The Shadow World. Garland HamlinЧитать онлайн книгу.
I am wild to be 'shown.'"
Harris was not so boastful. "You mean, of course, that some of these highly cultured ladies would develop hysteria?"
"I am not naming the condition; I only say that I have seen some very hard-headed and self-contained people cut strange capers. The trance and 'impersonation' usually come first."
"Let's do it!" cried out Miss Brush. "It would be such fun!"
"You'd be the first to 'go off,'" said I, banteringly.
Harris agreed. "She is neuropathic."
"I propose we start a psychic society here and now," said Cameron. "I'll be president, Mrs. Quigg secretary, and Garland can be the director of the awful rites. Miss Brush, you shall be the 'mejum.'"
"Oh no, no!" she cried, "please let some one else be it."
This amused me, but I seized upon Cameron's notion. "I accept the arrangement provided you do not hold me responsible for any ill effects," I said. "It's ticklish business. There are many who hold the whole process diabolic."
"Is the house ready for the question?" asked Cameron.
"Ay, ay!" shouted every one present.
"The society is formed," announced Cameron. "As president, I suggest a sitting right now. How about it, Garland?"
"Certainly!" I answered, "for I have an itching in my thumbs that tells me something witching this way comes."
The guests rose in a flutter of pleased excitement.
"How do we go at it?" asked Mrs. Cameron.
"The first requisite is a small table—"
"Why a table?" asked Mrs. Quigg.
"The theory is that it helps to concentrate the minds of the sitters, and it will also furnish a convenient place to rest our hands. Anyhow, all the great investigators began this way," I replied, pacifically. "We may also require a pencil and a pad."
Miller was on his dignity. "I decline to sit at a table in that foolish way. I shall look on in lonely grandeur."
The others were eager to "sit in," as young Howard called it, and soon nine of us were seated about an oblong mahogany table. Brierly was very serious, Miss Brush ecstatic, and Mrs. Harris rather nervous.
I was careful to prepare them all for failure. "This is only a trial sitting, you know, merely to get our hands in," I warned.
"Must we keep still?"
"Oh no! You may talk, if you do so quietly. Please touch fingers, so as to make a complete circuit. I don't think it really necessary, but it sometimes helps to produce the proper mental state; singing softly also tends to harmonize the 'conditions,' as the professionals say. Don't argue and don't be too eager. Lean back and rest. Take a passive attitude toward the whole problem. I find the whole process very restful. Harris, will you turn down the lights before—"
"There!" said Miller, "the hocus-pocus begins. Why not perform in the light?"
"Subdued light will bring the proper negative and inward condition sooner," I replied, taking a malicious delight in his disgust. "Now will some one sing 'Annie Laurie,' or any other sweet, low song? Let us get into genial, receptive mood. Miller, you and your fellow-doubters please retire to the far end of the room."
In a voice that trembled a little, Mrs. Harris started the dear old melody, and all joined in, producing a soft and lulling chorus.
At the end of the song I asked, matter-of-factly: "Are the conditions right? Are we sitting right?"
Mrs. Quigg sharply queried, "Whom are you talking to?"
"The 'guides,'" I answered.
"The 'guides'!" she exclaimed. "Do you believe in the guides?"
"I believe in the belief of the guides," was my cryptic rejoinder. "Sing again, please."
I really had no faith in the conditions of the circle, but for the joke of it I kept my sitters in place for nearly an hour by dint of pretending to hear creakings and to feel throbbings, until at last little Miss Brush became very deeply concerned. "I feel them, too," she declared. "Did some one blow on my hands? I felt a cold wave."
Harris got up abruptly. "I'll join the doubters," said he. "This tomfoolery is too idiotic for me."
Cameron followed, and Mrs. Quigg also rose. "I'll go with you," she said, decidedly. I was willing to quit, too, but Mrs. Harris and Miss Brush pleaded with me to continue.
"Close up the circle, then. Probably Harris was the hoodoo. Things will happen now," I said, briskly, though still without any faith in the experiment.
Hardly had Harris left the table when a shudder passed over Mrs. Harris, her head lifted, and her eyes closed.
"What's the matter, Dolly?" whispered Mrs. Cameron. "Do you feel faint?"
"Don't be alarmed! Mrs. Harris is only passing into a sleep. Not a word, Harris!" I said, warningly. "Please move farther away."
In the dusky light the faces of all the women looked suddenly blanched and strange as the entranced woman seized upon the table with her hands, shaking it hard from side to side. The table seemed to wake to diabolic energy under her palms. This was an unexpected development, and I was almost as much surprised as the others were.
"Sing again," I commanded, softly.
As they sang, Mrs. Harris withdrew her hands from the table and sat rigidly erect, yet with a peaceful look upon her face. "She does it well," I thought. "I didn't think it in the quiet little lady." At length one hand lifted and dropped limply upon the table. "It wants to write," said I. "Where is the pad? I have a pencil."
As I put a pencil under the hand, it was seized in a very singular way, and almost instantly Mrs. Cameron gasped, "That's very strange!"
"Hush!" said I. "Wait!"
Holding the pencil clumsily as a crippled person might do, the hand crept over the paper, and at last, after writing several lines, stopped and lay laxly open. I passed the pad to Brierly. "Read it aloud," I said.
He took it to the light and read:
"Sara, be not sceptical. Believe and you will be happier. Life is only the minutest segment of the great circle.
Martin."
"My father!" exclaimed Mrs. Cameron. "Let me see the writing." Brierly handed the pad to her. She stared upon it in awe and wonder. "It is his exact signature—and Dolly held the pen just as he did—he was paralyzed toward the last—and could only write by holding his pen that way."
"Look! it's moving again," I exclaimed.
The hand caught up the pencil, and, holding it between the thumb and forefinger in a peculiar way, began moving it in the air. Brierly, who sat opposite, translated these movements. "She is drawing, free-hand, in the air. She is sketching the outline of a boat. See how she measures and plumbs her lines! Are you addressing me?" he asked of Mrs. Harris.
The sleeper nodded.
"Can't you write?" I asked. "Can't you speak?"
A low gurgle in the throat was the only answer at the moment, but after a few trials a husky whisper began to be heard. "I will try," she said, and suddenly began to chuckle, rolling upon one hip and throwing one foot over the other like a man taking an easy attitude. She now held the pencil as if it were a cigarette, laughing again with such generous tone that the other women recoiled. Then she spoke, huskily. "You know—San Remo—Sands," came brokenly from her lips.
"Sands?" queried the painter; "who is Sands?"
"Sands—San Remo—boats."
The painter was puzzled. "I don't remember any Sands at San Remo. It must be some student I knew in Paris. Is that what you mean?"
Mrs.