the limits of materialistic explanation) would have said that, tired with the effort to write, he had fallen asleep over his table and dreamed. But he knew better than that: the experience with its audible and visible phenomena, was not a dream, nor did it ever so faintly resemble one. A dream at best was a fantastic unreality; what he had experienced at his writing-table last night was based upon the firm foundations of reality itself. It was no hash-up of his own conscious or subconscious reflections, no extract distilled from his own mind. It came from without and entered into him, and, unlike most of the communications that purported to reach the minds of sensitives from the world that lay beyond the perception of their normal senses, there was guidance and help in it. Often, if not invariably, these messages from beyond were trivial and nugatory; it was a just criticism to say that the senders of them did not appear possessed of much worth the trouble of sending. But Martin's visit had not been concerned with trifles like that: he had sympathized, as a brother might, with Archie's trouble; he had explained, so that Archie could not longer doubt, the manner of the warning he had received before but not understood; he had spoken of Archie as being wrapped, according to his own sensations, in impenetrable darkness, though, to one who looked from beyond, he was ever moving towards the ineffable radiance. It was the same discarnate intelligence that, when he was a child, had conveyed to him the knowledge of that cache under the pine-tree, which was unknown to any living being (as men count living) and that could not have been conveyed to him through any telepathic channel except one that had its source and spring not in this world. And now, from the same source, had come this message from one who saw through the gross darkness of Archie's emptiness and bitter heart, and had promised to be with him again. Archie had no doubt whatever, as he got up with an alertness that had not been his for weeks, of the genuineness of the communication. It linked on with Martin's previous visits, and the glimpses he had received of the materialized form of his visitor confirmed exactly the recognition, years before, of the photograph he had found in the cache which Martin had told him of. And the Power in whose hands were all things had compassionated his trouble and had allowed, in pity for his need, the gateless barrier to be again unbarred, and a spirit, individual and recognized, to pass to and fro between him and the realms of the light invisible.

It was just when his soul despaired that this happened; when he felt himself denuded of all that he had loved, empty, and cast out from life itself. Just in that hour had Martin been permitted to come back to him…

He found his mother and Jessie at breakfast when he went down; his father, as usual, had not appeared, and again, as last night when he came out of the dining-room after a prolonged sitting, he felt kindly and affectionate. But this was not from the sottish satisfaction of wine: the light came from that subtle window in his soul, from which once more the shutters had been thrown back. The moment Jessie saw him she felt the quality of that change; he was like the Archie of Silorno again.

"Good morning, mother darling," he said, kissing her. "Good morning, Jessie. How bright and early we all are! And has everybody slept as serenely as I?"

"You didn't sleep very long, Archie, did you?" asked the girl, whose room was next his. "I heard you hammering at something after I had gone to bed, and I awoke once and heard you talking to somebody."

Archie, at the side-table helping himself to sausage, paused a moment.

He made up his mind that for the present, anyhow, he preferred that

Jessie should not know about the return of Martin. Perhaps he would tell her quietly when alone…

"Hammering?" he said. "Yes, there was a despatch-case, and I couldn't find the key. So I whacked it open. About talking – yes, I was writing last night, and I believe I read it aloud to myself before I went to bed. I never know what a thing is like unless I read it aloud."

"Oh, do read it aloud to me," said the girl.

"When it's in order: it wasn't quite in order when I read it over. But I was sleepy and went to bed."

Jessie said no more, but for some reason this account left her unsatisfied. The hammering had not sounded quite like the forcing of the lock of a despatch-case; it had been like sharp blows on wood, and for a moment she had thought that Archie was tapping loudly on the door that separated their rooms. It had stopped, and began again a little later. As for the talking, it had sounded precisely like two voices; one undeniably Archie's, the other low and indistinct.

Archie changed the subject the moment he had given this explanation, and made some very surprising observations.

"Helena is married on the 10th of August, isn't she?" he asked. "I must get her a wedding present. And I shall come to her wedding. That will convey my good wishes in the usual manner, won't it? I want to assure her of them."

Both of the women looked at him in the intensest surprise. To Lady Tintagel he had never mentioned Helena's name since the day she had accepted Lord Harlow, while to Jessie, only last night, he had loaded her with the bitterest reproaches, and had spoken of the abject despair and emptiness which had come upon him in consequence of what she had done. And he looked at each of them in turn with that vivid, brilliant glance which had been so characteristic of him.

"Yes, I make a public recantation," he said. "It suddenly dawned on me last night that I have been behaving just about as stupidly as a man can behave. I've said nothing to you, mother, but Jessie knows. I want her to try to forget what, for instance, I said to her last night. I can do better than that, and at any rate I propose to try. All the time that I haven't been mad with resentment I've been dead. Well, I hereupon announce the resurrection of Archibald. That's all I've got to say on the subject."

* * * * *

At that moment, swift as an arrow's flight, and certain as an intuition, there came to Jessie the odd idea that it was not Archie who was speaking at all. It might be his lips and tongue that fashioned the audible syllables, but it was not he in the sense that it had been he down by the lake last night. Savage and bitter as he had been there, he was authentic; now, all that he said, despite the absolute naturalness of his manner, seemed to ring false. She could not account for this impression in the least. It was not the suddenness of the change in his attitude, though that surprised her: it was some remoter quality, which her brain could not analyse. Something more intimate to herself than her brain had perceived it, and mere thought, mere reason, were blind to it.

Archie did not accompany his mother and Jessie to church that morning, but waited for Lord Tintagel's appearance, and the discussion of the good resolutions which were to be so beneficial to each of them. He sat in his father's study, and, having to wait some time before he made a shaky and disastrous entrance, thought over, in connection with the events of last night, what he himself had said that morning at breakfast. That surely was the gist of Martin's message to him: he must try to grow indifferent to that part of Helena which he hated; he must learn not to be miserable, to grasp the fact that the darkness in which he seemed to walk appeared to Martin no darkness at all, but a flood of light from the ineffable radiance. It was in the glow of that revelation that he had spoken at breakfast, trusting in the truth of it, and yet, as he sat now, waiting for his father, he knew he did not feel the truth of it. But, in obedience to Martin, that was how he had to behave. He must behave like that – this was what Martin meant – until he felt the soul within him grow up, like some cellar-sown plant, into the light. Hopefully and bravely had he announced his intention, but now, when in cooler mood he scrutinized it, he began to feel how tremendous was the task set him, how firmly rooted was that passionate resentment which must be alchemized into love. It had been true – Martin saw that so well – that it was the white statue, the fair form he had loved, and loved still with no less ardour than before. That, it seemed, according to his interpretation, Archie must keep: it was the other that must be transformed. But it would have been an easier task, he thought, to let his love slide into indifference, then raise his hate to the same level. But that was not the King's road, the Royal Banners did not flame along such mean-souled ways as these. He must cling to such love for Helena as he had, and transform the hate. But, first and foremost, cling to the love…

It was thus that he stated to himself the message that Martin seemed to have brought him last night, and, stated thus, it was a spiritual aspiration of high endeavour, and it did not occur to him how, stated ever so little differently, and yet following the lines of the communication, it assumed a diabolical aspect. The love which he had for Helena was a carnal love, that sprang from desire for her enchanting prettiness; that love he was to cling to, not sacrifice an iota of it. The hate that he felt for her, arising from her falseness, her encouragement of him for just so long as she was uncertain whether she could capture a man who was nothing to her, but whose position and wealth she coveted, Archie was to transform into indifference; he was to get over it. But, though it was hate, it had a spiritual quality, for it was hatred of what was mean and base, whereas his love for her had no spiritual quality: it was no more than lust, and to that under the name of love he was to cling… Here, then, was another interpretation of the words he had heard last night, and, according to it, it would have been fitter to attribute the message to some intelligence far other than the innocent soul of the brother who had so mysteriously communicated with him in childlike ways. But that interpretation (and here was the subtlety of it) never entered Archie's head at all. A message of apparent consolation and hope had come to him when he was feeling the full blast of his bitterness, the wind that blew from the empty desert of his heart and his stagnant brain. He had called for help from the everlasting and unseen Cosmos that encompasses the little blind half-world of material existence, and from it, somewhere from it, a light had shone into his dark soul, no mere flicker, or so it seemed this morning, like that spurious sunshine which he and his father basked in together, but rays from a more potent luminary.

Till now Archie, with the ordinary impulse of a disappointed man, had tried to banish from his mind (with certain exterior aids) the picture of the face and the form that he loved. But now he not only need not, but he must not, do that any longer: he had to cling to love. And while he waited for his father he kept recalling certain poignant moments in the growth of Helena's bewitchment of him. One was the night when they sat together for the last time in the dark garden at Silorno, and he wondered whether the suggestion of a cousinly kiss would disturb her. What had kept him back was the knowledge that it would not be quite a cousinly kiss on his part… Then there was the moment when he had caught sight of her on the platform at Charing Cross: she had come to meet his train on his arrival from abroad… Best of all, perhaps, for there his passion had most been fed with the fuel of her touch, had been the dance at his aunt's that same night, when the rhythm of the waltz and the melodious command of the music had welded their two young bodies into one. It was not "he and she" who had danced: it was just one perfect and complete individual. Here, on this quiet Sunday morning, the thought of that made him tingle and throb. It was that sort of memory which Martin told him he must keep alive… It was his resentment, his anger, that must die, not that. Helena had chosen somebody else, but he must long for her still.

Lord Tintagel appeared, unusually white and shaky, and, as lunch-time was approaching, he rang for the apparatus of cocktails.

"I sat up late last night, Archie," he said, "bothering myself over those Russian shares. It's really of you and your mother I am thinking. It won't be long before all the mines in Russia will matter nothing to me, for a few feet of earth will be all I shall require. But, before I went to bed, I came to the conclusion that I was wrong to worry. I think the scare will soon pass, and the shares recover. Indeed, I think the wisest thing would be not to sell, and cut my loss, but to buy more, at the lower price. I shall telegraph to my broker to-morrow. But I got into no end of a perplexity about it, and I feel all to bits this morning."