The Dweller on the Threshold Part 15

In the morning at St. Joseph's Mr. Harding had preached to a church that was half filled; in the evening Henry Chichester had preached to a church that was full to the doors. And each of the clergymen in turn had listened to the other, but how differently!

Mr. Harding had ascended to the pulpit with failure staring him in the face, and whereas on the Sunday when Malling first heard him he had obviously fought against the malign influence which eventually had prevailed over him, this time he had not had the vigor to make a struggle. Certainly he had not broken down. It might be said of him, as it was once said of a nation, that he had "muddled through." He had preached a very poor sermon in a very poor way, nervously, indeed, almost timidly, and with the manner of a man who was cowed and hopeless.

The powerful optimism for which he had once been distinguished had given way to an almost unhealthy pessimism, alien surely to the minds of all believers, of all who profess to look forward to that life of which, as Tolstoi long ago said, our present life is but a dream. Even when he was uttering truths he spoke them as if he had an uneasy suspicion that they were lies. At moments he seemed to be almost pleading with his hearers to tolerate him, to "bear with him." Indeed, several times during his disjointed remarks he made use of the latter expression, promising that his discourse should be a short one. Very carefully he included himself among those aware of sin, very humbly he declared the unworthiness of any man to set himself up as a teacher and leader of others.

Now, humility is all very well, but if carried to excess, it suggests something less than a man. Mr. Harding almost cringed before his congregation. Malling did not feel that his humility was a pretense.

On the contrary, it struck him as abominably real, but so excessive as to be not natural in any thorough man in a normal condition of mind and of body. It was the sort of humility that creates in the unregenerate a desire to offer a good kicking as a corrective.

Very different was the effect created by Chichester's sermon in the evening. Malling, aware though he had become of the great strengthening of Chichester, was amazed when he heard him preach.

Often it is said of a very fine preacher that he preached as one inspired. Chichester preached as one who knew. Never before had Malling been so impressed with the feeling that he was listening to truth, absolute truth, as he was while he listened to Chichester. There was something, though, that was almost deadly about it. It pierced like a lancet. It seared like a red-hot iron. It humbled almost too much.

Here was no exaggerated humility, no pleading to be borne with, no cringing, and no doubt. A man who knew was standing up, and, with a sort of indifference to outside opinion that was almost frightening, was saying some of the things he knew about men, women--and surely G.o.d!

The subject was somewhat akin to that of the first sermon of Mr. Harding which Malling had heard. The rector then had preached on self-knowledge.

The curate, now, preached on hypocrisy. Incidentally he destroyed his rector's sermon, flung it away on the sc.r.a.p-heap, and pa.s.sed on. This was not done viciously, but it was done relentlessly. Indeed, that was the note of the whole sermon. It was relentless, as truth is relentless, as death is relentless. And besides being terribly true, it was imaginative.

But the preacher almost succeeded in conveying the impression to his congregation that what is generally called imagination is really vision, that the true imagination is seeing what is, but is often hidden, knowing what is, but is often unknown. The latter part of the sermon struck Malling as very unusual, even as very daring.

The preacher had spoken of the many varieties of hypocrisy. Finally he drew a picture of a finished hypocrite. And the man lived as a man lives in the pages of a great writer. One could walk round him, one knew him.

And then Chichester treated him as the writer treats his creation; he proceeded to show his hypocrite in action.

The man, happy, almost triumphant,--for he now often looked upon himself with the eyes of others who knew him not,--was walking to his home on a winter's evening along a country road, pa.s.sing now and then rustics who respectfully saluted him, neighbors who grasped his hand, children who innocently smiled at him, women who whispered that he was a fine fellow, the clergyman of his parish, who gave him G.o.d-speed upon his way as to one who deserved that G.o.d should speed him because his way was right.

Snow was upon the ground. Such light as there was began to fade. It was evident that the night, which was very still, was going to be very dark.

And the man stepped out briskly. Presently, at a lonely part of the road, happening to look down, he saw footprints in the freshly fallen snow.

They were of feet that had recently pa.s.sed on the way he was following.

They had attracted, they continued to attract, his attention, he knew not why. And as he went on, his eyes were often upon them.

Presently he began to wonder about the feet which had made the prints he saw. Did they belong to a man or a woman? The prints were too large to have been made by the feet of a child. He gazed at them searchingly, and made up his mind that it was a man who had recently trodden this road.

And what sort of man was it that thus preceded him not very far away? He became deeply engrossed with this question. His mind revolved about this unknown traveler, floating forward in surmises, till, by chance, he happened to set his right foot in one of the prints left in the snow.

His foot exactly filled it. This fact, he knew not why, startled him.

He stopped, bent down, examined the snow closely, measured very carefully his feet with the prints before him, now rather faintly discerned in the gathering darkness. The prints might have been made by his own feet.

Having ascertained this, and reflected for a moment, he went forward, now a.s.sailed by a growing curiosity as to the personality and character of the stranger. But perhaps he was not a stranger. He might surely well be a neighbor, an acquaintance, perhaps even a friend. The man meant, if possible, to come up with him, whoever he was, and he now hurried along with the intention of joining the unknown whose footprints were the same as his own.

At this point in his sermon Chichester paused for a moment. And Malling, who seldom felt any thrill at a seance, and who had often remained calmly watchful and alert during manifestations which amazed or terrified others, was aware of a feeling of cold, which seemed to pa.s.s like a breath through his spirit. The congregation about him, perhaps struck by the unusual form of the sermon, remained silent and motionless, waiting. In his stall sat the rector with downcast eyes.

Malling could not at that moment discern his expression. His large figure and important powerful head and face showed almost like those of a carven effigy in the lowered light of the chancel. The choirboys did not stir, and the small, fair man in the pulpit, raising his thin hands, and resting them on the marble ledge, continued quietly, taking up his sermon with a repet.i.tion of the last words uttered, "whose footprints were the same as his own."

Again the cold breath went through Malling's spirit. He leaned slightly forward and gazed at Chichester.

For some time the man thus went onward, following the footprints in the snow, but not overtaking any one, and becoming momentarily more eager to satisfy his curiosity. Then, on a sudden, he started, stopped, and listened. It had now become very dark, and in this darkness, and the great stillness of night, he heard the faint sound of a footfall before him, brushing through the crisp snow, which lay lightly, and not very deep, on the hard highroad leading to the village on the farther outskirts of which his house was situated. He could not yet see any one, but he felt sure that the person who made this faint sound was no other than he in whose steps he had been treading. It would now be a matter of only a minute or two to come up with him. And the man went on, but more slowly, whether because he was now certain of attaining his object or for some other reason.

The sound of the footfall persisted, and was certainly not far off. The prints in the snow were so fresh that they seemed not quite motionless, as if the snow were only now settling after the pressure it had just suffered. The man slackened his pace. He did not like the sound which he heard. He began to feel as if he by whom it was made would not prove a companion to his taste. Yet his curiosity continued. There began within him a struggle between his curiosity and another sensation, which was of repugnance, almost of fear. And so equal were the combatants that the lights of the village were in sight, and he had not decreased the distance between himself and the other. Seeing the lights, however, his curiosity got the upper hand. He slightly quickened his pace, and almost immediately beheld the shape of a man relieved against the night, and treading onward through the snow. And as the sound of the footsteps had been disagreeable to his nerves, so the contours of the moving blackness repelled him. He did not like the look of this man whose footprints were the same as his own, and he decided not to join him. But, moving rather cautiously, he gained a little upon him, in order to make sure, if possible, whether or not he was a neighbor or an acquaintance.

The figure seemed somehow familiar to our man, indeed, oddly familiar.

Nevertheless, he was unable to identify it. As he followed it, more and more certain did he become that he had seen it, that he knew it. And yet--did he know it? Had he seen it? It was almost as if one part of him denied while the other affirmed. He longed, yet feared, to see the face.

But the face never looked back. And so, one at a little distance behind the other, they came into the village.

Here a strange thing occurred.

There were very few people about, but there were a few, and two or three of them, meeting the person our man was following, greeted him respectfully. But these same people, when immediately afterward they encountered the other, who had known them for years, and whom they of course knew, showed the greatest perturbation; one, a woman, even signs of terror. They gave him no greeting, shrank from him as he pa.s.sed, and stared after him, as if bemused, when he was gone by. Their behavior was almost incredible. But he was so set on what was before him that he stopped to ask no questions.

The village was a long one. Always one behind the other, walking at an even pace, the two men traversed it, approaching at last the outskirts, where, separated from the other habitations, and surrounded by a garden in which the trees were laden with snow, stood the house of the man who now watched and followed, with a growing wonder and curiosity, combined with an ever-growing repugnance, him who made the footprints, who had been saluted by the villagers, whose figure and general aspect seemed in somewise familiar to him, and yet whom he could not recognize. Where could this person be going? The man asked himself, and came to a resolve not to follow on into the darkness of the open country, not to proceed beyond his own home, of which now he saw the lights, but to make an effort to see the face of the other before the garden gate was reached.

In this attempt, however, he was destined to be frustrated. For as he determinedly quickened his steps, so did the other, who gained the gate of the garden, unlatched it, turned in, and walked on among the trees going toward the princ.i.p.al door.

A visitor, then! The man paused by his garden gate, whence he could see his house front, with the light from the window of his own sitting-room streaming over the porch. The stranger stood before it, made a movement as if searching in his pocket, drew out his hand, lifted it. The door opened at once. He disappeared within, and the door closed after him.

He had opened the door with a key.

The man at the gate felt overcome by a sensation almost of horror, which he could not explain to himself. It was not that he was horrified by the certainly extraordinary fact of some one possessing a key to his house, and using it in this familiar fashion. It was not even that he was horrified at seeing a man, perhaps a stranger, disappearing thus into his home by night, uninvited, unexpected. What horrified him was that this particular man, whose footprints he had followed and measured with his foot, whose footfalls he had heard, whose form he had seen outlined against the night, should be within his house, where his wife and his children were, and where his venerable mother was sitting beside the fire. That this man should be there! He knew now that from the first moment when he had been aware of his existence he had hated him, that his subconscious mind had hated him.

But who was he? The natural thing would have been to follow quickly into the house, to see who had entered, to demand an explanation. But he could not do this. Why? He himself did not know why. But he knew that he dared not do this. And he waited, expecting he knew not what; a cry, a summons, perhaps, some manifestation that would force him to approach.

None came. Steadily the lights shone from the house. There was no sound but the soft fall of a block of snow from an overladen fir branch in the garden. The man began to marvel. Who could this be whose familiar entry into his--_his_ home thus at night caused no disturbance? There were dogs within: they had not barked. There were servants: apparently they had not stirred. It was almost as if this stranger's permanence was accepted by the household. A long, long time had slipped by.

The man at length, making an almost fierce effort, partly dominated the unreasoning sense of horror which possessed him. He opened the gate, stepped into the garden, and made his way slowly and softly toward the house door. But suddenly he stopped. Through the unshuttered window of his sitting-room, the room in which for years he had spent much of his time, in which he had concocted many schemes to throw dust in the eyes of his neighbors, and even of his own relatives, in which he had learned very perfectly to seem what he was not, and to hide what he really was, he perceived the figure of a man. It crossed the lighted s.p.a.ce slowly, and disappeared with a downward movement. He knew it was the man he had been following and whom he had seen enter his house.

For a long while he remained where he was on the path of the garden.

The night deepened about him. A long way off, at the other end of the village, a clock chimed the hours. In the cottages the lights were extinguished. The few loungers disappeared from the one long street vanishing over the snow. And the man never moved. A numb terror possessed him. Yet, despite his many faults and his life of evil, he had never been physically a coward. Always the light shone steadily from the window of his study, making a patch of yellow upon the snow. Always the occupant of the room must be seated tranquilly there, like an owner. For no figure had risen, had repa.s.sed across the unshuttered s.p.a.ce.

The man told himself again and again that he must go forward till he gained the window, that he must at least look into the room; if he dared not enter the house to confront the intruder, to demand an explanation. But again and again something within him, which seemed to be a voice from the innermost chamber of his soul, whispered to him not to go, whispered to him to leave the intruder alone, to let the intruder do what he would, but not to approach him, above all, not to look upon his face. And the man obeyed the voice till a thing happened which roused in him a powerful beast, called by many the natural man.

He saw his wife, whom he loved in his way, though he had tricked and deceived her again and again, cross the window s.p.a.ce, smiling, and disappear with a downward movement, as the other had disappeared. Then she rose into his range of vision, and stood for a moment so that he could see her clearly, smiling, talking, making little gestures that he knew, carrying her hand to her face, stretching it out, dropping it.

Finally she lifted it to her lips, half-closing her eyes at the same time, took it away quickly, with a sort of b.u.t.terfly motion, and vanished, going toward the left, where the room door was.

So had she many and many a time bidden him, her husband, good night.

Instantly, with an impulse which seemed combined of rage and terror, both now full of a driving force which was irresistible, the man sprang forward to the window, seized the stone coping with his hands and stared into his room.

Seated in a round chair at his writing-table, by a lamp with a green shade, was the man who had entered his house. He was writing busily in a book with a silver clasp that could be locked with a key, and he leaned a little over the table with his head turned away. The shape of his head, his posture, even the manner in which he used his pen as he traced line after line in the book, made an abominable impression upon the man staring in at the window. But the face--the face! He must see that! And he leaned forward, trembling, but fiercely, and, pressing his own face against the pane, he looked at the occupant of his room as men look sometimes with their souls.

The man at the table lifted his head. He laid down the pen, blotted the book in which he had been writing, shut it up, clasped it, locked it with a tiny key, and put it carefully into a drawer of the table, which also he locked. He got up, stood for an instant by the table with one hand upon it, then turned slowly toward the window, smiling, as men smile to themselves when they are thinking of their own ingenuities.

The man outside the window fell back into the snow as if G.o.d's hand had touched him. He had seen his own face! So he smiled sometimes at the end of a day, when he had finished writing down in his diary some of the hidden things of his life.

He turned, and as the window through which he had been looking suddenly darkened, he fled away into the night.

When the lights, which at St. Joseph's were always kept lowered during the sermon, once more strongly illuminated the chancel, Mr. Harding turned a ghastly face toward the pulpit. In the morning Chichester had listened to him, as a man of truth might listen to a man who is trying to lie, but who cannot deceive him. In the evening Mr. Harding had listened to Chichester--how? What had been the emotions only shadowed faintly forth in that ghastly face?

When Malling got home, he asked himself why Chichester had made such an impression upon his mind. His story of the double, strange enough, no doubt, in a sermon, could not surely have come upon Malling with any of the force and the interest of the new. For years he had been familiar with tales of ghosts, of voices, of appearances at the hour of death, of doubles. Of course in the sermon there had been a special application of the story. It had been very short. Chichester had suggested that if, as by a miracle, the average self-contented man could look at himself with the eyes of his soul full of subliminal self-knowledge and with the bodily eyes, he would be stricken down by a great horror.

And he had spoken as a man who knew. Indeed, it seemed to Malling that he had spoken as might have delivered himself the man who had followed his double through the snow, who had looked in upon him by night from the garden, if he had faced, instead of flying from, the truth; if he had stayed, if he had persistently watched his double leading the life he had led, if he had learned a great lesson that perhaps only his double could teach him.

But if the man had stayed, what would have been the effect on the double?

Malling sat till deep in the night pondering these things.

VII

Lady Sophia had said to Malling that if he went to the two services at St. Joseph's on the Sunday she would invite him to see her again. She was as good as her word. In the middle of the week he received a note from her, saying she would be at home at four on Thursday, if he was able to come. He went, and found her alone. But as soon as he entered the drawing-room and had taken her hand, she said: