Devil's Tor (48 page)

Yesterday's apparition, by comparison, had been simple both in space and time, and understandable. Then he had been experimenting with one of the two flints; just now this girl had had the other in her hand. Yet the richer and more wonderful of his experiences was the indirect telepathic one; evincing either that the two stones were of unequal potency, inherently or according to the degree of correspondence in the experimenter, or that the potency of either was increasable by some nature of this hill. … Each moment his ghost-woman of the inn and Arsinal's goddess seemed to draw closer together, as if at last to coalesce. …

He smiled. Thus these phenomena were to crack his brain as thoroughly as another had once for all cracked Arsinal's when still a boy! ... But, truly, he cared not greatly to follow any of it up, even at so developed a stage. The invisible, it seemed, could be sufficiently sense-subverting, and
yet
might be less than the haughtiness of the soul. For another feather's weight in the balance, he would go off the hill now, at once, with no last look towards Ingrid Fleming, in the contemptuous determination to leave the rest of this business to those who should want it more. …

He could not do that. There was a thing he needed to discover. Well aware was he of this girl's deep serious interest in the sequence of riddles riding against them; but now he wished to ascertain additionally whether she, unlike Arsinal, could if necessary despise and disown her concern. He wished to test the purity of her spirit’s gold. He thought that the desire was nothing personal, but that he was seeking a standard of judgment between the two. On himself, it appeared, depended the last destination of the stone the girl was holding. If she insisted upon busying herself with this matter, perhaps it could not be hers.

His faith was that the greedy, possessive, desiring
self
was ever ridiculous and punishable. His excess of pride, that otherwise so flatly contradicted the Christian humility, nevertheless, in practical effect, met it round the circle, for the object of his undying chief hatred of heart was precisely that meaner pride of the individual that constitutes the worldly nature.

He believed that the splendour of the soul consisted in its generosity of cold blood—it must give, give, and give; but not in exaltation, or from love; only because the soul's grandeur lay in its nakedness. … Of no one else in the world so far had he had such hopes as of this girl.

He looked round, and she was in the same place, but on her feet watching him. Her face was colourless, and set hard in a sort of suffering. He went over to her.

Their eyes alone spoke during the first moments. Then Ingrid said, but in an incredibly small voice:

"How long have you been up? I have just had the most terrible and blessed vision."

"I too have seen something I could not have thought possible. … I have not been here long. You were unconscious when I arrived."

"I don't wish to speak of what I have seen."

"Then let us not."

Neither, in that case, was it necessary that he should attempt the relation of his experience. He considered it certain that they had known different things. She had been staring towards the tomb, and the present pain in her eyes told of a
passion
endured. …

"Do you want to talk to me?" asked Ingrid. "Did you come up, expecting to find me here?"

"Yes. I was told you were not at your house, so guessed you might be on the Tor. But don't hurry. You are upset, and had better take a few minutes."

She sat down again on her rock, but Saltfleet noticed that she had put away the flint. After a pause, she looked up to him again.

"What is it?"

"It is a practical question of facts, decisions, ways and means. But are you sufficiently recovered?"

"Yes; I am going home directly."

"In the first place, Arsinal has arrived. I didn't send for him, but the news of your cousin's death had otherwise reached him."

She showed no eagerness, hardly any interest.

"Then he will see me?"

"That, unfortunately, will now depend on
your
management. … For I notified Mr. Copping immediately, and he has since called on us. Your mother is taking a hand. She has offered Arsinal both stones, on the condition that we do not attempt to meet you again. Arsinal was disposed to accept off-hand, but I felt that you should be told first. In the meantime, Mr. Copping appears to have withdrawn his consent to the use of his place for a talk between you and Arsinal."

"But I think I must talk to him."... Ingrid fell into a deep musing silence. She manifested so little disturbance, that Saltfleet remained uncertain if she had thoroughly apprehended his information.

"Our difficulty, of course, is that we can have no means of judging what exactly this offer of your mother's stands for. She is Drapier's executrix, we are told; but can you, and will you, veto it?"

"I will speak to my mother when I get back."

"For me, I am no longer Arsinal's agent, and so I am indifferent, but he, you will understand, regards his acquisition of these two flints as supremely important. He would rather have that talk with you than not; but above all he wishes not to bungle his securing the things. Your mother has made him the direct offer, while you, so far, have declined to."

"I understand his desire, and also my mother's. I can settle nothing here, but will speak to her at home."

"You have your stone with you?"

"Yes."

"And cannot refuse it to your mother, on demand?"

"By law, I cannot."

"I don't wish to pry behind the scenes, but what attitude will you probably take with her, and what is to be the likely upshot?"

"I shall tell her my wishes, and abide by her decision then."

The girl's apathy surprised Saltfleet more at every speech. He asked her bluntly:

"If you are really so unconcerned, why have you wanted this meeting with Arsinal, and why have you hesitated to let him have what he is as anxious as possible to get?"

"Does it matter?" came her reply. "All of us have wanted this or that. Hugh Drapier has wanted something, and Peter Copping, and Mr. Arsinal, and I, and even you. In the whole of this week's events down here, whose
wants
have mattered? To put it in another way, of the circumstances that
have
mattered, how many have been willed, or wanted, or dreamt of, beforehand? Can't you read the signs, Mr. Saltfleet?"

"Yet each of us must act. … You are probably a shade disheartened by this overcoming of yours. It will pass. Until it has passed, let me suggest a course for us all. You do wish to meet Arsinal?"

"If he is what I have imagined."

"Then, presumably, Mr. Copping must be repersuaded to let us have his home, or studio. Do you feel that you can arrange that for later in the day."

"I'll try. Or I will send word to you of another place."

"And the hour. This afternoon I may have to come out here again with Arsinal—he can hardly not want to see it before he leaves the district. But even so, we could still be home in time for an early meeting—say, at five, or five-thirty. The latter perhaps would be safer for us, and more convenient to you."

"At half-past five." Ingrid barely nodded.

"But I would ask a guarantee," proceeded Saltfleet. "In accepting and attending such an interview, we shall necessarily be seriously offending your mother—unless, indeed, you can procure her consent. But otherwise she will certainly consider it a rejection of her conditional offer of the stone; and will as certainly withdraw the offer. Arsinal then will have to rely upon your good offices; but at home you may meet with opposition. You will, I am sure, do what you can for us. Nevertheless, I think that the object of contention should be
lodged
—to prevent your mother's sudden confiscation of it. This is in the nature of a guarantee, and so I call it one."

"Lodged where?"

"One moment. I haven't finished, and there is another unpleasantness. I will be quite frank. The stone has to be somewhere. If, in coming to meet us, you leave it behind at home, there is the risk of its being appropriated in your absence. The danger may be of the slightest, yet in any case it will be enough thoroughly to upset Arsinal, who therefore is certain to insist on your not parting with the stone so long as the negotiations are on. On the other hand, should you keep it with you, more than one at the meeting might feel the strong temptation to suggest and urge the fitting together of the two counterparts there and then. … That I would resist to the last ounce of my strength, and still, fate being so very much to the fore in all these concerns, I might well be overruled. Consequently, it will be equally undesirable for you to leave the stone at home and carry it. The one third plan is to deposit it."

"Why don't you want them fitted?"

"The operation will be too hazardous," replied Saltfleet shortly.

"But Mr. Arsinal, if he gets them both, will fit them, if only to certify that they belong."

"I know he will. He is a man, however, and is entitled to take the risk for himself."

"Have you heard of a risk?"

"I've either heard of one, or imagined one. That topic is extraneous, and need not be introduced. I have made you the request, Miss Fleming."

She was silent for a short while, looking at the ground. Then she said again, in a hesitating low voice:

"Why, then, don't you accept my mother's offer? That is the surest way for you."

"We could not, before I had spoken to you. But have we now your consent?"

"The stone is in my pocket, and you may take it away with you at once."

"Why have you changed your mind?"

"My mind is the same, but my will has left it, and it has collapsed. Those who have the will should be allowed to gratify it, while they may. Who can say how long it will be for? So really Mr. Arsinal may have the stone, since you assure me that my mother is agreeable."

"Then are you throwing it all over?"

Ingrid rose and confronted him.

"You have found me here, in this out-of-the-way place, in such distress, and can ask me a question like that! ... Can you not conceive that the stage of mere curiosity may give way to something quite different and very much more awful? Mr. Arsinal is happy that he is still in the time of groping and searching—if groping and searching he is. I do not wish to disappoint him, and so he may have this stone, and you may take it to him."

"How far do these psychic phenomena depend upon the possession of either stone?"

"I don't know."

"And you are willing
not
to meet him?"

She stood thinking, with averted eyes.

"I am not sure if that will be permitted—my not meeting him. Probably he is a person I shall have to meet. … And you have mentioned a risk to me in the joining of the stones. That may be only a forbidding appearance—an unpleasant-looking door, through which some of us have to pass. What have you heard; or, I think you said, imagined?"

"I doubt if I can tell you."

But her strange pale beauty and half-supernatural gaze persuaded him in another moment that it was to no ordinary girl of the world that he was being invited to make this otherwise unpardonable statement; and also she should be warned in time.

"There is an ancient Cretan prophecy—and a second from another place—in connection with the reuniting of these stones. It is to bring about the marriage of a man and woman, and of them is to be born a regenerator of the human race. This is associated with the worship of the Great Mother. Arsinal is of opinion that the entire fair-haired northern stock was the creation of the undivided stone upon its first arrival on the planet. It should be meteoric."

"Is he wise, or mad?"

"He is extraordinarily gifted. Whether he is also mad, you must judge."

"Isn't he an archaeologist?"

"Yes."

"But he should be a mystic, too."

"He is that, too," said Saltfleet.

"So you caution me against this strange man's choosing to fasten upon me, a woman, as the one indicated?"

"It would be most painful for all involved. Yet I cannot say that his insanity would go so far, and I merely wish to give the warning that it is a possibility; besides the positive psycho-chemical risk of the rejoining."

"But simply to talk with him, I may meet him without embarrassment?"

"Mr. Copping and I would both be present."

She sent him a queer flitting smile, which was no smile at all, but like a silent speech; and asked him afterwards:

"What do
you
think of this thing?"

"I think that in this quick-spreading growth of wondrous transactions, any new miracle may find room. Arsinal, as well, has hitherto been peculiarly lucky in his guesses—far-sighted, if you will. I myself have seen and heard plain impossibilities both on this hill just now and elsewhere, in more or less near relation. … So I would like to adopt the sane, cynical attitude towards the prediction, but cannot. That is what you asked?"

"Aren't you altogether working against your friend's interests? First you have refused my mother's offer, and now you have not yet accepted mine, and you are raising the points of his sanity and propriety with me as if an intimate. Is it because you are coming to understand that these happenings cannot be for him alone?"

"It is so," returned Saltfleet, surprised. "At the beginning of the acquaintance I admired the man tremendously, and still recognise that he possesses valuable qualities enough to endow a dozen others, but within these last twenty-four hours the damned spot of his nature seems to have appeared. I am finding him self-centred." He viewed her more steadily. "You may or may not understand me, but without, on the contrary,
self-contempt,
nobody, man or woman, can rise past a certain determinate level of willing. …"

"Yes, I have sometimes struggled with that idea. One must be able to despise even one’s own aims, or pay the penalty of everlasting pettiness. This man, perhaps, cannot separate the two things: the service of fate, and the service of the will."