A Rich Full Death

14

We were led through into a back parlour, hung with tapestries and very sparsely furnished: just a plain sideboard, supporting a single candlestick, and a circular table surrounded by seven high-backed chairs. On the table lay a semi-circular cloth with the letters of the alphabet inscribed around its rim, and two spaces within, marked respectively Yes and No. Nearby stood the small heart-shaped board mounted on rollers which the spiritualists term a ‘planchette’.

When we had taken our places-this operation being supervised by Miss Kate-Miss Chauncey directed us to take the hand of the person sitting to either side of us. I complied with no very great enthusiasm, placed as I was between Miss Jessica Tate and the Very Reverend Tinker. Miss Tate’s member proved to be clammy, and given to frequent and presumably involuntary spasms; the man of religion had an almost fiercely positive grasp, which may have been intended to conceal the underlying tremor which I nevertheless detected.

We were now directed to close our eyes, and to concentrate all our thoughts on Isabel. This I duly tried to do, but I found to my consternation that every image came out first as stiff as a waxwork, and then began to melt and run, producing that hideous discoloration and rictus of the corpse I will never be able to forget. To rid myself of these visions I opened my eyes-and was unnerved to find Edith Chauncey, who was sitting opposite, staring fixedly back at me with unblinking insistence, as though inspecting some interesting detail etched on the interior of my skull.

I immediately assumed that I had incurred her displeasure by disturbing the ectoplasmic vibrations, or whatever. A moment later, however, I realised that her stare was too intense and unyielding to be a glare of disapproval, however strong. What was disturbing in her expression-as with that of a blind person — was what was not there: direction, focus, intent. Those eyes did not see me, did not see any of us. Edith Chauncey had entered her trance.

Her sister now instructed us to open our eyes, release our hands, and place the index finger of our right hand on the planchette. The little board rolled idly about for a moment or two under the various impulses it received, and was still.

For a few minutes nothing whatever happened. Then, so faintly at first that it was only after hearing it for some time that I understood what it was, a voice became audible in the room: a low resonant voice, unlike any I had heard so far. But I soon realised that it was emanating from Miss Chauncey’s throat, although at least an octave deeper than her usual organ.

‘Isabel … Isabel … Isabel …’ she intoned, drawing the word out so lengthily that it sounded as though she was about to formulate a question concerning the nature of bells.

My feeling had at first been one of lively interest, coupled with a little natural apprehension. However, as time went by, and Edith Chauncey’s trance-voice droned on, repeating Isabel’s name over and over again, with intervals of silence during which I became uncomfortably aware of a dull ache in the arm which was extended to touch the planchette, it all began to feel like one of those ‘improving’ Saturday evenings which my mother and her cronies used to get up for the Boston Women’s Guild, when someone would recite half of Southey’s ‘Vision of Judgement’, and you had to sit very very still and try to look as if you didn’t care how much longer it went on.

Then, quite suddenly, the planchette, which had been immobile all this time, jerked violently first to one side of the cloth and then another. I was far too much amazed at the way the thing moved-as though with a will of its own-to consider where it was going, but Kate Chauncey kept careful watch, and at length spelled out the word made up of the letters over which the tip of the board rested for an instant at the culmination of each spasm that shook it.

‘D,e,v,e,r,e,’ she murmured. ‘Surely that is the name of the young diplomat who passed over so tragically the other day?’

She went on to mutter something I did not quite catch about ‘interference’.

‘Where is Isabel?’ her sister meanwhile demanded, slightly querulously. ‘Come to us, Isabel. Come! Come!’

The board twitched a few times, and then moved to indicate the word No.

‘Why have you come, Mr DeVere?’ Miss Chauncey returned-a shade tactlessly I thought, though it is difficult for a novice to know what is or is not acceptable in this novel form of social intercourse. At all events, the spirit did not appear to be offended. Perhaps the dead are above such things.

I speak for Isabel, the planchette spelt out.

‘Will Isabel not come herself?’

Not in this way.

Edith Chauncey pondered this cryptic reply for what seemed like a very long time. I took the opportunity to glance quickly around the table: everyone was staring fixedly at the little wooden trolley which had so swiftly established itself as an eighth presence in the room.

‘Perhaps the vibrations are not yet in harmony,’ Miss Chauncey murmured at last. ‘And yet we have made all due preparations. The doors and windows have been locked and bolted, to ensure continuity; the lamps have been dimmed and the circle of hands formed. We are seven, a holy and mystical number: the gifts of the Holy Ghost are seven, Our Lord spoke seven times upon the cross, there are seven phrases in the prayer He taught His disciples, and His Holy Mother had seven joys and seven sorrows, while scholars both Christian and pagan inform us that there are seven saving virtues and seven sins that damn. Why will Isabel then not come?’

Not worthy of her perfect spirit.

‘This means of contact is not to her liking?’

With her voice she would speak.

Apparently this all made some sense to Edith Chauncey-to me it seemed merely another example of something I have often observed in published accounts of spirit-conversations, namely that those on ‘the other side’ seem to be as unwilling as Shakespeare’s tiresome Clowns to give a straight answer to any question. My interest was once again beginning to wane. What with the ‘stagey’ nature of the dialogue-in particular Miss Chauncey’s plum speech, clearly got by heart beforehand-I began to feel pretty certain that the whole business was a hoax- and not a very good one.

‘But why have you come?’ pursued Miss Chauncey.

I bring a message.

To whom?’

To all and to none.

‘And what is your message?’

I died too soon.

At this, as you can imagine, I pricked up my ears.

‘Poor spirit!’ Edith Chauncey commented. ‘Indeed, a tragic accident freed you from the burdens of material existence before your term.’

No accident.

‘Was it then your own unhappy hand which removed you from this vale of tears?’

I was murdered.

I looked around at my companions, just visible in the candlelight which stirred up the shadows like shapes underwater. Baron Kirkup sat staring up at nothing in particular, a little smile playing about his lips-whether ironical or merely senile I could not tell. Miss Jessie Tate looked intense, as usual, but also harrowed, and rather furtive. The Reverend Tinker’s enormous features were illuminated by a look of beatific benevolence which looked as though it had been obtained wholesale from a five-and-dime emporium in his native city; while Charles Nicholas Grant exuded an air of well-bred embarrassment, as though we were all sitting over dinner and someone had said something faintly indelicate.

‘And who did this terrible thing?’ continued Miss Chauncey-who did not seem particularly surprised by this development. But the spirit was being coy again.

I cannot say.

‘You must say! Both for our sakes and for yours, you must reveal the name of this evil person. For our sakes, because he may strike again. For yours, because until he is brought to justice your spirit will remain blocked by Desire for Revenge, and will be unable to ascend beyond the Fourth Level. Tell us his name, therefore-you who see everything that has been, is, and will be! Who murdered you? What is his name?’

We all stared fixedly at the planchette as though our lives depended on it. The board stirred beneath the seven fingers resting on it, and with a mighty impulse shook off our restraining control and flew clean off the table into the corner of the room-where I for one should not have been particularly surprised to see it scuttle away into the wainscotting like a rat.

Jessie Tate rose.

‘We had best stop,’ she said curtly. ‘Something is wrong. No good can come of this.’

‘I’ve never known such a thing to happen before!’ Kate Chauncey replied. ‘That poor spirit must be filled with negative energies.’

It seemed as though the ‘seance’ was at an end, when suddenly the most extraordinary thing happened. I felt a rush, as of air moving in a body; the candle was instantly extinguished, but instead of total darkness there came a weird unearthly glow in the air … and all at once I heard Isabel speaking!

There was no ‘like’ or ‘as if. It was Isabel herself: that unmistakable, thrilling voice I had never thought to hear again!

‘I have come,’ she said. ‘Not with the spirit board, but with my own voice would I speak. I too have a message for all and for none. I too have been taken from your midst, not by my own sinful act, but cruelly slain by an evil hand!’

Now I am fully aware that these words, set down in black and white and read by you sitting comfortably in your armchair, will appear no less contrived than the earlier utterances I recorded, ascribed to DeVere, which had totally failed to convince me of their authenticity. I must therefore ask you for the moment to take on trust the fact that I did not for one single moment doubt that I was now listening to the real and true voice of Isabel Allen, speaking to me from beyond the grave.

The reason for this sudden access of faith is simply explained: it was the voice itself which convinced me! All the apparatus of spiritualism-the boards and apparitions, turning tables and rapping panels-has always served merely to increase my scepticism. The more complex the machinery, the more easily the effect may be faked. I may not know precisely how any more than I know how a conjuror makes a dozen rabbits appear in his hat, and then changes them into so many doves. But it is of no account: I know the trick can be worked, and clearly perceive the margin where the fudging takes place.

But what margin was there here? There was nothing but a voice, as unmistakable as a touch or a forgotten scent, coming at you under the skin, behind the brain, circumventing the reason (so easy to deceive with its own cleverness) and breaking straight in upon the spirit to proclaim in accents clear and absolute that Isabel was there among us. Oh, I believed! I had no choice.

But where was it coming from? Had there been some mystery about that I might still have doubted-if I had traced the sound behind some hanging, or inside some piece of furniture, or under the floorboards. Instead, by the strange half-light glimmering down from the lamp-bowl above our heads, I made out quite clearly that it was Edith Chauncey herself who was speaking.

‘Aha!’ I hear you say, ‘so that was the trick!’ But no, don’t you see? My point is that there was no trick-that no attempt was made to disguise or dress up this plain fact, as would have been so easy to do: the usual farce, with the Chaunceys’ maid wandering about the room with a white sheet draped round her shoulders. None of that! Just that elderly woman sitting in her place, as majestic and imposing as a Sibyl, through whose throat Isabel spoke to us in her own voice. And if I had still harboured any doubts, what she said would have clinched the matter-for it was the terrible truth.

‘I too have been the victim of a criminal plot, like that other spirit who spoke to you. But unlike him I am not tied by thoughts of vengeance to this earthly sphere, nor would I obstruct my spirit’s passage to the higher realms by dwelling on such unworthy matters. Thanks to my spiritualist training with you, dear Edith, I was already prepared to pass over, and I left my earthly life behind without regrets. But while that unhappy soul is at large, others may be forced to transit before their time. Prepare yourselves, therefore, to learn who took my life. The name will amaze you, yet I speak the truth, for we spirits cannot lie. Know, then, that I was horribly murdered and done to death by-’

All the while Isabel was speaking I had gradually become aware of a strange turbulence-I know not how else to describe it-of the table about which we were all seated. It was as if the thing were afloat, at first upon a sea almost dead calm, with just the slightest swell betraying the mighty potency beneath; then somewhat choppier, frisking on little wavelets; and finally swaying up and dipping down, as though impelled by the passage of long ocean rollers, outriders from the storm that suddenly broke, without warning, cutting off Isabel’s final words as the table reared up and crashed down upon the speaker amid the cries and exclamations of all the assembled company.

Well this time of course it was the end-for by the time the maid had come running, and the lamps had been lit, and Miss Chauncey had been extricated, and we had assured ourselves that she had sustained no serious injury, there was clearly no possibility of restarting the ‘seance’-and precious little desire, either, if most people’s expressions were anything to judge by. Even those with considerable acquaintance of supernatural experiences seemed to be badly shaken by what they had witnessed. Seymour Kirkup, for example, was grey and drawn.

‘We have indeed had a fortunate escape,’ he pronounced in his strange cracked voice. ‘There was an evil presence in this room, of that I have not the slightest doubt. Rarely have I sensed the power of Satan more palpably.’

Miss Chauncey appeared at first to be completely ignorant of the astonishing results of her spirtual exertions, but as soon as these had been explained to her she announced her determination to make another attempt to contact Isabel’s spirit later that night, and try and learn the identity of her murderer.

Rather to my surprise, both Seymour Kirkup and Miss Jessie Tate went out of their way to try and dissuade her from doing so.

‘I really must beg you not to meddle any further with this matter,’ Kirkup implored. ‘The forces involved are more powerful and more malevolent than you can conceive. Spiritualism is all very well, Miss Chauncey, but we must acknowledge its limitations. Here I sense the presence of Powers of Darkness which can be manipulated only by the exercise of certain esoteric arts of which, forgive me for saying so, you are utterly ignorant.’

But the indignant ‘medium’ did not forgive what she clearly saw as an insult to her skill and professional standing.

‘No one is more powerful than the spirits, except for God Himself-and I need not fear Him,’ she proclaimed boldly. ‘Were all the forces of hell ranged against me, Mr Kirkup, I should not shrink from my duty to Isabel, who spoke of me so kindly just now. Nor do I need to know any heathen spells or mumbo-jumbo filched from musty old books to confront the spirits, who are my friends. We meet together naked, face to face, and know no shame,’ she concluded blithely.

Kirkup merely muttered something in a language I did not recognise, and made the sign of the cross. Jessie Tate also tried to persuade her friend not to exert herself any more that night, using more homely arguments-she would over-exert herself and impair her health. But Miss Chauncey remained admirably firm in her resolve, saying only that she would rest for a short while before making a fresh attempt to wrest the name of Isabel’s murderer from beyond the grave.

By now, I could quite frankly stand no more. I hardly heard what was going on any longer. My brain was reeling from the knowledge that Isabel had spoken from the dead, that the dead do survive, that death is not just a hole into which we drop and are no more, that there is a meaning and a plan to everything, as Mr Browning plainly believes. Why did this revelation-which I had so often fervently sought and prayed for-now seem more dreadfully depressing than my blackest nihilistic nights had ever been?

Obsessed with these and other matters, I took my leave with almost brutal haste. Social niceties were, however, the last things which anyone was concerned about at that moment, and my perfunctory farewells-indeed, my very departure-passed almost unnoticed.

It would be vain even to attempt to describe my state of mind that night in any detail. If I told the truth I should scarcely believe myself, never mind expect anyone else to do so. Besides, the whole affair was very shortly destined to become the subject of a quite different kind of examination, as you will see, and there is no point in anticipating that event. Let me therefore say only that when I returned home I was so utterly exhausted in both mind and body that I simply fell into bed and passed straight into a fitful sleep, crammed like a bolster with the rags of scrappy dreams.

I was awakened at ten o’clock the next morning by Piero, who-when I asked him angrily why the devil he had ignored his standing orders to leave me undisturbed-replied that there was a policeman at the door with a message for me. Before I had a chance to say anything a burly individual of unpleasing demeanour pushed his way into the room, and informed me, without any over-indulgence in the more rarefied forms of politeness, that my presence was requested at the Bargello-which is the Police Headquarters in Florence.

I felt as though the earth had suddenly and unaccountably been whisked away from beneath my feet. Nevertheless, I attempted to maintain that tone of careless arrogance which the Italians expect from foreigners-not easy to do when one is surprised in one’s nightshirt-and enquired coolly if I might know the reason. Imagine my feelings when he replied that I was to be interrogated in connection with the death of an Englishwoman, by name Edith Chauncey!