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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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CONTRARY to his usual custom, Taverner did not insist on seeing his patient alone, for the sufficient reason that no information could be extracted from her. It was to the mother, a Mrs. Cailey, we turned for the case history, and she, poor anxious woman, gave us such scanty details as an onlooker might observe; but of the viewpoint and feelings of the patient we learnt nothing, for there was nothing to learn.
She sat before us in the big leather armchair; her body was a tenement for the soul of a princess, but it was, alas, untenanted. The fine dark eyes, utterly expressionless, looked into space while we discussed her as if she had been an inanimate object, which practically she was.
'She was never like ordinary children,' said the mother. 'When they put her in my arms after she was born she looked up at me with the most extraordinary expression in her eyes; they were not a baby's eyes at all, Doctor, they were the eyes of a woman, and an experienced woman too. She didn't cry, she never made a sound, but she looked as if she had all the troubles of the world upon her shoulders. That baby's face was a tragedy; perhaps she knew what was coming.'
'Perhaps she did,' said Taverner.
'In a few hours, however,' continued the mother, 'she looked quite like an ordinary baby, but from that time to this she has never changed, except in her body.'
We looked at the girl in the chair, and she gazed back at us with the unblinking stolidity of a very young infant.
'We have taken her to everybody we could hear of, but they all say the same—that it is a hopeless case of mental deficiency; but when we heard of you, we thought you might say something different. We knew that your methods were not like those of most doctors. It does seem strange that it should be impossible to do anything for her. We passed some children playing in the street as we came here in the car—bonny, bright little things, but in such rags and dirt. Why is it that those, whose mothers can do so little for them, should be so splendid, and Mona, for whom we would do anything, should be—as she is?'
The poor woman's eyes filled with tears, and neither Taverner nor I could reply.
'I will take her down to my nursing home and keep her under observation for a time, if you wish,' said Taverner. 'If the brain is at fault, I can do nothing, but if it is the mind itself that has failed to develop I might attempt the cure. These deficiency cases are so inaccessible—it is like ringing up on the telephone when the subscriber will not answer. If one could attract her attention, something might be done; the crux of the matter lies in the establishment of communications.'
WHEN they had gone, I turned to Taverner and said: 'What hope
have you in dealing with a case like that?'
'I cannot tell you just yet,' he replied; 'I shall have to find out what her previous incarnations have been. I invariably find that congenital troubles originate in a former life. Then I shall have to work out her horoscope and see whether the conditions are ripe for the paying off of whatever debt she may have incurred in a previous life. Do you still think I am a queer sort of charlatan, or are you beginning to get used to my ways?'
'I have long ceased to be astonished at anything,' I replied. 'I should accept the devil, horns, hoofs and tail, if you undertook to prescribe for him.'
Taverner chuckled.
'With regard to our present case, I am of the opinion that we shall find the law of reincarnation is the one we shall have to look to. Now tell me this Rhodes—supposing reincarnation is not a fact, supposing this life is the beginning and end of our existence and at its conclusion we proceed to flames or harps according to the use we have made of it, how do you account for Mona Cailey's condition? What did she do in the few hours between her birth and the onset of her disease to bring down such a judgement on herself? And at the end of her life, can she justly be said to have deserved hell or earned Heaven?'
'I don't know,' said I.
'But supposing my theory is right; then, if we can recover the record of her past, we shall be able to find the cause of her present condition, and having found the cause we may be able to remedy it. At any rate, let us try.
'Would you like to see how I recover the records? I use various methods; sometimes I get them by hypnotizing the patients or by crystal-gazing, and sometimes I read them from the subconscious mind of Nature. You know, we believe that every thought and impulse in the world is recorded in the Akashic Records. It is like consulting a reference library. I am going to use the latter method in the present case.'
IN a few moments, by methods known to himself, Taverner had
shut out all outward impressions from his mind, and was
concentrated upon the inner vision.
Confused mental pictures evidently danced before his eyes; then he got the focus and began to describe what he saw while I took down notes.
Egyptian and Grecian lives were dismissed with a few words; these were not what he sought; he was merely working his way down through the ages, but I gathered that we were dealing with a soul of ancient lineage and great opportunities. Life after life we heard the tale of royal birth or initiation into the priesthood, and yet, in its present life, the girl's soul was cut off from all communication with its physical vehicle. I wondered what abuse of opportunity had led to such a sentence of solitary confinement in the cell of its body.
Then we came to the level we sought, Italy in the fifteenth century, as it turned out. 'Daughter of the reigning duke—.' I could not catch the name of his principality. 'Her younger sister was beloved by Giovanni Sigmundi; she contrived to win the affections of her sister's lover, and then, a richer suitor offering for her own hand, she betrayed Sigmundi to his enemies in order to be free of his importunities.'
'A true daughter of the Renaissance,' said Taverner when he had returned to normal consciousness and read my notes, for he seldom retained any memory of what transpired during his subconscious states. 'Now I think we can guess the cause of the trouble. I wonder whether you are aware of the mental processes that precede birth? Just before birth the soul sees a cinematograph film (as it were) of its future life; not all the details, but the broad outlines which are determined by its fate; these things it cannot alter, but according to its reaction to them, so will its future lives be planned. Thus it is that although we cannot alter our fate in this life, our future lies entirely in our own hands.
'Now we know the record, we can guess what manner of fate lies upon this girl. She owes a life debt to a man and a woman; the suffering she caused recoils upon her. There is no need for a specialized hell; each soul builds its own.'
'But she is not suffering,' I said; 'she is merely in a passive condition. The only one who suffers is the mother.'
'Ah,' said Taverner, 'therein lies the crux of the whole matter. When she had that brief glimpse of what lay before her, she rebelled against her fate and tried to repudiate her debt; her soul refused to take up the heavy burden. It was this momentary flash of knowledge which gave her eyes their strange, unchildlike look which so startled her mother.'
'Do people always have this foreknowledge?' I asked.
'They always have that glimpse, but its memory usually lies dormant. Some people have vague premonitions, however, and occult training tends to recover these lost memories, together with others belonging to previous lives.'
'Having found out the cause of Miss Cailey's trouble, what can you do to cure her?'
'Very little,' said Taverner. 'I can only wait and watch her. When the time is ripe for the settlement of the balance, the other actors in the old tragedy will come along and unconsciously claim the payment of their debt. She will be given the opportunity of making restitution and going on her way fate-free. If she is unable to fulfil it, then she will be taken out of life and rapidly forced back into it again for another attempt, but I think (since she has been brought to me) her soul is to be given another chance of entering its body. We will see.'
I OFTEN used to watch Mona Cailey after she was installed at
the Hindhead nursing home. In spite of its masklike
expressionlessness, her face had character. The clearly cut
features, firm mouth, and fine eyes were fitting abode for a soul
of no ordinary calibre—only that soul was not present.
It was Taverner's expectation that the other actors in the drama would appear upon the scene before very long, brought to the girl's vicinity by those strange currents that are for ever on the move beneath the surface of life. As each new patient arrived at the nursing home, I used to watch Mona Cailey narrowly, wondering whether the newcomer would demand of her the payment of the ancient debt that held her bound.
Spring passed into summer and nothing happened. Other cases distracted my attention, and I had almost forgotten the girl and her problems when Taverner reminded me of them.
'It is time we began to watch Miss Cailey,' he said. 'I have been working out her horoscope, and a conjunction of planets is taking place towards the end of the month which would provide an opportunity for the working out of her fate—if we can get her to take it.'
'Supposing she does not take it?'
'Then she will not be long in going out, for she will have failed to achieve the purpose of this incarnation.'
'And supposing she takes it?'
'Then she will suffer, but she will be free, and she will soon rise again to the heights she had previously gained.'
'She is hardly likely to belong to a royal house in this life,' I said.
'She was more than royal; she was an Initiate,' replied Taverner, and from the way he said the word I knew he spoke of a royalty that is not of this earth.
OUR words were suddenly interrupted by a cry from one of the
upper rooms. It was a shriek of utter terror such as a soul might
give that had looked into chaos and seen forbidden horrors; it
was the cry of a child in nightmare, only—and this added to
its ghastliness—it came from the throat of a man.
We rushed upstairs; we had no need to ask whence that cry came; there was only one case that could have uttered it—a poor fellow suffering from shell-shock whom we were keeping in bed for a rest.
We found him standing in the middle of the floor, shaking from head to foot. At sight of us he rushed across and flung himself into Taverner's arms. It was the pathetic action of a frightened child, but carried out by the tall figure in striped pyjamas, it was extraordinarily distressing to witness.
Taverner soothed him as gently as a mother, and got him back to bed, sitting by him until he quieted down.
'I do not think we will keep him in bed any longer,' said my colleague after we had left the room. 'The inactivity is making him brood, and he is living over again the scenes of the trenches.'
Accordingly, Howson appeared among the patients next day for the first time since his arrival, and seemed to benefit by the change.
The benefit was not of long duration, however; when once the novelty had worn off, he commenced his brooding again, going over mentally the horrors he had lived through, and ending each recall with an attack of panic terror, rushing to the nearest human being for protection.
It proved somewhat distressing to our other patients to have six feet of burly humanity hurled unexpectedly into their arms, so we segregated Howson in the portion of the garden we kept for cases that we could not mix with the rest. The only other occupant of the garden was Mona Cailey, but we hardly counted her, for she sat motionless in the deck chair we placed for her, never stirring until she was fetched in to meals.
AS I was walking one evening with Taverner in that part of the
grounds, we heard the now familiar sound of poor Howson's
nightmare shriek. He shot out of the summer-house and stood
irresolutely on the lawn. The only people in sight were ourselves
and Mona Cailey, passive in her chair; he was about half-way
between the two. When a man's nerve is broken, he reverts either
to the savage or the child, according to his temperament, and for
the time being Howson was about four years old. Taverner hurried
towards him over the intervening grass, but when a man reverts to
the child, it is to the mother he turns, and, ignoring the
approaching man, Howson ran across the lawn to Mona Cailey and
buried his face in her lap.
The impact of the heavy man, flung upon her with utter abandonment, nearly sent the girl, chair and all, over backwards, and startled even her dim brain into some measure of response. I was about to run forward and extricate her from her embarrassing position, when Taverner caught my arm and stopped me.
'No, watch,' he said, 'See what she does. This may be the working out of her fate.'
There was nothing offensive in Howson's behavior, for he was so obviously a child and not a man. He always used to remind me of a mastiff that has been nursed as a puppy and cannot realize when it has ceased to be a lap-dog.
For several endless minutes we watched the dim brain trying to work, and then a hand, white and beautifully formed, but limp, as only the hands of the mentally afflicted are limp, was laid on the man's heaving shoulder. It was the first thought-out action that Mona Cailey had ever performed.
I thought Taverner would have danced upon the lawn in his delight.
'Look!' he said. 'Watch her mind trying to work.'
I watched. It was like nothing so much as rusty machinery being reluctantly turned over by hand. The girl's unlined forehead was contracted with effort as the thought-currents forced their way through the unopened channels. What dim mother instincts awoke I do not know, but she had evidently taken the big child at her feet under her protection.
In a few minutes Howson recovered his self-control and made his embarrassed apologies to the victim of his onslaught. The fine dark eyes gazed steadily back into his without a trace of expression, and realizing the state of affairs, he stopped his apologies in the middle of a sentence and stared back at her.
'Oh, well,' he said, as much to himself as to her, 'if you don't mind, I'm sure I'm thankful,' and sitting at her feet he lit a cigarette with shaking hands.
FROM that time onwards the pair were inseparable during their
waking hours. To Howson, the passive presence seemed to afford
just the companionship he needed. She gave him a sense of human
protection, and yet he did not feel that in her eyes he was
making a fool of himself. This curious comradeship between the
mindless girl and the alert intelligent man was a source of great
amusement to other inmates of the home, and I myself was inclined
to regard it as one of those strange friendships that spring up
between the most incongruous cases in such a house as ours, until
my colleague put his hand on my shoulder one evening as the two
were crossing the lawn towards the house.
'Who is that with Mona Cailey?' he asked.
'Howson, of course,' I replied, surprised at the obviousness of such a question.
'So we call him now,' said Taverner, watching the pair closely, 'but I think there was a time when he answered to the name of Giovanni Sigmundi.'
'You mean—?' I exclaimed.
'Exactly,' said Taverner. 'The wheel has come round the full circle. When he was dying by torture in the hands of those to whom she betrayed him, he called for her in his agony. Needless to say, she did not come. Now that he is in agony again, some strange law of mental habit carried the call for help along the old channels, and she has answered it. She has begun to repay her debt. If all goes well, we may see that soul come right back into its body, and it will not be a small soul that comes into the flesh if that happens.'
I had thought that we were going to witness a romance of reunited lovers, but I was soon made aware that it was more likely to be a tragedy for one at least of them.
NEXT day Howson's fiancée arrived to visit him. I took
her out to the secluded part of the garden where he spent his
time, and there saw enacted a most pathetic little tragicomedy.
As usual, Howson was at Mona Cailey's side, smoking his
interminable cigarettes. At sight of his fiancée he sprang
to his feet; Mona Cailey also rose. In the eyes of the newcomer
there were fear and distrust, perhaps occasioned by her
unfamiliarity with mental cases, which are always distressing at
first sight, but in the eyes of our defective there was a look
which I can only describe as contempt. There was one flash of the
astute ruthlessness of the fifteenth century Italian, and I
guessed who the newcomer was.
Howson, forgetful of the other girl's presence, advanced eagerly to meet his fiancée and kissed her, and I thought for a moment we were going to be treated to one of those nasty outbursts of spitefulness of which defectives are capable, when a sudden change came over Mona Cailey, and I saw that marvellous thing, a soul enter and take possession of its body.
Intelligence slowly dawned in the misty eyes as she watched the scene being enacted before her. For a moment the issue hung in the balance; would she rush forward and tear them apart, or would she stand aside? Behind the oblivious lovers I poised myself for a spring, ready to catch her if necessary. For ages we waited thus while the unpractised brain moved reluctantly in its unaccustomed effort.
Then the girl turned away slowly. Over the grass she moved, silently, unnoticed by the other two, seeking the shelter of the shrubberies as a wounded animal seeks cover, but her movements were no longer those of unguided limbs; she moved as a woman moves who has walked before kings, but as a woman stricken to the heart.
I followed her as she passed under the trees and put my hand on her arm, instinctively speaking words of comfort, although I expected no response. She turned on me dark eyes full of unshed tears and luminous with a terrible knowledge.
'It has to be,' she said distinctly, perfectly, the first words she had ever uttered. Then she withdrew her arm from my hand and went on alone.
DURING the days that followed we watched the soul swing in and
out of the body. Sometimes we had the mindless imbecile, and
sometimes we had one of those women who have made history. Save
that her means of communication developed slowly, she was often
in full possession of her faculties. And what faculties they
were! I had read of the wonderful women of the
Renaissance—now I saw one.
Then, sometimes, when the pain of her position became too great to be borne, the soul would slip out for a while and rest in some strange Elysian fields we know not of, leaving to us again the care of the mindless body. But each time it came back refreshed. Whom it had talked with, what help had been given, we never knew; but each time it faced the agony of reincarnation and took up its burden with renewed courage and knowledge.
The dim, newly-awakened mind understood Howson through and through; each twist and turn of him, conscious and subconscious, she could follow, and of course she was the most perfect nurse he could have had. The panic-stricken mind was never allowed to thrash about in outer darkness and the horror of death. Instinctively she sensed the approach of nightmare forms, and, putting out her hand, pulled the wandering soul back into safety.
THUS protected from the wear and tear of his terrible storms,
Howson's mind began to heal. Day by day the time drew nearer when
he would be fit to leave the nursing home and marry the woman he
was engaged to, and day by day, by her instinctive skill and
watchful care, Mona Cailey quickened the approach of that
time.
I have said that he would leave and marry the woman he was engaged to—not the woman he loved—for at that time had Mona Cailey chosen to lift one finger she could have brought the old memories into consciousness and drawn Howson to herself; and that she was fully aware of this, I who watched her, am convinced. An ignorant woman could not have steered round the pitfalls as skilfully as she did.
The night before he was to leave she had a bad relapse into her old condition. Hour after hour Taverner and I sat beside her while she scarcely seemed to breathe, so completely was the soul withdrawn from the body.
'She is shut up in her own subconsciousness, moving among the memories of the past,' Taverner whispered to me, as slight twitchings ran through the motionless form on the bed.
Then a change took place.
'Ah,' said Taverner, 'she is out now!'
Slowly the long white hand was raised—the hand that I had watched change from a limp thing of disgust to firmness and strength, and a sequence of knocks was given upon the wall at the bedside that would have skinned the knuckles of an ordinary hand.
'She is claiming entrance to her Lodge,' whispered Taverner. 'She will give the Word as soon as the knocks are acknowledged.'
From somewhere up near the ceiling the sequence of knocks was repeated, and then Taverner placed his hand across the girl's mouth. Through the guarding fingers came some muffled sound I could not make out.
'She will get what she has gone to seek,' said Taverner. 'It is a high Degree to which she is claiming admission.'
WHAT transpired during the workings of that strange Lodge
which meets out of the body I had no means of knowing. I could
see that Taverner, however, with his telepathic faculties, was
able to follow the ritual, for he joined in the responses and
salutes.
As the uncanny ceremony drew to its close we saw the soul that was known to us as Mona Cailey withdraw from the company of its brethren and, plane by plane, return to normal consciousness. On her face was that look of peace which I had never before seen in the living, and only on the faces of such of the dead as went straight out into the Light.
'She has gathered strength for her ordeal,' said Taverner, 'and it will indeed be an ordeal, for Howson's fiancée is fetching him in her car.'
'Will it be wise to let Miss Cailey be present?' I asked.
'She must go through with it,' said Taverner. 'It is better to break than to miss an opportunity.'
He was a man who never spared his patients when there was a question of fate to be worked out. He thought less of death than most people think of emigration; in fact, he seemed to regard it in exactly that light.
'Once you have had some memory glimpse, however dim, of your own past, you are certain of your future; therefore you cease to fear life. Supposing I make a mess of an experiment today, I clear up the mess, go to bed, sleep, and then, in the morning when I am rested, I start again. You do the same with your lives when once you are sure of reincarnation. It is only the man who does not realize as a personal fact the immortality of the soul who talks of a ruined life and opportunities gone never to return.'
MONA CAILEY, Taverner, and myself were on the doorstep to bid
goodbye to Howson when his fiancée called to take him
away. He thanked us both with evident feeling for what we had
done for him, but Taverner waved a disclaiming hand towards the
girl at his elbow.
'You have had nothing from me but board and lodging,' he said. 'There is your psychologist.'
Howson took Mona's hand in both his. She stood absolutely passive, but not with her usual limp inertia; it was the motionlessness of extreme tension.
'Poor little Mona!' he said. 'You are a lot better than you used to be. Go on getting better, and one of these days you may be a real girl and have a good time,' and he kissed her lightly as one would kiss a child.
What memories that kiss awakened I cannot say, but I saw him change colour and look at her sharply. Had one glimmer of response lightened those dark eyes, the old love would have returned, but there was no change in the mask-like countenance of the woman who was paying her debt. He shivered. Perhaps some cold breath from the torturers' dungeon touched him. He got into the car beside the woman he was to marry, and she drove away.
'How will that marriage turn out?' I asked as the sounds of the car died in the distance.
'Like a good many others where only the emotions are mated. They will be in love for a year, then will come disillusionment, and after they have bumped through the crisis, held together by the pressure of social opinion, they will settle down to the mutual toleration which passes for a successful marriage. But when he comes to die, he will remember this Mona Cailey and call for her, and as he crosses the threshold she will claim him, for they have made restitution, and the way is clear.'
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.