Seen and Unseen

by E. Katherine Bates

Now I must explain that all this time a good deal of the usual kind of joking had been going on. Moreover, I felt intuitively that Mr Kitchener thought I was deceiving myself into the idea that human muscles could not account for the movements, and, in fact, the very worst possible conditions for getting anything of value were present.

So much so that I did not for one moment suppose that it was really George Eliot, or that she would countenance that particular sort of buffoonery, and the incident made no impression upon me at all. I had already taken my hands off the table, when someone—Mr Kitchener, I think—banged it down four times, and then triumphantly observed: "Yes, of course, you will see somebody during the night, or rather at four o'clock in the morning, you see!" The whole thing was the kind of fiasco I had expected, "degenerating into a romp," as poor Corney Grain used to remark about the "Lancers" and the stern old lady in the suburban villa.

The bathos of table turning had surely been reached when it came to banging the leg of the table down four times, and calmly announcing four o'clock as the time for my first vision!

But the remarkable point is that I did have my first vision that night, though it had come and gone long before four a.m.

It is necessary to remember that the sun rises about three-thirty a.m. during the end of December or first week in January out there, so it would have been fairly light before four a.m.; whereas when I woke out of my first sleep that night, it was pitch dark.

My room was the usual whitewashed apartment to be found in the ordinary colonial "station," with a wooden bed standing about two or three feet from the wall, and parallel with the only window in the room; which faced the door (at the foot of my bed), and was fitted with a very dark green blind, on account of the hot summer sunshine.

But it was now pitch dark in the room. I woke facing the window, but turned on my side, as one generally does on such occasions, and this brought me face to face with the wall. To my infinite amazement there stood between the wall and my bed, a diaphanous figure of a woman, quite life size or rather more, with one arm held out in a protecting fashion towards me, and some drapery about the head. The features were, moreover, quite distinct, and, as I afterwards realised, the counterpart of George Eliot's curious and Savonarola-like countenance. But at the moment, oddly enough, I only thought of two things—first, how extraordinary that what had appeared to me such a silly waste of time overnight should have had any element of reality about it! Then swiftly came the second idea: "And how in the world does it happen that I don't feel a bit frightened?"

I lay there absolutely content and peaceful, with a feeling of blissful satisfaction which I have never exactly realised either before or since that one occasion.

"Everything is all right—nothing can really ever go wrong—nothing at least that matters at all. All the real things are all right. I can never doubt the truth of these things after this experience. It was promised, and the promise has been redeemed." These were the thoughts that passed idly through my brain as I lay—fully awake—and looked up at the comforting woman's figure. For it seemed more—much more—than a mere vision. I have spoken of the figure as diaphanous because it was not as solid as an ordinary human being, but, on the other hand, I could not see the wall through it: it was too solid for that. Then I remembered a story told in The Athenæum—of all papers—and written by a Dr Jephson, of his experience whilst paying a visit to Lord Offord, and making notes—late at night—in the library of the house for some literary work on hand. He had finished his notes, put away the book of reference, looked at his watch, found the hands marking two a.m. (so far as I remember), and had just said to himself: "Well, I shall be in bed by two-thirty after all," when, turning round, he found a large leather chair close to his own, tenanted by a Spanish priest in some ancient dress!

Thinking it might be an hallucination, he deliberately turned round—away from the priest—rubbed his eyes, and then slowly looked back again. Still the priest was there, and Dr Jephson then realised for the first time that, although not consciously frightened or alarmed in any way, he was quite unable to speak to the intruder. So he quietly chose a pencil, sat down, and calmly took his portrait. The priest politely remained until the sketch was completed, and then vanished.