“I thank you for telling me,” said Cartice, humbly. “But how are we to be sure that you are Prescott. Give us a proof if you can, though it be only to write your name in the old way.”
“Gordon Prescott,” was instantly and rapidly written in the firm, sharp-pointed handwriting characteristic of the man—a good fac-simile of the original signature, even without making allowance for the clumsiness of the implement. Then came “Good-night” in the same hand, and nothing could induce Planchette to further movement.
They talked it over. Even Chrissalyn was interested. Prescott writing through Planchette did not seem like dead people coming back in the gruesome way she dreaded. Rather was it as though he had never died, but only become invisible. There was nothing about this to inspire terror. After the first surprise of it, it even seemed natural; and it was a pleasure to have a word from him, though it were of his love for another. What matter? She loved him,—that was enough. And it was a comfort to know that he was sometimes near, in spite of the fact that she had believed dead people ought to keep to themselves. However, with Prescott it was different. Somehow he was not dead people.
Then, too, the priestess had her vanity—a streak of the kind that wants appreciation for her ability as well as her beauty. Cartice’s gifts of pen and pencil she had craved, if not envied. Now that she knew she had a power her friend had not—one which Cartice thought of inestimable value—she saw that this gave her additional importance in Mrs. Doring’s eyes, hence she secretly plumed herself a little.
She consented to continuing their experiments with Planchette on condition that no one else should ever be told. Were it known, she would be called a “spirit medium,” and that would be disgraceful, unendurable. They might say almost anything else of her and she wouldn’t mind; but to have that name fastened upon her would be a calamity.
A “medium!” To her the word was beyond words in its despicable significance. Were not mediums a disreputable order of human buzzards, who preyed upon the credulity and holiest emotions of honest folk? Were they not despised, abhorred, shunned and feared by the better class of society? Were they not ignorant, frowsy, ugly and generally dirty? Did they not invariably say “sect” when they meant “sex,” and talk mind-weakening twaddle about “controls,” “influences,” “impressions” and so on, in English that was in open warfare with all grammatical rules? And were they not frequently chummy with invisible Indians,—going about boasting that they were constantly attended by some “Blackhawk,” “Fire-eye,” “Thunder-Tongue,” “Yellow Feather,” or “Crow-on-the-head,” who made them the mouthpieces of idiotic gibbering?
Do they not come out of cabinets, wearing trailing robes and tin crowns, trying to palm themselves off as dead and gone kings and queens? Have they not an uncanny affinity for tables? And do they not talk through trumpets, ring bells and play other stupid pranks and lay the blame of it all on the defenceless dead? Had they not thrown discredit upon Noah Webster himself, accusing him of a written message which said, “It is tite times”?
Truly their sins were as scarlet. Cartice admitted their iniquities without argument, and promised her friend that never, never, even in her most secret thoughts would she call her a medium, much less breathe the opprobrious epithet to others.
They went patiently on with their investigation, devoting two evenings a week to Planchette and telling no one. It was by no means all fair weather work either. They soon found that the only thing they could be sure of was that they could depend on nothing; that with the intelligence which manipulated Planchette no contract could be made. They came, or they came not, just as it suited their good pleasure, and were obedient to no mandate or appeal. They were arbitrary always, and, as in most affairs of life, it was the unexpected that happened. From what the investigators could learn, it would seem, as Mr. W. T. Stead says, that although this world is queer the next appears to be queerer.
As they went on, they held more and more to the belief that they were actually communicating with persons who had lived in flesh-and-blood bodies like our own, and who still lived, retaining the same characteristics that distinguished them here, but invisible to our eyes—inhabitants perhaps of the much discussed Fourth Dimension of Space. At least, one and all represented themselves as the persons whom we call dead, but who live—live in a freer, larger life.