XIII. At Anchor

The alternative of light and darkness must continue as long as we live in this world of illusion.

—“On the Threshold.”

Gum trees!!! For two days and nights I have been flying past their serried ranks, as the train rushes on through Victoria and New South Wales. I begin to sympathise with the little Globe-Trotter whom my uncle could never persuade to go for a walk or, indeed, any sort of excursion.

“Go out! What for? Just to look at your old gum trees. Thanks! One gum is rather interesting; it has even a certain distinction and individuality, but thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions, and nothing else but your everlasting gum trees!”

Can it be really true, as I have been assured, that the eucalypti, like the pines, are reservoirs of the vital force of the sun which they radiate in torrents of rose-coloured atoms, pouring strength and vitality into the atmosphere surrounding them. How precious they would be were the idea accepted!

What a sanatorium Australia would become for the poor anaemic humanity of the old world! What an inexhaustible storehouse of health and energy!

Mrs. Clarke, who meets me at Oberon, is indeed a charming woman. Simple and unaffected, she treats me at once as a friend. She is happy in her homely life on the big farm, which she manages in her husband’s absence. Mr. Clarke had been obliged to go to England to settle a question of succession.

The children are darlings: Lucille, an angel of six; Jack, a little demon of five, dowered with an inexhaustible energy and mischievousness which keep us breathless until he is safely tucked up in his cot at night. The mother is bringing them up in true Australian fashion, which certainly has the merit of allowing individuality to develop unhampered.

Just now they are very interested in the Bible stories their nursemaid tells them every morning, and in their enthusiasm they dramatize them, which leads occasionally to unexpected catastrophes.

The other day at lunch time Lucille was missing.

After an hour’s fruitless search, Jack confessed that she was in the old dry well.

“In the well?” we exclaimed, horrified.

“Ye-e-e-s; we was playin’ Joseph and his brudders. I was de only brudder,” added the young rascal, regretfully. “I made her go down de well and den I pulled up de rope, so she tuddn’t det out.”

Leaving nurse to exhaust her vocabulary on the youthful reprobate, we hurried to the well, not very deep, happily.

To Kate’s call a small voice came up:

“Is you the ’Gyptian merchants?”

One of the farm hands descended, and picked up the child enveloped in an Indian curtain of many colours.

Mrs. Clarke put her histrionic offspring to bed without further ado, Lucille to get warm, for she was shivering with cold, and Master Jack to punish him.

He looked so angelic in his long white nightgown that one could never suspect the diabolical ideas which enter his little brain.

With hands meekly folded and innocent eyes raised heavenward, he lisped: “Pease take care of father, mamma, Lulu, and Jeanne—but not nurse,” he added, with a resentful glance at the maid.

For some days Lucille has been playing a rather mysterious game. While Jack is having his afternoon sleep, she sits down in a certain corner of the room to play with her dolls.

Entering unperceived a day or two ago, I heard her put questions and give answers, as though she were talking to a companion. She made gestures, nodded and seemed very interested in her conversation.

Catching sight of me, she made a sign to arrest my advance. Then, running towards me, said:

“Betty is very shy. She won’t say a word when anyone is here.”

“Betty?” I replied, inquiringly, lending myself to the game.

“Yes, my little friend. She comes every day to play with me when Jack is asleep. She does not like Jack; he is too rough,” she explains, shaking her little head. “Betty loves you, pretty well, but she always hides when anybody comes into the room. That’s her hiding place,” pointing to a crack in the panelling, which had given a little with the heat.

The child evidently has too much imagination. I must speak to her mother about it.

To-day I find Lucille in tears when I enter the day nursery to give her a French lesson. Nurse is angry, and is scolding her severely.

“It’s wicked of you, Miss Lucille, to tell stories like that.”

“It isn’t a story,” protests the child; “Betty was there just now, and you made her go when you began to scold me.”

“Look, Miss Jeanne,” continues the maid, turning towards me, “this naughty little girl declares that there was another child in the room with her. Isn’t it wicked of her to tell such stories. God will punish her.”

Lucille’s body stiffens. She says nothing more, but rebellious sobs shake her small frame.

I try to pacify nurse, and when she has gone away, muttering that I spoil the child, I take Lulu on my knees. She nestles lovingly into my arms and whispers:

“You do believe me, don’t you? Betty was there, and ... why, there she is again,” holding her little arms, her face brightens, her large eyes shine with excitement.

She is not lying; she really does see some one.

I try to explain that grown-ups cannot always see what children see.

“You must not blame nurse, darling; tell me what your little playmate says.”

Then follows a strange converse wherein Lucille acts as interpreter to a little child invisible to all except herself....

When the children have been put to bed, I tell Mrs. Clarke what has passed. She seems less surprised than I had expected.

“Yes, I have noticed that Lulu is not quite as other children. Her soul is too evolved for its frail tenement. At times it breaks the veil between the astral and spiritual worlds. Lucille then finds herself in communion with the beings who live and move on the plane which interpenetrates ours.”

My blank look of amazement betrays my utter ignorance of Kate’s meaning. She proceeds to tell me of the psychical studies which in the last decade have pulled down the barriers between the material and the invisible world. She quotes the words of Sir Oliver Lodge: “We are beginning to hear now and again, the strokes of the pick-axes of our comrades on the other side.” She hands me some Theosophical reviews and articles on Psychical Research.

I exclaim: “What, you! a sensible woman, believe in theosophy, that mixture of old superstitions and new-fangled notions, as my uncle used to term it.”

“It is because I am a sensible woman,” Kate replies, “that I am a theosophist. If you had studied this science as much as I have, you would speak of it with more consideration.”

For the next hour, she talks on until the strange words, Re-incarnation, Karma, astral bodies, and Devachan begin to dance in my poor brain like a juggler’s balls.... My eyes close, I lose the thread....

“Please excuse me, dear; I forget everything once I am on this topic. It is getting late, and you are dead tired.” Kissing me, she adds:

“To-morrow, we will consider what to do with Lucille. Perhaps together we may evolve some means of minimising the influence of the phenomena which over-excites her brain. When she reaches the age of seven, the door now half-open to the invisible world will probably close outright. Meanwhile, take this little book, written by Will Canton, ‘The Invisible Playmate,’ wherein you will find an analogous case.”

In my room, Kate’s words return to me. Can it be true? Does another world, invisible to our grosser perceptions interpenetrate this?

The idea fascinates and scares me at the same time.

But no, no, I will not dwell on these religious questions. They have cost me too dear in the past. Neither will I read the books.

After a troubled night, wherein astral bodies, elementals and various sorts of “spooks” indulge in terrific combats, I am brought abruptly back to realities.

In the weekly paper, “The Australasian,” which I open after breakfast, is an account of a sensational divorce suit. A name catches my eye, and makes my heart beat almost, it would seem, before my brain could register the impression.

What is this strange sub-consciousness which acts on the human organism, often in spite of ourselves, making the blood recede and the knees tremble at the sight of a name, the memory of a glance?

I must read it now. The affair is sordid. An indulgent husband, deceived by a silly wife, not for love’s sake, for the co-respondents are many, but through sheer idleness and vanity, the desire to be considered “smart,” to wear extravagant toilets utterly beyond her husband’s means. Allan Russell’s name appears among the admirers of the frail beauty.

Mrs. Clarke enters and I pass her the paper, in silence.

Her face grows grave.

“Poor Allan! What a wasted life!”

“You pity him! It seems to me he has just what he deserves.”

“Alas, Jeanne, we all get what we deserve—which fact doesn’t make it a whit easier to bear.”

I cannot refrain from pursuing the subject.

“You know Mr. Russell well, then?”

“Yes; and a more open and generous nature was never spoilt by a bad, heartless woman.”

“Allan was the son of my mother’s best friend,” Mrs. Clarke continues. “Our stations were not far from each other, and we grew up like brother and sister. I believe,” she adds, smiling, “that our parents wouldn’t have objected to see a more tender affection between us. But Allan was at least a year my junior, and I always looked on him as a mere boy. He confided to me the great passion which his mother’s companion had inspired in him. This woman, ten years Allan’s senior, who had a past as we discovered later on, used all her skill and experience to infatuate the young man, alternately repelling and encouraging his advances, until she had him wholly in her power. She played with his feelings as a virtuoso does with a violin. A secret marriage was arranged.”

“That is easy here, isn’t it? A visit to the Registrar and the affair is settled,” I interpolated.

“Sometimes to one’s cost—certainly to my poor friend’s. Allan’s parents refused to receive his wife, so, possessing ample means—a fact of which the lady had carefully assured herself—he took her to London. Then began a life which to Allan soon became martyrdom. Vicious and utterly heartless, she dragged her husband with her into the mire, deceiving him for the sake of lovers as depraved as herself. The inevitable separation happened at the end of a few years, which had warped Allan’s nature and turned him into a bitter and disillusioned man, believing neither in woman’s virtue nor man’s honour.”

“Could he not have divorced her?”

“Allan was too proud then to let his name be dragged before the Court. In a moment’s compassion—there is still a strain of chivalry in Allan, despite his cynicism—he promised not to divorce her if she would consent never to follow him. He made ample settlements on her which suffice for her numerous gratifications—the wretched being has added drunkenness to her other vices—but she has sense enough to abide by the contract, and passes her time in England or on the Continent, that is when she isn’t in an inebriate ‘retreat’.”

“So that is why Mr. Russell came back to Australia?”

“Yes, but fettered. Tired of the loneliness of the bush, and hopeless of happiness, he threw himself into speculations with all the ardour of his temperament. His ventures succeeded, and now he is one of the richest men in the colonies, the leader of the ‘smart set.’ Poor Allan! Two things might save him. A duty to accomplish, or a noble love which would rescue him from this life of idleness and pleasure.”

Shall I tell Kate of the impression he has made upon me? His resemblance to the Rajah of my dreams? With her peculiar beliefs, she might be able to give me an explanation.... No! I dare not! She would jeer at my susceptibility, perhaps ... and then he is married, and to that creature! I can quite understand now why he left without trying to see me a second time.

A letter from Hector brings the ever-dreaded news. He has fallen a victim to the terrible scourge. It is only a question of time. He states it quite simply. He is almost happy. He feels closer to the unhappy beings around him. He can say to them, as Father Damien did: “We lepers.”

Oh, my poor Hector! To what suffering are you not doomed.

I am writing, entreating to be allowed to join him, to share his work, to tend him as a sister, as a wife if he wills it.