FROM OXFORD TO WIMBLEDON
From Paris to England is not a long cry, and my next reminiscence is connected with the University of Oxford.
I was spending a few days there with a friend in the spring of 1896, and went with her one afternoon to an Oxford tea-party, with its usual sprinkling of women, married and unmarried; a few dons captured as a question of friendship, and more than a few undergraduates.
Amongst the latter I chanced to hear the name of a very well-known bishop, whom I had first met and known rather intimately when I was a young girl, and he a young married curate. I had also known his wife (a few years my senior) very intimately in those far-off days, so my curiosity was aroused to know if the young man in this Oxford drawing-room should chance to be a son of this bishop, whom we will call the Bishop of Granchester. I found that my surmise was correct; the young man was introduced to me, and we were soon deep in an interesting conversation about his parents, especially his mother, who had died when he was barely three years old. He knew little or nothing about her. His father had married again, and his paternal grandmother (still alive in 1896) had never cared for his mother—from feelings of jealousy probably—so there was no one to speak to the boy about her, and he was naturally delighted to hear all my girlish recollections of her.
"Do come and have tea with me to-morrow afternoon, or any day that suits you," he said eagerly. "I have one or two old photographs taken of my mother when she was young, and I should like so much to know which of them you consider the best."
Of course, I agreed to go, Mr Blake-Mason promising to ask a "chum" to entertain my hostess whilst he and I discussed the photographs and the old days before he was born.
Returning home from his rooms that February evening, I was conscious once more of an unaccountable depression, and also a certain amount of nervous irritability, which other sensitives will understand, and which often precedes some psychic happening. Just after we had finished dinner, it struck me suddenly, and for the first time, that my discomfort might be connected with my afternoon visit. This young man's mother might be wishing to impress me in some way! I found that this was the fact, but felt unequal to going further into the matter that night.
I promised to listen to anything she might wish to say next morning, and having given this promise, all unpleasant and disturbing influences disappeared, and I had a good night's rest. Next morning, after breakfast, my hostess said very practically:
"Now do get this matter off your mind at once, or you will be worried about it all day. I am going to order dinner, and shall then be in the drawing-room, so you can have this room entirely to yourself."
I sat down, and a very beautiful message was given to me by the friend of my girlhood.