Flames Part 85

But at this point Cuckoo got restive.

"I--I can't remember," she murmured, almost sullenly, recalling Valentine's bitter sarcasms on her appearance and way of life.

"Never mind, then. Leave that. But after; what came next?"

"While we was standin' like that he seemed to get frightened or somethin', like he saw somethin' in the gla.s.s. He was frightened, scared, and he hit out all on a sudden, just where my face was in the gla.s.s, and smashed it."

"Smashed the gla.s.s?"

"Yes. And then he s.n.a.t.c.hed hold of me and looked in my eyes awful queer, and then he burst out laughin' and says as the mirror was tellin' him lies. That's all."

"He was perfectly sober?"

"Oh, he hadn't been on the booze."

"Sober and did that, and then you can tell me that there is no madness in him."

The doctor spoke almost in a bantering tone, but Cuckoo stuck to her guns.

"I don't think it," she said, with her under lip sticking out.

"Well, Miss Bright, I want you to a.s.sume something."

"What's that?"

"To pretend to yourself that you think something, whether you do really think it or not."

"Make believe!" cried Cuckoo, childishly.

"Exactly."

"What about?"

"I want you to 'make believe' that Mr. Cresswell is not himself--is not sane."

"O-oh-h!" said Cuckoo, with a long intonation of surprise.

"I do honestly believe it; you are to pretend to believe it. Now, remember that."

"All right."

"You are not to contradict any more, you see."

"Oh," began Cuckoo, in sudden distress. "Pardon. I didn't--"

"Hus.h.!.+ That's all right. Act with me on the make-believe or a.s.sumption that Mr. Cresswell is not himself at present."

"Ah, but that ain't no make-believe. He told me as he wasn't himself when he says, 'I am Marr.'"

"Yes--yes," said the doctor. Secretly, almost angrily, he said to himself that Valentine, in some access of insanity, had actually confessed to the lady of the feathers that he knew himself to be mad.

"He says he ain't himself," she repeated again, with an eager feeling that perhaps, at last, she had got at the right interpretation of the gospel of Valentine.

"That is practically the same thing as his saying to you that he was mad.

Now you have told me what you feel for Julian."

Cuckoo flushed, and muttered something unintelligible, twining her hands in the sables till she nearly pulled them from Doctor Levillier's knees.

"And you have seen the terrible change that has come over him, and that is fast, fast deepening to something that must end in utter ruin. You have not seen him these last few days, I think."

"No", said Cuckoo, her eyes fixed hungrily on the doctor's face. She began to tug at her veil. "What's it? Is he--is he?"

She collapsed into a nervous silence, still tugging with a futile hand at the veil, which remained implacably stretched across her face. The doctor looked at her, and said steadily:

"He has gone a little further--down. You understand me?"

"I ought to," she said, bitterly.

"As you are mounting upward," the doctor rejoined, with a kind and firm gravity that seemed indeed to lift Cuckoo, as a sweet wind lifts a feather and sends it on high.

The bitterness went out of her face, but she said nothing, only sat listening attentively while the doctor went on:

"My belief is this, and if you hold it you can perhaps act in this matter with more boldness, more fearlessness, than if you do not hold it. I believe that Mr. Cresswell, who played very foolish tricks with his nerves some time ago, just before he got to know you, has become mad to this extent, that he believes himself to have a power of will unlike that possessed by any other man,--an inhuman power, in fact. He fancies that he has the will of a sort of G.o.d, and he wishes to prove this to himself more especially. Everything is for self in a madman. Now he looks about for a means of proving that his will can do everything. He wants to make it do something extraordinary, uncommon. What does he find for it to do?

This, the ruin of Julian. And now I'll tell you why this ruin of Julian would be a peculiar triumph for his will. Originally, when Cresswell was sane and splendid, his splendour of sanity guarded Julian from all that was dangerous. Julian was naturally inclined to be wild. He has an ardent nature, and five years ago, when he was a mere boy, might have fallen into a thousand follies. Cresswell's influence first kept him from these follies, and at last taught him to loathe and despise them. And Julian, remember this, told Cresswell at last that he had been to him a sort of saviour. You can follow me?"

"'M," Cuckoo e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed with shut mouth and a nod of her head.

"So that Cresswell knew what his will had been able to do in the direction of lifting Julian high up, almost above his nature. Well, then followed certain foolish practices which I need not describe. Cresswell and Julian joined in a certain trickery, often practised by people who call themselves spiritualists and occultists. It certainly had an effect upon them at the time, and I advised them earnestly to drop it. They disregarded my advice, and the result was that Mr. Cresswell fell into an extraordinary condition of body. He fell into a trance, became as if he were dead, and remained so for some hours on a certain night. I was called in to him, and actually thought that he was dead. But he revived.

Now, I believe that though he seemed to recover, and did recover in body, he never recovered from that insensibility in mind. I believe he went into that sleep sane and came out of it mad, and that he remains mad to this moment. Certainly, ever since then he has been an altered man, the man you know, not at all the man he used to be. Since that night he, who used to be almost unconscious of the wonder of his own will, has become intensely self-conscious, and engrossed with it, and has wished to make it obey him and perform miracles. And what is the special miracle to which he is devoting himself at this moment, as you have observed? Just this: the ruin of the thing he originally saved. It is like this," he said, noting that Cuckoo was becoming puzzled and confused, "Cresswell, by his influence, made Julian loathe sin. Coming out of this trance, as I believe, a madman, he seeks to make his will do something extraordinary. What shall he make it do? His eyes fall on Julian, who is always with him, as you know. And he resolves to make Julian love what he has taught him to loathe--sin, vice, degradation of every kind. So he sets to work with all the cunning of a diseased mind, and hour by hour, day by day, he works for this horrible end. At first he is quiet and careful. But at last he becomes almost intoxicated as he sees his own success. And he allows himself to be led into outbreaks of triumph. One of those outbreaks you yourself seem to have witnessed. I have witnessed another--on the night I dined alone with Cresswell, when he killed the dog, Rip, and threw him out into the snow. Cresswell is intoxicated with the mental intoxication of mania, at the degradation into which his will has forced Julian, who had learnt to love him, to think that everything he did must be right. And this intoxication is leading him to excesses. It is my firm belief that he intends to drag Julian down into intolerable abysses of sin, to plunge him into utter ruin, to bring him perhaps to prison, and to death."

Cuckoo was listening now with a white face--even her lips looked almost grey. The suns.h.i.+ne still lay over the winter world. The horses trotted.

The sables were warm about her. They had nearly left the city behind them and were gaining the heights, on which the air was keener and more life-giving, and from which the outlook was larger and more inspiring.

But the girl's gaiety and almost wild sense of vivacity and protectedness had vanished. For the doctor's face and voice had become grave, and his words were weighty with a conviction, which, added to her own knowledge of Julian and Valentine, made her fears unutterable. As the doctor paused she opened her lips as if to speak, but she said nothing. He could not but perceive the cloud that had settled on her, and his manner quickly changed. A brightness, a hopefulness, illumined his face, and he said quickly:

"This tragedy is what you and I, but you especially, must prevent."

Then Cuckoo spoke at last:

"How ever?" she said.

"Remember this," he answered. "If Cresswell is mad we must pity him, not condemn him. But we must, above all, fight him. Could I prove his madness the danger would be averted? Possibly time will give me the means of proving it. I have watched him. I shall continue to watch him.

But as yet, although I see enough to convince me of his insanity, I don't see enough to convince the world, or, above all, to convince Julian. Therefore never give Julian the slightest hint of what I have told you of to-day. His adoration of Valentine is such that even a hint might easily lead him to regard both you and me as his enemies. Keep your own counsel and mine, but act with me on the silent a.s.sumption that Cresswell being a madman, we are justified in fighting him to the bitter end, you and I, with all our forces."

"I see," Cuckoo said, a burning excitement beginning to wake in her.

"Justified in fighting him, but not in hating him."

"Oh," she said, with a much more doubtful accent.