Part 10

“Very briefly, then, you shall hear what I remember of this haunting, for I was barely ten years old at the time. It was evening--clear and cold like this, with snow and moonlight--when someone reported to my father that a peculiar sound, variously described as crying, singing, wailing, was being heard in the grove. He paid no attention until my sister heard it too, and was frightened. Then he sent a groom to investigate. Though the night was brilliant the man took a lantern. We watched from this very window till we lost his figure against the trees, and the lantern stopped swinging suddenly, as if he had put it down. It remained motionless. We waited half an hour, and then my father, curiously excited, I remember, went out quickly, and I, utterly terrified, went after him. We followed his tracks, which came to an end beside the lantern, the last step being a stride almost impossible for a man to have made. All around the snow was unbroken by a single mark, but the man himself had vanished. Then we heard him calling for help--above, behind, beyond us; from all directions at once, yet from none, came the sound of his voice; but though we called back he made no answer, and gradually his cries grew fainter and fainter, as if going into tremendous distance, and at last died away altogether.”

“And the man himself?” asked both listeners.

“Never returned--from that day to this has never been seen.... At intervals for weeks and months afterwards reports came in that he was still heard crying, always crying for help. With time, even these reports ceased--for most of us,” he added under his breath; “and that is all I know. A mere outline, as you see.”

The girl did not quite like the story, for the old man’s manner made it too convincing. She was half disappointed, half frightened.

“See! there are the others coming home,” she exclaimed, with a note of relief, pointing to a group of figures moving over the snow near the pine trees. “Now we can think of tea!” She crossed the room to busy herself with the friendly tray as the servant approached to fasten the shutters. The young priest, however, deeply interested, talked on with their host, though in a voice almost too low for her to hear. Only the final sentences reached her, making her uneasy--absurdly so, she thought--till afterwards.

“--for matter, as we know, interpenetrates matter,” she heard, “and two objects may conceivably occupy the same space. The odd thing really is that one should hear, but not see; that air-waves should bring the voice, yet ether-waves fail to bring the picture.”

And then the older man: “--as if certain places in Nature, yes, invited the change--places where these extraordinary forces stir from the earth as from the surface of a living Being with organs--places like islands, mountain-tops, pine-woods, especially pines isolated from their kind. You know the queer results of digging absolutely virgin soil, of course--and that theory of the earth’s being _alive_----” The voice dropped again.

“States of mind also helping the forces of the place,” she caught the priest’s reply in part; “such as conditions induced by music, by intense listening, by certain moments in the Mass even--by ecstasy or----”

“I say, what _do_ you think?” cried a girl’s voice, as the others came in with welcome chatter and odours of tweeds and open fields. “As we passed your old haunted pine-wood we heard _such_ a queer noise. Like someone wailing or crying. Cæsar howled and ran; and Harry refused to go in and investigate. He positively funked it!” They all laughed. “More like a rabbit in a trap than a person crying,” explained Harry, a blush kindly concealing his startling pallor. “I wanted my tea too much to bother about an old rabbit.”

It was some time after tea when the girl became aware that the priest had disappeared, and putting two and two together, ran in alarm to her host’s study. Quite easily, from the hastily opened shutters, they saw his figure moving across the snow. The moon was very bright over the world, yet he carried a lantern that shone pale yellow against the white brilliance.

“Oh, for God’s sake, quick!” she cried, pale with fear. “Quick! or we’re too late! Arthur’s simply wild about such things. Oh, I might have known--I might have guessed. And this is the very night. I’m terrified!”

By the time he had found his overcoat and slipped round the house with her from the back door, the lantern, they saw, was already swinging close to the pine-wood. The night was still as ice, bitterly cold. Breathlessly they ran, following the tracks. Half-way his steps diverged, and were plainly visible in the virgin snow by themselves. They heard the whispering of the branches ahead of them, for pines cry even when no airs stir. “Follow me close,” said the old man sternly. The lantern, he already saw, lay upon the ground unattended; no human figure was anywhere visible.

“See! The steps come to an end here,” he whispered, stooping down as soon as they reached the lantern. The tracks, hitherto so regular, showed an odd wavering--the snow curiously disturbed. Quite suddenly they stopped. The final step was a very long one--a stride, almost immense, “as though he was pushed forward from behind,” muttered the old man, too low to be overheard, “or sucked forward from in front--as in a fall.”

The girl would have dashed forward but for his strong restraining grasp. She clutched him, uttering a sudden dreadful cry. “Hark! I hear his voice!” she almost sobbed. They stood still to listen. A mystery that was more than the mystery of night closed about their hearts--a mystery that is beyond life and death, that only great awe and terror can summon from the deeps of the soul. Out of the heart of the trees, fifty feet away, issued a crying voice, half wailing, half singing, very faint. “Help! help!” it sounded through the still night; “for the love of God, pray for me!”

The melancholy rustling of the pines followed; and then again the singular crying voice shot past above their heads, now in front of them, now once more behind. It sounded everywhere. It grew fainter and fainter, fading away, it seemed, into distance that somehow was appalling.... The grove, however, was empty of all but the sighing wind; the snow unbroken by any tread. The moon threw inky shadows; the cold bit; it was a terror of ice and death and this awful singing cry....

“But why _pray_?” screamed the girl, distracted, frantic with her bewildered terror. “Why _pray_? Let us _do_ something to help--_do_ something ...!” She swung round in a circle, nearly falling to the ground. Suddenly she perceived that the old man had dropped to his knees in the snow beside her and was--praying.

“Because the forces of prayer, of thought, of the will to help, alone can reach and succour him where he now is,” was all the answer she got. And a moment later both figures were kneeling in the snow, praying, so to speak, their very heart’s life out....

The search may be imagined--the steps taken by police, friends, newspapers, by the whole country in fact.... But the most curious part of this queer “Higher Space” adventure is the end of it--at least, the “end” so far as at present known. For after three weeks, when the winds of March were a-roar about the land, there crept over the fields towards the house the small dark figure of a man. He was thin, pallid as a ghost, worn and fearfully emaciated, but upon his face and in his eyes were traces of an astonishing radiance--a glory unlike anything ever seen.... It may, of course, have been deliberate, or it may have been a genuine loss of memory only; none could say--least of all the girl whom his return snatched from the gates of death; but, at any rate, what had come to pass during the interval of his amazing disappearance he has never yet been able to reveal.

“And you must never ask me,” he would say to her--and repeat even after his complete and speedy restoration to bodily health--“for I simply cannot tell. I know no language, you see, that could express it. I was near you all the time. But I was also--elsewhere and otherwise....”

XIX

YOU _MAY_ TELEPHONE FROM HERE

She sent the servant to bed at half-past ten, and sat up in the flat alone. “I’ll let my cousin in,” she explained; “she may be rather late.” She read, knitted, began a letter, poked the fire, and examined her husband’s photographs on the mantelpiece; but most of the time she looked about her nervously, sometimes going to the door to listen, sometimes lifting the corner of the blind to look out upon the lights of North Kensington struggling with the blackness. The fog was thicker than ever. A rumble of traffic feeling its way floated up to her from below.

But at last the door-bell rang sharply, and she ran to let in the cousin who had promised to spend the two nights with her during her husband’s absence in Paris. They kissed. Both began talking at once.

“I thought you were _never_ coming, Sybil----!”

“The play was out late--and the fog’s bad. I sent on my box this afternoon on purpose.”

“It came safely; and your room’s quite ready. I do hope you’ll manage all right without a maid. Oh, I’m _so_ glad you’ve come, though!”

“Foolish little country mouse!”

“Oh, it’s not that so much, though I admit that London still terrifies me at night rather; but you know this is the first time he’s been away--and I suppose----”

“I know, dear; I understand perfectly.” The cousin was brisk and cheerful. “You feel lonely, of course.” They kissed again. “Just unhook me, will you?” she added, “and I’ll get into my dressing-gown, and then we’ll be cosy over the fire.”

“I saw him off at Victoria at 8.45,” said the little wife when the operation was over.

“Newhaven and Dieppe?”

“Yes. He gets to Paris at seven in the morning. He promised to telephone the first thing.”

“You expensive little monkey!”

“Why?”

“It’s ten shillings for three minutes, or something like that, and you have to go to the G.P.O. or the Mansion House or some such place, I believe.”

“But I thought it was the usual long-distance thing direct here to the flat. He never told me all that.”

“Probably you didn’t give him the chance!”

They laughed, and went on chatting, with feet on the fender and skirts tucked up. The cousin lit her second cigarette. It was after midnight.

“I’m afraid I’m not the least bit sleepy,” said the wife apologetically.

“Nor am I, dear. For once the play excited me.” She began to describe it vigorously. Half-way through the recital the telephone sounded in the hall. It tinkled faintly, but gave no proper ring.

The other started. “There it is again! It’s always doing that--ever since Harry put it in a week ago. I don’t quite like it.” She spoke in a hushed voice.

The cousin looked at her curiously. “Oh, you mustn’t mind that,” she laughed with a reassuring manner. “It’s a little way they have when the line gets out of order. You’re not used to playing the telephone game yet. You should call up the Exchange and complain. Always complain, you know, in this world if you want----”

“There it goes again,” interrupted her friend nervously. “Oh, I do wish it would stop. It’s so like someone standing out there in the hall and trying to talk----”

The cousin jumped up. They went into the hall together, and the experienced one briskly rang up the Exchange and asked if there was anybody trying to “get through.” With fine indignation she complained that no one in the flat could sleep for the noise. After a brief conversation she turned, receiver in hand, to her companion.

“The operator says he’s very sorry, but your line’s a bit troublesome to-night for some reason. Got mixed, or something. He can’t understand it. Advises you to leave the receiver unhooked till the morning. Then it can’t possibly ring, you see!”

They left the receiver swinging, and went back to the fire.

“I’m sorry I’m such a timid donkey,” the wife said, laughing a little; “but I’m not used to it yet. There was no telephone at the farm, you know.” She turned with a sudden start, as though she heard the bell again. “And to-night,” she added in a lower voice, though with an obvious effort at self-control, “for some reason or other I feel uncomfortable, rather--excited, queer, I think.”

“How? Queer?”

“I don’t know exactly; almost as if there was someone else in the flat--someone besides ourselves and the servant, I mean.”

The cousin moved abruptly. She switched on the electric lights in the wall beside her.

“Yes; but it’s only imagination, _really_,” she said with decision. “It’s natural enough. It’s the fog and the strangeness of London after the loneliness of your farm-life, and your husband being away, and--and all that. Once you analyse these queer feelings they always go----”

“Hark!” exclaimed the wife under her breath. “Wasn’t that a step in the passage?” She sat bolt upright, her face pale, her eyes very bright. They listened a moment. The night was utterly still about them.

“Rubbish!” cried the cousin loudly. “It was my foot knocking the fender; like this--look!” She repeated the sound vigorously.

“I do believe it was,” the other said, only half convinced. “But it is queer. You know I feel exactly as though someone had come into the flat--quite recently, since _you_ came, I mean--just before that tinkling began, in fact.”

“Come, come,” laughed the cousin, “you’ll give us both the jumps. At one o’clock in the morning it’s easy to imagine anything. You’ll be hearing elephants on the stairs next!” She looked sharply about her. “Let’s brew our chocolate and get to bed,” she added. “We shall sleep like tops.”

“One o’clock already! Then Harry’s half-way across by now,” said the wife, smiling at her friend’s language. “But I’m _so_ glad, oh, _so_ glad, you’re here,” she added; “and I think it’s most awfully sweet of you to give up a comfy big house....” They kissed again and laughed. Soon afterwards, having scalded their throats with hot chocolate, they went to bed.

“It simply _can’t_ ring now!” remarked the cousin triumphantly as they passed the receiver dangling in mid-air.

“That’s a relief,” her friend said. “I feel less nervous. Really, I’m too ashamed of myself for anything.”

“Fog’s clearing, too,” Sybil added, peering for a moment through the narrow window by the front door.

An hour later the little flat was still as the grave. No sound of traffic was heard. Even the tinkling of the telephone seemed a whole twenty-four hours away, when suddenly--it began again: first with little soft tentative noises, very faint, troubled, hurried, buried almost out of hearing inside the box; then louder and louder, with sharp jerks--finally with a challenging and alarming peal. And the wife, who had kept her door open, without pretence of sleep, heard it from the very beginning. In a moment she found herself in the passage, and Sybil, wakened by her cry, was at her heels. They turned up the lights and stood facing one another. The hall smelt--as things only smell at night--cold, musty....

“What’s the matter? You frightened me. I heard you scream----!”

“The telephone’s ringing again--violently,” the wife whispered, pale to the lips. “Don’t you hear it? This time there’s someone there--_really_!”

The cousin stared blankly at her. The laugh choked in her throat. “_I_ hear nothing,” she said defiantly, yet without confidence in her voice. “Besides, the thing’s still disconnected. It _can’t_ ring--look!” She pointed to the hanging receiver motionless against the wall. “You’re white as a ghost, though,” she added, coming quickly forward. Her friend moved suddenly to the instrument and picked up the receiver. “It’s someone for me,” she said, with terror in her eyes. “It’s someone who wants to talk to me! Oh, hark! hark how it rings!” Her voice shook. She placed the little disc to her ear and waited while her friend stood by and stared in amazement, uncertain what to do. _She_ had heard no ringing!

“You, Harry!” whispered the wife into the telephone, with brief intervals of silence for the replies. “_You?_ But how in the world so soon?--Yes, I can just hear, but very faintly. Miles and miles away your voice sounds--What?--A wonderful journey? And sooner than you expected!--_Not_ in Paris? Where, then?--Oh! my darling boy--No, I don’t quite hear; I can’t catch it--I don’t understand.... The pain of the sea is nothing--is _what_?... You know nothing of _what_ ...?”

The cousin came boldly up. She took her arm. “But, child, there’s no one there, bless you! You’re dreaming--you’re in fever or something----”

“Hush! For God’s sake, hush!” She held up a hand. In her face and eyes was an expression indescribable--fear, love, bewilderment. Her body swayed a little, leaning against the wall. “Hush! I hear him still; but, oh! miles and miles away--He says--he’s been trying for hours to find me. First he tried my brain direct, and then--then--oh! he says he may not get back again to me--only he can’t understand, can’t explain _why_--the cold, the awful cold, keeps his lips from---- Oh!”

She screamed aloud as she flung the receiver down and dropped in a heap upon the floor. “I don’t understand--it’s death, death!” ...

And the collision in the Channel that night, as they learned in due course, occurred a few minutes after one o’clock; while Harry himself, who remained unconscious for several hours after the boat picked him up, could only remember that his last desire as the wave caught him was an intense wish to communicate with his wife and tell her what had happened.... The next thing he knew was opening his eyes in a Dieppe hotel.

And the other curious detail was furnished by the man who came to repair the telephone next day. At the Exchange, he declared, the wire, from midnight till nearly three in the morning, had emitted sparks and flashes of light no one had been able to account for in any usual manner.

“Queer!” said the man to himself, after tinkering and tapping for ten minutes, “but there’s nothing wrong with it at _this_ end. It’s the subscriber, most likely. It usually is!”

XX

THE WHISPERERS

To be too impressionable is as much a source of weakness as to be hyper-sensitive: so many messages come flooding in upon one another that confusion is the result; the mind chokes, imagination grows congested.

Jones, as an imaginative writing man, was well aware of this, yet could not always prevent it; for if he dulled his mind to one impression, he ran the risk of blunting it to all. To guard his main idea, and picket its safe conduct through the seethe of additions that instantly flocked to join it, was a psychological puzzle that sometimes overtaxed his powers of critical selection. He prepared for it, however. An editor would ask him for a story--“about five thousand words, you know”; and Jones would answer, “I’ll send it you with pleasure--when it comes.” He knew his difficulty too well to promise more. Ideas were never lacking, but their length of treatment belonged to machinery he could not coerce. They were alive; they refused to come to heel to suit mere editors. Midway in a tale that started crystal clear and definite in its original germ, would pour a flood of new impressions that either smothered the first conception, or developed it beyond recognition. Often a short story exfoliated in this bursting way beyond his power to stop it. He began one, never knowing where it would lead him. It was ever an adventure. Like Jack the Giant Killer’s beanstalk it grew secretly in the night, fed by everything he read, saw, felt, or heard. Jones was too impressionable; he received too many impressions, and too easily.

For this reason, when working at a definite, short idea, he preferred an empty room, without pictures, furniture, books, or anything suggestive, and with a skylight that shut out scenery--just ink, blank paper, and the clear picture in his mind. His own interior, unstimulated by the geysers of external life, he made some pretence of regulating; though even under these favourable conditions the matter was not too easy, so prolifically does a sensitive mind engender.

His experience in the empty room of the carpenter’s house was a curious case in point--in the little Jura village where his cousin lived to educate his children. “We’re all in a pension above the Post Office here,” the cousin wrote, “but just now the house is full, and besides is rather noisy. I’ve taken an attic room for you at the carpenter’s near the forest. Some things of mine have been stored there all the winter, but I moved the cases out this morning. There’s a bed, writing-table, wash-handstand, sofa, and a skylight window--otherwise empty, as I know you prefer it. You can have your meals with us,” etc. And this just suited Jones, who had six weeks’ work on hand for which he needed empty solitude. His “idea” was slight and very tender; accretions would easily smother clear presentment; its treatment must be delicate, simple, unconfused.

The room really was an attic, but large, wide, high. He heard the wind rush past the skylight when he went to bed. When the cupboard was open he heard the wind there too, washing the outer walls and tiles. From his pillow he saw a patch of stars peep down upon him. Jones knew the mountains and the woods were close, but he could not see them. Better still, he could not smell them. And he went to bed dead tired, full of his theme for work next morning. He saw it to the end. He could almost have promised five thousand words. With the dawn he would be up and “at it,” for he usually woke very early, his mind surcharged, as though subconsciousness had matured the material in sleep. Cold bath, a cup of tea, and then--his writing-table; and the quicker he could reach the writing-table the richer was the content of imaginative thought. What had puzzled him the night before was invariably cleared up in the morning. Only illness could interfere with the process and routine of it.

But this time it was otherwise. He woke, and instantly realised, with a shock of surprise and disappointment, that his mind was--groping. It was groping for his little lost idea. There was nothing physically wrong with him; he felt rested, fresh, clear-headed; but his brain was searching, searching, moreover, in a crowd. Trying to seize hold of the train it had relinquished several hours ago, it caught at an evasive, empty shell. The idea had utterly changed; or rather it seemed smothered by a host of new impressions that came pouring in upon it--new modes of treatment, points of view, in fact development. In the light of these extensions and novel aspects, his original idea had altered beyond recognition. The germ had marvellously exfoliated, so that a whole volume could alone express it. An army of fresh suggestions clamoured for expression. His subconsciousness had grown thick with life; it surged--active, crowded, tumultuous.