VI. _Virginia Roberts._
When I returned to New York, it was under exceptional circumstances. I
had taken cold whilst travelling in the Western States, had had a severe
attack of bronchitis and pneumonia at Chicago, was compelled to
relinquish my business, and as soon as I was well enough to travel, was
ordered back to New York to recuperate my health. Here I took up my
abode in the Victoria Hotel, where a lady, whose acquaintance I had made
on my former visit to the city, was living. As I have no permission to
publish this lady's name, I must call her Mrs. S----. She had been a
Spiritualist for some time before I knew her, and she much interested me
by showing me an entry in her diary, made _four years_ previous to my
arrival in America. It was an account of the utterances of a Mrs.
Philips, a clairvoyant then resident in New York, during which she had
prophesied my arrival in the city, described my personal appearance,
profession, and general surroundings perfectly, and foretold my
acquaintanceship with Mrs. S----. The prophecy ended with words to the
effect that our meeting would be followed by certain effects that would
influence her future life, and that on the 17th of March, 1885, would
commence a new era in her existence. It was at the beginning of March
that we first lived under the same roof. As soon as Mrs. S---- found
that I was likely to have some weeks of leisure, she became very anxious
that we should visit the New York media together; for although she had
so long been a believer in Spiritualism, she had not (owing to family
opposition) met with much sympathy on the subject, or had the
opportunity of much investigation. So we determined, as soon as I was
well enough to go out in the evening, that we would attend some
_seances_. As it happened, when that time came, we found the medium most
accessible to be Miss Virginia Roberts, of whom neither of us knew
anything but what we had learned from the public papers. However, it
was necessary that I should be exposed as little as possible to the
night air, and so we fixed, by chance as it were, to visit Miss Roberts
first. We found her living with her mother and brother in a small house
in one of the back streets of the city. She was a young girl of sixteen,
very reserved and rather timid-looking, who had to be drawn out before
she could be made to talk. She had only commenced sitting a few months
before, and that because her brother (who was also a medium) had had an
illness and been obliged to give up his _seances_ for a while. The
_seance_ room was very small, the manifestations taking place almost in
the midst of the circle, and the cabinet (so-called) was the flimsiest
contrivance I had ever seen. Four uprights of iron, not thicker than the
rod of a muslin blind, with cross-bars of the same, on which were hung
thin curtains of lilac print, formed the construction of this cabinet,
which shook and swayed about each time a form left or entered it. A
harmonium for accompanying the voices, and a few chairs for the
audience, was all the furniture the room contained. The first evening we
went to see Miss Roberts there were only two or three sitters beside
ourselves. The medium seemed to be pretty nearly unknown, and I
resolved, as I usually do in such cases, not to expect anything, for
fear I should be disappointed.
Mrs. S----, on the contrary, was all expectation and excitement. If she
had ever sat for materializations, it had been long before, and the idea
was like a new one to her. After two or three forms had appeared, of no
interest to us, a gentleman in full evening dress walked suddenly out of
the cabinet, and said, "Kate," which was the name of Mrs. S----. He was
a stout, well-formed man, of an imposing presence, with dark hair and
eyes, and he wore a solitaire of diamonds of unusual brilliancy in his
shirt front. I had no idea who he was; but Mrs. S---- recognized him at
once as an old lover who had died whilst under a misunderstanding with
her, and she was powerfully affected--more, she was terribly frightened.
It seems that she wore at her throat a brooch which he had given her;
but every time he approached her with the view of touching it, she
shrieked so loudly, and threw herself into such a state of nervous
agitation, that I thought she would have to return home again. However,
on her being accommodated with a chair in the last row so that she
might have the other sitters between her and the materialized spirits,
she managed to calm herself. The only friend who appeared for me that
evening was "John Powles;" and, to my surprise and pleasure, he appeared
in the old uniform of the 12th Madras Native Infantry. This corps wore
facings of fawn, with buttons bearing the word "Ava," encircled by a
wreath of laurel. The mess jackets were lined with wadded fawn silk, and
the waistcoats were trimmed with three lines of narrow gold braid. Their
"karkee," or undress uniform, established in 1859, consisted of a tunic
and trousers of a sad green cloth, with the regimental buttons and a
crimson silk sash. The marching dress of all officers in the Indian
service is made of white drill, with a cap cover of the same material.
Their forage cloak is of dark blue cloth, and hangs to their heels.
Their forage cap has a broad square peak to shelter the face and eyes. I
mention these details for the benefit of those who are not acquainted
with the general dress of the Indian army, and to show how difficult it
would have been for Virginia Roberts, or any other medium, to have
procured them, even had she known the private wish expressed by me to
"John Powles" in Boston, that he would try and come to me in uniform. On
this first occasion of his appearing so, he wore the usual everyday
coat, buttoned up to his chin, and he made me examine the buttons to see
that they bore the crest and motto of the regiment. And I may say here,
that before I left New York he appeared to me in every one of the
various dresses I have described above, and became quite a marked figure
in the city.
When it was made known through the papers that an old friend of Florence
Marryat had appeared through the mediumship of Virginia Roberts, in a
uniform of thirty years before, I received numbers of private letters
inquiring if it were true, and dozens of people visited Miss Roberts'
_seances_ for the sole purpose of seeing him. He took a great liking for
Mrs. S----, and when she had conquered her first fear she became quite
friendly with him, and I heard, after leaving New York, that he
continued to appear for her as long as she attended those _seances_.
There was one difference in the female spirits that came through
Virginia Roberts from those of other media. Those that were strong
enough to leave the cabinet invariably disappeared by floating upwards
through the ceiling. Their mode of doing this was most graceful. They
would first clasp their hands behind their heads and lean backward; then
their feet were lifted off the ground, and they were borne upward in a
recumbent position. When I related this to my friend, Dr. George
Lefferts (under whom I was for throat treatment to recover my voice), he
declared there must be some machinery connected with the uprights that
supported the cabinet, by which the forms were elevated. He had got it
all so "pat" that he was able to take a pencil and demonstrate to me on
paper exactly how the machinery worked, and how easy it would be to
swing full-sized human bodies up to the ceiling with it. How they
managed to disappear when they got there he was not quite prepared to
say; but if he once saw the trick done, he would explain the whole
matter to me, and expose it into the bargain. I told Dr. Lefferts, as I
have told many other clever men, that I shall be the first person open
to conviction when they can convince me, and I bore him off to a private
_seance_ with Virginia Roberts for that purpose only. He was all that
was charming on the occasion. He gave me a most delightful dinner at
Delmonico's first (for which I tender him in print my grateful
recollection), and he tested all Miss Roberts' manifestations in the
most delicate and gentlemanly manner (sceptics as a rule are neither
delicate nor gentlemanly), but he could neither open my eyes to
chicanery nor detect it himself. He handled and shook the frail supports
of the cabinet, and confessed they were much too weak to bear any such
weight as he had imagined. He searched the carpeted floor and the
adjoining room for hidden machinery without finding the slightest thing
to rouse his suspicions, and yet he saw the female forms float upwards
through the whitewashed ceiling, and came away from the _seance_ room as
wise as when he had entered it.
But this occurred some weeks after. I must relate first what happened
after our first _seance_ with Miss Roberts. Mrs. S---- and I were well
enough pleased with the result to desire to test her capabilities
further, and with that intent we invited her to visit us at our hotel.
Spiritualism is as much tabooed by one section of the American public as
it is encouraged by the other, and so we resolved to breathe nothing of
our intentions, but invite the girl to dine and spend the evening in
our rooms with us just as if she were an ordinary visitor. Consequently,
we dined together at the _table d'hote_ before we took our way upstairs.
Mrs. S---- and I had a private sitting-room, the windows of which were
draped with white lace curtains only, and we had no other means to shut
out the light. Consequently, when we wished to sit, all we could do was
to place a chair for Virginia Roberts in the window recess, behind one
of these pairs of curtains, and pin them together in front of her, which
formed the airiest cabinet imaginable. We then locked the door, lowered
the gas, and sat down on a sofa before the curtains.
In the space of five minutes, without the lace curtains having been in
the slightest degree disturbed, Francis Lean, my stepson, walked
_through_ them, and came up to my side. He was dressed in his ordinary
costume of jersey and "jumpers," and had a little worsted cap upon his
head. He displayed all the peculiarities of speech and manner I have
noticed before; but he was much less timid, and stood by me for a long
time talking of my domestic affairs, which were rather complicated, and
giving me a detailed account of the accident which caused his death, and
which had been always somewhat of a mystery. In doing this, he mentioned
names of people hitherto unknown to me, but which I found on after
inquiry to be true. He seemed quite delighted to be able to manifest so
indisputably like himself, and remarked more than once, "I'm not much
like a girl now, am I, Ma?"
Next, Mrs. S----'s old lover came, of whom she was still considerably
alarmed, and her father, who had been a great politician and a
well-known man. "Florence," too, of course, though never so lively
through Miss Roberts as through other media, but still happy though
pensive, and full of advice how I was to act when I reached England
again. Presently a soft voice said, "Aunt Flo, don't you know me?" And I
saw standing in front of me my niece and godchild, Lilian Thomas, who
had died as a nun in the Convent of the "Dames Anglaises" at Bruges. She
was clothed in her nun's habit, which was rather peculiar, the face
being surrounded by a white cap, with a crimped border that hid all the
hair, and surmounted by a white veil of some heavy woollen material
which covered the head and the black serge dress. "Lilian" had died of
consumption, and the death-like, waxy complexion which she had had for
some time before was exactly reproduced. She had not much to say for
herself; indeed, we had been completely separated since she had entered
the convent, but she was undoubtedly _there_. She was succeeded by my
sister "Emily," whom I have already so often described. And these
apparitions, six in number, and all recognizable, were produced in the
private room of Mrs. S---- and myself, and with no other person but
Virginia Roberts, sixteen years old.
It was about this time that we received an invitation to attend a
private _seance_ in a large house in the city, occupied by Mr. and Mrs.
Newman, who had Maud Lord staying with them as a visitor. Maud Lord's
mediumship is a peculiar one. She places her sitters in a circle,
holding hands. She then seats herself on a chair in the centre, and
keeps on clapping her hands, to intimate that she has not changed her
position. The _seance_ is held in darkness, and the manifestations
consist of "direct voices," _i.e._ voices that every one can hear, and
by what they say to you, you must judge of their identity and
truthfulness. I had only witnessed powers of this kind once
before--through Mrs. Bassett, who is now Mrs. Herne--but as no one spoke
to me through her whom I recognized, I have omitted to give any account
of it.
As soon as Maud Lord's sitting was fully established, I heard her
addressing various members of the company, telling them who stood beside
them, and I heard them putting questions to, or holding conversations
with, creature who were invisible to me. The time went on, and I
believed I was going to be left out of it, when I heard a voice close to
my ear whisper, "Arthur." At the same moment Maud Lord's voice sounded
in my direction, saying that the lady in the brown velvet hat had a
gentleman standing near her, named "Arthur," who wished to be
recognized. I was the only lady present in a brown velvet hat, yet I
could not recall any deceased friend of the name of "Arthur" who might
wish to communicate with me. (It is a constant occurrence at a _seance_
that the mind refuses to remember a name, or a circumstance, and on
returning home, perhaps the whole situation makes itself clear, and one
wonders how one could have been so dull as not to perceive it.) So I
said that I knew no one in the spirit-world of that name, and Maud Lord
replied, "Well, _he_ knows _you_, at all events." A few more minutes
elapsed, when I felt a touch on the third finger of my left hand, and
the voice spoke again and said, "Arthur! 'Arthur's ring.' Have you quite
forgotten?" This action brought the person to my memory, and I
exclaimed, "Oh! Johnny Cope, is it you?"
To explain this, I must tell my readers that when I went out to India in
1854, Arthur Cope of the Lancers was a passenger by the same steamer;
and when we landed in Madras, he made me a present of a diamond ring,
which I wore at that _seance_ as a guard. But he was never called by
anything but his nickname of "Johnny," so that his real appellation had
quite slipped my memory. The poor fellow died in 1856 or 1857, and I had
been ungrateful enough to forget all about him, and should never have
remembered his name had it not been coupled with the ring. It would have
been still more remarkable, though, if Maud Lord, who had never seen me
till that evening, had discovered an incident which happened thirty
years before, and which I had completely forgotten.
Before I had been many days in New York, I fell ill again from exposing
myself to the weather, this time with a bad throat. Mrs. S---- and I
slept in the same room, and our sitting-room opened into the bedroom.
She was indefatigable in her attentions and kindness to me during my
illness, and kept running backwards and forwards from the bedroom to the
sitting-room, both by night and day, to get me fresh poultices, which
she kept hot on the steam stove.
One evening about eleven o'clock she got out of bed in her nightdress,
and went into the next room for this purpose. Almost directly after she
entered it, I heard a heavy fall. I called her by name, and receiving no
answer, became frightened, jumped out of bed, and followed her. To my
consternation, I found her stretched out, at full length, on a white
bearskin rug, and quite insensible. She was a delicate woman, and I
thought at first that she had fainted from fatigue; but when she showed
no signs of returning consciousness, I became alarmed. I was very weak
myself from my illness, and hardly able to stand, but I managed to put
on a dressing-gown and summon the assistance of a lady who occupied the
room next to us, and whose acquaintance we had already made. She was
strong and capable, and helped me to place Mrs. S---- upon the sofa,
where she lay in the same condition. After we had done all we could
think of to bring her to herself without effect, the next-door lady
became frightened. She said to me, "I don't like this. I think we ought
to call in a doctor. Supposing she were to die without regaining
consciousness." I replied, "I should say the same, excepting I begin to
believe she has not fainted at all, but is in a trance; and in that
case, any violent attempts to bring her to herself might injure her.
Just see how quietly she breathes, and how very young she looks."
When her attention was called to this fact, the next-door lady was
astonished. Mrs. S----, who was a woman past forty, looked like a girl
of sixteen. She was a very pretty woman, but with a dash of temper in
her expression which spoiled it. Now with all the passions and lines
smoothed out of it, she looked perfectly lovely. So she might have
looked in death. But she was not dead. She was breathing. So I felt sure
that the spirit had escaped for a while and left her free. I covered her
up warmly on the sofa, and determined to leave her there till the trance
had passed. After a while I persuaded the next-door lady to think as I
did, and to go back to her own bed. As soon as she had gone, I
administered my own poultice, and sat down to watch beside my friend.
The time went on until seven in the morning--seven hours she had lain,
without moving a limb, upon the sofa--when, without any warning, she sat
up and gazed about her. I called her by name, and asked her what she
wanted; but I could see at once, by her expression, that she did not
know me. Presently she asked me, "Who are you?" I told her. "Are you
Kate's friend?" she said. I answered, "Yes." "Do you know who _I_ am?"
was the next question, which, of course, I answered in the negative.
Mrs. S---- thereupon gave me the name of a German gentleman which I had
never heard before. An extraordinary scene then followed. Influenced by
the spirit that possessed her, Mrs. S---- rose and unlocked a cabinet of
her own, which stood in the room, and taking thence a bundle of old
letters, she selected several and read portions of them aloud to me. She
then told me a history of herself and the gentleman whose spirit was
speaking through her, and gave me several messages to deliver to
herself the following day. It will be sufficient for me to say that this
history was of so private a nature, that it was most unlikely she would
have confided it to me or any one, particularly as she was a woman of a
most secretive nature; but names, addresses, and even words of
conversations were given, in a manner which would have left no room for
doubt of their truthfulness, even if Mrs. S---- had not confirmed them
to be facts afterwards. This went on for a long time, the spirit
expressing the greatest animosity against Mrs. S---- all the while, and
then the power seemed suddenly to be spent, and she went off to sleep
again upon the sofa, waking up naturally about an hour afterwards, and
very much surprised to hear what had happened to her meanwhile. When we
came to consider the matter, we found that this unexpected seizure had
taken place upon _the 17th of March_, the day predicted by Mrs. Philips
four years previously as one on which a new era would commence for Mrs.
S----. From that time she continually went into trances, and used to
predict the future for herself and others; but whether she has kept it
up to this day I am unable to say, as I have heard nothing from her
since I left America.
That event took place on the 13th of June, 1885. We had been in the
habit of spending our Sunday evenings in Miss Roberts' _seance_ room,
and she begged me not to miss the last opportunity. When we arrived
there, we found that the accompanist who usually played the harmonium
for them was unable to be present, and Miss Roberts asked if I would be
his substitute. I said I would, on condition that they moved the
instrument on a line with the cabinet, so that I might not lose a sight
of what was going on. This was accordingly done, and I commenced to play
"Thou art gone from my gaze." Almost immediately "John Powles" stepped
out, dressed in uniform, and stood by the harmonium with his hand upon
my shoulder. "I never was much of a singer, you know, Flo," he said to
me; "but if you will sing that song with me, I'll try and go through
it." And he actually did sing (after a fashion) the entire two verses of
the ballad, keeping his hand on my shoulder the whole time. When we came
to the line, "I seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream," he stooped
down and whispered in my ear, "Not _quite_ in vain, Flo, has it been?"
I do not know if my English Spiritualistic friends can "cap" this story,
but in America they told me it was quite a unique performance,
particularly at a public _seance_, where the jarring of so many diverse
influences often hinders instead of helping the manifestations.
"Powles" appeared to be especially strong on that occasion. Towards the
middle of the evening a kind of whining was heard to proceed from the
cabinet; and Miss Roberts, who was not entranced, said, "There's a baby
coming out for Miss Marryat." At the same time the face of little
"Yonnie" appeared at the opening of the curtains, but nearly level with
the ground, as she was crawling out on all fours. Before she had had
time to advance beyond them, "Powles" stepped over her and came amongst
us. "Oh, Powles!" I exclaimed, "you used to love my little babies. Do
pick up that one for me that I may see it properly." He immediately
returned, took up "Yonnie," and brought her out into the circle on his
arm. The contrast of the baby's white kind of nightgown with his scarlet
uniform was very striking. He carried the child to each sitter that it
might be thoroughly examined; and when he had returned "Yonnie" to the
cabinet, he came out again on his own account. That evening I was
summoned into the cabinet myself by the medium's guide, a little Italian
girl, who had materialized several times for our benefit. When I entered
it, I stumbled up against Miss Roberts' chair. There was barely room for
me to stand beside it. She said to me, "Is that _you_, Miss Marryat?"
and I replied, "Yes; didn't you send for me?" She said "No; I didn't
send, I know nothing about it!" A voice behind me said, "_I_ sent for
you!" and at the same moment two strong arms were clasped round my
waist, and a man's face kissed me over my shoulder. I asked, "Who are
you?" and he replied, "Walk out of the cabinet and you shall see." I
turned round, two hands were placed upon my shoulders, and I walked back
into the circle with a tall man walking behind me in that position. When
I could look at him in the gaslight, I recognized my brother, Frank
Marryat, who died in 1855, and whom I had never seen since. Of course,
the other spirits who were familiar with Mrs. S---- and myself came to
wish me a pleasant voyage across the Atlantic, but I have mentioned them
all so often that I fear I must already have tired out the patience of
my readers. But in order to be impressive it is so necessary to be
explicit. All I can bring forward in excuse is, that every word I have
written is the honest and unbiassed truth. Here, therefore, ends the
account of my experience in Spiritualism up to the present moment--not,
by any means, the half, nor yet _the quarter of it_, but all I consider
likely to interest the general public. And those who have been
interested in it may see their own friends as I have done, if they will
only take the same trouble that I have done.