12th July 1878
A departure. My wife (I have not written in this diary for some time, but Julia and I were wed on 11th May, and now live together contentedly at my lodgings in Idmiston Villas) is feeling that we should once again branch out. I agree. Our mentalist act, although impressive to those who have not seen it before, is repetitive and tiring to perform, and the behaviour of the audiences is unpredictable. I am blindfolded for much of the act so that Julia is, to a great extent, alone in an often drunken and rowdy crowd; once, while I sat on my chair in blindfolds, my pocket was picked.
We both feel it is time for a change, even though we have been earning money regularly. I cannot yet make a living from the stage, and in just over two months I will receive the last of my monthly allowances.
Theatrical bookings have in fact shown a recent improvement, and I have six of them between now and Christmas. In readiness, and while I am still relatively solvent, I have been investing in some large-scale illusions. My workshop (this I acquired last month) is stocked with magical devices, from which I may at fairly short notice put together a new and stimulating performance.
The real problem with theatrical bookings is that while they pay fairly well they provide no continuity. Each is at the end of a blind alley. I do my act, I take my applause, I collect my fee, but none of these ensures another booking. Even the reviews in the press are small and grudging. For instance, after a performance at the Clapham Empire, one of my best so far, the Evening Star remarked, "… and a conjuror named Dartford followed the soubrette ." With such pebbles of formal encouragement I am supposed to lay the path of my career!
The idea for a new departure came to me (or I should more properly say, it came to Julia) while I was glancing through a daily newspaper. I saw a report that more evidence had emerged recently that life, or a form of it, continued after death. Certain psychic adepts were able to make contact with newly deceased people, and communicate back from the afterworld to their bereaved relatives. I read out a part of the report to Julia. She stared at me for a moment, and I could see her mind was working.
"You don't believe that, do you?" she said at last.
"I take it seriously," I confirmed. "After all, there are an increasing number of people who have made contact. I treat evidence as it arises. You must not ignore what people say."
"Rupert, you cannot be serious!" she cried.
I continued oafishly, "But these sйances have been investigated by scientists with the highest academic qualifications."
"Am I to believe I am hearing you properly? You, whose very profession is deception!" At this I began to see the argument she was making, but still I could not forget the testimony from (for instance) Sir Angus Johns, whose endorsement of the existence of the spirit world I had just read in the newspaper. "You are always saying," my beloved Julia continued, "that the easiest people to deceive are those who are the best educated. Their intelligence blinds them to the simplicity of magic secrets!"
At last I had it.
"So you are saying these sйances are… ordinary illusions?"
"What else could they be?" she said triumphantly. "This is a new enterprise, my dear. We must be part of it."
And so, I think, our departure is to be into the world of spiritism. In recording this exchange with Julia, I appreciate that it must make me seem stupid, so slow was I to realize what she was saying, but it illustrates my perpetual shortcoming. I have always had difficulty understanding magic until the secret is pointed out to me.
15th July 1878
It has happened that two of the letters I wrote to magic journals at the end of last year have appeared this week. I am a little disconcerted to see them! A lot has changed in my life since then. I remember drafting one of the letters, for example, the day after I discovered the truth about Drusilla MacAvoy; as I read my words now I remember that dreary December day in my poorly heated lodgings, sitting at my desk and venting my feelings on some hapless magician who had been whimsically reported, in the journal, as wishing to set up some kind of bank in which magical secrets would be stored and protected. I realize now that it was one of those comments made half in jest, but there is my letter, in the full spate of tedious seriousness, castigating the poor fellow for it.
And the other letter, just as embarrassing now to behold, and one for which I cannot even recall mitigating circumstances in which I might have written it.
All this has reminded me of the state of emotional bitterness in which I had lived until I met dear Julia.
31st August 1878
We have attended a total of four sйances, and know what is involved. The trickery is generally of a low standard. Perhaps the recipients are in such a state of distress that they would be receptive to almost anything. Indeed, on one of these unfortunate occasions the effects were so patently unconvincing that self-willed credulousness could be the only explanation.
Julia and I have spent much time discussing how we might go about this, and we have decided that the best and only way is to think of our efforts as professional magic, performed to the highest standards. There are already too many charlatans doing the rounds in spiritism, and I have no wish to become one more of them.
This endeavour is for me a means to an end, a way of making and perhaps accumulating a little money until I can support myself in a theatrical career.
The illusions involved in a sйance are simple in nature, but already we have seen ways of elaborating them a little to make them seem more supernatural in effect. As we found with our mentalist act, we will learn by experience, and so we have already drafted and paid for our first advertisement in one of the London gazettes. We shall charge modestly at first, partly because we can afford to do so while we learn, and partly so as to ensure as many commissions as possible.
I am already in receipt of, and therefore spending, my last month's allowance. Three weeks from now I shall be entirely self-sufficient, whether I like it or not.
9th September 1878
Our advertisement has elicited fourteen enquiries! As we offered our services at two guineas a time, and the advertisement cost me 3s 6d, we are already making a profit!
As I write this, Julia is drafting letters of response, trying to arrange a schedule of steady appointments for us.
All this morning I have been practising a technique known as the Jacoby Rope Tie. This is a technique in which a magician is tied to a plain wooden chair with an ordinary rope, yet which still allows an escape. With a minimum of supervision from the illusionist's assistant (Julia, in my case), any number of volunteers may tie, knot and even seal the rope, yet still permit escape. The performer, once hidden inside a cabinet, can not only release himself enough to perform apparent miracles within the cabinet, but can afterwards return to his bonds, to be found, checked and released by the same volunteers who restrained him.
This morning I was twice unable to free one of my arms. Because nothing must be left to chance, I shall devote the rest of this afternoon and evening to further rehearsal.
20th September 1878
We have our two guineas, the client was literally sobbing with gratitude, and contact, I modestly say, was briefly made with the dead.
However, tomorrow, which also happens to be my twenty-first birthday, and the day in which my adult life commences in every way, we have to conduct a sйance in Deptford, and we have much to prepare!
Our first mistake yesterday was to be punctual. Our client and her friends were waiting for us, and as we entered the house and tried to set up our equipment they were watching us. None of this must be allowed to happen again.