The Seance (19 page)

The room was suddenly very quiet. I was aware of John Montague glancing from me to Dr Wraxford and back again.

‘And was that your friend’s only such experience?’

‘I believe so ... It was some weeks after a bad fall, which left her unconscious for many hours.’

Again I felt the pressure of Dr Wraxford’s scrutiny, as if he knew what I was leaving out.

‘It may well be – of course I would have to examine the young lady to be sure – that your friend has suffered a lesion of the brain, which will probably heal itself in time.’

‘I am sure she will be very relieved to hear it, sir.’

‘Relieved, Miss Unwin?’

‘That it will heal, I meant.’

‘I see.’

Dr Wraxford continued to regard me with speculative interest. I felt that he was willing me to say more, until Ada broke the silence by asking if there was any news of the hearing into his uncle’s disappearance.

‘I believe, Mrs Woodward, that the judgment of his decease will be granted fairly shortly. But Mr Montague is better placed to answer you.’

‘It ought to be straightforward,’ said John Montague. ‘In a case such
as this, where there are no conflicting interests – no one, that is, who stands to lose by a ruling of decease – the business of the court is simply to decide whether, on the evidence available, it is overwhelmingly probable that the missing person is dead. And given that Cornelius Wraxford was a frail, elderly man, the fact that he has not been seen since the night of the storm three months ago is alone sufficient: however he got out of the house, he could not have survived a night in the forest.

‘The only real difficulty is to explain how he got out of his apartment at all. Drayton, his manservant, told me that he saw him retire at seven that evening, before the storm broke. When I arrived some twenty-four hours later, all of the doors appeared to be locked and bolted from the inside, so that I was obliged to break down the door to the study. All of the windows were certainly shut and latched – and they are in any case far too high for him to have reached. So either he left by way of some secret passage – though a careful search revealed no trace of any such thing – or Drayton and I were mistaken. Drayton is beyond questioning: he collapsed and died, as you may have heard, while I was making my search. I have since wondered whether the gallery doors – which I opened from inside the room, in a state of considerable agitation – might simply have been stuck, rather than secured, as the inspector of police believed; it is easier to doubt my own recollection than to believe that a man simply vanished into thin air; and that, I expect, will be the finding of the court.’

‘I had wondered myself,’ said George, ‘whether the disappearance of his own uncle, in – er – similar circumstances, might have played upon his mind.’

‘Quite possibly,’ said Dr Wraxford. ‘My uncle’s mental condition was at best fragile, and the shock of the storm ...’

He and John Montague exchanged glances, and I thought he was about to continue, when Hetty the parlourmaid brought in the joint. George busied himself with carving, and Ada turned the conversation to lighter topics.

Reassured by Dr Wraxford’s diagnosis (as I thought of it), I resolved to enjoy the rest of the evening. It would, I thought, have been perfect if only Edward were beside me instead of Mr Montague; but then, I reflected, I should not have dared question Dr Wraxford about the visitations. The curtains had not been drawn, and the reflected gold of the candle-flames floated amongst the outlines of shrubs and trees; the blurred image of my own features hovered beyond Ada’s shoulder, mirrored in darkening glass. Absorbed in this shadow-play, my attention wandered, until I became aware that Dr Wraxford had been speaking for some time.

‘. . . whether or not we survive death,’ he was saying, ‘and if so in what form, is surely the great question of the day. It can never, I think, be settled in the negative, because it is always open to us to suppose that the dead survive, but can have no communion with us. Whereas one undeniable instance of communication from beyond would establish the truth once and for all. Imagine what a discovery that would be! The man who made it would stand beside Newton and Galileo. For those who have the gift of faith, it is not, of course, a question’ – George looked a little uncomfortable at this – ‘but for those who must see before they can believe ... I trust, Mr Woodward, you don’t find these speculations offensive.’

‘Not at all,’ said George, ‘I find them fascinating. But what, in your view, would constitute proof? A communication from beyond the grave that could not have come from any other source? Spiritualists, I believe, often claim to have received such messages.’

‘Therein lies the difficulty. No amount of spirit-rapping will ever convince a sceptic. And if you have ever attended a séance – as for my sins have I, in order to expose a fraud – you will know that most of the communications received through spirit mediums are of such staggering banality as to suggest that the life beyond would be unendurable.’

‘Would you say, then, that all such manifestations can be explained either as fraud or delusion?’

‘The great majority, yes; I should hesitate to say all, if only because I like to keep an open mind. From a scientific point of view, there is no
necessary connection between Christian doctrine – or that of any religion – and the nature of the after-life, if such exists. All religions, so far as I know, hold out the promise of some sort of after-life, whether it be the paradise of the Christian or the Mohammedan, the eternal cycle of return proposed in the various religions of India and the Far East, or the limbo state of the Shaman. Every race has its own deity, and rivers of blood have been shed over which is the true God; yet it is possible that they are
all
mistaken – or that all these beliefs have a common origin. Logically speaking, proof of survival would not, of itself, prove the existence of a God, nor would it follow that the after-life was eternal. Indeed, to be entirely logical, it would not even follow that every human being would necessarily survive death.’

‘There you do depart, very fundamentally, from Christian doctrine,’ said George. ‘That all are equal in the sight of God is, I would say, one of the linchpins of Christianity.’

‘Very true; but from my position of scientific scepticism I, alas, can take nothing for granted. Speaking from my experience as a mesmerist, it is not difficult to believe that heaven and hell, gods, demons, ghosts and spirits are all contained within the mind – with the proviso that this does not make them any the less real or powerful than in the old dispensation. We think of the mind as enclosed within the narrow compass of the skull, but we could equally imagine a cavern filled with dark water and connected by some subterranean passage to the limitless depths of the ocean, and think of each individual as a droplet of one great oceanic Mind which contains everything: all the gods and demons, the paradises and underworlds of every religion on earth, all history, all knowledge, everything that has ever happened. A mind upon which it could truly be said that nothing is lost, not so much as the fall of a sparrow ...’

He paused, turning the stem of his wineglass between finger and thumb, dark crimson light swirling within the crystal.

‘But these are mere speculations, and we were speaking of the quest for proof. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that communication from
beyond the grave is possible, and that there is such a thing as clairvoyance – by which I mean, specifically, the power to perceive and communicate with spirits, for want of a better word. We know – since we have not a single proven instance – that genuine clairvoyance must be exceedingly rare. But suppose, nevertheless, that we have stumbled upon someone who seems to possess that power.

‘Let us take – if you’ll allow it, Miss Unwin – the case of your friend’s experience. Now if a young man of that exact description had lately (or subsequently) died, and your friend, without knowing anything of him, had recognised him from a portrait – that would be worth pursuing. And if she had had not one but several such experiences, then we would have a prima facie case of clairvoyance.’

I clasped my hands in my lap, and struggled to control my breathing. Had George spoken privately to Dr Wraxford about my visitations? Surely not; they had only just met.

‘The obvious difficulty, regarding proof, is that no one else can see the spirits. But this evening, under the stimulus of our conversation, I begin to see how it might be done. We know that, in the mesmeric trance, a subject may acquire unusual mental powers; the Frenchman Didier, who could read minds, play cards blindfold, and identify the contents of sealed containers with great accuracy, is only the best-known instance. If the power of clairvoyance exists, therefore, it might be possible to induce it by mesmeric suggestion.

‘So: we take a group of subjects and mesmerise them, telling them that they have acquired the power to see spirits, but giving them no instruction as to what, if anything, they are to see. We put them in a promising location with our presumed clairvoyant (who has not, of course, been mesmerised) and at least two reliable observers who have also not been mesmerised. Now if the clairvoyant and the mesmerised subjects all report the same experience, while the observers see nothing, but are aware of the others all looking in the same direction, reacting to a common stimulus – that, I submit, would be as close to objective proof
as we are ever likely to come, short of capturing a spirit and questioning it before the Royal Society.’

‘What would you regard as a promising location?’ asked George, who like Mr Montague had been listening with the utmost fascination.

‘I confess I can think of nowhere better than the Hall. Ancient houses, it has always seemed to me, are like Leyden jars, quietly accumulating the influences of the past ... Most likely, of course, it would all come to nothing, but it would be an interesting experiment to try – if only we had our clairvoyant.’

Once more I felt his speculative gaze upon me.

‘Do you think, Miss Unwin, that – supposing your friend’s experiences were to develop along the lines I’ve sketched – she would be willing to participate?’

‘I am afraid she would not, sir,’ I said breathlessly, feeling my colour rising despite my best efforts. ‘I know her well enough to say that if she were unfortunate enough to – see anything further – she would want only to be cured of her affliction.’

‘Precisely so,’ he said sadly. I looked at him with some surprise. ‘I had always imagined that the hallmark of a true clairvoyant would be a desire to be rid of the gift at any cost. Which is not, of course, to say that your friend is thus afflicted, as you so vividly put it.’

‘Most interesting,’ said Ada firmly. ‘And now I think it is time that Miss Unwin and I retired, and left you gentlemen to drink your wine in peace.’

‘I am dreadfully sorry, dearest,’ said Ada as soon as we were safely upstairs, ‘I should never have broached the subject.’

‘You must not be,’ I said. ‘I chose to question him, and if it had not been for the last part ... Tell me, did George say anything to him yesterday, about my visitations?’

‘No,’ she replied, ‘I am certain he didn’t. But Dr Wraxford is an acute observer and would have guessed, I think, that you and your friend are one and the same.’

‘I wish I had not betrayed myself in front of Mr Montague! It was most unnerving, his taking me for his wife. But I still do not want Edward to know about the visitations. Do you think Dr Wraxford might have been joking, about the experiment at the Hall?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ada; ‘he seems to throw ideas on and off like coats. He sounded entirely in earnest, until he made that remark about the Royal Society. He is a very clever man, I am sure of that: George is entirely captivated. And now, dearest, you must go to bed and think no more of it; you look quite worn out.’