Seen and Unseen Part 17

"Yes," I said involuntarily. "I believe I _shall_ go, but I cannot think how it will come about; nothing could be more decided than what we have just heard, and I cannot possibly put off my journey to England the end of this week."

I think we were both a little disappointed when no letter arrived by the morning's post. "Local letters often come by second post," urged my friend, who was very keen upon her presentiment.

A long morning at the Louvre prevented my reaching home till one P.M., when the _dejeuner a la fourchette_ was half way through its course. No letter on my plate! So Madame Brugel and I agreed that the wish must have been father to the thought with both of us, and put the matter out of our heads once for all.

At two-thirty P.M., however, a _depeche_ letter arrived for me.

Lady Caithness wrote to _beg that I would make a point of being with her that evening by nine p.m._ "You will think this very inconsistent with what I told you yesterday," she wrote, "but I said only what was the exact truth, as matters then stood. It is the Queen herself who has communicated with me this morning, and _insists_ upon your being present this evening. The Abbe and I can only bow to this decision. I need not tell you how pleased I shall be personally to greet you this evening."

I was again shown into the s.p.a.cious bedroom of the Countess, where she "received" in general, quite after the manner of the French kings in the days of the old monarchy.

Her bed was quite a State bed too, with its beautiful silk furnis.h.i.+ngs and heavy velvet hangings. On the wall behind this, was a very valuable fresco painting, representing Jacob's ladder, with the angels ascending and descending, executed by a famous modern artist.

We soon descended to the ground floor, and pa.s.sing through the large lecture-room, of which Lady Caithness had spoken, and which had sufficient gilt and cane chairs to seat a large audience; we stepped down some marble stairs into a small but exquisitely appointed room. It was a sort of chapel, in fact, built "by the Queen's instructions," and used for all purposes and occasions of direct communication with her. A general impression remains with me of rare woods and exquisite marbles, and the walls were hung with framed tapestries representing various scenes in the Queen's life.

To me the most striking and beautiful thing in the room was a full-length, life-sized portrait of Mary herself, so arranged that a hidden lamp threw its soft light on the features; whilst the hanging velvet curtains of deep crimson on either side concealed the frame of the picture, and conveyed the illusion that a living woman was standing there ready to receive her guests.

I have never seen anything more perfect than the way in which this impression was conveyed, without a jarring note of sensational effect.

The two French women mediums were already in the room, and I am bound to say they did not attract me pleasantly nor impress me very favourably.

They were mother and daughter, and "Harpy" was written large over either countenance. Doubtless they were very good mediums, in spite of this fact. They _must_ have been so, unless one supposes that Lady Caithness and the Abbe Pet.i.t were themselves abnormally strong sensitives; in which case one would have thought this extraneous help would have been unnecessary.

We sat down at a fairly large wooden table, polished, but without covering of any kind, and having only one solid support to it, coming from the centre, pa.s.sing down as a single wooden pillar, and spreading out in the usual fas.h.i.+on at the bottom. I had noted this on first entering the room.

The two women sat together on my right-hand side. On my left was the Abbe, and the Countess sat exactly opposite to me, with a printed alphabet pasted on to a card, and a long pencil as pointer.

This made up the party. At a side table, placed some distance away, sat a pleasant young French lady, who was writing automatically all the time; a secretary to the Countess, I believe. This young lady had no possible connection with the table.

The _seance_ began with a few words of prayer from the Abbe for light and guidance.

The process was as follows:--First, the Countess and then I took the printed alphabet, and pointed silently and at a fair pace to the letters, going on from one to the other without pause. At the letter needed the table did not rise, but gave a sound more like a bang than a rap. I have never heard anything _quite_ so loud and definite in my long investigation. The sound seemed to come from _within the wood_, as in ordinary "raps," when these are genuine, but it was far louder and more rapid and decided than the usual _seance_ rap. There was no hesitation, no gathering up of force. Any amount of vitality was evidently present, and the intelligence, from whatever source, was unerring. The Countess and I were the only two persons who held the alphabet and pointed, and when _she_ held it the mediums could not have seen the letters from their position at the table with regard to hers. Yet the letters were banged out (I can use no other expression) with absolute accuracy, and at a pace which, quick to start with, became more and more rapid as we wearied of the monotonous task and handed the alphabet to each other in turn.

When the name of G.o.d or of OUR LORD came, only the first letter was indicated, and then the table swayed slowly to and fro in a very reverent and characteristic way for a few seconds; after which we began the alphabet again for the next word.

When these loud bangs came I could trace the reverberation in the wood, and it seemed to me practically impossible that the Harpies could be producing them by any unlawful methods, whilst sitting in full light and with immovable faces, the daughter writing down the letters as quickly as these were indicated.

One did not feel quite comfortable about making investigations in a private house without being invited to do so.

Again, if the women were tricking, and I caught them at it, there was always the chance of a disagreeable scene with people of their cla.s.s.

On the other hand, it was losing a great opportunity, to refrain, as a mere matter of courtesy. Also I comforted myself by thinking that if anyone needed to feel ashamed it would be the ones who cheated, and not the detective.

So I pushed my chair a little nearer to the table, and the next time the Countess took the alphabet from me and the bangs were in full swing, I put my foot cautiously but very effectually _entirely round the one leg of the table, moving it also up and down freely_. Not a vestige of another foot, nor even of the flimsiest particle of dress or other obstruction! I could positively and distinctly hear the reverberation of the loud bangs on the wood, _between me and the centre of the table_, whilst my own leg and foot were firmly embracing the single wooden pillar upon which the latter stood. So the Harpies were justified, so far as this one phenomenon was concerned. The letters written down so rapidly by the daughter on large sheets of paper presented an apparently hopeless jumble, but when the sitting was over at the last, the Abbe and I were able to make out the words and sentences without great difficulty (he being accustomed to the task), and we then found a long, coherent, and at anyrate perfectly sensible, message addressed to him, and referring to the points of his coming discourse. This had to be proved upon its own merits, and without prejudice, arising from the fact that St Paul's name was given as the author. It was quite as helpful as some of the Apostle's letters, with the advantage of being up to date as regarded the question in hand. After all, the Abbe was about to embark upon an enterprise requiring much courage and great tact, in the forlorn hope that the walls of narrow Orthodoxy and Priestcraft might fall down before the trumpets of advancing Knowledge and Light.

It may or may not have been St Paul who stood by the Abbe with words of encouragement that night; but I, for one, find no difficulty in thinking it conceivable that the great Apostle should take a keen interest in the evolution of the planet upon which he once lived.

The charming young lady delivered up her script also. It was interesting and well written, but the only paragraph which remains in my memory was an excellent a.n.a.lysis of the initial difference between Christianity and Theosophy.

The Abbe kindly copied it out for me next day, but I must quote from memory.

"Christianity is a stretching down of the Divinity to Man.

"Theosophy is the attempt of Man, by his own efforts, to reach the Divine."

This seems to me both terse and true.

We had sat from nine P.M. till one A.M., and I think we were all relieved when an adjournment for supper was suggested by Lady Caithness.

Her son, the Duc de Pomar, joined us for _this_ part of the evening, and was introduced to me. My enjoyment of the excellent fare, after so many hours of exhaustion, was only tempered by an unfortunate and violent quarrel between the mother and daughter mediums, on the score of the age of the latter! The mother declared her daughter was forty-five; the daughter said: "Not a day over thirty-five," and intimated that she surely might be supposed to know her own age! The mother, however, murmured provokingly: "_Moi, je sais mieux que ca_"; and so the wrangle went on, until I made a diversion by taking leave of my hostess and promising to be present at the lecture the "following afternoon," which, by the way, had become "this afternoon" by the time I left the Hotel Wagram.

When I entered the house once more, it was to be shown into the large lecture-room previously described, which was already three parts full, and very shortly entirely so.

Lady Caithness had kindly reserved a front seat for me, so I could see and hear without difficulty. On the raised platform stood my friend the Abbe looking very grave and rather nervous. A cardinal, two bishops, and some half-dozen priests were seated close to him, and very shortly the lecture, which was, I think, extempore, began.

The Abbe was so manifestly in dead earnest and without any suspicion of _pose_, that one could not fail to be deeply impressed by the scene. It needed all the help of a sincere purpose and a brave heart, to stand up amongst those of his own cloth, and, in face of a partially indifferent and partially unfriendly audience, to declare boldly "the faith that was in him"--a faith that burned all the more brightly and warmly from the fact that it was being purged of the superst.i.tions which must always become the accretions of every form of religion; the clinging refuse of weed and sh.e.l.l, which from time to time must be sc.r.a.ped off the bottom of the grand old s.h.i.+p if it is to convey us safely from port to harbour.

The Cardinal sat twirling his big seal ring, with a look of cynical amus.e.m.e.nt on his face, or so it seemed to me.

As the Abbe proceeded to mention the advances made in science and the necessity for a restatement of old truths, which should bring them into line with other truths of the nineteenth century, proving the essential unity of _all truth_, and breaking down the fallacy that the vital part of religion and the vital part of science have anything to fear from one another, the Cardinal's face was a study to me.

"Yes, of course, we know all that, you and I, but what is the use of making this fuss about it? We belong to a system, and this system has worked very well for centuries past, and will work very well for centuries to come if fools don't attempt to upset the coach by restatements and readjustments, as they are called. The people _don't want restatements_; they want a dead certainty, and that is just what we give them."

All this I seemed to read in his clever, cynical countenance, in direct opposition to the thrilling sentences of the Abbe Pet.i.t as he leant forward and said, with uplifted finger and prophetic intensity:

"_La lumiere est venue, mes freres--et si vous ne la suivez pas--vous serez laisses seuls dans vos eglises._"

It is impossible to exaggerate the affectionate solemnity of this appeal to his brother priests. The tragic note was relieved later by an amused smile which rippled round the audience. This puzzled me until a kind French lady sitting next to me explained that the audience were amused by the "_tres chers freres_" (dearly beloved brethren), with which the Abbe addressed them in this rather unorthodox lecture. It was evidently looked upon as a curious bit of "professional survival."

On the following day (Thursday) I was invited to lunch with Lady Caithness at two P.M., and being a punctual person, I arrived at that hour. The powdered footman announced that his mistress had not yet emerged from her bedroom, and showed me up into the dining-room adjoining, where I awaited her. In a few minutes I was joined here by the Abbe, who politely expressed his sorrow that he had not known of my arrival earlier.

As we sat chatting together, he told me a curious experience of his of the previous night, which will certainly "cause the enemy" to smile, if not "to blaspheme."

He said (of course, in French): "I was sitting last night in my room, which looks over the back of the house, and where I can hear no sounds from the Avenue, and I was talking to 'La Reine.' Suddenly '_Elle m'a frappe sur l'epaule_,' and then said she must leave me at once, in order to meet the d.u.c.h.esse, who had just returned home. At that moment twelve o'clock struck from a neighbouring church, and I looked at my watch, and found it was indeed midnight. When Madame la d.u.c.h.esse comes in, I am most anxious to find out whether she and the Duc were returning home at that hour. You will be my witness, madame, that I have told you of this occurrence before seeing the d.u.c.h.esse."

I a.s.sured him that I would gladly testify to this; and in a few moments the Duc de Pomar arrived, and almost immediately after him, Lady Caithness emerged from her bedroom on the other side of the dining-room.

We sat down to luncheon, and I was much amused by the form of the Abbe's question later in the meal.

"_Madame la d.u.c.h.esse! puis je vous demander sans indiscretion, a quelle heure vous etes revenue hier au soir?_"

Lady Caithness looked a little surprised, but answered readily enough: "Well, it must have been past midnight; I did not notice very specially."

"Not past midnight, mother," corrected the Duc de Pomar; "I heard a clock strike twelve just as we were driving through the Porte Cochere."

"_Bien, Madame, qu'est-ce-que je vous ai dit?_" demanded the Abbe, turning to me in triumph. He then repeated his story, and I was able to certify that he had already mentioned it to me on my arrival.

The following day I took my leave of Lady Caithness, with a happy remembrance of her and her great kindness and hospitality to me during this pleasant week. She made me promise to let her know whenever I might happen to be pa.s.sing through Paris. I wrote to her the next year, when about to make a short stay in Paris, on returning from Algeria, and received an answer from the Riviera. She had been wintering there, and had been packed and ready for the return to Paris, when an obstinate chill had upset all plans. She begged me to go to the Avenue Wagram when I arrived and find out the latest news of her, as the doctors might give leave for the journey at any moment.

Ten days later I _did_ go to her house and interview the lady secretary (not the one I had seen), who was very grudging in her answers, and gave me the impression that she was accustomed to deal with persons who had some "axe to grind" by claiming acquaintance with the Countess.