O. J. L.—How absurd! Perhaps he's getting tired.
He won't say he got this mixed up! But he did! Because he said 'fine bird,' and then he started off about Mr. Jackson.
O. J. L.—What about the pedestal?
On a pedestal, he said.
O. J. L.—Would he like him put on a pedestal?
No, he doesn't say nothing.
[Contemporary Note by O. J. L.—The episode of Mr. Jackson and the bird is a good one. 'Mr. Jackson' is the comic name of our peacock. Within the last week he has died, partly, I fear, by the severe weather. But his legs have been rheumatic and troublesome for some time; and in trying to walk he of late has tumbled down on them. He was found dead in a yard on a cold morning with his neck broken. One of the last people I saw before leaving home for this sitting was a man whom Lady Lodge had sent to take the bird's body and have it stuffed. She showed him a wooden pedestal on which she thought it might be placed, and tail feathers were being sent with it. Hence, the reference to the pedestal, if not telepathic from me, shows a curious knowledge of what was going on. And the jocular withholding from Feda of the real meaning of Mr. Jackson, and the appropriate remarks made concerning him which puzzled Feda, were quite in Raymond's vein of humour.
Perhaps it was unfortunate that I had mentioned a bird first, but I tried afterwards, by my manner and remarks, completely to dissociate the name Jackson from what I had asked before about the bird; and Raymond played up to it.
It may be that he acquires some of these contemporary items of family information through sittings which are held in Mariemont, where of course all family gossip is told him freely, no outsider or medium being present. But the death of Mr. Jackson, and the idea of having him stuffed and put on a pedestal, were very recent, and I was surprised that he had knowledge of them. I emphasise the episode as exceptionally good.]
He's trying to show Feda the side of a house; not a wall, it has got glass. He's taking Feda round to it; it has got glass stuff. Yes, and when you look in, it's like flowers inside and green stuff. He used to go there a lot—be there, he says. Red-coloured pots.