And then suddenly a sound came out of the darkness – a low, sibilant sound, the quick, thin breathing of a woman. Quicker and thinner yet it came, as between clenched teeth, to end in a loud gasp with a dull rustle of cloth.
“What’s that? Is all right?” someone asked in the darkness.
“Yes, all is right,” said the Frenchman. “It is madame. She is in her trance. Now, gentlemen, if you will wait quiet you will see something, I think, which will interest you much.”
Still the ticking in the hall. Still the breathing, deeper and fuller now, from the medium. Still the occasional flash, more welcome than ever, of the passing lights of the hansoms. What a gap we were bridging, the half-raised veil of the eternal on the one side and the cabs of London on the other. The table was throbbing with a mighty pulse. It swayed steadily, rhythmically, with an easy swooping, scooping motion under our fingers. Sharp little raps and cracks came from its substance, file-firing, volley-firing, the sounds of a faggot burning briskly on a frosty night.
“There is much power,” said the Frenchman. “See it on the table!”
I had thought it was some delusion of my own, but all could see it now. There was a greenish-yellow phosphorescent light – or I should say a luminous vapour rather than a light – which lay over the surface of the table. It rolled and wreathed and undulated in dim glimmering folds, turning and swirling like clouds of smoke. I could see the white, square-ended hands of the French medium in this baleful light.
“What a fun!” he cried. “It is splendid!”
“Shall we call the alphabet?” asked Moir.
“But no – for we can do much better,” said our visitor.
“It is but a clumsy thing to tilt the table for every letter of the alphabet, and with such a medium as madame we should do better than that.”
“Yes, you will do better,” said a voice.
“Who was that? Who spoke? Was that you, Markham?”
“No, I did not speak.”
“It was madame who spoke.”
“But it was not her voice.”
“Is that you, Mrs Delamere?”
“It is not the medium, but it is the power which uses the organs of the medium,” said the strange, deep voice.
“Where is Mrs Delamere? It will not hurt her, I trust.”
“The medium is happy in another plane of existence. She has taken my place, as I have taken hers.”
“Who are you?”
“It cannot matter to you who I am. I am one who has lived as you are living, and who has died as you will die.”
We had heard the creak and grate of a cab pulling up next door. There was an argument about the fare, and the cabman grumbled hoarsely down the street. The green-yellow cloud still swirled faintly over the table, dull elsewhere, but glowing into a dim luminosity in the direction of the medium. It seemed to be piling itself up in front of her. A sense of fear and cold struck into my heart. It seemed to me that lightly and flippantly we had approached the most real and august of sacraments, that communion with the dead of which the fathers of the Church had spoken.
“Don’t you think we are going too far? Should we not break up this séance?” I cried.
But the others were all earnest to see the end of it. They laughed at my scruples.
“All the powers are made for use,” said Harvey Deacon. “If we can do this, we should do this. Every new departure of knowledge has been called unlawful in its inception. It is right and proper that we should inquire into the nature of death.”
“It is right and proper,” said the voice.
“There, what more could you ask?” cried Moir, who was much excited. “Let us have a test. Will you give us a test that you are really there?”
“What test do you demand?”
“Well, now – I have some coins in my pocket. Will you tell me how many?”
“We come back in the hope of teaching and elevating, and not to guess childish riddles.”
“Ha, ha, Meester Moir, you catch it that time,” cried the Frenchman. “But surely this is very good sense what the Control is saying.”
“It is a religion, not a game,” said the cold, hard voice.
“Exactly – the very view I take of it,” cried Moir. “I am sure I am very sorry if I have asked a foolish question. You will not tell me who you are?”
“What does it matter?”
“Have you been a spirit long?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“We cannot reckon time as you do. Our conditions are different.”
“Are you happy?”
“Yes.”
“You would not wish to come back to life?”
“No – certainly not.”
“Are you busy?”
“We could not be happy if we were not busy.”
“What do you do?”
“I have said that the conditions are entirely different.”
“Can you give us no idea of your work?”
“We labour for our own improvement and for the advancement of others.”
“Do you like coming here tonight?”
“I am glad to come if I can do any good by coming.”
“Then to do good is your object?”
“It is the object of all life on every plane.”
“You see, Markham, that should answer your scruples.” It did, for my doubts had passed and only interest remained.
“Have you pain in your life?” I asked.
“No; pain is a thing of the body.”
“Have you mental pain?”
“Yes; one may always be sad or anxious.”
“Do you meet the friends whom you have known on earth?”
“Some of them.”
“Why only some of them?”
“Only those who are sympathetic.”
“Do husbands meet wives?”
“Those who have truly loved.”
“And the others?”
“They are nothing to each other.”
“There must be a spiritual connection?”
“Of course.”
“Is what we are doing right?”
“If done in the right spirit.”
“What is the wrong spirit?”
“Curiosity and levity.”
“May harm come of that?”
“Very serious harm.”
“What sort of harm?”
“You may call up forces over which you have no control.”
“Evil forces?”
“Undeveloped forces.”
“You say they are dangerous. Dangerous to body or mind?”
“Sometimes to both.”
There was a pause, and the blackness seemed to grow blacker still, while the yellow-green fog swirled and smoked upon the table.
“Any questions you would like to ask, Moir?” said Harvey Deacon.
“Only this – do you pray in your world?”
“One should pray in every world.”
“Why?”
“Because it is the acknowledgment of forces outside ourselves.”
“What religion do you hold over there?”
“We differ exactly as you do.”
“You have no certain knowledge?”
“We have only faith.”
“These questions of religion,” said the Frenchman, “they are of interest to you serious English people, but they are not so much fun. It seems to me that with this power here we might be able to have some great experience – hein? Something of which we could talk.”
“But nothing could be more interesting than this,” said Moir.
“Well, if you think so, that is very well,” the Frenchman answered, peevishly. “For my part, it seems to me that I have heard all this before, and that tonight I should weesh to try some experiment with all this force which is given to us. But if you have other questions, then ask them, and when you finish we can try something more.”
But the spell was broken. We asked and asked, but the medium sat sile
nt in her chair. Only her deep, regular breathing showed that she was there. The mist still swirled upon the table.
“You have disturbed the harmony. She will not answer.”
“But we have learned already all that she can tell – hein? For my part I wish to see something that I have never seen before.”
“What then?”
“You will let me try?”
“What would you do?”
“I have said to you that thoughts are things. Now I wish to prove it to you, and to show you that which is only a thought. Yes, yes, I can do it and you will see. Now I ask you only to sit still and say nothing, and keep ever your hands quiet upon the table.”
The room was blacker and more silent than ever. The same feeling of apprehension which had lain heavily upon me at the beginning of the séance was back at my heart once more. The roots of my hair were tingling.
“It is working! It is working!” cried the Frenchman, and there was a crack in his voice as he spoke which told me that he also was strung to his tightest.
The luminous fog drifted slowly off the table, and wavered and flickered across the room. There in the farther and darkest corner it gathered and glowed, hardening down into a shining core – a strange, shifty, luminous, and yet non-illuminating patch of radiance, bright itself, but throwing no rays into the darkness. It had changed from a greenish-yellow to a dusky sullen red. Then round this centre there coiled a dark, smoky substance, thickening, hardening, growing denser and blacker. And then the light went out, smothered in that which had grown round it.
“It has gone.”
“Hush – there’s something in the room.”
We heard it in the corner where the light had been, something which breathed deeply and fidgeted in the darkness.
“What is it? Le Duc, what have you done?”
“It is all right. No harm will come.” The Frenchman’s voice was treble with agitation.
“Good heavens, Moir, there’s a large animal in the room. Here it is, close by my chair! Go away! Go away!”
It was Harvey Deacon’s voice, and then came the sound of a blow upon some hard object. And then . . . And then . . . how can I tell you what happened then?
Some huge thing hurtled against us in the darkness, rearing, stamping, smashing, springing, snorting. The table was splintered. We were scattered in every direction. It clattered and scrambled amongst us, rushing with horrible energy from one corner of the room to another. We were all screaming with fear, grovelling upon our hands and knees to get away from it. Something trod upon my left hand, and I felt the bones splinter under the weight.
“A light! A light!” someone yelled.
“Moir, you have matches, matches!”
“No, I have none. Deacon, where are the matches? For God’s sake, the matches!”
“I can’t find them. Here, you Frenchman, stop it!”
“It is beyond me. Oh, mon Dieu, I cannot stop it. The door! Where is the door?”
My hand, by good luck, lit upon the handle as I groped about in the darkness. The hard-breathing, snorting, rushing creature tore past me and butted with a fearful crash against the oaken partition. The instant that it had passed I turned the handle, and next moment we were all outside, and the door shut behind us. From within came a horrible crashing and rending and stamping.
“What is it? In Heaven’s name, what is it?”
“A horse. I saw it when the door opened. But Mrs Delamere –?”
“We must fetch her out. Come on, Markham; the longer we wait the less we shall like it.”
He flung open the door and we rushed in. She was there on the ground amidst the splinters of her chair. We seized her and dragged her swiftly out, and as we gained the door I looked over my shoulder into the darkness. There were two strange eyes glowing at us; a rattle of hoofs, and I had just time to slam the door when there came a crash upon it which split it from top to bottom.
“It’s coming through! It’s coming!”
“Run, run for your lives!” cried the Frenchman.
Another crash, and something shot through the riven door. It was a long white spike, gleaming in the lamp-light. For a moment it shone before us, and then with a snap it disappeared again.
“Quick! Quick! This way!” Harvey Deacon shouted. “Carry her in! Here! Quick!”
We had taken refuge in the dining-room, and shut the heavy oak door. We laid the senseless woman upon the sofa, and as we did so, Moir, the hard man of business, drooped and fainted across the hearthrug. Harvey Deacon was as white as a corpse, jerking and twitching like an epileptic. With a crash we heard the studio door fly to pieces, and the snorting and stamping were in the passage, up and down, up and down, shaking the house with their fury. The Frenchman had sunk his face on his hands, and sobbed like a frightened child.
“What shall we do?” I shook him roughly by the shoulder. “Is a gun any use?”
“No, no. The power will pass. Then it will end.”
“You might have killed us all – you unspeakable fool – with your infernal experiments.”
“I did not know. How could I tell that it would be frightened? It is mad with terror. It was his fault. He struck it.”
Harvey Deacon sprang up. “Good heavens!” he cried.
A terrible scream sounded through the house.
“It’s my wife! Here, I’m going out. If it’s the Evil One himself I am going out!”
He had thrown open the door and rushed out into the passage. At the end of it, at the foot of the stairs, Mrs Deacon was lying senseless, struck down by the sight which she had seen. But there was nothing else.
With eyes of horror we looked about us, but all was perfectly quiet and still. I approached the black square of the studio door, expecting with every slow step that some atrocious shape would hurl itself out of it. But nothing came, and all was silent inside the room. Peeping and peering, our hearts in our mouths, we came to the very threshold, and stared into the darkness. There was still no sound, but in one direction there was also no darkness. A luminous glowing cloud, with incandescent centre, hovered in the corner of the room. Slowly it dimmed and faded, growing thinner and fainter, until at last the same dense, velvety blackness filled the whole studio. And with the last flickering gleam of that baleful light the Frenchman broke into a shout of joy.
“What a fun!” he cried. “No one is hurt, and only the door broken, and the ladies frightened. But, my friends, we have done what has never been done before.”
“And as far as I can help,” said Harvey Deacon, “it will certainly never be before again.”
And that was what befell on the 14th of April last at No. 17 Badderly Gardens. I began by saying that it would seem too grotesque to dogmatise as to what it was which actually did occur; but I give my impressions, our impressions (since they are corroborated by Harvey Deacon and John Moir), for what they are worth. You may, if it pleases you, imagine that we were the victims of an elaborate and extraordinary hoax. Or you may think with us that we underwent a very real and a very terrible experience. Or perhaps you may know more than we do of such occult matters, and can inform us of some similar occurrence. In this latter case a letter to William Markham, 146M, The Albany, would help to throw a light upon that which is very dark to us.
The House Surgeon
Rudyard Kipling
Location: Holmescroft, Sussex.
Time: April, 1909.
Eyewitness Description: “I had no theory to go on, except a vague idea that I had come between two poles of discharge and had taken a shock meant for someone else. I waited cautiously on myself, expecting to be overtaken by horror and the supernatural . . .”
Author: Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was born in Bombay and undoubtedly heard his first ghost stories there while still a child. His years as a journalist on the Indian national paper, the Pioneer, helped him to gather the material for his classic works, the two Jungle Books (1894–5) and the Just So Stories (1902). It was after his return to England as a
feted author, that Kipling wrote his little series of supernatural stories including “The House Surgeon” in which several influences are noticeable. It has been suggested that the haunted house may have been based on Rock House near Torquay “which mysteriously depressed him, but nine years later produced his best psychic story”, according to his biographer, Angus Wilson; or alternately could have been his later Sussex home, Bateman’s, which was known to have caused “psychic discomforts” to some visitors. A less debateable influence was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who lived close by. “The House Surgeon” is obviously a psychic detective story in the Doyle style and apart from the references to the Great Detective and his companion, Dr Watson, Kipling even names the haunted house at the centre of the story after his hero.
On an evening after Easter Day, I sat at a table in a homeward bound steamer’s smoking-room, where half a dozen of us told ghost stories. As our party broke up, a man, playing Patience in the next alcove, said to me: “I didn’t quite catch the end of that last story about the Curse on the family’s first-born.”
“It turned out to be drains,” I explained. “As soon as new ones were put into the house the Curse was lifted, I believe. I never knew the people myself.”
“Ah! I’ve had my drains up twice; I’m on gravel too.”
“You don’t mean to say you’ve a ghost in your house? Why didn’t you join our party?”
“Any more orders, gentlemen, before the bar closes?” the steward interrupted.
“Sit down again and have one with me,” said the Patience player. “No, it isn’t a ghost. Our trouble is more depression than anything else.”
The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories Page 12