The Necromancers. Robert Hugh Benson

      "Dear auntie, do put it out of your head. How can it possibly be true?"

      Mrs. Baxter set her lips in as much severity as she could.

      "I shall ask the Vicar," she said. "We might stop at the Vicarage on the way back."

      Mrs. Baxter did not often stop at the Vicarage; as she did not altogether approve of the Vicar's wife. There was a good deal of pride in the old lady, and it seemed to her occasionally as if Mrs. Rymer did not understand the difference between the Hall and the Parsonage. She envied sometimes, secretly, the Romanist idea of celibacy: it was so much easier to get on with your spiritual adviser if you did not have to consider his wife. But here, was a matter which a clergyman must settle for her once and for all; so she put on a slight air of dignity which became her very well, and a little after four o'clock the Victoria turned up the steep little drive that led to the Vicarage.

III

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      Thee dusk was already fallen before Laurie, strolling vaguely in the garden, heard the carriage wheels draw up at the gate outside.

      He had ridden again alone, and his mind had run, to a certain extent, as might be expected, upon the recent guest and her very startling conversation. He was an intelligent young man, and he had not been in the least taken in by her pseudo-mystical remarks. Yet there had been something in her extreme assurance that had affected him, as a man may smile sourly at a good story in bad taste. His attitude, in fact, was that of most Christians under the circumstances. He did not, for an instant, believe that such things really and literally happened, and yet it was difficult to advance any absolutely conclusive argument against them. Merely, they had not come his way; they appeared to conflict with experience, and they usually found as their advocates such persons as Mrs. Stapleton.

      Two things, however, prevailed to keep the matter before his mind. The first was his own sense of loss, his own experience, sore and hot within him, of the unapproachable emptiness of death; the second, Maggie's attitude. When a plainly sensible and controlled young woman takes up a position of superiority, she is apt, unless the young man in her company happens to be in love with her—and sometimes even when he is—to provoke and irritate him into a camp of opposition. She is still more apt to do so if her relations to him have once been in the line of even greater tenderness.

      Laurie then was not in the most favorable of moods to receive the dicta of the Vicar.

      They were announced to him immediately after Mrs. Baxter had received from Maggie's hands her first cup of tea.

      "Mr. Rymer tells me it's all nonsense," she said.

      Laurie looked up.

      "What?" he said.

      "Mr. Rymer tells me Spiritualism is all nonsense. He told me about someone called Eglingham, who kept a beard in his portmanteau."

      "Eglinton, I think, auntie," put in Maggie.

      "I daresay, my dear. Anyhow, it's all the same. I felt sure it must be so." Laurie took a bun, with a thoughtful air.

      "Does Mr. Rymer know very much about it, do you think, mother?"

      "Dear boy, I think he knows all that anyone need know. Besides, if you come to think of it, how could Cardinal Newman possibly appear in a drawing-room? Particularly when Mrs. Stapleton says he isn't a Christian any longer."

      This had a possible and rather pleasing double interpretation; but Laurie decided it was not worth while to be humorous.

      "What about the Witch of Endor?" he asked innocently, instead.

      "That was in the Old Testament," answered his mother rapidly. "Mr. Rymer said something about that too."

      "Oh! wasn't it really Samuel who appeared?"

      "Mr. Rymer thinks that things were permitted then that are not permitted now."

      Laurie drank up his cup of tea. It is a humiliating fact that extreme grief often renders the mourner rather cross. There was a distinct air of crossness about Laurie at this moment. His nerves were very near the top.

      "Well, that's very convenient," he said. "Maggie, do you know if there's any book on Spiritualism in the house?"

      The girl glanced uneasily near the fire-place.

      "I don't know," she said. "Yes; I think there's something up there. I believe I saw it the other day."

      Laurie rose and stood opposite the shelves.

      "What color is it? (No, no more tea, thanks.)"

      "Er … black and red, I think," said the girl. "I forget."

      She looked up at him, faintly uneasy, as he very deliberately drew down a book from the shelf and turned the pages.

      "Yes … this is it," he said. "Thanks very much. … No, really no more tea, thanks, mother."

      Then he went to the door, with his easy, rather long steps, and disappeared. They heard his steps in the inner hall. Then a door closed overhead.

      Mrs. Baxter contentedly poured herself out another cup of tea.

      "Poor boy," she said. "He's thinking of that girl still. I'm glad he's got something to occupy his mind."

      The end room, on the first floor, was Laurie's possession. It was a big place, with two windows, and a large open fire, and he had skillfully masked the fact that it was a bedroom by disposing his furniture, with the help of a screen, in such a manner as completely to hide the bed and the washing arrangements.

      The rest of the room he had furnished in a pleasing male kind of fashion, with a big couch drawn across the fire, a writing-table and chairs, a deep easy chair near the door, and a long, high bookcase covering the wall between the door and the windows. His college oar, too, hung here, and there were pleasant groups and pictures scattered on the other walls.

      Maggie did not often come in here, except by invitation, but about seven o'clock on this evening, half an hour before she had to go and dress, she thought she would look in on him for a few minutes. She was still a little uncomfortable; she did not quite know why: it was too ridiculous, she told, herself, that a sensible boy like Laurie could be seriously affected by what she considered the wicked nonsense of Spiritualism.

      Yet she went, telling herself that Laurie's grief was an excuse for showing him a little marked friendliness. Besides, she would like to ask him whether he was really going back to town on Thursday.

      She tapped twice before an answer came; and then it seemed a rather breathless voice which spoke.

      The boy was sitting bolt upright on the edge of the sofa, with a couple of candles at his side, and the book in his hands. There was a strained and intensely interested look in his eyes.

      "May I come in for a few minutes? It's nearly dressing time," she said.

      "Oh—er—certainly."

      He got up, rather stiffly, still keeping his place in the book with one finger, while she sat down. Then he too sat again, and there was silence for a moment.

      "Why, you're not smoking," she said.

      "I forgot. I will now, if you don't mind!"

      She saw his fingers tremble a little as he put out his hand to a box of cigarettes at his side. But he put the book down, after looking at the page.

      She could keep her question in no longer.

      "What do you think of that," she said, nodding at the book.

      He filled his lungs with smoke and exhaled again slowly.

      "I think it's extraordinary," he said shortly.

      "In what way?"

      Again