Authors: Neil M. Gunn
Second Sight (3 page)
“You feel that?” asked Helen in a small voice.
Marjory looked over her shoulder at her, then with a shrug prepared to stir the fire. “I feel the chill in the room anyway.”
There was a low whine of wind outside. Helen gave an involuntary shiver, as if an unearthly chill had touched her. And at that moment the curtain behind her, fluttering inward, did touch her, with such soft caressing movement that she gave an abject scream and the coffee cup and saucer shot out of her hand, the saucer landing on the carpet unbroken, but the cup smashing to bits on the polished surround. She was in the middle of the room before she stopped herself and, turning, saw the curtain smoothly falling back.
Marjory saw it, too; got up off her knees and approached it carefully; then, grabbing it, pulled it asideâand exposed the open window. Letting out a heavy breath, her left hand on her chest, she dropped into the nearest chair and began to laugh, as the others hurried in.
Helen met them, still panting. “IâI'm sorry. I dropped my coffee cup.”
Marjory interrupted her laughter. “We're all going daft!⦠Who opened the window?”
“I told Mairi to open it to let out the smell,” said Lady Marway.
Marjory laughed again. “We felt the chill in the room. Unearthly presence. Then the wind whined up in the pine woodâhsh! there it is againâ¦only it was a much better theatrical effect than that. Helen was standing with her back to the window. Out came the curtain about herâfeeling her. Ooh! If she hadn't a good heart she'd have dropped dead.”
Geoffrey joined in her laughter, obviously delighted.
Helen, gone very pale, was about to stoop to pick up the pieces of the broken cup, when Harry forestalled her. “You sit down. I'll pick it up.”
She sat and dropped her head back. Lady Marway rang.
“Feeling all right?” asked her father.
“Yes.” She tried to smile. “I did get a fright. I am certain my heart stopped for a second. Silly of me. I am ashamed.”
“Nothing to be ashamed about,” he explained. “It's the most terrifying thing on earthâto be touched, when you feel there is nothing
can
touch you. The leap of the beast out of the dark.” He patted her head affectionately, then went and closed the window. “Now, that will keep the jungle out.”
Lady Marway poured the coffee and Geoffrey, as he handed Marjory her cup, remarked, “An object lesson in the occult!”
“Did you say objectâor abject?”
“Or both,” suggested Geoffrey, in good form.
“I think,” said Marjory, still inclined to laugh, “I think abject is the word. When fear gets you it is rather horrible. Ugh.”
“What's happened to Mairi, I wonder? I rang. We're a cup short.” Lady Marway looked slightly annoyed.
“I'll get it,” said Helen.
“No. Wait.”
“Please.” And Helen got up and walked out before anyone could stop her. Harry looked after her, then back at Lady Marway.
“It really was nasty for a moment,” said Marjory, a sensible girl. “I was at the fire. Felt the chill in the room. Then Helen screamed and there was the curtain feeling around her. It should have been obvious to any sane person that it was nothing, butââ”
“But for that one moment,” said Geoffrey, “you are not sane. There's the rub. And she only
felt
the thing. If for that moment she had imagined she
saw
the hidden thing as well, she might easily have been really sick.” He glanced slyly at Harry, to whom he offered a cup.
“Thanks,” said Harry. “You are coming on.”
Geoffrey laughed, then in a loud whisper to his hostess: “He refuses to be drawn!”
“Perhaps he is learning wisdom,” she said.
“No,” replied Geoffrey, shaking his head. “Only a safe reticence. You can see there's nothing in all this so-called occult or second-sight business but can be explained. But your devotees of the cultâthey don't like it explained. They don't like to be toldâit was only a window curtain moved by the wy-ind. Poetic, what!” He was delighted with himself.
“Have a cigar?” said Sir John.
“What's your opinion about this occult business, Sir Johnâyour frank opinion?” Geoffrey lit his cigar, prepared for pleasant discussion.
“Well, I don't know,” said Sir John. “I must admit that, in India, some of these native fellows do queer things.”
“Yoga and so on?”
“Well, yes; there's that, too.”
“But that's understandable enough. Control of the body by the mindâbeyond what we can do. That's all right. But have you ever seen anything that to all appearances could not be explainedâlike, I mean, well, like Harry's experience?”
“I wonder what's keeping that child?” said Lady Marway. She stood for a moment thoughtfully, then walked out. Before she had quite closed the door, Marjory got up and followed her.
“Uhâwhat was that?” said Sir John, his eyes on the door.
“Have you ever seen anything that could not be explainedâanything
super
natural?”
“Well, I have seen the rope trick,” said Sir John.
Harry's private concentration broke on an ironic sniff.
“The rope trick. A trick. Yes.” Geoffrey smiled.
“It's mystifying all the same,” said Sir John. “You simply see the rope rising up into the skies and then you see the boy climbing it away up out of sight. There is no preparation or stage apparatus. They can do it anywhere at allâoutside on the bare earth, or beside your own bungalow. Anywhere at all. It beat me.”
“But you never believed it to be a manifestation of the supernaturalâsomething outside natural law?”
“We all say it is a trick, of course. A conjuror's trick. Very clever.”
“Exactly. You know that if it was anything more than that, if it was a real rope and a real boy climbing itâthe whole order of life would suffer a vast change.”
“Yes, butââ” began Harry.
“There would be no need,” continued Geoffrey, “for Mr. Gandhi or passive resistance. There would be no povertyâand
you
know the incredible poverty one can meet in India. All the deserts would blossom into orange groves.”
“I don't quite follow,” said Sir John.
“Doesn't the same fellow who sends the boy up the ropeâor someone like himâalso put a seed in a pot of earth? You see the seed buried in the pot. You see it come sprouting through the earth. You see it growing into a small tree. You see the fruit formingâbefore your very eyesâand all in a few minutes. Then he plucks off an orange or a mango or whatever it is and presents it to you. And behold! it is a real fruit. And you eat it.”
Sir John smiled. “I see.”
“Yes, but you say: a manifestation of the supernaturalâsomething outside natural law,” remarked Harry. “What you should say, I think, isâsomething outside natural law
as we know it.
”
“Well, certainly; that's obvious!”
“But it makes a difference.”
“How?”
“By its implication that there may be laws which we do not know.”
Geoffrey gave a half-impatient shrug. “Ohâyesâof course!”
“Assuming”, said Harry, “a law which we do not knowââ”
“Excuse me,” said Sir John, and he walked out of the room.
They looked after him.
“Dammit,” said Harry, “I hope there's nothing wrong.”
“Good God!” said Geoffrey.
“Think we're going soft?”
“Think? You can
see
it.”
“Of course it does not get really bad until you can
smell
it.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Merely half-suggesting that you might blow your nose hard.”
“And the idea?”
Harry smiled. “That you might get some of the more positive noises out of your head.”
Geoffrey gave a short laugh. “Where there is a touch of humour there is still hope. Uhâyou were going to assume something, weren't you?”
“Nothing much. The rather vague assumption that some of us may not know everything.”
“So I gatheredâvaguely.”
“Uhm.”
Geoffrey turned on him. “Hang it, if you have anything to say, why not say it? Why thisâthis creationâofâintangible nonsense?”
“You know quite well what I have to say,” Harry replied reasonably. “It is simply that there may be in existence a relationship of time and space which we do not normally apprehend. An exceptional mind at an exceptional moment
may
apprehend itâquite involuntarilyâin what we call vision or second sight. Do you say that is impossible?”
“It is not impossible to say that the moon is made of green cheese. Because of our astronomical and physical knowledge, however, I deny it, confidently.”
“That's merely flippant. That's the worst of you fellows, you hate your old methods and convictions being upset. In that respect, your orthodox scientist is just like your orthodox religious leader or art academicianâhe has no time for the new. Even in a common-good, solid thing like medicineâbecome unorthodox, introduce chloroform, or anything really new and helpful, and the head witch-doctors are after you. In short
you
are in the mind
not
to believe beforehand.”
“The usual twaddle. There may have been instances, as in the case of a stuff like chloroform, whereââ”
“There were. And one instance is always sufficientâscientifically. It could happen again.”
“You do not know what you are saying, or anyway, you cannot know what scientific method means.”
“You're sliding again, aren't you? Scientific methodâyes. But destructive disbelief, before you have applied the methodâno.”
“But, heavens!” exclaimed Geoffrey, “don't you see I
have
been applying the method, trying, in your particular case, to discover any tangible basis in factâwithout the slightest success?”
“Do you mean you doubt the happening I related?”
“Not at all.
Your
version of the happening I accept. But you yourself have no facts. You were merely
told.
”
“Lord, are you trying to tell me that the fellow acted all that? With no aim, no object, obviously hating it?”
“I am not saying he acted it. Though even that could be possible.”
“Oh!” Harry turned away impatiently.
“Wait,” said Geoffrey. “I'll even suggest a reason. Assuming he is a sinister type, preparing, let us say, to do someone in. The little piece of acting by the roadside prepares you, and such as you, to expect death, death in unusual circumstances, even violent deathâas ânatural'.”
Harry regarded him sarcastically. “If you were going to murder someone, I take it you would rehearse the murder publicly beforehand?”
”Geoffrey tried to cover his anger with a more biting sarcasm. “Whatever I might do, I certainly wouldn't be fool enough to say I saw something which
wasn't there
; not to mention that I saw a happening before it happened, which wasn't there!”
“Ah, but you're an acute fellow.”
Geoffrey's look concentrated; then he shrugged. “I'd rather be an acute fellow than a fool.”
Harry did not answer, and Geoffrey went on in lighter, but no less taunting, tones, “So you think someone is going to get killed here?”
“It is possible that someone may die.”
Geoffrey laughed. “Of course! Almost certain, I should say!”
“In this houseâwithin two weeks.”
“Oh?” Geoffrey concentrated again.
“And that the odds are in favour of its being
you
or
me
.”
There was silence for quite a little while.
“Good God!” gasped Geoffrey. “You don't mean to say you believe that?”
But Harry had heard footsteps. “Hsh! Shut up!” he said quickly.
Helen came in, followed by Marjory and her mother, declaiming, “Dramatic entry of missing body!”
Geoffrey laughed. “Thank goodness! A certain young man here was almost out of his wits.”
“Things are coming to a pretty pass”, declared Helen, “when a child can't lie down to twiddle its thumbs without the whole family attending the cradle.”
Sir John came in, with folded newspapers under his arm. “A paper, anyone?”
Harry took one. “Ah pictures! Here you are, Marjory!”
“How clairvoyant of you, Harry!” and she graciously accepted the
Bulletin
.
Geoffrey got hold of the
Manchester Guardian
, while Sir John settled down to wipe his glasses, light a fresh cigar, and go through
The Times
.
Harry, with a smile for Helen, drew some papers from a long envelope. He was an engineering architect in a business allied to Sir John's.
Lady Marway got in touch with her work-basket again. She was a very neat needlewoman and found a close concentration on exact stitching soothing and restful. She had done some quite useful tapestry work in her time, though at the moment her concern was to arrest a ladder in her daughter's stocking.
Helen collected the coffee cups and rang. The room was so pleasantly and softly bright that she looked at both lamps to make sure the mantles were all right. The bracket one, an older type, was inclined, particularly on a windy night, to burn up and blacken its mantle and fill the room with soot. But now it was behaving excellently. In fact, the whole room was behaving excellently; because, as she realised, it was behaving normally.
She got hold of her book again. It was one of those sixpenny novels, which travellers nowadays are inclined to buy at railway stations instead of the old, popular magazines. She had long meant to read this book because it dealt with the English countryside in that slow, wise way which has so often been a characteristic of the best writers of her race and which she loved (once she had made the effort to get into its mood). Sometimes she had the uneasy feeling that this was not being modern. So she tried to make up for it by reading the most advanced modern stuff at other times. But now she was on holiday.
Marjory looked over her shoulder at her, then with a shrug prepared to stir the fire. “I feel the chill in the room anyway.”
There was a low whine of wind outside. Helen gave an involuntary shiver, as if an unearthly chill had touched her. And at that moment the curtain behind her, fluttering inward, did touch her, with such soft caressing movement that she gave an abject scream and the coffee cup and saucer shot out of her hand, the saucer landing on the carpet unbroken, but the cup smashing to bits on the polished surround. She was in the middle of the room before she stopped herself and, turning, saw the curtain smoothly falling back.
Marjory saw it, too; got up off her knees and approached it carefully; then, grabbing it, pulled it asideâand exposed the open window. Letting out a heavy breath, her left hand on her chest, she dropped into the nearest chair and began to laugh, as the others hurried in.
Helen met them, still panting. “IâI'm sorry. I dropped my coffee cup.”
Marjory interrupted her laughter. “We're all going daft!⦠Who opened the window?”
“I told Mairi to open it to let out the smell,” said Lady Marway.
Marjory laughed again. “We felt the chill in the room. Unearthly presence. Then the wind whined up in the pine woodâhsh! there it is againâ¦only it was a much better theatrical effect than that. Helen was standing with her back to the window. Out came the curtain about herâfeeling her. Ooh! If she hadn't a good heart she'd have dropped dead.”
Geoffrey joined in her laughter, obviously delighted.
Helen, gone very pale, was about to stoop to pick up the pieces of the broken cup, when Harry forestalled her. “You sit down. I'll pick it up.”
She sat and dropped her head back. Lady Marway rang.
“Feeling all right?” asked her father.
“Yes.” She tried to smile. “I did get a fright. I am certain my heart stopped for a second. Silly of me. I am ashamed.”
“Nothing to be ashamed about,” he explained. “It's the most terrifying thing on earthâto be touched, when you feel there is nothing
can
touch you. The leap of the beast out of the dark.” He patted her head affectionately, then went and closed the window. “Now, that will keep the jungle out.”
Lady Marway poured the coffee and Geoffrey, as he handed Marjory her cup, remarked, “An object lesson in the occult!”
“Did you say objectâor abject?”
“Or both,” suggested Geoffrey, in good form.
“I think,” said Marjory, still inclined to laugh, “I think abject is the word. When fear gets you it is rather horrible. Ugh.”
“What's happened to Mairi, I wonder? I rang. We're a cup short.” Lady Marway looked slightly annoyed.
“I'll get it,” said Helen.
“No. Wait.”
“Please.” And Helen got up and walked out before anyone could stop her. Harry looked after her, then back at Lady Marway.
“It really was nasty for a moment,” said Marjory, a sensible girl. “I was at the fire. Felt the chill in the room. Then Helen screamed and there was the curtain feeling around her. It should have been obvious to any sane person that it was nothing, butââ”
“But for that one moment,” said Geoffrey, “you are not sane. There's the rub. And she only
felt
the thing. If for that moment she had imagined she
saw
the hidden thing as well, she might easily have been really sick.” He glanced slyly at Harry, to whom he offered a cup.
“Thanks,” said Harry. “You are coming on.”
Geoffrey laughed, then in a loud whisper to his hostess: “He refuses to be drawn!”
“Perhaps he is learning wisdom,” she said.
“No,” replied Geoffrey, shaking his head. “Only a safe reticence. You can see there's nothing in all this so-called occult or second-sight business but can be explained. But your devotees of the cultâthey don't like it explained. They don't like to be toldâit was only a window curtain moved by the wy-ind. Poetic, what!” He was delighted with himself.
“Have a cigar?” said Sir John.
“What's your opinion about this occult business, Sir Johnâyour frank opinion?” Geoffrey lit his cigar, prepared for pleasant discussion.
“Well, I don't know,” said Sir John. “I must admit that, in India, some of these native fellows do queer things.”
“Yoga and so on?”
“Well, yes; there's that, too.”
“But that's understandable enough. Control of the body by the mindâbeyond what we can do. That's all right. But have you ever seen anything that to all appearances could not be explainedâlike, I mean, well, like Harry's experience?”
“I wonder what's keeping that child?” said Lady Marway. She stood for a moment thoughtfully, then walked out. Before she had quite closed the door, Marjory got up and followed her.
“Uhâwhat was that?” said Sir John, his eyes on the door.
“Have you ever seen anything that could not be explainedâanything
super
natural?”
“Well, I have seen the rope trick,” said Sir John.
Harry's private concentration broke on an ironic sniff.
“The rope trick. A trick. Yes.” Geoffrey smiled.
“It's mystifying all the same,” said Sir John. “You simply see the rope rising up into the skies and then you see the boy climbing it away up out of sight. There is no preparation or stage apparatus. They can do it anywhere at allâoutside on the bare earth, or beside your own bungalow. Anywhere at all. It beat me.”
“But you never believed it to be a manifestation of the supernaturalâsomething outside natural law?”
“We all say it is a trick, of course. A conjuror's trick. Very clever.”
“Exactly. You know that if it was anything more than that, if it was a real rope and a real boy climbing itâthe whole order of life would suffer a vast change.”
“Yes, butââ” began Harry.
“There would be no need,” continued Geoffrey, “for Mr. Gandhi or passive resistance. There would be no povertyâand
you
know the incredible poverty one can meet in India. All the deserts would blossom into orange groves.”
“I don't quite follow,” said Sir John.
“Doesn't the same fellow who sends the boy up the ropeâor someone like himâalso put a seed in a pot of earth? You see the seed buried in the pot. You see it come sprouting through the earth. You see it growing into a small tree. You see the fruit formingâbefore your very eyesâand all in a few minutes. Then he plucks off an orange or a mango or whatever it is and presents it to you. And behold! it is a real fruit. And you eat it.”
Sir John smiled. “I see.”
“Yes, but you say: a manifestation of the supernaturalâsomething outside natural law,” remarked Harry. “What you should say, I think, isâsomething outside natural law
as we know it.
”
“Well, certainly; that's obvious!”
“But it makes a difference.”
“How?”
“By its implication that there may be laws which we do not know.”
Geoffrey gave a half-impatient shrug. “Ohâyesâof course!”
“Assuming”, said Harry, “a law which we do not knowââ”
“Excuse me,” said Sir John, and he walked out of the room.
They looked after him.
“Dammit,” said Harry, “I hope there's nothing wrong.”
“Good God!” said Geoffrey.
“Think we're going soft?”
“Think? You can
see
it.”
“Of course it does not get really bad until you can
smell
it.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Merely half-suggesting that you might blow your nose hard.”
“And the idea?”
Harry smiled. “That you might get some of the more positive noises out of your head.”
Geoffrey gave a short laugh. “Where there is a touch of humour there is still hope. Uhâyou were going to assume something, weren't you?”
“Nothing much. The rather vague assumption that some of us may not know everything.”
“So I gatheredâvaguely.”
“Uhm.”
Geoffrey turned on him. “Hang it, if you have anything to say, why not say it? Why thisâthis creationâofâintangible nonsense?”
“You know quite well what I have to say,” Harry replied reasonably. “It is simply that there may be in existence a relationship of time and space which we do not normally apprehend. An exceptional mind at an exceptional moment
may
apprehend itâquite involuntarilyâin what we call vision or second sight. Do you say that is impossible?”
“It is not impossible to say that the moon is made of green cheese. Because of our astronomical and physical knowledge, however, I deny it, confidently.”
“That's merely flippant. That's the worst of you fellows, you hate your old methods and convictions being upset. In that respect, your orthodox scientist is just like your orthodox religious leader or art academicianâhe has no time for the new. Even in a common-good, solid thing like medicineâbecome unorthodox, introduce chloroform, or anything really new and helpful, and the head witch-doctors are after you. In short
you
are in the mind
not
to believe beforehand.”
“The usual twaddle. There may have been instances, as in the case of a stuff like chloroform, whereââ”
“There were. And one instance is always sufficientâscientifically. It could happen again.”
“You do not know what you are saying, or anyway, you cannot know what scientific method means.”
“You're sliding again, aren't you? Scientific methodâyes. But destructive disbelief, before you have applied the methodâno.”
“But, heavens!” exclaimed Geoffrey, “don't you see I
have
been applying the method, trying, in your particular case, to discover any tangible basis in factâwithout the slightest success?”
“Do you mean you doubt the happening I related?”
“Not at all.
Your
version of the happening I accept. But you yourself have no facts. You were merely
told.
”
“Lord, are you trying to tell me that the fellow acted all that? With no aim, no object, obviously hating it?”
“I am not saying he acted it. Though even that could be possible.”
“Oh!” Harry turned away impatiently.
“Wait,” said Geoffrey. “I'll even suggest a reason. Assuming he is a sinister type, preparing, let us say, to do someone in. The little piece of acting by the roadside prepares you, and such as you, to expect death, death in unusual circumstances, even violent deathâas ânatural'.”
Harry regarded him sarcastically. “If you were going to murder someone, I take it you would rehearse the murder publicly beforehand?”
”Geoffrey tried to cover his anger with a more biting sarcasm. “Whatever I might do, I certainly wouldn't be fool enough to say I saw something which
wasn't there
; not to mention that I saw a happening before it happened, which wasn't there!”
“Ah, but you're an acute fellow.”
Geoffrey's look concentrated; then he shrugged. “I'd rather be an acute fellow than a fool.”
Harry did not answer, and Geoffrey went on in lighter, but no less taunting, tones, “So you think someone is going to get killed here?”
“It is possible that someone may die.”
Geoffrey laughed. “Of course! Almost certain, I should say!”
“In this houseâwithin two weeks.”
“Oh?” Geoffrey concentrated again.
“And that the odds are in favour of its being
you
or
me
.”
There was silence for quite a little while.
“Good God!” gasped Geoffrey. “You don't mean to say you believe that?”
But Harry had heard footsteps. “Hsh! Shut up!” he said quickly.
Helen came in, followed by Marjory and her mother, declaiming, “Dramatic entry of missing body!”
Geoffrey laughed. “Thank goodness! A certain young man here was almost out of his wits.”
“Things are coming to a pretty pass”, declared Helen, “when a child can't lie down to twiddle its thumbs without the whole family attending the cradle.”
Sir John came in, with folded newspapers under his arm. “A paper, anyone?”
Harry took one. “Ah pictures! Here you are, Marjory!”
“How clairvoyant of you, Harry!” and she graciously accepted the
Bulletin
.
Geoffrey got hold of the
Manchester Guardian
, while Sir John settled down to wipe his glasses, light a fresh cigar, and go through
The Times
.
Harry, with a smile for Helen, drew some papers from a long envelope. He was an engineering architect in a business allied to Sir John's.
Lady Marway got in touch with her work-basket again. She was a very neat needlewoman and found a close concentration on exact stitching soothing and restful. She had done some quite useful tapestry work in her time, though at the moment her concern was to arrest a ladder in her daughter's stocking.
Helen collected the coffee cups and rang. The room was so pleasantly and softly bright that she looked at both lamps to make sure the mantles were all right. The bracket one, an older type, was inclined, particularly on a windy night, to burn up and blacken its mantle and fill the room with soot. But now it was behaving excellently. In fact, the whole room was behaving excellently; because, as she realised, it was behaving normally.
She got hold of her book again. It was one of those sixpenny novels, which travellers nowadays are inclined to buy at railway stations instead of the old, popular magazines. She had long meant to read this book because it dealt with the English countryside in that slow, wise way which has so often been a characteristic of the best writers of her race and which she loved (once she had made the effort to get into its mood). Sometimes she had the uneasy feeling that this was not being modern. So she tried to make up for it by reading the most advanced modern stuff at other times. But now she was on holiday.
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