A telegram from Sir Oliver Lodge is read out. “Our great-hearted champion will still be continuing his campaign on the Other Side, with added wisdom and knowledge. Sursum corda.” Then Mrs. St. Clair Stobart reads from Corinthians, and declares that St. Paul’s words are fitting to the occasion, since Sir Arthur was often in his life described as the St. Paul of Spiritualism. Miss Gladys Ripley sings Liddle’s solo “Abide With Me.” The Revd. G. Vale Owen speaks of Sir Arthur’s literary work and agrees with the author’s own view that The White Company and its sequel Sir Nigel were his best writings; indeed, he judges that the description in the latter work of a Christian knight and man of high devotion may serve as the very picture of Sir Arthur himself. The Revd. C. Drayton Thomas, who took half the funeral service at Crowborough, praises Sir Arthur’s tireless activity as Spiritualism’s mouthpiece.
Next they all stand for the movement’s favourite hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light.” George notices something different about the singing, which he cannot at first identify. “Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see / The distant scene; one step enough for me.” For a moment he is distracted by the words, which do not seem especially appropriate to Spiritualism: as far as George understands it, the movement’s adherents have their eyes on the distant scene all the time, and have precisely laid down the steps it takes to get there. Then he shifts his attention from matter to manner. The singing is different. In church people sing hymns as if reacquainting themselves with lines familiar from months and years ago—lines containing truths so established that they need neither proving, nor thinking about. Here there is directness and freshness in the voices; also a kind of cheerfulness verging on passion which most Vicars would find worrisome. Each word is enunciated as if it contains a brand new truth, one which needs to be celebrated and urgently conveyed to others. It all strikes George as highly unEnglish. Cautiously, he finds it rather admirable. “till / The night is gone, / And with the morn those angel faces smile, / Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.”
As the hymn ends and they take their seats again, George gives his neighbour a small, indeterminate greeting—modest enough, yet even so, something he would never do in church. She responds with a smile that fills every surface of her face. There is nothing forward in it, nor anything of the missionary either. Nor is there any evident complacency. Her smile merely says: yes, this is certain, this is right, this is joyful.
George is impressed, but also slightly shocked: he is suspicious of joy. He has come across little of it in his life. In his childhood there was something called pleasure, usually accompanied by the adjectives guilty, furtive or illicit. The only pleasures allowed were those modified by the word simple. As for joy, it was something associated with angels blowing trumpets, and its true place was in Heaven not on Earth. Let joy be unconfined—that was what people said, wasn’t it? But in George’s experience, joy has always been closely confined. As for pleasure, he has known the pleasure of doing one’s duty—to family, to clients, and occasionally to God. But he has never done most of the things that afford his compatriots pleasure: drinking beer, dancing, playing football and cricket; not to mention things that might have come if marriage had come. He will never know a woman who jumps up like a girl, pats her hair, and runs to meet him.
Mr. E. W. Oaten, who once proudly chaired the first large meeting Sir Arthur addressed on Spiritualism, says that no man better combined within himself all the virtues we associate with the British character: courage, optimism, loyalty, sympathy, magnanimity, love of truth and devotion to God. Next Mr. Hannen Swaffer recalls how less than a fortnight ago, Sir Arthur, though mortally ill, struggled up the steps of the Home Office to plead for the repeal of the Witchcraft Act, which those of malevolent intent sought to invoke against mediums. It was his last duty, and in his devotion to duty he never faltered. This showed itself in every aspect of his life. Many people knew Doyle the writer, Doyle the dramatist, Doyle the traveller, Doyle the boxer, Doyle the cricketer who once dismissed the great W. G. Grace. But greater than any of these was the Doyle who pleaded for justice when the innocent were made to suffer. It was due to his influence that the law of Criminal Appeal was carried. It was this Doyle who so triumphantly took up the causes of Edalji and Slater.
George instinctively looks down at the mention of his name, then proudly up, then surreptitiously sideways. A pity he has been coupled yet again with that low and ungrateful criminal; but he may, he thinks, take honourable pleasure in having his name spoken at this great occasion. Maud will be pleased too. He glances more openly at his neighbours, but his moment has passed. They have eyes only for Mr. Swaffer, who has moved on to celebrate another Doyle, and an even greater one than Doyle the bringer of justice. This greatest of all Doyles was and is the man who in the hours of the War’s despair carried to the women of the country the comforting proof that their loved ones were not dead.
They are now asked to stand in silence for two minutes to honour the memory of their great champion. Lady Conan Doyle, as she rises, looks briefly down at the empty chair next to her, and then stands, with one tall son on either side of her, gazing out at the hall. Six—eight? ten?—thousand gaze back, from gallery, from balcony, from tiered boxes, from the great curve of stalls, and from the arena. In church, people would lower their heads and close their eyes to remember the departed. Here there is no such discretion or inwardness: frank sympathy is conveyed with a direct look. It also seems to George that the silence is of a different nature to any he has felt before. Official silences are respectful, grave, often deliberately saddening; this silence is active, filled with anticipation and even passion. If a silence can be like suppressed noise, then this is such a silence. When it ends, George realizes that it has held such a strange power over him that he has almost forgotten about Sir Arthur.
Mr. Craze is back at the microphone. “This evening,” he announces as the many thousand take their seats again, “we are going to make a very daring experiment with the courage implanted in us by our late leader. We have with us a spirit sensitive who is going to try to give impressions from this platform. One reason why we hesitate to do it in such a colossal meeting is that it places a terrific strain on the sensitive. In an assembly of ten thousand people a tremendous force is centred upon the medium. Tonight, Mrs. Roberts will try to describe some particular friends, but it will be the first time this has been attempted in such a tremendous gathering. You can help with your vibrations as you sing the next hymn, ‘Open My Eyes That I May See Glimpses of Truth.’ ”
George has never been to a seance. He has never, for that matter, crossed a gypsy’s palm with silver, or paid twopence to sit before a crystal ball at a funfair. He believes it is all hocus-pocus. Only a fool or a backward tribesman would believe that the lines on a hand or the tea leaves in a cup reveal anything. He is willing to respect Sir Arthur’s certainty that the spirit survives death; perhaps, too, that under certain circumstances such a spirit might be able to communicate with the living. He is also prepared to admit that there might be something in the telepathic experiments Sir Arthur described in his autobiography. But there comes a point where George draws the line. He draws it, for instance, when people make the furniture jump around, when bells are mysteriously rung and fluorescent faces of the dead appear out of the darkness, when spirit hands leave their supposed imprint on soft wax. George finds this all too obviously a conjuring trick. How can it not be suspicious that the best conditions for spirit communication—drawn curtains, extinguished lights, people joining hands so that they cannot get up and verify what is happening—are precisely the best conditions in which charlatanry can flourish? Regretfully, he judges Sir Arthur credulous. He has read that the American illusionist Mr. Harry Houdini, whose acquaintance Sir Arthur made in the United States, offered to reproduce every single effect known to professional mediums. On numerous occasions he had been tied up securely by honest men, but once the lights were out always managed to free himself sufficiently to ring bells, set off noises
, shift the furniture around and even engender ectoplasm. Sir Arthur declined Mr. Houdini’s challenge. He did not deny that the illusionist might be able to produce such effects, but preferred his own interpretation of that ability: Mr. Houdini was in fact the possessor of spiritual powers, whose existence he perversely chose to deny.
As the singing of “Open My Eyes” comes to an end, a slim woman with short dark hair, dressed in flowing black satin, comes forward to the microphone. This is Mrs. Estelle Roberts, Sir Arthur’s favourite medium. The atmosphere in the hall is now even more intense than during the two-minute silence. Mrs. Roberts stands there, slightly swaying, hands clasped together, head cast down. Every eye is upon her. Slowly, very slowly, she begins to lift her head; then her hands are unclasped and her arms begin to spread, while the slow sway continues. Finally, she speaks.
“There are vast numbers of spirits here with us,” she begins. “They are pushing behind me like anything.”
It does indeed seem like this: as if she is holding herself upright despite great pressure from several directions.
Nothing happens for a while, except more swaying, more unseen buffetting. The woman on George’s right whispers, “She is waiting for Red Cloud to appear.”
George nods.
“That’s her spirit guide,” the neighbour adds.
George does not know what to say. This is not his world at all.
“Many of the guides are Indians.” The woman pauses, then smiles and adds, without the slightest embarrassment, “Red Indians, I mean.”
The waiting is as active as the silence was; as if those in the hall are pressing upon the slim figure of Mrs. Roberts much as any invisible spirits are. The waiting builds and the swaying figure plants her feet wider as if to hold her balance.
“They are pushing, they are pushing, many of them are unhappy, the hall, the lights, the world they prefer—a young man, dark hair brushed back, in uniform, a Sam Browne belt, he has a message—a woman, a mother, three children, one of them passed and is with her now—elderly gentleman bald head was a doctor not far from here a dark grey suit passed suddenly after a dreadful accident—a baby, yes, a little girl taken away by influenza she misses her two brothers Bob is one of them and her parents—Stop it! Stop it!”—Mrs. Roberts suddenly shouts, and with her arms outstretched seems to push back at the spirits crowding behind her—“There are too many of them, their voices are confused, a middle-aged man in a dark overcoat who spent much of his life in Africa—he has a message—there is a white-haired grandmother who shares your anxiety and wants you to know—”
George listens to the crowd of spirits being given fleeting description. The impression is that they are all clamouring for attention, fighting to convey their messages. A facetious if logical question comes into George’s mind, from where he cannot tell, unless as a reaction to all this unwonted intensity. If these are indeed the spirits of Englishmen and Englishwomen who have passed over into the next world, surely they would know how to form a proper queue? If they have been promoted to a higher state, why have they been reduced to such an importunate rabble? He does not think he will share this thought with his immediate neighbours, who are now leaning forwards and gripping the brass rail.
“—a man in a double-breasted suit between twenty-five and thirty who has a message—a girl, no, sisters, who suddenly passed—an elderly gentleman, over seventy, who lived in Hertfordshire—”
The roll-call continues, and sometimes a brief description will draw a gasp from a distant part of the hall. The sense of anticipation around him is feverish and overwrought; there is also something fearful to it. George wonders what it must be like to be picked out in the presence of thousands by a departed member of your family. He wonders if most would not prefer it to happen in the privacy of a dark and curtained seance room. Or, possibly, not at all.
Mrs. Roberts goes quiet again. It is as if the competing babble behind and around her has also subsided for the moment. Then suddenly the medium flings out her right arm and points to the back of the stalls, on the other side of the hall to George. “Yes, there! I see him! I see the spirit form of a young soldier. He is looking for someone. He is looking for a gentleman with hardly any hair.”
George, like everyone else with a view across the hall, peers intently, half expecting the spirit form to be visible, half trying to identify the man with little hair. Mrs. Roberts raises her hand to shelter her eyes, as if the arc lights are interfering with her perception of the spirit form.
“He looks to be about twenty-four. In khaki uniform. Upright, well built, a small moustache. Mouth droops a little at the corners. He passed suddenly.”
Mrs. Roberts pauses, and tilts her head downwards, rather as counsel might do when taking a note from the solicitor at his side.
“He gives 1916 as the year of his passing. He distinctly calls you ‘Uncle.’ Yes, ‘Uncle Fred.’ ”
A bald-headed man at the back of the stalls rises to his feet, nods, and just as suddenly sits down, as if he is not sure of the etiquette.
“He speaks of a brother Charles,” the medium continues. “Is that correct? He wants to know if you have Aunt Lillian with you. Do you understand?”
The man stays in his seat this time, nodding vigorously.
“He tells me that there was an anniversary, the birthday of a brother. Some anxiety in the home. There is no need for it. The message continues—” and then Mrs. Roberts suddenly lurches forward, as if violently propelled from behind. She spins round and cries, “All right!” She seems to be pushing back. “All right! I say.”
But when she turns to face the arena again, it is clear that contact with the soldier has been broken. The medium places her hands over her face, fingers pressed against forehead, thumbs beneath her ears, as if trying to recover the necessary equilibrium. Finally, she takes her hands away and stretches her arms out.
This time the spirit is of a woman, aged between twenty-five and thirty, whose name begins with a J. She was promoted while giving birth to a little girl, who passed over at the same time. Mrs. Roberts is scanning the front of the arena, following the progress of a mother with a spirit infant in her arms, as she tries to locate her forsaken husband. “Yes, she says her name is June—and she is looking for—R, yes R—is it Richard?” At which a man rises straight up from his seat and shouts, “Where is she? Where are you, June? June, speak to me. Show me our child!” He is quite distraught and staring all around him, until an elderly couple, looking embarrassed, pull him back down.
Mrs. Roberts, as if the interruption has never taken place, so total has been her concentration on the spirit voice, says, “The message is that she and the child are watching over you and taking care of you in your present trouble. They are waiting for you on the farther side. They are happy, and they wish you to be happy until you all meet again.”
The spirits are now becoming more orderly, it seems. Identifications are made and messages passed. A man is seeking his daughter. She is interested in music. He is holding an open score. Initials are established, then names. Mrs. Roberts gives the message: the spirit of one of the great musicians is helping the man’s daughter; if she continues to work hard, the spirit will continue with his influence.
George is beginning to discern a pattern. The messages conveyed, whether of consolation or encouragement or both, are of a very general nature. So too are most of the identifications, at least to begin with. But then comes some clinching detail, which the medium will often take time searching for. George thinks it highly unlikely that these spirits, if they exist, can be so surprisingly incapable of conveying their identity without a lot of guessing games from Mrs. Roberts. Is the supposed problem of transmission between the two worlds no more than a ploy to raise the drama—indeed, the melodrama—until the culminating moment when someone in the audience nods, or raises an arm, or stands up as if summoned, or puts their hands to their face in disbelief and joy?
It could be just a clever guessing game: there is surely a statis
tical probability that someone with the correct initial, and then the correct name, will be present in an audience of this size, and a medium might cleverly organize her words to lead her to this candidate. Or it could all be a straightforward hoax, with accomplices planted in the audience to impress and perhaps convert the credulous. And then there is a third possibility: that those in the audience who nod and raise an arm and stand up and cry out are genuinely taken by surprise, and genuinely believe contact has been made; but this is because someone in their circle—perhaps a fervent Spiritualist determined to spread belief by however cynical a means—has passed on private details to the organizers. This, George concludes, is probably how it is done. As with perjury, it works best when there is a clever mixture of the true and the false.
“And now there is a message from a gentleman, a very proper and distinguished gentleman, who passed ten years ago, twelve years ago. Yes, I have it, he passed in 1918, he tells me.” The year Father died, thinks George. “He was about seventy-five years of age.” Strange, Father was seventy-six. A longish pause, and then: “He was a very spiritual man.” At which point, George feels his flesh begin to prickle, all along his arms and up into his neck. No, no, surely not. He feels frozen in his seat; his shoulders lock solid; he stares rigidly at the stage, waiting for the medium’s next move.