The Strange Experiences of Tina Malone/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I.
THE OCCULT SCHOOL.
THEY always did attract me—second-hand bookshops. This morning I began at the windows, then at the boxes of books outside, then at those hanging at the doors till, at last, I gave way to temptation and went inside.
It was only the books I noticed and I walked along by the tables, scanning the titles till at last I found "The Drama of Love and Death," by Edward Carpenter, and pulled it out.
I opened it at "The Return Journey" and was just finding out that it was all about me, when I felt someone standing at my elbow.
I had noticed somehow without seeing or caring that there was a girl at the far end of the shop looking up at the books. I knew it was Sybil Armstrong, but I did not want to talk so I hardly noticed that she was there.
But, although I was interested in my new-found treasure, I was conscious that she was moving towards me and, when she stood quietly by my side in that mysterious way I knew it was she and purposely did not at once look up.
When at last I did she smiled at me in a meaning way. What she meant I did not know then, except that she was up to some devilment.
She was a fair little thing. She and I had always been drawn to one another through our love of books. There was a sort of fascination about her that made me like to talk to her and to sit next to her, and though I never courted it she would always move from her seat in trams or boats to come and seek me out.
So I looked down now into her blue eyes and wondered what form the devilment was to take and whether she knew that I was quietly watching and enjoying her tactics.
"Well!" she said.
"Well?" said I.
"What wonderful treasure have you found? Can you bear to touch those dirty books? Think of the occult influence they carry! You don't know what wicked old man may have hugged and fingered them."
I looked down at my "Drama of Love and Death," that was telling me such wonderful things at four and ninepence a copy, and looked back into her eyes.
"Don't you know that those books hold thoughts and feelings that may be passed on to you?" she went on.
"I know they hold thoughts and feelings I want to hear about," I said, and hugged my book with a finger in the place. I knew then that four and ninepence or not, the book was going home with me.
"Have you read any Eastern books?" she said, "I've been reading a lot lately."
"Eastern?" I said, puzzled.
"Yes, the philosophy of the East. It would interest you I am sure—I believe you are very psychic."
She lowered her voice to a sort of dramatic mystery, half-bantering as if speaking to a child. She was always conscious of everything she did and she was trying to impress me, I knew.
"How do you mean psychic?" I asked.
"Don't you know what psychic means? You come with me to a lecture at my "School of New Thought" on Sunday and see what it means. Will you come?"
"Yes, thank you very much," I said, feeling more interested in the book under my arm than in the "School of New Thought." But she looked pretty under her blue hat, with a dancing mischief in her eyes and her half-cynical sideways smile.
"Are you going to take that book?"
"Yes," I said. "Listen to this, and I read the lines beginning:—
"'We all feel that at best much of our real selves remains in life-long defect of expression, and that there are great deeps of the under-self, which, though organically related to our ordinary consciousness, are still, for the most part, hidden and unexplored. All, in fact, points to the existence within us of a very profound self, which, so far, we may justifiably conclude to be much greater than any one known manifestation of it, which requires, for its expression, the forms of a lifetime, and still stretches on and beyond; which perhaps belong to another sphere of being—as the ship in the air and the sunlight, belongs to another sphere than the hull, buried deep in the water. It seems indeed probable that the human soul, at death, does at first pass, with its cloud-vesture of memories and qualities, into some intermediate region, and for a long period, does remain there quiescent, surveying its past, recovering from the shocks and outrages of mortal experience, knitting up and smoothing out the broken and tangled threads, trying hard to understand the pattern. It seems probable that there is a long period of digestion and reconcilement and slow brooding over the new life which has to be formed.
"'When one thinks of the strange contradictions of our mortal life, the hopeless antagonistic elements, the warring of passions, the shattering of ideals, the stupor of monotony, the soul like a bird shut in a cage, or with bright wings dragged in the mire; the horrible sense of sin which torments some people, the mad impulses which tyrannise over others; the alternations of one's own personality on different days, or at different depths and planes of consciousness—when one thinks of all this one feels that if there is to be any sanity or sequence in the conclusion, it must mean a long period of brooding and reconciliation and of re-adjustment and even of sleep.
"'At first it may well be a troubled period of nightmare—like confusion; but at last there must come a time when harmony is restored. The past lifetime is spread out like a map before one—all its events fall into their places, composed and clear. The genius, rising from the depths, throws a strange light upon them. 'This was necessary—That could not have been otherwise—And that again which seemed so fatal, do you not now see its profound meaning?' The soul, surveying, gradually redeems the past. It comes to understand. Tout comprendre est tout pardonner.'"
"Yes, well that's what I say—the submerged self—get your book and come. Here," she called back into the shop, "Mr. Sefton, this is a friend of mine, Miss Malone—Mr. Sefton and I are old friends."
I turned then and saw Tony.
He was standing at the back of the shop. He was a little man with a shock of fair hair and deep, dark eyes that, at this moment, were fixed on Sybil with a look that I could not understand. It was deep and fierce and his arms were folded as if he were keeping back some deep feeling. I felt somehow that he had been watching us both for some time and was somehow stirred and displeased.
He came forward and took his introduction, but with his eyes still more on her than on mine. She seemed to be conscious of the fact, but to be wickedly rather delighting in it.
He was the assistant in the shop and, having taken my book from me, wrapped it up and handed it to me, keeping silence all the while.
Sybil was conscious of him I know, as she passed along the bookshelves, as I fumbled for my money; but she hummed and pretended not to see.
"Come along," she said, and tucked her arm into mine as she drew me out of the shop and nodded good-bye to Mr. Sefton.
So that was how I was led to the "Occult School."
For some time I only attended lectures but by degrees Sybil persuaded me to join one of the classes.
Tony was there—or Mr. Sefton, as I then called him.
He was a figure you could not help noticing. Everyone seemed to want to have something to say to him and at first I just looked on.
But the Occultists made me impatient. They were the funniest lot of people I had ever met. It was the first time I had ever found myself in a community and I was interested. But I kicked like anything when they tried to convince me that I was anything but a materialist.
They had all lived before. They all remembered their Past Lives. No one cared a thought for anyone but themselves, they were all interested each in his own evolution.
Sybil was most bizarre.
She always liked bossing. There were two girls there, younger than herself who were her great friends. It was not long before I dubbed them her "body-guard"—she lived under the fallacy that she was so delicately constituted psychically, that she must be protected. No strange person of the street must be allowed to sit next to her in trams or boats. She could not go in crowds, she told me. She used to linger near when the "Great One," as they called the lecturer, strode down from the platform that she might mingle in his aura and carry the influence home with her.
At that time I did not know what an "aura" meant.
Tony mystified me. He said very little, and held aloof. Yet although he seldom spoke to her I felt he was almost always conscious of Sybil.
The sight of those girls' hanging about and pretending to be busy talking to each other till the Great One should march past them, disgusted me. I stood apart, and one day found myself by Tony's side.
I began to talk of Carpenter and the "Drama of Love and Death." In no time I was entranced. Here was enthusiasm. He was at home with every book I mentioned.
We soon became good chums, for when we talked of books we forgot everything else; so that while Sybil was waiting to have the aura of the Great One showered over her we were talking so hard that we used to wander off and walk home together, before we noticed that she had not followed.
This made Sybil furious—Anyone might have thought it was jealousy because Tony was her friend and she did not like to share him—but it was not that; she felt I was her property—it was rivalry she felt with Tony—I was her proselyte and she was furious with him for intervening.
She began to talk about me to the others—I felt she was doing it. Tony used to look on and say nothing and try to save me from her. I used to see his eyes glaring, as he stood with folded arms, just as he had stood when first I met him. He did not appear to watch her, but I knew he was conscious of her all the time, and disapproving.
The Occult School was made up of Classes. What they did in the higher classes which Sybil attended I don't know. They were very mysterious about it and were not supposed to answer questions. What they did in the class I attended I can't quite say. They seemed to talk for ever about atmospheres and auras and former lives and life after death and mentality till I longed to turn the subject to books and pictures and art and the world I was accustomed to.
They never really accepted me, and I never really accepted them.
No one ever thought of bowing to anyone. If you were introduced one day, they turned away from you the next just as you were going to bow. They tried to be your friend; but their idea of friendship was to put an arm across your waist and try to do you good. That you might be doing them good, too, by coming into contact with them, never seemed to enter their minds. If you had not been there to practice on, life would have lost half its savour.
Sybil was up to some mischief with me, I knew it. She was doing me good with a vengeance; and Tony, with dark eyes full of meaning, always fixed on her, was always coming to my rescue.
"This is Miss Malone," she said, introducing me one day to one of the teachers, "I am just telling her she must not be so emotional."
Up came Tony, and just as I was bowing to the man introduced, thrust a picture of Christ in front of me where it was seen by all of us.
"This is what I found to-day," he said.
I felt, and perhaps Sybil knew too, that he had purposely interrupted.
What it was they were up to I did not in the least understand then. It was later that I knew.