by James Carnac
Am I unwise in mentioning these curious imaginings of mine, and especially the Voice? Am I perhaps giving another fillip to the popular assumption of my lunacy? That the hearing of imaginary voices as a symptom of insanity is pretty generally recognized I am fully aware. But was Joan of Ark [sic] insane? Were the other saints insane? Confidence in my own sanity is strong enough to permit me to ignore popular conceptions of insanity and its symptoms.
I heard the Voice. But was it an actual voice speaking to me from outside the borders of this earthly life, or was it a phenomenon of a too-active imagination? After all these years I cannot say, for the Voice has long been silent and memories fade.
My taste in reading was “morbid” by popular standards. I have always been interested in what is loosely called the occult, in which term I include witchcraft, sorcery, certain aspects of priestcraft, hypnotism and modern spiritualism. These things are usually regarded as trivially fantastic by the conventional stolid citizen, but as one who, in all modesty, can claim to be something of an authority I say that they are worthy of careful consideration if only as exemplifying that pitiful striving of humanity towards the favour of an assumed Power, which striving still goes on to-day in the unreasoning faith of dogmatic religionists.
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During the period between my flight from the house of my uncle, and the time of which I now write, my strange obsession in the matter of knives had slumbered. Fitfully and uneasily, it is true; but still it had slumbered. By this I mean that although I was still conscious of an eager interest in knives, I had experienced no return of the over-whelming desire to demonstrate their properties; I began to regard the unfortunate affair which had terminated my connection with my uncle as an isolated manifestation of nervous instability following upon the shock and continued morbid brooding on the deaths of my parents. Nervous debility was not so well understood at that time as it is to-day, and in the popular view “nerves” was merely a synonym for hysterical cussedness. But my own medical knowledge and reading had shown me that nervous outbreaks may take strange forms. That I had been the victim of such an outburst I preferred to believe.
Yet there was no blinking the fact that knives were still to me something more than mere utensils for everyday use. They still fascinated me and occasional incidents would arise when I would become intensely aware of the fascination. On one morning, for example, I found two brand-new table-knives by my plate; my landlady had bought a new set to replace the old worn ones. I picked up those new knives and examined them critically; they were wretched-looking things, clean and bright, it is true, and with handles of ivory whiteness. But they were mere imitations beside the old friends to which I had become accustomed. The blades of the latter had been worn to thinness, with sharp, pointed tips and blades of razor-like keenness; what if the handles were yellow and stained, the blades gaping from the hafts and exposing parts of the tangs? I resented these new knives, and fumbled with my breakfast in a fit of irritation.
I did not care to complain to Mrs. D.—or to ask for my old favourites; but I surreptitiously sharpened the new table-knives on a bone which I kept in my bed-room, and in the course of a few weeks I had all the blades of the good lady’s new set in a fair state of keenness. Whether she noticed it or not I do not know.
But in spite of this, and other incidents pointing to my interest in knives, I had not, since leaving my uncle’s house, experienced an impulse towards throat-cutting; I had not experienced it, yet I am not justified in saying that I had not, deep down, a lurking suspicion that I might again experience it. I think I had such a suspicion or at least an uneasy feeling that under stress of excitement or shock my reactions might take an abnormal course. I can perceive now that, having that vague suspicion, I should never have allowed full play to my feelings for Julia Norcote; I should have known at least that in some respects my temperament was—shall I say—peculiar. But I look back at the affair with the dispassionate eyes of an old man, while at the time I was of an age when inclination is not readily controlled by reason.
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I met Julia Norcote in the early part of the year 1888. She was the sister of an old fellow-student of my hospital days whom I re-encountered one night at a London music hall. This meeting, trivial as it seemed at the time, I place as a definite step towards that which I was ultimately to become; in the latter contemplation of these seemingly purposeless and yet significant steps on life’s highway I am led into a sneaking sympathy with the conviction of the professed fatalist. “The fate of every man have we hung about his neck,” says the Koran; was my fate hung about my neck in earliest childhood or even, perchance, years before my conception—on the steps of the blood-stained scaffolding of the Place de la Revolution or in some gloomy vault beneath the Palais de Justice?
And if my course was mapped for me by “Fate,” who, or what, is that Fate? Can it be anything but a malevolent demon? And the Voice, to which I have already lightly alluded but of which I shall presently say more: was that the voice of an attendant devil, the Kah, maybe, of one of my blood-weary ancestors deputed to watch and guide me along my appointed path? I am not, as the reader may have already surmised, a religious man; I pay no service to a benevolent Deity because I can perceive nothing to justify a belief in the benevolent supervision of mankind. But I can perceive much which may be regarded as evidence of the existence of an inimical power. The question is one which must ever remain open, nor will I attempt to pursue it at the moment.
Let me return to my meeting with John Norcote. The music hall was, of course, of the type now extinct. It boasted a chairman whom it was considered an honour to ply with drink, and members of the audience sat at marble-topped tables moist and sometimes sloppy with spilt beer. Perspiring waiters threaded their ways with difficulty amongst the tables, balancing upon upraised hands trays precariously laden with glasses. The table at which I seated myself on this evening had one other occupant, and we recognized each other simultaneously.
Norcote told me, after our first exchange of reminiscences, that he had taken his degree and was then in partnership with his father. He wanted to know why I had so suddenly dropped my studies, and to satisfy his curiosity I told him of my accession to comfortable financial circumstances following the deaths of my father and my uncle. He was, of course, ignorant of the events which had led to my father’s death, for of these I had never spoken to any of my associates; nor did I tell him anything of the circumstances now.
We left the music hall at an early hour, for Norcote, upon whom the dignity of his new profession seemed to weigh heavily, mentioned that he had only “looked in for half an hour.” In deference also to his professional standing, we refrained from celebrating our meeting except with one modest glass of beer each, and we parted at the door of the theatre after an invitation on his part for me to visit the Norcote household.
I availed myself of the invitation and so met old Dr. Norcote and Julia.
Of Dr. Norcote I need say little; he was a big, red-faced man with a nearly bald head, and a pompous manner which sometimes broke down into a rather irritating facetiousness. I carried away from that first visit only a vague picture of the doctor, for my attention had been too wholly taken up by his daughter.
Julia struck me as an extraordinarily beautiful girl; she was tall, well formed, and possessed a mass of golden hair. I was, I think, slightly embarrassed at first by this radiant vision, while she was reserved and shy with me, having the bashful unsophistication of the period; for there was then none of the frank camaraderie which prevails between the sexes to-day. Yet, disguise and muffle it as you will, sex has always been sex and always will be. In spite of our mutual awkwardness there flashed between us a hint of a telepathic message; she sensed my interest, I knew, and she did not resent it. It seemed almost that she reciprocated it; yet I was by no means an Adonis, for I was short, sallow-skinned and distinctly fattish of face. Nor could she have been attracted by any mental brillian
ce on my part for I was not in a state to adequately display such wits as I possessed.
When I left the Norcotes’ house that evening I knew I had fallen in love.
To the average reader there will doubtless appear an element of horrid humour in the idea of “Jack the Ripper” being in love; for, as I have previously hinted, there is some difficulty, no doubt, in associating an unknown and rather fearful being such as J.R. with the common reactions of ordinary humanity. While admitting that J.R. was a man, the average person cannot perceive (or so I judge from reading and conversation) that the particular activity which brought him under public notice was a manifestation of but one unit in his mentality. Love! What can a man who could cut up women know of love!
Let me tell you, O reader, that as a younger man I was quite as capable of love as you are; and possibly more so. You may be, and probably are, one of those conventional and “respectable” individuals who, in the mass, comprise the back-bone of the nation. It is even possible that you are (pardon me if I am wrong) one of the rabbit class: one of those smug little clerks, creeping fussily to Town each morning; plodding through your boring and monotonous clerking, one eye on the clock and the other on your superior officer; oppressed by fear—fear of being late, fear of making mistakes, fear of offending the chief, your master; fear of losing your job. Scurrying home to your rabbit-hutch of a suburban house; pottering over your rotten little “garden.” A product of fears, anxieties and repressions. What can you know of love or, indeed, of any human passion? Again I ask your pardon if I have misjudged you.
But I have known life. Even before I became a man I had known life. And I have known real fear; not the fear of a testy employer; not the “fear of God” as you unctuously term it in your churches. But the fear of the intangible Unknown; the dreadful, hovering Something moulding my destiny, muttering at my elbow, malevolently distorting the trivial chances of my life. And I have known thrills such as you will never know.
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My love affair progressed upon the lines which are usual, I presume, in most love affairs, and it is needless for me to tell of my courtship in detail even were I willing to do so; for it was only in its dreadful conclusion that it became remarkable.
After my introduction to the Norcote household, I paid other visits at intervals of a fortnight or so; and then, encouraged by the increasing cordiality of my reception by Dr. Norcote, who, I soon perceived, realized in which direction the wind lay, I began to call more frequently.
Discreetly, and in the most casual manner, old Dr. Norcote drew from me particulars of my financial standing, and since his friendliness to me showed no signs of abatement I gathered that he found my position satisfactory. He asked after my parents and I told him simply that they had died when I was eighteen; naturally I made no mention of the manner of their passing.
Of Julia herself I will say little; I do not care to recall the little mannerisms, the tricks of speech and gesture, the trivial incidents which endeared her to me. Even after the passage of so many years the memory of them is tinged with bitterness. Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? No; I dispute that old adage. A thousand times better had I never met my love.
Poor Julia! Did you mourn your sallow, black-haired James for long? Did you, through the years, sometimes wonder regretfully what had become of him; whether he still lived? Were you ever told why the happiness you expected was so suddenly wrenched from you? That you no longer live, I know, but did you die a wife or a grandmother perhaps, the palimpsest of your first love affair almost obliterated by later joys? That you did love me I know; I hope you loved again; I hope my “poor Julia!” is needless.
My courtship reached its crisis in the later days of July 1888. I had arranged to take my Julia to the theatre, with the tacit approval of her father and, after a careful examination of the bills of fare offered by the various houses, had booked two stalls for an entertainment which, I thought, would contain nothing likely to offend the susceptibilities of a lady. To the modern mind such delicacy on my part will doubtless seem grotesque.
I dressed myself that evening with the greatest care; I examined myself from several angles in my inadequate bed-room mirror. I split my gloves in pulling them on to my perspiring hands and tingled with anxiety in case I should be late while my good landlady hastily stitched the tears. For the prospect before me that evening was not only a visit to the theatre, but a proposal; and though I had little doubt of the outcome I could not wholly restrain my nervousness.
I have no recollection of the play I witnessed that evening.
After the theatre I took Julia home in a hansom, my declaration not yet made. I might have proposed in the hansom, but by the time I had made up my mind to do so we had arrived at Julia’s house. I asked permission to come in as I had “something to say,” and Julia, with an air of being entirely unsuspicious of what that something might be, allowed me to do so.
I left the house just before mid-night an engaged man.
Chapter 13
I should prefer not to write this chapter; its composition recalls too vividly that which I would rather forget. But it is essential to my narrative and I cannot omit it.
De Quincey remarks, in one of his essays, upon the difficulty of a man’s assignment of any particular day as the happiest in his life; and goes on to point out that if any such day could be specified the event which distinguished it must necessarily be of such an outstanding character as to illuminate many ensuing years. Of my own experience I can say that a day which contains such terror or misfortune that it may be set aside and distinguished as the most unhappy, the most horrible day of a man’s life, must, of equal necessity, cast a shadow upon many years to follow. The day after my acceptance to Julia was such a day.
It would be more correct to say the evening following, for the day itself opened well enough. I had had an uneasy night, for having retired in a condition of nervous excitement I was unable to sleep until about four in the morning. I lay turning over in my mind the events of the evening; pondering the best form of words to employ when approaching Julia’s father next day. And from these two sets of thoughts which alternated in my mind like two recurring units of a roundabout I suddenly took to a side track. I began to envisage my future; to speculate upon that life which lay before me. I pictured the house I would like to occupy with Julia; how we would furnish it; I deliberately projected my mind into a future which I desired. And then some detail which I pictured would, by an association of ideas, recall to me some event of my past. My mind would be wrenched out of the delightful future where it had been dwelling to something dull and forbidding which I would strive to dismiss.
But those thoughts could not be wholly dismissed; my wandering and now somewhat feverish thoughts took another turn; I commenced to toy with certain doubts which I had, in the sanity of day-time, thrust from me but which now, in the soul-searching darkness of night, could not be so readily ignored. A certain Voice gradually grew into my consciousness, insistent and disturbing. It spoke colloquially and in a logical manner of things which I did not wish to discuss; it broke in upon my thoughts like the voice of a garrulous travelling companion upon the thread of a book which one is trying to read. I told myself the Voice was purely imaginative; that my mind was too active; but I listened and then tried to ignore what it had said.
When, eventually, I fell asleep I was visited by dreams of an extremely unpleasant character.
In the morning the sun was shining and I felt like a man who, having been constrained to spend the night in some foul den, cleanses himself by plunging into a cool, gleaming river. I put behind me all recollection of the vile night I had spent and passed into my sitting-room singing. (The term is a courtesy one for I am not far from being tone-deaf.) The sound brought an arch smile to the fat face of my good landlady as she entered with my breakfast. It was not a critical smile; rather one of indulgence and understanding. Had she not
practically sped me on my wooing the evening before; and could she doubt now, from my caterwauling, that my enterprise had been successful?
At about mid-day the sun disappeared and it began to rain as it had rained almost incessantly for weeks. For that summer of 1888 was, I remember, a loathsome one. But even the rain could not dissipate my feeling of gladness. I sat at my sitting-room window and watched the downpour; and thought. I did not leave the house until the evening, when I set out for the house of Julia’s father.
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I was nervous, I admit; for I could not avoid a slight anxiety as to whether the Doctor would consent to my formal engagement to his daughter. I felt reasonably certain, from his past attitude to me, that he would raise no objection, but I could not fail to perceive the remote possibility for, after all, my acquaintance with Julia had been short. I had no suspicion of the blow that was to fall upon me, no foreboding of the ghastly jest which Destiny had prepared for me. I hurried along the streaming streets humming cheerfully under my breath, sheltering myself and a bouquet of roses under my umbrella. I was contented with the world, rain-sodden as it was. “Happy” is purely a relative term I know; but on that particular evening I was happy as I had never been before; happier, certainly, than I have ever been since.
It is from such elevated heights as these that Destiny loves to dislodge us; our fall is so much harder.
A smirking parlour-maid admitted me to Dr. Norcote’s house and, in a few moments, I was greeting Julia in a manner proper to the occasion. Her father and brother were at a medical dinner I learned; but I was quite content to await their return. Julia and I sat together on a sofa in the drawing-room.