“What is the advantage of the dark?” I asked.
“Because the force with which we deal is a vibration of ether and so also is light. We have the wires all for ourselves now – hein? You will not be frightened in the darkness, madame? What a fun is such a sécincc!”
At first the darkness appeared to be absolutely pitchy, but in a few minutes our eyes became so far accustomed to it that we could just make out each other’s presence – very dimly and vaguely, it is true. I could see nothing else in the room – only the black loom of the motionless figures. We were all taking the matter much more seriously than we had ever done before.
“You will place your hands in front. It is hopeless that we touch, since we are so few round so large a table. You will compose yourself, madame, and if sleep should come to you you will not fight against it. And now we sit in silence and we expect – hein?”
So we sat in silence and expected, staring out into the blackness in front of us. A clock ticked in the passage. A dog barked intermittently far away. Once or twice a cab rattled past in the street, and the gleam of its lamps through the chink in the curtains was a cheerful break in that gloomy vigil. I felt those physical symptoms with which previous séances had made me familiar – the coldness of the feet, the tingling in the hands, the glow of the palms, the feeling of a cold wind upon the back. Strange little shooting pains came in my forearms, especially as it seemed to me in my left one, which was nearest to our visitor – due no doubt to disturbance of the vascular system, but worthy of some attention all the same. At the same time I was conscious of a strained feeling of expectancy which was almost painful. From the rigid, absolute silence of my companions I gathered that their nerves were as tense as my own.
And then suddenly a sound came out of the darkness – a low, sibilant sound, the quick, thin breathing of a woman. Quicker and thinner yet it came, as between clenched teeth, to end in a loud gasp with a dull rustle of cloth.
“What’s that? Is all right?” someone asked in the darkness.
“Yes, all is right,” said the Frenchman. “It is madame. She is in her trance. Now, gentlemen, if you will wait quiet you will see something, I think, which will interest you much.”
Still the ticking in the hall. Still the breathing, deeper and fuller now, from the medium. Still the occasional flash, more welcome than ever, of the passing lights of the hansoms. What a gap we were bridging, the half-raised veil of the eternal on the one side and the cabs of London on the other. The table was throbbing with a mighty pulse. It swayed steadily, rhythmically, with an easy swooping, scooping motion under our fingers. Sharp little raps and cracks came from its substance, file-firing, volley-firing, the sounds of a faggot burning briskly on a frosty night.
“There is much power,” said the Frenchman. “See it on the table!”
I had thought it was some delusion of my own, but all could see it now. There was a greenish-yellow phosphorescent light – or I should say a luminous vapour rather than a light – which lay over the surface of the table. It rolled and wreathed and undulated in dim glimmering folds, turning and swirling like clouds of smoke. I could see the white, square-ended hands of the French medium in this baleful light.
“What a fun!” he cried. “It is splendid!”
“Shall we call the alphabet?” asked Moir.
“But no – for we can do much better,” said our visitor.
“It is but a clumsy thing to tilt the table for every letter of the alphabet, and with such a medium as madame we should do better than that.”
“Yes, you will do better,” said a voice.
“Who was that? Who spoke? Was that you, Markham?”
“No, I did not speak.”
“It was madame who spoke.”
“But it was not her voice.”
“Is that you, Mrs Delamere?”
“It is not the medium, but it is the power which uses the organs of the medium,” said the strange, deep voice.
“Where is Mrs Delamere? It will not hurt her, I trust.”
“The medium is happy in another plane of existence. She has taken my place, as I have taken hers.”
“Who are you?”
“It cannot matter to you who I am. I am one who has lived as you are living, and who has died as you will die.”
We had heard the creak and grate of a cab pulling up next door. There was an argument about the fare, and the cabman grumbled hoarsely down the street. The green-yellow cloud still swirled faintly over the table, dull elsewhere, but glowing into a dim luminosity in the direction of the medium. It seemed to be piling itself up in front of her. A sense of fear and cold struck into my heart. It seemed to me that lightly and flippantly we had approached the most real and august of sacraments, that communion with the dead of which the fathers of the Church had spoken.
“Don’t you think we are going too far? Should we not break up this séance?” I cried.
But the others were all earnest to see the end of it. They laughed at my scruples.
“All the powers are made for use,” said Harvey Deacon. “If we can do this, we should do this. Every new departure of knowledge has been called unlawful in its inception. It is right and proper that we should inquire into the nature of death.”
“It is right and proper,” said the voice.
“There, what more could you ask?” cried Moir, who was much excited. “Let us have a test. Will you give us a test that you are really there?”
“What test do you demand?”
“Well, now – I have some coins in my pocket. Will you tell me how many?”
“We come back in the hope of teaching and elevating, and not to guess childish riddles.”
“Ha, ha, Meester Moir, you catch it that time,” cried the Frenchman. “But surely this is very good sense what the Control is saying.”
“It is a religion, not a game,” said the cold, hard voice.
“Exactly – the very view I take of it,” cried Moir. “I am sure I am very sorry if I have asked a foolish question. You will not tell me who you are?”
“What does it matter?”
“Have you been a spirit long?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“We cannot reckon time as you do. Our conditions are different.”
“Are you happy?”
“Yes.”
“You would not wish to come back to life?”
“No – certainly not.”
“Are you busy?”
“We could not be happy if we were not busy.”
“What do you do?”
“I have said that the conditions are entirely different.”
“Can you give us no idea of your work?”
“We labour for our own improvement and for the advancement of others.”
“Do you like coming here tonight?”
“I am glad to come if I can do any good by coming.”
“Then to do good is your object?”
“It is the object of all life on every plane.”
“You see, Markham, that should answer your scruples.” It did, for my doubts had passed and only interest remained.
“Have you pain in your life?” I asked.
“No; pain is a thing of the body.”
“Have you mental pain?”
“Yes; one may always be sad or anxious.”
“Do you meet the friends whom you have known on earth?”
“Some of them.”
“Why only some of them?”
“Only those who are sympathetic.”
“Do husbands meet wives?”
“Those who have truly loved.”
“And the others?”
“They are nothing to each other.”
“There must be a spiritual connection?”