Читать книгу The Third Eye - Ethel Lina White - Страница 10

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THE next morning, when Caroline met Mrs. Nash in the hall, she wondered whether she had dreamed the fantastic scene in the boudoir. The Head looked as though she had been steeped in some icy, stiffening solution overnight, for her eyes were frosty and her lips set in a rigid line.

She stopped Caroline to criticise her selection of the hockey team, and would listen to no explanations.

"I am not concerned with who was away or who was ill," she said. "But I am concerned with the fact that the School lost. You are here to win matches."

Smarting from the healing sting of a legitimate grievance, Caroline told Kewpie about the incident.

"It was so unfair," she complained. "Was it to punish me because of last night?"

"Probably," replied Kewpie. "Mrs. Nash expects results, both in material and spiritual things. Yaxley-Moore has not been ringing the bell lately, so Mrs. Nash has been calling the séances off."

"How do you know?"

"There's been no light in the boudoir lately until last night. And you spoiled that, hauling off the medium. It was like taking a bone from a starving tiger."

"Then I suppose Matron will have her knife in me, too?"

"Well, perhaps you'd better look inside your bed before you get in."

The words slipped out before Kewpie realized her admission.

"Forget it," she implored, gazing at Caroline with terrified eyes. "Don't tell any one I said it. I could lose my job for spreading a false report."

"Is it false?" whispered Caroline.

"I don't know. I know nothing except this: The less one talks about anything here the safer one is."

The next time Caroline met the Matron she shrank from her instinctively—not so much from dread of reprisal as from horror of the unspoken word. Therefore she was surprised one evening when Miss Yaxley-Moore asked her to take part in table-turning. Although she was anxious to keep on good terms with the Matron, she tried to refuse.

"Oh, I don't think I'd be any use. I—I can't help being a skeptic."

"Your feelings are of no interest to me," said Miss Yaxley-Moore. "But you are specially full of vitality. I want that to strengthen the electric current."

"Oh, well—as long as I haven't got to do anything—"

"Do anything? Do you realize what you are implying? Your part is merely to be a passive agent and let the Power, which I shall liberate, operate through you...I shall expect you tonight at nine."

The notice was short, and Caroline could frame no adequate excuse for absence. She grumbled about it to Kewpie when they met after dinner.

"I shall feel such a fool. A pack of grown women sitting mum around a silly table. What's the big idea, anyway?"

Kewpie's elfin grin was malicious as she explained the situation.

"It's a confidence-stunt. The spirits haven't been reading their financial News of late, and they put Mrs. Nash on to a bad investment. Now she's hanging up on their advice, and that's too bad for poor Glaxo, because she gets a commission on these flutters. She wants to bring off another coup—so it's up to her to prove to Mrs. Nash what a know-all lot these spirits really are."

"How?"

"She'll get the table to predict something that will come true."

"You mean something she knows and we don't?"

"No. Something she thinks likely—and she'll make it come true."

It was in a spirit of levity that Caroline accompanied Kewpie to the small panelled room where some of the junior mistresses were already gathered. A circle of chairs was arranged round a table, whose weight surprised Caroline, since she guessed that Miss Yaxley-Moore would control its activity.

The Matron had dressed for her part of medium in heavy black draperies, while her face was thickly coated with white powder. With an air of absolute control, she looked at the straggle of excited women and then tightened them together in a self-conscious circle.

"Sit down," she commanded. "Lay your hands lightly on the table—little fingers touching. Concentrate—and avoid levity. Switch off the light, Auriol."

When the room was plunged into darkness and Auriol had stumbled back to the circle, she made a further explanation.

"The Spirit will communicate through the table. It is a clumsy method, but I could not get results otherwise under such imperfect conditions. No one here is mediumistic, except myself. One tap for 'yes,' two for 'no'—and the raps will spell out the alphabet. But when the answer is obvious I shall ask a direct question to save time...Get ready...Stop talking...Now!"

As Kewpie's nail playfully dinted her little finger Caroline barely suppressed a squeak. Her chief emotion was fear that she would have a fit of giggles while she waited for the tiresome preliminaries to end and the demonstration to begin.

At first the room seemed black as a pitch-plaster; but although no one spoke, the silence was not absolute. There were sighs, rustles and strangled coughs as the circle settled down to its vigil. Presently Caroline's eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and she discovered that the small panes at the top of the tall window were uncurtained. Through these filtered a diluted quality of visibility—rather than light—which suggested the presence of a vague company seated round the table.

One vast shape rose higher than the rest and was identified as Yaxley-Moore by her distinctive voice.

"At present," she said thickly, "you are in an ordinary room. But soon the atmosphere will change. Others will be here besides ourselves...Even at this moment the table is becoming visible to the Spirit-World. They see it as a sort of dim, luminous patch glowing through the darkness. As it becomes clearer there will be a rush of spirits towards it, like moths towards a lamp...So be careful—all of you."

Caroline was glad that no one could see her as involuntarily she made a grimace.

"Patter," she thought derisively.

The circle settled down to another period of waiting. No one dared move or whisper, so that gradually the experiment changed to a test of endurance. Those who were most sensitive began to feel the tension, while even Caroline was affected by the sensation of being blind and dumb.

Like Kewpie, she had secured an easy-chair which was so low that she had to strain upwards in order to reach the table. Soon her unnatural posture produced a crop of minor discomforts. The muscles of her neck ached, and her outstretched arms tingled with "needles and pins." After a while she could scarcely endure their pricking. She wanted to jump and stretch, but she dared not break the human current.

With no relief in sight, she had to conquer her fit of nerves and remain in her seat, listening to the uneven ticking of the clock. It was an inaccurate time-keeper, and presently she was aware of an over-powering impulse to breathe in time with it. "In—out. In—out." It reminded her of listening to the Boat Race over the wireless. She caught her breath and was on the point of choking when suddenly the table gave a sharp crack. Out of sheer nerves she broke into a laugh, which she checked with guilty haste.

"You fool!" stormed Miss Yaxley-Moore. "Don't you understand we are close to ruins which are swarming with the earth-bound spirits of corrupt monks? They have seen our light. We are alone no longer."

Although Caroline did her best to resist the power of suggestion as the minutes crawled on again to the faulty ticking of the clock, she became aware of a change which was not imagination.

The room had grown actually blacker. She could no longer see the blurred outlines of the company, while the panes of outer darkness were merged into the framework of the windows.

There was a commonplace reason for the eclipse of which she was ignorant. In a room on the other side of the courtyard some one had switched off the light which had faintly filtered through the glass. But as Caroline was unable to account for the total black-out, she began to grow apprehensive of other changes. The circle was broken, for she could not feel the contact of Kewpie's finger. At first she thought that it must be her fancy and that her arm had grown too numb for sensation. Yet whenever she moved her hand she swept only empty air.

Kewpie had disappeared.

Miss Yaxley-Moore heard her movements, for she spoke commandingly.

"Don't move. The Power is here."

Even as she spoke there was the sound of a loud knocking as though some one were beating on the panels of the door for admission. Simultaneously the table heeled over to Caroline's knees and then rose again, hitting her under the chin.

The attack was so unexpected that her heart gave a violent leap. She forgot that she had been crouching low, and felt that she alone had incurred the wrath of an inanimate object which had mysteriously achieved motive power for purpose of revenge.

"Stop," shouted Yaxley-Moore.

Her voice was choked as though it issued from the gallows-tree. Instantly the table became stationary, although to Caroline's suddenly aroused imagination it seemed still to vibrate as if it had become animate.

"Is it Father Ignatius who is present?" asked Yaxley-Moore.

The table gave two taps, which signified "No."

"Is it Major Nash?"

One tap.

"Have you a message?"

"Yes," tapped the table.

"Who is it for?"

"Wife."

"What is it?"

"Invest."

As Caroline counted the taps her old skepticism returned in renewed force. She realized that the table was coming up to expectation, for its advice was exactly in line with Kewpie's shrewd prediction.

Again she waved her arm mechanically over Kewpie's chair and missed counting a miniature battery of raps on the table. Yaxley-Moore, however, gave her the clue to the message as she reasoned with the table.

"You say 'trust.' But, Major, she has been misled by a lying spirit. If she is to trust, you must give her proof that the future is unveiled to you...Tell us of some event which will happen here, soon."

Caroline had not the least doubt that the Matron was manipulating the table, so was prepared for some prophecy whose fulfilment would be easy. Therefore she was doubly shocked and startled by the table's revelation.

It tapped out instantly "Death."

"Oh, stop, please," she cried impulsively.

Yaxley-Moore took no notice of her appeal as she went on with her questions.

"Any one present now?"

The table signified "Yes."

"Who?"

The table gave one sharp rap, stopped, and then galloped through the alphabet.

"'Au—,'" said Miss Yaxley-Moore. "There is only one person here whose name can begin with those letter. Is it—'Auriol'?"

The table banged assent as though it were hammering down the lid of a coffin.

"Oh, stop!" called Caroline again. "Put on the light, somebody."

A murmur of voices from the circle told of support from the other mistresses, when Miss Auriol spoke in the flat tone of one who has just received sentence of death.

"No. I must know. Ask it—what?"

Caroline stuffed her fingers in her ears, but the action did not deaden Auriol's scream.

"Cancer...It's true. I've always known it...Ask—when. Is it before the end of the term?"

As the table gave a sharp rap there was the sound of a gasping cry, followed by the crash of an overturned chair. Confusion broke out in the darkness—every one speaking at once and blundering against the furniture.

When the light was switched on it fell on two unconscious persons. Kewpie was slumped back in her chair, asleep, while Miss Auriol lay across the table in a faint.