This Was Ivor Trent полностью

He spoke, as ever, in the abstract. Rosalie might have been something in a test-tube.

“And what do you think of Vera?” I asked.

“In regard to the bulging Vera, it would give me a particular and a peculiar pleasure to watch her being tortured every afternoon, from two till four. I may add that the period from two till four in the afternoon is responsible for crime, drug-taking, and the indulgence of every secret vice. God abdicates during those two hours—and slowly re-ascends his throne as tea-time approaches.”

The only thing Wrayburn attempted to conceal was his eagerness to meet me—and that was a failure. He never referred directly to his isolation, but his very appearance was a commentary on it. He was so outside life as it is lived that it had no interest for him. He was only interested in possibilities.

He was widely read in occult literature and he believed that I was. As a fact, the only book of the kind I had deeply studied was the one lent me by a priest, which I read in the trenches. Still, I was familiar with the belief that man contained in himself the potentiality of a New Being—and that, by devotion, dedication, and discipline, man could rise to a new order of consciousness.

But this belief in the possibility of a New Race was Wrayburn’s eternal theme. He held that, although the mass of mankind was in the kindergarten stage of evolution, every generation produced men and women capable of serving this idea of a New Race. They were prophecies of a new order of spiritual consciousness. They were God’s collaborators.

“The New Man is only a few civilisations distant,” he would say. “He must arise eventually. He will possess a Cosmic Consciousness. In him, Thought, Will, and Feeling will be fused into unity. That unity will be the Cosmic Consciousness. Compared with it, our present-day consciousness is like the flame of a night-light flickering in a draught.”

We met frequently and at last, to my stupefaction, I discovered he believed that I was one of those who are capable of serving the idea of a New Race. He made this staggering statement as if he were enunciating a truism.

Even now I do not know which is the more fantastic—this belief, or the reasons on which it was based.

Wrayburn imagined that I, unlike himself, was at home in the world, adequate to it, and above all that I had real relations with others. He was certain, therefore, that I had Power.

“They can walk down the street with you,” he announced, “but they only find me if they go mountaineering.”

He saw in me a “great spiritual potentiality.” I could be “a link joining the old consciousness to the new.”

“You’re not half a man, like the rest of us,” he once said. “You’re a real person. There’s Being in you. That’s why you can meet all sorts of people—even the bulging Vera.”

I said nothing. That Wrayburn, with his almost terrible insight, could believe that the ghost facing him was a potential Superman, amazed and frightened me. Wrayburn, whom nothing deceived, believed that!

He believed that the ghost called Ivor Trent had being and . . . . . . . . . . . .

Something extraordinary has just happened. It is the reason why the last section is unfinished.

I was writing it at my desk in my study, during the late afternoon. I looked up, in search of a phrase, and noticed that the door communicating with the bedroom was open. I was thinking of shutting it when I heard someone moving about.

“Is that you, Mrs. Frazer?”

There was no reply.

“Who’s there?” I shouted, more irritably.

The door opened wider and—Elsa appeared.

I rose slowly, staring at her.

“You! What are you doing here?”

“I took Mrs. Frazer’s place, when she became your nurse.”

“Why didn’t she tell me?”

“She probably didn’t think it would interest you. She knew nothing about us.”

“How long is it since I came here?”

“Nearly seven weeks.”

She crossed to the window, parted the curtains, and stood looking down at the river.

I do not know how long it was before I said:

“Come here. I can’t see you.”

She came over to me, then half sat on the edge of the writing-desk. I stood looking down at her.

“Is Rendell still here?”

“Yes, but he is going in just over a week.”

“Where? Do you know?”

“To Italy.”

Then, after a pause, she added:

“Rosalie Vivian is in Italy.”

“Has Rendell met her often?”

“Yes, nearly every day for a month. Mrs. Frazer thinks he will marry her.”

Again, there was a long silence.

“And Marsden?”

“He is still here. Hasn’t Mrs. Frazer told you all this?”

“No. I haven’t spoken to her about the house for a long time. Has Vera Thornton been here?”

“No, but Marsden has met her frequently.”

Although I asked these questions, and although Elsa answered them, they had no relation whatever to the real question I was asking—and which she was answering.

“And Wrayburn?”

She did not reply.

“Well?”

“He’s dead.”

I went nearer to her.

“When?”

“He was buried yesterday. He committed suicide.”

“Wrayburn?”

“Yes.”

I felt her hand on my arm.

“How?”

“Do you think you’d better——”