II. IMPROMPTU MARIEMONT SITTING
Once at Mariemont, I am told, when M. F. A. L. and Honor were touching it, the table moved up to a book in which relics and reminiscences of Raymond had been pasted, and caused it to be opened. In it, among other things, was an enlargement of the snapshot facing page 278, showing him in an old 'Nagant' motor, which had been passed on to him by Alec, stopping outside a certain house in Somersetshire. He was asked what house it was, and was expected to spell the name of the friend who lived there, but instead he spelt the name of the house. The record by M. F. A. L., with some unimportant omissions, is here reproduced—merely, however, as another example of a private sitting without a medium.
Impromptu Table Sitting at Mariemont, Tuesday, 25 April 1916
(Report by M. F. A. L.)
I had been thinking of Raymond all day, and wanting to thank him for what he did yesterday for Honor, sitting on the Chesterfield, said, "I wonder if any table would be equally good for Raymond?"—placing her hands on the middle-sized table of the nest of three. It at once began to stir, and she asked me to place mine on the other side to steady it. I asked if it was Raymond, and it decidedly said Yes. I then thanked him with much feeling for what he had done for [two separate families] lately. I told him how much he had comforted them, and how splendidly he was doing; that there were quite a number of people he had helped now. We discussed a few others that needed help. Then I think we asked him if he knew what room we were in—Yes. And after knocking me a good deal, and making a noise which seemed to please him against my eyeglasses, he managed, by laying the table down, to get one foot on to the Chesterfield and raise the table up on it; and there it stayed, and rocked about for a long time answering questions—I thought it would make a hole in the cover. I don't quite remember how it got down, but it did, and then edged itself up to the other larger table, which had been given me by Alec, Noël, and Raymond, after they had broken a basket table I used to use there—it was brought in with a paper, "To Mother from the culprits." (This was a year or two ago.) Well, he got it up to this table, and fidgeted about with the foot of the smaller table on which we had our hands, until he rested it on a ledge and tried to raise it up. But the way he did this most successfully was when he got the ledge of our small table onto a corner of the other and then raised it off the ground level. This he did several times. I took one hand off, leaving one hand on the top, and Honor's two hands lying on the top, no part of them being over the edge, and I measured the height the legs were off the ground. The first time it was the width of three fingers, and the next time four fingers. Honor told him this was very clever. I then tried to press it down, but could not—a curious feeling, like pressing on a cushion of air. He had by this time turned us right round, so that Honor was sitting where I had been before, and I was sitting or sometimes standing in her place. Then we were turned round again, and he seemed to want to knock the other table again; he went at it in a curious way. I had with one hand to remove a glass on it which I thought he would upset. He continued to edge against it, until he reached a book lying on it. This he knocked with such intention, that Honor asked him if he wanted it opened. Yes. [This was a scrap-book in which I collect anything about him—photographs, old and new; poems made about him, or sent to me in consolation; and it has his name outside, drawn on in large letters.—M. F. A. L.] So I opened it, and showed him the photograph of himself seated in the 'Nagant.' [A motor-car which Alec had practically given him not long before the war, and with which he was delighted.] Honor asked if he could see it, and he said Yes, and seemed pleased. She asked if he could tell her what house it was standing in front of, and he spelt out— ST. GERMINS. [This was pretty good, as the name of the Jacques's house is 'St. Germains.'] (Honor had forgotten the name till he began, and expected him to say Jacques's.) We told him he had got it, but that his spelling wasn't quite as good as it had been. Honor talked to him then about the 'Nagant' and the 'Gabrielle Horn,' all of which seemed to delight him. We then showed him some other photographs, and the one of his dog, and asked him to spell its name, which he did without mistake— LARRY. He couldn't see the little photograph of the goats, as it was too small. But he saw himself in uniform—the one taken by Rosalynde and enlarged—and he seemed to like seeing that. We talked a lot to him. I asked if he remembered his journey with me out to Italy, and the Pullman car, etc. At this he knocked very affectionately against me. We then thought it was time for us all to go to bed. But he said No. So we went on telling him family news. He listened with interest and appreciative knocks, and he then tried his balancing trick again, sometimes with success, but often failing to get the leg right. But he did it again in the end. We tried to say good night, it being then nearly one o'clock, but he didn't seem to want to go. We said au revoir, and told him we would see him again soon.