Wild Talent (5 page)

“But what utter nonsense!” Alexandra burst out.

“Quite so,” said Mr. Barker. “But you would be astounded, mademoiselle, at how many otherwise sensible people have been duped into believing this Mahatma is real.”

Alexandra was examining the signature. “I believe this writing is Tibetan,” she said.

“And do you read Tibetan, mademoiselle?” This was from a tall, fair-haired young man who had just joined us.

“Not at the moment. But I mean to study it, quite soon.”

“Then, mademoiselle,” said the young man, “you could be a valuable addition to our Society.”

“Allow me to introduce Thomas Grenville-Smith,” said Mr. Barker. “He is a colleague of mine at Cambridge.”

Mr. Grenville-Smith solemnly shook hands with us, each in turn.

“Do you refer to the Theosophical Society?” asked Alexandra.

“Most definitely not,” said the young man. “Dr. Barker and I are members of the Society for Psychical Research.”

“Or the Spookical Research Society, as HPB would have it,” said Charles Barker, holding up his wine-glass to be refilled.

“And what is that?”

“We are a group of likeminded scientists and scholars, dedicated to investigating paranormal phenomena.”

“In other words, spooks,” said Thomas Grenville-Smith. He looked over at me and smiled. It was an engaging smile, clearly meant to put me at ease, and I couldn't help but return it. Perhaps he understood how lost I felt in those strange surroundings, and how little a part of the conversation.

“I should explain,” said Charles Barker, “that we are here to research Madame Blavatsky's psychic abilities.”

“And what has your research shown?” asked Alexandra.

“So far we have reached no firm conclusions. However — ” he dropped his voice and leaned in confidentially — “as you may have guessed, we are very much inclined to think she is a fraud.”

“
Vraiment
!” exclaimed Alexandra. “On what grounds?”

“My dear young lady, one scarcely knows where to begin.

Her entire history is a series of exaggerations and falsehoods and outrageous behaviour. Take, for example, these letters she insists are written by her “Tibetan Masters” — blatant forgeries, according to the report prepared for our society by Mr. Richard Hodgson, who travelled to India to investigate her claims. In fact, he suspects she may be a Russian spy.”

I stole a glance along the table, to where Madame Blavatsky was still vigorously holding court. Slow-moving and cumbersome as she was, she seemed an unlikely sort of spy. And for all her outrageousness, I could not find it in my heart to dislike her. I have known women in the turnip-fields as rough-tongued and outspoken, and liked them the better for it. There was something about that fierce and penetrating blue gaze that made me hope she was not, after all, a fraud. And yet these were men of science, who spoke from scholarly evidence. And how much easier, after all, to believe that magically descending roses and letters from the spirit world were naught but sleight of hand.

“Certainly,” continued Mr. Barker, “she has been shown to be a plagiarist. It seems that in this book of hers,
Isis
Unveiled
, there are some two thousand passages copied without credit from other peoples' books. Richard Hodgson describes her in his report at one of the most accomplished and ingenious imposters in history.”

“And one of the most interesting,” said his companion Mr. Grenville-Smith. “Let us not forget that.”

“Indeed yes,” said Charles Barker. “Why else would we so determinedly pursue these investigations? But Mlle David, Miss Guthrie, I must warn you, she is a woman of forceful personality, and it is all too easy to fall under her spell.”

As surely Mrs. Morgan has, I thought, for our sponsor had taken a seat near the head of the table, and was listening to Madame Blavatsky with the rapt expression of a devotee.

Just then Madame B. broke off her lecture and reached for a glass of water. Her gaze, as she set down her glass, moved along the table and came to rest on the two gentlemen from Cambridge. Quietly amused and faintly mocking, that look made it clear she was aware of every word they had said.

While Madame Blavatsky applied her full attention to her meal, Mrs. Morgan turned to her neighbour on the left, a gentleman with a clipped beard and long, curving moustache. Shortly thereafter she came to join us at our end of the table.

“Miss Guthrie,” she said, “I have had a most interesting conversation with Madame Blavatsky's private secretary, Mr. Mead. He tells me that the members of the Lodge are quite overwhelmed with the work of preparing her new book for publication, on top of putting out a magazine and running a publishing company. They are sorely in need of another pair of hands. Of course I immediately thought of you.”

I could only stare at her, she had taken me so much by surprise. But after I had a moment to reflect, I asked, “What would I be required to do?”

“Oh, I imagine file, sort papers, copy out information, run errands, that sort of thing. You can write in a good clear hand, can you not? And spell, and punctuate correctly?”

I nodded.

“Well then, as I understand the position, you are more than qualified. I will speak to Mr. Mead at once.”

And it was as quick as that, and as easy. It seems that on the strength of Mrs. Morgan's recommendation, I have been offered employment at 17 Lansdowne Road. I am apprehensive, needless to say, but excited as well. The pay is not much — a few shillings a week — but I am to be given room and board, so it will cost me nothing to live. Now at last I will have a little money to send home. And how proud my father would be, to know that I have found a place, however humble, in the company of poets and scholars, and publishers of learned books.

CHAPTER SEVEN

June 17

I have not yet described the other inhabitants of 17 Lansdowne Road.

First of all, there are the two Messrs. Keightley, Archibald and Bertram. They are very alike, with beards and spectacles that give them a grave and scholarly look, though I think that neither is much above thirty years of age. Archibald is a doctor, Bertram a lawyer.

There is also Mr. Mead, a colonel's son, who I'm told was once a mathematician, but now has taken up Hindu philosophy. His name is George, and I wish it were not, for each time I hear Madame Blavatsky address him by his Christian name it gives me a start. But Mr. Mead, who is a kind and courteous gentleman, is as unlike that other George as I could wish anyone to be.

These, besides the Countess and myself, are the members of the household, each of us dedicated to the publication of the Great Work, and to the comfort and well-being of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky — whom everyone calls HPB.

There is also a Mr. Fawcett who comes in to assist with the editing. As to visitors, they are many, and though formal visiting hours have been arranged, they are nonetheless apt to arrive in early afternoon and stay till midnight.

There is Mr. Willie Wilde, who is a journalist; his mother Lady Wilde, whom I have mentioned; and his sister-in-law Constance, who is the wife of Mr. Oscar Wilde the playwright.

Mr. Yeats is a frequent visitor, and has a tendency to monopolize the conversation. He seems to be a special favourite of HPB. She will not permit anyone to reprove him for talking too much, because she says he is a poet and therefore sensitive.

Madame Blavatsky is very regular in her hours. She is at her desk from six in the morning till six at night, preparing her new book
The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion and Philosophy
for publication. As I understand it (and certainly I do not understand it very well) it is about how the universe was created, and how the human race evolved over hundreds of millions of years until the present day. We are still working on Volume I,
Cosmogenesis
, which begins in Eternal Night when time and matter did not exist.

The Keightleys, who are retyping this enormous work, tell me they often despair of seeing it in print. When they first undertook the task they were confronted with an entirely disorganized pile of manuscript pages three feet high. Between them they have attempted to impose order upon chaos, but they admit the work would go much faster if HPB did not decide to alter the pages at the very moment they are to go to the printer.

One of Mr. Bertram's tasks is to check the many scholarly quotations. But the right books are never in the house, and must be sought out with great effort at the British Museum or elsewhere. Besides, HPB's page numbers are often written the wrong way round. She explains that she does not work from actual books, but from visions of books sent by the Tibetan Masters, which pass mysteriously before her eyes; and numbers in Astral Visions are apt to be reversed. I know that the gentlemen from the Psychical Research Society would scoff at this; but it is hard to imagine any more rational explanation, since she possesses so few of the books from which she quotes. Stranger still, the manuscript contains many complicated mathematical formulae, when it is clear that Madame B. does not understand mathematics at all. (She once said to the Countess's niece, “Could you tell me what is a pi?”)

She is forever interrupting Mr. Bertram's work to make him search for some misplaced reference book or missing note. When these are not to be found, she flies into a great temper and accuses Mr. Bertram of being slipshod and incompetent. There is a story one of the visitors, Mr. Johnston, told me, that happened before the household moved to Lansdowne Road. One afternoon Mr.Johnston had been invited to tea, and while they were eating their toast and eggs HPB bellowed at Mr. Bertram that he was “greedy, idle, untidy, unmethodical and generally worthless.” When the poor man tried to defend himself, she told him that he was “born a flapdoodle, lived a flapdoodle, and would die a flapdoodle.” Mr. Bertram was so upset that his fork flew out of his hand and splattered egg yolk all across the tablecloth; and then he bolted out of the room.

At first I could not think how he could stand to be treated like this, when he is not even paid for his work. But now I have come to realize that as a Theosophist he is utterly dedicated to the publication of this great work, and so will put up with any amount of abuse.

I am resolved, when I become an author, to work in a more orderly fashion, and to treat my associates with greater respect. In the meantime I am at everyone's beck and call. I believe Mrs. Morgan envisioned me as an assistant to Mr. Mead, but in fact I am little more than a maidservant, employed to fetch and carry. I bring Madame B. the medicine for her heart, and a fresh supply of Turkish tobacco for her cigarettes, and a shawl to put round her shoulders, and I empty the ashtray on her desk when it overflows with half-smoked ends. Sometimes, though, I am asked to help proof-read and double-check quotations, and so I feel that I am playing a part, however small, in this vast enterprise.

London, June 17.

I have written and thrown into the fire half a dozen letters to my mother. It is so difficult to know what to write. Words have deserted me, and my head is pounding. This last draft will have to do. Tomorrow I will write out a fair copy and put it in the mail, leaving off the return address. (Though even so, I worry that the police may find some way to trace me.)

Dearest Mother,
By now I expect you will have heard from Uncle James of my disappearance. I know how very worried you must be, and I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me. If Uncle James has told you the circumstances of my departure, then you will understand why I had no choice but to leave.

You will be glad to know that I have found employment in a respectable household, so you need have no fears on my behalf. I will send money as soon as I am able.

Please kiss the bairns for me, and tell them they are always in my thoughts, as are you also. I promise I will write again very soon.

Your loving daughter,
Jeannie

CHAPTER EIGHT

June 26

On Sunday I went to visit Alexandra. She seemed to me a little pale and subdued. When I asked after her health, she told me, “I am well enough, but I have had a very curious adventure.”

One of the guests presently staying at the house of the Supreme Gnosis is a landscape artist from Paris, called M. acques Villemain. Alexandra seems quite smitten, although of course she will not admit to this. She describes him as a tall, pale, rather solemn young man with an unworldly air, not at all like an
artiste parisien.
He is
très sérieux
, she says. “I cannot imagine him dressed up in a costume at the Beaux Arts Ball.”

He was a mystic, he informed Alexandra, though not religious, and he invited Alexandra to his room so that she could see some of his work. His landscapes, he said, had a secret reality that ordinary people could not perceive. Of course Alexandra, who is insatiably curious, was intrigued; though she did not think the English would approve of her visiting a young man alone in his room. However, he reassured her, saying that the adepts of the Supreme Gnosis regarded such conventions as absurd and in any case, all Gnostics were pure in spirit. “Besides,” he said in all seriousness, “I will leave the door ajar” — which made Alexandra laugh.