My guests proved not to have come by the same train as I, but arrived shortly before dinnertime, and after Mrs. Forrest had gone to her room, I had a few words with Charles, who told me exactly how the situation now stood.
“I know your caution and your captiousness in these affairs,” he said, “so I have told Mrs. Forrest nothing about the description she gave of this house, or of the reason why I asked her to come here. I said only, as we settled, that you were a great friend of mine and immensely interested in psychical affairs, but a country-mouse whom it was difficult to get up to town. But you would be delighted if she would come down for a few days and give some sittings here.”
“And does she recognise the house, do you think?” I asked.
“No sign of it. As I told you, when she comes out of trance she never seems to have the faintest recollection of what she has said or written. We shall have a séance, I hope, tonight after dinner.”
“Certainly, if she will,” said I. “I thought we had better hold it in the garden-room, for that was the place that was so minutely described. It’s quite warm there, central-heating and a fire, and it’s only half a dozen yards from the house. I’ve had the snow swept from the steps.”
Mrs. Forrest turned out to be a very intelligent woman, well spiced with humour, gifted with a sane appreciation of the comforts of life, and most agreeably furnished with the small change of talk. She was inclined to be stout, but carried herself with briskness, and neither in body nor mind did she suggest that she was one who held communication with the unseen: there was nothing wan or occult about her. Her general outlook on life appeared to be rather materialistic than otherwise, and she was very interesting on the topic when, about halfway through dinner, the subject of her mediumship came on the conversational board.
“My gifts, such as they are,” she said, “have nothing to do with this person who sits eating and drinking and talking to you. She, as Mr. Hope may have told you, is quite expunged before the subconscious part of me—that is the latest notion, is it not?—gets into touch with discarnate intelligences. Until that happens, the door is shut, and when it is over, the door is shut again, and I have no recollection of what I have said or written. The control uses my hand and my voice, but that is all. I know no more about it than a piano on which a tune has been played.”
“And there is a new control who has lately been using you?” I asked.
She laughed.
“You must ask Mr. Hope about that,” she said. “I know nothing whatever of it. He tells me it is so, and he tells me—don’t you, Mr. Hope?—that he hasn’t any idea who or what the new control is. I look forward to its development; my idea is that the control has to get used to me, as in learning a new instrument. I assure you I am as eager as anyone that he should gain facility in communication through me. I hope, indeed, that we are to have a séance tonight.”
The talk veered again, and I learned that Mrs. Forrest had never been in Tilling before, and was enchanted with the snowy moonlit glance she had had of its narrow streets and ancient residences. She liked, too, the atmosphere of the house: it seemed tranquil and kindly; especially so was the little drawing-room where we had assembled before dinner.
I glanced at Charles.
“I had thought of proposing that we should sit in the garden-room,” I said, “if you don’t mind half a dozen steps in the open. It adjoins the house.”
“Just as you wish,” she said, “though I think we have excellent conditions in here without going there.”
This confirmed her statement that she had no idea after she had come out of trance what she had said, for otherwise she must have recognised at the mention of the garden-room her own description of it, and when soon after dinner we adjourned there, it was clear that, unless she was acting an inexplicable part, the sight of it twanged no chord of memory. There we made the very simple arrangements to which she was accustomed.
As the procedure in such sittings is possibly unfamiliar to the reader, I will describe quite shortly what our arrangements were. We had no idea what form these manifestations—if there were any—might take, and therefore we, Charles and I, were prepared to record them on the spot. We three sat round a small table about a couple of yards from the fire, which was burning brightly; Mrs. Forrest seated herself in a big armchair. Exactly in front of her on the table were a pencil and a block of paper in case, as often happened, the manifestation took the form of automatic script—writing, that is, while in a state of trance. Charles and I sat on each side of her, also provided with pencil and paper in order to take down what she said if and when (as lawyers say) the control took possession of her. In case materialised spirits appeared, a phenomenon not as yet seen at her séances, our idea was to jot down as quickly as possible
