A Son of Perdition: An Occult Romance

"My dear," said Mrs. Barrast impressively, "he'll jump at the chance of getting the money back into the family."

"There is Don Pablo, who wants to marry me," ventured Alice anxiously.

"And there's Julian also," retorted the little woman. "What of that? Why, I had dozens of offers before I met Frederick, though why I took him I really don't know. Of course, as you told me this Don What's-his-name is rich and if Douglas – you don't mind my calling him Douglas, do you, dear? – was poor, I shouldn't advise you to throw the old thing over. But youth and good looks and money and all those nice things are better than an old man. And I am glad after all that you did not accept Julian," ended Mrs. Barrast candidly. "He isn't rich either, and life's horrid without money. Besides, I wish Julian to marry a rich girl."

"If he loves her."

"Pooh, what has love to do with marriage? What old-fashioned ideas you have, Alice. I suppose you wouldn't marry Douglas if you didn't love him."

"Certainly not," said the girl firmly.

Mrs. Barrast made a grimace. "It's lucky you like him then, my dear. Of course it's not right to marry for money only," added the butterfly, contradicting herself boldly, "but when you meet a man with a banking account try and love him as hard as ever you can."

"I love Douglas for himself alone. If he was a pauper I should love him."

"I daresay you would. I'm sure there is madness in your family. It's a mercy Douglas is well off. Five thousand a year is very nice. Be sure you make him take a house near ours, dear, and get a smart motor-car with one of those nice chauffeurs who look like engineers but aren't. They're lots cleaner than engineers, aren't they? And do wear a blue dress, dear: blue suits you."

"No! no! I am still in mourning for my aunt."

"I'm sure you needn't be. I wouldn't mourn for a horrid, lean, old thing – she was lean, you know – who didn't leave me a penny."

"She left my father one thousand pounds, Amy."

"Just enough to make him hate her. I'm sure I would if I'd been treated in that nasty way. And do make Douglas take you out more. I'll come too as your chaperon, though perhaps I'm too young for the part."

"I go out quite enough, Amy. With my aunt in her grave – "

"Oh, don't talk about graves," cried Mrs. Barrast, rising in a hurry, "you set my nerves on edge, if nerves ever do have an edge, which I'm sure I don't know if they have. Not that it matters of course. Has Douglas proposed?"

"No. But we understand one another."

"Oh, my dear," said Mrs. Barrast in despair, "what is the use of that? I like everything to be signed, sealed, and delivered – I come of a legal family, you know, dear – to make certain. Don't lose your salmon after you've hooked him. Men do wriggle, you know, and if he sees another girl, he will – "

"He won't," interrupted Alice, with very red cheeks. "How can you talk so? I am the only girl Douglas has ever loved."

"Oh, he told you the usual lie then," sniggered the little woman provokingly. "How can men be so silly as to think we believe them! I wish you'd ask him to make love here, Alice, as I'd like to hear how he goes about it. It's absurd meeting in Kensington Gardens as you do. It isn't respectable."

"Then I am not going to be respectable this afternoon," said Alice, escaping from this wasp, "for we meet there in two hours."

"Make him give you an engagement ring," cried Mrs. Barrast, who always insisted upon having the last word, "diamonds, you know, dear. If the engagement is broken you won't want to keep the ring and can always get market value for the stones. I feel it is only right that you should have some of that money. Remember what I say, darling: remember what I say."

Alice, on her way to her own room, did not hear the end of this speech, although it was screamed out after her. She was rather offended that Mrs. Barrast should advise Montrose's capture like an unwilling fish, as if any marriage could possibly be happy with a reluctant bridegroom. But when putting on her hat, the girl laughed at her reflection in the mirror, and excused the little woman's well-meant speech. Amy really did mean well, although she had a rather brutal way of putting things. Miss Enistor wondered if Frederick had been bargained for in this mercantile way, and thought it was very probable. Mrs. Barrast was exceedingly modern, and modern women are very businesslike in dealing with what was formerly called romance. The Barrast marriage was a kind of mutual aid society. Frederick had secured a pretty woman to do the honours of his house, and Amy had captured a rich husband who supplied her with plenty of money and let her go her own frivolous way. Alice decided that the shrewd butterfly had made the best bargain, and was taking full advantage of her cleverness. Then she put Mrs. Barrast out of her head and started for the place of meeting in Kensington Gardens.

It was a warm afternoon, but not too dazzling, as a thin veil of clouds was drawn across the sky. Alice alighted from her taxi at the park gates and leisurely walked up the broad path towards the Round Pond. She preferred to meet Douglas here rather than in the Hans Crescent house, because Mrs. Barrast would always have been interrupting. And the girl was sufficiently in love to think that two was company and three a nuisance. As a matter of fact, she acknowledged to herself she was as deeply in love with Montrose as he obviously was with her, though neither of them had put the feeling into words. On this occasion, however, Alice decided that it would be just as well to come to some sort of understanding, since it was probable that she would not remain much longer in town. At least she fancied so, for her father had been grumbling about the money she was spending. Of course she had only known Douglas for seven days, and it was rather early to fall in love with him. But she felt convinced that in previous lives she had loved the young man, and that the present wooing was only the continuation of one interrupted in the distant past. What had interrupted it she could not say, but this time she was determined to bring it to a head, and learn for certain if Douglas felt towards her as she felt towards him. If glances and attentions went for anything, he assuredly did, but modesty or nervousness apparently prevented his plain speaking. Expecting at any minute to be summoned back to the gloom of Tremore, Alice felt that she could not go away without knowing what Montrose's feelings were. And if he really did love her to the extent of making her his wife, she gratefully recognised that she would have some one beside her to resist the pressure put upon her by Don Pablo and her father.

On arriving at the tree under which she usually met her lover, she was surprised not to find him waiting for her. His absence piqued her, especially as she was late, for he certainly should have been watching for her arrival with his heart in his eyes. With a pout she sat down on one of the two green chairs and stared unseeingly at the many children playing about the grass and sailing toy ships on the Round Pond. What would her father say if he knew that she was meeting Montrose, and now loved him to the extent of thwarting Enistor's darling project of uniting her to Narvaez. Poor ignorant girl! She little knew that Don Pablo by his black arts was keeping Enistor advised of all that was taking place, and that the two men were calmly watching her innocent luring of the fly into the web. Eberstein could have warned her of this infernal espionage, but he was absent, and neither Alice nor her lover had any knowledge how to guard themselves. They were even ignorant that protection was necessary, and it was only when the worst was at an end that they learned how the guardianship of the master had been withdrawn for the time being. The children had to learn to walk alone in their own strength and by their own will. Therefore, in the Garden of Eden represented by Kensington Gardens, did they lie open to the assault of the Serpent in the person of Don Pablo. But their ignorance and innocence and natural leanings towards the good baffled the black magic of the evil creature for the moment.

"A penny for your thoughts," said Montrose suddenly, and Alice raised her eyes to find that he had slipped silently into the chair placed a trifle behind that on which she was seated.

"They are only worth a halfpenny," she retorted rebukingly. "I was thinking how little you must care for my company when you are so late!"

"I have been hiding behind yonder tree ever since you arrived," explained Montrose, laughing, "and for quite an hour I have been waiting."

Alice laughed also. The boyishness of his action appealed to her. "But we are too old to play at Peep Boo like babies," she said, shaking her head with a would-be attempt at primness which was quite a failure.

"We are not old," denied Montrose, placing his chair in line with hers. "We are young: we shall always be young, for the gods love us. As to babies, look into my eyes and you will see yourself as a baby."

But Alice would not look, and the colour came to her cheeks. "There was a girl at school who talked of babies in the eyes. It was amusing to hear her talk, but rather silly."

"The silly things are the serious things of life at this moment."

"How do you explain that epigram, Mr. Montrose?"

"Do epigrams require explanations?"

"This one does, I fancy."

"Oh, no, it doesn't. You must guess that the explanation lies in the words I used. 'At this moment,' I said."

"Why this moment rather than others, Mr. Montrose?"

The young man drew back rather disappointed. "No. I see you don't understand, Miss Enistor, or you would not call me Mr. Montrose."

"You call me Miss Enistor!" replied Alice, wilfully dense.

For the sake of beating her with her own weapons, he answered in kind. "Naturally I do. I am a very polite person. But I daresay, in other lives, in other climes, and when we were clothed in other bodies, I called you Chloe, or Octavia, or Isabeau, or Edith."

"Greek, Roman, French, and Anglo-Saxon," commented Alice, amused; "you seem to have settled the countries we lived in. I suppose I called you Damon, or Marcus, or Jehan, or Harold – that is, supposing we were together in those days in those places."

"We have always been together," said Douglas decisively. "I am quite sure."

"Have you any proof?"

"Only the proof of my own feelings. I am not clairvoyant to the extent of remembering my former incarnations, nor can I – as some can – consciously leave my physical body at will and return to it with a recollection of what I have seen. Now you are more advanced."

"Indeed, I am not. I have learned much from my father, who knows a great deal about such psychic matters. But I have never been properly instructed and my knowledge is very limited."

"But you believe in the doctrine of reincarnation?" urged Montrose eagerly.

"Of course. It is a most sensible doctrine to believe, and explains nearly everything in a common-sense way. But I cannot prove my belief."

"There is no need to prove it to me," said Montrose, thinking of his vision, "for I know beyond all question that we have lived and loved before."

"Yes," assented the girl dreamily, "I knew you the moment you entered Mrs. Barrast's drawing-room."

The young man glanced round, and, seeing that they were more or less sheltered from observation, gently took her hand. She did not remove it, although her whole body thrilled to the touch. "You knew me as what?" asked Montrose.

"I can't say more than that I knew you as a familiar friend."