Georgie took off his rings and laid them on the candle-bracket, and ran his hands nimbly over the piano.
‘Poissons d'or,’ he said. ‘Goldfish!’
‘Yes; Pesci d'oro,’ said Lucia, explaining it to Pepino.
Lucia's face changed as the elusive music proceeded. The far-away look died away and became puzzled: her chin came out of her hand, and the hand it came out of covered her eyes. Before Georgie had got to the end, the answer to her note came, and she sat with it in her hand, which, released from covering her eyes, tried to beat time. On the last note she got up with a regretful sigh.
‘It is finished?’ she asked. ‘And yet I feel inclined to say “When is it going to begin?’ I haven't been fed: I haven't drunk in anything. Yes, I warned you I should be quite candid. And there's my verdict. I am sorry. Me vewy sowwy! But you played it, I am sure, beautifully, Georgino: you were a buono avvocato: you said all that could be said for your client. Shall I open this note before we discuss it more fully? Give Georgie a cigarette, Pepino! I am sure he deserves one after all those accidentals.’
She pulled up the blind again in order to read her note, and as she read it her face clouded.
‘Ah! I am sorry for that,’ she said. ‘Pepino, the Princess does not go out in the evening; they always have a séance there. I daresay Daisy means to ask us some evening soon. We will keep an evening or two open. It is a long time since I have seen dear Daisy; I will pop in this afternoon.’
13
Spiritualism, and all things pertaining to it, swept over Rise-holme like the amazing growth of some tropical forest, germinating in the most unlikely soil, and rearing into huge fantastic growths. In the centre of this wonderful jungle was a temple, so to speak, and that temple was the house of Mrs Quantock…
A strange Providence was the origin of it all. Mrs Quantock, a week before, had the toothache, and, being no longer in the fold of Christian Science, found that it was no good at all to tell herself that it was a false claim. False claim it might be, but it was so plausible a one that it quite deceived her, and she went up to London to have its falsity demonstrated by a dentist. Since the collapse of Yoga, and the flight of the curry-cook, she had embarked on no mystical adventure, and she starved for some new fad. Thus when her first visit to the dentist was over (the tooth required three treatments) and she went to a vegetarian restaurant to see if there was anything enlightening to be got out of that, she was delighted to find herself sitting at a very small table with a very communicative lady who ate cabbages in perfectly incredible quantities. She had a round pale face, like the moon behind thin clouds, enormous eye-brows that almost met over the nose, a strange, slow voice, of husky tone, and a pronunciation quite as foreign as Signor Cortese's. She wore some very curious rings, with large engraved amethysts and turquoises in them, and, as in the first moments of their conversation she had volunteered the information that vegetarianism was the only possible diet for any who cultivated their psychical powers, Mrs Quantock asked her if those finger-ornaments had any mystical signification. They had: one was Gnostic, one was Rosicrucian, and the other was Cabalistic… It is easy to picture Mrs Quantock's delight: adventure had met her with smiling mouth and mysterious eyes. In the course of an animated conversation of half an hour, this lady explained that if Mrs Quantock was, like her, a searcher after psychical mysteries, and cared to come to her flat at half-past four that afternoon, she would try to help her. She added, with some little diffidence, that the fee for a séance was a guinea, and, as she left, took a card out of a case encrusted with glowing rubies, and gave it her. That was the Princess Popoffski.
Now here was a curious thing. For the last few evenings at Riseholme Mrs Quantock had been experimenting with a table, and finding that it creaked and tilted and tapped in the most encouraging way when she and Robert laid their hands on it, and that something – whatever it was that moved the table – had indicated by raps that her name was Daisy and his Robert, as well as giving them other information which could not so easily be verified. Robert had grown quite excited about it, and was vexed that the séance was interrupted by his wife's expedition to London. But now how providential that was. She had walked straight from the hands of the dentist into the arms of Princess Popoffski.
It was barely half-past four when Mrs Quantock arrived at the Princess's flat, in a quiet side-street off Charing Cross Road. A small, dapper little gentleman received her, who explained that he was the Princess's secretary, and conducted her through several small rooms into the presence of the Sibyl. These rooms, so Mrs Quantock thrillingly noticed, were dimly lit by oil lamps that stood in front of shrines containing images of the great spiritual guides from Moses down to Madame Blavatski; a smell of incense hung about; there were vases of flowers on the tables, and strange caskets set with winking stones. In the last of these rooms the Princess was seated, and for the moment Mrs Quantock hardly recognized her, for she wore a blue robe, which left her massive arms bare, and upon them writhed serpent-shaped bracelets of many coils. She fixed her eyes upon Mrs Quantock, as if she had never seen her before, and made no sign of recognition.
‘The Princess has been meditating,’ said the secretary in a hoarse whisper. ‘She'll come to herself presently.’
For a moment meditation unpleasantly reminded Mrs Quantock of the Guru, but nothing could have been less like that ill-starred curry-cook than this majestic creature. Eventually she gave a great sigh and came out of her meditation.
‘Ah, it is my friend,’ she said. ‘Do you know that you have a purple halo?’
This was very gratifying, especially when it was explained that only the most elect had purple haloes, and soon other elect souls assembled for the séance. In the centre of the table was placed a musical box and a violin, and hardly had the circle been made, and the lights turned down, when the most extraordinary things began to happen. A perfect storm of tappings issued from the table, which violently pitched and rocked, and presently there came peals of laughter in a high voice, and those who had been before said that it was Pocky. He was a dear naughty boy, so Mrs Quantock's neighbour explained to her, so full of fun, and when on earth, had been a Hungarian violinist. Still invisible, Pocky wished them all much laughter and joy, and then suddenly said ‘'Ullo! 'ullo, 'ere's a new friend. I like her.’ And Mrs Quantock's neighbour, with a touch of envy in her voice, told her that Pocky clearly meant her. Then Pocky said that they had been having heavenly music on the other side that day, and that if the new friend would say ‘Please’, he would play them some of it.
So Mrs Quantock, trembling with emotion, said ‘Please, Pocky,’ and instantly he began to play on the violin the spirit-tune which he had just been playing on the other side. After that, the violin clattered back on the middle of the table again, and Pocky, blowing showers of kisses to them all, went away amid peals of happy laughter.
Silence fell, and then a deep bass voice said, ‘I am coming, Amadeo!’ and out of the middle of the table appeared a faint luminousness. It grew upwards and began to take form. Swathes of white muslin shaped themselves in the dimness, and then appeared a white face in the topmost folds of the muslin, with a Roman nose and a melancholy expression. He was not gay like Pocky, but he was intensely impressive, and spoke some lines in Italian when asked to repeat a piece of Dante. Mrs Quantock knew they were Italian, because she recognized notte and uno and caro, familiar words on Lucia's lips.
The séance came to an end, and Mrs Quantock having placed a guinea with the utmost alacrity in a sort of offertory-plate which the Princess's secretary negligently but prominently put down on a table in one of the other rooms, waited to arrange for another séance. But most unfortunately the Princess was leaving town next day on a much-needed holiday, for she had been giving three séances a day for the last two months and required rest.
‘Yes, we're off to-morrow, the Princess and I,’ said he, ‘for a week at the Royal Hotel at Brinton. Pleasant bracing air, always sets her up. But after that she'll be bac
k in town. Do you know that part of the country?’
Daisy could hardly believe her ears.
‘Brinton?’ she said. ‘I live close to Brinton.’
The whole scheme flashed complete upon her, even as Athene sprang full-grown from the brain of Zeus.
‘Do you think she might be induced to spend a few days with me at Riseholme?’ she said. ‘My husband and I are so much interested in psychical things. You would be our guest, too, I hope. If she rested for a few days at Brinton first? If she came on to me afterwards? And then if she was thoroughly rested, perhaps she would give us a séance or two. I don't know –’
Mrs Quantock felt a great diffidence in speaking of guineas in the same sentence with Princesses, and had to make another start.
‘If she was thoroughly rested,’ she said, ‘and if a little circle perhaps of four, at the usual price, would be worth her while. Just after dinner, you know, and nothing else to do all day but rest. There are pretty drives, and beautiful air. All very quiet, and I think I may say more comfortable than the hotel. It would be such a pleasure.’
Mrs Quantock heard the clinking of bracelets from the room where the Princess was still reposing, and there she stood in the door, looking unspeakably majestic, but very gracious. So Mrs Quantock put her proposition before her, the secretary coming to the rescue on the subject of the usual fees, and when, two days afterwards, she returned to Riseholme, it was to get ready the spare-room and Robert's room next to it for these thrilling visitors, whose first séance Georgie and Piggy had attended on the evening of the Italian débâcle…
The Quantocks had taken a high and magnificent line about the ‘usual fees’ for the séances, an expensive line, but then Roumanian oils had been extremely prosperous lately. No mention whatever of these fees was made to their guests, no offertory-plate was put in a prominent position in the hall. There was no fumbling for change or the discreet pressure of coins into the secretary's hand; the entire cost was borne by Roumanian oils. The Princess and Mrs Quantock, apparently, were old friends; they spoke to each other at dinner as ‘dear friend’, and the Princess declared in the most gratifying way that they had been most intimate in a previous incarnation, without any allusion to the fact that in this incarnation they had met for the first time last week at a vegetarian restaurant. She was kind enough, it was left to be understood, to give a little séance after dinner at the house of her ‘dear friend’.
Now the Princess was to stay three nights, and, therefore, as soon as Mrs Quantock had made sure of that, she proceeded to fill up each of the séances without asking Lucia to any of them. It was not that she had not fully forgiven her for her odious grabbing of the Guru, for she had done that on the night of the Spanish Quartet; it was rather that she meant to make sure that there would, by no possibility, be anything to forgive concerning her conduct with regard to the Princess. She could not grab her (and so call Daisy's power of forgiveness into play again), if she never came near her, and Daisy meant to take proper precautions that she should not come near her. Accordingly Georgie and Piggy were asked to the first séance (if it did not go very well, it would not particularly matter with them), Olga and Mr Shuttleworth were bidden to the second, and Lady Ambermere, with Georgie again, to the third. This – quite apart from the immense interest of psychic phenomena – was deadly work, for it would be bitter, indeed, to Lucia to know, as she most undoubtedly would, that Lady Ambermere, who had cut her so firmly, was dining and coming to the séance, and that Georgie would be dining twice and coming to two séances. Daisy, it must again be repeated, had quite forgiven Lucia about the Guru, but Lucia must take the consequences of what she had done…
It was after the first séance that the frenzy for spiritualism seized Riseholme. The Princess, with great good-nature and further fees, gave some further exhibitions of her psychical powers in addition to the evening séances, and even as Georgie the next afternoon was receiving Lucia's cruel verdict about Debussy, the Sibyl was looking at the hands of Colonel Boucher and Mrs Weston, and unerringly probing into their past, and lifting the corner of the veil, giving them bright glimpses into the future. She knew that the two were engaged, for that she had learned from Mrs Quantock in her morning's drive, and did not attempt to conceal the fact; but how could it be accounted for that, looking impressively from the one to the other, she said that a woman no longer young but tall, and with fair hair, had crossed their lives and had been connected with one of them for years past? It was impossible to describe Elizabeth more accurately than that, and Mrs Weston, in high excitement, confessed that her maid, who had been with her for fifteen years, entirely corresponded with what the Princess had seen in her hand. After that it took only a moment's further scrutiny for the Princess to discover that Elizabeth was going to be happy too… Then she found that there was a man connected with Elizabeth, and Colonel Boucher's hand, to which she transferred her gaze, trembled with delighted anticipation. She seemed to see a man there; she was not quite sure, but was there a man who perhaps had been known to him for a long time? There was. And then by degrees the affairs of Elizabeth and Atkinson were unerringly unravelled. It was little wonder that the Colonel pushed Mrs Weston's bath-chair with record speed to ‘Ye Signe of Ye Daffodille’, and by the greatest good luck obtained a copy of the ‘Palmist's Manual’.
At another of these informal séances, attended by Goosie and Mrs Antrobus, even stranger things had happened, for the Princess's hand, as they held a little preliminary conversation, began to tremble and twitch even more strongly than Colonel Boucher's, and Mrs Quantock hastily supplied her with a pencil and a quantity of sheets of foolscap paper, for this trembling and twitching implied that Raschia, an ancient Egyptian priestess, was longing to employ the Princess on automatic writing. After a few wild scrawls and plunges with the pencil, the Princess, though she still continued to talk to them, covered sheet after sheet with large flowing handwriting. This, when it was finished and the Princess sank back in her chair, proved to be the most wonderful spiritual discourse, describing the happiness and harmony which pervaded the whole universe, and was only temporarily obscured by the mists of materiality. These mists were wholly withdrawn from the vision of those who had passed over. They lived in the midst of song and flowers and light and love… Towards the end there was a less intelligible passage about fire from the clouds. It was rendered completely intelligible the very next day when there was a thunderstorm surely an unusual occurrence in November. If that had not happened, Mrs Quantock's interpretation of it as referring to Zeppelins would have been found equally satisfactory. It was no wonder after that, that Mrs Antrobus, Piggy and Goosie spent long evenings with pencils and paper, for the Princess said that most people had the gift of automatic writing, if they would only take pains and patience to develop it. Everybody had his own particular guide, and it was the very next day that Piggy obtained a script clearly signed Annabel. Nicostratus and Jamifleg followed very soon after for Mrs Antrobus and Goosie, and so there was no jealousy.
But the crown and apex of these manifestations were undoubtedly the three regular séances which took place before the three select circles after dinner. Musical boxes resounded, violins gave forth ravishing airs, the sitters were touched by unseen fingers when everybody's hands were touching all round the table, and from the middle of it materializations swathed in muslin were built up. Pocky came, visible to the eye, and played spirit-music; Amadeo, melancholy and impressive, recited Dante, and Cardinal Newman, not visible to the eye but audible to the ear, joined in singing ‘Lead, kindly Light’, which the secretary requested them to sing, and blessed them at the conclusion. Lady Ambermere was so much impressed and so nervous of driving home alone, that she insisted on Georgie's going back to the Hall with her, and consigning her to Pug or Miss Lyall, and for the three days of the Princess's visit there was practically no subject discussed at the parliaments on the green except the latest manifestations. Olga sent to town for a crystal, and Georgie for a planchette, and Riseholme t
emporarily became a spiritualistic republic, with the Princess as priestess and Mrs Quantock as president.
Lucia, all this time, was almost insane with pique and jealousy, for she sat in vain waiting for an invitation to a séance, and would, long before the three days were over, have welcomed with enthusiasm a place at one of the inferior and informal exhibitions. Since she could not procure the Princess for dinner, she asked Daisy to bring her to lunch or tea, or at any hour day or night which was convenient. She made Pepino hang about opposite Daisy's house, with orders to drop his stick, or let his hat blow off, if he saw even the secretary coming out of the gate, so as possibly to enter into conversation with him, while she positively forced herself one morning into Daisy's hall, and cried ‘Margherita’ in silvery tones. On this occasion Margherita came out of the drawing-room with a most determined expression on her face, and shut the door carefully behind her.
‘Dearest Lucia,’ she said, ‘how nice to see you. What is it?’
‘I just popped in for a chat,’ said she. ‘I haven't set eyes on you since the evening of the Spanish Quartet.'
‘No! So long ago as that, is it? Well, you must come in again sometime very soon, won't you? The day after to-morrow I shall be much less busy. Promise to look in then.’
‘You have a visitor with you, have you not?’ asked Lucia desperately.
‘Yes! Two indeed, dear friends of mine. But I am afraid you would not like them. I know your opinion about anything connected with Spiritualism, and – isn't it silly of us? – we've been dabbling in that.’
‘Oh, but how interesting!’ said Lucia. ‘I – I am always ready to learn, and alter my opinions if I am wrong.’
Mrs Quantock did not move from in front of the drawing-room door.
‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Then we will have a great talk about it when you come to see me the day after to-morrow. But I know I shall find you hard to convince.’