Walk with Care (10 page)

CHAPTER XVI

ROSALIND SAT QUITE STILL
and rigid, and hardly knew that the light had gone out. She felt only a crushing weight of loss. Then, as she stared before her, she heard the sound of rings sliding smoothly on a metal rod. The air moved before her face. There was a feeling of space, of emptiness, and she knew that the hangings in front of her had been drawn back. She looked into the dark, and could see nothing.

And then quite suddenly there was a light. One moment everything was black, and the next there was a crystal ball that floated on the dark.

Rosalind saw the crystal first. It seemed to spring out of the black air like a bubble of light. Then she saw that the light came in a narrow ray from a lamp with an opaque black shade. There was just the one clear panel. The ray came through it, sharp and bright as a sword. She could just see the lamp and the table on which it stood. Last of all she saw Asphodel. She was sitting behind the table with the crystal cupped in her hands. All the light flared on the crystal. The hands that held it were like stiff, pale wax. They did not look in the least like a living person's hands. The nails were very pointed, and very highly polished. There was a ring with a cat's-eye the size of a filbert on the third finger of the left hand. The face that was bent over the crystal was in the dusk above the ray. Rosalind saw it as one sees a face under water. It had a horrifying smooth pallor, the features rather sharp, the cheeks sunken, the lips pale. There was pale red hair combed straight back. There were folds of black velvet which hid everything except the hands. There were pale eyes that stared into the crystal.

Rosalind felt as if a cold finger had touched her spine. Then she reacted sharply. This was the charlatan trying to make your flesh creep. Well, it was quite good play-acting. You could shudder at a play, even though you knew that the horror was only make-believe. She sat up a little straighter to watch the play.

The silence went on—a thick, heavy silence like a heavy fog. The pale hands did not move. The pale eyes stared. The crystal took the light.

Rosalind's hands held one another and gripped hard. She broke the silence with the feeling that she was breaking a nightmare. She said, “Please—” and then stopped because she had no breath. It came to her that she mustn't speak, and that she must stay quite still. She waited.

After a while Asphodel spoke.

“There is a picture in the crystal.” The voice was just a whisper of sound, toneless and expressionless.

Rosalind said, “What is it?” She could speak again.

“Mist clearing—” said the whispering voice. “A house on the side of a hill—white—with pillars—white pillars. The mist is all gone. White pillars in the sun—very hot sun—dazzling. Black shadows—black. A black man—negroes—”

Rosalind's pulses quickened. Her Virginian home rose before her—the white house with its pillared front and shady porches—the negro servants. This must be mind-reading. But her thoughts had been far from Virginia. … Trickery. … Asphodel could not possibly know who she was. …

There had been a pause. The voice spoke again.

“There is a man in the picture—very tall and fair. He is riding a black horse. He rides out, but he will not ride home.”

Rosalind caught her breath. It was sixteen years since her father had ridden out on the black horse which he called Satan, and had not ridden home again because Satan had bolted with him and thrown him against a stone wall.

The voice went on:

“I can see you standing between the pillars. You have a long fair plait fastened with a black ribbon. There is a woman in black. She is weeping. I cannot see her face.”

Rosalind rallied her self-control. If it was true that the things you had known and felt were stamped upon your memory, then this sort of thought-reading was no more supernatural than the reproduction of sound from a gramophone record. The white pillared house, the black horse, the tall fair man, and the weeping woman were all pictures that her mind would keep for ever. Just how Asphodel saw them in the crystal she did not know, but she believed that she did see them there. If she saw those things, she could see other things. If she could see Lawrence Randolph on his black horse, why shouldn't she see Gilbert Denny?

The voice had ceased. The crystal looked dull. It no longer drank the light and held it like a star.

Rosalind leaned far forward.

“Can't you see any more?”

“No—I don't think so.”

“Won't you try?”

Asphodel had moved for the first time. She seemed to be leaning back, and the hands that held the crystal were fallen into the shadow of her velvet draperies. She said,

“These things do not come by trying.” As she spoke, she put out her hand and turned the lamp so that the light struck away from her. It showed only the dense blackness of floor and hangings.

Rosalind saw the hand come back again, the arm hidden in a wing-like sleeve. She could now see Asphodel's face only as a blur. Sometimes when the eyes moved they caught and reflected a faint gleam. She had a moment of indecision. She had learnt nothing, but if this was all, she must go. She half rose from her chair and said with a reluctance she did not understand,

“Do you want me to go?”

Asphodel said, “Not yet;” and then, “Tell me what you want.” She paused, and when there was no answer, she said, “Or shall I tell you?”

Rosalind leaned back again. Her thoughts clamoured,
“Tell me
—
tell me!”
but she found herself unable to speak. She waited, and heard Asphodel say,

“You want to hear of someone who has passed over?”

Rosalind said, “Yes.” The effort exhausted her. Her temples were wet.

Asphodel was speaking again.

“I will try the trance. Please stay quite still whatever happens. I shan't know what happens myself. You can ask me questions, but it will be my control who answers. I don't know what the answers will be. I can't promise anything—you must understand that.”

Rosalind said “Yes” again, and as she spoke. Asphodel leaned sideways and turned out the lamp. There was a click and darkness, and then another click and a very, very faint glow from a heavily shaded bulb in the ceiling. The shade was black. Just so much light came through it as to turn the darkness into a gloomy dusk. In this dusk it was possible to distinguish the contour of the table and the dense black of Asphodel's velvet robe. Rosalind could still see the oval of her face. As she watched it, she thought it tilted slightly, as if the medium had sunk back into her chair. Once more silence fell, the heaviest silence that Rosalind had ever known. And then quite suddenly it was broken by the sound of a quickly taken breath followed by a cry of surprise.

“Who are you?” said Asphodel in that toneless whisper.

Then, before Rosalind had time to speak, the answer came from the medium's lips. In Gilbert Denny's voice it said,

“Gilbert.”

Rosalind found herself sitting rigidly upright and gripping the arms of the chair. She heard herself saying,

“Gilbert—Gilbert!”

And then there was Gilbert speaking to her, quite quietly and naturally.

“Rosalind—are you there?”

She said “Gilbert!” again, and felt her head burn and her feet go cold as ice.

“I want to speak to you,” said Gilbert's voice—“to tell you—I've tried so hard—I couldn't get through—”

“Gilbert!”

“Tell you,” said the voice—“very difficult—don't trust—” The voice failed.

Rosalind's hands clenched on the wood of her chair. She found herself saying Gilbert's name again. It seemed to come from her stiff lips without any thought behind it. In the dumb background of her mind something agonized.

“Ask—ask quick! Don't lose—oh, Rosalind,
ask!”

But all that she could say was just his name. The dusk in front of her seemed to move. The shadows shook before her eyes. Gilbert's voice came from the lips in the pale tilted oval that was Asphodel's face.

“Danger—for you—Rosalind—because of me—torment—” The word went out in a groan.

Rosalind forced her will. She forced those stiff lips until they said, “Why?”

“You,” said Gilbert's voice—“because of me—you must pay for what I did—” There was another most dreadful groan. “Don't trust—Jeremy Ware—”

Rosalind felt light and strange. It was as if she had been shocked right out of her body. Thought, emotion, anguish quivered together in some place she had not known before. She groped for Gilbert, but she could not find him. Gilbert's voice beat against her ears, but Gilbert himself was immeasurably removed. She was wrenched horribly between Gilbert and his voice. There was no Gilbert. He was gone out of her reach. She felt as if she were losing him for the first time.

She came back to a sense of her body, and found it rigid. Gilbert's voice was speaking, but she did not know what it said. She caught only the two last words: “Jeremy Ware.” She stared before her at the black hangings and the drowned pallor of the medium's face, and heard Gilbert's voice say,

“Don't trust—Jeremy Ware—”

All at once she was calm and steady. The voice that had agonized in her was silent. Another voice said, “It's a trick,” and an intense cold anger shone in her like the moon shining on ice. It made everything very hard and clear. She said, “Why?” and the cold was in her voice.

The medium cried out, and a high, thin voice said, “I want to come through.”

Then Gilbert's voice again: “I can't stay—Rosalind—” and a deep broken groan.

Rosalind's mind held steady, but her body had begun to shake. She saw Asphodel wrench sideways and throw up her hands. She heard her scream on a high, thin note. Broken words poured from her lips. The two voices contended in an unintelligible medley of sound.

Suddenly the medium choked and became convulsed. The pale hands writhed and beat the air. The pale eyes, with all the whites exposed, caught the faint light and made it horrible. From the twisted mouth came sounds of hoarse, inhuman distress. Then, just at its most unendurable, the nightmare broke. With a heavy gasping sigh Asphodel flung back. The hands lay still. The head rested motionless. She drew three or four deep breaths and spoke in the same whispering tone she had used at the beginning.

“Did you get what you wanted?”

Rosalind held herself, but her voice shook. She said,

“Don't you know?”

“I don't know anything when I've been in trance—I told you so. Wasn't it any good? You needn't tell me unless you like.” She spoke as if she were drained of vitality.

Rosalind moved.

“Thank you,” she said. “Will you please tell me what I owe you?”

Another of those heavy sighs.

“I don't take a fee—it's not allowed. Phoebe will show you out. You may care to have a memento of your visit—” Her voice died wearily.

Rosalind got up and felt her way to the door. She heard the soft sliding sound which she had heard before and, glancing back, saw only unbroken darkness. The velvet curtains once more shut off the L. She fumbled for the handle. Her hands felt stiff and heavy. When she opened the door, the light dazzled her.

The curtains had been drawn at the half-landing, and an unshaded bulb showed Phoebe waiting. There was a small table which Rosalind had not noticed when she came up. Some half dozen sketches were disposed upon it. Phoebe stood beside the table with the decorous air of an old family servant. As Rosalind came down the steps, she spoke.

“Do you care to take one of these sketches, ma'am?” Voice and manner were mechanical and without interest.

A little bleak laughter stirred in Rosalind's cold, angry mind.

“I see—” she said. “They are for sale?”

“They are five guineas each, ma'am.”

Rosalind picked up the nearest. It was the sort of water-colour drawing which is turned out in any sketching-class. There was a white cliff, a strip of yellow sand, and an ultramarine sea. She held it in a rigid, steady hand and looked at it.

“I will take this one,” she said. She got out her purse and put down a five-pound note and two half-crowns.

Phoebe wrapped the sketch and tied it up.

Rosalind came out into the street, and heard the door shut behind her. It was almost dark, and it was very cold. She turned towards Marsh Street, and found her feet heavier at every step. It was very cold, and it was very dark. There was a street-lamp at the corner. When she looked at it, it wavered. It was very dark. The light wavered. It was very cold. It was a long way to the corner. She stood still and leaned against the wall of Bernard Mannister's house.

There was a car coming up the road behind her. If it was a taxi, it would be better to take it. She tried to move, to turn her head, to signal, but nothing happened. She remained leaning against the wall, whilst the light at the corner wavered and broke up into a shower of blinding stars. She had a feeling that she was falling, and lost consciousness.

Mr John Brown, whose taxi had been coming up behind her, stopped his car abruptly and jumped out. He was in time to catch Rosalind before she fell. He saw her put out a groping hand and slip sideways. She fell against his shoulder and rested there for a moment. Then he lifted her and carried her to the car.

When she opened her eyes, she was lying back against the cushions. She raised herself a little. She couldn't remember getting into the taxi. She was still very cold. The driver stood by the door looking in on her. She could see the outline of his shoulders, and his chauffeur's cap, and his beard. You didn't often see a taxidriver with a beard. … How stupid—of course he was waiting for her to give him the address. She drew a long breath, because she was afraid of what her voice might do. All that hard, clear anger was gone. She felt weak and quiet. There were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks.