The House of Defence. Volume 2

The House of Defence. Volume 2
Edward Benson

E. F. Benson

The House of Defence v. 2

CHAPTER I

MAUD was lying in a long chair on the lawn after lunch the following afternoon, defending Christian Science from the gibes (which were keen) of the mockers, who were many. She had an ally, it is true, in the person of Alice Yardly, who, in her big hat and white dress, with a blue sash, looked like a doubtful Romney, and was smiling, literally with all her might. The more the mockers mocked, the kinder grew her smile, and the more voluble her explanations. Maud, for her part, would sooner have done battle alone, for all that Alice as an ally did was, with great precision and copious directions, to reveal to the enemy all the weak points in the fortifications (of which, it seemed to Maud, there were hundreds) and all the angles where an assault would probably meet with success. Wherever, so it seemed, there was any possible difficulty in “the scheme of things entire,” as understood by Christian scientists, there was poor dear Alice, waving a large and cheerful flag to call attention to it.

“No, I am not a Christian Scientist, Thurso,” Maud was saying, “because I think a lot of it is too silly – oh, well, never mind. But what I told you at lunch I actually saw with my own eyes. I will say it again. Nurse Miles, who is optimistic, told me that Sandie was dying, and though it was really no use, she wanted Dr. Symes to be sent for. Well, I didn’t send for him, but I went upstairs with Mr. Cochrane, and I saw Mr. Cochrane – by means of Christian Science, I must suppose – pull Sandie out of the jaws of death.”

“Be fair, Maud,” said Thurso. “Tell them what Dr. Symes said when he came next morning.”

“I was going to. He said he had known cases where the temperature went suddenly down from high fever to below normal, and it had not meant perforation. It meant simply what it was – the sudden cessation of fever. Of course, such a thing is very rare, and it would be an odd coincidence if – ”

Alice Yardly leaned forward, smiled, and interrupted violently and volubly.

“Mortal mind had caused the fever originally,” she said, “and it was this that Mr. Cochrane demonstrated over, thus enabling Sandie to throw off the false claim of fever and temperature, for he couldn’t really have fever, since fever is evil.”

“Is temperature evil, too?” asked Thurso. “And why is a temperature of 104 degrees more evil than a normal temperature?”

Alice did not even shut her mouth, but held it open during Thurso’s explanation, so as to go on again the moment he stopped.

“Neither heat nor cold really exist,” she said, “any more than fever, since, as I was saying, fever is evil, and Infinite Love cannot send evil to anybody, because it is All-Good. It was the demonstration of this that made his temperature go down and let him get well. It was only with his mortal mind, too, that he could think he had fever, since there is no real sensation in matter, just as it was through mortal mind, and not through All-Love, that he thought he had caught it. But Immortal Mind knows that there is no sensation in matter, and so no disease. As David said, ‘Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day;’ and when Sandie, by Mr. Cochrane’s demonstration over mortal mind, perceived that – though he need not have been conscious that he perceived it – the false claim of fever left him, so, of course, his temperature went down.”

Maud gave a sigh, not of impatience, but of very conscious patience, which is very near akin to it.

“Darling Alice,” she said, “you haven’t understood a single word from the beginning. Mr. Cochrane didn’t make Sandie’s temperature go down.”

Alice’s mouth was still open. She interrupted like lightning.

“No, of course not,” she said. “It was not Mr. Cochrane: it was the belief and trust in Immortal Mind that had reached Sandie. It is not the healer who does it: it is Divine Love shining through the healer that disperses false claims. God is good and is All, and matter is nothing, because Life, God, Immortal Mind – ”

Maud sat up in her long chair and clapped her hands close to Alice’s face, so that she absolutely could not go on, in spite of the omnipotence of Immortal Mind.

“I will finish one sentence – just one,” she said, “whatever you say. You don’t understand a single thing. It was the subsidence of high temperature that was the dangerous symptom. Mr. Cochrane came in after Sandie’s temperature had suddenly gone down. He had nothing to do with bringing it down. I took him up to Sandie, because Sandie’s temperature had gone down. I am sure it is very difficult to understand, especially if you don’t believe in temperature; but do draw a long breath and try to grasp that. It wasn’t Immortal Good, God, Mind, that brought Sandie’s temperature below normal: it was all, as you would say, a frightfully false claim. It was a symptom of dangerous illness, not a symptom of health. I wish you would attend more. You make me feel feverish in explaining like this, darling.”

Alice’s smile suffered no diminution. She was still quite ready to explain anything.

“As I said, fever cannot be sent by Divine Love,” she remarked, “and therefore, since there is nothing really existent in the world except Divine Love, it follows that fever cannot be real, and that the belief in it is a function of mortal mind. No evil or pain or disease can happen to anybody who has uprooted the false claim of mortal mind, and no drug can have any effect, either harmful or beneficial, on anyone who knows the truth. The drug only acts on mortal mind, which is – ”

Thurso entered the arena.

“I want to understand, Alice,” he said. “Supposing I choose to drink large quantities of prussic acid for breakfast, under the conviction that no poison exists for Immortal Mind, shall I live to take pints more of it at lunch? Doesn’t poison exist for mortal body?”

“‘If you drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt you,’” quoted Alice.

“Soufflé of nightshade for Alice this evening,” said Maud cheerfully.

Theodosia had been keeping up a general chattering noise, to which no one listened. Now she had her chance.

“My!” she said. “You’d better become a Christian Scientist at once, Silas. Silas adores – he just adores – English beer, but he has a false claim that it disagrees with him. Now Mrs. Yardly tells us that there’s no such thing as poison. So, Silas, just take tight hold of that, and get a barrel. I may be left a widow, but try – just swill it.”

“Theodosia,” began Silas; but he was not permitted to get further.

“But intoxicant drinks are in themselves evil things,” said Alice, “just as tobacco, which is only fed upon by a loathsome worm, is evil, as you will find in Mrs. Eddy’s miscellaneous writings. She has pronounced against them.”

“But I thought there was no evil except in the false belief of mortal mind?” said Maud.

“That is just what I have been saying,” said Alice profusely. “The only real existence is God, who is cause, source, origin, overlies and underlies and encompasses.”

Rudolf Villars joined in.

“And if Mrs. Eddy said that cream-cheese was evil, would that make it so?” he asked politely. “Cannot she have attacks of error and mortal mind? Is it not just possible, as Oliver Cromwell said, that she is occasionally? I should have thought that instances might be found where intoxicants had even saved life in cases of exhaustion or exposure.”

Maud broke in again.

“You are all very flippant,” she said. “It really does not matter what Mrs. Eddy thinks about tobacco, or whether darling Alice will not answer our questions. But I did see – and I stick to it – a man who was past human power pulled back into life by Mr. Cochrane. How it was done I don’t know, but his own explanation was a perfectly simple one. He said it was the direct healing power of God. After all, if we and doctors say that there are healing powers in certain herbs which God made, why shouldn’t He heal direct?”

The throb of a motor and the sound of its wheels crunching the gravel was heard, and Thurso got up.

“Well, we must settle something else just now,” he said. “Who wants to drive over to Windsor, and who wants to go on the river, and who wants to do nothing?”

This broke up the conference, as it was designed to do, for Thurso felt literally unable to stand much more: he was nervous, irritable, scarcely in his own control. He had slept badly – indeed, he had hardly slept at all – and this stream of balderdash that spouted from Alice was quite intolerable. She, however, with undiminished cheerfulness, expressed a preference for the river, and made it impossible for Villars not to offer his companionship. Ruby and Jim had not been seen since lunch. Theodosia and her husband went with Thurso to Windsor, and Mr. Yardly murmured something about letters, which, rightly interpreted, meant slumber, and hastily betook himself to the house. In consequence, Maud and her sister-in-law, both of whom announced their intention of doing nothing of any description, were before long left in possession of the garden. There had been a certain design about this, though successfully veiled, on Catherine’s part. She wanted to have a talk with Maud, and the gentlest promptings had been sufficient to make other people choose other things.

The rest of the party dispersed in their various directions, and it was not till the motor had hooted at the entrance to the main road and the steam launch puffed its way past the opening in the yew-hedge that Catherine spoke again.

“Tell me more about this Mr. Cochrane,” she said.

Maud was already half immersed in her book, and had been quite unconscious of Catherine’s diplomacy. She started a little when the question was put to her, and closed her book.

“There is really no more to tell,” she said. “I think I have told you all. Ah! no; there was one more thing, but they would all have howled so if I had said it. It was this: he told me that he was demonstrating over the whole outbreak of typhoid. Well, it stopped quite suddenly. The cases had been coming in hour after hour till it ceased like a tap being turned off. And after that there were no more deaths. Of course, it sounds incredible, and if you ask me whether I really believe that it was through him that it came to an end like that, I shouldn’t say ‘Yes.’ I don’t know.”

“I should like to see Mr. Cochrane,” remarked Catherine.

“You can if you like. He is coming to town, he told me, some day this month. Oh, Catherine, it is interesting, anyhow! He did cure Sandie; also, he cured Duncan Fraser’s wife. I am convinced of that. And then the other fact of the typhoid ceasing like that! Of course, you may say it was a pure coincidence; you may say that those other cures were coincidences too. But when you get a set of coincidences all together like that, you wonder if there is not – well, some law which lies behind them, and accounts for them all.”

She paused a moment.

“A lot of apples and other things fell to the ground,” she said, “and Newton deduced the law of gravity. It accounted for them all.”

Catherine lit a cigarette, and threw the match away with great vigour.

“What a fool darling Alice is!” she observed. “I love Alice just as you do – you can’t help loving her – but, oh, what a fool! Somehow, if a person talks such abject nonsense as that about anything, one concludes that the subject is nonsense too. But it doesn’t really follow. And Mr. Cochrane doesn’t talk nonsense?” she asked.

“No; he isn’t the least nonsensical. As I have told you, he goes and cures people when they are ill, instead of gassing about it. He’s a very good fisherman, too.”

Catherine could not help laughing. Maud mentioned this in a voice of such high approval.