As she left us, a dark figure advanced into the room, and ejaculated, "Ma! ma!" I recognized at once the peculiar intonation and mode of address of my stepson, Francis Lean, with whom, since he had announced his own death to me, I had had no communication, except through trance mediumship. "Is that you, my poor boy," I said, "come closer to me. You are not afraid of me, are you?" "O, no! Ma! of course not, only I was at the Opera House, you know, with the others, and that piece you recited, Ma—you know the one—it's all true, Ma—and I don't want you to go back to England. Stay here, Ma—stay here!" I knew perfectly well to what the lad alluded, but I would not enter upon it before a stranger. So I only said, "You forget my children, Francis—what would they say if I never went home again." This seemed to puzzle him, but after a while he answered, "Then go to them, Ma; go to them." All this time he had been talking in the dark, and I only knew him by the sound of his voice. I said, "Are you not going to show yourself to me, Francis. It is such a long time since we met." "Never since you saw me at the docks. That was me, Ma, and at Brighton, too, only you didn't half believe it till you heard I was gone." "Tell me the truth of the accident, Francis," I asked him. "Was there foul play?" "No," he replied, "but we got quarrelling about her you know, and fighting, and that's how the boat upset. It was my fault, Ma, as much as anybody else's."
"How was it your body was never found?" "It got dragged down in an undercurrent, Ma. It was out at Cape Horn before they offered a reward for it." Then he began to light up, and as soon as the figure was illuminated I saw that the boy was dressed in "jumpers" and "jersey" of dark woollen material, such as they wear in the merchant service in hot climates, but over it all—his head and shoulders included—was wound a quantity of flimsy white material I have before mentioned. "I can't bear this stuff. It makes me look like a girl," said "Francis," and with his hands he tore it off. Simultaneously the illumination ceased, and he was gone. I called him by name several times, but no sound came out of the darkness. It seemed as though the veiling which he disliked preserved his materialization, and that, with its protection removed, he had dissolved again.
When another dark figure came out of the cabinet, and approaching me, knelt at my feet, I supposed it to be "Francis" come back again, and laying my hand on the bent head, I asked, "Is this you again, dear?" A strange voice answered, with the words, "Forgive! forgive!" "Forgive!" I repeated, "What have I to forgive?" "The attempt to murder your husband in 1856. Arthur Yelverton Brooking has forgiven. He is here with me now. Will you forgive too?" "Certainly," I replied, "I have forgiven long ago. You expiated your sin upon the gallows. You could do no more."
The figure sprung into a standing position, and lit up from head to foot, when I saw the two men standing together, Arthur Yelverton Brooking and the Madras sepoy who had murdered him. I never saw anything more brilliant than the appearance of the sepoy. He was dressed completely in white, in the native costume, with a white "puggree" or turban on his head. But his "puggree" was flashing with jewels—strings of them were hung round his neck—and his sash held a magnificent jewelled dagger. You must please to remember that I was not alone, but that this sight was beheld by Mrs. Hooker as well as myself (to whom it was as unexpected as to her), and that I know she would testify to it to-day. And now to explain the reason of these unlooked-for apparitions.
In 1856 my husband, then Lieutenant Ross-Church, was Adjutant of the 12th Madras Native Infantry, and Arthur Yelverton Brooking, who had for some time done duty with the 12th, was adjutant of another native corps, both of which were stationed at Madras. Lieutenant Church was not a favorite with his men, by whom he was considered a martinet, and one day when there had been a review on the island at Madras, and the two adjutants were riding home together, a sepoy of the 12th fired at Lieutenant Church's back with the intent to kill him, but unfortunately the bullet struck Lieutenant Brooking instead, who, after lingering for twelve hours, died, leaving a young wife and a baby behind him. For this offence the sepoy was tried and hung, and on his trial the whole truth of course came out. This then was the reason that the spirits of the murdered and the murderer came like friends, because the injury had never been really intended for Brooking.
When I said that I had forgiven, the sepoy became (as I have told) a blaze of light, and then knelt again and kissed the hem of my dress. As he knelt there he became covered, or heaped over, with a mass of the same filmy drapery as enveloped "Francis," and when he rose again he was standing in a cloud. He gathered an end of it, and laying it on my head he wound me and himself round and round with it, until we were bound up in a kind of cocoon. Mrs. Hooker, who watched the whole proceeding, told me afterwards that she had never seen anything like it before—that she could distinctly see the dark face and the white face close together all the time beneath the drapery, and that I was as brightly illuminated as the spirit. Of this I was not aware myself, but his brightness almost dazzled me.
Let me observe also that I have been in the East Indies, and within a few yards' length of sepoys, and that I am sure I could never have been wrapt in the same cloth with a mortal one without having been made painfully aware of it in more ways than one. The spirit did not unwind me again, although the winding process had taken him some time. He whisked off the wrapping with one pull, and I stood alone once more. I asked him by what name I should call him, and he said, "The Spirit of Light." He then expressed a wish to magnetize something I wore, so as to be the better able to approach me. I gave him a brooch containing "John Powles'" hair, which his mother had given me after his death, and he carried it back into the cabinet with him. It was a valuable brooch of onyx and pearls, and I was hoping my eastern friend would not carry it too far, when I found it had been replaced and fastened at my throat without my being aware of the circumstance. "Arthur Yelverton Brooking" had disappeared before this, and neither of them came back again. These were not all the spirits that came under the doctor's mediumship during that séance, but only those whom I had known and recognized. Several of Mrs. Hooker's friends appeared and some of the doctor's controls, but as I have said before, they could not help my narrative, and so I omit to describe them. The séance lasted altogether two hours, and I was very grateful to the doctor for giving me the opportunity to study an entirely new phase of the science to me.
[CHAPTER XXVIII.]
V. Mrs. Fay.
There was a young woman called "Annie Eva Fay," who came over from America to London some years ago, and appeared at the Hanover Square Rooms, in an exhibition after the manner of the Davenport Brothers and Messrs. Maskelyne and Cook. She must not be confounded with the Mrs. Fay who forms the subject of this chapter, because they had nothing to do with one another. Some one in Boston advised me not to go and sit at one of this Mrs. Fay's public séances. They were described to me as being too physical and unrefined; that the influences were of a low order, and the audiences matched them. However, when I am studying a matter, I like to see everything I can and hear everything I can concerning it, and to form my own opinion independent of that of anybody else. So I walked off by myself one night to Mrs. Fay's address, and sat down in a quiet corner, watching everything that occurred. The circle certainly numbered some members of a humble class, but I conclude we should see that everywhere if the fees were lower. Media, like other professional people, fix their charges according to the quarter of the city in which they live. But every member was silent and respectful, and evidently a believer.