The Wanderer

by Timothy J. Jarvis

  Finally, though, his renown proved his undoing; the gamers began to shun him. Soon he was struggling to pay the bills of his various creditors, some of whom were low types, and was in fear of being dragged into a dark close, having his legs broken, or worse. He realized he’d have to find another way to make money, decided he’d turn his hand to spirit channelling; it was potentially lucrative, and something for which his showmanship and sleight-of-hand skills suited him well. He sold some of his furniture and part of his wardrobe, he was foppish, had a lot of clothes, and put the money to buying the tools of that profession: a spirit cabinet with velvet drapes, which he had specially constructed for him; a mechanism for tilting tables; and a complicated contraption of spring-loaded rods, fishing wire, and hooks, that strapped to the forearm, was concealed by the shirtsleeve till extended, and would, in an ill-lit room, allow him to give the impression certain objects were floating in the air; among sundry other things. He also had a craftsman, who made props for the theatre, fashion for him a cunning Cartesian devil in the form of a goblin bobbing in a carboy of dusky spirit, blinking its sorrowful eyes.

  In his spare time, he practiced those skills he knew would be essential, but which he didn’t already have: mimicry, ventriloquism, and escapology, this last for use in spirit-cabinet channellings.

  The most enjoyable of his preparations was that of choosing a spirit guide. He decided to invoke Jean-Paul Marat, physician turned seditionist and hero of the French Revolution, who’d actually visited Scotland in 1774. Marat’s death had been appropriately bizarre and brutal. He’d contracted a virulent skin disease hiding in the sewers of Paris, the worsening torment of which finally forced him, in June 1793, to retire from the Convention, spend his days at home soaking in a medicinal bath, swaddled in bandages steeped in soothing calamine, the only course he had found to bring any relief. Then, on the 13th July, he was visited by a young woman, Charlotte Corday, who claimed to have information regarding the whereabouts of a group of Girondins who’d fled to Normandy. Marat agreed to an audience and Corday was brought to where he lay in his tub. But Corday, who’d Girondin sympathies, and was a little awry, after a fifteen minute interview drew a kitchen knife from her corset, stabbed Marat in the heart. Duncan spent many hours perfecting the nasal accent he’d employ.

  It occurred to him that what could be offered to the senses, especially what could be seen, as sight was generally thought the most trustworthy of them, was more likely to be believed, and that some external manifestation of the supposed ectenic force, as a kind of plasma, would help snag the sceptical. He tried different substances, rejected cheesecloth and butter-muslin as unconvincing, finally settled on having a vial of Scarab Dust, a sweet effervescent powder for children, concealed in his shirtcuff, and to pour it into his mouth, at a moment when attention was averted, stir up, with his tongue, lots of white froth, slobber it, snort it from his nose. Of course, it couldn’t be moulded, form shapes, but in the dark he trusted the sitters’ imaginations would do the work. And it would be gone, leaving only a damp sticky trace, by the time the lights went up.

  Duncan thought that he was known to many as a card sharp and conjurer would be a hindrance, but belief in spiritualism was then so widespread and fervent in Glasgow society that few questioned whether the prodigies of his séances were real or faked.

  He often began sittings by passing around the Cartesian devil in its jar. He told how he’d come across a treatise on the creation of a homunculus in his readings of alchemical works, one that disdained the wonted absurd esoteric recipes: take the root of a mandrake sprung from seed spilled by a man hanged, leave it weltering in a posset of curdled milk, honey, and goat’s blood, and a dwarfish living human will finally grow therefrom; take a hollowed-out gourd, fill it with the sperm of a man, sew it into the womb of a horse, and allow the whole to fester, and from this putrefaction will spring a tiny person of incorporeal aspect, which, if fed daily on the Arcanum of human blood, after forty days has passed will gain solidity…No, this formula was far less recondite, and, in its simplicity, had about it an air of verity. So Duncan duly attempted it. That it was indeed a true method could be seen from the strange creature it bore. No, he didn’t feel at liberty to divulge it. Were it to come into the hands of the unscrupulous, or irresponsible, the results could be most terrible.

  Then, the mood set, Duncan would begin the séance. His rites took one of two forms, depending on the circumstances, his assessment of the credulity of the gathering, and his mood. If he was feeling cautious, he’d make use of the spirit cabinet. He’d request his host bind his hands tightly with rope, then enter the cabinet, have the curtain drawn behind him. Then he could communicate with the spirits hidden from leery peering. He’d free his hands from their bonds and retrieve, from a concealed compartment in the heel of his right shoe, a Jew’s harp of unusual design, whose keening, most sitters would take for the cries of the anguished dead. When bolder he’d begin with the spirit cabinet, but then join his sitters at a table, channel in full view. He’d ask all to clasp their neighbours’ hands, and, by a wile, a secret trick of mediums, keep one of his free. He could then manipulate his mechanisms, tip the table, snuff candles, scrape chalk down a slate, cause ladies’ gloves to dance in the air, and also sprinkle the sherbet into his mouth.

  Research was also key to the illusion of communication with the dead. Duncan pored over the obituaries every day, put it about that he’d pay serving staff from the households of Glasgow’s great and good for any intimate details of their masters’ lives, no matter how insignificant, ensured he knew all about the deceased relatives and friends of those likely to attend one of his séances.

  It wasn’t long before he’d risen to a position of eminence among Glasgow’s mediums, was in great demand. He was shrewd and his fakery, subtle; his choice of spirit guide also played a part in his ascent, for there was something of a fad for rebellion among the aesthetic and decadent rich at that time. His lifestyle was one of flagrant debauchery by then.

  But the period of his success was only to last a season. Not even a year passed between his quitting his booth on St Enoch Square and the last séance he conducted. It was held at the town house of a woman of noble lineage, a marchioness. This residence was one of a number of stolid buildings of reddish stone that crowned a hill in the city’s West End. Before ringing the bell, Duncan stood looking at the prospect from the portico, of Kelvingrove Park and, beyond, the pall of smoke that hung over the Clyde Shipyards. He felt a pang of mingled rage and sorrow.

  On being shown through to the dining room by a fawning butler, Duncan found there were twenty guests at the party that evening. Seven had expressed cynicism on the subject of communication with the dead and, on Duncan’s arrival, were politely asked, by the marchioness, to absent themselves, go through to the drawing room.

  That left thirteen to take part in the channelling. There was the marchioness herself, a plump dowager, who wore a shapeless floral-print dress, had strings of pearls around her neck, and whose sagging face was larded with powder; Douglas Kilbride, a wealthy aristocrat and fanatical collector of antiquities; Joseph Lister, whose recent innovations in sterile operating conditions were just then earning him the acclaim of the medical community; Lady Alicia Hitchman, a young heiress, whose large brown eyes, set in a face of unparalleled comeliness, had been the cause of many duels between rivals for her affections; the inscrutable Mr Lodge, whose tales of travels in the Far East, of encounters with tattooed savages, of bizarre flora and fauna, man-eating pitcher plants, death worms, hulking apes, had caused a sensation; Jacob Bridges, a young man who’d been discovered ten years earlier in the Trossachs by a pig farmer, apparently feral, gibbering and acting like a wild thing, and who, having been taken in, tamed, and educated by a prominent Glaswegian philanthropist, was at that time prized at dinner parties for his callow, candid observations; Claire Turner, the socialite, whose wit had snared many men, and whose skeins of blackmail, though well-known, were too snarled to unta
ngle, and would provide her with a healthy income into her dotage; Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, the famous architect, whose favouring of the classical style had earned him his sobriquet, a courteous, slightly deaf, elderly gentleman; Heather MacLellan, widow of a wealthy mine-owner; Allan Pinkerton, the renowned founder of America’s first detective agency, who’d returned to Glasgow, the city from which he hailed, for a brief sojourn following the War of the Rebellion, a sullen, taciturn man, who wore a full unkempt beard; Augustus Kellner, poet and petty dissident; a man calling himself John Walker, a friend of Kellner’s, who wore a tousled periwig, ill-fitting clothes, and had an alcoholic’s florid skin and bloated features; and Rebecca Graves, wife of wealthy liberal advocate Herbert Graves, who’d turned to superstition on the untimely death of her son.

  (Upon hearing the description of John Walker, Elliot inexplicably grinned broadly.)

  The séance began in the usual way with a round of introductions, then Duncan began his patter. He explained the spirits’ reluctance to manifest themselves in bright light and the dangers of interfering either with himself, after he’d entered his trance, or with any ectoplasmic manifestation. Afterwards, he had one of the servants turn the gas lamps low, requested the group clasp hands. After urging calm, no matter what might take place, he closed his eyes, threw back his head. Ten minutes of tense silence followed, then, at what he judged the right moment, he began moaning, a low lamentation that mutated into half-formed words in English and French. He opened his lids, stared blankly up at the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, began to speak in the accents of his control spirit.

  ‘It seems that in death, as in life, I’m to have no peace. For what purpose have I been called forth today?’

  The marchioness answered.

  ‘We wish to speak with the spirits of the dear departed.’

  ‘Is that so? There are a number of souls here who wish to make themselves known.’

  ‘Yes?’ Rebecca Graves asked, slightly frantic.

  ‘But why should I offer you salve? Have I ever found an unguent to soothe this infernal itching?’

  The persona Duncan had created for his guide was cantankerous; he’d realized pliancy would draw suspicion.

  ‘It would be a great comfort for us to speak with those souls,’ Heather MacLellan said, a slight break in her voice.

  ‘Of that, I’ve no doubt,’ Duncan replied.

  In a way, he enjoyed these moments of cruelty. His hard childhood had left him with little empathy for the rich, those who’d always enjoyed every privilege, knew nothing of suffering.

  ‘Is there anything we can do for you in return?’ the marchioness asked.

  This question allowed Duncan to indulge his subversive impulses with impunity.

  ‘I would ask you to pledge to do what you can to improve the plight of the worker. Many have been cozened into exchanging fields for factories, lied to, misled. Though, as farm labourers, they broke their backs tilling and sowing, they were at least their own men, and worked in the health-giving air of the country. Now they have their backs broken for them on the wheels of dark mills, reap none of the fruits of their labours, toil for a pittance in mephitic pits. All whilst the owners cavort with Mammon. Beware the industrialist!

  ‘Beware also your leaders! In the future, wars will not be fought nation against nation for political ends, but waged merely to fill the purses of the arms manufacturers. The poor will be sent to their deaths for naught but greed. Even you, rich as you are, will likely not be spared, for War in the industrial age will no longer be constrained to the battlefield, but will stalk abroad smiting at haphazard. Only the servile scientists will escape the fall of the axe, for they have placed their souls in hock for their lives, have pledged to develop the fell, havocking weapons of which the potentates dream.

  ‘Beware the industrialist, beware your leaders, and give to your poor!’

  Augustus Kellner sighed.

  ‘That’s good advice.’

  ‘Life is unfair. Get over it or kill yourself,’ said Jacob Bridges, in his curiously stilted, lilting intonation.

  Putting her hand on the simpleton’s shoulder, the marchioness said, gently, ‘He’s already dead, dear.’

  There was shuffling, stifled titters, choked sniggers. Taking advantage, Duncan dredged his tongue with sherbet, swilled it, slavered and snorted froth, groaned. When he again had everyone’s attention, he began to speak, ‘A spirit demands to communicate with the company. A young man. With a birthmark on his upper-arm. Form of a cross.’

  ‘Lucas, is that you?’ Rebecca Graves asked, sobbing pitiably.

  Duncan altered his voice, began to speak with an adolescent boy’s cadences.

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘Oh, son, son. I miss you so much.’

  ‘I miss you too, Mother. Are you well?’

  ‘Oh, Lucas, I wish that I weren’t. I wish I could soon be joining you.’

  ‘You mustn’t say things like that. We’ll be together when God wills it.’

  ‘My son, how are you?’

  ‘Things here are wonderful, Mother. So many interesting people to talk to, no more pain. Do you remember those terrible headaches I used to have?’

  ‘Yes, of course, my darling. Are they gone?’

  ‘Completely, it’s such a relief.’

  ‘I’m so, so glad. Have you seen your grandmother?’

  Here Duncan began to tip the table violently, then said, in his Marat voice, ‘The young man has left us now. But there are other souls crowding in.’

  Rebecca Graves wept, hunched over the table.

  The séance went on and Duncan ‘channelled’ several more spirits: a former suitor of Lady Alicia Hitchman, killed in a duel; Charles MacLellan, Heather’s plutocrat husband; Douglas Kilbride’s former butler, but recently dead of consumption; and twin girls, victims of brutal murder, who were fabrications Duncan invoked to lend credence. When he felt it was time to end, he caused the tablecloth to float into the air with one of his devices, screamed, sat upright in his chair, cried out for the lamps to be turned up.

  The participants then filed through to the drawing room, redolent of coffee, vintage port, fragrant cigars, joined the sceptics. A discussion about spiritualism and the occult was struck up. After an hour or so, Walker, by then very drunk, approached Duncan, perched on the arm of his chair, raised a glass, looked about the room, and proposed a toast to the medium. The other guests joined him in it. Then he leaned close, whispered conspiratorially, ‘Impressive stuff, I must say. You had them eating out of your hand.’

  Duncan’s rejoinder was weak, ‘It’s the spirit-world that deserves the credit. I’m merely a conduit.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I don’t intend to expose you. It’s an artful hoax and you have my admiration. Besides, deep down almost everyone knows spiritualism’s just flim-flam. They’re just so desperate to believe. You’re aiding them really, solacing them in their grief.’

  Duncan snorted.

  ‘No, I really believe that,’ the strange Walker said.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I was only wondering whether you’d be interested to see real evidence of the eldritch, proof there truly are more things in Heaven and Earth, so to speak.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘And if the prospect of having the scales plucked from your eyes does not strike you as its own reward, I’ve also discovered wealth for the taking. If you’re curious, meet me tomorrow at midnight, outside the main entrance to the Necropolis.’

  Before Duncan could ask any further questions of the rum Walker, the marchioness interrupted their murmured conversation, ‘Mister Walker, you appear to be monopolizing our guest. I’m sure everybody would like the opportunity to quiz him about his extraordinary gift.’

  The Necropolis. Though conceived as a tribute to the city’s esteemed dead, it had, by that time, less than half a century after its inauguration, fallen into neglect; its grounds were strewn with empty liquor bottles and encr
oached upon by slum dwellings, its monuments were graffiti-scarred; it had, in ignorance, been laid out on a cankered drumlin, in darker times the site of a fane consecrated to dire rites, was blighted.

  Duncan, unknowing, was fond of the boneyard’s silence, thinking it peaceful, not dread; he’d visited it often during the time he’d been living in filth in the Great Eastern Hotel and knew many of the tales of those buried there. From where he waited, at the Necropolis’s wrought-iron main gates, Duncan could see the hotel to the south; lambent orange and red, lit from within by fires, it seemed a rough-hewn jack-o’-lantern.

  The night was cold, and the sky, clear, though smog roiled in the streets and fog draped the cemetery. Elevated above the shroud by the column it stood on, the dour statue of John Knox, a leader of the Protestant Revolution, was silhouetted against a sickle moon; the clergyman hectored the city beneath with a sermon whose hard lessons were illustrated by passages drawn from the Bible he held in his hand.

  The appointed hour passed and there was no sign of the strange Walker. Duncan began pacing back and forth. To the north, Glasgow Cathedral loured, its stonework soot blackened. Once, three years before, he’d gone inside, descended the stairs to the lower church, to the tomb dedicated to Saint Kentigern, also known as Mungo, founder of Glasgow. There he’d read a plaque which gave an account of one of Mungo’s famous miracles; at the time, he’d been teaching himself his letters and had taken all opportunities to practice. The text on the panel told how an adulterous queen, Longoureth, presented to a young lover a ring given to her by her husband, King Rhydderch Hael. The king had been told about the affair by a servant, but trusted in his wife’s fidelity. Not long after, though, he saw the band on the lover’s finger and was consumed with jealousy. He conceived a plot to force his wife to own to her faithlessness. On a hunting trip with his rival, he got the younger man drunk, took the ring from his finger, threw it in the Clyde. Then, on his return, he demanded his wife present the ring to him, and, when she failed to do so, publicly denounced her, locked her up. But, while imprisoned, Longoureth managed to persuade one of her warders, a man smitten, to get a message to Bishop Mungo, begging shriving and aid. The man of God directed the besotted guard to go fishing in the Clyde and return with his first catch. When the warder reeled in his line, there was a sleek pink-bellied salmon flapping on the end of it. Mungo slit this fish open from gills to gut, found, in its stomach, the missing ring. The warder took it back to Longoureth and received who knows what reward for his pains (the account maintained decorous silence on this point). The queen then presented the ring to her husband, who had no choice but to publicly forgive her, pay penance for his accusation. Reading about it, Duncan had been struck by how easily Kentigern’s ‘miracle’ could have been accomplished by deceit and sleight of hand.