The strange transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs
“No! no! Leonora herself! It is for Leonora only that I sit up night
after night, listening for a sign, a whisper--straining my eyes for a
glance, a shadow--but it seems all in vain. I must have help, and in
this house, surrounded as I am by curious eyes, I know not how to
obtain what I require.”
“And do you really believe that your dead wife will be able by the aid
of Magic to return to you in bodily shape and satisfy your curiosity
on this subject?” questioned the Doctor, almost amused at the idea--so
impossible did it appear to him.
“Why not? Why not?” inquired Ricardo, impatiently. “Others have come,
and why not my beautiful Leonora? Surely, you do not disbelieve in the
possibility of the spirit’s return to earth? It has happened in all
ages! Why not in this?”
“I know too little of the matter to be able to give you a sensible
answer,” said the Doctor, “but if possible, it seems most undesirable
to me. These things will all be cleared up for us by and by, in the
Hereafter, if there be an Hereafter. Meanwhile, cannot you persuade
yourself to wait patiently until you join your wife in the Great
Beyond? If you committed an unfortunate error and she was innocent,
why disturb her in the rest she must have gained?--and if, on the
contrary, she really deceived you, may you not be doing yourself an
injury by drawing back to earth a malevolent spirit, who may still be
harbouring thoughts of revenge against you?”
“No! no!” said the Professor, shaking his head, “you will not convince
me I am doing wrong, or rob me of my one unceasing hope to see and
speak with her again. It is the awful doubt, the suspense, that has
turned my hair grey before its time, and made my voice quaver like
that of an old man. If I could only raise her from the dead for one
little moment--hear her say, ‘I am innocent, and I forgive you!’ I
should ask no more--I should live contentedly and die happy!”
“And what means do you take to this end?” demanded Karl Steinberg, who
could not help feeling a certain amount of interest in the matter,
since his friend appeared so earnest over it.
Ricardo looked round the room as though to assure himself that he had
no listeners--then rising, went to the door, and having locked it,
turned to Steinberg, and said,
“Come with me and see my séance room!”
He stepped towards the door of the third room, which constituted him
such a Mystery to his landlady, and which opened from the one in which
they sat, and turned the key. Steinberg followed him curiously, but
all he saw was, that the small apartment was hung round the walls and
over the window and floor, with black stuff, and that it contained no
furniture, unless a couple of cushions thrown on the ground can be
called so.
“No air and no light!” exclaimed the Doctor. “And what do you do
here?”
“When the household have gone to bed,” said Ricardo, mysteriously,
“and I am sure of not being disturbed, I shut myself in and burn the
different incenses recommended in the books of Magic, and after a
while the spirits come, and sit down on the floor beside me.”
“Do you mean me to believe that?” exclaimed Steinberg, staring at
Ricardo as though he were insane, as indeed, at that moment, he
believed him to be.
“You can believe it, or not,” replied the Professor, “but it is true.”
“Impossible!” cried the Doctor, “you let your imagination run away
with you. You work so hard all day and permit this morbid fancy to
occupy your tired brain by night, until it has become in a measure,
diseased. I know you think you see and feel these things, but it is a
species of delirium or mental intoxication, bred of your intense
longing to accomplish what is unaccomplishable.”
“Very good,” said Ricardo, quietly, “if you believe that, you must
believe it! But what would convince you of the truth?”
“Nothing but the evidence of my own senses, whilst they were in the
calm condition they are at present.”
“If that is so, my friend, stay here and sit with me to-night. Then
your own senses shall convince you.”
This proposition took Steinberg by surprise. He was not entirely free
from the universal dread of anything like communication with the
Unseen World, although he had expressed his disbelief in the
possibility, but his fear was mingled with curiosity, and the result
was that he assented to Ricardo’s proposal.
“I will, Professor,” he said, “if only to try and show you that your
supposed spirits are merely shadows cast upon the wall.”
“A wall which has no light wherewith to cast shadows,” remarked
Ricardo, sarcastically.
“Well! well! that they are shadows thrown on the retina of your eye by
reflections from your brain,” replied the young Doctor, somewhat
testily, for he did not like to be refuted on his own ground, “any way
that the spirits of the dead have nothing to do with anything that you
may see, or hear, whilst shut up in this little room.”
“We are not arguing on what I may see or hear, Steinberg, but on what
may strike your senses. Neither did I affirm that the living things
that visit me, are spirits of the dead. My studies have taught me that
there is a class of secondary spirits called Elementals, that have had
nothing to do with this earth, but who yet can and do come to the aid
of those mortals who solicit their assistance. The vapoury forms that
appear to me may be only Elementals, but they come, all the same.”
“If they come, they must be worth the trouble of investigation, if
only in the interests of Science,” remarked Steinberg, thoughtfully,
“but after all, will it not resolve itself into the same old truth
that we have been brought up to believe, _i.e._, that we are
surrounded by evil spirits always ready to whisper bad thoughts into
our ears, and stimulate our worst inclinations?”
“But if evil spirits, then also good,” interposed the Professor
eagerly, “you surely would not deny the same power to all those
departed this earth. If devils, then also my Leonora, to speak with
whom I have been promised over and over again, and feel I only want
more power to accomplish.”
“Well! at all events I will sit with you this evening, Professor, and
try to see as you do. But I hear footsteps on the stairs. Had you not
better close the door of your sanctum, and turn the conversation to
some lighter subject?”
Ricardo locked the door carefully, putting the key in his pocket, and
by the time Mrs. Battleby appeared with the supper tray, the two
friends were talking gaily of a new drama that had just created some
sensation in the town.
“I wish you would come out with me sometimes, Professor,” the Doctor
was saying, “it would do you good to see some of these novelties and
listen to the discussions over them.”
“Ah! that it would, Sir,” said Mrs. Battleby, who was never backward
in joining in the conversation, “it would do the Sig-nor all the good
in the world, instead of poring over them nasty, musty vollums of his,
as must be enough to make any gentleman’s ’ead ache.”
“No! no! no!” exclaimed Ricardo, waving their suggestions away with
his hand, “I cannot! It is impossible! I have other things to do.”
“Or if you would ’ave your friends here more of an evening, Sir,”
continued the landlady, “nice, light-’arted young people, as could
play the banjo to you and sing a bit, I’m sure it would cheer you up,
and dissolve you from your studies.”
“Nonsense! you don’t know what you’re talking about,” exclaimed the
Professor, impatiently. “Put down the tray, Mrs. Battleby, like a good
creature, and leave the Doctor and me to ourselves. We have some
important matters to discuss.”
“Certainly, Sir,” said Mrs. Battleby, as she bounced the tray down on
the table with an energy that proved her wounded feelings, “and I ’ope
as when you rings the bell, you won’t mind my gal Hannah coming up to
clear, as I’ve got a little marketing to do, and I knows you don’t
like the things lying about too long.”
“O! dear no,” said Ricardo, “let Hannah clear the table by all means,
and tell her to be quick about it, Mrs. Battleby, as my friend and I
have business to attend to.”
“Very good, Sir!” replied the landlady, as she left them to
themselves.
Steinberg and Ricardo soon dispatched the simple meal set before them,
and then the former, drawing out his watch, remarked that if he was to
get home that night, he thought they had better set to work in their
search after the Invisible World.
The Professor accordingly rang the bell, which was answered by a young
woman whom he had never seen before, all the waiting in his room being
usually performed by Mrs. Battleby. The stranger was about eighteen
years of age, and looked as if she had just been transported from a
stack-yard, or a cow-house, and set down in Soho. She was not at all
attractive to the sight. She had a thick, ungainly figure, with a
waist like a tar-barrel, and huge hands and feet. Her bosom was
unusually developed for so young a girl--her face was broad and
flat--her mouth wide--her nose short and turned-up, and her colour
coarse and high. But to counteract all these failings, Hannah
possessed a wonderful pair of grey eyes, set wide apart in a low
forehead--eyes that looked you through and through, and yet had a
far-away dreamy gaze that was very provoking to Mrs. Battleby who
declared the girl was always more than half asleep. Hannah also
rejoiced in a thick mass of light brown hair, which made her head seem
much too large for her body. Taken altogether, she was uncouth, but
there was an innocence and simplicity in her gaze which was very
attractive when one had the time to discover it. As she stood silent
on the threshold of the Professor’s room, the men both thought she was
one of the stupidest, most countrified lasses they had ever come
across.
“Are you Hannah?” asked Ricardo, and on receiving an answer in the
affirmative, he added,
“Well! your mistress said you were to clear away my supper tray, and
when you have done that, you can bring me up a jug of hot water, and
then you must not disturb us again to-night. Do you understand?”
For the girl was looking at him so stolidly, that it seemed doubtful
if she had even heard what he said to her.
“Yes, Sir!” she answered, in a dull, low voice, as she piled all the
plates and dishes on the top of one another, preparatory to making a
grand smash if she should happen to slip going downstairs again.
“What a lout!” was Steinberg’s observation, as Hannah disappeared.
“Just so,” said Ricardo, “a simple piece of clay--a heifer newly
driven from pasture--an animal with all her senses undeveloped--but
not without a soul! Did you remark her eyes? They are unfathomable! I
should be curious, had I the time, to find out what lies beneath
them.”
“Holloa!” cried Steinberg, with a laugh, “take care of yourself,
Professor! Finding out what lies beneath women’s eyes, is dangerous
work! You might even animate this clod in your researches.”
Ricardo regarded him reproachfully.
“Do you know me so little, as to jest on such a subject?” he said. “I,
whose whole soul is bent on one object only. Steinberg, will you
believe me when I say, that since Leonora died beneath my hand, I have
never looked at another woman with even a semblance of the same
feelings? I was only thirty when I drove her soul from me, but I have
been widowed ever since, and shall remain so to my grave!”
“It’s a mistake to take these things too seriously,” replied his
friend, “it is better to have lived as I have, caring for no one and
regretting no one--for you see when a gap occurs I am able to fill it
up without delay or compunction.”
“Ah! I could not live like that!” said the Professor with a sigh.
“With me it must be all, or nothing! Leonora was my All. I could kill
her, but I could not replace her. Well! are you ready?”
“Certainly, when you are.”