‘Hush!’ I replied. ‘Listen, now. Some one is pleading for love or for mercy. How soft and clear the voice is!’
‘It sounds for all the world like my poor sister Jane when she was asking her husband to forgive her for everything she had done amiss,’ said the old woman.
‘Perhaps it is your sister Jane, or some of your relations,’ I replied. ‘She may want you to do something for her. Would you be afraid if she were suddenly to open the door and come into the room?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure, sir; but I hope she mayn’t. It makes me curdle all over only to think of it.’
‘They’re quieter now. Let us ask if there is any one present who wishes to speak to us,’ I said; and addressing the table to that effect, I commenced to spell out the alphabet rather loudly—‘A, B, C,’ etc.
Whether from my nervousness, or the united strain we laid upon it, I know not, but the table certainly began to rock at that juncture, though I could make neither head nor tail of its intentions. Treating it in the orthodox manner by which Britons invariably attempt to communicate with a foreigner who does not understand one word of the language spoken, I began to bawl at the table, and my A, B, C must have reverberated through the empty house.
Again the old woman whispered mysteriously to the old man, but he dismissed her question with an impatient answer; and my attention was too much attracted in another direction at that moment to give much heed of what they were doing. My ear had caught the sound of a descending footstep, and I felt sure the spirits were at last about to visit us in propriæ personæ. But dreading the effect it might have on Mrs Bizzey’s nerves, I purposely held my tongue, and applied myself afresh to a vigorous repetition of the alphabet, striving to cover the approaching footstep by the noise of my own voice, although I was trembling with excitement and delight at the successful issue of my undertaking. At last I plainly heard the footstep pause outside the door, as though deliberating before it opened it. The old man was apparently too deaf or too absorbed to notice it, and his wife was in a state of helpless fright. I alone sufficiently retained my senses to see the door slowly open, and a white-robed figure—a real, materialised spirit—stand upon the threshold. The gesture of delight, which I could not repress, roused my companions from their reverie; and as soon as Mrs Bizzey turned and saw the figure, she recognised it.
‘It’s Jane!’ she screamed. ‘It’s my own poor sister Jane come back from the grave to visit me again, with her red hair and blue eyes; I can see ’em as plain as plain. I’ll die of the shock, I know I shall!’
‘Nonsense!’ I exclaimed, sternly, fearful, lest by her folly she should scare the newly-born spirit back to the spheres. ‘If it is your sister, speak to her as you used to do. Tell her you are glad to see her, and ask if she wants anything done.’
‘Oh, Jane!’ said the old woman, half falling upon her knees, ‘don’t come a-nigher me, for mercy’s sake! I never kept nothing of yourn back from the children except the old blue dress, which it wouldn’t have been no use for them to wear, and the ring, which I had asked you to give me a dozen times in your life, and you had always refused. I’d give ’em both back now if I could, Jane, but the gownd have been on the dust-heap these twenty years past, and the ring I sold the minute my man was laid up with rheumatis. Forgive me, Jane, forgive me!’