A Bloodsmoor Romance (62 page)

“Whereby the Resurrection of the Spirit is properly understood,” Deirdre said without hesitation, “and the material world is transform'd.”

“But precisely how, my dear child,” Mr. Sinnett asked with a fond, if rather peremptory, smile, “is the material world to be transform'd!”

Deirdre paused; and it might have been observed that her large gray eyes had become somewhat glassy. After a placid moment she said: “Mr. Sinnett—for I believe that is your name?—you must not condescend with me, or suggest familiarity: for the spirits will be displeased, and I cannot answer as to the punitive capacities of the least mature among them.”

“Ah! The young lady threatens us!” Dr. Eglinton said, with a startl'd laugh.

“It was not a threat—not precisely a threat,” Mr. Sinnett said. “I interpret it as a rather charming rebuke, the which I own I probably deserve! My apologies,
Mademoiselle.
”

Dr. Dodd, clearing his throat, returned briefly to the subject of the medium's background, inquiring of her whether, to her knowledge, there was an
hereditary history
of psychic powers in her family—this information always being valuable, for the record: but the medium greeted this question with an imperturbable silence, as if beneath her consideration to answer.

After an uncomfortable moment Sir Patrick Koones said to Dr. Dodd: “Is she already in trance? I say, she is a
most
peculiar lass!”

“Perhaps she means only to indicate that questions concerning personal background will not be answered,” Mr. Oakley-Hume said in an uneasy voice.

“And yet,” Professor Crosby said, “
why
will they not be answered? It strikes me as distinctly suspicious.”

“Professor Crosby,” Dr. Dodd said, “you forget yourself. Please, sir.”

“Is the medium in trance?” Mr. Sinnett said, leaning far forward. “Are the spirits present?”

“The spirits are always present,” Deirdre said in a slow sepulchral voice. “Hence they must not be trifled with.”

“Ah, surely no one means to trifle with them!” Professor Bey ejaculated.

“Or to trifle with so haughty a miss!” Dr. Eglinton observed.

“Dr. Eglinton,
you
forget yourself as well,” Dr. Dodd said, and there was a stir of approbation from the audience. “I must ask you to keep in order.”

The questions then proceeded, pertaining more exclusively to the medium's comprehension of her exact role, as an intermediary between the “two worlds,” and Deirdre's answers were forthcoming, if rather slow and glacial in tone: to the point at which Mr. Sinnett (the “layman” of the committee, and, in fact, a journalist for the Boston
Journal
) could not restrain himself from exclaiming: “Gentlemen, is this young lady in a trance? She looks decidedly unwell—perhaps we should stop. It is all very, very queer—”

Dr. Dodd assured Mr. Sinnett, with barely concealed impatience, that the medium might very well have put herself into a light trance, preparatory to the séance itself; that being her prerogative if she so desired.

Mr. Sinnett replied, embarrassed, that so long as the other gentlemen were not alarmed, and several physicians were present, he supposed that the young lady was not in danger: but she
looked,
he murmured, so deucedly strange! “So deathly-pale a complexion, in a living creature,” he said, “I swear I have never seen.”

The other gentlemen remonstrated with him, and even young Dr. Stoughton demurred, stating that such
personal observations
were irrelevant to the investigation, and distracting moreover. Whereupon Professor Crosby resolutely said: “It is the
odylic force
that renders her so pale, gentlemen. She summons it forth, out of the female organs—by a process but dimly understood. When it is in full flower, so to speak, she will utilize it—you shall see!—to read our minds.”

“Professor Crosby, that is most injudicious,” Dr. Stoughton said, blushing. “It is—most unfair.”

“Odylic force?” Mr. Sinnett inquired of Professor Crosby, leaning in his direction. “What, sir, might that be? I am quite in the dark!”

Before Dr. Dodd could rule him out of order, Professor Crosby said, as if lecturing to the entire assemblage: “O-d-y-l-i-c. Odylic force. A form of electricity, Mr. Sinnett—magnetism. By which the medium penetrates the minds of others—heaves furniture about—causes a general consternation of the air. First proposed by the Baron Reichenbach, deriving obliquely from Mesmer's animal magnetism, and quite a viable hypothesis—in fact I am publishing a little monograph on the subject in the fall—”

“Professor Crosby, you forget yourself,” Dr. Dodd said sharply.

Tho' the gentleman declined to apologize, the examination continued along more conventional lines: questions being put to the medium not only by members of the committee, but by several members of the audience, regarding her understanding of “powers” and of their value to the world. These questions the young woman answered in a slow, halting voice, tho' her words were distinct enough. “The dead are not dead . . . the living are not separate from the dead . . . the worlds are so vastly, vastly populated . . . our dead . . . our belovèd dead . . . close as every breath we inhale.”

(At which Professor Crosby could not resist interjecting, to Mr. Oakley-Hume: “Chemical excitations in young females arise from the reproductive organs, to flood the brain. It may be an epileptoid dysfunction as well—I have seen it often in ‘psychic' mediums.”)

The medium, while evidently in trance, her head held high and her frost-hued eyes fixed upon an indefinite point in space, nevertheless o'erheard this remark, and said in an even, but forceful, voice: “If you continue to mock, sir, the good spirits will be o'ercome by the malicious: and I cannot promise sufficient control over them, to fully protect you.”

Sir Patrick Koones murmured to his colleagues that they
must
show respect, whatever disdain they truly felt; and Professor Bey, shifting about restlessly in his chair, observed that he should like very much to examine the medium's skull—he had been promised that he
might
have this privilege—for it was highly likely that Deirdre of the Shadows suffered from the phreno-organization of the classic
psychopathological spondylosoid:
the symptoms being a distinct ridge of bone at the crown of the skull, and numerous small bumps at the base.

Mr. Sinnett interrupted excitedly to say that he had seen something—a spirit, perhaps!—sliding under the door.

Whereupon all the gentlemen turned to look, in the direction he pointed; but professed to see nothing. Dr. Eglinton exhibited some impatient amusement, stating in a low voice that the profession of journalism doubtless accommodated certain excesses of the imagination, not enjoyed by the scientific mentality. Sir Patrick Koones adjusted his
pince-nez,
which were fastened to his waistcoat by a silver chain, and said, after a strained moment, that he fancied he did see something in the room—now in that corner, above the gilt cornice—now entwined about the chandelier overhead. “A manifestation, it may be. Ectoplasm in a very amorphous state.”

“Nonsense!” said Professor Crosby. “And yet, it is very peculiar, I am suddenly
chilled.
”

“I too am chilled—my legs in particular,” Mr. Oakley-Hume said, with some agitation. “There seems to be a draft in here.”

Mr. Sinnett rose to his feet, smiling in great perplexity. “Perhaps Miss Deirdre too is cold?
Is
there a draft? Shall I check the windows, or the door?”

Professor Bey too arose, tho' slowly. He had drawn out of a leather satchel a peculiar instrument, something like a headdress, tho' of metal, with several joined curved bands. “Perhaps it is out of order—perhaps it is premature—but I should like—ah, I should so
very
like—to be assured of—to be allowed—” he said, with a smile no less perplexed than Mr. Sinnett's, but a great deal wider.

Dr. Dodd and the others stared at him in amazement, and urged him to be seated.

“It is that—that
thing
in the chandelier,” Sir Patrick Koones whispered. “Cannot someone make it go away?”

“There is
nothing
there,” Professor Crosby said irritably. “I see nothing.”

“Nor do I.
Where
is it?” Dr. Eglinton asked, amused.

“Now it is expanding, and growing very thin,” Sir Patrick Koones said quietly. “It means to envelop, I halfway fear, the entire room.”

“It has a slight acrid odor, does it not?” Mr. Oakley-Hume said.

Professor Bey remained on his feet, albeit somewhat shakily, his bony shoulders hunched forward, and his mustache now glistening with saliva. He was a gentleman of some years, yet possessing, withal, a reputation for youthful vigor of purpose: it was to be said of him, after this particular evening, that
whatever got into him
simply could not be dislodged, and
was not him
in any case. For he suddenly dropped his measuring instrument, and began speaking in a voice of great urgency: “I—I—I must know, and know upon the spot:
Is
my Saviour awaiting me? In that other world? Are His promises legitimate?”

“Why, he is babbling,” Dr. Eglinton said.

“Professor Bey, what is wrong?” Dr. Dodd asked, in astonishment.

“I must know this one thing, and then I will be content,” Professor Bey said, his voice quavering. “All else—all such tomfoolery—” and here he indicated, with a careless gesture of his hand, the metallic instrument, the leather satchel, and, indeed, his colleagues at the long table! “All such vanity is merely a waste of our time, and
our time,
alas, is fast running out.”

“Dear Rodney,” Dr. Eglinton said, tugging at his arm, “you must be seated: it is not quite the place for jesting.”

“I do not jest, sir! How dare you!”

“He is unwell,” Professor Crosby whispered to Dr. Dodd. “Perhaps a mild stroke—an incursion of senile dementia—”

(And all the while Deirdre of the Shadows remained unperturbed—quite oblivious to the drama! Where her unfeeling soul had drifted, I dare not speculate; but those “windows of the soul”—the eyes—now reflected very little that was
warm with life,
let alone
human.
)

Some minutes were taken up by Professor Bey's distress, the members of the committee being unable to agree whether to persuade the unfortunate gentleman to leave, or to allow him to stay, or to adjourn the séance for another time—this last being rather impractical, under the circumstances. He continued to address Deirdre of the Shadows in a high, forlorn voice, quite at odds with his wide smile. “
Is
my Saviour awaiting?
Is
He close by? Of a sudden I am so very, very frightened—I believe we are all frightened—as the dread year 1900 approaches—the dread and
unimaginable
year 1900—and I am visited by a sudden terror—that He has departed—and that we cannot even mock Him any longer! For what shall we mock, my colleagues, if not
Him?
”

“He is not jesting, he has gone quite mad,” Dr. Eglinton said. With a large white handkerchief this gentleman wiped at his brow, which was freely perspiring, despite the chill of the room.

“I see naught but a great, great expanse of water—serene and oily—all waves abated, all storms—thousands upon thousands of tons of sheer dead pressure—millions of tons—
billions
—”

Dr. Dodd, Dr. Stoughton, and Mr. Sinnett attempted to calm the o'erwrought man, and to lead him from the room: and were joined in their struggle by a youthful member of the Society, Professor Bey's grandson, himself a physician. Seeing himself trapped, the old gentleman made a rush toward Deirdre, now crying in a loud aggrieved voice: “Why is He so rarely present—even when we abuse Him? You must tell me! You must cease this charade! For
nothing, nothing, nothing
matters save that Jesus Christ is a hoax, or is not a hoax—”

In the embarrassing contretemps a decanter of water was knocked to the floor, and Mr. Oakley-Hume was struck in the face by Professor Bey's flailing arm. At this most inopportune moment the gas jets everywhere in the large room faltered, and grew bright again, and again faltered, as if about to go out: which, I hardly need to note, further alarmed Professor Bey, and disturbed everyone in the room.

During all this time the young medium remained immobile in her chair, her waxen hands clasped tightly in her lap, and her sightless gaze fixed in space. A voice sepulchral as hers, yet not hers (it was that of an elderly, weary man) sounded from the air:

“Jesus is you, and you are Jesus, and He is in you, and everywhere; and nowhere. Prepare for His coming.”

These grave words, however, far from calming Professor Bey, so greatly distressed him that it was deemed advisable, by all, that he be led out of the room, and home: and in this he gratefully concurred.

“I shall prepare—I shall prepare—ah, yes!—I shall prepare this very night,” he was heard to say, as his grandson escorted him out of the room, and along the corridor.

 

AFTER THIS UNFORTUNATE
interlude there was a brief respite, as the committee members conferred with one another, in low tones. A gathering restiveness in the audience, however, suddenly manifested itself in an unauthorized question, put directly to the medium, by a stout veiled lady at the very rear of the room: “Is there hope? Is there hope? As the old gentleman asked,
Is there hope?
”—but this importunate individual was immediately hushed.

Now a great many voices sounded simultaneously, from out the very air: and were perceived as spirit-voices. And the gas jets flickered once more. The chandelier swayed; or, it might have been (so many attested afterward),
the parlor swayed,
rocking gently from side to side, whilst the chandelier remained fixed! One or two ladies exclaimed aloud, in voices that communicated both fear, and thrilled apprehension, and were answered by a series of raps—loud, sharp raps—which came also from the empty air.