Twilight Sleep (24 page)

"At all events," Nona concluded, "I'm glad he didn't get hold of
mother and bother her with his foolish talk." She shot up in the
lift to the white carbolic–breathing passage where, with a heavy
whiff of ether, Mrs. Bruss's door opened to receive her.

The restorative effect of a day away from the country was visible
in Pauline's face and manner when she dawned on the breakfast–table
the next morning. The mere tone in which she murmured: "How
lovely it is to get back!" showed how lovely it had been to get
away—and she lingered over the new–laid eggs, the golden cream,
all the country freshnesses and succulences, with the sense of
having richly earned them by a long day spent in arduous and
agreeable labours.

"When there are tiresome things to be done the great thing is to do
them at once," she announced to Nona across the whole–wheat toast
and scrambled eggs. "I simply hated to leave all this loveliness
yesterday; but how much more I'm going to enjoy it today because I
did!"

Her day in town had in truth been exceptionally satisfactory. All
had gone well, from her encounter, at Amalasuntha's, with one of
the Cardinal's secretaries, to the belated glimpse of Maisie Bruss,
haggard but hopeful on the hospital steps, receiving the hamper of
fruit and flowers with grateful exclamations, and assurances that
the surgeon was "perfectly satisfied," and that there was "no
reason why the dreadful thing should ever reappear." In a wave of
sympathetic emotion Pauline had leaned from the motor to kiss her
and say: "Your mother must have a good rest at Atlantic City as
soon as she can be moved—I'll arrange it. Sea air is such a
tonic … " and Maisie had thanked and wept again… It was
pleasant to be able, in a few words, to make any one so happy…

She had found Mrs. Swoffer too; found her in a super–terrestrial
mood, beaming through inspired eye–glasses, and pouring out new
torrents of stimulation.

Yes: Alvah Loft was a great man, Mrs. Swoffer said. She, for her
part, had never denied it for a moment. How could Pauline have
imagined that her faith in Alvah Loft had failed her? No—but
there were periods of spiritual aridity which the brightest souls
had to traverse, and she had lately had reason to suspect, from her
own experience and from Pauline's, that perhaps Alvah Loft was at
present engaged in such a desert. Certainly to charge a hundred
dollars for a "triple treatment" (which was only three minutes
longer than the plain one), and then produce no more lasting
results—well, Mrs. Swoffer preferred not to say anything
uncharitable… Then again, she sometimes suspected that Alvah
Loft's doctrine might be only for beginners. That was what Sacha
Gobine, the new Russian Initiate, plainly intimated. Of course
there were innumerable degrees in the spiritual life, and it might
be that sometimes Alvah Loft's patients got beyond his level—got
above it—without his being aware of the fact. Frankly, that was
what Gobine thought (from Mrs. Swoffer's report) must have happened
in the case of Pauline. "I believe your friend has reached a
higher plane"—that was the way the Initiate put it. "She's been
at the gate" (he called the Mahatma and Alvah Loft "gatekeepers"),
"and now the gate has opened, and she has entered in—entered
into … " But Mrs. Swoffer said she'd rather not try to quote
him because she couldn't put it as beautifully as he did, and she
wanted Pauline to hear it in his own mystical language. "It's
eternal rejuvenation just to sit and listen to him," she breathed,
laying an electric touch on her visitor's hand.

Rejuvenation! The word dashed itself like cool spray against
Pauline's strained nerves and parched complexion. She could never
hear it without longing to plunge deep into its healing waters.
Between manicure and hair–waver she was determined to squeeze in a
moment with Gobine.

And the encounter, as she told Nona, had been like "a religious
experience"—apparently forgetful of the fact that every other
meeting with a new prophet had presented itself to her in identical
terms.

"You see, my dear, it's something so entirely new, so completely
different … so emotional; yes, emotional; that's the word. The
Russians, of course, ARE emotional; it's their peculiar quality.
Alvah Loft—and you understand that I don't in the least suggest
any loss of faith in him; but Alvah Loft has a mind which speaks to
the MIND; there is no appeal to the feelings. Whereas in Gobine's
teaching there is a mystic strain, a kind of Immediacy, as Mrs.
Swoffer calls it… Immediacy…" Pauline lingered on the
term. It captivated her, as any word did when she first heard it
used in a new connection. "I don't know how one could define the
sensation better. 'Soul–unveiling' is Gobine's expression…
But he insists on time, on plenty of time… He says we are all
parching our souls by too much hurry. Of course I always felt that
with Alvah Loft. I felt like one of those cash–boxes they shoot
along over your head in the department stores. Number one, number
two, and so on—always somebody treading on your heels. Whereas
Gobine absolutely refuses to be hurried. Sometimes he sees only
one patient a day. When I left him he told me he thought he would
not see any one else till the next morning. 'I don't want to
mingle your soul with any other.' Rather beautiful, wasn't it?
And he does give one a wonderful dreamy sense of rest…"

She closed her eyes and leaned back, evoking the gaunt bearded face
and heavy–lidded eyes of the new prophet, and the moist adhesive
palm he had laid in benediction on her forehead. How different
from the thick–lipped oily Mahatma, and from the thin dry Alvah
Loft, who seemed more like an implement in a laboratory than a
human being! "Perhaps one needs them all in turn," Pauline
murmured half–aloud, with the self–indulgence of the woman who has
never had to do over an out–of–fashion garment.

"One ought to be able to pass on last year's healers to one's poor
relations, oughtn't one, mother?" Nona softly mocked; but her
mother disarmed her with an unresentful smile.

"Darling! I know you don't understand these things yet—only,
child, I do want you to be a little on your guard against becoming
BITTER, won't you? There—you don't mind your old mother's just
suggesting it?"

Really Nona worried her at times—or would, if Gobine hadn't shed
over her this perfumed veil of Peace. Yes—Peace: that was what
she had always needed. Perfect confidence that everything would
always come right in the end. Of course the other healers had
taught that too; some people might say that Gobine's evangel was
only the Mahatma's doctrine of the Higher Harmony. But the
resemblance was merely superficial, as the Scientific Initiate had
been careful to explain to her. Her previous guides had not been
Initiates, and had no scientific training; they could only guess,
whereas he KNEW. That was the meaning of Immediacy: direct contact
with the Soul of the Invisible. How clear and beautiful he made it
all! How all the little daily problems shrivelled up and vanished
like a puff of smoke to eyes cleared by that initiation! And he
had seen at once that Pauline was one of the few who COULD be
initiated; who were worthy to be drawn out of the senseless modern
rush and taken in Beyond the Veil. She closed her eyes again, and
felt herself there with him… "Of course he treats hardly
anybody," Mrs. Swoffer had assured her; "not one in a hundred. He
says he'd rather starve than waste his time on the unmystical. (He
saw at once that you were mystical.) Because he takes time—he
must have it… Days, weeks, if necessary. Our crowded
engagements mean nothing to him. He won't have a clock in the
house. And he doesn't care whether he's paid or not; he says he's
paid in soul–growth. Marvellous, isn't it?"

Marvellous indeed! And how different from Alvah Loft's Taylorized
treatments, his rapidly rising scale of charges, and the unbroken
stream of patients succeeding each other under his bony touch! And
how one came back from communion with the Invisible longing to help
others, to draw all one's dear ones with one Beyond the Veil.
Pauline had gone to town with an unavowed burden on her mind. Jim,
Lita, her husband, that blundering Amalasuntha, that everlasting
Michelangelo; and Nona, too—Nona, who looked thinner and more
drawn every day, and whose tongue seemed to grow sharper and more
derisive; who seemed—at barely twenty—to be turning from a gay
mocking girl into a pinched fault–finding old maid…

All these things had weighed on Pauline more than she cared to
acknowledge; but now she felt strong enough to lift them, or rather
they had become as light as air. "If only you Americans would
persuade yourselves of the utter unimportance of the Actual—of the
total non–existence of the Real." That was what Gobine had said,
and the words had thrilled her like a revelation. Her eyes
continued to rest with an absent smile on her daughter's ironic
face, but what she was really thinking of was: "How on earth can I
possibly induce him to come to the Cardinal's reception?"

That was one of the things that Nona would never understand her
caring about. She would credit—didn't Pauline know!—her mother
with the fatuous ambition to use her united celebrities for a
social "draw," as a selfish child might gather all its toys into
one heap; she would never see how important it was to bring
together the representatives of the conflicting creeds, the bearers
of the multiple messages, in the hope of drawing from their contact
the flash of revelation for which the whole creation groaned. "If
only the Cardinal could have a quiet talk with Gobine," Pauline
thought; and, immediately dramatizing the possibility, saw herself
steering his Eminence toward the innermost recess of her long suite
of drawing–rooms, where the Scientific Initiate, shaggy but
inspired, would suddenly stand before the Prince of the Church
while she guarded the threshold from intruders. What new life it
might put into the ossified Roman dogmas if the Cardinal could be
made to understand that beautiful new doctrine of Immediacy! But
how could she ever persuade Gobine to kiss the ring?

"And Mrs. Bruss—any news? I thought Maisie seemed really
hopeful."

"Yes; the night wasn't bad. The doctors think she'll go on all
right—for the present."

Pauline frowned; it was distasteful to have the suggestion of
suffering and decay obtruded upon her beatific mood. She was
living in a world where such things were not, and it seemed cruel—
and unnecessary—to suggest to her that perhaps all Mrs. Bruss had
already endured might not avail to spare her future misery.

"I'm sure we ought to try to resist looking ahead, and creating
imaginary suffering for ourselves or others. Why should the
doctors say 'for the present'? They can't possibly tell if the
disease will ever come back."

"No; but they know it generally does."

"Can't you see, Nona, that that's just what MAKES it? Being
prepared to suffer is really the way to create suffering. And
creating suffering is creating sin, because sin and suffering are
really one. We ought to refuse ourselves to pain. All the great
Healers have taught us that."

Nona lifted her eyebrows in the slightly disturbing way she had.
"Did Christ?"

Pauline felt her colour rise. This habit of irrelevant and rather
impertinent retort was growing on Nona. The idea of stirring up
the troublesome mysteries of Christian dogma at the breakfast–
table! Pauline had no intention of attacking any religion. But
Nona was really getting as querulous as a teething child. Perhaps
that was what she was, morally; perhaps some new experience was
forcing its way through the tender flesh of her soul. The
suggestion was disturbing to all Pauline's theories; yet confronted
with her daughter's face and voice she could only take refuge in
the idea that Nona, unable to attain the Higher Harmony, was
struggling in a crepuscular wretchedness from which she refused to
be freed.

"If you'd only come to Gobine with me, dear, these problems would
never trouble you any more."

"They don't now—not an atom. What troubles me is the plain human
tangle, as it remains after we've done our best to straighten it
out. Look at Mrs. Bruss!"

"But the doctors say there's every chance—"

"Did you ever know them not to, after a first operation for
cancer?"

"Of course, Nona, if you take sorrow and suffering for granted—"

"I don't, mother; but, apparently, Somebody does, judging from
their diffusion and persistency, as the natural history books say."

Pauline felt her smooth brows gather in an unwelcome frown. The
child had succeeded in spoiling her breakfast and in unsettling the
happy equilibrium which she had imparted to her world. She didn't
know what ailed Nona, unless she was fretting over Stan Heuston's
disgraceful behaviour; but if so, it was better that she should
learn in time what he was, and face her disillusionment. She might
actually have ended by falling in love with him, Pauline reflected,
and that would have been very disagreeable on account of Aggie.
"What she needs is to marry," Pauline said to herself, struggling
back to serenity.

She glanced at her watch, wondered if it were worth while to wait
any longer for her husband, and decided to instruct Powder to keep
his breakfast hot, and produce fresh coffee and rice–cakes when he
rang.

Dexter, the day before, had taken Lita off on another long
excursion. They had turned up so late that dinner had to be
postponed for them, and had been so silent and remote all the
evening that Pauline had ventured a jest on the soporific effects
of country air, and suggested that every one should go to bed
early. This morning, though it was past ten o'clock, neither of
the two had appeared; and Nona declared herself ignorant of their
plans for the day.

"It's a mercy Lita is so satisfied here," Pauline sighed, resigning
herself to another dull day at the thought of the miracle Manford
was accomplishing. She had felt rather nervous when Amalasuntha
had appeared with her incredible film stories, and her braggings
about the irresistible Michelangelo; but Lita did not seem to have
been unsettled by them.