The Gateless Barrier Part 10

Counsels of self-saving moderation he waved aside with a smile. Of danger, material, moral, or spiritual, he was defiant. With the Veil of Isis there, visibly confronting him and inviting--in gentlest, most confiding fashion--his hand to lift it, would it not be unpardonably poor-spirited, callous, and unfaithful to draw back?

But Virginia? Laurence moved impatiently from his place. He wished to goodness Armstrong had not referred to Virginia, or rather to that circ.u.mscription of his personal liberty which Virginia presented--to his marriage, in short! He was very fond of her. Of course, he was very fond of her--not for a moment did he doubt that. But must it be a matter of primary duty and honour that he should relinquish the part of hero in this piece--this n.o.ble and enthralling piece, which made vibrant his whole being, and stirred the finest of him into activity--simply because Virginia's name did not happen to be in the bill? Marriage came perilously near a disaster if it clipped your wings as much as all that!

And he would, indeed, be a bigoted moralist who should maintain that no circ.u.mstances can be so extraordinary, no opportunities of knowledge or spiritual advancement so rare, that they justify a neglect of conventional rules of conduct, or permit the relegation of ordinary obligations--for a time at least--to the second place!

Thus did the young man argue--ambition, chivalry, and those hereditary tendencies towards a rather violent reduction of theory to practice against which he had so lately been warned, all conspiring to one result. And so, at last, his head erect, and--though he knew it not--that air of a.s.sured conquest about him which had sat so charmingly upon his namesake--perhaps his rival--the Laurence Rivers of the Cosway miniature, he swung down the still, crimson-carpeted corridor, pulled the stiff tapestry curtain forward, pa.s.sed behind it, and entered the room beyond. He laughed a little to himself, he was all of a white heat, he would be as the G.o.ds, working miracles, righting wrong, conquering death.

Sharp disappointment awaited him. The yellow drawing-room was brilliantly lighted. The atmosphere of it was fresh, almost to the point of chill. The miniatures lay side by side upon the escritoire, where he had placed them some four or five hours earlier; but his sweet fairy-lady was not there to receive him. The room was vacant of all human, all visible, presence save his own.

The hours which followed were among the most poignant that Laurence had ever experienced. He had made so certain that he needed but to open that door to regain the unreal world, yet world--as he believed--of profoundest reality, which enchanted, while it baffled and perplexed him. He found himself compelled to admit, moreover, not without a sense of humiliation, that his att.i.tude was not exclusively pathological or scientific. A good deal of the natural man, and the natural man's affections and vanities, entered into it. He craved once again to see that slender, flitting figure, to feel the vibration of that otherwise impalpable hand, to read the trust and exquisite sympathy of those lovely eyes; he craved again to be aware of the fervour of his own eloquence, the rush and spring of his own thought. Moreover, he felt jealous, absurdly but increasingly jealous, of that other Laurence Rivers, of whom, for all his vitality and immediate consciousness of living energy and active will, he seemed to be but a second edition. The man had forestalled him in face and semblance, forestalled him too in the heart of the woman it would be--it was, he feared--only too easy for him to love.

And so he wandered aimlessly, restlessly about the bright, empty room, almost as his sweet rose-clad lady had wandered on the night he first met her, searching, searching for some lost good; while, as time lengthened and his nerves grew strained by impatient waiting and want of sleep, fears that by his own action he had procured this disappointment began to a.s.sail him. He was always over-confident, blundering from too great self-belief. For might it not be that in opening her little treasure-chest, in touching those objects so dear to her dead fingers and dead eyes, in reading her letters--nay, in striving to approach her and establish relations with her at all--he had outraged her delicacy, had, in a sense, a.s.saulted her soul, had been guilty of spiritual insult, as in grosser, material existence a man might a.s.sault or insult a woman's person? Had he, unwittingly, transgressed some law obtaining in the world of spirits, in the state of being which lies outside and beyond the Gates of Death, and of which human beings, bound by the conditions of their earthly environment, have as yet no cognisance?--Why should not the mind and heart be sublimated to as exquisite a fineness of texture, in her case, as the body had been? This idea of possible outrage, of unwitting grossness towards her, was horrible to Laurence. It stabbed him with shame, and provoked in him a pa.s.sionate desire for absolution. If she would only come--only come, that he might implore her pardon, gain forgiveness, or--still better--receive comfortable a.s.surance that he had not sinned!

His restless wanderings brought him at length to the bay-window, and he looked out into the night. The storm had not abated. Dimly he could perceive, in the light streaming outward from the window, the rain-washed steps, the pale bal.u.s.trades and statues of the garden; the near cypresses, too, bowed and straining in the gale which shrieked across the open lawns and bellowed hoa.r.s.ely in the woodland like some fierce beast let loose. And Laurence, viewing this tumult and listening to it, suffered further humiliation. He became but a small thing in his own estimation, weak, futile, incapable. For to what, after all, did his force of will and power of compelling events amount? He thought of Armstrong, the level-headed and circ.u.mspect Scotch agent; of his uncle, dignified, and even in mortal illness faithful to the clear purposes of his long life. He thought of Virginia, strong in virtue of her very limitations, glittering as a well-cut jewel, concrete, complete. All these persons occupied a definite place, served, in their degree, a definite end. Whereas, for himself, was he not the veriest sport of nature and of circ.u.mstance, endowed with just sufficient wit, sufficient talent, to court failure in any and every direction? His initiative, that had lately showed G.o.d-like, now shrivelled to microscopic proportions; while a further unwelcome question presented itself. For had the gracious spectre--he no longer quarrelled with that definition--lived, as he had fondly supposed, through his life, regained reason and glad, human sympathy through the influence of his will, or had the case, in very truth, been precisely the reverse? Had not she been the active, he the merely pa.s.sive principle? Had he not reached a higher development, and gloried--for a little s.p.a.ce--in conscious possession of genius, had he not lived, in short, through her--and this not by exercise of direct intention on her part, but merely in obedience to the might of her love for another man--a man long dead, but whose name he chanced to bear, and whose appearance he chanced to resemble?

And thereupon a hideous persuasion of his own nullity and emptiness took hold of Laurence. Individuality fled away, disintegrated, dissolved, and was not. The component parts of his physical being returned to their original elements--flesh to earth, gases to air, heat to fire, blood to water. While all the qualities of his mind, his tastes and affections, suffered like dispersal, being claimed and absorbed by the members of those many generations, whose earthly existence had contributed to the eventual production of his own. And the terror of this was augmented, in that, although every atom of his being was thus scattered and appropriated, every smallest fraction of that which had gone to compose his personality was dispersed, yet annihilation of thought did not follow. He was reduced to absolute nothingness; but knowledge of disintegration, knowledge of loss, knowledge--rebellious and despairing--of that same nothingness remained.

Appalled, with the instinct of flight upon him as from some menacing and immeasurable danger, Laurence turned and groped his way back--as a blind man gropes--into the centre of the brightly lighted room. The persuasion of his own nothingness seemed to extend itself to his surroundings. All partook of the nature of illusion, from which sense of sight and touch alike seemed powerless to redeem them. And this begot in the young man an immense desolation and a corresponding need of comfort and of quick human sympathy. Involuntarily, in his extremity, his thought fixed itself, stayed itself, upon Agnes Rivers. Ah! if she would but show herself--she, his well-beloved fairy-lady--he was convinced peace and clear-seeing would follow in her train, that this terror of nothingness would depart, and that sanely, calmly, he should enter into possession of himself once more!

And then, presently, as he moved to and fro in restless search for her, it appeared to him that a rose-red gleam of silk, a just perceptible whiteness of muslin and lace, the faintest vision of a vision of her sweet and lovely face, moved beside him as he moved. It was as though an indefinable tenderness yearned towards him from out some impa.s.sable distance, striving to declare itself, to make itself seen and felt, yet without force to master some opposing influence and accomplish its object. And this awoke in Laurence not only an answering tenderness, but an answering struggle. He stood quite still, yet with every nerve, every faculty strained to attain and overcome. He felt braced by a sudden exhilaration of battle. Silently, fiercely, he fought with some awful, unseen enemy,--with dimly apprehended powers of time and place, of death, of things spiritual and things material, which intervened between him and the love which sought to reach him. Never had he desired anything as he desired this love. His individuality was actual enough now; and his whole body ached with the effort to penetrate that resistant medium, to be face to face with that love, and look on it, and so doing to read the riddle both of his future and his past.

But when the warfare was at its height, and the unseen enemy seemed to yield a little, while the slender form of his rose-clad lady grew more distinct to Laurence's eyes, unaccustomed noise and confusion arose within the dead-quiet house. Doors opened and slammed, as with the hurry of panic. Men's footsteps echoed imperatively down the corridors and upon the stairs.--Another moment and he would overcome all resistance, and his dear companion would stand before him, smiling, gracious, full of consolation and of help; but just then voices were raised in quick discussion without. Suddenly the door was thrown open.

Upon the threshold was Renshaw the butler, bereft of his usual correctness of demeanour, his eyes starting, his skin mottled with purple stains. Behind him stood Watkins holding back the leather-lined curtain to the utmost of its length, thereby disclosing a triangular vista of dark-panelled pa.s.sage and the proud heads and arrogant, impa.s.sive faces of the rulers of Imperial Rome.

Evidently both men dreaded to venture one step further into the room.

"Will you please to come at once, sir," Renshaw called hoa.r.s.ely. "Excuse me, sir, you are wanted. Mr. Rivers is very ill. He has asked for you.

Mr. Lowndes fears he is dying."

XVI

The agitation pervading the house was sinister. Laurence felt as though witnessing the convulsions of some human body, seen only heretofore amid the restraints and graceful amenities of society; but now abandoned and indecently torn in its last agony. If indeed Mr. Rivers was dying, his soul was not merely quitting its fragile, fleshly tabernacle; but was also, very sensibly, quitting this larger tabernacle of house and household which it had informed through a long course of years, and moulded to express its tastes, flatter its idiosyncrasies, and forestall its every wish. It was fitting, therefore, though fearful, that this outer envelope of the owner's life should be shaken, and lose its habitual immutability and impervious calm; while his well-drilled servants, usually obedient as machines to the direction of his hand, ran distracted, scared and helpless as a flock of frightened sheep.

The men hurried aimlessly, spoke in whispers. Members of the establishment with whom Laurence was unacquainted invaded the corridor from the direction of the offices. At the foot of the staircase were grouped the stout, French _chef_, in spotless, linen cap and jacket, his attendant scullions, and a couple of men arrayed in long, green baize ap.r.o.ns and black, calico blouses, the full sleeves of which b.u.t.toned tight around the wrist. The coachman was there too, a stable helper, and the groom who had accompanied Laurence on his first visit to Bishop's Pudbury. All these persons were well on in middle life, some old, white-haired, and bent. All appeared deeply moved, an inarticulate confusion in their looks, as though finding themselves suddenly confronted by dire calamity. Laurence had seen men look thus in the breathless pause, between recurrent earthquake shocks, among the rocking buildings of a far-away, Spanish-American city. As he pa.s.sed them, coming from that light, clear-coloured room, they stared at him, and slunk aside as though a fresh terror was added to those which already so unmanned them. In their present state of feeling the seemly decorum of respectful service was relaxed; and to Laurence, overwrought by his recent and strange experiences, it appeared that they shrunk from him as from one unclean and outcast.

He turned rather sternly upon Renshaw. "What is the meaning of all this commotion? If I was wanted, why on earth was I not called sooner?"

The butler's large, smooth, egg-shaped face turned from purple to something approaching grey.

"We had looked for you everywhere, sir, both myself and Mr. Watkins," he answered. "But until Mr. Lowndes suggested it, in consequence of some remark pa.s.sed by Mr. Rivers, it had never occurred to us that you would be in the yellow drawing-room, sir."--Renshaw cleared his throat, recovering some of his accustomed dignity of bearing. "The electric light is switched on from the corridor outside, you will observe, sir.

It has always been understood that no one--neither the upper or the under servants, sir--are ever required to go into the yellow drawing-room after dusk."

And with these words, and their implication of commerce on his part with something unlawful and malign, sounding in his ears, Laurence pa.s.sed into his uncle's bed-chamber.

As he did so, a blast of air, hot and dry as from the mouth of a furnace, met him. The fire upon the hearth was piled up into a mountain of blazing coal and wood. The light of it filled the room with a fitful, lurid brilliance such as is produced by a great conflagration. In it, the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the couchant sphinxes glowed, seeming to rise and fall as though they breathed. The caryatides supporting the ebony canopy likewise appeared imbued with life. Their smooth arms and bowed shoulders strained under the weight resting upon them; while the wreaths of fruit and blossom, girding their naked loins, heaved from the painfully sustained effort of nerve and muscle. The snake-locks of the Medusa's head, carved in high relief upon the circular, central panel of the back of the bedstead, writhed, twisted, interlaced and again slid asunder, as in frustrated desire and ceaseless suffering.

And along the middle of the great bed, surrounded by these opulent forms, and, at first sight, far less alive than they, lay Mr. Rivers.

His face was so blanched, so unsubstantial, that, but for the glittering eyes still greedy of knowledge, it would have hardly been distinguishable from the white pillows supporting him. His shoulders and chest were m.u.f.fled in a costly, sable cape; from beneath the lower edge of which his hands, thin as reeds, protruded, lying inert upon the thickly-wadded, blue-and-gold, damask coverlet. On the oak table--moved from its place by the armchair to the bedside--were the few handsomely bound books, the crystal _memento mori_ resting on its strip of crimson embroidery, and a silver bell, the handle of it shaped as a slender, winged Mercury, elegantly poised for flight.

Behind the table stood Lowndes, the long-armed, hard-featured valet. He apparently remained untouched by the spirit of anarchy let loose in the house. Laurence, drawing near, looked at him, silently asking instructions. The man fetched a chair and placed it close against the bedside.

"Be so good as to lean down, sir," he said. "Mr. Rivers wishes to converse with you; but he has had a seizure, which has slightly affected both his speech and hearing. He cannot raise his voice."

Laurence did as he was bidden. He leaned towards the old man, resting his right hand upon the haunches of the ebony sphinx, which felt singularly warm to his touch.

"The term of your probation and of mine alike draws to its close," Mr.

Rivers said in a small, thin voice; and, for almost the first time in their intercourse, Laurence saw him smile.

"I hope this is only a pa.s.sing attack, sir, and that you may rally," he answered.--He looked up at Lowndes. "Has everything been done that can be? Have you telegraphed for the doctors?"

"I have administered the prescribed restoratives. But Mr. Rivers ordered that no further measures should be attempted until after his interview with you, sir."

The sick man raised his hand feebly, yet with an imperious gesture.

"I do not propose to ask further advice of physicians," he said. "Their science is but a mockery at this juncture; at least, in the estimation of a person of my habit of mind. That by the employment of drugs and of stimulants they might prolong a semblance of animation in this physical husk of me, I do not deny. But what advantage can accrue from that, when my mental activity is becoming paralysed, and the action of my brain grows sluggish and intermittent? When all that differentiates a human being from the brute beasts has perished, let the animal part perish also. The sooner, the better; for, in itself, it is far from precious."

His voice had become very faint, and he waited, making a determined effort, as Laurence perceived, to rally his ebbing powers.

"Tell Lowndes to go," he whispered. "I wish to be alone with you."

Then as the man-servant noiselessly withdrew, the thin, but barely audible accents again stole out upon the fiercely heated air.

"The body, its necessities, its pa.s.sions, its perpetually impeding grossness throughout life, is an insult to the mind. But the final act of this long course of insult, namely, the decay of this vile a.s.sociate, is the culminating insolence, the most unpardonable insult of all. I have trained myself to ignore these thoughts, to disregard them as a proud man disregards some mutilation or personal disfigurement. But they crowd in upon me, refusing to be disregarded, to-night. Here lies the sting of the insult! For as the strength of this vile, animal part of me lessens, far from setting the intellect free, it infects this last with its own increasing degradation. The lower drags the higher down along with it. They grovel together. Contemptible doubts and fears a.s.sail me. Discredited traditions press themselves upon my remembrance.

And the burden of it all is this, that I have laboured in vain. As the body dies, so dies the mind. All the garnered knowledge of years will be lost, will drop infertile, into the void--the insatiable void which yawns alike for high philosopher and for drivelling pothouse sot."

His voice sank, in uttering the last few words, into a whisper of concentrated bitterness. His eyes closed, and for some minutes the dying man lay motionless.

Laurence could not bring himself to speak. The words to which he had just listened so nearly reproduced and rendered articulate those sensations he had himself so lately endured. The vision of all-absorbing Nothingness again arose before him, as background to those opulent forms, cla.s.sic and pagan, upon which his eyes immediately rested. An unholy and voluptuous life seemed to move in those forms still. A smile curved the heavy lips of the sphinxes. The rounded, glistening arms of the caryatides appeared outstretched less in support than in solicitation; while the snake-locks of Medusa writhed, pushing upon each other amorously. The flesh, triumphant in vigour and in carnal invitation, seemed, indeed, to flout the intellect; as though the animal functions of mankind and the symbols of these alone had power to survive from age to age, were alone arbiters and architects of human fate. And yet, yet, somewhere--could he but have reached it--Laurence knew there was a way of escape. That he had come very near reaching it in the final moments of that silent struggle downstairs, when the sweet figure of his dear fairy-lady grew increasingly clear to his sight, he could not doubt. And once again, with a great desiring, he desired her; for his faith was strong that of all these things she somehow--how he could not say as yet--held the key.

Just then Mr. Rivers raised his eyelids slightly and turned his head upon the pillow.

"It is very horrible," he said slowly, speaking to himself rather than to his companion. "The quant.i.ty of matter is stable. It for ever seeks its own, and finding it re-unites. The destruction of one form is but the necessary prelude to the development of others, and in this process of perpetual redistribution not a fraction of the sum total is lost.

There is no waste save in the higher aspects of man's const.i.tution--"

But here Laurence roused himself to protest.

"Matter returns to matter, sir, granted," he said. "Then why not spirit to spirit? Are you not a.s.suming a waste which you cannot prove? And if spirit does return to spirit, what better than that, after all, can we ask?"

"Spirit?" Mr. Rivers retorted, with a fine inflection of irony, and momentary brightening of those half-closed eyes. "You, my dear Laurence, employ words glibly enough which I hesitate to p.r.o.nounce! Matter I know.

It is evident to the senses. Its actual existence--Berkeley, certain Oriental and other philosophers notwithstanding--is, within certain limits, susceptible of proof. And intellect I know. Its existence, though on other lines, is equally susceptible of proof. Its action can be registered and ratified. But spirit?--I will thank you to inform me--what is spirit?"

The young man bowed himself together, resting his elbows on his knees.

He smiled with a half-humorous air of apology.

"That I cannot tell you, sir," he said. "I'm better at conviction than at explanation, I'm afraid. I only know--not with my reason, but with my heart--that spirit is, and has been, and must be everlastingly."