Wild Talent (6 page)

All she saw at first were simple landscapes. “They seemed accomplished enough, with a certain charm, though whether they were anything out of the ordinary I was not qualified to judge. But Monsieur Villemain urged me to look deeper, and gradually I began to see the paintings with different eyes. It was, as he said, as though another, stranger reality hovered just beneath the surface.”

Everywhere Alexandra looked — at rocks, flowers, bushes, mountains — she saw an unsettling double image. In one painting a vast deserted heath stretched away to the edge of a lake, with snow-capped peaks rising out of the mist beyond. All across the heath were slender indistinct forms that were at once trees or bushes, and at the same time
something else
. I saw her shiver a little as she went on, “Somehow they had become men, or animals, and as they looked out at me their faces were full of cunning and a dreadful malice. At that moment I felt quite terrified.”

But needless to say Alexandra's curiosity overcame her fear, and she reached out to touch the picture. As she did so, M. Villemain suddenly cried out, “Be careful. You could be pulled in.”

“Into what?” she asked in alarm.

“Into the landscape. It is dangerous.”

By now I was quite caught up in this strange story. I leaned forward in excitement. “And what happened then?”

Alexandra shrugged. “That is all that happened. I felt all at once overcome with a terrible fatigue. And so we went downstairs for toast and tea.”

I longed for more. It was as though Alexandra had strayed to the edge of faerie, and returned to tell me only half the tale.

She laughed, as though to dismiss it all as fancy, but there was an edge to her laughter that told me the experience had left her shaken. In truth, I am beginning to fear a little for Alexandra, in case her boldness and her curiosity may take her into places better left unexplored.

CHAPTER NINE

June 28

With the first volume of
The Secret Doctrine
so near to completion, HPB continues to work twelve hours a day, scarcely pausing to eat and refusing to rest between six in the morning and six in the afternoon. But her health is poor, and the Countess makes no secret of her concern. The doctor has confided that HPB's kidneys are in an alarming state, and her blood so full of enormous crystals it is only through a miracle she is still alive. As well, in spite of all her success, HPB's spirits seem very low. She so misses the family she left behind in Russia that she has written to her sister Madame Vera, asking her to come to London and live at Lansdowne Road. And so Madame Zhelihovsky is to arrive next month, with one of her daughters, who is also called Vera. The younger Vera is near my own age. The Countess says she is pretty and high-spirited, and will do much to enliven the household. However, we will be very crowded, and I wonder how much longer there will be a place for me here.

June 30

I must record what has just happened so perhaps I can make sense of it. Otherwise I know for certain it will disturb my dreams.

This evening HPB invited into her sanctum two society ladies who had come in hopes of seeing elemental spirits, vanishing tea-cups, astral letters, or any other curious phenomena HPB might produce. When the ladies had admired the photo of one of HPB's Tibetan Masters, the mysterious Mahâtmâ Morya, which sits in a place of honour on her desk, and when she had amused them with some card tricks and astonished them with astral bells, they asked her, rather slyly, to make the carved wooden tobacco box disappear. Cheerfully, HPB obliged. The box vanished, and though the ladies looked for it everywhere — even under the hem of HPB's robe — it was nowhere to be seen. Then, as mysteriously, it reappeared. The visitors, clearly delighted with this exhibition, thanked their hostess and took their leave.

This stage magician's performance struck me as unworthy of one so gifted, and so erudite. HPB must have read my thoughts, for she said, “Well, Miss Guthrie, why do you look at me so? I have given them what they came for, have I not?” And since she seemed to be inviting the question, I asked — as many others have asked before me — “Madame Blavatsky, is that real magic you do, or jiggery-pokery?”

HPB does not easily take offense, and this made her laugh. “Mostly the second. But never question, Miss Guthrie, that I can do the first. Shall I show you?”

When I hesitated, she turned those brilliant azure eyes upon me, and said, “Listen then, and learn. This is magic. This is the music of life. And have no doubt that it is real.”

And from somewhere there came a ghostly music, faint and distant at first, so that I strained to hear; then growing louder till it filled that snug, close, lamplit room. It was high and sweet as the sound of a flute, but unlike any instrument I could name. With that intense and piercing sweetness came a scent of herbs — wild thyme, or rosemary — so that I thought of the Pipes of Pan, of their dangerous music, beckoning and enticing.

And now I could hear voices singing — a melody without words that made my heart catch in my throat. The voices, languorous and seductive, twined themselves around me. I could not move, could scarcely draw my breath. More than anything in the world I wanted to yield to that music, let it wash over me and transport me. My gaze drifted to the photo of the Tibetan Master. His eyes, dark and wise and beautiful, seemed to say, “Leave this world behind. I will lead you over the high lonely passes.” And I was filled with a terrible foreboding. I remembered Alexandra's story of the painting, with its haunted landscape, and her words — or Villemain's: “
Be careful. You could be pulled in.”

But pulled into what? I knew only that I must step back from a nameless peril.

I felt flushed and feverish, and as tired as if I had not slept for days. When I turned to the darkening window, where the curtains were not yet drawn, I saw that HPB was slumped in her chair in a kind of trance state, oblivious to the world. On her face was a look of uttermost serenity; and I guessed that she was wandering, still, in some far place where I dared not follow.

CHAPTER TEN

July 5

On Sunday afternoon the two gentlemen from the Psychical Research Society, Mr. Barker and Mr. Grenville-Smith, are planning to visit a medium in Crouch End, to investigate her claims of spirit-raising. Alexandra, who is keen to accompany them, has invited me to join their party. But it seems that HPB takes a dim view of spiritualists. Our proposed adventure, which seemed to us innocent enough, inspired one of her impassioned dinner table lectures.

“I have been present at many of these séances,” she informed us, “and they have filled me with horror and disgust. I have seen how a reanimated shadow will pretend to be someone's mother, or sister, or husband, or dead child, so that the person goes into perfect ecstasies, embracing this soulless, disembodied spirit, and imagining it has come to persuade them of eternal life.”

HPB was looking straight down the table at me. I felt myself blush scarlet under her outraged glare.

“If only they saw, as I have often seen at these Spiritualistic séances, a monstrous bodiless creature seizing hold of someone. It wraps itself around its victim like a black shroud, and slowly disappears as if drawn into his body through his living pores.”

What a hideous image those words evoked! The very thought of it made me shudder. When Alexandra called this afternoon for tea, I told her at once of HPB's warning. “We must make our excuses to Mr. Barker and Mr. Grenville-Smith,” I said.

And what was Alexandra‘s response? “
Mais c'est
incroyable
! Reanimated shadows! Disembodied spirits! I must see these for myself!” And though I pleaded with her to let me beg off, she would not hear of it. “You must come along to chaperone,” she said.

This from Alexandra, who scoffs at our English sense of propriety; who goes on unescorted outings with M.

Villemain and visits him alone in his room! But she was quite insistent, and so in the end, much against my better judgment, I have agreed.

July 8

Neither HPB's ominous words, nor my own apprehension, could have prepared me for what I now must write.

This afternoon, as we travelled in Mr. Barker's hired cab along the Bayswater Road, I had no inkling of what lay ahead. Mr. Barker had been quick to reassure us that a séance was no more frightening than a pantomime and its horrors no more real. “HPB,” he told us, “suffers from an overwrought imagination, no doubt brought on by Turkish cigarettes.” And so I was easy in my mind as we rumbled our way to Crouch End, thinking only of what curious place names are to be found on the map of London, which I have been studying of late. In Shepherd's Bush, surely, there are neither shepherds nor bushes; nor are there any elephants in Elephant and Castle. Tooting makes me smile; and then there are the places best avoided, like Shoreditch, Cheapside, Limehouse, Spitalfields, the Isle of Dogs. “Crouch End” made me think of some enormous hunkering animal. In my idle fancy I imagined it swallowing up the medium's house, walls, roofbeams, corner-posts and all.

Alexandra, meanwhile, wanted to know why Theosophists looked so unkindly upon spiritualists, when both were preoccupied with the world of spirits.

“Ah, but mademoiselle,” said Mr. Barker, “you must understand that the shades called up by the Spiritualists are, as HPB would have it, mere imposters. They are nothing but shells, or empty envelopes, forever separated from their souls. In the hope of invading the bodies of the living, they pretend to be their departed friends and relatives.”

“And Madame Blavatsky's spirits?”

“Those are another case entirely. HPB's spirits are not the common garden variety spooks conjured up in a séance. She would explain that they are lofty-minded apparitions, steeped in a superior brand of oriental wisdom, and meaning only good to humankind. They visit us in order to communicate arcane secrets — or simply to observe what is going on.”

Alexandra took a notebook from her reticule and carefully wrote down his answer. Then she said, “I have been reading about the work of your Society. Do you mean to test this medium Mrs. Brown with electrical currents, galvanometers and the like?”

Mr. Barker laughed. “I'm sorry to disappoint you, mademoiselle. This is only a preliminary visit, to see if there are any grounds for further investigation. Chances are, this Mrs. Brown will entertain us with the usual sorts of tricks that can only deceive a true believer.”

“And what are those?”

“Oh, wires and draperies, dummy hands, phosphorous oil — any number of ingenious devices,” said Mr. Grenville-Smith.

Alexandra turned to smile at him. Though he seems an amiable young man, as a rule he does not say much, and is perhaps a little shy in female company.(And Alexandra, goodness knows, can be intimidating.) Alexandra says he is the youngest son of a titled family, though I would never have guessed this from his unassuming manner. If I was in my old life still, we would never have met at all, still less be sharing a cab like friends and equals.

But what does any of this matter now? Before I try to sleep, I must describe, as plainly and as rationally as I can, the dreadful events of this afternoon.

There were of course no crouching beasts in the leafy streets of Crouch End. The medium, as it turned out, lived in a pleasant brick house, with potted geraniums on the step, and ivy clambering up the wall. The maid led us into a parlour which on that warm afternoon seemed as close and stuffy as HPB's own, though the smell was of beeswax and, more faintly, of boiled cabbage, not the incense and cigarette fog of Lansdowne Road. All the windows were closed and I thought perhaps Mrs. Brown, like HPB, was an old lady who suffered from the cold. But I saw when she came to greet us that she was no older than my mother, who is not yet forty. I had not considered how a medium, a caller up of spirits, might look — would she be draped in scarves and a-jangle with ear-baubles like a gypsy, or modishly Bohemian like Mrs. Morgan? I had surely not expected this small, plump, ordinary looking person in a severely buttoned, unpretentious black silk dress.

When we arrived, half a dozen people were chatting quietly amongst themselves. There were a pair of elderly ladies, alike enough to be sisters, dressed all in black; two younger, fashionably gowned ladies much like the ones who often called at Lansdowne Road; a middle-aged gentleman of military bearing, with a large moustache and a cane; and a pretty sad-faced young woman of twenty or so. And finally, there was a woman in a business-like coat and skirt who was introduced as Dr. Elliot. Her role, Mr. Barker explained, was to make a thorough search of Mrs. Brown's person, to be sure she was not concealing any devices or props.

The medium, Mrs. Brown, opened folding doors into another somewhat larger room. Unlike the outer parlour, which was cluttered with sofas and small tables and potted palms and china ornaments, this held only a large round oak table encircled by chairs, and a chest of drawers on which were displayed some musical instruments — an accordion, a guitar and a tambourine. At the far end of the room a curtain had been drawn aside to reveal a wooden cabinet about three feet wide, reaching from floor to ceiling, with front panels of some sheer fabric. When we had all gathered in this inner room, we were invited to find places at the table. Here too the curtains were close-drawn. On that bright summer afternoon we sat in a sweltering and oppressive gloom.

While we waited, Mrs. Brown disappeared into a side chamber with Dr. Elliot. When after a little time the two returned, Dr. Elliot gave an approving nod to our two Cambridge gentlemen, and the séance proceeded.

Now Mrs. Brown closed the curtain that concealed the cabinet (which had already been thoroughly searched by Mr. Barker and Mr. Grenville-Smith), and withdrew behind it.

“What happens now?” asked Alexandra, leaning over to whisper in Mr. Barker's ear.

He replied, in an ordinary voice, “I believe Mrs. Brown is entering her mediumistic trance.”