CHAPTER VII
The Crystal Gazers
It was about this time that a wave of the occult passed over theschool. It began with Daphne Johnson, who happened to read a magazinearticle on "The Borderland of the Spirit World," and it spread like anepidemic of influenza. The supernatural was the topic of the hour.Ghost stories were at a premium, and any girl who could relate somecreepy spiritual experience, which had happened to the second cousinof a friend of a friend of hers, was sure of a thrilled audience. Thistaste for the psychic was particularly strong among the girls of theSixth Form, who leaned towards its intellectual and scientificaspects. They despised vulgar apparitions, but discussed such abstruseproblems as phantasms of the living, thought transference, will power,hypnotism, and clairvoyance. Meta Wright dabbled a little inpalmistry, and examined the hands of her schoolmates, prophesyingstartling events in their future careers. Lois Barlow senthalf-a-crown to a ladies' newspaper to have her horoscope cast, andwas terribly dejected at the gloomy prospects offered her by theplanets, till she fortunately discovered that she had put the date ofher birth wrong by three hours, which would, of course, completelyalter the aspect of the heavenly bodies, and cause the best ofastrologers to err. Veronica Terry talked darkly of experiences in thepsychic world, of astral bodies, etheric doubles, elemental entities,and nature spirits. She went to sleep at night with her thumbs and bigtoes crossed, in the hope of bringing back the adventures of herdreams into her waking consciousness. She was a little hazy on thesubject, but yearned for further instruction.
"It's called 'Yoga'," she confided to her particular chum, BarbaraRowlands. "You concentrate your mind before you go to sleep, and thenyou're able to function in the astral body. My cousin Winnie told meof a girl at College who did it, and she was seen standing in the roomof a friend at the other side of the hostel, while all the time shewas asleep in bed."
"I hope you won't do that!" shuddered Barbara nervously. "It wouldgive me a fit if I woke up and found you staring at me, and knew itwasn't really you. Promise you won't!"
"It may be rather difficult to regulate one's movements, once one isout of the body," returned Veronica guardedly.
Barbara did not crave for spiritual excursions, and secretly preferredthe old days, when her chum talked tennis instead of psychology; butthe occult was paramount, and she was obliged to follow the fashion.The atmosphere of the Grange was certainly conducive to superstition.The dim passages and panelled walls looked haunted. Every accessory ofthe old mansion seemed a suitable background for a ghost. The juniorswere frankly frightened. They did not dare to go upstairs alone. Theyimagined skeleton fingers clutching their legs through the banisters,or bodiless heads rolling like billiard balls along the landings.Having listened, awestruck, to Veronica's accounts of a seance, theywere apprehensive lest the tables should turn sportive and caper aboutthe rooms rapping out spirit messages, or boisterous elementals shouldbump the beds up and down and fling the china about.
"That only happens if there's a powerful medium in the house,"Veronica had assured them, and the girls devoutly hoped that none oftheir number possessed the required mystic properties.
"Look here," said Raymonde one day to Ardiune, "I'm getting rather fedup with this spook business."
"So'm I," agreed Ardiune. "I thought it was fun at first, but it's gotbeyond the limit now. The sillies can talk of nothing else. I'm sickof sitting on Veronica's bed and hearing about mediums and messages.I'd like a potato race for a change. I vote we get up some progressivegames."
"It would be more jinky! I fancy a good many are tired of ghosts, onlythey don't like to say so. Ardiune! I've got an idea! While theschool's still mad on these things, why shouldn't we have some fun outof it? Play a rag on them, you know."
"Dress up in a sheet and rub wet matches on one's hands?" suggestedArdiune.
"THE PASSAGE WAS VERY DARK, BUT MORVYTH HAD BROUGHT HERELECTRIC TORCH"]
"No, no! Nothing so stale as that! Why, it would hardly take in thejuniors for more than a minute. I'm angling for bigger fish. I want tohook the Sixth!"
"H'm! Not so easy, my good girl!"
"It needs craft, of course, and one must have a suitable bait. Thecommon or garden ghost trick would be useless. I want somethingsubtle. If I could have developed mediumistic powers, now, and goneinto a trance!"
"Couldn't you?" queried Ardiune eagerly.
Raymonde shook a regretful head.
"Veronica knows too much about seances. She says the great test of thetrance is to stick pins into the medium. If she doesn't utter a groan,then her conscious entity is suspended, and a spirit is about tomaterialize. I couldn't stand being a living pin-cushion. I know I'dsqueal."
"But we might pad you with cushions. Seances are always held in thedark, so they wouldn't find out."
"Trust Veronica to find my vulnerable spot! She detests me, and she'djust enjoy prodding me up with pins. No, we must have something lesspainful than that, please."
"Table-turning might be possible?"
"The Sixth did it, and the table was beginning to go round quitenicely when they discovered that Linda was pushing the leg. I thinkpretty nearly everything occult has been tried here lately, exceptjust one. We've not had any crystal gazing."
"How d'you do that?"
"Don't you remember that chapter in _Zilla, the Sahara Queen_? How shegoes to the Coptic magician, and he pours some ink into a little boy'shand, and sees all her future in it?"
"Ink would stain horribly," commented Ardiune.
"Yes, I don't mean to use ink. What I want is a crystal. There'ssomething on Gibbie's chimney-piece that would do jolly well. Ibelieve I'll borrow it! I know just how to manage, because Mabel andSylvia went to consult a psychist in Bond Street, and they told me allabout it, and everything she said and did. As a matter of fact shedescribed Mabel's fiance quite wrong, and pretended she saw himsitting in a dug-out, while all the time he was on a battleship; butthey thought it great fun, because they hadn't really intended tobelieve her."
"Would the girls believe you?"
"Certainly not as Raymonde Armitage. I don't mean them to know me.We're going to disguise ourselves, so that our very mothers wouldn'town us."
"Whew!"
Ardiune looked decidedly sceptical.
"Wait till I've done telling you before you pull faces, you oldbluebottle! Can't you trust me by now to get up a decent rag? Yes, I'moffended! All right, I'll accept apologies. Now if you're reallylistening, I'll explain. You know the gipsies are camping down by theriver. Everybody in the school has noticed their caravans, andrealizes they're there. Now what's more natural than for a couple ofthese gipsies to stroll round by the barn some evening duringrecreation time, and offer to predict the future? Katherine and Avecould be in the secret, have their fortunes told first, and then bringothers. We'd install ourselves in the old cow-house; it's so dark, noone would see us very plainly."
"Ray, you've enough imagination for a novelist!" murmured Ardiuneadmiringly.
Having settled their plan of campaign, the next step was to carry outdetails. The question of costume loomed largest.
"We must look real gipsies, not stage ones," decreed Raymonde. "Thething's got to be done properly, if it's done at all."
They ransacked the property box used for school theatricals, andhaving selected some likely garments, set to work on an ideal ofrealism. Two skirts were carefully torn on nails, artistically stainedwith rust and mud, and rubbed on the barn floor to give them an extratone. Some cotton bodices were similarly treated. Shoes were a knottyproblem, for gipsies do not generally affect trim footgear, yet nobodyat the Grange possessed worn-out or dilapidated boots. In the endRaymonde carefully unpicked the stitches in her oldest pairs to givethem the requisite burst appearance, and with the aid of a file rubbedthe respectability from them. A dip in the mud of the moat completedthe transformation. Some cheap beads and coloured handkerchiefs, and afaint wash of Vandyke brown over face and hands, gave the finishingtouches.
In
the interval between preparation and supper, when several membersof the Sixth Form were pursuing carpentry and other industrialoccupations in the barn, Aveline Kerby entered to borrow ascrew-driver. She conversed casually on the topics of wood-carving,photography, pressed flowers, and kindred hobbies; then, just as shewas leaving, turned back and remarked, apparently as an afterthought:
"Oh, by the by, do you know there are two gipsies in the cow-house?They're from the caravan by the river. They came in through the backgate, begging, and Morvyth happened to meet them. They offered to tellher fortune, so she took them into the cow-house, so that Gibbieshouldn't see them. She says they're marvellous. They described hermother exactly, and her brother at the front. Isn't it wonderful nowthey can do it?"
"Are they there still?" asked Veronica, swallowing the bait.
"I believe so. At least they were, five minutes ago. Elsie Moseley andCynthia Greene had gone to see them. I'd go myself, but I've spent allmy allowance, and of course one has to cross their palms with theorthodox piece of silver, I suppose. It's hard luck to be stony-broke.Ta-ta! Thanks for the screw-driver!"
Aveline beat a judicious retreat, and left her words to work. As shehad expected, the news of the arrival of the occultists was receivedwith interest.
"It's an extraordinary thing that gipsies are so often gifted withpsychic powers," commented Meta.
"They're children of nature," returned Veronica. "I suppose ourultra-civilization blunts our astral perceptions. One finds marvellousthings among the hill tribes in India--things that can't be explainedby any known rules of science."
"I suppose these ancient races have inherited secrets that we can'tgrasp?"
"Yes, they follow forgotten laws of nature. Some day, no doubt,science will rediscover them."
Veronica spoke seriously. During the holidays she had studied thesubject by the aid of books borrowed from the Free Library.
"I should like just to go and have a look at these gipsies," sheadded. "Will you come with me?"
She voiced the feelings of the others. They rose with one accord, andwent in the direction of the cow-shed. They met Cynthia Greene andElsie Moseley coming out, half-awed, half-giggling. At the sight ofmonitresses they dived round the corner of the building, and escapedinto the orchard.
"It's certainly our duty to investigate," propounded Meta.
It is pleasant when duty and inclination coincide. The girls walkedforward briskly. The interior of the cow-house was dark as an Easterntemple. The gipsies had established themselves in the dimmest corner,and were squatting on bundles of straw under a manger. Obviously theywere extremely dirty and dilapidated. Their hands and faces appearedto be unacquainted with soap and water, their clothes were tattered,their shoes seemingly in the last stage of decrepitude.
"Tell your fortunes, my pretty ladies?" pattered one of the Romanys.Her voice was hoarse but conciliatory. Possibly she had a cold--tentsare notoriously draughty sleeping-places.
"We don't care about vulgar fortunes, we are really interested,"commenced Veronica. "What we'd like to know is how you get yourpowers. Where does your knowledge of the future come from? I've alwayswanted to ask this."
The gipsy woman shook her head pityingly.
"Ah, lady! We don't know ourselves! It comes to us suddenly. Like aflash of light we see your future--then it fades. It's a sixth sensethat's given to the poor gipsies. They're born with it, and they can'texplain it any more than you can explain the breath of your body."
"I've often heard of this sixth sense," whispered Daphne to Lois.
"Sometimes we feel what's going to be, and sometimes we see it,"continued the gipsy, fumbling with something in her lap. "We can'ttell beforehand which way the knowledge will come."
"What's that you've got there?" asked Veronica sharply. "Is it acrystal?"
"You're right, lady. It is a crystal, and a wonderful one too. Mygrandmother got it from--but no! I'd best not be telling that. Iwouldn't part with it, lady, if the Queen offered me her crown inexchange. Take it in your hand! Look how it sparkles! It doesn't oftenshine like that--only when someone with the sixth sense holds it."
"I've sometimes suspected that I possess psychic powers!" murmuredVeronica complacently.
"Would you like to learn the future, lady?" queried the gipsy. "Thenhold it so, in your hands, for a minute. Now it has felt you and knownyou, and it will tell--oh, yes! it will tell!"
She took the crystal again, and turned to the companion who squattedbeside her on the floor.
"Zara! Look what is coming to the lady," she commanded softly.
Zara, who had apparently been in a deep reverie, roused herself with astart, placed the crystal in her lap with the first finger and thethumb of each hand lightly touching it, and stared fixedly into themagic glass. For a moment or two the future seemed obscured, thenevidently it cleared. She began to speak in a deep, monotonous voice,as if talking in her sleep.
"I see the sea--waves--waves--everywhere. There is a ship--oh! it haschanged. I see sand, and a white house, and palm trees. A soldier inkhaki is coming out of the house. He stops to speak to a servant--ablack man in a turban--he is angry--he frowns--he goes again into thewhite house. Oh, it is fading--it is gone!"
"My brother Leslie's in Egypt!" gasped Veronica, much impressed.
She would have requested a continuance of the vision, but at thatmoment the dressing-bell clanged loudly. It was plainly time to go andtidy up for supper.
"If you could come again to-morrow about five," she suggested,pressing a coin into the gipsy's ready hand.
"Yes, lady, if we're still in the neighbourhood. We never know whenwe'll be moving on, you see. But we'll try to oblige you if we can."
Raymonde's and Ardiune's toilets that evening would have done creditto quick-change variety artistes. With clean faces and hands, andtheir dresses at least half fastened, they slipped into their placesat the supper-table just in time; a little flurried, perhaps, butpreserving an outward calm. So far their scheme had succeededadmirably. The Sixth appeared to have no suspicions.
They repeated their performance on the following day, installingthemselves in the cow-house, and receiving relays of enquirers whocame to consult them as to their future. Knowing somewhat of theprivate history of each member of the school, they got on excellently,and their reputation spread till more than half the girls had paidsurreptitious visits to their retreat. All might have gone well, andtheir secret might have remained undiscovered, had it not been forVeronica's friendship with Mademoiselle. Veronica was so impressedwith the value of the crystal's information that she could not helpconfiding the news, and bringing the impressionable Belgian to consultthe seer for herself.
Ardiune's visions of smoking ruins and rescued refugees leftMademoiselle almost speechless. She in her turn felt impelled to seeka confidante, and imparted the wonderful revelations to Miss Gibbs.
That worthy lady immediately set off for the cow-house. As she enteredthere was a scuttling of juniors, who sought safety behind thepartition. Raymonde stared for a moment aghast, then whispered toArdiune: "Bluff it out!"
Miss Gibbs proceeded in an absolutely business-like manner. Sherequested a consultation, and listened while the gipsy, decidedlynervous, gave a rambling description of a dark gentleman and an Indiantemple.
"Thank you," she said at last. "I think it only fair to warn you thatyou can be prosecuted and fined twenty-five pounds for tellingfortunes. I should like to know where you got that crystal! It'sremarkably like the ball of glass that was broken off my Venetianvase. I missed it yesterday from my mantelpiece. By the by"--stoopingdown suddenly, and pulling aside the handkerchief from Zara's swarthyneck--"you are wearing a locket and chain that I know to be theproperty of one of my pupils. It is my duty immediately to put you inthe hands of the police."
The game was up! The disconcerted gipsies rose from their alcove, andcame back from the psychic to the material world. It was a hard,exacting, unsympathetic world as mirrored in Miss Gibbs's keen greyeyes. She told the
m briefly to go and wash their faces and changetheir attire, then to report themselves in the class-room, where shewould be at work correcting exercises.
"You can bring with you the money that you have collected over thisbusiness," she added.
Half an hour later, two clean, tidy, but dejected pupils entered theclass-room, and placed the sum of thirteen and ninepence upon herdesk. Miss Gibbs counted it over scrupulously.
"Any girls who were foolish enough to give you this, deserve to loseit," she remarked, "and I shall send it as a contribution to the RedCross Fund. You will each learn two pages of Curtis's _HistoricalNotes_ by heart, and repeat them to me to-morrow after morning school.I may mention that I consider it a great liberty for any girl to entermy bedroom and remove ornaments from my mantelpiece."
That evening, after preparation and supper, the entire school, insteadof being allowed to pursue fancy work, was summoned to the lecturehall, and harangued by Miss Beasley upon the follies and dangers ofsuperstition. She touched upon ancient beliefs in witchcraft, andmodern credulity in clairvoyance and spiritualism, and placed anequal ban upon both.
"In these enlightened times, with all the advantages of education todispel ignorance," she concluded, "it is incredible to me that anybodycan still be found ready to believe in such nonsense. I beg you all,and especially those elder girls who should be leaders of the rest, toturn your thoughts and conversation to some healthier topic, and tolet these morbid fancies sink into the obscurity they deserve."
"It was a nasty hit for the monitresses!" whispered Ardiune toRaymonde afterwards. "Did you see Veronica turning as red as beetroot?We'll have to wake early to-morrow morning, and swat at those wretcheddates. It was grizzly bad luck Gibbie found us out!"
"But on the whole the game was worth the candle!" proclaimed Raymondeunrepentantly.