The strange transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs
“Show me my Leonora!” cried the Professor.
“There it begins, you see,” replied the Voice. “The second speaker
wants to see his wife again, never mind at what cost or risk to
others. Was I not right in saying your desires would become selfish?
It has not taken long either!”
“But, Spirit (if you are a Spirit),” exclaimed Ricardo, “you must read
my thoughts and know what prompted my request. Surely nothing could be
more innocent than the desire of a husband to see his wife again?”
“I am not sure of that!” replied the Voice, “however, if you
persevere, I have no doubt that your wish will be gratified. It is
impossible to credit what would occur, if people would only have the
patience to wait for it.”
“I could have the patience to wait for ages if necessary,” said the
poor Professor.
“You will not have to wait so long as that,” said the Voice, “she is
nearer to you than you think.”
Whilst Ricardo remained silent under this unexpected joy, Steinberg
put a few questions to the influence that was controlling the medium.
“Will you answer me a few questions, James?”
“Certainly! If I am able.”
“Are you speaking to us in your own voice--I mean, have you a throat
with gullet and larynx fully formed of your own?”
“No! I am talking now through the medium, that is, I am using her
vocal organs--perhaps you perceive the difference in my voice. When I
spoke to you in the other room, I had materialised a gullet and larynx
of my own, but I could not sustain a lengthened conversation through
them!”
“Will Hannah know what has happened to her, when she awakes?”
“No, and I beg you will not tell her. She is very ignorant and simple,
and the effect might be harmful. Let her believe that she has merely
been to sleep. And now I have used her long enough for the first time
and had better go. Do not try to rouse her. Let her wake of herself.
She will be hysterical, but the Doctor will know how to deal with
that. Good evening!”
And here the Voice ceased. Though they addressed it several times, no
sound or sign of any kind came through Hannah. She slept on like an
infant, while the two men whispered to one another.
“Wonderful! Marvellous! I could not have believed such a thing, unless
I had heard it myself! What a grand prospect lies before us! How glad
I am, Ricardo, that I overcame my cowardly fears, and agreed to join
you in searching out these mysteries!”
“The Voice said that Leonora was near me! I feel sure that before long
I shall see her again, and all my cruel doubts will be set at rest,”
said Ricardo, with suppressed emotion.
“Yes! yes! never fear. We shall see all who have preceded us!” replied
Steinberg, “and through the agency of this uncouth, barbaric girl. It
is almost too wonderful for belief.”
At this juncture, Hannah roused herself, and gave a shriek at feeling
the darkness by which she was surrounded.
“O! lor! O! my! Where am I? O! wot is all this about? O! wot ’ave you
bin a’doing of with me? O! please, Sirs, take me out of this ’ole, for
if there is one thing which I can’t a’bear, it is to be in the dark.
It’s ’orrible!”
She struggled to her feet and stumbling to the door, threw it wide
open, admitting a full light into the séance chamber. Then she
glanced round at the black hangings and with another violent shriek,
rushed helter-skelter into the adjoining apartment, and fell into a
chair, kicking her huge feet against the floor in a kind of Devil’s
tattoo.
“My dear girl! my dear Hannah! pray compose yourself! Nothing is
wrong,” exclaimed the Professor, as he patted her kindly on the head.
“You’ve had a nice little sleep. The Doctor gave you some medicine for
the purpose, because he thought it would do you good. You’d rather go
to sleep for a little while than take bitter physic, wouldn’t you,
Hannah?”
“P’r’aps Sir, but I do feel so queer-like, as if my legs was all
bruised. And my eyes seems weighted, as if I had lead on ’em. It’s a
rummy sorter sleep I’ve had, and I think I’ll go downstairs and git
into bed, for I’ve got no use of my legs at all.”
“Good-night, Hannah! You won’t mind the Doctor’s medicine so much next
time, will you?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Sir!” said the girl drowsily, as she passed
the threshold, but the next minute she had started backwards with
another scream.
“Why! what’s the matter now?” cried the men simultaneously.
Hannah was standing near the door with her hand pressed against her
heart.
“O! lawks! there’s a lady standing on the landing a’waiting for
me--sich a ’ansome lady, with a voil”--(so Hannah pronounced
“veil”)--“over her face. O! lor! I shall never be able to git to bed
to-night!”
“A lady!” exclaimed Ricardo, eagerly, “what was she like, Hannah?”
“O! I’m sure I don’t know,” replied the girl, testily, “I only wish
she wouldn’t come bothering me like that, jist when I was a’going to
my bed. No! I don’t know nuffin about her, Sir, nor don’t want to
either, a nasty black-eyed creetur, with a beastly voil. Here! let me
go, please, Sir, or I’ll never git downstairs to-night.”
And so she left the mystified men to themselves.
CHAPTER V.
The Professor and the Doctor sat up late that night, talking over
the wonders they had experienced.
“Do you believe that the spirits of the dead can return to earth
_now?_” demanded Ricardo of his friend.
“I am hardly prepared to answer you,” replied Steinberg. “Certainly,
the Voice we heard to-night was very marvellous. I am persuaded that,
in normal circumstances, such a gruff, bass voice could not proceed
from the chest of a woman. But there have been abnormal cases of the
kind, therefore it is not impossible!”
“Good Heavens! Do you mean to suggest that this girl is tricking us?”
“Not exactly. We have had no proofs of it, still, in an investigation
of this sort, one needs to be very careful. We must try and think of
some test by which we should render it impossible for Hannah to speak
whilst under trance.”
“That will be difficult!” said Ricardo.
“But feasible,” replied his companion, “if necessary, we must apply a
gag whilst she is unconscious. Nothing short of that, or something
equally efficacious, will make me give undoubted testimony to the
honesty of her mediumship.”
“My books tell me that such stringent tests are very apt to prevent
all spiritual manifestations whatever,” said the Professor, with a
sigh.
“Then I should not believe in the manifestations, Ricardo! True spirit
intercourse could not possibly be prevented by earthly means. Have we
not heard of a heavy table with people seated on it, being lifted by
invisible force, and transported to another part of the room? If
spirits can accomplish that, they can speak through a gag. Did not
‘James’ tell us that, when we first heard him, he was speaking with a
materialised gullet and thorax? If he will speak through them again if
only a couple of words, whilst Hannah is gagged, I will not doubt her
honesty. But in any circumstances, it is wonderful--wonderful!”
The two men were so anxious to pursue their researches, that they
would have gladly asked for Hannah’s services on the following day,
but were afraid of raising Mrs. Battleby’s suspicions by displaying
too much eagerness to effect her cure. On the third evening, however,
the landlady was all smiles and assurances that the girl was ready to
wait upon them, but when the time came for her appearance Hannah
Stubbs was nowhere to be found. Mrs. Battleby screamed her name from
basement to attic, but neither sight nor sound rewarded her assiduity.
The Professor and the Doctor had begun to fear lest their medium
should have run away from them altogether, when Mrs. Battleby
discovered her in her own bedroom, which was next the cellar, with her
head wrapped up in the bedclothes, lest she should hear them calling
for her.
“Well, of all the ungrateful, bad-natured ’ussies as ever I see, if
you’re not the wust,” cried the landlady, as she seized hold of her
arm and wrenched her from under the bedclothes. “Wot right ’ave you, I
should like to know, to go to bed at this time of day, and not a
single cup nor saucer washed up yet? Do you think I keep you to look
at, you ugly, squab-faced creetur? Get up do, at once, and don’t keep
the gentlemen waiting a minute longer!”
But Hannah was sullen. She only shook herself free of Mrs. Battleby’s
grasp, and sat on the side of the bed, with her lips stuck out like
those of a negress.
“Now then,” exclaimed her mistress, “wot’s this for, I’d like to know!
If the Doctor is good enough to try and cure you (which I’m sure, I
wonders he takes the trouble to do it), the least thing you can do in
return, is to be grateful.”
“Well! then, I ain’t,” replied the girl, “I’d rather wash up dishes or
scrub floors a ’undred times over, than be physicked. I never could
abear it! It give me a ’eadache last time, and I don’t want no more of
it.”
But Mrs. Battleby had become reconciled to the arrangement, and had no
intention of breaking it. She found that she got quite as much work
out of Hannah as before, and she was not going to let the chance of
keeping her at the Professor’s expense, slip.
“Well! then,” she commenced, “you’ll do as you’re told, Hannah Stubbs,
or back you goes to Settlefield to-morrer, and with sich a character
at your back as you won’t easy get rid of! You’ll please to remember
that whilst you’re here you’re my servant, and bound to do my bidding,
and I orders you to smooth your ’air, and go up to the gentlemen at
onst, as they’re ready and waiting for you.”
Hannah burst into tears and muttered something about not having come
out to service to be cut up, or pisened, just as the missus chose, but
she crawled upstairs after a while, all the same, and presented
herself at the door of the Professor’s room, where she clung to the
lintel as if she dared advance no further.
“Good evening, my dear,” said the Professor, kindly, “you are rather
late. Did not you remember that you were to see Doctor Steinberg again
to-night?”
“I don’t want to be doctored,” said the girl, in the same tone she had
used downstairs, “it don’t do me no good, it makes me wuss!”
“You have not tried it long enough to know if it will do you any
good,” replied Steinberg.
“And what do you mean by its making you worse?” interposed Ricardo,
“how can it make you worse, Hannah?”
“Well, then, it do, a deal,” said the girl. “I’ve been worritted out
of my life since I been here, night afore last. That there lady as I
met on the stairs has follered me like my shadder. She ain’t no good,
I know, and she gives me the creeps, and if that’s wot the physic’s
going to do for me, I’d rayther leave it alone.”
“No! no! no! it was not the medicine,” said the Doctor, quickly. “You
would have been much worse without it, Hannah! The lady and everybody
who worries you will soon disappear, if you will go on with my cure.”
“Come in and sit down, and tell us all about the lady,” exclaimed
Ricardo, eagerly. “There’s plenty of nice hot tea left in the teapot,
and here is some buttered cake! Sit down beside me, Hannah, and have
some tea, and whilst you are taking it, we will hear all about this
tiresome lady.”
Hannah’s eyes looked greedy, and her big mouth commenced to work in
anticipation. She was thoroughly sensual, and the good things before
her appealed to her senses much more than the honour of being asked to
take a chair in the presence of gentlemen.
She sidled into a seat next the Professor, and having drunk a large
cup of tea, found her tongue and her presence of mind, simultaneously.
“Well! Sir, it’s this way,” she commenced, “I’ve been in the ’abit, as
I told you and this gennelman, of seeing shadders, and ’earing woices
and sich-like ever since I was a kiddy, but I don’t dare say nothing