Helen Vardon's confession
unsavoury neighbourhood of Ratcliff. Whatever she was feeling,
however, she kept up a flow of conversation--which was, itself, a
rather unusual phenomenon--and presently grew quite confidential about
herself--which was more unusual still. It was clear that her
friendship with Mr. Hawkesley was now quite firmly established, and
they evidently saw a good deal of one another--but this I knew
already. And it was clear that their sympathy in tastes was running
parallel to a very strong liking of a more personal kind.
After a pause in this confidential gossip, Peggy suddenly looked down
a little shyly, and, turning very pink, asked, hesitatingly:
“Sibyl, dear, you haven’t quarrelled with Mr. Davenant, have you?”
“Quarrelled, Peggy!” I exclaimed; “of course I haven’t. Have we ever
struck you as quarrelsome people?”
“No, indeed,” she replied. “But you don’t seem to have seen much of
one another lately.”
“No; I haven’t seen Mr. Davenant for quite a long time,” I said.
She was silent for a while, and I noticed that her cheeks were growing
more and more pink.
“What is my little chameleon turning that colour for?” I asked.
She looked up at me with a shy smile. “Sibyl,” she said, “don’t think
me inquisitive or impertinent. I am your friend, you know, and we are
fond of one another, aren’t we?”
“We are the very best of friends, Peggy, dear, so you needn’t mind
asking me anything that you want to know.”
“Well, then, Sibyl; why don’t you and Mr. Davenant marry? Anyone can
see how fond he is of you, and I’m sure you care for him an awful lot,
don’t you, now?”
“My Titmouse is becoming an expert authority on these matters,” said
I, thereby converting poor Peggy to the semblance of a corn-poppy.
“Perhaps I am,” she admitted, defiantly. “But why don’t you marry him,
Sibyl?”
“My dear Peggy,” said I, “there is a very substantial reason. Its name
is Mr. Otway.”
“Sibyl!” gasped Peggy. “I thought you were a widow!”
I shook my head. “No, Peggy. I am a widow in effect, but a married
woman by law. I have a husband who is no husband; whom I married in
error, whom I have never lived with and could never think of living
with, but whom I can never get rid of. That is the position.”
She flung her arms around my neck, and laid her cheek to mine.
“My poor, dear Sibyl,” she exclaimed. “How dreadful for you! I am so
frightfully sorry, dear. And is there no end to this?”
“There is death,” said I. “That is all. And that is why I am not
seeing much of Mr. Davenant nowadays.”
“It is an awful thing, Sibyl,” said she. “You and Mr. Davenant could
make one another so perfectly happy. And I don’t see why you
shouldn’t, for that matter.”
“Why, how could we, Peggy?”
Again she blushed scarlet, and with a defiant glance at me, replied:
“I wouldn’t have my whole life wrecked. I should just go off with him,
husband or no husband.”
“You dreadful little reprobate. And what do you suppose the world
would say about you?”
“It could say what it liked so long as I’d got the man I wanted. But
it wouldn’t really say anything. No one with any sense would think a
penny the worse of me. Nor would they of you. Everyone would say that
you had done the right thing, seeing that you had no choice. You
couldn’t be expected to be bound for life to a dummy husband.”
At this moment I rose from my chair, and going over to the
dressing-table, lit a candle. Then I put my hand in my pocket and drew
out an unaddressed envelope and a piece of pencil. With the latter I
wrote on the envelope my signature and the words “ten minutes to
eleven.” The whole proceeding seemed quite automatic. I did not know
why I was doing it. I had not known that either the envelope or the
pencil was in my pocket, for I had not put them there. But I carried
out the train of action almost unconsciously and quite without
surprise.
When I had written on the envelope, I opened it and drew out a piece
of paper. On the paper was some writing in an unfamiliar hand. I held
the paper near the candle and read as follows:
“At ten minutes to eleven you will light a candle, take this envelope
and a pencil from your pocket; you will write on the envelope your
signature and the time. Then you will open the envelope and read this
message.”
I stood for some seconds gazing at the paper in utter amazement. Then
I looked round quickly at the clock. It was ten minutes to eleven.
From the clock my glance turned to Peggy, who was sitting watching me
with a very uncomfortable expression.
“Do you know anything about this, Peggy?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “That Quecks man told you to do it. He wrote the
message and put the envelope and pencil in your pocket when you were
in a deep sleep. He spoke the message into your ear, and, after about
a minute, told you to wake up, and you woke up immediately. It was
like his impudence to perform his beastly experiments without getting
your permission first.”
“It was. But the thing is rather uncanny. I don’t like it at all.”
“There’s nothing in it,” said Peggy, though she, too, was evidently
not pleasantly impressed. “It’s what they call post-hypnotic
suggestion. It isn’t in any way super-natural. The doctors know all
about it.”
“Still,” said I, “it is a very strange affair. There is something
extremely eerie in finding oneself turned into an unthinking automaton
worked by somebody else’s will. And some of the other experiments were
rather startling: Miss Morgan’s visions for instance.”
“Mightn’t they have been just clever guesses?”
“No, Peggy. That is quite impossible. Her descriptions applied to my
case in detail and were correct every time. You heard her describe the
view from Maidstone Bridge?”
“Yes. And I recognised it from that water-colour over your
mantelpiece.”
“Well, don’t you think it very wonderful and incomprehensible?”
“No, I don’t,” said Peggy. “How do you suppose she did it?”
“I can only imagine that some influence that I don’t understand passed
to her from my handkerchief.”
“Then you imagine wrong,” said the Titmouse. “Your handkerchief was in
my pocket all the time. It was my handkerchief that she was smelling
at. And her descriptions didn’t fit me the least little bit. I don’t
hammer my pottery, you know.”
“But I don’t understand. You passed her my handkerchief, didn’t you?”
“No; I passed her mine. You see, I’d seen this handkerchief trick
before and I had mine ready, rolled up into a ball in my hand. So it
was quite easy to make the exchange. But we may as well change back
now.”
She took a handkerchief from her pocket and handed it to me; and when
I had identified it as my own, I produced hers and restored it to her.
“You are a wicked little baggage, Peggy,” said I, “though I must admit
that the ruse was quite a fair one. But still, I don’t quite see how
it was done? It was evidently an imposture. But how was it worked? How
did she get the information?”
“Why, she got it from Mr. Quecks, and he got it from Lilith.”
“You surely don’t suggest that Lilith was a party to this fraud?”
“Of course I don’t,” she replied, indignantly. “Lilith is a lady to
the tips of her fingers. That’s just where it is. She would never
suspect. But we know that she wrote to Quecks about you, and she has
talked to him about you, and no doubt he has pumped out all that she
knows about you. Then you will remember that he has just come back
from a tour in Kent--he is almost certain to have been to
Maidstone--and there are such things as picture postcards. There is no
mystery as to how it was done; but I do wonder that he was such a fool
as to do it before Lilith. I suspect she stayed behind to tell him
what she thought of him.”
As we were speaking, Lilith came up the stairs, and I ran out to
intercept her and bring her in.
“You needn’t have waited up for me,” said she, “though I am glad you
have, for I want to apologise for Mr. Quecks’ very improper
behaviour.”
“Don’t think any more about it, Lilith,” said I. “It didn’t do any
harm, and it has enabled Peggy and me to have a little private séance
to ourselves.”
“Did the post-hypnotic experiment work correctly?”
“Perfectly--and most uncannily.”
“Then,” said Lilith, “you have gained by that amount of experience. As
to the rest of Mr. Quecks’ experiments--well, Sibyl, I am afraid we
must consider them on the plane of public entertainment rather than on
that of genuine research. But it is getting late. We had better go to
bed now and talk things over to-morrow.”
This advice was forthwith acted on, as to its first half; and if I
owed Mr. Quecks a grudge for trying to impose on me, I should have
been grateful to him for giving me something to think about other than
my own griefs and entanglements.
Chapter XX.
Cloud and Sunshine
Reviewing on the morrow my experiences at Mr. Quecks’ house, I was
conscious of a rather definite change of outlook. Those experiences
had made a very deep impression. The vision that I had seen was
something outside ordinary, normal experience, and it still haunted
me. And then, even more uncanny, there was that strange automatic
action which I had carried out with such perfect unconsciousness and
yet so exactly and punctually. It was all very well for Peggy to put
it aside with the easy explanation that it was merely post-hypnotic
suggestion, and that the doctors knew all about it. That explanation
explained nothing. The fact remained that I had suddenly become aware
that things which I had been accustomed to dismiss as delusions--as
the mere superstitions of credulous people--were actual realities. And
this discovery created for me a new standard of possibility and truth.
Even Miss Morgan’s visions, though I knew them to be a rank imposture,
had left an impression that was not to be completely effaced. The
shock of amazement that they had produced at the time left a vague
after-effect, due, no doubt, to the more real and equally mysterious
experiences.
Concerning these latter I was somewhat puzzled. It was not quite clear
to me how I had come to be hypnotized at all, and I took an early
opportunity of questioning Lilith on the subject.
“There is no mystery about that,” she replied. “The orthodox method of
producing the hypnotic trance is to cause the ‘subject’ to gaze
steadily at some bright object--a metal button, a crystal, or even a
small piece of white paper. He is told to gaze fixedly at this object,
to concentrate his attention on it, and to think of nothing else. The
purpose of this is to get rid, as far as possible, of the conscious
self and to allow the subconscious self to act without disturbance.
When this state of mental abstraction has been established, the
‘subject’ is ready to receive suggestions. If the operator suggests to
him that he is drowsy, he becomes somnolent; and at the same time he
becomes much more susceptible to suggestion. Now, if the operator
suggests to him that he feels certain sensations, he feels those
sensations. If it is suggested that he performs certain actions, he
performs them. This is what happened to you. Mr. Quecks induced you to
gaze steadily at the crystal, and when you were in the proper state of
mental abstraction, he suggested the hypnotic trance. Then he
suggested that you would see a vision of some scene that you had
looked on shortly before the funeral, and I understand that you did
see such a vision.”
“Yes, I did; and most astonishingly vivid it was. But, Lilith, when I
lit that candle in my room I was not in the hypnotic trance.”
“No; that was a post-hypnotic phenomenon, and really a most
interesting one. To understand it you must think of the two
personalities, the conscious self and the subconscious, or subliminal
self. Now the suggestions are made to the subconscious self, while the