“I suppose you must have heard the science of spiritualism mentioned?”
I commenced, grandly.
“The science of _what_, sir?” inquired Mr. Bizzey, with a puzzled air.
“Of spiritualism--_i.e._, the power of converse or communication with
disembodied spirits.”
“Lor’! you never mean ‘_ghosts_,’ sir?” said the old woman.
“I do, indeed, Mrs. Bizzey. I suppose you believe that spirits (or
ghosts, as you call them) may re-appear after death?”
“Oh, yes,” interposed the husband; “for I mind the night that my poor
mother lay dying, there was an apparition of a turkey-cock that sat
upon the palings opposite our cottage, and when it fluttered off ’em
with a screech, just for all the world like a real turkey, you know,
sir, she turned on her side suddenly, and give up the ghost. I’ve
always believed in apparitions since then.”
“And when my sister Jane lay in of her last,” chimed in Mrs. Bizzey,
“there was a little clock stood on the mantel-shelf that had always
been wound up regular and gone regular ever since she was married; and
we was moving a lot of things to one side, and we moved that clock and
found it had stopped; and the nurse, she said to me, ‘Mark my words if
that’s not a warning of death;’ and, sure enough, Jane died before the
morning, which makes me so careful of moving a clock since then that
I’d rather go three miles round than touch one if a body lay sick in
the house.”
“I see that you both take a most sensible view of the business, and
are fully alive to the importance attached to it,” I answered; “I
hope, therefore, to secure your assistance to find out what these
unusual and mysterious noises in your house portend, and what the
authors require us to do for them.”
Then--whilst the old man scratched his head with bewilderment, and the
old woman looked scared out of her seven senses--I explained to them,
as well as I was able, the nature of a séance, and asked them if they
would come and sit at the table with me that evening and hold one.
“But, lawk a mussy, sir, you never want to speak to them!” cried Mrs.
Bizzey.
“How else are we to ascertain for what reason these spirits disturb
your lodgers and render your rooms uninhabitable by their pranks?”
“I should die of fright before we had been at it five minutes,” was
her comment; but her husband was pluckier, and took a more practical
view of the matter.
“You’ll just do as I bid you, missus, and hold your chatter. There’s
no doubt these noises are a great nuisance--not to say a loss--and if
this gentleman will be good enough to try and stop them, and can’t do
without us, I’ll help him for one, and you will for another.”
Mrs. Bizzey protested, and wept, and was even refractory, but it was
all of no avail, and before we separated it had been agreed we should
meet again at ten o’clock, and hold a séance. There was some
whispering between the old couple after that that I did not quite
understand, but as it ended by Mrs. Bizzey ejaculating, “Nonsense; I
tell you the house will be quiet enough by ten o’clock,” I concluded
he was referring to some expected visitor, and dismissed the subject
from my mind. As soon as they had disappeared I delivered myself up to
self-gratulation. I was really going to hold a séance, under my own
direction and the most favourable circumstances with a large haunted
house at my command, and no one to be any the wiser for my dabbling in
the necromantic art. I took out an old number of the “Spiritualist,”
and referred to the directions for forming circles at home. I prepared
the paper, pencils, and speaking tubes, and symmetrically arranged the
table and chairs.
Nothing was wanted when Mr. and Mrs. Bizzey entered my room at the
appointed hour--he looking expectant, and she very much alarmed. I was
prepared for this, however, and insisted upon their both joining me in
a glass of whisky and hot water before commencing the sitting,
alleging as a reason the fact that the presence of spirits invariably
chills the atmosphere, whether in summer or winter. So I mixed three
bumping tumblers of toddy, strong enough to give us the courage we
required for the occasion; and after we had (according to the
directions) engaged for some little time in light and friendly
conversation, I induced my friends to approach the table.
It was now, I was glad to see by my watch, about half-past
eleven--just about the time when the mysterious sounds had commenced
the night before; and having lowered the lamp, much to Mrs. Bizzey’s
horror, until it was represented by a mere glimmer of light, I
instructed her husband and herself how to place their hands upon the
table, linked with mine, and the séance began.
I had enjoined perfect silence on my companions, and after we had been
sitting still for about fifteen minutes, during which I had watched in
vain for some symptoms of movement on the part of the table, we all
heard distinctly the sound of a foot creeping cautiously about the
upper rooms, upon which Mrs. Bizzey, too frightened to shriek, began
to weep, and her husband, in order to stop her, pinched her violently
in the dark.
“Hush!” I exclaimed, almost as agitated as the woman. “Do not disturb
them for your life, and whatever you may see, don’t scream.”
“La, sir, you never mean to say that they’ll come downstairs!”
“I cannot say what they may do. I think I hear a step descending now.
But remember, Mrs. Bizzey, they will not hurt you, and try and be
brave for all our sakes.”
We were in a state of high nervous excitement for the next five
minutes, during which the same noises I had heard the night before
were repeated overhead, only that the courses were louder and
delivered with more determination, and the falls appeared to succeed
each other like hail.
“Oh, sir, what are they a-doing?” exclaimed Mrs. Bizzey, paralysed
with terror. “They must be killing each other all round.”
“Hush!” I replied. “Listen, now. Some one is pleading for love or for
mercy. How soft and clear the voice is!”
“It sounds for all the world like my poor sister Jane when she was
asking her husband to forgive her for everything she had done amiss,”
said the old woman.
“Perhaps it is your sister Jane, or some of your relations,” I
replied. “She may want you to do something for her. Would you be
afraid if she were suddenly to open the door and come into the room?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure, sir; but I hope she mayn’t. It makes me
curdle all over only to think of it.”
“They’re quieter now. Let us ask if there is any one present who
wishes to speak to us,” I said; and addressing the table to that
effect, I commenced to spell out the alphabet rather loudly--“A, B,
C,” etc.
Whether from my nervousness, or the united strain we laid upon it, I
know not, but the table certainly began to rock at that juncture,
though I could make neither head nor tail of its intentions. Treating
it in the orthodox manner by which Britons invariably attempt to
communicate with a foreigner who does not understand one word of the
language spoken, I began to bawl at the table, and my A, B, C, must
have reverberated through the empty house.
Again the old woman whispered mysteriously to the old man, but he
dismissed her question with an impatient answer; and my attention was
too much attracted in another direction at that moment to give much
heed of what they were doing. My ear had caught the sound of a
descending footstep, and I felt sure the spirits were at last about to
visit us _in propriæ personæ_. But dreading the effect it might have
on Mrs. Bizzey’s nerves, I purposely held my tongue, and applied
myself afresh to a vigorous repetition of the alphabet, striving to
cover the approaching footstep by the noise of my own voice, although
I was trembling with excitement and delight at the successful issue of
my undertaking. At last I plainly heard the footstep pause outside the
door, as though deliberating before it opened it. The old man was
apparently too deaf or too absorbed to notice it, and his wife was in
a state of helpless fright. I alone sufficiently retained my senses to
see the door slowly open, and a white-robed figure--a real,
materialised spirit--stand upon the threshold. The gesture of delight,
which I could not repress, roused my companions from their reverie;
and as soon as Mrs. Bizzey turned and saw the figure, she recognised
it.
“It’s Jane!” she screamed. “It’s my own poor sister Jane come back
from the grave to visit me again, with her red hair and blue eyes; I
can see ’em as plain as plain. I’ll die of the shock, I know I shall!”
“Nonsense!” I exclaimed sternly, fearful, lest by her folly she should
scare the newly-born spirit back to the spheres. “If it is your
sister, speak to her as you used to do. Tell her you are glad to see
her, and ask if she wants anything done.”
“Oh, Jane!” said the old woman, half falling upon her knees, “don’t
come a-nigher me, for mercy’s sake! I never kept nothing of yourn back
from the children except the old blue dress, which it wouldn’t have
been no use for them to wear, and the ring, which I had asked you to
give me a dozen times in your life, and you had always refused. I’d
give ’em both back now if I could, Jane, but the gownd have been on
the dust-heap these twenty years past, and the ring I sold the minute
my man was laid up with rheumatis. Forgive me, Jane, forgive me.”
“_Why, what on earth are you making such a row about?_” replied the
spirit.