by Evelyn Weiss
walls, depicting generations of Strathfarrars through the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I can almost taste the history. Like most New Englanders, I’m interested in the past – and Connecticut families, mine included, love to emphasize their long lineage. But the Strathfarrars take their ancestral heritage for granted.
Blanche and I have been staying with Chisholm for two weeks. She likes to get away from her married home in rural Sussex (and, truth be told, away from her husband) and see her friends in London. We always stay here at Chisholm’s town house in Grafton Square, near Kensington Palace. So over the last two years of my employment by Blanche, I’ve seen Chisholm often, and got to know him well, even though his work often keeps him away from home.
As the main course is served, Blanche, Chisholm and I discuss Professor Axelson’s recent lecture tour of Europe. But despite the professor’s current investigation, and Kitty’s hypnosis, none of the three of us mention what we ourselves suffered on the Titanic. It’s as if we are all pretending that what we went through that night was a story, or something that happened to other people. Since coming to England, I’ve realized that this is the way people talk here: the ‘stiff upper lip’. It’s the British way, I think. But, like me, our dinner guest Professor Felix Axelson isn’t British. And though I first met him only two days ago, on his first visit to see Kitty, I know his forthright manner already. As the last of the servants leaves the room, he clears his throat: he’s about to say something important.
“Chisholm, we need to question Miss Kitty again. That girl is our key witness. It was she who found –”
Even though Axelson is outspoken, he stops, fork half-way to his mouth, when he sees the look in his host’s eyes. Chisholm speaks calmly but firmly. “Perhaps, Axelson, you and I could discuss this after dinner? I’m sure the ladies present don’t want to hear...”
But the professor doesn’t give up. He carries on eating for a minute more, then looks across the table at me. “Miss Frocester. You’re fascinated by this mystery, aren’t you?” He’s not bound by English politeness, and his Swedish voice is measured but bold. His gray, deep-seeing eyes gaze directly into mine: he hardly blinks, and I feel he’s looking at my soul. Gazing into his face, I can understand his mesmeric effect on patients.
“Yes, sir. I am fascinated.” I sense Blanche’s disapproval, but I reply boldly, hearing perhaps more of a Yankee twang in my voice than usual. “I don’t understand hypnosis – but I agree that the human mind is, in truth, the last unexplored space. People have traveled all over the earth, even the Arctic wastes. We’ve now been to both poles of the globe: we push at every frontier. Yet we know more about the surface of the Moon than we do about the origins of our own thoughts and feelings.”
Blanche doesn’t want this conversation to develop. “As my brother says, dinner is a time for civilized conversation. You gentlemen can discuss this afterwards. The billiard-room, cigars, Scotch whisky – that’s the setting for your decisions about Kitty. But I’ve noticed that her work seems scatty and careless. If the hypnosis upsets her further and you have to let her go, Chisholm, it will be little loss to you.”
“I make all decisions about my own staff, Blanche, and there is no question of me dismissing Kitty from her job. Right now, her emotional problems mean that she will struggle to get another position – and I’m hardly going to put her out on the streets.”
Chisholm’s rebuke annoys Blanche: she fires a glance at me, as if I’m somehow to blame for this turn in the conversation. But although I’m dependent on her favor, I decide, just this once, to ignore her mood. I want to know more.
“Professor Axelson, how does hypnosis work?”
“You seem a well-educated young woman, Miss Frocester. So I won’t mince my words. You have heard, I guess, of Charles Darwin?”
Blanche’s polite smile thinly veils her scorn. “That man who says we’re related to monkeys?”
“Indeed. Do you know that every branch of science has now proved his theories, beyond dispute? But it is not just the human body that has evolved from the apes. Large parts of the workings of our brains evolved millions of years ago, before we were human.” Axelson, I notice, is now speaking solely to me: he doesn’t bother to catch Blanche’s eye at all. “Our rational mind is a recent product of evolution. But there is also a large part of our mind that doesn’t act rationally. You probably can think of examples from your own experience.”
For some reason, an incident from my childhood pops into my mind. “I went to open the front door once, when no-one had knocked. I had no idea why I did it. But it was funny – there was actually a visitor there: Mrs Rosenblum had come to see my mother. She was standing there, on the front porch, just about to knock.”
“A perfect example, Miss Frocester. You acted because something in your mind recognized that visitor’s presence outside your door – unconsciously.”
“So – one part of my mind knew Mrs Rosenblum was at the door, but at the same time I wasn’t consciously aware of it?”
“Exactly so. The vast majority of our mental activity is unconscious and instinctive: deep down, we still have the mind of a wild beast. Like the deep ocean, with its own tides and currents. All we see is the surface, the superficial: reason, logic, language. Our conscious minds are like a thin layer of white foam on a wild, savage sea. The ocean is infinitely strong, untamed and unknown. We don’t understand it. But we feel its power.”
I feel myself drawn in: his eyes hold mine. The room, Blanche, even Chisholm – they’re a dim background now. This conversation, this moment, is just Professor Axelson and myself.
“So, Miss Frocester.”
“Please call me Agnes.”
“Miss Agnes. You sit there, your dark hair round your face, your wide, green eyes. You are an object of my politeness, my respectful regard. But beneath that – my unconscious mind sees you, looks at you, quite differently.”
I’m not sure where this conversation is going. So I ask him again.
“How does hypnosis work?”
“We can – if we are careful – brush away the surface foam. And if we can calm the breeze – the ruffling of the surface ceases, the ripples subside and vanish, turbulent waters can become still and clear. The water can become like glass: like looking into a deep, clear pool.”
“So you can see what’s down there?”
“Exactly. We can see, maybe, the creatures that dwell in the deep. Would you like?...”
“Hypnosis? No, thank you. I’ve no desire to look at my pond life.”
“Agnes is quite right, Axelson.” Chisholm cuts in on Alexson’s hold over our conversation. “None of us around the table have any need...” I look over to Blanche, and I see the relief in her face as Axelson is stopped in his tracks. But despite Chisholm’s interruption, the professor carries on speaking.
“You all misunderstand me. I was not proposing to hypnotize Miss Agnes herself. No. What I need – what justice needs – is that Miss Kitty Murray is put under my Fluence, my hypnotic power, again. I must take her back to that night on the Titanic, to the sinking – and to the death of Percy Spence. To what she saw, what she did, how she felt. Because, I am certain, she saw what happened. She knows the truth about the Viscount’s murder.”
Chisholm looks doubtfully at the professor. “So how does that relate to Agnes?”
“ I suggest, Chisholm, that – in order to avoid extreme trauma, and to provide a female companion for Miss Kitty – that Miss Agnes joins us, in conducting our investigations. We will have another session, tomorrow evening. Using my Hypnotic-Forensic Method, we will take Miss Kitty back into her hidden memories, to her last night on the Titanic. But this time, I will carry out the hypnosis with Miss Agnes present.”
“I’d love to.”
Blanche looks annoyed. “Agnes, I can’t agree to this. You are employed by me: your first duty is to me.”
“But Blanche, dear – Agnes may be your employee, but she still has a mind, a life of her own.”
Chisholm looks at his sister calmly but coldly. What Blanche allows me to do or not do is really none of his business – but I can sense Chisholm’s will overriding that of his sister. If I want to take part in the professor’s inquiry, then I have Chisholm’s permission.
But whether Chisholm is allowing it because he thinks it will help Professor Axelson’s investigation, or to keep Kitty safe from another hour of terror, or merely to humor me, because I’m so plainly fascinated by this business – that, I don’t know. Yet.
2.Voices of terror
The lamps are being lit on Grafton Square: they glow softly in the damp February evening. Today’s rain has finally cleared, leaving a chill, moonlit night. I gaze out of the window at the shining wet cobbles of the square, and I see a Hackney carriage slowing to a halt in front of the house. Axelson’s stocky figure steps down from the cab, and he turns to pay the cabbie. Moments later, I hear Baxter opening the door and welcoming the professor into the house. “Come straight this way, Professor Axelson. Sir Chisholm wishes to speak to you in private.” I wait in the drawing-room for over an hour: eventually Baxter comes to see me, and asks me to go along to Chisholm’s study.
I open the study door, and I’m surprised. Neither Chisholm nor Professor Axelson is there. But Kitty is.
“Miss Agnes – Mr Baxter told me to come