by John Harwood
"I had wondered myself," said George, "whether the disappearance of his own uncle, in—er—similar circumstances, might have preyed upon his mind."
"Quite possibly," said Dr. Wraxford. "My uncle's mental condition was, at best, fragile, and the shock of the storm..."
He and John Montague exchanged glances, and I thought he was about to continue, when Hetty the parlourmaid brought in the joint. George busied himself with carving, and Ada turned the conversation to lighter topics.
Reassured by Dr. Wraxford's diagnosis (as I thought of it), I resolved to enjoy the rest of the evening. It would, I thought, have been perfect if only Edward were beside me instead of Mr. Montague; but then, I reflected, I should not have dared question Dr. Wraxford about the visitations. The curtains had not been drawn, and the reflected gold of the candle flames floated amongst the outlines of shrubs and trees; the blurred image of my own features hovered beyond Ada's shoulder, mirrored in darkening glass. Absorbed in this shadow-play, my attention wandered, until I became aware that Dr. Wraxford had been speaking for some time.
"...whether or not we survive death," he was saying, "and if so in what form, is surely the great question of the day. It can never, I think, be settled in the negative, because it is always open to us to suppose that the dead survive, but can have no communion with us. Whereas one undeniable instance of communication from beyond would establish the truth once and for all. Imagine what a discovery that would be! The man who made it would stand beside Newton and Galileo. For those who have the gift of faith, it is not, of course, a question"—George looked a little uncomfortable at this—"but for those who must see before they can believe ... I trust, Mr. Woodward, you don't find these speculations offensive."
"Not at all," said George, "I find them fascinating. But what, in your view, would constitute proof? A communication from beyond the grave that could not have come from any other source? Spiritualists, I believe, often claim to have received such messages."
"Therein lies the difficulty. No amount of spirit rapping will ever convince a sceptic. And if you have ever attended a séance—as for my sins have I, in order to expose a fraud—you will know that most of the communications received through spirit mediums are of such staggering banality as to suggest that the life beyond would be unendurable."
"Would you say, then, that all such manifestations can be explained either as fraud or delusion?"
"The great majority, yes; I should hesitate to say all, if only because I like to keep an open mind. From a scientific point of view, there is no necessary connection between Christian doctrine—or that of any religion—and the nature of the afterlife, if such exists. All religions, so far as I know, hold out the promise of some sort of afterlife, whether it be the paradise of the Christian or the Mohammedan, the eternal cycle of return proposed in the various religions of India and the Far East, or the limbo state of the Shaman. Every race has its own deity, and rivers of blood have been shed over which is the true God; yet it is possible that they are all mistaken—or that all these beliefs have a common origin. Logically speaking, proof of survival would not, of itself, prove the existence of a God, nor would it follow that the afterlife was eternal. Indeed, to be entirely logical, it would not even follow that every human being would necessarily survive death."
"There you do depart, very fundamentally, from Christian doctrine," said George. "That all are equal in the sight of God is, I would say, one of the linchpins of Christianity."
"Very true; but from my position of scientific scepticism I, alas, can take nothing for granted. Speaking from my experience as a mesmerist, it is not difficult to believe that Heaven and Hell, gods, demons, ghosts and spirits are all contained within the mind—with the proviso that this does not make them any the less real or powerful than in the old dispensation. We think of the mind as enclosed within the narrow compass of the skull, but we could equally imagine a cavern filled with dark water and connected by some subterranean passage, to the limitless depths of the ocean, and think of each individual mind as a droplet of one great oceanic Mind which contains everything: all the gods and demons, the paradises and underworlds of every religion on earth, all history, all knowledge, everything that has ever happened. A mind upon which it could truly be said that nothing is lost, not so much as the fall of a sparrow..."
He paused, turning the stem of his wineglass between finger and thumb, dark crimson light swirling within the crystal.
"But these are mere speculations, and we were speaking of the quest for proof. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that communication from beyond the grave is possible, and that there is such a thing as clairvoyance—by which I mean, specifically, the power to perceive and communicate with spirits, for want of a better word. We know—since we have not a single proven instance—that genuine clairvoyance must be exceedingly rare. But suppose, nevertheless, that we have stumbled upon someone who seems to possess that power.
"Let us take—if you'll allow it, Miss Unwin—the case of your friend's experience. Now if a young man of that exact description had lately (or subsequently) died, and your friend, without knowing anything of him, had recognised him from a portrait—that would be worth pursuing. And if she had had not one but several such experiences, then we would have a prima facie case of clairvoyance."
I clasped my hands in my lap, and struggled to control my breathing. Had George spoken privately to Dr. Wraxford about my visitations? Surely not; they had met only the previous day.
"The obvious difficulty, regarding proof, is that no one else can see the spirits. But this evening, under the stimulus of our conversation, I begin to see how it might be done. We know that, in the mesmeric trance, a subject may acquire unusual mental powers; the Frenchman Didier, who could read minds, play cards blindfolded, and identify the contents of sealed containers with great accuracy, is only the best-known instance. If the power of clairvoyance exists, therefore, it might be possible to induce it by mesmeric suggestion.
"So: we take a group of subjects and mesmerise them, telling them that they have acquired the power to see spirits, but giving them no instruction as to what, if anything, they are to see. We put them in a promising location with our presumed clairvoyant (who has not, of course, been mesmerised) and at least two reliable observers who have also not been mesmerised. Now if the clairvoyant and the mesmerised subjects all report the same experience, while the observers see nothing, but are aware of the others all looking in the same direction, reacting to a common stimulus—that, I submit, would be as close to objective proof as we are ever likely to come, short of capturing a spirit and questioning it before the Royal Society."
"What would you regard as a promising location?" asked George, who, like Mr. Montague, had been listening with the utmost fascination.
"I confess I can think of nowhere better than the Hall. Ancient houses, it has always seemed to me, are like Leyden jars, quietly accumulating the influences of the past .... Most likely, of course, it would all come to nothing, but it would be an interesting experiment to try—if only we had our clairvoyant."
Once more I felt his speculative gaze upon me.
"Do you think, Miss Unwin, that—supposing your friend's experiences were to develop along the lines I've sketched—she would be willing to participate?"
"I am afraid she would not, sir," I said breathlessly, feeling my colour rising despite my best efforts. "I know her well enough to say that if she were unfortunate enough to—see anything further—she would want only to be cured of her affliction."
"Precisely so," he said sadly. I looked at him with some surprise. "I had always imagined that the hallmark of a true clairvoyant would be a desire to be rid of the gift at any cost. Which is not, of course, to say that your friend is thus afflicted, as you so vividly put it."
"Most interesting," said Ada firmly. "And now I think it is time that Miss Unwin and I retired, and left you gentlemen to drink your wine in peace."
"I am dreadfully sorry, dearest," said Ada a
s soon as we were safely upstairs. "I should never have broached the subject."
"You must not be," I said. "I chose to question him, and if it had not been for the last part ... Tell me, did George say anything to him yesterday, about my visitations?"
"No," she replied, "I am certain he didn't. But Dr. Wraxford is an acute observer, and would have guessed, I think, that you and your friend are one and the same."
"I wish I had not betrayed myself in front of Mr. Montague! It was most unnerving, his taking me for his wife. But I still do not want Edward to know about the visitations. Do you think Dr. Wraxford might have been joking, about the experiment at the Hall?"
"I don't know," said Ada. "He seems to throw ideas on and off like coats. He sounded entirely in earnest, until he made that remark about the Royal Society. He is a very clever man, I am sure of that: George is entirely captivated. And now, dearest, you must go to bed, and think no more of it; you look quite worn out."
Nevertheless, I lay awake into the small hours, alternately reproaching myself for deceiving Edward—what would I say, if Mr. Montague or Dr. Wraxford were to speak of my "friend" in his presence?—and worrying over my letter to my mother. These anxieties became more and more nightmarish until I sank into a troubled sleep, from which I emerged, as it seemed, into a vivid dream. I was wandering through a vast, deserted mansion, which I knew to be Wraxford Hall, searching for a precious jewel Edward had given me. The jewel had been lost; I did not know how, but I knew that my own carelessness was to blame. To make matters worse, I could not remember what kind of stone it was, for as I went from room to room, a voice in my head kept chanting, "Emerald, sapphire, ruby, diamond," over and over, and none of them seemed right, because the lost stone was a different, a more beautiful colour than any of those, and I knew I ought to be able to picture it, and thus recall its name, but I could not.
In the dream, the Hall was absolutely silent; the light throughout, even in corridors where there were no windows, was a pale, uniform grey like that of an overcast sky. The rooms were mostly bare of furniture; each one seemed to have its own miniature flight of stairs, up or down two or three steps, and the corridors kept changing levels in similar fashion. Though the house itself was not especially sinister, my anxiety over the fate of the jewel grew steadily more acute until it had risen to an unbearable pitch.
Then it occurred to me that I still had not searched the dining room. The thought precipitated a vertiginous change of scene; the light sank to a dim, murky brown, and I was standing in the doorway of the room where we had dined that night. The curtains were drawn, the candles snuffed; the room seemed to be empty, but as I crept toward the table, I saw, above the back of the chair in which George had sat, the dark outline of a head. I knew somehow that the head was Dr. Wraxford's. There was still time for me to slip away quietly; but perhaps the jewel had fallen into the lining of my chair, and if I were to tiptoe forward, I might be able to see it. I was within two feet of the motionless figure when a voice spoke from the doorway behind me, a word that rang like a gong, louder and louder until it became my own cry of "No!" and I woke in grey dawn light to find myself standing at the head of the stairs.
Our guests had stayed the night, but I could not face them again, and kept to my room until they had driven away. I had meant to tell Ada about my dream, if not the sleepwalking, but all thought of it was driven from my head by the delivery of a wire from my mother, consisting of just two words: "Return immediately." I knew at once that I would have to defy her, and pleaded with Ada to allow me to leave all my things at the rectory, and return that evening, if the trains allowed it.
"But then we will be in open conflict with her," said Ada, "and she may write to the bishop. Her accusations need not be true for George to lose his living."
"Then I must find a way of stopping her," I said. "The thing she fears most is losing Arthur Carstairs. And no matter what happens, I will never live with her again; if I cannot stay with you, I will seek a situation. I would rather be a parlourmaid than live with Mama."
"You do not know what you are saying," said Ada. "But of course you may come back to us; and perhaps it will not be as bad as you fear."
On the way to London, I tried to imagine every possible threat Mama might employ, and think of some counter to it. But as the cab rumbled up Highgate Hill I still felt utterly unprepared for the ordeal ahead. I realised, too, that pretty as Highgate was, it had ceased to be home to me. I thought of my father, lying in his grave a few hundred yards away—though of course he was not there, only his mortal remains; and if he had not simply ceased to be, where was his spirit?—which reminded me of my visitations, and of how I had walked in my sleep last night for the first time in many months; and of my mother's threat to have me confined; until I was set down at the familiar black-painted door, trembling so that I was scarcely able to stand.
A maid I had never seen led me past the drawing room to the parlour at the far end of the passage, where my mother sat waiting. She did not speak, but motioned me to an upright chair facing her own, as if I were an errant child about to be punished. She wore a black crepe dress, so that I wondered for a moment if some relation had died, and her pale hair was drawn back even more tightly than usual, making the bones of her face stand out against the tautened skin. As the door closed behind the maid, I saw that my mother was holding my letter between the finger and thumb of her left hand.
"Am I to take it," she said, dangling the letter as if the mere touch of it disgusted her, "that you are utterly determined to be the ruin of us all?"
"No, Mama—"
"Then you repent of this foolishness?"
"No, Mama—"
"Then you are resolved to ruin us. This—this Ravenscroft; where did you meet him?"
"At Orford, Mama. He was painting—"
"I am not interested in painting; only in how Mr. Woodward could have allowed this disgraceful liaison to develop. He has failed shamefully in his duty, and I shall write to his bishop to say so—"
"Mama, that is most—"
"Do not interrupt me. I wish to know where, and on what occasions, you met this libertine and allowed him to seduce you."
"Edward is not a libertine, Mama, and he has not seduced me; he is a respectable gentleman—"
"I thought you said that he was an artist."
"Yes, Mama, a very fine—"
"Very fine indeed! Of course he is a libertine, to take advantage of a wilful, selfish girl run wild. It is moral insanity, just as Dr. Stevenson said; I should have had you quietly confined before you disgraced us. Now listen to me. There will, of course, be no engagement. I forbid you to hold any further communication with this Ravenscroft, or to return to Mr. Woodward's house. Dr. Stevenson will examine you tomorrow, and then we will see—what is to be done with you. Do I make myself clear?"
I had sat, thus far, unable to move, transfixed by her furious stare. My tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of my mouth; the words I was struggling to utter emerged as inarticulate sounds.
"Sophie is not at home," said my mother, in answer to whatever she thought I had said. "She does not wish to see you until you have repented of this wickedness. She said to me, when she read your letter, 'I did not think any sister could be so cruel.'"
" That is not fair!" I cried. "I care very much for Sophie's happiness. Are you afraid, Mama, that the Carstairs will break the engagement if they hear that I am engaged to Edward?"
"Afraid? Afraid! Are you quite mad, Eleanor? At the merest hint that my elder daughter proposes to throw herself away upon a penniless libertine, of course they will cry off."
"And when is Sophie to be married, Mama?"
"The wedding is planned for November."
"Very well," I said, summoning my courage, "then Edward and I will not announce—we will not publish our engagement until after Sophie is married." I remembered as I spoke that I had already told Mr. Montague and Dr. Wraxford.
"How dare you bargain with me? Did you not hear me? Yo
u will not marry this Ravenscroft at all."
"You forget, Mama, that I am of age, and may marry whom I choose."
My mother seemed to swell in the dim light.
"If you do not obey me," she hissed, "I shall cut off your allowance. And I doubt that Mr. Woodward will receive you again, if he wishes to keep his living."
"If you do that, Mama," I said breathlessly, "Edward and I might as well marry at once—and then what will become of Sophie's engagement?"
She rose to her feet, eyes bulging. I thought she meant to fling herself upon me like a wild beast, and sprang up in turn, almost knocking over my chair. If she had had a dagger in her hand, I am sure she would have laid me dead on the carpet; yet, as we stood face to face, I realised, as if for the first time, that I was taller than my mother.
"Let us understand one another," I said, in a voice I scarcely recognised as my own. "Edward and I will not announce our engagement until Sophie is married, and in return you will continue my allowance until I am married, and promise not to write to the bishop. Shall we agree?"
She stared at me, speechless, for several seconds, while I braced myself for another onslaught. But instead she spoke with freezing disdain, pausing every few words for emphasis; and at every pause she tore my letter into smaller and smaller pieces, and let the fragments scatter at my feet.
"I see, Eleanor, that you are utterly beyond redemption. Very well: we will tell the Carstairs that you are ill, and have been sent for a long convalescence in the country. You will, of course, be too ill to attend Sophia's wedding; your allowance will cease from that day. I will have the rest of your things sent on to Mr. Woodward. Henceforth I have only one daughter. No—not one word more. You may leave this house now; you will not return."
She let fall the last scraps of paper and turned toward the door, ringing for the maid as she opened it.