Demon Lover Read online

  She arose, gathered up her forgotten needlework, and moved slowly over the deadened grass towards the gate ; the stale twilight had turned to the hot airlessness of a city night, and the arc-lamps at the corner of the square deprived even the darkness of its relief. As she reached the gate she became aware that she was looking into a pair of eyes ; to her, moving in a waking dream, they seemed just eyes, independent of any face in which they might be set, till a voice broke upon her reverie.

  “The gate is locked, you will have to unlock it before you can get out.” And she found herself face to face with Lucas.

  She returned to waking life with a shock. For a while her dreams had enabled her to escape from reality—to imagine that she still lived in the Surrey cottage where the cat purred and the kettle sang, and the pears ripened on the wall, and that the strange life of the house in the Bloomsbury Square was some fantasy she had woven for her own amusement and from which she could awake at will ; but now, with Lucas's strange eyes looking into hers, she plunged into waking life as a swimmer plunges into deep water, with a shock and a gasp, striking out desperately to keep her head above the surface.

  The search for the key gave her an excuse to withdraw her eyes from Lucas's, a thing she found difficult to do when once she had looked into them, for she was always watching for the change to take place in the pupils, thankful for every moment that they remained normal. The rusty lock yielded reluctantly to her efforts and she stood beside the man on the pavement. They walked across the road without speaking. Lucas seemed absorbed in thought, but the girl had a notion that he was watching her covertly. In unbroken silence he admitted her with his latch key, and switched on the light in the darkened hall. Without glancing at him she made straight for the stairs, throwing him a little nervous good-night over her shoulder, to which he did not reply. As she turned to ascend the second flight she saw that he was still watching her, standing where she had left him, face and clothes grey with the dust of the road. She hastened her steps into the sheltering darkness of the upper floors, thankful to escape from this disturbing scrutiny. Why had he returned so unexpectedly ? why did he look at her in this peculiar way, as if he had never seen her before ? To neither question could she find an answer ; the uncertainty was not reassuring, and dawn was grey before she fell into an uneasy sleep.

  She was finishing a belated breakfast on Sunday morning when the door opened and Lucas announced himself.

  “I should recommend you,” he said, “to remove that muslin dress and put on something ancient in the way of a skirt, also a hat that won't blow off, and then, if you are a good girl, I will take you for a little jaunt.”

  Veronica stared at him uncomprehendingly ; what new psychic experiment was this he contemplated ? He surveyed her with an amused smile.

  “Don't you think we deserve a little holiday ?” he said. “Have you ever ridden on the pillion of a motor-bike ? It's great fun, I can assure you. I thought we would run down to Brighton for lunch, listen to a concert or something, and come back in the cool of the evening.”

  Veronica continued to stare at him without reply, and the man's face darkened.

  “What do you imagine I intend to do with you, cut your throat ?” he asked, sharply.

  “Oh, no,” replied Veronica, “I—just didn't quite understand.”

  “Well, you understand now, so go and get your things on,” he said, and turning on his heel, left the room.

  He was oppressed by a sense that something was not quite right. This was not the way in which the little expedition should have started ; and when Veronica, leaden-footed, reluctant, descended the stairs ten minutes later, his oppression deepened. In unbroken silence she perched herself upon the carrier according to his instructions, but twice she had to be told to grip the leather belt that encircled his waist.

  “If you don't hold on, you'll fall off round the first corner,” he said angrily, starting the machine off with a jerk that enforced his commands. Veronica clutched him frantically and shut her eyes as they shot into the traffic of the main road ; she opened them a moment later to find herself staring straight into those of a woman on an island in the middle of the street. The face was familiar, but: for a moment Veronica could not place it. Something in the disapproving stare, however, carried her thoughts back to the training school, and she remembered that it was the registrar of the women's department who was surveying her so censoriously. She was an intimate friend of the superintendent of the hostel, and Veronica had little doubt that her own adventures had been a subject of discussion when the two cronies met. She shrugged her shoulders. Whatever happened to her now, she stood self-condemned ; according to the ethics of the school, no girl should enter into even the mildest of social relations with a male employer ; if she did, then she had no one but herself to thank if trouble followed, and need expect no sympathy ; and here was Veronica, after already having had trouble with Lucas, clutching him round the waist and careering off for a day in the country with him. The training school employment bureau was closed to her, there was no mistaking the look in the registrar's eye ; undoubtedly the stars in their courses were fighting for Lucas.

  Veronica relaxed her grasp on the leather strap and sat inertly on the carrier, holding on by nothing.

  “For Grod's sake, hang on. You'll break your neck if you don't,” exclaimed Lucas, angrily.

  “I don't care if I do,” replied Veronica, “in fact, I think I'd like to.”

  He reached back and caught her limp hand in his, and placed it on his belt again.

  “We shall both break our necks if you don't take care,” he said, and sent the machine forward once more.

  The silence was unbroken till they had topped the first of the ridges that guard London to the south, and were racing down the long slope to the valley.

  “How do you like it ?” he called back over his shoulder to the girl behind him, but she, the wind of their speed singing in her ears, did not hear him. He, however, thought her silence was deliberate, and sent the machine flying down the, slope, brakes off, exhaust roaring, as if he meant to drive the pair of them to eternity.

  At the bottom he stopped the machine, slipped out of the saddle, and stood in the roadway facing Veronica, his eyes blazing.

  “Is this the way you mean to behave ?” he said.

  Veronica stared back at him. This was a different Lucas to the one she had encountered before, and one that she was not in the least afraid of. This one was human.

  “I don't know what you mean,” she said.

  “I mean—are you going to sulk all day ?”

  Veronicalooked up at the branches that met over their heads, and at the blue sky beyond them. She had no hope, her last refuge was gone, and, strangely enough, her fear was gone with it.

  “I don't care what you do,” she said. “You can do anything you like, and if you killed me, I shouldn't mind.”

  “Do you dilike me ?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why ?”

  “Because of what you do to me. I can't put it into words, but you know quite well what I mean.”

  “What do I do to you ?”

  “I don't know. I don't know what you do to me, but it is all wrong, you have no right to do what you are doing. I know that much, anyway.”

  “Ah, so you are one of those people who hold that it is unlawful to break a superficies ?”

  “I don't know what you mean, but I know that what you are doing is wrong.”

  “But you don't know why I am doing it.”

  She looked at him in surprise, the tone was one she, had never heard him use before.

  “Listen, Veronica, I am after a big thing, so big you couldn't understand it ; it means everything to me, and this is the only way in which I can do it. Stand by me, see it through, and I swear you shall never regret it. Be a pal, Veronica.”

  This was indeed a reversal of their positions. Lucas the aloof, Lucas the autocrat, pleading for something that it was in her power to give or withhold ! Why
did her mind work so slowly ? She could not reply to him.

  Then the man spoke again. “Listen, and I will tell you what I am after. I am after knowledge, Veronica. Knowledge that I can alter the world with. If I get that knowledge, I should be able to make the nations put aside their armaments, I could make the legislatures put through social reforms, I could do all these things, I have already done bits of them—and the fools who hold this knowledge make no use of it and they won't let me, who am entitled to it—who could make use of it—have it. That is why I am stealing it, Veronica, because I can make use of it, and they can't.”

  “I don't know what you are talking about, Mr. Lucas,” said Veronica, “and I don't know what it is that you want, but I think they are quite right not to let you have it. I wouldn't trust you with anything.”

  Lucas gasped. His was at no time a personality to be lightly set aside, and this attack, coming from little Veronica who always crept about like a mouse and seldom replied, even if directly addressed, took his breath away.

  “What do you mean ? Why wouldn't you trust me ? What have I done to you to make you say that ?”

  “I don't know what you are doing to me, but you know ; and I know it is harmful, and you know it, too ; but you think because I can't say it in so many words exactly what it is you are up to, that I don't suspect anything. I mayn't know things, Mr. Lucas, but I can sense them. I can almost smell them, and I know that you are all wrong, right from the very beginning ; you don't only do wrong, you are wrong.”

  “What do you mean. How much do you know ?”

  “I don't know anything. I don't pretend to know anything, but I feel things, and I feel that you are not one of us.”

  “Many a true word spoken in ignorance. And if I am not one of you, what may I be ?”

  “I don't know what you may be. I only know that you are different. If I said to any other man ‘You are hurting me,’ he would stop, but if I said it to you, you would only say‘ Don't make a noise.’ You don't feel about things as we do. I think you are going a different way.”

  Lucas looked out into the shadowy spaces of the wood with unseeing eyes. There was a long pause.

  “Yes, that is just about it. I am going a different way, and I'm damned lonely. I had never realized it before. That is what has been the matter all the time. There is not one solitary human being who would understand what I am driving at, whom I could talk things over with. I am going absolutely alone. And even if one is on the left-hand path, one likes companionship. And by God, ITI have it ! “He caught Veronica by the arm.” You're coming, too, Veronica. There are possibilities in you. Your nature is so simple it is almost primitive. A very little more, and you would turn feral. I'll push you back to Pan. I'll put you on the Green Ray. You with the pale nature-green, I with the dark occult-green, we should have the complete Green Ray between us. Veronica, will you come ? It means power, it means life. Not the cooped-up existence of civilization, but free, big, as the pagans lived. Say you'll come, Veronica!”

  The man's face was alight, pupils distended into pools of gleaming blackness, a flush under the dark skin. Veronica looked back into those eyes, and, as ever, their fascination drew her ; but now there was no sense of horror, just a pouring forth of power that quickened the life within her, causing it to flow forth in response to him. As he spoke, the green forest twilight seemed to be rayed with gleams of gold ; it was no longer a shadowed green, but a glowing green, A faint airy piping, as of little pipes in the air, came to her ears, half heard, half dreamed. Was it the image aroused by the name of Pan that made her think these things ? Something naked, nonhuman, but alive as no human being ever is alive, slipped from bush to bush behind her, edging nearer and nearer ; the little pipes sounded clearer ; a patter as of small, sharp hoofs was upon the fallen leaves, and the light was shot through with green gleams like the fire in an opal. Something was almost at her elbow, and it was calling to her, calling, calling, and in another minute she would have gone : following it into the greenwood to come back nevermore, for the fairies would have taken her. What was that old story told by her nurse of the children the fairies stole if their cradles were left unguarded ? And that was why children had to be christened, so that the fairies could not steal them. But she had been christened, the fairies could not steal her. What were these little Pan-things plucking at her skirts ? Thev were not her kind. She had nothing to do with them. She had been christened. She had been taught her prayers. She saw herself kneeling on the rag mat in front of the kitchen fire saying them to her old nurse. She remembered learning her very first prayer, it began, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child.”

  With a gasp, as of a swimmer returning to the surface, Veronica found herself standing in the middle of the road. There was hard road, dusty road, under her feet, and above her head were trees, their first leaves falling with the drought. Before her stood a man, and his face was a queer grey, and sweat stood out on his forehead.

  “Hold this,” he said, and thrusting the heavy cycle into her hands, he staggered across to the bank at the side of the road, and dropped down on it, hiding his face in his hands.

  Veronica stood helplessly, holding the cumbersome machine and marvelling what could have happened to Lucas, he looked as if he had had a bad shock of some sort. She herself felt singularly steady, and her mind was clearer than it had been for a long time. It seemed as if her faculties, sinking into abeyance since Lucas had commenced his work, had returned to her.

  Presently he raised his head and looked at her.

  “I didn't know you were under protection,” he said. “It is the first time you have ever shown any signs of it.”

  He rose, and somewhat unsteadily came across and took the machine from her, fixing it upon its stand.

  “Come and sit down,” he said, leading her over to the grass at the road side. “We will go on presently.”

  For a long while they sat in silence, and then Lucas said, without looking at her : “Do you know what: it was you did to me ?”

  Veronica shook her head.

  “No, you don't know anything, do you ? All the same, I have got a pretty shrewd that you know a good deal more than you know you know.”

  Silence fell again between them.

  Then the man spoke once more, still never looking at her.

  “I am going to tell you a story. There was a man in Rome, ancient Rome, who, as a boy, had lived at his uncle's villa outside the walls because he was an orphan. He was affianced to his cousin, a girl much younger than he ; and, although his life had a dark side to it, he always returned to the villa outside the walls, for he cared for that girl very much, more than she was old enough to understand, for they married them young in those days. He was a student of the Mysteries, and one day he went away to Eleusis to take his initiation, expecting that when he came back they would be married. On his return, he found that she had become a Christian, and, taught by her new doctrines, considered him a bad man, and would not marry him.”

  “So the best thing in his life went out of it, the thing that had been his sheet-anchor, and he turned to the dark side of the Mysteries. He said to Evil, be thou my good, and Evil took him at his word.”

  Silence fell again. Veronica broke it this time.

  “What became of her ?” she said.

  “There were no nuns in those days, or she would have become one, but she ministered to the poor Christians and saved many souls. But she didn't save his, she lost that. You owe me a debt, Veronica.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT WAS SOME LITTLE WHILE BEFORE LUCAS WAS sufficiently recovered to make a move, and even then his nerve seemed to be shaken, for he drove with much more caution than was his wont. As it was, they arrived at Brighton later than they had intended, and finished a belated lunch only just in time for them to go on the pier and find seats for the concert.

  From where they sat they could see the steamers on the horizon, all the busy shipping of the English Channel, the most populous water
highway in the world ; Lucas, hardly listening to the music, watched the shadowy procession of sea-power with unseeing eyes. The girl at his side, as a physical entity, was forgotten, he conceived of her only as a soul, voyaging through time towards some goal of her own choosing, her feet set upon a path from which he had failed to deflect her. She was following the way of her race ; a flock of sheep in a gully, was the simile that always rose to his mind when he thought of that well-worn path staked out by the creeds of his countrymen ; foolish eyes fixed on the woolly back just in front, and patient little hoofs going patter, patter, patter over the rough track that ended at the slaughter house. As for him, he was a goat of Ishmael's flock, free upon the mountains with his Dark Master. Yet, when he sought to cut out his little chosen ewe-lamb from the herd below, a great Crook had struck him back.

  What was this power that intervened ? He was familiar enough with the punitive rays the Order could employ upon occasion, but this was of a different type of force, it was unfamiliar to him. It shook his nerve, making him feel uncertain of his path, doubtful of his goal. He stole a glance at the girl who sat beside him ; she had the soft round face so common among English girls, but there was upon it an expression that was not common, the calm of absolute repose. The face was still as is the face of one just aroused from deep sleep ; the strained, haunted look that had become habitual to her during the past weeks was wiped out, and in its place was a great peace ; some power had passed and left its mark upon her. He studied the face intently, trying to divine its secret. Veronica, he knew, could tell him nothing, however much he questioned her, not because she would not, but because she could not put her thoughts into words. She was of the feeling type, not the reasoning type.

  The man withdrew his eyes from her face and re-pondered the problem. She was an ideal tool, too good to be lost, but a hitch had occurred in the handling of her. Suddenly, at a time when he believed her to be completely subject to his will, there had come through her one of the rushes of unseen force with which those who traffic in occult things are familiar, and Lucas had been knocked out as a boxer is knocked out when hit on the solar plexus.