CHAPTER II. AN EXPERIMENT
Ernest Travers, Felix Fayre-Michell, Tom May, and Colonel Vane followedSir Walter upstairs to a great corridor, which ran the length of themain front, and upon which opened a dozen bedrooms and dressing-rooms.They proceeded to the eastern extremity. It was lighted throughout, andnow their leader took off an electric bulb from a sconce on the walloutside the room they had come to visit.
"There is none in there," he explained, "though the light was installedin the Grey Room as elsewhere when I started my own plant twenty yearsago. My father never would have it. He disliked it exceedingly, andbelieved it aged the eyes."
Henry arrived with the key. The door was unlocked, and the lightestablished. The party entered a large and lofty chamber with ceilingof elaborate plaster work and silver-grey walls, the paper on which wassomewhat tarnished. A pattern of dim, pink roses as large as cabbagesran riot over it. A great oriel window looked east, while a smaller oneopened upon the south. Round the curve of the oriel ran a cushioned seateighteen inches above the ground, while on the western side of the room,set in the internal wall, was a modern fireplace with a white Adamsmantel above it. Some old, carved chairs stood round the walls, and inone corner, stacked together, lay half a dozen old oil portraits, grimyand faded. They called for the restorer, but were doubtfully worth hislabors. Two large chests of drawers, with rounded bellies, and a verybeautiful washing-stand also occupied places round the room, and againstthe inner wall rose a single, fourposter bed of Spanish chestnut, alsocarved. A grey, self-colored carpet covered the floor, and on one of thechests stood a miniature bronze copy of the Faun of Praxiteles.
The apartment was bright and cheerful of aspect. Nothing gloomy ordepressing marked it, nor a suggestion of the sinister.
"Could one wish for a more amiable looking room?" asked Fayre-Michell.
They gazed round them, and Ernest Travers expressed admiration at theold furniture.
"My dear Walter, why hide these things here?" he asked. "They arebeautiful, and may be valuable, too."
"I've been asked the same question before," answered the owner. "Andthey are valuable. Lord Bolsover offered me a thousand guineas forthose two chairs; but the things are heirlooms in a sort of way, andI shouldn't feel justified in parting with them. My grandfatherwas furniture mad--spent half his time collecting old stuff on theContinent. Spain was his happy hunting ground."
"It's positively a shame to doom these chairs to a haunted room, uncle,"declared Henry.
But the other shook his head and smothered a yawn.
"The house is too full as it is." he said.
"Mary wants you to scrap dozens of things," replied his nephew. "Thenthere'd be plenty of room."
"You'll do what you please when your turn comes, and no doubt cast outmy tusks and antlers and tiger-skins, which I know you don't admire.Wait in patience, Henry. And we will now go to bed," answered the elder."I am fatigued, and it must be nearly midnight."
Then Tom May brought their thoughts back to the reason of the visit.
"Look here, governor," he said. "It's a scandal to give a champion roomlike this a bad name and shut it up. You've fallen into the habit,but you know it's all nonsense. Mary loves this room. I'll make you asporting offer. Let me sleep in it to-night, and then, when I reporta clean bill to-morrow, you can throw it open again and announce it isforgiven without a stain on its character. You've just said you don'tbelieve spooks have the power to hurt anybody. Then let me turn inhere."
Sir Walter, however, refused.
"No, Tom; most certainly not. It's far too late to go over the groundagain and explain why, but I don't wish it."
"A milder-mannered room was never seen," said Ernest Travers. "You mustlet me look at it by daylight, and bring Nelly. The ceiling, too, isevidently very fine--finer even than the one in my room."
"The ceilings here were all the work of Italians in Tudor times,"explained his friend. "They are Elizabethan. The plaster is certainlywonderful, and my ceilings are considered as good as anything in thecountry, I believe."
He turned, and the rest followed him.
Henry removed the electric bulb, and restored it to its place outside.Then his uncle gave him the key.
"Put it back in the cabinet," he said. "I won't go down again."
The party broke up, and all save Lennox and the sailor went to theirrooms. The two younger men descended together and, when out of ear-shotof his uncle, Henry spoke.
"Look here, Tom," he said, "you've given me a tip. I'm going to camp outin the Grey Room to-night. Then, in the morning, I'll tell Uncle WalterI have done so, and the ghost's number will be up."
"Quite all right, old man--only the plan must be modified. I'llsleep there. I'm death on it, and the brilliant inspiration was mine,remember."
"You can't. He refused to let you."
"I didn't hear him."
"Oh, yes, you did--everybody did. Besides, this is fairly my task--youwon't deny that. Chadlands will be mine, some day, so it's up to me toknock this musty yarn on the head once and for all. Could anything bemore absurd than shutting up a fine room like that? I'm really ratherashamed of Uncle Walter."
"Of course it's absurd but, honestly, I'm rather keen about this. I'ddearly love to add a medieval phantom to my experiences, and only wish Ithought anything would show up. I beg you'll raise no objection. It wasmy idea, and I very much wish to make the experiment. Of course, I don'tbelieve in anything supernatural."
They went back to the billiard-room, dismissed Fred Caunter, thefootman, who was waiting to put out the lights, and continued theirdiscussion. The argument began to grow strenuous, for each proveddetermined, and who owned the stronger will seemed a doubtful question.
For a time, since no conclusion could satisfy both, they abandonedthe centre of contention and debated, as their elders had done, onthe general question. Henry declared himself not wholly convinced. Headopted an agnostic attitude, while Tom frankly disbelieved. The onepreserved an open mind, the other scoffed at apparitions in general.
"It's humbug to say sailors are superstitious now," he asserted. "Theymight have been, but my experience is that they are no more credulousthan other people in these days. Anyway, I'm not. Life is a matter ofchemistry. There's no mumbo jumbo about it, in my opinion. Chemicalanalysis has reached down to hormones and enzymes and all manner ofsubtle secretions discovered by this generation of inquirers; butit's all organic. Nobody has ever found anything that isn't. Existencedepends on matter, and when the chemical process breaks down, theorganism perishes and leaves nothing. When a man can't go on breathing,he's dead, and there's an end of him."
But Henry had read modern science also.
"What about the vital spark, then? Biologists don't turn down the theoryof vitalism, do they?"
"Most of them do, who count, my dear chap. The presence of a vitalspark--a spark that cannot be put out--is merely a theory with nothingto prove it. When he dies, the animating principle doesn't leave a man,and go off on its own. It dies too. It was part of the man--as much ashis heart or brain."
"That's only an opinion. Nobody can be positive. We don't know anythingabout what life really means, and we haven't got the machinery to findout."
"By analogy we can," argued Tom. "Where are you going to draw the line?Life is life, and a sponge is just as much alive as a herring; a nettleis just as much alive as an oak-tree; and an oak-tree is just as muchalive as you are. What becomes of its vital spark when you eat anoyster?"
"You wouldn't believe in a life after death at all, then?"
"It's a pure assumption, Henry. I'd like to believe in it--who wouldn't?Because, if you honestly did, it would transform this life intosomething infinitely different from what it is."
"It ought to--yet it doesn't seem to."
"It ought to, certainly. If you believe this life is only the portal toanother of much greater importance, then--well, there you are. Nothingmatters but trying to make everybody else believe it, too. But as amatter of fact, the
people who do believe it, or think they do, seemto me just as concentrated on this life and just as much out to get thevery best they can from it, and wring it dry, as I am, who reckon it'sall."
"They believe as a matter of course, and don't seem to realize how muchtheir belief ought to imply," confessed Henry.
"Why do they believe? Because most of them haven't really thought aboutit more than a turnip thinks. They dwell in a foggy sort of way on thefuture life when they go to church on Sundays; then they return home andforget all about it till next Sunday."
Lennox brought him back to the present difference.
"Well, seeing you laugh at ghosts, and I remain doubtful, it's only fairthat I sleep in the Grey Room. You must see that. Ghosts hate peoplewho don't believe in them. They'd cold shoulder you; but in my case theymight feel I was good material, worth convincing. They might show up forme in a friendly spirit. If they show for you, it will probably be tobully you."
Tom laughed.
"That's what I want. I'd like to have it out and talk sense to a spook,and show him what an ass he's making of himself. The governor was rightabout that. When Fayre-Michell asked if he believed in them loafingabout a place where they'd been murdered or otherwise maltreated, herejected the idea."
"Yet a woman certainly died there, and without a shadow of reason."
"She probably died for a very good reason, only we don't happen to knowit."
Henry tried a different argument.
"You're married, and you matter; I'm not married, and don't matter toanybody."
"Humbug!"
"Mary wouldn't like it, anyway; you know that."
"True--she'd hate it. But she won't know anything about it tillto-morrow. She always sleeps in her old nursery when she comes here, andI'm down the corridor at the far end. She'd have a fit if she knew I'dturned in next door to her and was snoozing in the Grey Room; but shewon't know till I tell her of my rash act to-morrow. Don't think I'm afool. Nobody loves life better than I do, and nobody has better reasonto. But I'm positive that this is all rank nonsense, and so areyou really. We know there's nothing in the room with a shadow ofsupernatural danger about it. Besides, you wouldn't want to sleep thereso badly if you believed anything wicked was waiting for you. You'retons cleverer than I am--so you must agree about that."
Lennox was bound to confess that he entertained no personal fear. Theystill argued, and the clock struck midnight. Then the sailor made asuggestion.
"Since you're so infernally obstinate, I'll do this. We'll toss up, andthe winner can have the fun. That's fair to both."
The other agreed; he tossed a coin, and May called "tails," and won.
He was jubilant, while Henry showed a measure of annoyance. The otherconsoled him.
"It's better so, old man. You're highly strung and nervy, and a poet andall that sort of thing. I'm no better than a prize ox, and don't knowwhat nerves mean. I can sleep anywhere, anyhow. If you can sleep in asubmarine, you bet you can in a nice, airy Elizabethan room, even if itis haunted. But it's not; that's the whole point. There's not a hauntedroom in the world. Get me your service revolver, like a good chap."
Henry was silent, and Tom rose to make ready for his vigil.
"I'm dog-tired, anyhow," he said. "Nothing less than Queen Elizabethherself will keep me awake, if it does appear."
Then the other surprised him.
"Don't think I want to go back on it. You've won the right to make theexperiment--if we ignore Uncle Walter. But--well, you'll laugh, yet,on my honor, Tom, I've got a feeling I'd rather you didn't. It isn'tnerves. I'm not nervy any more than you are. I'm not suggesting that Igo now, of course. But I do ask you to think better of it and chuck thething."
"Why?"
"Well, one can't help one's feelings. I do feel a rum sort of convictionat the bottom of my mind that it's not good enough. I can't explain;there are no words for it that I know, but it's growing on me.Intuition, perhaps."
"Intuition of what?"
"I can't tell you. But I ask you not to go."
"You were going if you'd won the toss?"
"I know."
"Then your growing intuition is only because I won it. Hanged if I don'tthink you want to funk me, old man!"
"I couldn't do that. But it's different me going and you going. I've gotnothing to live for. Don't think I'm maudlin, or any rot of that sort;but you know all about the past. I've never mentioned it to you, and,of course, you haven't to me; and I never should have. But I will now.I loved Mary with all my heart and soul, Tom. She didn't know how much,and probably I didn't either. But that's done, and no man on earthrejoices in her great happiness more than I do. And no man on earth isgoing to be a better or a truer friend to you and her than, please God,I shall be. But that being so, can't you see the rest? My life ended ina way when the dream of my life ended. I attach no importance to livingfor itself, and if anything final happened to me it wouldn't leave ablank anywhere. You're different. In sober honesty you oughtn't to runinto any needless danger--real or imaginary. I'm thinking of Mary onlywhen I say that--not you."
"But I deny the danger."
"Yes; only you might listen. So did I, but I deny it no longer. The caseis altered when I tell you in all seriousness--when I take my oath ifyou like--that I do believe now there is something in this. I don'tsay it's supernatural, and I don't say it isn't; but I do feel deeplyimpressed in my mind now, and it's growing stronger every minute,that there's something here out of the common and really infernallydangerous."
The other looked at him in astonishment.
"What bee has got into your bonnet?"
"Don't call it that. It's a conviction, Tom. Do be guided by me, oldchap!"
The sailor flushed a little, emptied his glass, and rose.
"If you really wanted to choke me off, you chose a funny way to doso. Surely it only needed this to determine anybody. If you, as a saneperson, honestly believe there's a pinch of danger in that blessedplace, then I certainly sleep there to-night, or else wake there."
"Let me come, too, then, Tom."
"That be damned for a yarn! Ghosts don't show up for two people--haven'tgot pluck enough. If I get any sport, I'll be quite straight about it,and you shall try your luck to-morrow."
"I can only make it a favor; and not for your own sake, either."
"I know. Mary will be sleeping the sleep of the just in the next room.How little she'll guess! Perhaps, if I see an apparition worthy of theGolden Age, I'll call her up."
"Do oblige me, May."
"In anything on earth but this thing. It's really too late now. Don'tyou see you've defeated your own object? You mustn't ask me to throwup the sponge to your sudden intuition of danger sprung on me at theeleventh hour. I won the toss, and can't take my orders from you, oldchap, can I?"
The other, in his turn, grew a little warm.
"All right. I've spoken. I think you're rather a fool to be soobstinate. It isn't as if a nervous old woman was talking to you. Butyou'll go your own way. It doesn't matter a button to me, and I onlymade it a favor for somebody else's sake."
"We'll leave it at that, then. May I trouble you for the key? And yourrevolver, too. I haven't got mine here."
Henry hesitated. The key was in the pocket of his jacket.
"It is a matter of honor, Lennox," said the sailor.
The other handed over the key on this speech, and prepared to go.
"I'll get the revolver," he said.
"Thanks. Look me up in the morning, if you're awake first," added May;but the other did not answer.
He let Tom precede him, and then turned out the lights. Other lightshe also extinguished as they left the hall and ascended the stairs.The younger's pride was struggling for mastery; but he conquered it andspoke again.
"I wish to Heaven you could see it from another point of view than yourown, Tom."
"I have no point of view. You're rather exasperating, and don't seemto understand that, even if I might have changed my mind before, it'simpossi
ble now."
"That's really only a foolish sort of pride. If I chose my wordsclumsily--"
"You did. The devil and all his angels wouldn't make me climb down now."
The younger left him, and returned in a minute or two with the revolver.
"Good-night," he said.
"Good-night, old boy. Thank you. Loaded?"
"In all the chambers. Funny you should want it."
"Take it back, then."
But Henry did not answer, and they parted. Each sought his own bedroom,and while Lennox retired at once and might have been expected to pass anight more mentally peaceful than the other, in reality it was not so.
The younger slept ill, while May suffered no emotion but annoyance. Hewas contemptuous of Henry. It seemed to him that he had taken a rathermean and unsporting line, nor did he believe for a moment that he washonest. Lennox had a modern mind; he had been through the furnace ofwar; he had received a first-class education. It seemed impossible toimagine that he spoke the truth, or that his sudden suspicion of realperils, beyond human power to combat, could be anything but a spitefulattempt to put May off, after he himself had lost the toss. Yet thatseemed unlike a gentleman. Then the allusion to Mary perturbed thesailor. He could not quarrel with the words, but he resented the advice,seeing what it was based upon.
His anger lessened swiftly, however, and before he started hisadventure he had dismissed Henry from his mind. He put on pyjamas and adressing-gown, took a candle, a railway-rug, his watch, and the loadedrevolver.
Then he walked quietly down the corridor to the Grey Room. On reachingit his usual good temper returned, and he found himself entirely happyand contented. He unlocked the forbidden entrance, set his candle bythe bed, and locked the door again from inside. He rolled up hisdressing-gown for a pillow, and placed his watch and revolver and candleat his hand on a chair. A few broken reflections drifted through hismind, as he yawned and prepared to sleep. His brain brought up eventsof the day--a missed shot, a good shot, lunch under a haystack with Maryand Fayre-Michell's niece. She was smart and showy and slangy--cheapevery way compared with Mary. What would his wife think if she knew hewas so near? Come to him for certain. He cordially hoped that he mightnot be recalled to his ship; but there was a possibility of it. It wouldbe rather a lark to show the governor over the Indomitable. She was a"hush-hush" ship--one of the wonders of the Navy still. Funny that theItalian roof of the Grey Room looked like a dome, though it was reallyflat. A cunning trick of perspective.
It was a still and silent night, moonless, very dark, and very tranquil.He went to the window to throw it open.
Only a solitary being waked long that night at Chadlands, and onlya solitary mind suffered tribulation. But into the small hours HenryLennox endured the companionship of disquiet thoughts. He could notsleep, and his brain, clear enough, retraced no passage from the pastday. Indeed the events of the day had sunk into remote time. He was onlyconcerned with the present, and he wondered while he worried that heshould be worrying. Yet a proleptic instinct made him look forward. Hehad neither lied nor exaggerated to May. From the moment of losing thetoss, he honestly experienced a strong, subjective impression of dangerarising out of the proposed attack on the mysteries of the Grey Room.It was, indeed, that consciousness of greater possibilities in theadventure than May admitted or imagined which made Lennox so insistent.Looking back, he perceived many things, and chiefly that he had taken awrong line, and approached Mary's husband from a fatal angle. Too latehe recognized his error. It was inevitable that a hint of suspecteddanger would confirm the sailor in his resolution; and that such a hintshould follow the spin of the coin against Lennox, and be accompanied bythe assurance that, had he won, Henry would have proceeded, despite hisintuitions, to do what he now begged Tom not to do--that was a piece ofclumsy work which he deeply regretted.
At the hour when his own physical forces were lowest, his errors ofdiplomacy forced themselves upon his mind. He wasted much time, as allmen do upon their beds, in anticipating to-morrow; in considering whatis going to happen, or what is not; in weighing their own future wordsand deeds given a variety of contingencies. For reason, which at firstkept him, despite his disquiet, in the region of the rational, grewweaker with Henry as the night advanced; the shadow of trouble deepenedas his weary wits lost their balance to combat it. The premonition wasas formless and amorphous as a cloud, and, though he could not see anyshape to his fear, or define its limitations, it grew darker ere heslept. He considered what might happen and, putting aside any lesserdisaster, tried to imagine what the morning would bring if May actuallysuccumbed.
For the moment the size of such an imaginary disaster served curiouslyto lessen his uneasiness. Pushed to extremities, the idea became merelyabsurd. He won a sort of comfort from such an outrageous proposition,because it brought him back to the solid ground of reason and theassurance that some things simply do not happen. From this extravagantsummit of horror, his fears gradually receded. Such a waking nightmareeven quieted his nerves when it was past; for if a possibility presentsa ludicrous side, then its horror must diminish by so much. Moreover,Henry told himself that if the threat of a disaster so absolute couldreally be felt by him, it was his duty to rise at once, intervene, and,if necessary, summon his uncle and force May to leave the Grey Roomimmediately.
This idea amused him again and offered another jest. The tragedy reallyresolved into jests. He found himself smiling at the picture of Maybeing treated like a disobedient schoolboy. But if that happened, andTom was proclaimed the sinner, what must be Henry's own fate? To winthe reputation of an unsportsmanlike sneak in Mary's opinion as well asTom's. He certainly could call upon nobody to help him now. But hemight go and look up May himself. That would be very sharply resented,however. He travelled round and round in circles, then asked himselfwhat he would do and say to-morrow if anything happened to Tom--nothing,of course, fatal, but something perhaps so grave that May himself wouldbe unable to explain it. In that case Henry could only state factsexactly as they had occurred. But there would be a deuce of a muddleif he had to make statements and describe the exact sequence of recentincidents. Already he forgot the exact sequence. It seemed ages since heparted from May. He broke off there, rose, drank a glass of water,and lighted a cigarette. He shook himself into wakefulness, condemnedhimself for this debauch of weak-minded thinking, found the time to bethree o'clock, and brushed the whole cobweb tangle from his mind. Heknew that sudden warmth after cold will often induce sleep--a factproved by incidents of his campaigns--so he trudged up and down andopened his window and let the cool breath of the night chill hisforehead and breast for five minutes.
This action calmed him, and he headed himself off from returning to thesubject. He felt that mental dread and discomfort were only waiting tobreak out again; but he smothered them, returned to bed, and succeededin keeping his mind on neutral-tinted matter until he fell asleep.
He woke again before he was called, rose and went to his bath. Hetook it cold, and it refreshed him and cleared his head, for he had aheadache. Everything was changed, and the phantoms of his imaginationremained only as memories to be laughed at. He no longer felt alarm oranxiety. He dressed presently, and guessing that Tom, always the firstto rise, might already be out of doors, he strolled on to the terracepresently to meet him there.
Already he speculated whether an apology was due from him to May, orwhether he might himself expect one. It didn't matter. He knew perfectlywell that Tom was all right now, and that was the only thing thatsignified.