CHAPTER IX
Madeline's report, next morning. Charles Mathews and Madame Vestria. How well Madeline held her tongue to keep her promise. An anticipation of post-story time. How a Deputation waited on Mrs. Aiken from the Psychomorphic. Mr. MacAnimus and Mr. Vacaw. Gevartius much more correct for Miss Jessie to listen to than the Laughing Cavalier. Of Self-hypnosis and Ghosts, their respective categories. The mad cat's nose outside the blanket. Singular Autophrenetic experience of Mr. Aiken. Stenography. A case in point. Not a Phenomenon at all. How Miss Volumnia's penetration penetrated, and got at something. Suggestion traced home. Enough to explain any Phenomenon.
"I'm afraid you did get mixed up, darling, this time. But I dare say they're all right." This was Lady Upwell's comment at breakfast next morning, when her daughter had completed a narrative of her previous evening's adventure, which had assumed, between the close of last chapter and the ensuing midnight, all the character of a reckless escapade. Indeed, it had been long past that hour when the young lady, who had wired early in the evening that she was "dining with Aikens shall be late," returned home in better spirits than she had shown for months—so her mother said to sympathetic friends afterwards—to find her Pupsey getting uneasy about her, and fidgetting. Because that was Pupsey's way.
Madeline's parents at this time would probably have welcomed any diversion or excitement for the girl; anything to take her mind away from her troubles. They were not at all sure about these Aiken people; but there!—they would have welcomed worse, to see this little daughter of theirs in such spirits as hers last night. Touching the cause of which they were a little puzzled, as she had stuck loyally to her promise to tell nothing of Mrs. Aiken's dream and the share the Italian picture had in her reconciliation with her husband. All she said was that she had persuaded Euphemia to go back to Reginald; she having, as it were, borrowed from each the name each called the other—in a certain sense, quoting it.
"Euphemia, I suppose, is Mrs. Aiken?" said her ladyship temperately—with a touch of graciousness, like Queens on the stage to their handmaidens Cicely or Elspeth.
"Euphemia 's Mrs. Aiken, but he calls her Mrs. Hay as often as not." Perplexity of both parents here required a short explanation of middle-class jocularity turning on neglect or excess of aspirates. After which Madeline said, "That's all!" and they said, "We see," but with hesitation. Then she continued her story. "It was such fun! I knocked at the door, and Reginald came rushing out because he heard Euphemia outside, and clasped me in his arms ... Oh, well—it's quite true! You see, he was in such a hurry he didn't stop to look, and he took me for Euphemia." For the Baronet had laid down his knife and fork and remained transfixed. But a telegraphic lip-movement of her ladyship reassured him. "This," it said, "is exaggeration. Expect more of the same sort." However, his daughter softened the statement. "It wasn't exactly negotiated, you know. And I don't think it would have been any satisfaction either, because he was so horribly dirty, Reginald was."
The Baronet completed a contract he had on hand with some kippered salmon, and said, before accepting a new one, "Well—you're a nice young woman!" But he added forgivingly, "Go on—gee-up!"
The nice young woman went on. "And do you know, I don't believe that a more filthy condition than that house was in—why, Mrs. Aiken had been away ten months! And there was a drunken cook singing in the kitchen all the while."
"You are an inconsecutive puss," said the Baronet, very happy about the puss nevertheless. "You didn't finish your sentence. 'Filthy condition that house was in'—go on!"
"Bother my sentence! Finish it yourself, Pupsey. Well—Reginald and Euphemia made it up like a shot. Couple of idiots! Then the question was—dinner. I said come home here, but they said clothes. There was some truth in what they had on, so I said hadn't we better all go and dine where Mr. Aiken had been going. Because I didn't call him Reginald to his face, you know!"
"And you went, I suppose?"
"I should think so. We dined at Mezzofanti's in Great Compton Street, Soho—no, it wasn't; it was Magliabecchi's—no!—Machiavelli's. And I talked such good Italian to the waiter. It was fun! And what do you think we did next? ... Give it up?" Her father nodded. "Why—we went to the Adelphi Theatre—there! And we saw 'Charley's Aunt,' and we parted intimate bosom friends. Only Euphemia is rather fussy and distant, compared to Us, and I had to stick out to make her kiss me." A slight illustration served to show how the speaker had driven a coach-and-six through the bosom-friend's shyness.
"Well," said the Baronet. "All I can say is—I wish I had been there with you. If I go to the play now—there I am, dressed in toggery and sittin' in the stalls! Lord, I remember when I was a young fellow, there was Charles Mathews and Madame Vestris ... you can't remember them...."
"Of course I can't. I was only born nineteen years ago." The Baronet, however, added more recent theatrical experiences, but only brought on himself corrections from his liege lady.
"My dear, you're quite at sea. Fancy the child recollecting Lord Dundreary and Buckstone! Why, she wasn't born or thought of!"
But when this Baronet got on the subject of his early plays and operas, he developed reminiscence in its most aggravated form. He easily outclassed Aunt Priscey on the subject of her ancestors. Her ladyship abandoned him as incorrigible, without an apology, but his daughter indulged him and sat and listened.
All things come to an end sooner or later, and reminiscence did, later. Then poor Madeline ran down in her spirits, and sat brooding over the war news. It was only a temporary sprint. Reginald and Euphemia vanished, and Jack came back.
Madeline kept all this story of the talking photograph to herself. To talk of it she would have had to tell her friend's dream, and that she had promised not to do.
She was so loyal that when a day or two later she met the formidable Miss Charlotte Bax, she kept a strict lock on her tongue, even when that lady plunged into a resumé of the dream-story as she had received it, and an abstract of her commentary on it, still waiting delivery at the Psychomorphic.
"I hoped we should meet at Mrs. Ludersdorff Priestley's," said she, "because I wanted to talk about it. Their teas are so stupid. Ethel Ludersdorff Priestley said you were coming."
"Oh yes—that was the Unfulfilled Bun-Worry. Mrs. Aiken came in to see me, and I stayed." Then, as an afterthought, "I suppose you know they've made it up?"
Admission that there was something unknown to her did not form part of Miss Charlotte's scheme of life. She left the question open, saying merely, "In consequence of the advice I gave my cousin, no doubt!" Madeline said nothing to contradict this—all the more readily perhaps that she was not prepared to supply the real reason. She, however, could and did supply rough particulars of the reconciliation, giving Miss Charlotte more than her due of credit as its vera causa.
That lady then proceeded to give details of her scientific conclusions about the phenomenon. A portion of this may be repeated, as it had a good deal of effect in confirming her hearer's growing faith in its genuineness. "What I rest my argument on," said Miss Charlotte, touching one forefinger with the other, like Sir Macklin in the "Bab Ballads," "is the isolated character of this phenomenon. Let the smallest confirmation of it be produced by proof of the existence of analogous phenomena elsewhere, and then, although that argument may not fall to the ground, it may be necessary to place it on an entirely new footing. I would suggest that, in order to sift the matter to the bottom, a sub-committee should be appointed, charged with the duty of listening to authentic portraits to determine, if possible, whether any other picture possesses this really almost incredible faculty of speech. The slightest whisper from another picture, well authenticated by a scientific authority, would change the whole venue of the discussion. Pending such a confirmation, we are forced to the conclusion that the subjectivity of the phenomenon is indisputable."
At this point, Miss Upwell, who was really getting anxious about secondly—which she was certain the speaker would forget, while it was impossible for her, without loss of dignity, to draw one forefinger from the other—was greatly relieved when the withdrawal was made compulsory by the offer of a sally-lunn, and the resumption of it became unnecessary, and even difficult. For this entertainment was not merely a bun-worry, but—choosing a name at random—a sally-lunn sedative, or a tea-cake lullaby.
It only enters for a moment into this story to show how powerfully Miss Upwell's belief in the picture's personality had been reinforced before the time came for Mr. Pelly to read Professor Schrudengesser's Florentine manuscript.
Perhaps if Miss Volumnia had then been in a position to lay before her friend the results of a subsequent interview with her cousin, in which she elicited some most important facts, this belief might at least have been suspended, and Miss Upwell's attitude towards the pardonable scepticisms of her father and Mr. Pelly might have been less disrespectful. But as a matter of fact Miss Volumnia only came to the knowledge of these facts months later, when she called upon Mrs. Reginald Aiken with the Secretary, Mr. MacAnimus, and Mr. Vacaw, the Chairman of the Psychomorphic; the three constituting a Deputation from the Society, which was anxious for repetition and confirmation of the story before appointing a sub-committee to listen to well-painted pictures. This interview may be given here, for the sake of those curious in Psychological study, but its place in the succession of events should be borne in mind. It is really a piece of inartistic anticipation.
"We shouldn't come pestering you like this, Cousin Euphemia," said Miss Volumnia, after introducing the Deputation, "if it had not been that we have so much trouble in getting volunteers to guarantee the amount of listening which we consider has to be gone through before the negative conclusion, that pictures cannot talk, is accepted as practically established. My sister Jessie has undertaken to listen to any picture at the National Gallery the sub-committee may select, provided that either Mr. Duodecimus Groob or Charley Galsworthy accompanies her, and listens too. I can see no objection to this, but I prefer that they should listen to Gevartius. I think it perhaps better that so young a girl should not hear what the Laughing Cavalier, Franz Hals, is likely to say. Or Charley Galsworthy either, for that matter. Mr. Duodecimus Groob is a graduate of the University of London...."
Mr. Reginald Aiken, who was present at this interview, looked up from his easel, at which he was retouching a sketch of no importance, to say that he knew this Mr. Groob, who was an awful ass; but his brother Dolly was quite another pair of shoes, of whom the World would soon hear more. The interruption was rude and discourteous, and Mrs. Aiken was obliged to explain to the Deputation that it was quite unnecessary to pay any attention to it. Her husband was always like that. His manners were atrocious, but his heart was good. As for Mr. Adolphus Groob, he was insufferable.
"Shall we proceed to business?" said Mr. MacAnimus, a piercing man, who let nobody off. "I will, with your permission, run through Mrs. Reginald Aiken's deposition...."
"I never made any deposition," said that lady.
"My dear Euphemia," said her cousin. "If you wish to withdraw from the statement you made to me..."
"Rubbish, Volumnia! I certainly don't withdraw from anything whatever. Still less have I any intention of making any depositions. If we are to be beset with depositions in everyday life, I think we ought at least to be consulted in the matter. Depositions, indeed!"
Mr. Vacaw interposed to make peace. "We need not," he said, "quarrel about terms." He for his part would be perfectly content that the particulars so kindly furnished by Mrs. Aiken should be referred to in whatever way was most satisfactory to that lady herself. He appeared to address Mr. MacAnimus with diffidence, almost amounting to humility, approaching him with somewhat of the caution which might be shown by a person who had undertaken to encumber a mad cat with a blanket so as to neutralise its powers of tooth and claw. Mr. MacAnimus conceded the point under protest; and Mrs. Aiken then, who was not disobliging, consented to repeat her dream experience, each point being checked off against the formulated report of her first statement, transmitted to the Society by Miss Volumnia. It is creditable to that lady's accuracy that very few corrections were necessary, especially as the first narrator seemed in a certain sense handicapped by doubts as to what the exact words used were, though always sure of their meaning. Had Mrs. Aiken understood any Italian, mixed speech on the picture's part might have accounted for this. As it was, an undeniable vagueness helped Miss Volumnia's classification of the incident as a case of Self-hypnosis. That the Deputation was unanimous on this point was soon evident.
It was then that an incident came to light that, at least in the opinion of Miss Volumnia, went far to establish this classification beyond a shadow of doubt.
Mr. Reginald, who had been at no pains to conceal his derision of the whole proceeding, allowed this spirit of ridicule, so hostile to the prosecution of Scientific Investigation, to master him so completely that he quite forgot the respect he owed to his visitors, and indeed to his wife, for she at least deserved the credit which is due to sincerity, even if mistaken. He shouted with laughter, saying did anyone ever hear such glorious Rot? A talking picture—only fancy! Why, you might as well put down anything you heard in your ears to any picture on the walls. One the same as another. Of course everyone knew that Euphemia was as full of fancies as an egg is full of meat. Just you leave her alone for a few minutes in a dark room, or a burying-ground, and see if she didn't see a ghost!
"That's quite another thing," said Miss Volumnia and Mr. MacAnimus simultaneously. And Mr. Vacaw added, as pacific confirmation, "Surely—surely! Ghosts belong to an entirely different category." A feeling that Ghosts could not be coped with so near lunch may have caused an impulse towards peroration. It was not, however, to fructify yet, for Mr. MacAnimus appealed for a moment's hearing.
"With your leave, sir," said he, addressing Mr. Vacaw as if he was The Speaker, "I should like to put a question to this gentleman," meaning Mr. Aiken. Mr. Vacaw may be considered to have allowed the mad cat's nose outside the blanket, on sufferance.
Then Mr. MacAnimus, producing a memorandum-book to take down the witness's words, asked this question: "What did Mr. Aiken mean by the expression, 'anything heard in your ears'?"
But the witness was one of those people who become diffuse the moment they are expected to answer a question. His testimony ran as follows, tumbling down and picking itself up again as it did so. "Oh, don't you know the sort of thing I mean; a sort of tickle—nothing you can exactly lay hold of—not what you think you hear when it's there—comes out after—p'r'aps your sort don't—it goes with the party—there's parties and parties—if you don't make it out without a description, it's not in your line—you're not in the swim."
The members of the Deputation looked at each other inquiringly, and each shook a negative head, as disclaiming knowledge of this peculiar phenomenon. They were not in the swim, but could all say, and did, that this was very interesting.
Mr. MacAnimus struck in with perspicuity and decision: "Allow me. Will Mr. Aiken favour us with a case in point? Such a case would enable the Society to ascertain whether this phenomenon is known to any of its members." He concentrated his faculties to shorthand point, holding a fountain-pen in readiness to pounce on a clean memorandum page, virgin but for
, or something like it, which meant, "Singular autophrenetic experience of Mr. Reginald Aiken communicated direct to Society at his residence." Stenography is a wonderful science.
Mr. Aiken complied readily. "Any number of cases in point! Why, only the other day there was Stumpy Hughes, sitting on that very chair you're in now, heard a voice say something in Italian, or French. What's more, I heard it too, and thought it was Mrs. Gapp in liquor—in more liquor than usual. I told you all about that, Mrs. Hay." Mrs. Gapp, when the mistress of the house returned, had followed in the footsteps of Sairah and Mrs. Parples.
Mrs. Euphemia suddenly assumed an air of mystery. "Oh yes," said she. "You told me all about that. I understood."
"Didn't I tell you?" said her husband, appealing to the company. "Didn't I tell you females might be relied on to cook up somethin' out of nothin' at all?" He had done nothing of the sort, and merely chose this form of speech to fill out his share in the conversation.
His wife was indignant. "I don't know," she said, "what nonsensical imputations you may have been casting on women, who, at any rate, are usually every bit as clever as you and your friends. But I do know this, because you told me, that when that happened you were both close to the exact duplicate of the very photograph you are now accusing me of credulity with, and it's ridiculous—simply ridiculous. And it's off the selfsame negative. You know it is."
Mr. Vacaw deprecated impatience. A new avenue of inquiry might be opened up as a consequence of this experience of Mr. Aiken's, provided always that we did not lose our heads, and allow ourselves to be misled by an ignis fatuus of controversy into a wilderness of recrimination. Mr. Vacaw's style drew freely on the vast resources of metaphor in which the English language abounds.
Mr. Aiken followed his example so far as to say that he couldn't see any use in flaring up, and that if hair and teeth were flying all over the shop, a chap couldn't hear himself speak. As for the identity of the photographs, he wouldn't have mentioned Stumpy's little joke about where the voice came from if he had thought his wife was going to turn it into a Spirit Manifestation and Davenport Brothers. He saw no use in such rot. This was only an idea, and had nothing supernatural about it.
Mr. Hughes's little joke, whatever it was, did not reach the ears of the story at the time of writing—you can turn back and see—but Mr. Aiken heard and remembered it, and had evidently repeated it to his wife, who had been comparing notes upon it. Her indignation increased, and she would certainly have taken her husband severely to task for his levity and unreason, if it had not been for the sudden animation with which Miss Volumnia cried out, "Aha!" as though illuminated by a new idea. She also pointed an extended finger at Mr. Aiken, as it were transfixing him. At the same moment Mr. MacAnimus exclaimed resolutely:
"Yes—stop it at that! 'Identity of the photographs.' Now, Miss Bax, if you please!"
Miss Volumnia accepted what may be called the Office of Chief Catechist, and proceeded on the assumption usual in Investigation, that she was examining an unwilling witness with a strong inherent love of falsehood for its own sake.
"You admit then, cousin Reginald, that on this occasion a suggestion was made that the voice came from this photograph?"
Mr. MacAnimus nodded rapidly, and said, "Yes—keep him to that!" and conferred a moment apart with Mr. Vacaw, who murmured:
"Yes, yes—I see your point. Quite correct!"
"It was Stumpy's little joke!" said Mr. Aiken. "Not a Phenomenon at all! You'll make anythin' out of anythin'. I shall tell Stumpy, and he'll split his sides laughin' at you."
"Pray do, cousin Reginald. Only let me ask you this one question—what was the exact date of this occurrence?" Miss Volumnia had abated the pointed finger, but not quite suppressed it. Her colleagues nodded knowingly to each other and each said, "You'll see we shall see."
Mr. Aiken's answer was vague. "A tidy long while ago," said he. "Couldn't say how long. After Stumpy came back from Aunt Jopiska's, anyhow."
"When was that?"
"Three or four months ago. More! No—less! Stop a bit. I know what'll fix it. That receipt. Where the dooce is it?" Mr. Aiken had a paroxysm of turning miscellanea over.
"What is it you are looking for, Reginald?" paid his wife forbearingly. "If you would tell me what it is. I could find it for you, without throwing everything into confusion. Why can you not be patient and methodical? What is it?"
"Receipt for Rates and Taxes—oh, here it is—seventh of November—that fixes the time. It was the day before that." And then Mr. Aiken, in the pride of his heart at the subtlety of his identification of this date, dwelt upon the subject more than was absolutely necessary. It was because he had talked—didn't you see?—to a feller who had sketched a plan of the new rooms in Bond Street on the back of this very identical receipt—didn't you know?—telling him of Stumpy and the hearing the voice, the day before—didn't you see?—so that fixed the date to a nicety. And the feller was a very sensible clever penetratin' sort of feller—didn't you see?—and had made some very shrewd remarks about starts of this sort.
"And who was this intelligent gentleman?" asked Mrs. Aiken, not entirely without superiority, but still with forbearance.
"Not a man you know much of. Remarkable sort of chap, though!"
"Yes—but who was he? That's what I want to know."
"Don't see that it matters.... Well—Dolly Groob, then."
"Mis-ter Adolphus Groob...." Mrs. Aiken was beginning, and was going to follow up what her intonation made a half-expression of contempt, by a comment which would have expressed a whole one. Was it Mr. Adolphus Groob all the fuss was about?
But she came short of her intention, being interrupted by Miss Volumnia, whose "Aha!" threw her previous delivery of the same interjection into the shade. "Now we are getting at something!" cried that young lady triumphantly.
"Well, what does that mean?" said Mrs. Euphemia scornfully. "Getting at something! Getting at what?"
"My dear Euphemia," said her cousin, with temperate self-command—she was always irritating, and meant to be—"I ask you, can you conscientiously deny that Mr. Adolphus Groob sat next you at Mr. Entwistle Parkins's lecture, at the Suburbiton Athenæum, on the Radio-Activity of Space?"
"Well, and what if he did?"
"We will come to that directly, when you have answered my questions. Can you deny that Mr. Entwistle Parkins's lecture on the Radio-Activity of Space was delivered at least a week after your husband had communicated to Mr. Adolphus Groob the very curious experience he has just related?"
"And what if he did....?"
"One moment—excuse me.... Or that your own very singular—I admit the singularity—Pseudo-dream or self-induced Hypnotism was subsequent to this lecture?"
"It was in January. What if it was?"
Miss Volumnia turned with an air of subdued triumph to the other members of the Deputation. "I appeal to you, Mr. Vacaw—to you, Mr. MacAnimus. Is, or is not, the conclusion warranted that this Pseudo-dream, as I must call it, had its origin by Suggestion from the analogous experience of Mr. Aiken, who had by his own showing narrated it to Mr. Adolphus Groob?"
"But Mr. Adolphus Groob never said a single word to me about it. So there!" Thus Mrs. Aiken with emphasis so distributed as to make her speech almost truculent.
Miss Volumnia's reply was cold and firm. "You admit, cousin Euphemia, that Mr. Adolphus Groob sat next to you throughout that lecture?"
"Certainly. What of that?"
"Are you prepared to make oath that no part of your conversation turned on Psychic subjects?"
"He talked a great deal of nonsense, if that's what you mean, and said we were on the brink of great discoveries. But I won't talk to you if you go on about being prepared to make oath, like a witness-box."
Mr. Aiken, perhaps with a mistaken idea of averting heated controversy, interposed saying: "Cert'nly Dolly Groob did say he'd met the missus at a beastly place that stunk of gas out Coombe way, and that she conversed very intelligibly—no, intelligently—on subjects...."
Miss Volumnia interrupted, although the speaker had to all seeming scarcely finished his sentence. "That is tantamount," she said, "to an admission that they had been talking on subjects. What subjects?"
"Sort of subjects they were talkin' on, I s'pose," said he evasively.
"Very well, Reginald," said his wife indignantly. "If you are going over to their side, I give up, and I shan't talk at all." And she held to this resolution, which tended to put an end to the conversation, until the Deputation took its leave, shaking its heads and making dubious sounds within its closed lips. We were on very insecure ground, and things had very doubtful complexions, and all that sort of thing.
"What a parcel of fools they were," said the lady when they had departed, "not to ask about what the old gentleman dreamed at Madeline's!" That was first hand from the original picture. "I really do think one cannot depend on photographs."
"Must make a difference, I should say. Don't pretend to understand the subject." Thus the Artist, absorbed again in retouching the sketch of no importance. And do you know, he seemed rather to make a parade of his indifference. In which he was very like people one meets at Manifestations, only scarcely so bad. For a many of them, face to face with what they are pretending to think their own post mortem, remain unimpressed, and cut jokes. Then, of course, we have to remember that it is usually a paid Medium—that may make a difference.
We think, however, it is safe to say that had Miss Volumnia, when she conversed with Miss Upwell at the second, or fulfilled, Bun-Worry, been in possession of the facts elicited at this interview, she might have detailed them so as to induce in that young lady's mind a more lenient attitude towards the incredulity of her father and Mr. Pelly about the picture. As it was—and it is very necessary to bear this in mind in reading what remains to be told—this interview had not then taken place, and did not in fact come about till nearly two months later, when the compiling of the Society's Quarterly Report made the adoption of a definite attitude towards the Picture Story necessary.