The Brightener

CHAPTER III

THE CHAIR AT THE SAVOY

It was five years since I'd seen Opal Fawcett – for the first and last time, that day I went to her house with June.

Then she had gleamed wraithlike in the purple dusk of her purple room, with its purple-shaded lamps. Now she stood in full daylight, against the frank background of a country cottage wall. Yet she was still a mere film of a woman. She seemed to carry her own eerie effect with her wherever she went, as the heroines of operas are accompanied by their special spot-light and leitmotif.

Whether the servant was untrained, or spiteful because a long-standing rule had been broken in my favour, I can't tell. But I'm sure that, if he'd been given half a chance, Robert would have made some excuse not to see Opal. There she was, however, on the threshold, and looking like one of those "Dwellers on the Threshold" you read of in psychic books.

As he had no invisible cloak, and couldn't crawl under a sofa, poor Robert was obliged to say pleasantly, "How do you do?"

Standing back a little, trying to look about two inches tall instead of five foot ten, I watched the greeting. I wanted to judge from it, if I could, to what extent the old acquaintance had been kept up. But I might have saved myself waste of brain tissue. Robert was anxious to leave no mystery.

"Princess," he said, hastily, when he had taken his guest's slim hand in its gray glove, "Princess, I think you must have heard of Miss Opal Fawcett."

"Oh, yes. And we have met – once," I replied.

Opal's narrow gray eyes turned to me – not without reluctance I thought.

"I remember well," she murmured, in her plaintive voice. "I never forget a face. You were Miss Courtenaye then. Lately I've been hearing of you from Miss Arnold, who used to be my secretary, and is now yours."

I was thankful she didn't bring in June's name!

"Miss Fawcett and I have known each other a good many years," Robert hurried on. "She was once in a play with me, before she found her real métier. She kindly comes to see me now and then, when she can take a day off."

"I want to bid you good-bye – if you are really going out of England," Opal said.

She had ceased to look at me now, but I went on looking hard at her. She was in what might be a spirit conception of a motor costume: smoke gray velvet, and yards of long, floating veil shot from gray to mauve. She wore a close toque with two little jutting Mercury wings, from behind which those yards of unnecessary chiffon fell. She had a narrow oval face, which Nature and (I thought) Art combined to make pale as pearl. Her hair, pushed forward by the toque, was so colourless a brown that it looked like thick shadow. She had a beautifully cut, delicate nose, but her lips were thin and the upper one rather long and flat, otherwise she would have been pretty. Even as it was she had a kind of fascination, and I thought her the most graceful, willowy creature I'd ever seen.

"Well," said Robert, "as it happens I've put off going abroad, through a kind of mental laziness. But in the ordinary course of events you'd have come to-day only to find me gone – which would have been a pity. When I answered your letter, I told you – "

"Yes, but I felt you'd still be here," she cut him short. "Apparently the Princess had the same premonition."

"Oh, I just happened to be passing," I fibbed, "and took my chance. Fortunately, I came in the nick of time to give Captain Lorillard a lift to town in my car. It will save him a journey by train."

"Then I am in the nick of time, too!" said Opal. "If I'd been ten minutes later I might have missed him. I felt that, too! I told my taxi man to drive at least as fast as the legal limit."

I guessed she was longing to get Robert to herself, and that he was glad there was no chance of it. Was he really going abroad? she wanted to know. Or only just to London for a change?

Robert was restive under her uncanny questionings, but answered that he wasn't quite sure about the future. Travelling in France and Italy seemed to be disagreeable at the moment. Passports, too, were a bother. He'd be more certain of his plans in a few days, and would let her know.

Opal betrayed no crude emotion. Yet I was sure that, under her restrained manner – soft as a gentle breeze on a summer night – she would have enjoyed stamping her foot and having hysterics. Instead, she asked Robert about a psychic play she wanted him to write (he hadn't written a line of it!), told him a little news concerning people they both knew, and bethought herself that she "mustn't keep us."

Not more than twenty minutes after she had floated in Miss Fawcett floated forth again. Robert took her to her taxi, and then could hardly wait to get off in my car. As for me, I'd forgotten all about the Duchess. We chose the longer of the two roads to London, hoping to miss Opal; but soon passed her taxi going at a leisurely pace. The Wraith must have had another of her mystic "feelings," and counted on our choice of that turning!

"She says she has 'helpers' from beyond," Robert explained, when we were flying on, far ahead. "She asks their advice, and they tell her what to do in daily life. She wanted to provide me with one or two, but I wasn't 'taking any.' Not that I'm a convinced materialist, or that I don't believe the dark veil can ever be lifted – I'm rather inclined the other way round – but I prefer to manage my own affairs without 'helpers' I've never known or seen on earth. Of course, it would be different if – Oh, you know what I mean. But even then – well, I should be afraid of being deceived. It's better not to begin anything like that when you can't be sure."

"Did Opal Fawcett ever try to persuade you to – to – ?" Courage failed me. But Robert understood only too well what was in my mind.

"Yes, she did," he admitted. "She wrote me – after – that awful thing happened. I hadn't heard from her for a long time till then. I'd almost forgotten her existence. She said in the letter that June's spirit had come to her with a message for me."

"Cheek!" I exclaimed.

"Well, I'm afraid that's rather the way I felt about it, though probably Opal meant well, and a lot of people think she's wonderful. Several friends begged me in urgent letters to go to Opal Fawcett: assured me she'd given them indescribable comfort, put them in touch with those they loved who'd 'passed on.' But somehow I couldn't be persuaded, Princess. A voice inside me always used to say: 'Why should June want to talk to you through Opal Fawcett? If she can come back, why shouldn't she speak with you direct, instead of through a third person?'"

"That's how I should have argued it out in your place," I agreed. "And – and June never – ?"

"No. She never came, never made me realize her near presence, never seemed to influence me in favour of Opal – though Opal didn't give up till months had passed. When she first came after writing to say she must see me, it was to beg me to visit her for June's sake. Afterward, when she saw she was making me uncomfortable, she stopped her persuasions. Since then – fairly often when Joyce Arnold was here – she has turned up at the cottage: sometimes just for a friendly chat like an ordinary human being (though I never feel she is one), sometimes to discuss that 'psychic play' – as she calls it – an idea of hers she wants me to work out for the stage."

"Is it a good idea?" I wanted to know.

"Yes. Mysterious and dramatic at the same time. Yet I've always made excuses. I don't fancy collaborating with Miss Fawcett, though that may sound ungrateful."

It didn't, to my ears, especially as Opal's object seemed transparent as the depths of her own crystal. Of course she was still in love with Robert, and had seized first one chance, then another, of getting into touch with him. I was rather sorry for her, in a vague, impersonal way; for to love Robert Lorillard and lose him would hurt. I could realize that, without the trouble and pain of being seriously in love with him myself.

"It's a good thing," I thought, "that Joyce Arnold's stopping with me at this time and not with Opal Fawcett! It would be as much as the girl's life is worth to be engaged to Robert in that house!"

Could Opal suspect, I wondered, the truth about the broken love story? Somehow I thought not. I might be mistaken, but the rather patronizing way in which she'd spoken of Joyce didn't seem like that of a jealous woman. If Joyce and she had got upon each other's nerves lately because of Robert, I imagined that suspicion had been on the other side. Joyce would have been more than human if she could go on accepting hospitality from a woman who so plainly showed her love for Robert Lorillard.

We raced back to London, for I feared that Robert's mood might change for the worse – that an autumn chill of remorse might shiver through his veins.

All was well, however – very well. I made him talk to me of Joyce nearly the whole way; and at the end of the journey I had him waiting for her in the drawing room of my flat before he quite knew what had happened to him.

My secretary was in her own room, writing her own letters as she'd said she would do.

"Back already, Princess?" she exclaimed, jumping up when I'd knocked and been told to come in. "Why, you've hardly more than had time to get there and back, it seems, to say nothing of lunch!"

"I haven't had any lunch," I said.

"No lunch? Poor darling! Why – "

"I was too busy," I broke in. "And I wanted to get back."

"Only this morning you were longing to go!"

"I know! It does sound chameleon-like. But second thoughts are often best. Come into the drawing room and you'll see that mine were – much best."

She came, in all innocence. I opened the door. I thrust her in. I exclaimed: "Bless you, my children!" and shut the two in together.

This was taking it boldly for granted that Joyce was as much in love with Robert as he with her. But why be early Victorian and ignore the lovely, naked truth, instead of late Georgian and save beating round the bush for both of the lovers?

Those words of mine figuratively flung them into each other's arms, where – according to my idea – the sooner they were the better!

I should think if my words missed fire, their eyes didn't miss, judging from what I'd seen in hers when speaking of him, in his when speaking of her! And certainly the pair of them couldn't have wasted much time in foolish preliminaries; for in about half an hour Joyce appeared in the dining room, where I was eating an immense luncheon.

"Oh, Princess!" she breathed, hovering just over the threshold; and instantly Robert loomed behind her. "It's too wonderful. It can't be true."

Robert didn't speak. He merely gazed. Years had rolled off him since morning. He looked an inspired boy, with a dash of silver powder on his hair. Slipping his arm round Joyce's waist he brought her to me. As I sat at the table they both knelt down close to my feet, and each earnestly kissed one of my hands! It would have been a beautiful effect if I hadn't choked, trying wildly to bolt a mouthful of something, and had to be slapped on the back. That choke was a disguised blessing, however, for it made us all laugh when I got my breath; and when you're on the top pinnacle of a great emotion, it's a safe outlet to laugh!

My suggestion was, that nobody but our three selves should share the secret, and that the wedding – to be hurried on – should be sprung as a surprise upon the public. Robert and Joyce agreed on general principles; but each made one exception.

Robert said that he felt it would be "caddish" to make a bid for happiness without telling the Duchess of Stane what was in his mind. She couldn't reasonably object to his marrying again, and wouldn't object, he argued; but if he didn't confide in her she'd have a right to think him a coward.

Joyce's one exception – of all people on earth! – was Opal Fawcett! And when I shrieked "Why?" she'd only say that she "owed a debt of gratitude to Opal." Therefore Opal had a right to know before any one else that she was engaged.

The girl didn't add "to Robert Lorillard," but a flash of intuition like a searchlight showed me the meaning behind her words. Living in the same house with Opal, eating Opal's bread and salt (very little else, I daresay!), Joyce had guessed Opal's secret – or had been forced to hear a confidence. That, and nothing else, was the reason why she wouldn't be engaged to Robert "behind Opal's back!"

Well, I hope I'm not precisely a coward myself, but I didn't envy Joyce Arnold and Robert Lorillard their self-appointed tasks. They were carried out, however, with soldierly promptness the day after the engagement, and nothing terrific happened – or at least, was reported.

"Opal was very sweet," Joyce announced, vouchsafing no details of the interview.

"The – Duchess was very sensible," was Robert's description of what passed between him and his exalted ex-mother-in-law.

"I suppose you asked them not to tell?" was my one question.

"Oh, Opal won't tell!" exclaimed Joyce; and I believed that she was right. According to Opal's view, telling things only helped them to happen.

"I begged the Duchess to say nothing to anybody," answered Robert. Our eyes met, and we smiled – Robert rather ruefully.

Of course the Duchess did the contrary of what she'd been begged to do, and said something to everybody. In less than a week the world was aware that Robert Lorillard, its lost idol, was coming back to life; that he who had been for a few months the husband of wonderful June Dana – the Duchess of Stane's daughter – was engaged to a "V. – A. – D. girl who'd nursed him in the war, and had been his secretary or something."

But, after all, the talk mattered very little to those most concerned. They were divinely happy, the two who were talked about, though they would have liked to be let alone. I suppose, for Robert, it was a different kind of happiness from that which the condescension of his goddess had given him: less dazzling perhaps; more like the warm sweetness of early spring and its flowers, compared with a tropical summer of scented magnolias and daturas. June had been a goddess stepping down from her golden pedestal, and Joyce was a loving, adoring human girl, ready for all that wifehood might mean.

Robert shut up the little place by the river (where they planned to live later), and stopped at an hotel in town, though he had never let the flat in St. James's Square, the scene of his engagement to June.

I began helping Joyce choose a trousseau that could be got together in haste, for they were to go to the south of France and Italy for their honeymoon; and one day, after shopping the whole morning and part of the afternoon, we were to meet Robert for tea at the Savoy.

You know that soft amber light there is in the big foyer of the Savoy at tea-time, like the beautiful subdued light in dreams? Since the war it brings back to me ghosts of all the jolly, handsome boys one used to see there, whose bodies sleep now under the poppies and bluets of France; and as Joyce and I walked in, rather late, the thought of those boys and those days came over me with the sobbing music of the violins.

"It's like the beat, beat of invisible hearts," I said to myself. And suddenly I was sad.

There sat Robert, waiting for us. He had taken a table for three, and one of the chairs, I noticed, was a noble one covered with velvet brocade – a chair like a Queen's throne.

He rose at sight of us, and I saw that a little woman at a table close by was looking at him with intense interest. In fact, her interest in Robert gave her a kind of fictitious interest of her own, in my eyes, she seemed so absorbed in him.

She was one of those women you'd know to be American if you met them crawling up the North Pole; and as she was in travelling dress I fancied that it was not long since she had landed.

"She probably admired him on the stage when she was here before the war, and hasn't been in England since till now," I thought, to be interrupted by Robert himself.

"That armchair's for you, Princess," he said, as I was going to slip into a smaller one and leave the "throne" for the bride-elect.

For an instant we disputed; then I was about to yield, laughing, when the little woman in brown jumped up with a gasp.

"Oh, you can't sit in that chair!" she exclaimed. "Don't you see– there's someone there?"

We all three started and stared, thinking, of course, that the creature was mad. But her face looked sane, and pathetically pleading.

"Do forgive me!" she begged. "I forget that everyone doesn't see what I see. They are so clear to me always. I'm not insane. But I couldn't let you sit in that chair. You may have heard of me. I am Priscilla Hay Reardon, of Boston. I can't at this moment give you the name of the lovely girl – the lady in the chair – but she would tell me, I think, if I asked her. I must describe her to you, though, she's so beautiful, and she so wants you all – no, not all; only the gentleman – to recognize her. She has red-brown hair, in glossy waves, and immense blue eyes, like violet flame. She has a dainty nose; full, drooping red lips, the upper one very short and haughty; a cleft in her chin; wonderful complexion, with rosy cheeks, the colour high under the eyes; a long throat; a splendid figure, though slim; and she is dressed in gray, with an ostrich plume trailing over a gray hat that shades her forehead. She has a string of gray pearls round her neck —black pearls she says they are; she wears a chiffon scarf held by an emerald brooch, and on her hand is a ring with a marvellous square emerald."

Robert, Joyce, and I were speechless. The description of June was exact – June in the gray dress and hat she had worn the day we went to Robert's rooms, the day they were engaged; the dress he had made her wear when Sargent painted her portrait.

CHAPTER IV

THE SPIRIT OF JUNE

Before one of us could utter a word, the little woman hurried on.

"Ah, the lovely girl has begun to talk very fast now! I can hardly understand what she says, because she's half crying. It's to you she speaks, sir; I don't know your name! But, yes – it's Robert… 'Robert!' the girl is sobbing. 'Have you forgotten me already?'… Do those words convey any special impression to your mind, sir, or has this spirit mistaken you for someone else?"

Robert was ghastly, and Joyce looked as if she were going to faint. Even I – to whom this scene meant less than to them – even I was flabbergasted. That is the one word! If you don't know what it means, you're lucky, because in that case you've never been it. I should translate from experience: "Flabbergasted; astounded and bewildered at the same time, with a slight dash of premature second childhood thrown in."

I heard Robert answer in a strained voice:

"The words do convey an impression to my mind. But – this is too sacred – too private a subject. We can't discuss it here. I – "

"I know!" the woman breathlessly agreed. "She feels it, too. She wouldn't have chosen a place like this. She's explaining – how for a long time she's tried to reach you, but couldn't make you understand. Now I've given her the chance. She's suffering terribly because of the barrier between you. I pity her. I wish I could help! Maybe I could if you'd care to come to my rooms. I'm staying in this hotel. I've just arrived in England from Boston, the first visit in my life. I haven't been in London much more than two hours now! I've got a little suite upstairs."

If she'd got a "little suite" at the Savoy, the woman must have money. She couldn't be a common or garden medium cadging for mere fees. Besides, no common or garden person, an absolute stranger to Robert Lorillard, met by sheer accident, could have described June Dana and that gray dress of four years ago; her jewels, too! Robert's name she might have picked up if Joyce or I had let it drop by accident; but the last was inexplicable. The thing that had happened – that was happening – seemed to me miraculous, and tragic. I felt that Fate had seized the bright bird of happiness and would crush it to death, unless something intervened. And what could intervene? I struggled not to see the future as a foregone conclusion. But I could see it in no other way except by shutting my eyes.

Robert turned to Joyce. He didn't say to her, "What am I to do?" Yet she read the silent question and answered it.

"Of course you must go," she said. "It – whether it's genuine or not, you'll have to find out. You can't let it drop."

"No, I can't let it drop," he echoed. He looked stricken. He, too, saw the dark, fatal hand grasping the white bird.

He had loved June passionately, but the beautiful body he'd held in his arms lay under that sundial by the riverside. Her spirit was of another world. And he'd not have been a human, hot-blooded man, if the reproachful wraith of an old love could be more to him than the brave girl who'd saved his life and won his soul back from despair.

I saw, as if through their eyes, the thing they faced together, those two, and suddenly I rebelled against that figure of Destiny. I was wild to save the white bird before its wings had ceased to flutter. I didn't know at all what to do. But I had to do something. I simply had to!

Miss Reardon rose.

"Would you like to come with me now?" she asked, addressing Robert, not Joyce or me. She ignored us, but not in a rude way. Indeed, there was a direct and rather childlike simplicity in her manner, which impressed one with her genuineness. I was afraid – horribly afraid – and almost sure, that she was genuine. I respected her against my will, because she didn't worry to be polite; but at the same time I didn't intend to be shunted. I determined to be in at the death – or whatever it was!

"Aren't you going to invite us, too?" I asked. "If the – the apparition is the spirit we think we recognize, she and I were dear friends."

Miss Reardon's round, mild eyes searched my face. Then they turned as if to consult another face which only they could see. It was creepy to watch them gaze steadily at something in that big, empty armchair.

"Yes," she agreed. "The lady – Lady – Could it be 'June'? – It sounds like June – says it's true you were her friend. But she says 'Not the other.' The other mustn't come."

"I wouldn't wish to come," Joyce protested. She was waxen pale. "I'll go home," she said to Robert. "Don't bother about me. Don't think about me at all. Afterward you can – tell me whatever you care to tell."

"No!" Robert and I spoke together, moved by the same thought. "Don't go home. Wait here for us."

"Very well," the girl consented, more to save argument at such a moment, I think, than because she wished to do what we asked.

She sank down in one of the chairs we had taken and Robert and I followed Miss Reardon. She appeared to think that we were sure to know her name quite well. I didn't know it, for I was a stranger in the world of Spiritualism. But her air of being modestly proud of the name seemed to prove that her reputation as a medium was good – that she'd never been found out in any fraud. And going up in the lift the words spoke themselves over and over in my head: "She couldn't know who Robert is, if it's true she's never been in England before, and if she has come to London to-day. At least, I don't see how she could."

In silence we let Miss Reardon lead us to the sitting room of her suite on the third floor. It was small but pretty, and smelt of La France roses, though none were visible, nor were there any other flowers there. Robert and I looked at each other as this perfume rushed to meet us. La France roses were June's favourites, and belonged to the month of her birth. Robert had sent them to her often, especially when they were out of season and difficult to get.