The Tyranny of the Dark Part 49

The realization that she was at last domesticated under his roof made her redemption seem easy, certain, almost accomplished. There remained only the painful duty of separating her from her mother. He could see that this would bring keen sorrow upon them both, but that if she could be brought to consider him in the light of her future husband, the change would seem less violent; for, after all, it was the law of life which subordinated the claims of the mother to those of the husband.

"At any rate, the issue is now clear in my mind. A powerful chain of suggestion has been formed and fastened upon her by her own mother and by Clarke. That chain must be broken; it is broken in Clarke's case, and no matter what the pain, the fear, this course may cause the mother, it must be pursued in order to restore Viola to health."

He pa.s.sed from this to a forecast of the radical changes in his own life which an avowal of love would make, and his mood chilled. He had always imagined the announcement of his engagement, falling into a sober and decorous paragraph among the society notes, and had figured himself receiving with dignified composure the congratulations of his a.s.sociates and club-fellows. He had never considered the possibility of shrinking from these publicities, nor fancied himself in the light of finding excuses to justify or explain his marriage. He now clearly foresaw, foreheard the comment, the surprise, the opposition of his family.

He pulled himself up short with a word of derision at the length to which he had permitted his mind to run. "All this for the future. The immediate question is, Can she be freed from her bonds?"

He was deep in his book when Kate entered with excited greeting.

"Morton, do you know that those women have been locked in their rooms all day for fear of Clarke and Pratt? Well, they were! Clarke has gone stark mad with jealousy, and even that besotted mother was afraid of him, and admits it. They would be there in that house prisoners this minute only for you."

"Don't lay your wreath on my head; keep it for Lambert. Really, Kate, he was magnificent. Little as he is, he towered. I had no doubt of his willingness and ability to kill either Pratt or Clarke; and I don't think they questioned the integrity of his promise."

Kate's mind took a new turn. "She's broken with Clarke, thank Heaven!

But the mother clings to him in spite of all."

"I am about to suggest to Mrs. Lambert that she go West with her husband, leaving the girl in your care for a little while."

"I wish they would!"

"She must be freed from even her mother's presence for a while--that is, if they really want to have her cured of her trances."

"I see," said Kate, thoughtfully. "The mother is so closely a.s.sociated with all that tapping."

"Precisely. I wish, when Mrs. Lambert is rested, you would ask her to let me see her here. I want to talk these matters over with her in private."

"They're both lying down, but I'll tell her when she rises. Don't do anything rash," she added, with a reaction towards caution which amused him.

"You may trust me."

She came back a few steps, and hesitatingly said. "For, after all, Morton, the girl _is_ abnormal."

"So are we all--under abnormal conditions. I am going to see if I can't so change the current of her thought that she will forget her besetments--and you must help me."

"She's shockingly pretty and it will be very dangerous having her beneath your very roof." She gave a warning backward look. "How dare you permit it?"

"I am a very brave man," he replied, with a smile, and an inflection that puzzled her.

XX

THE MOTHER'S FAITH

Mrs. Lambert entered timidly, her gentle face sadder and its lip-line firmer than he had ever seen it. It was evident that the experiences of the last few days had touched her and shaken her.

Up to this time Morton had considered her as a genial but rather negative personality, a soul naturally subordinate to others, but she now rose to an importance in his life which made her real self of the highest significance. His first glance was one of sincerest admiration. Doubtless she had once been as slender and quite as tall as her daughter, and though increasing age and weight had combined to rob her of height and grace, she was, nevertheless, still a distinctly commanding figure. Her head was n.o.bly fas.h.i.+oned, her eyes a candid blue, and her glance clear and unworn in its appeal.

Altogether he could not but acknowledge in her a mother of which no man need be ashamed, and in this spirit he met her and invited her to a seat. "Mr. Lambert and I have been talking of the mountains to-day,"

he began. "I wish we were on our way out there this moment, for I am tired of the city."

She brightened under his smile. "I wouldn't mind going home at once, but I know Viola would be disappointed. She has seen so little of the city, and then Mr. Clarke--" She broke off in some confusion as if in sudden recollection of the chasm which had opened between the young clergyman and her daughter.

He seized upon this allusion to say: "I did not think of including Mr.

Clarke, Mrs. Lambert. I think you and your daughter have both had too much of him. I do not doubt his sincerity, but I am quite certain that he was leading you both into an abyss. I hope you will make the most of this chance to free yourself from his influence. I quite stand with your husband in that resolution."

Her face grew cold again. "As to that, I must wait for further illumination. These last few hours have been so disturbed we are quite cut off from our guides."

"You depend upon them--they are very real to you, are they not?" He spoke musingly.

"They are just as real to me as you are--or any one."

"Did you not doubt their wisdom to-day?"

She drew herself up. "Why should I?"

"They knew nothing of your husband's coming?"

"Oh yes, they did, only they couldn't communicate on account of Viola's mental condition." Then, with unshakable conviction, she added: "If I doubted them I should doubt everything."

"I am sorry to trouble you. I am not one to needlessly destroy a comforting faith, and yet I confess I thought the time had come to invoke your husband's aid. It was in that spirit I sent the telegram."

"I am very glad you did, although I had no fear. I knew my father would find the right way when the time came. Let me tell you, sir,"

she replied, expanding in the warmth of his interest. "Before these revelations came to me I had no real faith in G.o.d or heaven. The world beyond the grave was dark and cold. It seemed to me as if my little boy and my husband were in the cruel, wet ground. I couldn't feel that they had gone to Christ. But now the tomb is but a portal to the light. The spirit-plane is as real as the earth-plane, and filled with joyous souls. I can hear them sing sometimes when I hold Viola's hand, and the sound is very beautiful and very comforting."

"I can understand that," he answered, but quietly, critically, still studying her face. "It has a warmer charm than any other religion I know."

She went on, eagerly: "I wish you could come to believe. Your sister said your mother and your uncle spoke last night. Why can't you accept the faith?"

The young philosopher gained, as she spoke, a new conception of her character, and chilled with a growing sense of the difficult and ungracious task which lay before him. He began to perceive that her awe of him had kept her silent, thus concealing from him the spirit of the evangelist which he now saw she possessed. She counted more largely in Viola's development than he had hitherto granted. Her faith was solidly based on years of experience and was not to be easily moved. As she went on he perceived that her daughter's mediums.h.i.+p was much more than a theory in her thought; it was a fact, and a daily, almost an hourly, necessity. He lost his last suspicion of her, and caught a glimpse of the larger aspect of her relations.h.i.+p to his future. She was deceived, of course, but she was honest in every fibre. He could not accuse her of the slightest deceit or falsification.

In her lame way she tried to argue the question, quoting the plat.i.tudes of the "inspirational speakers," as well as the pompous phrases of her spirit-father, while he listened courteously.

When she paused, he said, gravely: "My dear Mrs. Lambert, I can't leave you in any doubt of my position. I cannot for a single instant accept what happened last night as the manifestation of the disembodied. I cannot think that the phenomena exist. I must rather think they were performed by Clarke, or my sister, or Weissmann, in joke." She looked at him with an expression of horror, of incredulity, and he went on, quickly: "Even if I admitted the fact of direct writing or the movement of the horn, I should not by any means be driven to accept your spirit-hypothesis. There are men, and very great investigators, who would say that your daughter's trances and all phenomena connected therewith were pathologic, explainable on the grounds of some obscure neural derangement. I do not say this is the case, but I do say that if she persists in these practices she will lose control of her mental faculties. I have had a consultation to-day with Dr. Tolman, a man who makes a specialty of such cases, and when I had laid the whole matter before him, he and Dr. Weissmann both advised the immediate stopping of these trances."

"We can't do that. They come from the other side. My father induces the trance, and it is entirely in his hands."

He fixed a keen look upon her. "Did it ever occur to you that the words of your 'guides' were, in reality, but a reflex of the wishes of Pratt or Clarke?"

"How could that be when they came to me long before I even knew Anthony?"

"But was not the advice of a different quality at that time? Maybe your father yields to the will of living people when they are strong enough."

"Oh no, quite the contrary. He opposes Mr. Clarke often. Sometimes he opposes us all."

"I am perfectly sure that the voices that spoke to us last night were a subtle delusion, an emanation from our own bodies--or the work of a joker. My reason repels them as spirits."