Read In Ghostly Company (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural) Online
Authors: Amyas Northcote,David Stuart Davies
That morning among his letters he found one in a handwriting strange to him, but of whose authorship he had no doubts. It was from Phyllis Rourke. He hesitated for a few moments then, opening it, he read as follows.
Dear Mr Carmichael,
I greatly wish to see you again, if it be possible. Tomorrow I leave Messrs — early and shall walk in the Park near where I met you before. I shall be there by 4 p.m. and will wait.
Yours sincerely,
Phyllis Rourke
P.S. Do come.
Mr Carmichael felt no surprise at this letter. He knew now that he had expected it to come, but he was doubtful as to what course to follow. Miss Rourke evidently wanted to see him. Why should he do anything to oblige Miss Rourke? His anger against her rose, she was his worst enemy. He looked at the matter from another aspect. He glanced at himself in the glass, and saw himself a handsome, well groomed gentleman; it might be well to go and show Miss Phyllis that, at any rate, her evil deeds had not harmed his body. Undecided, he went to his office, and he was still undecided when he set out on his walk home after lunch. Almost unconsciously he found himself in the Park and near the well-remembered spot where he had talked with Miss Rourke six months before. He found two chairs, sat down and waited, and presently saw her coming towards him.
His heart throbbed with mingled excitement, fear and hatred. As she drew near he looked at her attentively and saw that she was somehow changed: her features were less harsh than formerly, her eyes looked softer; in her dress she was as always neat and modest. She approached him quickly and quietly, there was pleasure in her face at seeing him. He rose from his seat and waited for her.
‘I am glad you have come,’ she said, omitting any more formal greeting, ‘very glad. There are things I have to say to you, knowledge I must impart.’
He looked coldly at her. ‘What can you have to say to me?’ he began. ‘Do you realise what you have done to me: to me who never injured you, to me a stranger to you, a harmless stranger, who sought but to live his life in peace?’
‘I know what has happened,’ she answered ‘and my knowledge goes further than your own. I know what you have suffered and the change that has come about in you.’ She stopped.
There was a short silence, then she resumed: ‘But if I know what has happened to you you are ignorant as to what has taken place in myself.’
‘I am indifferent as to that,’ said Mr Carmichael. ‘What have you to do with me?’
She laughed a little, but not the mocking laugh he knew so well, and said: ‘When you know all you will not say that; but now look at me, can you see any change in me?’
Carmichael looked at her. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, ‘you are changed.’ He hesitated. ‘You are changed – for the better,’ he went on.
She smiled again. ‘I am changed,’ she said, ‘and for the better, and this I owe to you. In the struggle that has taken place between us, I have gained much and perhaps you have lost – nothing.’
‘I do not understand you,’ said he.
She turned again and looked steadily at him. As he gazed at her a new man woke within him. He saw as in a glass darkly the blurred outlines of a mighty truth; he essayed to focus it, to make clear to his mind that which his subconscious self already perceived.
But he failed, the vision faded, he sighed and said, varying his previous words: ‘I cannot understand you.’
‘Not yet,’ she answered, ‘not yet. Your inner, your true vision is still clouded by the workings of your earthly mind. You cannot yet see clearly those wonderful affinities that exist between the souls of those we wrongly call individuals. Just as darkness and light combined make the perfect day, so do the intermingled spirits of man and woman form one perfect whole. Separated in past ages, as darkness and light were separated, for some mysterious purpose, the divided souls now seek each other throughout the ages, striving once more to unite. Some happy ones have achieved their purpose, although, clouded by earthly and external thoughts, they are as yet but dimly conscious of their triumph, but most are still seekers wandering in the night.’
‘I begin to understand you,’ he said.
‘Of those seekers,’ she went on, ‘I was one, and one of not the least wretched. In times far beyond our ken, Fate, Chance, what you will, severed our knit souls, and set yours on the paths of peace and joy, whilst, I, ill-fated, was turned towards the lower depths. I do not know how long I sought you, but I know that through the ages I sought in vain, and slowly there grew up in my inmost deeps a hatred of you, my joint spirit, a hatred bred of envy and despair. At last I found you, before ever you saw me in the flesh I found you in the spirit – and when you came that first day to the shop, my soul rejoiced, for I knew that I had succeeded and that you were mine. Then I began my work, to drag you down and plunge you into the abyss of those lost souls, wherein I felt myself to be. I sought to blacken you.’ She paused, and after a few moments, went on in a lower voice: But I forgot that black mingled with white forms grey, and that grey may at last bleach in the sunlight to purest white.’
There was a long silence; slowly the truth possessed him, the knowledge already buried in him arose and, passing through his consciousness, filled him with content.
‘I think I understand you,’ he said.
Phyllis went on: ‘And now the fight was joined and triumphantly I watched your struggles, your slow fall. Joy possessed me, the joy of evil victorious, but gradually with that joy ill ease mingled. Gradually, imperceptibly to myself even, my onslaughts slackened, and your resistance increased. Of those dreadful, silent battles of the night your earthly sense knows nothing, but even before that recent morning when you awoke victorious I knew that I had failed and, failing, I rejoiced. As you sank, I rose and, rising, helped you to rise again.’
Again she stopped and again went on: ‘Now you know all, and now you know that, separated once, we are once more knit together for ever. In this existence we shall meet no more, it will be better so, but do you go back and take up your daily life, your work, resume your friends, rejoin your family, if you have one. As for me, a small legacy has come to me, and I have persuaded my aunt to leave London and live with me in the country, where I can pass this life in quiet and thought. We have both a battle still before us, you to regain, I to attain, merit, but let us both strive after that knowledge which brings Peace, which is God.’
Again there was silence, then she rose and held out her hand. ‘Goodbye, Mr Carmichael,’ she said. ‘Goodbye.’
He rose also and held her hand an instant. ‘Au revoir,’ he said, ‘till we meet again in sleep.’
They parted and went upon their separate ways.
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