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We do not take to new ideas readily in Bishopsthorpe. Our fashions are
always at least one season behind the times; it is only by a late
innovation in Post Office regulations that we are now enabled to get our
London papers on the day of their publication; and a craze, social or
scientific, has almost been forgotten by the fashionable world before it
manages to establish any kind of footing in our midst.
It therefore came upon us with more or less of a shock one morning a
short time ago to find the walls of our sleepy little country town
placarded with naming posters announcing that Professor Dmitri Sclamowsky intended to visit Bishopsthorpe on the following Friday, for
the purpose of exhibiting in the Town Hall some of his marvellous powers
in Thought Reading, Mesmerism, and Hypnotism.
Stray rumours from time to time, and especially of late, had visited us
of strange experiments in connection with these outlandish sciences, if
sciences they can be called; but we had received these with incredulity,
mingled with compassion for such weak-minded persons as could be easily
duped by the clever conjuring of paid charlatans.
This, at least, was very much the mental attitude of my aunt Phoebe, and
it was only under strong pressure from me and one or two others of her
younger and more enterprising section of Bishopsthorpe society that she
at last reluctantly consented to patronise the Professor's performance
in person.
Even at the last moment she almost failed us.
"I am getting too old a woman, my dear Elizabeth," she said to me as I
was helping her to dress, "to leave my comfortable fireside after dinner
for the sake of seeing second-rate conjuring."
"Indeed, it is good of you," I said, as I disposed a piece of soft old
point lace in graceful folds round the neck of her black velvet dress;
"but virtue will be its own reward, for I am sure you will enjoy it as
much as any of us, and as for being too old, that is all nonsense! Just
look in the glass, and then say if you have a heart to cheat
Bishopsthorpe of a sight of you in all your glory."
"You are a silly girl, Elizabeth!" said my aunt, and yet she did as I
suggested, and, walking up to the long pier-glass, looked at her
reflection with a well pleased smile. "Indeed," she continued, turning
back to me to where I stood by the dressing-table, "I think I am as
silly as you are, to rig myself out like this," and she pointed to the
double row of large single diamonds I had clasped round her neck, and
the stars of the same precious stones which twinkled and flashed in the
lace of her cap.
"Come, Aunt Phœbe," I said, drawing down her hands, which had made a
movement as though she would have taken off the glittering gauds, "you
don't often give the good Bishopsthorpe folk a chance of admiring the
Anstruther heirlooms. They look so lovely! Don't take them off,
please. What is the use of having beautiful things if they are always
to be hidden away in a jewellery case? There now," I went on; "I hear
the carriage at the door; here is your fur cloak: you must wrap yourself
up well for it is a cold night," and so saying I muffled her up, and
hustled her downstairs before she could remonstrate, even had she wished
to do so.
The little Town Hall was already crowded when we arrived, but seats had
been reserved for us in one of the front rows of benches. Many eyes were
turned on us as we made our way to our places, for Aunt Phœbe was
looked up to as one of the cornerstones of aristocracy in Bishopsthorpe,
and I fancied that I caught an expression of relief on the faces of some
of those present, who, until the entertainment had been sanctioned by
her presence, had probably felt doubtful as to its complete orthodoxy.
But of course I may have been wrong. Aunt Phœbe is always telling me
I am too imaginative.
It seemed as though the Professor had awaited our arrival to begin the
performance, for we had hardly taken our seats than the curtain, which
had hitherto hidden the stage from our view, rolled up and discovered
the Professor standing with his hand resting upon an easel, on which was
placed a large blackboard.
I think the general feeling in the room was that of disappointment. I
know that I, for one, had hoped to see something more interesting than
the usual paraphernalia of a lecture on astronomy or geology.
Professor Sclamowsky, too, was not at all as impressive a person as his
name had led me to expect. He was short and thick-set. His close-cropped
hair was of the undecided colour which fair hair assumes when it is
beginning to turn grey, and a heavy moustache of the same uninteresting
hue hid his mouth. His jaw was heavy and slightly underhung, and his
neck was thick and coarse.
Altogether his appearance was remarkably unprepossessing and
commonplace.
In a short speech, spoken with a slight foreign accent, which some way
or other struck me as being assumed, he begged to disclaim all intention
of conjuring. His performance was solely and entirely a series of
experiments in and illustrative of the wonderful science of Hypnotism; a
science still in its infancy, but destined to take its place among the
most marvellous of modern discoveries.
As he spoke, his heavy, uninteresting face lit up as with a hidden
enthusiasm, and my attention was attracted to his eyes, which I had not
before noticed. They were of a curious bright metallic blue and are the
only eyes I have ever seen, though one reads and hears so perpetually of
them, which really seemed to flash as he warmed to his subject.
As he finished, I looked at Aunt Phœbe, who shrugged her shoulders
and smiled incredulously. It was clear that she was not going to be
imposed upon by his specious phrases.
It would be unnecessary to weary my readers by describing at length how
the usual preliminary of choosing an unbiassed committee was gone
through; nor how, after the doctor, the rector, Mr. Melton (the
principal draper in Bishopsthorpe) and several other of the town
magnates, all men of irreproachable honesty, had been induced to act in
this capacity, the Professor proceeded, with eyes blindfolded and
holding the doctor's hand in his, to find a carefully hidden pin, to
read the number of a bank-note and to write the figures one by one on
the blackboard, and to perform other experiments of the same kind amid
the breathless interest of the audience.
I frankly admit that I was astonished and bewildered by what I saw, and
I had a little uneasy feeling that if it were not all a piece of
gigantic humbug, it was not quite canny—not quite right.
What struck me most, I think, was the unfussy, untheatrical way in which
it was all done. Every one of the Professor's movements was marked by an
air of calm certainty. He threaded his way through the crowded benches
with such an unhesitating step that, only that I had seen the bandage
fastened over his eyes by the rector and afterwards carefully examined
by the doctor, neither of whom could be suspected of complicity, I
should have said he must have had some little peep-hole arranged to
enable him to guide his course so unfalteringly.
There were, of course, thunders of applause from the sixpenny seats when
the Thought Reading part of the entertainment came to an end.
"Well, Aunt Phœbe," I said, turning to her as the Professor bowed his
thanks, "what do you think?"
"Think, my dear?" she repeated. "I think the man is a very fair
conjurer."
"But," I protested, "how could he know where the pin was; and you know
Mr. Danby himself fastened the handkerchief?"
"My dear Elizabeth, I have seen Houdin do far more wonderful things,
when I was a girl; but he had the honesty to call it by its right
name—conjuring."
I had not time to carry on the discussion, for the Professor now
reappeared and informed us that by far the most interesting part of the
performance was still to come. Thought Reading and Mesmerism, or, as
some people preferred to call it—Hypnotism—were, he believed,
different parts of the same wonderful and but very partially-understood
power. A power so little understood as not even to possess a distinctive
name; a power which he believed to be latent in everybody, but which
was capable of being brought to more or less perfection, according to
the amount of care and attention bestowed upon it. "I," said the
Professor, "have given my life to it." And again I fancied I saw the
curious blue eyes flash with a sudden unexpected fire.
"In the experiments which I am about to show you," he went on, "I am
assisted by my daughter, Anna Sclamowsky," and, drawing back a curtain
at the back of the stage, he led forward a girl who looked to be between
sixteen and eighteen years old.
There was no sort of family resemblance between father and daughter. She
was tall and slight, with a small dark head prettily poised on a long,
slender neck. Her face was pale, and her large dark eyes had a startled,
frightened look as she gazed at the sea of strange faces below her. Her
father placed her in a chair facing us all; and turning once more to the
audience said:
"I shall now, with your kind permission, put my daughter into a mesmeric
or hypnotic trance; and while she is in it, I hope to show you some
particularly interesting experiments. Look at me, Anna—so—"
He placed his fingers for a moment on her eyelids, and then stood aside.
Except that the girl was now perfectly motionless, and that her gaze was
unnaturally fixed, I could see nothing different in her appearance from
what it had been a few moments before.
The Professor now turned to Mr. Danby, who was seated beside me, and
said, "If this gentleman will oblige me by stepping up on the stage, he
can assure himself by any means he may choose to use, that my daughter
is in a perfectly unconscious state at this moment; and if it will give
the audience and himself any more confidence in the sincerity of this
experiment, he is perfectly at liberty to blindfold her. Then if he will
be kind enough to go through the room and touch here and there any
person he may fancy, my daughter, at a word from me, will in the same
order and in the same manner touch each of those already touched. I
myself will, during the whole of the time, stand at the far end of the
hall, so that there can be no sort of communication between us."
So saying, Sclamowsky left the stage, and walking down the room, placed
himself with his back against the wall, and fixed his gaze upon the
motionless form of his daughter.
As I looked back at him, even though separated from him by the length of
the hall, I could see the strange glitter and flash of his eyes. It gave
me an uncomfortable, uneasy feeling; and I turned my face again towards
the stage, where the good-natured rector was following out the
directions he had received.
He lifted Anna Sclamowsky's arm, which, on his relaxing his hold, fell
limp and lifeless by her side; he snapped his fingers suddenly close
before her wide-open eyes without producing even a quiver of a muscle in
her set face. He shouted in her ear; shook her by the shoulders; but
all without succeeding in making her show any sign of consciousness. He
then tied a handkerchief over her eyes; and, leaving the stage, went
about through the room, touching people here and there as he went,
pursuing a most tortuous course, and ended at last by placing his hand
upon Aunt Phœbe's diamond necklace. He then bowed to the Professor to
intimate that we were ready to see the conclusion of the experiment.
Sclamowsky moved forward about a pace, beckoned with his hand, and
called, not loudly but distinctly, "Anna!"
Without a moment's hesitation the girl, still blindfolded, rose, walked
swiftly down the steps which led from the stage to the floor of the
hall, and with startling exactness reproduced Mr. Danby's actions. In
and out through the benches she passed amid a silence of breathless
interest, touching each person in exactly the same spot as Mr. Danby had
done a few minutes previously.
I saw Aunt Phœbe drawing herself up rigidly as Anna Sclamowsky came
towards our bench and, amid deafening applause, laid her finger upon the
Anstruther diamonds. The clapping and noise produced no effect upon the
girl. She stood motionless as though she had been a statue, her hand
still upon the necklace.
Whether Aunt Phœbe was aggravated by the complete success of the
experiment or annoyed at having been obliged to take so prominent a part
in it, I do not know, but she certainly was a good deal out of temper;
for when Sclamowsky made his way to where his daughter was standing, she
said, in tones of icy disapproval, which must have been audible for a
long way down the room—
"A very clever piece of imposture, sir."
The mesmerist's face flushed and his eyes flashed angrily. He, however,
bowed low.
"There's nothing so hard," he said, "to overcome, madam, as prejudice. I
fear you have been inconvenienced by my daughter's hand. I will now
release her—and you."
So saying, he placed his own hand for a moment over his daughter's and
breathed lightly on the girl's face. Instantly the muscles relaxed, her
hand fell to her side, and I could hear her give a little shuddering
sigh, apparently of relief.
I noticed, too, that, whether by design or accident Sclamowsky kept his
hand for a moment longer on my aunt's necklace, and as he took his
finger away, I fancied that he looked at her fixedly for a second, and
muttered something either to himself or her, the meaning of which I
could not catch.
"What did he say to you?" I asked, as Sclamowsky, after removing the
bandage from his daughter's eyes, assisted her to remount the stage.
Aunt Phœbe looked a little confused and dazed, and her hand went up
to her necklace, as though to reassure herself of its safety.
"Say to me?" she repeated, rousing herself as though by an effort; "he
said nothing to me. But I think, Elizabeth, if it is the same to you, we
will go home; the heat of the room has made me feel a little dizzy."
We heard next day that we had missed the best part of the entertainment
by leaving when we did, and that many and far more wonderful experiments
were successfully attempted; but I had no time to waste in vain regrets
for not having been present, for I was much taken up with Aunt Phœbe.
I was really anxious about her; she was so strangely unlike her calm,
equable self. All Saturday she was restless and irritable, wandering
half way upstairs, and then as though she had forgotten what she wanted,
returning to the drawing-room, where she set to work opening old cabinet
drawers, looking under chairs and sofas, tumbling everything out of her
work-box as if in search of something, and snubbing me for my pains when
I offered to help her.
This went on all day, and I had almost made up my mind to send for Dr.
Perkins, when, after late dinner, she suddenly sank into an arm-chair
with a look of relief.
"I know what it is," she said; "it is my diamonds!"
"Your diamonds, Aunt Phœbe!" I exclaimed. "Why, I locked them up for
you myself in your dressing-box when we came home last night!"
"Are you sure, Elizabeth?" she asked with an anxious, worried
expression.
"Quite sure," I answered; "but if it will satisfy you, I will bring down
your dressing-box now and let you see."
"Do, there's a dear child! I declare I feel too tired to move another
step."
I was not surprised at this, considering how she had been fussing about
all day, and I ran up to her bed-room, brought down her rosewood
dressing-box and placed it on the table in front of her.
I was greatly struck by the nervous trembling of her fingers as she
chose out the right key from amongst the others in her bunch, and the
shaky way in which she fitted it into the lock. Even when she had turned
the key she seemed half afraid to raise the lid, so I did it for her,
and, taking out the first tray, lifted out the morocco case which
contained the heirlooms and laid it in her lap.
Aunt Phœbe tremblingly touched the spring, the case flew open and
disclosed the diamonds lying snugly on their bed of blue velvet. She
took them out and looked at them lovingly, held them up so that they
might catch the light from the lamp, and then with a sigh replaced them
in their case and shut it with a snap.
I waited for a few minutes, then, as she did not speak, I put out my
hand for the case, intending to replace it in the dressing-box and take
it upstairs. But Aunt Phœbe clutched it tightly, staggered to her
feet and said in a husky, unnatural voice, "No, I must take it myself."
"Why, you said you were too tired!" I began, but before I could finish
my sentence she had left the room, and I heard her going upstairs and
opening the door of her bed-room.
Some few minutes afterwards I heard her steps once more on the stairs,
and I waited, expecting her every moment to open the drawing-room door
and walk in; but to my astonishment I heard her pass by, and a moment
afterwards the clang of the front door as it was hastily shut told me
that Aunt Phœbe had left the house.
"She must be mad!" I exclaimed to myself as I rushed to the hall, seized
up the first hat I could see, flung a shawl over my shoulders, and tore
off in pursuit of my runaway relative.
It was quite dark, but I caught sight of her as she passed by a
lamp-post. She was walking quickly, quicker than I had ever seen her
walk before, and with evidently some set purpose in her mind. I ran
after her as fast as I could, and came up with her as she was turning
down a small dark lane leading, as I knew, to a little court, the home
of a very poor but respectable section of the inhabitants of
Bishopsthorpe.
"Aunt Phœbe," I gasped as I touched her arm, "where are you going?
You must be making a mistake!"
"No, no!" she cried, with a feverish impatience in her voice. "I am
right! quite right! You must not stop me!" and she quickened her pace
into a halting run.
I saw clearly that there was nothing to be done but to follow her and
try to keep her out of actual harm's way, for there now seemed to be no
manner of doubt that my poor aunt was, for the time at any rate, insane.
So I fell back a pace, and, never appearing even to notice that I had
left her side, she pursued her course.
Suddenly she stopped short, crossed the street and stumbled up the
uneven stone steps of a shabby-looking house, whose front door was wide
open. Without a moment's hesitation she entered the dark hall, and I
followed closely at her heels. Up the squalid, dirty stairs she hurried,
and, without knocking, opened a door on the left-hand side of the first
landing and went in.
I was a few steps behind, but as I gained the threshold I saw her take a
parcel from beneath her cloak and hold it out to a man who came to meet
her from the far end of the badly-lighted room.
"I have brought them," I heard my aunt say in the same curious husky
voice I had noticed before.
As the man came nearer and stood where the light of the evil-smelling
little paraffin lamp fell upon his features, I recognised in the heavy
jaw, the bull-neck and the close-cropped head, the Professor Dmitri
Sclamowsky of the previous evening. Our eyes met, and I thought I
detected a start of not altogether pleased surprise; but if this were so
he recovered himself quickly and bowing low, said:
"I had not expected the pleasure of your company, madam, but as you
have done me the honour of coming, I am glad that you should be here to
witness the conclusion of last night's experiment. This lady," he
continued, pointing to my aunt, who still stood with fixed, apparently
unseeing eyes, holding out the parcel towards him—"this lady, you will
remember, considered the hypnotic phenomena exhibited at last night's
entertainment as a clever imposture—those were the words, I think. To
one who, like myself, is an enthusiast on the subject, such words were
hard, nay, impossible to bear. It was necessary to prove to her that the
power I possess"—here his blue eyes gleamed with the same metallic
light I had before noticed—"is something more than conjuring;
something more than a 'clever imposture'. You will see now."
As he spoke he stretched out his hand and took the parcel from my aunt,
and as he did so, I recognised with horror the morocco case which I knew
contained the heirlooms.
"Who are these for?" he said, addressing Aunt Phœbe.
"For you," came from my aunt's lips, but her eyes were fixed and her
voice seemed to come with difficulty.
"She is mad!" I exclaimed. "She does not know what she is saying!"
Sclamowsky smiled.
"And who am I?" he continued, still addressing my aunt.
"The Professor Dmitri Sclamowsky."
"And what is this?" indicating the morocco case.
"My diamonds."
"You make them a present to me?"
"Yes."
Sclamowsky opened the case and took out the jewels.
"A handsome present, certainly!" he said, turning to me with a smile.
I was speechless. There was something so horrible in my dear Aunt
Phœbe's set face and wide open, stony eyes, something so weird in the
dim room, with its one miserable lamp; something so mockingly fiendish
in Sclamowsky's glittering eyes as he stood with the diamonds flashing
and twinkling in his hands, that though I strove for utterance, I could
not succeed in articulating a single word.
"Enough!" at last he said, replacing the diamonds in their case and
closing it sharply—"the experiment is concluded," and so saying he
stepped up close to Aunt Phœbe and made two or three passes with his
hands in front of her face. A quiver ran all over my aunt's figure. She
swayed and would have fallen if I had not rushed forward and caught her
in my arms.
She looked round at me with terror and bewilderment in every feature.
"Where am I, Elizabeth?" she stammered, and then looking round she
caught sight of Sclamowsky. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Never mind, Aunt Phœbe," I said. "Come home, and I will tell you all
about it."
Aunt Phœbe passed her hand over her eyes, and as she did so I glanced
inquiringly from Sclamowsky's face to the jewellery case in his hands.
What was to be the end of it all? I had certainly heard my aunt
distinctly give this man her diamonds as a present, but could a gift
made under such circumstances hold good for a moment? He evidently saw
the query in my face.
"You judge me even more hastily than did your aunt," he said. "She
called me an impostor; you think me a rogue and a swindler. Here are
your jewels, madam," he said, turning to Aunt Phœbe. "I shall be more
than satisfied if the result of this evening's experiment prove to you
that, as your poet says, 'There are more things in heaven and earth than
are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"
"I don't understand it all," said Aunt Phœbe piteously, as she
mechanically took the morocco case into her hands.
"Don't try to do so now," I said. "You must come home with me as quickly
as you can;" for I was feverishly anxious to escape from this
house—from this man with this horrible, terrifying power.
He bowed silently to us as I hurried Aunt Phœbe out of the room; but
as I was going down the stairs an irresistible impulse came over me to
look back.
He was standing on the landing, politely holding the little lamp so that
we might see our way down the uneven, irregular stairs, and the light
fell upon his face. Was the expression I saw upon it one of triumph, or
one of defeated dishonesty? I could not say. Even now, though I have
thought it all over and over till my head has got dazed and confused, I
cannot make up my mind whether he had hoped, by means of his strange
mesmeric power, to obtain possession of the Anstruther diamonds—a
design only frustrated by my unlooked-for appearance—or whether his
action was altogether prompted by a determination to demonstrate and
vindicate the truth of the phenomena connected with his science.
Sometimes I lean to one view, sometimes to the other. I have now told
the facts of the case simply and without exaggeration just as they
occurred, and my readers must judge for themselves whether Dmitri
Sclamowsky was, in the matter of Aunt Phœbe's heirlooms, a
disappointed swindler or a triumphant enthusiast.
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