“I have the name—” George thinks he is going to scream. He is going to faint. He will fall and hit his head on—“It is Stuart.”
And then a man of about George’s age, a few yards to his left, is on his feet and signalling to the stage, acknowledging this seventy-five-year-old who was brought up in India and passed in 1918, seeming almost to claim him as a prize. George feels that the shadow of the angel of death has been cast over him; he is chilled to the bone, sweaty, exhausted, threatened, utterly relieved, and deeply ashamed. And at the same time, part of him is impressed, curious, fearfully wondering . . .
“And now I have a lady, she was about forty-five to fifty years of age. She passed over in 1913. She mentions Morpeth. She never married, but she has a message for a gentleman.” Mrs. Roberts starts to looks downwards, into the arena. “She says something about a horse.”
There is a pause. Mrs. Roberts drops her head again, turns it sideways, takes advice. “I have her name now. It is Emily. Yes, she gives her name as Emily Wilding Davison. She has a message, she had arranged to come here to give a gentleman a message. I think she told you through the planchette or Ouija board she would be present.”
A man in an open-necked shirt, sitting near the platform, rises to his feet, and as if conscious he is addressing the whole hall, says in a carrying voice, “That is correct. She told me she would communicate tonight. Emily is the suffragette who threw herself before the King’s horse and died from her injuries. As a spirit figure she is well known to me.”
The hall seems to take in a vast collective breath. Mrs. Roberts starts to relay the message, but George does not bother to listen. His sanity feels suddenly restored; the clear, keen wind of reason is blowing again through his brain. Hocus-pocus, as he always suspected. Emily Davison indeed. Emily Davison, who broke windows, threw stones, set fire to postboxes; who refused to obey prison regulations and was consequently force-fed on numerous occasions. A silly, hysterical woman in George’s view, who deliberately sought death in order to advance her cause; though some said she was merely trying to plant a flag on the horse, and misjudged the speed of the animal. In which case, incompetent as well as hysterical. You cannot break the law to advance the law, that was a nonsense. You do it by petition, by argument, by demonstration if necessary, but by reason. Those who broke the law as an argument for obtaining the vote thereby demonstrated their unfitness to receive it.
Still, the point is not whether Emily Davison was a silly, hysterical woman, or whether her action resulted in Maud getting the vote of which George fully approves. No, the point is that Sir Arthur was such a well-known opponent of Women’s Suffrage that the notion of such a spirit attending his memorial service is absurd. Unless the spirits of the departed are as illogical as they are unruly. Perhaps Emily Davison thought of disrupting this gathering just as she once disrupted the Derby. But in that case, her message ought to be for Sir Arthur, or his widow, rather than for some sympathetic friend.
Stop, George says to himself. Stop thinking rationally about such matters. Or rather, stop granting these people the benefit of the doubt. You were given an unpleasant shock by a clever false alarm, but that is no ground for losing your reason as well as your nerve. He also thinks: yet if
I
was so scared, if
I
panicked, if
I
believed I might be going to die, then consider the potential effect on weaker minds and lesser intelligences. George wonders if the Witchcraft Act—with which he is admittedly unfamiliar—should not remain on the Statute Book after all.
Mrs. Roberts has been giving messages for half an hour or so. George spots people in the arena getting to their feet. But now they are not competing for a lost relative, or rising en masse to greet the spirit forms of loved ones. They are walking out. Perhaps the appearance of Emily Wilding Davison has been the last straw for them too. Perhaps they came as admirers of Sir Arthur’s life and work, but are refusing to associate themselves further with this public conjuring trick. There are thirty, forty, fifty people on their feet, heading determinedly for the exits.
“I can’t go on with all these people walking out,” Mrs. Roberts announces. She sounds offended, but also rather unnerved. She takes a few steps backwards. Someone, somewhere, gives a signal, whereupon a sudden skirling blast comes from the vast pipe organ behind the stage. Is it intended to cover the noise of the departing sceptics, or to indicate that the meeting is being brought to an end? George looks to the woman on his right for guidance. She is frowning, offended at the vulgar way in which the medium has been interrupted. As for Mrs. Roberts herself, she has her head cast down and her arms wrapped round herself, shutting out all this interference with the fragile line of communication she has established to the spirit world.
And then, the last thing George expects comes to pass. The organ suddenly cuts off in mid-anthem, Mrs. Roberts throws her arms open, lifts her head, walks confidently forward to the microphone, and in a ringing, impassioned voice, cries,
“He is here!” And then again, “He is here!”
Those on their way out stop; some turn back to their seats. But in any case, they are now forgotten. Everyone gazes intently at the stage, at Mrs. Roberts, at the empty chair with the placard across it. The blast on the organ might have been a call to attention, a prelude to this very moment. The entire hall is silent, watching, waiting.
“I saw him first,” she says, “during the two-minute silence.
“He was here, first standing behind me, though separate from all the other spirits.
“Then I saw him walk across the platform to his empty chair.
“I saw him distinctly. He was wearing evening dress.
“He looked as he has always looked in recent years.
“There is no doubt about it. He was quite prepared for his passing.”
As she pauses between each brief, dramatic statement, George studies Sir Arthur’s family on the platform. All of them except one are looking across at Mrs. Roberts, transfixed by her announcement. Only Lady Conan Doyle has not turned. George cannot see her expression from this distance, but her hands are crossed on her lap, her shoulders are square, her carriage erect; head proudly high, she is gazing above the audience and out into the far distance.
“He is our great champion, here and on the farther side.
“He is quite capable of demonstrating already. His passing was peaceful, and he was quite prepared for it. There was no pain, and no confusion to his spirit. He is already able to begin his work for us over there.
“When I first saw him, during the two minutes’ silence, it was as in a flash.
“It was when I was giving my messages that I first saw him clearly and distinctly.
“He came and stood behind me and encouraged me while I was doing my work.
“I recognized once more that fine, clear voice of his, which could not be mistaken. He bore himself as a gentleman, as he always did.
“He is with us all the time, and the barrier between the two worlds is but a temporary one.
“There is nothing to fear in passing over, and our great champion has proved it by appearing here amongst us tonight.”
The woman on George’s left leans across the velvet armrest and whispers, “He is here.”
Several people are now on their feet, as if to get a better view of the stage. All are staring fixedly at the empty chair, at Mrs. Roberts, at the Doyle family. George feels himself being caught up again in some mass feeling that transcends, that overwhelms the silence. He is no longer seized by the fear he had when he thought his father was coming for him, nor the scepticism when Emily Davison was putting in her appearance. He feels, despite himself, a kind of cautious awe. This is, after all, Sir Arthur they are speaking of, the man who willingly used his detective abilities on George’s behalf, who risked his own reputation to rescue George’s, who helped give him back the life that had been taken from him. Sir Arthur, a man of the highest integrity and intelligence, believed in events of the kind George has just been witnessing; it would be impertinent for George in this moment to deny his saviour.
George does not think he is losing either his mind, or his common sense. He asks himself: what if there was in the proceedings that mixture of truth and lies he earlier identified? What if some parts of what has happened are charlatanry, but others genuine? What if the theatrical Mrs. Roberts, despite herself, was truly bringing news from distant lands? What if Sir Arthur, in whatever form or place he now might be, is obliged, in order to make contact with the material world, to use as a conduit those who also deal in fraud some of the time? Would that not be an explanation?
“He is here,” the woman on his left repeats, in a normal, conversational voice.
Then the words are taken up by a man a dozen seats away. “He is here.” Three words spoken in an everyday tone, intended to carry a mere few feet. But such is the charged air in the hall that they seem magically amplified.
“He is here,” someone up in the gallery repeats.
“He is here,” responds a woman down in the arena.
Then a man at the back of the stalls suddenly bellows, in the tone of a revivalist preacher, “HE IS HERE!”
Instinctively, George reaches down at his feet and pulls his binoculars from their case. He crams them to his spectacles and tries to focus on the platform. His finger and thumb nervously twirl past the proper focus in each direction, then finally land on the mid-point. He examines the ecstatic medium, the empty chair, and the Doyle family. Lady Conan Doyle has remained, since the first announcement of Sir Arthur’s presence, fixed in the same attitude: straight-backed, square-shouldered, head up, gazing out with—as George can now see—something resembling a smile on her face. The golden-haired, flirtatious young woman he had briefly met has grown darker-haired and matronly; he has only ever seen her at Sir Arthur’s side, which is where she still claims to be. He moves the glasses back and forth, to the chair, the medium, the widow. He finds his breath coming quickly and harshly.
There is a touch on his right shoulder. He drops the binoculars. The woman shakes her head and says gently, “You cannot see him that way.”
She is not rebuking him, merely explaining how things are.
“You will only see him with the eyes of faith.”
The eyes of faith. The eyes Sir Arthur brought with him when they met at the Grand Hotel, Charing Cross. He had believed in George; should George now believe in Sir Arthur? His champion’s words: I do not think, I do not believe, I
know.
Sir Arthur carried with him an enviable, comforting sense of certainty. He knew things. What does he, George, know? Does he finally know anything? What is the sum of knowledge he has acquired in his fifty-four years? Mostly, he has gone through his life learning and waiting to be told. The authority of others has always been important to him; does he have any authority of his own? At fifty-four, he thinks a lot of things, he believes a few, but what can he really claim to know?
The cries of witness to Sir Arthur’s presence have now died down, perhaps because there has been no answering acknowledgement from the stage. What was Lady Conan Doyle’s message at the start of the service? That our earthly eyes cannot see beyond the earth’s vibration; that only those with the God-given extra sight, called clairvoyance, would be able to see the dear form in our midst. It would have been a miracle indeed if Sir Arthur had managed to endow with clairvoyant powers the various people still on their feet in different parts of the hall.
And now Mrs. Roberts speaks again.
“I have a message for you, dear, from Arthur.”
Again, Lady Conan Doyle does not turn her head.
Mrs. Roberts, in a slow waft of black satin, moves to her left, towards the Doyle family and the empty seat. When she reaches Lady Conan Doyle, she stands to one side of her and a little behind, facing towards the part of the hall where George sits. Despite the distance, her words carry easily.
“Sir Arthur told me that one of you went to the hut, this morning.” She waits, and when the widow does not answer, prompts her. “Is that correct?”
“Why yes,” replies Lady Conan Doyle. “I did.”
Mrs. Roberts nods, and goes on, “The message is: tell Mary—”
At which moment another tremendous blast comes from the pipe organ. Mrs. Roberts leans closer and carries on speaking under the protection of the noise. Lady Conan Doyle nods from time to time. Then she looks across to the large, formally clad son on her left, as if enquiring of him. He in turn looks to Mrs. Roberts, who now addresses them both. Then the other son gets up and joins the group. The organ peals on relentlessly.
George does not know if this drowning of the message is in consideration of the family’s privacy or a piece of stage management. He does not know whether he has seen truth or lies, or a mixture of both. He does not know if the clear, surprising, unEnglish fervour of those around him this evening is proof of charlatanry or belief. And if belief, whether true or false.
Mrs. Roberts has finished communicating her message, and turns towards Mr. Craze. The organ thunders on, yet with nothing to drown out. The Doyle family look around at one another. Where is the service to go from here? The hymns have all been sung, the tributes paid. The daring experiment has been performed, Sir Arthur has come amongst them, his message has been delivered.
The organ continues. Now it seems to be modulating into the rhythms which play out a congregation after a wedding or funeral: insistent and indefatigable, propelling them back into the daily, grimy, unmagical, sublunary world. The Doyle family leave the platform, followed by the officers of the Marylebone Spiritualist Association, the speakers and Mrs. Roberts. People stand up, women reach under their seats for handbags, men in evening dress remember top hats, then there is shuffling and murmuring, the greeting of friends and acquaintances, and a calm, unhurried queue in every aisle. Those around George gather their belongings, rise, nod and grant him their full and certain smiles. George returns them a smile which is no equal of theirs, and does not rise. When most of his section is empty, he reaches down again and presses the binoculars to his spectacles. He focuses once more on the platform, the hydrangeas, the line of empty chairs, and the one specific empty chair with its cardboard placard, the space where Sir Arthur has, just possibly, been. He gazes through his succession of lenses, out into the air and beyond.