A Bloodsmoor Romance (61 page)

Whereupon Madame smiled an enigmatic smile, and said, with dignity of a gentle, rather than a haughty, aspect: “My dear sir, your question as to
how
cannot be answered, by me: for
how,
in this instance, resides with God.”

Still they plagued her with their questions, they begged for her confidence, if only she might reveal the secret to
them,
and to
them alone:
for it was a most tortuous puzzle, as to how Deirdre of the Shadows managed all she did—the voices, the ectoplasmic apparitions, the revelations of certain truths, that, given the evidence, simply could not have been known, by her, or by anyone in the room!—for, surely, it was a most ingenious—nay, a most diabolical—trick, which might lend itself to rational explanation?

But Madame Blavatsky did naught but shake her head, so that her jowls quivered, with a most affecting air, of humility, and again spoke: “
How,
my dear sir, must
always and forever
reside with God; and not with man.”

FORTY-THREE

T
he famous investigation of Deirdre of the Shadows by the New York chapter of the Society for Psychical Research, with its scandalous—nay, tragic—results, and its sombre implications for all who would examine too closely the machinations of Spirit World, took place on a mild April evening in 1886, at the old S.P.R. headquarters at 11 Gramercy Park, a town house in red brick and brownstone with imperial granite trim, and twin sphinxes, also of granite, who stared over into the park with placid blind eyes. Deirdre was escorted to the examination by two gentlemen, Dr. Percy Dodd and his young assistant Dr. Lionel Stoughton, and a lady, Mrs. Minnie Cunningham, who enjoyed a membership not only in the S.P.R., in which very few places were reserved for members of the female sex, but in the powerful Missionaries' Alliance, which had recently spoken out with great reservation and some animosity against the “pagan-phenomenon of Spiritualism”—Mrs. Cunningham being, as she condescended to inform Deirdre, not
altogether
convinced that her sisters' harsh judgment was correct. “I shall maintain an entirely open mind, in viewing tonight's proceedings,” Mrs. Cunningham said.

It may have been obligatory for Deirdre to thank Mrs. Cunningham at this point, for both gentlemen looked at her, Dr. Dodd most emphatically: but Deirdre, seated in a corner of the plush-lined carriage, and so swathed in black shawls of cashmere, Spanish lace, and brocade subtly trimmed with black swansdown, that one might have fancied the evening chill, and not unseasonably balmy, chose to interpret the good lady's statement as complete within itself, and needing no further commentary. So she remained silent, her gaze affixed to a corner of the carriage some inches to the left of Dr. Stoughton's shoulder, and her manner eerily serene, some small apprehension indicated only by her fondling of a gold locket worn on a chain around her neck—an item of adornment of unexceptional quality, as her observers could not fail to note.

(There have recently been, I should hasten to inform the reader, in order to prevent a premature condemnation of Deirdre's judges, vulgar gossip in the
Graphic,
and one or another of the cruder three-penny papers, to the effect that “Deirdre of the Shadows” had been the recipient of a diamond- and ruby-studded serpent bracelet, some twelve inches in length, and fashioned to be worn curved about the forearm, costing upward of $20,000!—a trinket from Mr. Diamond Jim Brady himself, doubtless as a gesture of extreme gratitude for the young medium's services, or of especial interest in her on a more personal plane. That Deirdre, acting upon inscrutable but surely praiseworthy impulses, had sent the meretricious item back to Mr. Brady with but the single word
“No,”
was not of course reported: and what a pity! for the young woman had but little comprehension of how such gutter publicity should rouse
spite
and
envy
against her, and a general wish that she should
fail.
)

“The entire assemblage, Mrs. Cunningham,” Dr. Dodd said quietly, “is sworn to the necessity of
open-mindedness:
we would naturally assume you to be no exception.”

 

THAT THE SOCIETY'S
investigation into her mediumship—which is to say, frankly, into the
authenticity,
or the
fraudulence,
of it—might have justified some signal anxiety or, at the very least, concern, on Deirdre's part is but natural: unnatural, perhaps, was her peculiar affectless serenity, shading very nearly into light trance, as the hour approached. She consented without protest to the private examination of her person, which involved
partial disrobing,
by several members of the Ladies' Committee: an accommodation to the Society's scrupulosity that might very well have offended the taste of a delicate young lady (as, indeed, it greatly angered many mediums, who avowed that they could not, and would not, comply); she seemed to view with equanimity, if some slight ironic humor, the close guard put upon her by Mrs. Cunningham and two other ladies, afterward escorting her upstairs into the Society's grand parlor. Nor did she view with alarm the large gathering that awaited her—some seventy-five persons, at the very least—and the rather grave countenances of the eight gentlemen of the examining committee, seated at the front of the room, at a long table draped in deep crimson velvet.
It is but your outward form they perceive,
a wise spirit-voice assured her,
your truest self, residing safely with
us,
the fools cannot apprehend.

Yet such was the young lady's maturity, or, at any rate, the condition of her being so greatly practiced in her skill, that she had no true need even of the spirit's consolation: for she doubtless knew the fools would never apprehend her, without being told of the fact. Indeed, her mind was already detaching itself from the high-ceilinged parlor, and the assembled ladies and gentlemen, with their great variety of expressions—some of which, despite Dr. Dodd's assurance, frankly communicated
suspicion
and even
contempt,
and not a little
inquisitional appetite:
her mind, sinking into passivity, withdrew from the jarring diversity of the visible world, and took solace, in a manner of speaking, in the invisible, where she might think and dream and summon forth all manner of memories, while the spirits advanced, to gather themselves close about her. In this state of
light trance,
which the medium would systematically deepen, by some mysterious volitionless volition of her own, she would be free to entertain such thoughts as those stimulated by her visit to the Fanshawe Theatre some time previously, and by the frequent accident of her sharing a page in the
Tribune
or the
Graphic
with the acclaimed stage actress Malvinia Morloch—now enjoying yet another conspicuous success, in a lavishly produced presentation of
She Stoops to Conquer;
she might passionlessly contemplate the angry, tearful farewell between herself and Madame Blavatsky that had occurred not a week before, just prior to Madame's removal of herself and her most cherished
chelas
to Bombay—the anger, and the tears, being exclusively on Madame's side, as well as unseemly accusations of “betrayal,” “wanton cruelty,” and “Luciferian pride.” Indeed, so impenetrable was the trance into which Deirdre of the Shadows sank, while her inquisitors gazed upon her
outward
and
material form,
that she freely visited the parlor of the Octagonal House, where, at that very moment, her adoptive father and mother, her stepsister Samantha, and sleepy-headed Pip, had gathered; Mr. Zinn in his usual chair, Mrs. Zinn in hers, knitting an item of clothing for “Little Godfrey”—but who was “Little Godfrey”?—and chatting companionably about “Nahum” and “Mr. Watkins”—but who were
they?
—in total oblivion of Deirdre's spirit-presence. To her credit, the imperturbable Deirdre gazed almost with longing upon this warm domestic scene, and bethought herself that, had she her physical being, she should want very much to—nay, she
would
—bestow a light kiss not only upon the brow of the handsome Mr. Zinn, but upon the somewhat creased brow of Mrs. Zinn, and the small palely freckled cheek of Samantha! and then depart, in the very next instant.

Such were the perplexing skills of the medium's mind,
during the very time when the examination was beginning,
and when, still in her own voice, she forthrightly if rather mechanically answered questions put to her by the gentlemen of the committee. There she sat, on a slightly raised platform, in a sturdy C-scroll chair with a velvet cushion and velvet arm-rests, at apparent ease, tho' exhibiting satisfactorily good posture; there she sat, unalarmed by the multitude of eyes fixed upon her, a young woman of decidedly exotic countenance—with her prominent widow's peak, and her loos'd black hair that seemed frazzled and stiff with electricity, and the uncanny gray eyes which glinted with an impersonal authority, like mica (how totally altered from that furtive, feral, shrinking child of thirteen years previously, when she was first brought to dwell with the Zinns!); there she sat, I repeat, calmly answering questions asked by Dr. Dodd, and Dr. Stoughton, and Professor Crosby, and Mr. Sinnett, and Dr. Eglinton, and Sir Patrick Koones, and Mr. Oakley-Hume, and Professor Bey—while her mind was fully occupied elsewhere, and the spirits, unbeknownst to the others, silently gathered.

 

(HOW DEIRDRE OF
the Shadows managed the following harlequinade, I do not know—no more than the mystified Nathaniel Hawthorne could grasp how Daniel Dunglas Home summoned forth
his
spirits, and made lights fly flashing about the room, and immense pieces of furniture dance, all the while being closely observed. Since the official investigation of Deirdre of the Shadows of April 21, 1886, is included in the eleventh volume of the historic fifteen-volume compendium,
The Transactions of the American Society for Psychical Research,
it is a matter of public record, and one dare not doubt its veracity—however unsettling to the Christian mentality, and to common standards of decency and sanity.)

 

DR. DODD, AS
the President of the Society, began by asking certain formal questions of Deirdre—her full name, her birthplace, background, and so forth—and the young woman, gravely composed, replied succinctly that she was no more than “Deirdre of the Shadows,” and could not explain herself further. “The spirits have thus baptized me,” she said, “and I cannot contradict their wishes.”

After a startl'd pause, Dr. Dodd proceeded to inquire into her professional background, receiving this response: “My first séance was conducted at Landsdowne House, in the late autumn of 1879, as the Society doubtless knows—if its records are thorough.”

“And this
début,
” Dr. Dodd said, “was it not under the auspices of Mrs. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy?”

“It was under no one's auspices,” Deirdre said, “save perhaps Mrs. Holtman Strong's—or that of the friendly spirits themselves.”

“But Mrs. Blavatsky
was
present, I believe?” Dr. Dodd asked.

“She was present,” Deirdre said evenly, “along with divers others, whose names I am afraid I have forgotten.”

“And where is Mrs. Blavatsky at the present time?”

“She has allegedly departed for India,” Deirdre said, with a very slight curl of her pert upper lip, “and I doubt—I strongly doubt—that our paths shall cross again, in this life.”

Here was intercalated some questioning by Professor Crosby, and Sir Patrick Koones, who wished to know more about the medium's association with Mrs. Blavatsky, and with the “discredited” Theosophical Society in general; and then Dr. Stoughton (happening to be the youngest gentleman on the committee, with a handsome, forthright countenance, and a strong but courteous voice) observed that “Mrs. Blavatsky is not tonight under investigation, her case having been decided some time past,” and that the questioning should continue, “along a more temperate line.”

Despite Dr. Stoughton's wise counsel, however, Professor Crosby continued his line of interrogation, asking the medium whether she was familiar with one “Count Youry,” a trance medium residing for a time in Boston, and long since exposed as a fraud, and arrested as a common felon, said “Count Youry” having been an early protégé of Mrs. Blavatsky's. Whereupon the medium paused for the briefest of instants, and replied, in a voice of great dignity: “Should you desire to bring to trial the Countess Blavatsky, you must transport her hither by your own efforts: for my spirits have assured me,
they
are not capable of doing so.”

This response was so fluidly offered, it was a moment before the audience comprehended its wit: and the gentlemen of the committee, Professor Crosby in particular, glanced out, annoyed, at a small flurry of laughter. Dr. Dodd, too, frowned as if distinctly annoyed, and the laughter at once subsided.

Next, Dr. Eglinton, a blunt-featured gentleman in a gray frock coat that ill fit his massive frame, asked the medium, in an imperial voice, whether she would reconsider, as to informing the Society of her background, for “it could not be a matter of any anxiety, in an
honest
and
law-abiding
career,” that such information be made public.

Whereupon the medium said: “I know only that I am baptized ‘Deirdre of the Shadows,' and that my life previous to this baptism is of no account. The spirits have selected me, I am given to understand, as
the bearer of good tidings, heralding the New Dispensation.
”

“The ‘New Dispensation'?” Dr. Eglinton asked sharply.