"In October 1880, Lord and Lady Waldegrave came with their Scotch maid, Helen Alexander, to stay with us. [The account then describes how Helen was discovered to have caught typhoid fever, and pending the arrival of a regular nurse, was nursed for several days by Frances Reddell. On the Sunday week, Mrs. Pole-Carew continues], I allowed Reddell to sit up with Helen again that night, to give her the medicine and food, which were to be taken constantly. At about 4.30 that night, or rather Monday morning, Reddell looked at her watch, poured out the medicine, and was bending over the bed to give it to Helen when the call-bell in the passage rang. She said to herself, 'There's that tiresome bell with the wire caught again.' (It seems it did occasionally ring of itself in this manner.) At that moment, however, she heard the door open, and looking round, saw a very stout old woman walk in. She was dressed in a nightgown and red flannel petticoat, and carried an old-fashioned brass candlestick in her hand. The petticoat had a hole rubbed in it. She walked into the room and appeared to be going towards the dressing-table to put her candle down. She was a perfect stranger to Reddell, who, however, merely thought, 'This is her mother come to see after her,' and she felt quite glad it was so, accepting the idea without reasoning upon it, as one would in a dream. She thought the mother looked annoyed, possibly at not having been sent for before. She then gave Helen the medicine, and turning round, found that the apparition had disappeared, and that the door was shut. A great change, meanwhile, had taken place in Helen, and Reddell fetched me, who sent off for the doctor, and meanwhile applied hot poultices, etc., but Helen died a little before the doctor came. She was quite conscious up to about half-an-hour before she died, when she seemed to be going to sleep.
"During the early days of her illness Helen had written to a sister, mentioning her being unwell, but making nothing of it, and as she never mentioned any one but this sister, it was supposed by the household, to whom she was a perfect stranger, that she had no other relation alive. Reddell was always offering to write for her, but she always declined, saying there was no need, she would write herself in a day or two. No one at home, therefore, knew anything of her being so ill, and it is, therefore, remarkable that her mother, a far from nervous person, should have said that evening going up to bed, 'I am sure Helen is very ill.'
"Reddell told me and my daughter of the apparition, about an hour after Helen's death, prefacing with, 'I am not superstitious or nervous, and I wasn't the least frightened, but her mother came last night,' and she then told the story, giving a careful description of the figure she had seen. The relations were asked to come to the funeral, and the father, mother, and sister came, and in the mother Reddell recognised the apparition, as I did also, for Reddell's description had been most accurate, even to the expression, which she had ascribed to annoyance, but which was due to deafness. It was judged best not to speak about it to the mother, but Reddell told the sister, who said the description of the figure corresponded exactly with the probable appearance of her mother if roused in the night; that they had exactly such a candlestick at home, and that there was a hole in her mother's petticoat produced by the way she always wore it. It seems curious that neither Helen nor her mother appeared to be aware of the visit. Neither of them, at any rate, ever spoke of having seen the other, nor even of having dreamt of having done so.
"F. A. POLE-CAREW."
[Frances Reddell states that she has never had any hallucination, or any odd experience of any kind, except on this one occasion. The Hon. Mrs. Lyttelton, of Selwyn College, Cambridge, who knows her, tells us that "she appears to be a most matter-of-fact person, and was apparently most impressed by the fact that she saw a hole in the mother's flannel petticoat, made by the busk of her stays, reproduced in the apparition.">[
The simplest explanation of this incident, and that which involves the least departure from known forms of telepathy, is that the figure seen by Frances Reddell was due to thought-transference from the mind of the dying girl. And this explanation has some direct evidence in its favour. There is, of course, abundant proof of the transference from agent to percipient of a real or imaginary scene. (See the cases described in Chapters II., III., XIV., and XV.) But in these cases the percipient's impressions appear rarely to have risen to the level of hallucination, and in the absence of direct evidence it would not perhaps have been safe to assume that a detailed impression, such as a scene or a human figure, transferred from another mind, would be capable of taking complete sensory embodiment in the mind of the percipient. The frequency, however, of collective hallucinations of an apparently casual character seems to require such an assumption (see ante, p. 273). Moreover, a case has been recorded (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 434, 435) in which a hypnotically induced hallucination appears to have been reproduced in another hypnotised subject by telepathic suggestion from the original percipient. In the experiments recorded by Dr. Gibotteau (pp. 368, 369) the ideas mentally suggested by him appear in some cases to have assumed a hallucinatory form in the subject; and, finally, Wesermann (Chapter X., p. 233), in his fifth experiment succeeded in calling up a recognisable hallucination of a lady personally unknown to the percipients. We have, therefore, experimental parallels for our suggested interpretation of Frances Reddell's experience; and when once the possibility of thought-transference in this form is recognised, many so-called "ghosts" or phantasms of the dead find a simple and satisfactory explanation. The following case may be instanced:—
No. 92.—From MR. JOHN E. HUSBANDS, Melbourne House, Town Hall Square, Grimsby.
"September 15th, 1886.
"The facts are simply these. I was sleeping in a hotel in Madeira in January 1885. It was a bright moonlight night. The windows were open and the blinds up. I felt some one was in my room. On opening my eyes, I saw a young fellow about twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing at the side of my bed and pointing with the first finger of his right hand to the place I was lying in. I lay for some seconds to convince myself of some one being really there. I then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so plainly that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me some days after. I asked him what he wanted; he did not speak, but his eyes and hand seemed to tell me I was in his place. As he did not answer, I struck out at him with my fist as I sat up, but did not reach him, and as I was going to spring out of bed he slowly vanished through the door, which was shut, keeping his eyes upon me all the time.
"Upon inquiry I found that the young fellow who appeared to me died in that room I was occupying.
"If I can tell you anything more I shall be glad to, if it interests you.
"JOHN E. HUSBANDS."
The following letters are from Miss Falkner, of Church Terrace, Wisbech, who was resident at the hotel when the above incident happened:—
"October 8th, 1886.
"The figure that Mr. Husbands saw while in Madeira was that of a young fellow who died unexpectedly months previously, in the room which Mr. Husbands was occupying. Curiously enough, Mr. H. had never heard of him or his death. He told me the story the morning after he had seen the figure, and I recognised the young fellow from the description. It impressed me very much, but I did not mention it to him or any one. I loitered about until I heard Mr. Husbands tell the same tale to my brother; we left Mr. H. and said simultaneously, 'He has seen Mr. D.'
"No more was said on the subject for days; then I abruptly showed the photograph.
"Mr. Husbands said at once, 'This is the young fellow who appeared to me the other night, but he was dressed differently'—describing a dress he often wore—'cricket suit (or tennis) fastened at the neck with sailor knot.' I must say that Mr. Husbands is a most practical man, and the very last one would expect 'a spirit' to visit.
"K. FALKNER."
"October 20th, 1886.