Might there be a further price? If she is going to be at Arthur's side in all things, then she must face what up till now she has run from. On the few occasions that Arthur has mentioned his interest in psychical matters, she has turned away. Inwardly, she has shuddered at the vulgarity and stupidity of that world: at silly old men pretending to go into trances, at old crones in frightful wigs gazing into crystal balls, at people holding hands in the darkness and making one another jump. And it has nothing to do with religion, which means morality. And the notion that this… mumbo-jumbo appeals to her beloved Arthur is both upsetting and barely credible. How can someone like Arthur, whose reasoning power is second to none, allow himself to associate with such people?
It is true that her great friend Lily Loder-Symonds is an enthusiast for table-turning, but Jean regards this as a whimsicality. She discourages talk of séances, even though Lily assures her they are full of respectable people. Perhaps she should talk the matter through with Lily first, as a way of conquering her distaste. No, that would be pusillanimous. She is marrying Arthur, after all, not Lily.
So when he arrives on his way north, she sits him down, listens dutifully to news of the investigation, and then says, to his evident surprise, 'I should very much like to meet this young man of yours.'
'Would you, my darling? He is a very decent fellow, horribly traduced. I am sure he would be honoured and delighted.'
'He is a Parsee, I think you said?'
'Well, not exactly. His father-'
'What do Parsees believe, Arthur? Are they Hindoos?'
'No, they are Zoroastrians.' Arthur enjoys requests like this. The fundamental mystery of women can, he thinks, be encompassed and held at bay as long as he is allowed to explain things to them. He describes, with settled confidence, the historical origins of the Parsees, their characteristic appearance, their headgear, their liberal attitude to women, their tradition of being born on the ground floor of the house. He passes over the ceremony of purification, since this involves ablution with cow urine; but is expatiating upon the central position of astrology in Parsee life, and heading towards the towers of silence and the posthumous attention of vultures, when Jean raises her hand to stop him. She realizes that this is not the way to do things. The history of Zoroastrianism is not helping make the smooth transition she has somehow hoped for. Also, it feels dishonest, against her view of herself.
'Arthur, my dear,' she interrupts. 'There is something I wish to talk about.'
He looks surprised, and slightly alarmed. If he has always valued her directness, there is a residual suspicion within him that whenever a woman says something must be talked about, it is rarely something to a man's comfort or advantage.
'I want you to explain to me your involvement in… do you call it spiritism or spiritualism?'
'Spiritism is the term I prefer, but it seems to be losing currency. However, I thought you disliked the entire subject.' He means more than this: that she fears and despises the whole subject – and, a fortiori, its adherents.
'Arthur, I could not dislike anything you are interested in.' She means less than this: that she hopes she cannot dislike anything he is interested in.
And so he begins to explain his involvement, from experiments in thought-transference with the future architect of Undershaw to conversations inside Buckingham Palace with Sir Oliver Lodge. At all points he stresses the scientific origins and procedures of psychical research. He goes very carefully, making it sound as respectable and unthreatening as he can. His tone as much as his words begins to reassure her a little.
'It is true, Arthur, that Lily has talked to me a little about table-turning, but I suppose I have always considered it against Church teaching. Is it not heresy?'
'It goes against Church institutions, that is true. Not least because it cuts out the middleman.'
'Arthur! That is hardly a proper way to speak about the clergy'
'But it is what, historically, they have been. Middlemen, intermediaries. Conveyors of the truth at first, but increasingly controllers of the truth, obfuscators, politicians. The Cathars were on the right line, that of direct access to God untrammelled by layers of hierarchy. Naturally they were wiped out by Rome.'
'So your – do I call them beliefs or not? – make you hostile to my Church?' And therefore, she means, to all its members. To one specific member.
'No, my dearest. And I would never seek to dissuade you from going to your Church. But we are moving beyond all religions. Soon – very soon in historical terms – they will be things of the past. Look at it this way. Is religion the only domain of thought which is non-progressive? Wouldn't that be a strange thing? Are we forever to be referred to a standard set two thousand years ago? Cannot people see that as the human brain evolves, it must take a wider outlook? A half-formed brain makes a half-formed God, and who shall say our brains are even half-formed yet?'
Jean is silent. She thinks that the standards set two thousand years ago are true ones which should be obeyed; and that while the brain might develop, and produce all sorts of scientific advances, the soul, which is the spark of the divine, is something quite separate and immutable, and not subject to evolution.
'Do you remember when I judged the Strong Man competition? At the Albert Hall? He was called Murray, the winner. I followed him out into the night. He had a gold statue under his arm, he was the strongest man in Britain. Yet he was lost in the fog…'
No, metaphor was the wrong approach. Metaphors were for the institutional religions. Metaphors paltered.
'What we are doing, Jean, is a simple thing. We are taking the essence of the great religions, which is the life of the spirit, and rendering it more visible and thus more understandable.'
These sound like tempter's words to her, and her tone is crisp. 'By séances and table-turning?'
'Which look strange to the outsider, I freely admit. As the ceremonies of your Church would look strange to a visiting Zoroastrian. The body and blood of Christ on a plate and in a cup – he might think that was sheer hocus-pocus. Religions – all religions – have become mired in ritual and despotism. We do not say, Come and pray in our church and follow our instructions and perhaps one day you will be rewarded in the afterlife. That is like the bargaining of carpet salesmen. Rather, we will show you now, as you live, the reality of certain psychic phenomena, which will prove to you the physical abolition of death.'
'So you do not believe in the resurrection of the body?'
'That we go into the ground and rot, then at some future time are put back together whole? No. The body is a mere husk, a container which we shed. It is true that some souls wander in darkness for a while after death, but that is only because they are unprepared for the transition to the farther side. A true spiritist who understands the process will pass easily and without anguish. And will also be able to communicate more quickly with the world he has left behind.'
'You have witnessed this?'
'Oh yes. And hope to do so more frequently as I understand more.'
A sudden chill goes through Jean. 'You are not, I hope, going to become a medium, dear Arthur.' She has a picture of her beloved husband as an aged huckster going into trances and talking in funny voices. And of the new Lady Doyle being known as a huckster's wife.
'Oh no, I have no such powers. True mediums are very, very rare. They are often simple, humble people. Like Jesus Christ, for instance.'
Jean ignores this comparison. 'And what about morality, Arthur?'
'Morality is unchanged. True morality, that is – which comes from the individual conscience and the love of God.'
'I do not mean for you, Arthur. You know what I mean. If people – ordinary people – do not have the Church to tell them how to behave, then they will relapse into brutish squalor and self-interest.'