After a few moments the five men sorted themselves among the ladies. Old
Mr. Burnaby and young Donnington went and sat by Bubbles, the
gloomy-looking James Tapster also finally sidling uncertainly towards
her. Sir Lyon civilly devoted himself to Miss Burnaby; and Lionel Varick
came over to where Blanche Farrow was sitting, and said something to her
in a low voice.
Thus was Helen Brabazon for the moment left out in the cold. She turned,
and opening a prettily bound book which was on a table close to her
elbow, began to read it.
Varick looked dubiously at his silent guest. Leaning again towards Miss
Farrow he whispered: "I don't know what one does on such occasions,
Blanche. Ought not we to have a round game or something?"
She smiled into his keen, good-looking face. "You _are_ a baby! Or are
you only pretending, Lionel? Everyone's quite happy; why should we do
anything?"
"As a matter of fact, both Mr. Burnaby and Miss Burnaby spoke before
dinner as if they expected to be entertained in some way."
"I'll think something out," she said a little wearily. "Now go and do
your duty--talk to Miss Brabazon!"
She got up and moved slowly towards the fireplace, telling herself the
while, with a certain irritation, that Lionel was not showing his usual
alert intelligence. It was all very well to invite this young woman who
had been so kind to poor Milly; and the fact that she and her tiresome
old uncle and aunt were, if Lionel was right, very wealthy, was not
without a certain interest. But still--!
Blanche, with a certain grim, inward smile, remembered a story she had
thought at the time rather funny. That of a lady who had said to her
husband, "Oh, do come and see them, they are so very rich." And he had
answered, "My dear, I would if it were catching!"
Unfortunately, Blanche Farrow had only too much reason to know that
wealth is not catching. Also, to one with her brilliant, acute mind,
there was something peculiarly irritating in the sight of very rich
people who didn't know how to use their wealth, either to give
themselves, or others, pleasure. Such people, she felt sure, were Mr.
and Miss Burnaby--and doubtless, also, their heiress, Helen Brabazon.
"Bubbles!" she exclaimed imperiously, under her breath. "Come here for a
minute." And Bubbles, with a touch of reluctance, got up and left the
three men to whom she was talking.
As she came towards her, her aunt was struck by the girl's look of
ill-health and unease.
"I wish you could think of something that would stir us all up," she
said in a low voice. And then, in a lower voice still, for her niece was
now close to her, "The Burnabys look the sort of people who would enjoy
a parlour game," she said rather crossly.
And then, all of a sudden, Bubbles gave a queer little leap into the
air. "I've got it!" she exclaimed. "Let's hold a séance!"
"A séance?" repeated Blanche Farrow in a dubious tone. "I don't think
Miss Burnaby would enjoy that at all."
"Oh, but she would!"--Bubbles spoke confidently. "Didn't you hear her at
dinner? She was telling Sir Lyon about some friend of hers who's become
tremendously keen about that sort of thing. To tell you the truth,
Blanche" (these two had never been on very formal terms together, and in
a way Bubbles was much fonder of her aunt than her aunt was of her)--"To
tell you the truth, Blanche," she repeated, "ever since I arrived here
I've told myself that it would be rather amusing to try something of the
kind. It's a strange old house; there's a funny kind of atmosphere about
it; I felt it the moment I arrived."
The other looked at her sharply. "I've always avoided that sort of
thing, and I don't see it doing you much good, Bubbles! You know how
your father feels about it?"
Miss Farrow did not often interfere in other people's affairs, but she
had suddenly remembered certain phrases in her brother-in-law's letter.
"Daddy has been put up to making a fuss by a goody-goody widow who's
making up to him just now." Bubbles spoke lightly, but she looked vexed.
Blanche Farrow felt sorry she had said anything. Bubbles was behaving
very nicely just now. It was the greatest comfort to have her here. So
she said, smiling, "Oh, well, I shan't regret your trying something of
the kind if you can galvanize these dull folk into life."
"I'll do more than that," said Bubbles easily. "I'll give them creeps!
But, Blanche? I want you to back me up if I say I'm tired, or don't want
to go on with it."
Blanche Farrow felt surprised. "I don't quite understand," she
exclaimed. "Aren't we going to do table-turning?"
"No," said the girl deliberately. "We're going to have a séance--a
sitting. And I'm going to be the medium."
"Oh, Bubbles! Is that wise?" She looked uncomfortably into the girl's
now eager, flushed face. "D'you think you know enough about these people
to be a success at it this very first evening?"
Bubbles' gift of thought reading would of course come in; also the girl
was a clever actress; still, that surely wouldn't take her very far with
a set of people of whom she knew _nothing_.
"The only one I'm afraid of," said Bubbles thoughtfully, "is Mr.
Burnaby. He's such a proper old thing! He might really object--object on
the same ground as Daddy's tiresome widow does. However, I can but try."
She pirouetted round, and quickly drew with her foot a gilt footstool
from under an Empire settee. She stood upon it and clapped her hands.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" she cried. "This is a time of year when ghosts
are said to walk. Why shouldn't we hold a séance, here and now, and call
up spirits from the vasty deep?"
"But will they come?" quoted Sir Lyon, smiling up into her eager,
sensitive little face.
Sir Lyon was quite enjoying Lionel Varick's Christmas house-party. For
one thing, he was interested in his host's personality. In a small way
he had long made a study of Lionel Varick, and it amused him to see
Varick in a new rôle--that of a prosperous country gentleman.
Suddenly Bubbles found an ally in a most unexpected quarter. Helen
Brabazon called out: "I've always longed to attend a séance! I did once
go to a fortune-teller, and it was thrilling--."
Bubbles stepped down off her footstool. She had the gift--which her aunt
also possessed--of allowing another to take the field.
"If it was so exciting," said Lionel Varick dryly, "I wonder that you
only went once, Miss Brabazon."
Helen's face grew grave. "I'll tell you about it some day," she said in
a low voice; "as a matter of fact, it was just before you and I first
met."
"Yes," said Varick lightly. "And what happened? Do tell me!"
Helen turned to him, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "She described
Milly--I mean the fortune-teller described Milly, almost exactly. She
told me that Milly was going to play a great part in my life."
And then she felt sharply sorry she had said as much or as little as she
had said, for her host's face altered; it became, from a healthy pallor,
a deep red.
"Forgive me!" she exclaimed. "Forgive me! I oughtn't to have told you--"
"Don't say that. You can tell _me_ anything!"
Blanche Farrow, who had now moved forward to the fireplace, would again
have been very much surprised had she heard the intense, intimate tone
in which Lionel Varick uttered those few words to his late wife's
friend.
Helen blushed--a deep, sudden blush--and Sir Lyon, looking at her across
the room, told himself that she was a remarkable-looking girl, and that
he would like to make friends with her. He liked the earnest,
old-fashioned type of girl--but fate rarely threw him into the company
of such a one.
"It is quite unnecessary for any of you to move," observed Bubbles in a
business-like tone; "but we are likely to obtain much better results if
we blow out the candles. The firelight will be quite enough."
And then, to everyone's surprise, Miss Burnaby spoke. Her voice was
gentle and fretful. "I thought that there always had to be a medium at a
séance," she observed; "when I went with a friend of mine to what she
called a Circle, there was a medium there, and we each paid her
half-a-crown."
"Of course there must be a medium," said Bubbles quickly. "And _I_ am
going to be the medium this time, Miss Burnaby; but it will be all free
and for nothing--I always do it for love!"
Varick looked at his young guest with a good deal of gratitude. He had
never numbered himself among the girl's admirers. To him Bubbles was
like a caricature of her aunt. But now he told himself that there was
something to say, after all, for this queer younger generation who dare
everything! He supposed that Bubbles was going to entertain them with a
clever exhibition of brilliant acting. Lionel Varick was no mean actor
himself, and it was as connoisseur, as well as expert, that he admired
the gift when it was practised by others.
Spiritualism, table-turning, and fortune-telling--he bracketed them all
together in his own mind--had never interested him in the least. But he
realized dimly what a wonderful chance this new fashionable craze--for
so he regarded it--gives to the charlatan. He had always felt an
attraction to that extraordinary eighteenth century adventurer,
Cagliostro, and to-night he suddenly remembered a certain passage in
Casanova's memoirs.... He felt rather sorry that they hadn't planned
out this--this séance, before the rest of the party had arrived. He
could have given Bubbles a few "tips" which would have made her task
easy, and the coming séance much more thrilling.
The company ranged themselves four on each side.
Miss Burnaby sat on one side of the fireplace, her brother on the other.
Next to the old lady was Sir Lyon; then Helen Brabazon; last their host.
On the opposite side, next to Mr. Burnaby, sat the fat-visaged James
Tapster; by him was Blanche Farrow, looking on the proceedings with a
certain cynical amusement and interest, and next to Blanche, and nearest
to where Bubbles had now established herself on one of those low chairs
which in England is called a nursery chair, and in France a _prie-dieu_,
was young Donnington. He, alone of the people there, looked
uncomfortable and disapproving.
After they had all been seated, waiting they hardly knew for what, for a
few moments, Bubbles leapt from her low chair and blew out all the
candles, a somewhat lengthy task, and one which plunged the room into
almost darkness. But she threw a big log of wood on the fire, and the
flames shot up, filling the room with shafts of rosy, fitful light.
There was a pause. Varick said something in a rather cheerful,
matter-of-fact voice to Miss Brabazon, and Bubbles turned round sharply:
"I'm afraid we ought to have complete silence--even silence of thought,"
she said solemnly.
Blanche Farrow looked at the girl. What queer jargon was this? In the
wavering light thrown by the fire Bubbles' face looked tense and rather
strained.
Was it possible, Blanche asked herself with a touch of uneasiness, that
the child was taking this seriously--that she _believed_ in it at all?
Her father thought so, but then Hugh Dunster was such an old fool!
The moments ran by. One or two of the chairs creaked. James Tapster
yawned, and he put up his hand rather unwillingly to hide his yawn. He
thought all this sort of thing very stupid, and so absolutely
unnecessary. He had enjoyed listening to Miss Bubbles' cheerful,
inconsequent chatter. It irritated him that she should have been dragged
away from him--for so he put it to himself--by that unpleasant,
supercilious woman, Blanche Farrow. It was a pity that a nice girl like
Miss Bubbles had such an aunt. Only the other day he had heard a queer
story about Miss Farrow. The story ran that she had once been caught in
a gambling raid, and her name kept out of the papers by the influence of
a man in the Home Office who had been in love with her at the time.
And then he looked up, startled for once--for strange, untoward sounds
were issuing from the lips of Bubbles Dunster. The girl was leaning
forward, her elbows on her knees, crouched upon the low chair, her
slight, sinuous little figure bathed in red light. She was groaning,
rocking herself backwards and forwards convulsively. To most of those
present it was a strange, painful exhibition--painful, yet certainly
thrilling!
Suddenly she began to speak, and the words poured from her lips with a
kind of breathless quickness. But the strange, uncanny, startling thing
about it was that the voice which uttered these staccato sentences was
not Bubbles' well modulated, drawling voice. It was the high, peevish
voice of a _child_--a child speaking queer, broken English. Everyone
present, even including Varick and Blanche Farrow, who both believed it
to be a clever and impudent piece of impersonation, was startled and
taken aback by the extraordinary phenomena the girl now presented. Her
eyes were closed, and yet her head was thrust forward as if she was
staring at the big, now roaring, wood fire before her.
Rushing out through her scarcely open lips, came the sing-song words:
"Why bring Laughing Water here? Laughing Water frightened. Laughing
Water want to go away. Laughing Water hates this house. Please, Miss
Bubbles, let Laughing Water go away!" And Bubbles--if it was
Bubbles--twisted and turned and groaned, as if in agony.
And then, to the amazement of all those who were there, young
Donnington, his face set in grim lines, suddenly addressed Bubbles, or
the little pleading creature that appeared to possess the girl: "Don't
be frightened," he said soothingly. "No one's going to hurt Laughing
Water. Everyone in this room is good and kind."
In answer, there broke from Bubbles' lips a loud cry: "No, no, no! Bad
people--cruel people--here! Bad spirits, too. Bad chair. Laughing Water
sitting on torture chair! Miss Bubbles change chair. Then Laughing Water
feel better."
Bubbles got up as an automaton might have got up, and Donnington,
pushing forward one of the painted chairs, drew the low, tapestry
covered _prie-dieu_ from under her.
She gave a deep, deep sigh as she sat down again. Then she turned
herself and the chair round till she was exactly facing Varick. In a
voice which had suddenly become much more her own voice she addressed
him, speaking slowly, earnestly: "I see a lady standing behind you. She
is very stern-looking. She has a pale, worn face, and dark blue eyes.
They are very like your eyes. Her hair is parted in the middle; it is
slightly grey. She must have passed over about fifteen to twenty years
ago. I think it is your mother. She wants to, she wants to--" Bubbles
hesitated, and then, speaking now entirely in her own voice, she
exclaimed with a kind of gasp--"to warn you of danger."
Varick opened his lips, and then he closed them. He felt shaken with an
over-mastering emotion, as well as intense surprise, and, yes, of fierce
anger with the girl for daring to do this--to him.
But Bubbles began again, staring as if at something beyond and behind
him. "Now there's another figure, standing to your left. She is still
near the earth plane. I cannot place her at all. She is short and stout;
her grey hair is brushed back from her forehead. I do not feel as if you
had known her very long."
Her voice died away, then suddenly became stronger, more confident:
"Your mother--if it is your mother--is trying to shield you from her."
She remained silent for a while. She seemed to be listening. Then she
spoke again: "I get a word--what is it?--not _Ardour? Aboard?_ No, I
think it's _Arbour_!"
She gazed anxiously into Varick's pale, set face. "She says, 'Remember
the _Arbour_.' D'you follow me?"
She asked the question with a certain urgency, and Bubbles' host nodded,
imperceptibly.
Then she left him, dragging her chair along till she was just opposite
Helen Brabazon.
"I see a man standing behind you," she began; "he is dressed in rather
curious, old-fashioned cricketing clothes."
A look of amazement and understanding passed over Helen's face.
Bubbles went on, confidently: "He is a tall, well-set-up man. He has
light brown hair and grey eyes. He is smiling. I think it is your
father. Now he looks grave. He is uneasy about you. He is sorry you came
here, to Wyndfell Hall. Do you follow me?"
But Helen shook her head. She felt bewildered and oppressed. "I wonder,"
she said falteringly, "if he could give me a sign? I do so long to know
if it is _really_ my dear, dear father."
Blanche Farrow turned a little hot. It was too bad of Bubbles to do the
thing in this way!
"He says--he says--I hear him say a word--" Bubbles stopped and knit her
brows. "'Girl, girl'--no, it isn't 'girl'--"
"Girlie?" murmured Helen under her breath.
"Yes, that's it! 'Girlie'--he says _'girlie_.'"
Helen Brabazon covered her face with her hands. She was deeply moved.
What wonderful thing was this? She told herself that never, never would
she allow herself to speak lightly or slightingly of spiritualism again!
As far as she knew, no one in that room, not even her uncle or aunt, was
aware that "girlie" had been her long dead father's pet name for his
only child.
And then, quite suddenly, Bubbles' voice broke into a kind of cry. "Take
care!" she said. "Take care! I see another form. It has taken the place
of your father. I think it is the form of a woman who has passed over,
and who loved you once, but whose heart is now full of hatred. D'you
follow me? Quick! quick! She's fading away!"
Helen shook her head. "No," she said in a dull voice, "I don't follow
you at all."
She felt acutely, unreasonably disappointed. There was no one in the
world who had first loved and then hated her, or who _could_ hate her.
She cast her mind back to some of her schoolfellows; but no, as far as
she knew they were all still alive, and there was not one of them to
whom these exaggerated terms of love and hatred could be applied.
Bubbles dragged her chair on till she was just opposite Sir Lyon
Dilsford.
He put up his hand: "Will you kindly pass me by, Laughing Water?" he
said, in his full, pleasant voice. "I'm an adept, and I don't care for
open Circles. If you don't mind, will you pass on?"
And Bubbles dragged on her chair again over the Aubusson carpet.
She was now opposite Miss Burnaby, and the old lady was looking at her
with an air of fear and curiosity which strangely altered her round,
usually placid face.
"I see a tall young man standing behind you," began Bubbles in a
monotonous voice. "He has such a funny-looking long coat on; a
queer-shaped cap, too. Why, he's dripping with water!"
And then, almost as if in spite of herself, Miss Burnaby muttered: "Our
brother John, who was drowned."
"He wants me to tell you that he's very happy, and that he sends you
your father's and mother's love."
Bubbles waited for what seemed quite a long time, then she went on
again: "I see another man. He is a very good-looking man. He has a high
forehead, blue eyes, and a golden mustache. He is in uniform. Is it an
English uniform?"
Miss Burnaby shook her head.
"I think it's an Austrian uniform," said Bubbles hesitatingly; then she
continued, in that voice which was hers and yet not hers, for it seemed
instinct with another mind: "He says, 'My love! My love, why did you
lack courage?'"
The old lady covered her face with her hands. "Stop! Please stop," she
said pitifully.
Bubbles dragged her chair across the front of the fire till she was
exactly opposite Mr. Burnaby.
For a few moments nothing happened. The fire had died down. There was
only a flicker of light in the room. Then all at once the girl gave a
convulsive shudder. "I can't help it," she muttered in a frightened
tone. "Someone's coming through!"
All the colour went out of the healthy old man's face. "Eh, what?" he
exclaimed uneasily.
Like Mr. Tapster, he had thought all this tomfoolery, but while Bubbles
had been speaking to, or at, his sister, he had felt amazed, as well as
acutely uncomfortable.
And then there burst from Bubbles' lips words uttered in a broken,
lamenting voice--a young, uncultivated woman's voice: "I did forgive
you--for sure. But oh, how I've longed to come through to you all these
years! You was cruel, cruel to me, Ted--and I was kind to you."
Then followed a very odd, untoward thing. Mr. Burnaby jumped up from his
chair, and he bolted--literally bolted--from the room, slamming the door
behind him.
Bubbles gave a long, long sigh, and then she said feebly: "I'm tired. I
can't go on any longer now." She spoke in her natural voice, but all the
lilt and confidence were as if drained out of it.
Someone--perhaps it was Donnington, who had got up--began re-lighting
the candles.
No one spoke for what seemed a long time. And then, to the infinite
relief of Varick and Miss Farrow, the door opened, and the butler
appeared, followed by the footmen. They were bringing in various kinds
of drinks.
The host poured out and mixed a rather stiff brandy and soda, and took
it over to Miss Burnaby. "Do drink this," he said solicitously. "And
forgive me, Miss Burnaby--I'm afraid I was wrong to allow this--this--"
he did not know quite what to say, so he ended lamely, "this séance to
take place."
Then he poured out another stiff brandy and plain water and drank it
himself.
Donnington turned to Miss Farrow. "I have never known Bubbles so--so
wonderful!" he exclaimed in a low voice. "There must be something in the
atmosphere of this place which made it easier than usual."
Blanche Farrow looked at him searchingly. "Surely you don't believe in
it?" she whispered incredulously. "Of course it was a mixture of
thought-reading and Bubbles' usual quickness!"
"I don't agree with you--I wish I could." The young man looked very pale
in the now bright light. "I thoroughly disapprove of it all, Miss
Farrow. I wish to God I could stop Bubbles going in for it!"
"I agree with you that it's very bad for her."
The girl had gone away, right out of the circle. She was sitting on a
chair in the far corner of the room; her head, bent over a table, rested
on her arms.
"She'll be worn out--good for nothing to-morrow," went on Donnington
crossly. "She'll have an awful night too. I might have thought she'd be
up to something of the sort! One of the servants told her to-night that
this house is haunted. She'll be trying all sorts of experiments if we
can't manage to stop her. It's the only thing Bubbles really lives for
now, Miss Farrow."
"I'm afraid it is"--Blanche felt really concerned. What had just taken
place was utterly unlike anything she had ever imagined. And yet--and
yet it didn't amount to very much, after all! The most extraordinary
thing which had happened, to her mind, was what had been told to old
Miss Burnaby.
And then all at once she remembered--and smiled an inward, derisive
little smile. Why, of course! She had overheard Miss Burnaby tell her
neighbour at dinner that as a girl she had stayed a winter in Austria.
How quick, how clever Bubbles had been--how daring, too! Still, deep in
her heart, she was glad that her niece had not had time to come round to
where she, herself, had been sitting. Bubbles knew a good deal about her
Aunt Blanche, and it certainly would not have been very pleasant had the
child made use of her knowledge--even to a slight degree.... Miss Farrow
went up to the table on which now stood a large lacquer tray, and poured
herself out a glass of cold water. She was an abstemious woman.
"I think some of us ought to go up to bed now" she said, turning round.
"It isn't late yet, but I'm sure we're all tired. And we've had rather
an exciting evening."
There was a good deal of hand-shaking, and a little talk of plans for
the morrow. Bubbles had come over, and joined the others, but she was
still curiously abstracted.
"Where's Mr. Burnaby?" she asked suddenly. "Wasn't he at the séance?"
"He's gone to bed," said his sister shortly.
Her host was handing the old lady a bedroom candle, and she was looking
up at him with a kind of appeal in her now troubled and bewildered face.
"I feel I owe you an apology," he said in a low voice. "Bubbles Dunster
has always possessed extraordinary powers of thought-reading. I remember
hearing that years ago, when she was a child. But of course I had no
idea she had developed the gift to the extent she now has--or I should
have forbidden her to exercise it to-night."
After the three other women had all gone upstairs, Blanche Farrow
lingered a moment at the bottom of the staircase; and Varick, having
shepherded Sir Lyon, young Donnington, and James Tapster into the hall,
joined her for a few moments.
"Bubbles is an extraordinary young creature," he said thoughtfully. "I
shouldn't have thought it within the power of any human being to impress
me as she impressed me to-night. What a singular gift the girl has!"
Somehow Blanche felt irritated. "She has a remarkable memory," she said
dryly. "And also the devil's own impudence, Lionel." And then she told
him of the few words she had overheard at dinner of the winter Miss
Burnaby had spent in Austria a matter of forty years ago.
"Yes, that's all very well! But it doesn't account for her absolutely
correct description of my mother, or--or--"
"Yes?" said his companion sharply.
"Well--of her mention of the word 'arbour.' The last time I saw my
mother alive was in the arbour of our horrible little garden at
Bedford."
"That," said Blanche thoughtfully, "was, I admit, pure thought-reading.
Good-night, Lionel."
Varick remained standing at the foot of the staircase for quite a long
while.
Yes, it had been thought-reading, of course. But very remarkable, even
so. It was years since he had thought of that last painful talk with his
mother. She had warned him very seriously of certain--well,
peculiarities of his character. The long-forgotten words she had used
suddenly leapt into his mind as if written in letters of fire: "Your
father's unscrupulousness, matched with my courage, make a dangerous
combination, my boy."
As he lit a cigarette, his hand shook a little, but the more he thought
of it, the more he told himself that for all that had occurred with
relation to himself to-night there was an absolutely natural
explanation.
Take the second figure Bubbles had described? It was obviously that of
the woman on whom he had allowed his mind to dwell uneasily, intensely,
this afternoon. She was his only enemy--if you could call the crazy
creature who had been poor Milly's companion an enemy.
The odious personality of the absurdly named Julia Pigchalke was still
very present to him as he turned and joined his men guests in the
beautiful camber-roofed and linen-panelled room known as the hall. She
was the one fly, albeit a very small fly, in the ointment of his deep
content.