THE STORY OF EMILY.
My sister Emily was the third daughter of my late father, and several
years older than myself. She was a handsome woman--strictly speaking,
perhaps, the handsomest of the family, and quite unlike the others. She
had black hair and eyes, a pale complexion, a well-shaped nose, and
small, narrow hands and feet. But her beauty had slight detractions--so
slight, indeed, as to be imperceptible to strangers, but well known to
her intimate friends. Her mouth was a little on one side, one shoulder
was half an inch higher than the other, her fingers were not quite
straight, nor her toes, and her hips corresponded with her shoulders.
She was clever, with a versatile, all-round talent, and of a very happy
and contented disposition. She married Dr. Henry Norris of Charmouth, in
Dorset, and lived there many years before her death. She was an
excellent wife and mother, a good friend, and a sincere Christian;
indeed, I do not believe that a more earnest, self-denying, better woman
ever lived in this world. But she had strong feelings, and in some
things she was very bigoted. One was Spiritualism. She vehemently
opposed even the mention of it, declared it to be diabolical, and never
failed to blame me for pursuing such a wicked and unholy occupation. She
was therefore about the last person whom I should have expected to take
advantage of it to communicate with her friends.
My sister Emily died on the 20th of April, 1875. Her death resulted from
a sudden attack of pleurisy, and was most unexpected. I was sitting at
an early dinner with my children on the same day when I received a
telegram from my brother-in-law to say, "Emily very ill; will telegraph
when change occurs," and I had just despatched an answer to ask if I
should go down to Charmouth, or could be of any use, when a second
message arrived, "All is over. She died quietly at two o'clock." Those
who have received similar shocks will understand what I felt. I was
quite stunned, and could not realize that my sister had passed away from
us, so completely unanticipated had been the news. I made the necessary
arrangements for going down to her funeral, but my head was filled with
nothing but thoughts of Emily the while, and conjectures of _how_ she
had died and of _what_ she had died (for that was, as yet, unknown to
me), and what she had thought and said; above all, what she was thinking
and feeling at that moment. I retired to rest with my brain in a whirl,
and lay half the night wide awake, staring into the darkness, and
wondering where my sister was. _Now_ was the time (if any) for my
cerebral organs to play me a trick, and conjure up a vision of the
person I was thinking of. But I saw nothing; no sound broke the
stillness; my eyes rested only on the darkness. I was quite
disappointed, and in the morning I told my children so. I loved my
sister Emily dearly, and I hoped she would have come to wish me
good-bye. On the following night I was exhausted by want of sleep and
the emotion I had passed through, and when I went to bed I was very
sleepy. I had not been long asleep, however, before I was waked up--I
can hardly say by what--and there at my bedside stood Emily, smiling at
me. When I lost my little "Florence," Emily had been unmarried, and she
had taken a great interest in my poor baby, and nursed her during her
short lifetime, and, I believe, really mourned her loss, for (although
she had children of her own) she always wore a little likeness of
"Florence" in a locket on her watch-chain. When Emily died I had of
course been for some time in communication with my spirit-child, and
when my sister appeared to me that night, "Florence" was in her arms,
with her head resting on her shoulder. I recognized them both at once,
and the only thing which looked strange to me was that Emily's long
black hair was combed right back in the Chinese fashion, giving her
forehead an unnaturally high appearance. This circumstance made the
greater impression on me, because we all have such high foreheads with
the hair growing off the temples that we have never been able to wear it
in the style I speak of. With this exception my sister looked beautiful
and most happy, and my little girl clung to her lovingly. Emily did not
speak aloud, but she kept on looking down at "Florence," and up at me,
whilst her lips formed the words, "Little Baby," which was the name by
which she had always mentioned my spirit-child. In the morning I
mentioned what I had seen to my elder girls, adding, "I hardly knew dear
Aunt Emily, with her hair scratched back in that fashion."
This apparition happened on the Wednesday night, and on the Friday
following I travelled down to Charmouth to be present at the funeral,
which was fixed for Saturday. I found my sister Cecil there before me.
As soon as we were alone, she said to me, "I am so glad you came to-day.
I want you to arrange dear Emily nicely in her coffin. The servants had
laid her out before my arrival, and she doesn't look a bit like herself.
But I haven't the nerve to touch her." It was late at night, but I took
a candle at once and accompanied Cecil to the death-chamber. Our sister
was lying, pale and calm, with a smile upon her lips, much as she had
appeared to me, and with _all her black hair combed back from her
forehead_. The servants had arranged it so, thinking it looked neater.
It was impossible to make any alteration till the morning, but when our
dear sister was carried to her grave, her hair framed her dead face in
the wavy curls in which it always fell when loose; a wreath of flowering
syringa was round her head, a cross of violets on her breast, and in her
waxen, beautifully-moulded hands, she held three tall, white lilies. I
mention this because she has come to me since with the semblance of
these very flowers to ensure her recognition. After the funeral, my
brother-in-law gave me the details of her last illness. He told me that
on the Monday afternoon, when her illness first took a serious turn and
she became (as he said) delirious, she talked continually to her father,
Captain Marryat (to whom she had been most reverentially attached), and
who, she affirmed, was sitting by the side of the bed. Her conversation
was perfectly rational, and only disjointed when she waited for a reply
to her own remarks. She spoke to him of Langham and all that had
happened there, and particularly expressed her surprise at his having _a
beard_, saying, "Does hair grow up there, father?" I was the more
impressed by this account, because Dr. Norris, like most medical men,
attributed the circumstance entirely to the distorted imagination of a
wandering brain. And yet my father (whom I have never seen since his
death) has been described to me by various clairvoyants, and always as
_wearing a beard_, a thing he never did during his lifetime, as it was
the fashion then for naval officers to wear only side whiskers. In all
his pictures he is represented as clean shorn, and as he was so well
known a man, one would think that (were they dissembling) the
clairvoyants, in describing his personal characteristics, would follow
the clue given by his portraits.
For some time after my sister Emily's death I heard nothing more of her,
and for the reasons I have given, I never expected to see her again
until we met in the spirit-world. About two years after her death,
however, my husband, Colonel Lean, bought two tickets for a series of
_seances_ to be held in the rooms of the British National Association of
Spiritualists under the mediumship of Mr. William Eglinton. This was
the first time we had ever seen or sat with Mr. Eglinton, but we had
heard a great deal of his powers, and were curious to test them. On the
first night, which was a Saturday, we assembled with a party of twelve,
all complete strangers, in the rooms I have mentioned, which were
comfortably lighted with gas. Mr. Eglinton, who is a young man inclined
to stoutness, went into the cabinet, which was placed in the centre of
us, with spectators all round it. The cabinet was like a large cupboard,
made of wood and divided into two parts, the partition being of
wire-work, so that the medium might be padlocked into it, and a curtain
drawn in front of both sides. After a while, a voice called out to us
not to be frightened, as the medium was coming out to get more power,
and Mr. Eglinton, in a state of trance and dressed in a suit of evening
clothes, walked out of the cabinet and commenced a tour of the circle.
He touched every one in turn, but did not stop until he reached Colonel
Lean, before whom he remained for some time, making magnetic passes down
his face and figure. He then turned to re-enter the cabinet, but as he
did so, some one moved the curtain from inside and Mr. Eglinton
_actually held the curtain to one side to permit the materialized form
to pass out_ before he went into the cabinet himself. The figure that
appeared was that of a woman clothed in loose white garments that fell
to her feet. Her eyes were black and her long black hair fell over her
shoulders. I suspected at the time who she was, but each one in the
circle was so certain she came for him or for her, that I said nothing,
and only mentally asked if it were my sister that I might receive a
proof of her identity. On the following evening (Sunday) Colonel Lean
and I were "sitting" together, when Emily came to the table to assure us
that it was she whom we had seen, and that she would appear again on
Monday and show herself more clearly. I asked her to think of some means
by which she could prove her identity with the spirit that then spoke to
us, and she said, "I will hold up my right hand." Colonel Lean cautioned
me not to mention this promise to any one, that we might be certain of
the correctness of the test. Accordingly, on the Monday evening we
assembled for our second _seance_ with Mr. Eglinton, and the same form
appeared, and walking out much closer to us, _held up the right hand_.
Colonel Lean, anxious not to be deceived by his own senses, asked the
company what the spirit was doing. "Cannot you see?" was the answer.
"She is holding up her hand." On this occasion Emily came with all her
old characteristics about her, and there would have been no possibility
of mistaking her (at least on my part) without the proof she had
promised to give us.
The next startling assurance we received of her proximity happened in a
much more unexpected manner. We were staying, in the autumn of the
following year, at a boarding-house in the Rue de Vienne at Brussels,
with a large party of English visitors, none of whom we had ever seen
till we entered the house. Amongst them were several girls, who had
never heard of Spiritualism before, and were much interested in
listening to the relation of our experiences on the subject. One evening
when I was not well, and keeping my own room, some of these young ladies
got hold of Colonel Lean and said, "Oh! do come and sit in the dark with
us and tell us ghost stories." Now sitting in the dark and telling ghost
stories to five or six nice looking girls is an occupation few men would
object to, and they were all soon ensconced in the dark and deserted
_salle-a-manger_. Amongst them was a young girl of sixteen, Miss Helen
Hill, who had never shown more interest than the rest in such matters.
After they had been seated in the dark for some minutes, she said to
Colonel Lean, "Do you know, I can see a lady on the opposite side of the
table quite distinctly, and she is nodding and smiling at you." The
colonel asked what the lady was like. "She is very nice looking,"
replied the girl, "with dark eyes and hair, but she seems to want me to
notice her ring. She wears a ring with a large blue stone in it, of such
a funny shape, and she keeps on twisting it round and round her finger,
and pointing to it. Oh! now she has got up and is walking round the
room. Only fancy! she is holding up her feet for me to see. They are
bare and very white, but her toes are crooked!" Then Miss Hill became
frightened and asked them to get a light. She declared that the figure
had come up, close to her, and torn the lace off her wrists. And when
the light was procured and her dress examined, a frill of lace that had
been tacked into her sleeve that morning had totally disappeared. The
young ladies grew nervous and left the room, and Colonel Lean, thinking
the description Helen Hill had given of the spirit tallied with that of
my sister Emily, came straight up to me and surprised me by an abrupt
question as to whether she had been in the habit of wearing any
particular ring (for he had not seen her for several years before her
death). I told him that her favorite ring was an uncut turquoise--so
large and uneven that she used to call it her "potato." "Had she any
peculiarity about her feet?" he went on, eagerly. "Why do you wish to
know?" I said. "She had crooked toes, that is all." "Good heavens!" he
exclaimed, "then she has been with us in the _salle-a-manger_." I have
never met Miss Hill since, and I am not in a position to say if she has
evinced any further possession of clairvoyant power; but she certainly
displayed it on that occasion to a remarkable degree; for she had never
even heard of the existence of my sister Emily, and was very much
disturbed and annoyed when told that the apparition she had described
was reality and not imagination.