Stella Fregelius: A Tale of Three Destinies Read online

  Produced by John Bickers; Dagny

  STELLA FREGELIUS

  A TALE OF THREE DESTINIES

  By H. Rider Haggard

  First Published 1904.

  "Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus; strepitumque Acherontis avari."

  DEDICATION

  My Dear John Berwick,

  When you read her history in MS. you thought well of "Stella Fregelius"and urged her introduction to the world. Therefore I ask you, my severeand accomplished critic, to accept the burden of a book for which youare to some extent responsible. Whatever its fate, at least it haspleased you and therefore has not been written quite in vain.

  H. Rider Haggard.

  Ditchingham,

  25th August, 1903.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  The author feels that he owes some apology to his readers for hisboldness in offering to them a modest story which is in no sense aromance of the character that perhaps they expect from him; which has,moreover, few exciting incidents and no climax of the accustomed order,since the end of it only indicates its real beginning.

  His excuse must be that, in the first instance, he wrote it purely toplease himself and now publishes it in the hope that it may please someothers. The problem of such a conflict, common enough mayhap did webut know it, between a departed and a present personality, of whichthe battle-ground is a bereaved human heart and the prize its completepossession; between earthly duty and spiritual desire also; was one thathad long attracted him. Finding at length a few months of leisure, hetreated the difficult theme, not indeed as he would have wished to do,but as best he could.

  He may explain further that when he drafted this book, now some fiveyears ago, instruments of the nature of the "aerophone" were not so muchtalked of as they are to-day. In fact this aerophone has little todo with his characters or their history, and the main motive of itsintroduction to his pages was to suggest how powerless are all suchmaterial means to bring within mortal reach the transcendental andunearthly ends which, with their aid, were attempted by Morris Monk.

  These, as that dreamer learned, must be far otherwise obtained, whetherin truth and spirit, or perchance, in visions only.

  1903.

  STELLA FREGELIUS

  CHAPTER I

  MORRIS, MARY, AND THE AEROPHONE

  Above, the sky seemed one vast arc of solemn blue, set here and therewith points of tremulous fire; below, to the shadowy horizon, stretchedthe plain of the soft grey sea, while from the fragrances of night andearth floated a breath of sleep and flowers.

  A man leaned on the low wall that bordered the cliff edge, and lookedat sea beneath and sky above. Then he contemplated the horizon, andmurmured some line heard or learnt in childhood, ending "where earth andheaven meet."

  "But they only seem to meet," he reflected to himself, idly. "If Isailed to that spot they would be as wide apart as ever. Yes, the starswould be as silent and as far away, and the sea quite as restless andas salt. Yet there must be a place where they do meet. No, Morris, myfriend, there is no such place in this world, material or moral; sostick to facts, and leave fancies alone."

  But that night this speculative man felt in the mood for fancies, forpresently he was staring at one of the constellations, and saying tohimself, "Why not? Well, why not? Granted force can travel throughether,--whatever ether is--why should it stop travelling? Give it timeenough, a few seconds, or a few minutes or a few years, and why shouldit not reach that star? Very likely it does, only there it wastesitself. What would be needed to make it serviceable? Simply this--thaton the star there should dwell an Intelligence armed with one of myinstruments, when I have perfected them, or the secret of them. Thenwho knows what might happen?" and he laughed a little to himself at thevagary.

  From all of which wandering speculations it may be gathered that MorrisMonk was that rather common yet problematical person, an inventor whodreamed dreams.

  An inventor, in truth, he was, although as yet he had never reallyinvented anything. Brought up as an electrical engineer, after a verybrief experience of his profession he had fallen victim to an idea andbecome a physicist. This was his idea, or the main point of it--forits details do not in the least concern our history: that by means ofa certain machine which he had conceived, but not as yet perfected,it would be possible to complete all existing systems of aerialcommunication, and enormously to simplify their action and enlarge theirscope. His instruments, which were wireless telephones--aerophones hecalled them--were to be made in pairs, twins that should talk onlyto each other. They required no high poles, or balloons, or any othercumbrous and expensive appliance; indeed, their size was no larger thanthat of a rather thick despatch box. And he had triumphed; the thing wasdone--in all but one or two details.

  For two long years he had struggled with these, and still they eludedhim. Once he had succeeded--that was the dreadful thing. Once for awhile the instruments had worked, and with a space of several milesbetween them. But--this was the maddening part of it--he had never beenable to repeat the exact conditions; or, rather, to discover preciselywhat they were. On that occasion he had entrusted one of his machines tohis first cousin, Mary Porson, a big girl with her hair still down herback, rather idle in disposition, but very intelligent, when she chose.Mary, for the most part, had been brought up at her father's house,close by. Often, too, she stayed with her uncle for weeks at a stretch,so at that time Morris was as intimate with her as a man of eight andtwenty usually is with a relative in her teens.

  The arrangement on this particular occasion was that she should take themachine--or aerophone, as its inventor had named it--to her home. Thenext morning, at the appointed hour, as Morris had often done before, hetried to effect communication, but without result. On the following day,at the same hour, he tried again, when, to his astonishment, instantlythe answer came back. Yes, as distinctly as though she were standing byhis side, he heard his cousin Mary's voice.

  "Are you there?" he said, quite hopelessly, merely as a matter ofform--of very common form--and well-nigh fell to the ground when hereceived the reply:

  "Yes, yes, but I have just been telegraphed for to go to Beaulieu; mymother is very ill."

  "What is the matter with her?" he asked; and she replied:

  "Inflammation of the lungs--but I must stop; I can't speak any more."Then came some sobs and silence.

  That same afternoon, by Mary's direction, the aerophone was brought backto him in a dog-cart, and three days later he heard that her mother,Mrs. Porson, was dead.

  Some months passed, and when they met again, on her return from theRiviera, Morris found his cousin changed. She had parted from him achild, and now, beneath the shadow of the wings of grief, suddenlyshe had become a woman. Moreover, the best and frankest part of theirintimacy seemed to have vanished. There was a veil between them. Marythought of little, and at this time seemed to care for no one excepther mother, who was dead. And Morris, who had loved the child, recoiledsomewhat from the new-born woman. It may be explained that he was afraidof women. Still, with an eye to business, he spoke to her about theaerophone; and, so far as her memory served her, she confirmed all thedetails of their short conversation across the gulf of empty space.

  "You see," he said, trembling with excitement, "I have got it at last."

  "It looks like it," she answered, wearily, her thoughts already faraway. "Why shouldn't you? There are so many odd things of the sort. Butone can never be sure; it mightn't work next time."

  "Will you try again?" he asked.

  "If you like," she answered; "but I don't believe I shall hear anythingnow. Somehow--sinc
e that last business--everything seems different tome."

  "Don't be foolish," he said; "you have nothing to do with the hearing;it is my new receiver."

  "I daresay," she replied; "but, then, why couldn't you make it work withother people?"

  Morris answered nothing. He, too, wondered why.

  Next morning they made the experiment. It failed. Other experimentsfollowed at intervals, most of which were fiascos, although some werepartially successful. Thus, at times Mary could hear what he said. Butexcept for a word or two, and now and then a sentence, he could not hearher whom, when she was still a child and his playmate, once he had heardso clearly.

  "Why is it?" he said, a year or two later, dashing his fist upon thetable in impotent rage. "It has been; why can't it be?"

  Mary turned her large blue eyes up to the ceiling, and reflectivelyrubbed her dimpled chin with a very pretty finger.

  "Isn't that the kind of question they used to ask oracles?" she askedlazily--"Oh! no, it was the oracles themselves that were so vague. Well,I suppose because 'was' is as different from 'is' as 'as' is from 'shallbe.' We are changed, Cousin; that's all."

  He pointed to his patent receiver, and grew angry.

  "Oh, it isn't the receiver," she said, smoothing her curling hair; "it'sus. You don't understand me a bit--not now--and that's why you can'thear me. Take my advice, Morris"--and she looked at him sharply--"whenyou find a woman whom you can hear on your patent receiver, you hadbetter marry her. It will be a good excuse for keeping her at a distanceafterwards."

  Then he lost his temper; indeed, he raved, and stormed, and nearlysmashed the patent receiver in his fury. To a scientific man, let itbe admitted, it was nothing short of maddening to be told that thesuccessful working of his instrument, to the manufacture of which hehad given eight years of toil and study, depended upon some pre-existentsympathy between the operators of its divided halves. If that were so,what was the use of his wonderful discovery, for who could ensure asympathetic correspondent? And yet the fact remained that when, intheir playmate days, he understood his cousin Mary, and when her quiet,indolent nature had been deeply moved by the shock of the news of hermother's peril, the aerophone had worked. Whereas now, when she hadbecome a grown-up young lady, he did not understand her any longer--he,whose heart was wrapped up in his experiments, and who by nature fearedthe adult members of her sex, and shrank from them; when, too, herplacid calm was no longer stirred, work it would not.

  She laughed at his temper; then grew serious, and said:

  "Don't get angry, Morris. After all, there are lots of things that youand I can't understand, and it isn't odd that you should have tumbledacross one of them. If you think of it, nobody understands anything.They know that certain things happen, and how to make them happen; butthey don't know why they happen, or why, as in your case, when theyought to happen, they won't."

  "It is all very well for you to be philosophical," he answered, turningupon her; "but can't you see, Mary, that the thing there is my life'swork? It is what I have given all my strength and all my brain to make,and if it fails in the end--why, then I fail too, once and forever. AndI have made it talk. It talked perfectly between this place and Seaview,and now you stand there and tell me that it won't work any more becauseI don't understand you. Then what am I to do?"

  "Try to understand me, if you think it worth while, which I don't; orgo on experimenting," she answered. "Try to find some substance which isless exquisitely sensitive, something a little grosser, more in key withthe material world; or to discover someone whom you do understand. Don'tlose heart; don't be beaten after all these years."

  "No," he answered, "I don't unless I die," and he turned to go.

  "Morris," she said, in a softer voice, "I am lazy, I know. Perhapsthat is why I adore people who can work. So, although you don't thinkanything of me, I will do my honest best to get into sympathy with youagain; yes, and to help in any way I can. No; it's not a joke. I wouldgive a great deal to see the thing a success."

  "Why do you say I don't think anything of you, Mary? Of course, it isn'ttrue. Besides, you are my cousin, and we have always been good friendssince you were a little thing."

  She laughed. "Yes, and I suppose that as you had no brothers or sistersthey taught you to pray for your cousin, didn't they? Oh, I know allabout it. It is my unfortunate sex that is to blame; while I was a meretom-boy it was different. No one can serve two masters, can they? Youhave chosen to serve a machine that won't go, and I daresay that you arewise. Yes, I think that it is the better part--until you find someonethat will make it go--and then you would adore her--by aerophone!"