There is No Death

by Florence Marryat

I think my next sitting with Katie Cook was at a séance held in Museum Street, and on the invitation of Mr. Chas. Blackburn, who is one of the most earnest friends of Spiritualism, and has expended a large amount of money in its research. The only other guests were my husband, and General and Mrs. Maclean. We sat round a small uncovered table with the gas burning and without a cabinet, Miss Katie Cook had a seat between General Maclean and myself, and we made sure of her proximity to us during the whole séance. In fact, I never let go of her hand, and even when she wished to use her pocket-handkerchief, she had to do it with my hand clinging to her own. Neither did she go into a trance. We spoke to her occasionally during the sitting, and she answered us, though in a very subdued voice, as she complained of being sick and faint. In about twenty minutes, during which the usual manifestations occurred, the materialized form of "Lily" appeared in the middle of the table, and spoke to us and kissed us all in turn. Her face was very small, and she was only formed to the waist, but her flesh was quite firm and warm. Whilst "Lily" occupied the table in the full sight of all the sitters, and I had my hand upon Miss Cook's figure (for I kept passing my hand up and down from her face to her knees, to make sure it was not only a hand I held), some one grasped my chair from behind and shook it, and when I turned my head and spoke, in a moment one arm was round my neck and one round the neck of my husband, who sat next to me, whilst the voice of my daughter "Florence" spoke to us both, and her long hair and her soft white dress swept over our faces and hands. Her hair was so abundant and long, that she shook it out over my lap, that I might feel its length and texture. I asked "Florence" for a piece of her hair and dress, and scissors not being forthcoming, "Lily" materialized more fully, and walked round from the other side of the table and cut off a piece of "Florence's" dress herself with my husband's penknife, but said they could not give me the hair that time. The two spirits remained with us for, perhaps, half an hour or more, whilst General Maclean and I continued to hold Miss Cook a prisoner. The power then failing, they disappeared, but every one present was ready to take his oath that two presences had been with us that never entered at the door. The room was small and unfurnished, the gas was burning, the medium sat for the whole time in our sight. Mrs. Maclean and I were the only other women present, yet two girls bent over and kissed us, spoke to us, and placed their bare arms on our necks at one and the same time. There was again also a marked difference between the medium and the materializations. I have already described her appearance. Both of these spirits had plump faces and figures, my daughter "Florence's" hands especially being large and firm, and her loose hair nearly down to her knees.

I had the pleasure of holding another séance with Katie Cook in the same rooms, when a new manifestation occurred. She is (as I have said) a very small woman, with very short arms. I am, on the contrary, a very large woman, with very long arms, yet the arm of the hand I held was elongated to such an extent that it reached the sitters on the other side of the table, where it would have been impossible for mine to follow it. I should think the limb must have been stretched to thrice its natural length, and that in the sight of everybody. I sat again with Katie Cook in her own house, where, if trickery is employed, she had every opportunity of tricking us, but the manifestations were much the same, and certainly not more marvellous than those she had exhibited in the houses of strangers. "Lily" and "Florence" both appeared at the same time, under circumstances that admitted of no possibility of fraud. My husband and I were accompanied on that occasion by our friends, Captain and Mrs. Kendal, and the order of sitting round the table was as follows:—Myself, Katie, Captain K., Florence Cook, my husband, Mrs. Cook, Mrs. Kendal. Each member of the family, it will be observed, was held between two detectives, and their hands were not once set free. I must say also that the séance was a free one, courteously accorded us on the invitation of Mrs. Cook; and if deception had been intended, we and our friends might just as well have been left to sit with Katie alone, whilst the other members of the family superintended the manifestation of the "ghosts" outside. Miss Florence Cook, indeed (Mrs. Corner), objected at first to sitting with us, on the score that her mediumship usually neutralized that of her sister, but her mother insisted on her joining the circle, lest any suspicion should be excited by her absence. The Cooks, indeed, are, all of them, rather averse to sitting than not, and cordially agree in disliking the powers that have been thrust upon them against their own will.

These influences take possession of them, unfitting them for more practical work, and they must live. This is, I believe, the sole reason that they have never tried to make money by the exercise of their mediumship. But I, for one, fully believe them when they tell me that they consider the fact of their being media as the greatest misfortune that has ever happened to them. On the occasion of this last séance, cherries and rosebuds were showered in profusion on the table during the evening. These may easily be believed to have been secreted in the room before the commencement of the sitting, and produced at the proper opportunity, although the hands of everybody interested in their production were fast held by strangers. But it is less easy to believe that a lady of limited income, like Mrs. Cook, should go to such an expense for an unpaid séance, for the purpose of making converts of people who were strangers to her. Mediumship pays very badly as it is. I am afraid it would pay still worse if the poor media had to purchase the means for producing the phenomena, especially when, in a town like London, they run (as in this instance) to hothouse fruit and flowers.

One more example of Katie Cook's powers and I have done. We were assembled one evening by the invitation of Mr. Charles Blackburn at his house, Elgin Crescent. We sat in a small breakfast room on the basement floor, so small, indeed, for the size of the party, that as we encircled a large round table, the sitters' backs touched the wall on either side, thus entirely preventing any one crossing the room whilst we were established there. The only piece of furniture of any consequence in the room, beside the chairs and table, was a trichord cabinet piano, belonging to Mrs. Cook (who was keeping house at the time for Mr. Blackburn), and which she much valued.

Katie Cook sat amongst us as usual. In the middle of the séance her control "Lily," who was materialized, called out, "Keep hands fast. Don't let go, whatever you do!" And at the same time, without seeing anything (for we were sitting in complete darkness), we became conscious that something large and heavy was passing or being carried over our heads. One of the ladies of the party became nervous, and dropped her neighbor's hand with a cry of alarm, and, at the same moment, a weighty body fell with a fearful crash on the other side of the room. "Lily" exclaimed, "Some one has let go hands," and Mrs. Cook called out; "Oh! it's my piano." Lights were struck, when we found the cabinet piano had actually been carried from its original position right over our heads to the opposite side of the room, where it had fallen on the floor and been seriously damaged. The two carved legs were broken off, and the sounding board smashed in. Any one who had heard poor Mrs. Cook's lamentations over the ruin of her favorite instrument, and the expense it would entail to get it restored, would have felt little doubt as to whether she had been a willing victim to this unwelcome proof of her daughter's physical mediumship.

[CHAPTER XVIII.]

THE MEDIUMSHIP OF BESSIE FITZGERALD.

One evening I went to have a cup of tea with my friend Miss Schonberg at Shepherd's Bush, when she proposed that we should go and have a séance with Mrs. Henry Jencken (Kate Fox), who lived close by. I hailed the idea, as I had heard such great things of the medium in question, and never had an opportunity of testing them. Consequently, I was proportionately disappointed when, on sending round to her house to ask if she could receive us that evening, we received a message to say that Mr. Jencken, her husband, had died that morning, and she could see no one. Miss Schonberg and I immediately cast about in our minds to see what we should do with our time, and she suggested we should call on Mrs. Fitzgerald. "Who is Mrs. Fitzgerald?" I queried. "A wonderful medium," replied my friend, "whom I met at Mrs. Wilson's last week, and who gave me leave to call on her. Let us go together." And accordingly we set forth for Mrs. Fitzgerald's residence in the Goldhawk Road. I only mention these circumstances to show how utterly unpremeditated was my first visit to her. We arrived at her house, and were ushered into a sitting-room, Miss Schonberg only sending up her name. In a few minutes the door opened, and a small, fair woman, dressed in black velvet, entered the room. Miss Schonberg saluted her, and was about to tender some explanation regarding my presence there, when Mrs. Fitzgerald walked straight up to me and took my hand. Her eyes seemed to dilate and contract, like the opening and shutting off of a light, in a manner which I have often seen since, and she uttered rapidly, "You have been married once; you have been married twice; and you will be married a third time." I answered, "If you know anything, Mrs. Fitzgerald, you must know that I am very much attached to my husband, and that your information can give me no pleasure to hear." "No!" she said, "no! I suppose not, but you cannot alter Fate." She then proceeded to speak of things in my past life which had had the greatest influence over the whole of it, occurrences of so private and important a nature that it becomes impossible to write them down here, and for that very reason doubly convincing to the person whom they concern. Presently Mrs. Fitzgerald wandered to her piano, and commenced to play the air of the ballad so firmly connected in my mind with John Powles, "Thou art gone from my gaze," whilst she turned and nodded at me saying, "He's here!" In fact, after a couple of hours' conversation with her, I felt that this stranger in the black velvet dress had turned out every secret of my life, and laid it naked and bare before me. I was wonderfully attracted to her. Her personality pleased me; her lonely life, living with her two babies in the Goldhawk Road, made me anxious to give her society and pleasure, and her wonderful gifts of clairvoyance and trance mediumship, all combined to make me desire her friendship, and I gave her a cordial invitation to my house in the Regent's Park, where for some years she was a constant visitor, and always sure of a hearty welcome. It was due to her kindness that I first had the opportunity to study trance mediumship at my leisure, and in a short time we became so familiar with her most constant control, "Dewdrop," a Red Indian girl, and so accustomed to speak through Mrs. Fitzgerald with our own friends gone before, that we welcomed her advent to our house as the signal for holding a spiritual party. For the sake of the uninitiated and curious, I think I had better here describe what is meant by trance mediumship. A person thus gifted has the power of giving him or herself up to the control of the influences in command, who send him or her off to sleep, a sleep so deep and so like death that the spirit is actually parted pro tem from the body, which other spirits, sometimes living, but far oftener dead, enter and use as if it were their own. I have mentioned in my chapter on "Embodied Spirits" how my living friend in India conversed with me through Bessie Fitzgerald in this way, also how "Florence" spoke to me through the unconscious lips of Mabel Keningale Cook.

Of course, I am aware that it would be so easy for a medium simply to close her eyes, and, professing to be entranced, talk a lot of commonplaces, which open-mouthed fools might accept as a new gospel, that it becomes imperative to test this class of media strictly by what they utter, and to place no faith in them until you are convinced that the matters they speak of cannot possibly have been known to any one except the friend whose mouthpiece they profess to be. All this I fully proved for myself from repeated trials and researches; but the unfortunate part of it is, that the more forcible and convincing the private proof, the more difficult it is to place it before the public. I must content myself, therefore, with saying that some of my dead friends (so called) came back to me so frequently through Bessie Fitzgerald, and familiarized themselves so completely with my present life, that I forgot sometimes that they had left this world, and flew to them (or rather to Bessie) to seek their advice or ask their sympathy as naturally as if she were their earthly form. Of these my daughter "Florence" was necessarily the most often with me, and she and "Dewdrop" generally divided the time which Mrs. Fitzgerald spent with us between them. I never saw a control so completely identified with its medium as "Dewdrop" was with Bessie. It was difficult at times to know which was which, and one could never be certain until she spoke whether the spirit or the medium had entered the house. When she did speak, however, there was no mistaking them. Their characters were so different. Bessie Fitzgerald, a quiet, soft spoken little woman, devoted to her children, and generally unobtrusive; "Dewdrop," a Sioux Indian girl, wary and deep as her tribe and cute and saucy as a Yankee, with an amount of devilry in her that must at times have proved very inconvenient. She used to play Mrs. Fitzgerald tricks in those days that might have brought her into serious trouble, such as controlling her whilst travelling in an omnibus, and talking her Yankee Indian to the passengers until she had made their hair stand on end, with the suspicion that they had a lunatic for a companion. One evening we had a large and rather "swell" evening party, chiefly composed of ladies and gentlemen of the theatrical profession, and entirely of non-spiritualists, excepting ourselves. Mrs. Fitzgerald had been invited to this party, and declined, because it was out of her line. We were therefore rather astonished, when all the guests were assembled, to hear her name announced and see her enter the room in a morning dress. Directly I cast eyes upon her, however, I saw that it was not herself, but "Dewdrop." The stride with which she walked, the waggish way she rolled from side to side, the devilry in her eye, all betokened the Indian control. To make matters worse, she went straight up to Colonel Lean, and, throwing herself on the ground at his feet, affectionately laid her head upon his knee, and said, "I'se come to the party." Imagine the astonishment of our guests! I was obliged at once, in defence of my friend, to explain to them how matters stood; and though they looked rather incredulous, they were immensely interested, and "Dewdrop's" visit proved to be the event of the evening. She talked to each one separately, telling them home truths, and prophesying their future in a way that made their cheeks go pale with fright, or red with conscious shame, and there was quite a contest between the men as to who should take "Dewdrop" down to the supper table. When there, she made herself particularly lively, making personal remarks aloud that were, in some instances, rather trying to listen to, and which Bessie Fitzgerald would have cut out her tongue sooner than utter. She ate, too, of dishes which would have made Bessie ill for a week. This was another strange peculiarity of "Dewdrop's" control. She not only ousted the spirit; she regulated the internal machinery of her medium's body. Bessie in her normal condition was a very delicate woman with a weak heart and lungs, and obliged to be most careful in her diet. She ate like a sparrow, and of the simplest things. "Dewdrop," on the other hand, liked indigestible food, and devoured it freely; yet Bessie has told me that she never felt any inconvenience from the food amalgamated with her system whilst under "Dewdrop's" control. One day when Mrs. Fitzgerald was dining with us, we had some apples at dessert, which she would have liked to partake of, but was too much afraid of the after consequences. "I dare not," she said; "if I were to eat a raw apple, I should have indigestion for a week." She took some preserved ginger instead; and we were proceeding with our dessert, when I saw her hand steal out and grasp an apple. I looked in her face. "Dewdrop" had taken her place. "Dewdrop," I said, authoritatively, "you must not eat that. You will hurt Bessie. Put it down directly."

"I shan't," replied "Dewdrop," drawing the dish towards her; "I like apples. I'm always wanting 'Medy' to eat them, and she won't, so she must go away till I've had as many as I want." And in effect she ate three or four of them, and Bessie would never have been cognizant of the fact unless I had informed her. On the occasion of the party to which she came uninvited, "Dewdrop" remained with us to the very last, and went home in a cab, and landed Mrs. Fitzgerald at her house without her being aware that she had ever left it. At that time we were constantly at each other's houses, and many an evening have I spent alone with Bessie in the Goldhawk Road, her servant out marketing and her little children asleep in the room overhead. Her baby was then a great fat fellow of about fifteen months old, who was given to waking and crying for his mother. If "Dewdrop" were present, she was always very impatient with these interruptions. "Bother dat George," she would say; "I must go up and quiet him." Then she would disappear for a few minutes, while Bessie woke and talked to me, and then, in the twinkling of an eye, "Dewdrop" would be back again. One day, apparently, "George" would not be comforted, for on "Dewdrop's" return she said to me, "It's no good; I've had to bring him down. He's on the mat outside the door;" and there, sure enough, we found the poor baby wailing in his nightshirt. Not being able to walk, how he had been spirited from the top storey to the bottom I leave my readers to determine. Bessie's little girl Mabel promised to be as wonderful a medium as her mother. She would come in from the garden flushed from her play with the "spirit-children," of whom she talked as familiarly as of her little neighbors next door. I have watched her playing at ball with an invisible child, and have seen the ball thrown, arrested half-way in the air, and then tossed back again just as if a living child had been Mab's opponent. I had lost several infants from premature birth during my second marriage, and the eldest of these, a girl, appeared to be a constant companion of Mabel's. She was always talking of what "Mrs. Lean's girl" (as she called her) had done and said; and one day she had a violent fit of weeping because her mother would not promise to buy her a frock like the one "Mrs. Lean's girl" wore.