by E. F. Benson
“A most remarkable hand, dear,” she said. “I never saw evidence of such pluck and determination. And look at your Mount of Jupiter! Splendid!”
Mr. Andrews did not know exactly what the Mount of Jupiter was, but he knew what pluck and determination were.
“Upon my word, my dear,” he said, “there may be something in it. I will borrow your primer, if I may. And now about the future.”
Mrs. Andrews was already peering eagerly into the future. This was as splendid as the Mount of Jupiter.
“Such a line of life!” she said. “Let me see, you are fifty-eight, are you not? Well, on it goes—sixty, seventy, eighty, without a break in it. Why, I declare it reaches ninety, Henry!”
This was very gratifying, and it showed only ordinary politeness on Henry’s part to inquire into his wife’s prospects.
“Ah, I haven’t such a line as you, dear,” she said. “But, after all, if I live in perfect health till I am eighty-two, which is what my hand tells me, I’m sure there’s no reason to complain, and I for one shan’t.”
But when Mrs. Andrews had told the fortunes of her husband and all her friends, and secured them, on the whole, such charming futures, it was no wonder that she went further into matters more psychical and occult. A course of gazing into the most expensive crystal proved disappointing, since she could never see anything except the reflection of the objects in the room, while her husband, now actively taking part in these investigations, merely fell asleep when he attempted to see anything there. They both hoped that this might not be ordinary sleep, but the condition of deep trance which they found was one of the accompanying phenomena, and productive of great results; but these trances were so deep, that no recollection of what occurred therein ever remained in his mind, with the exception of one occasion, on which he dreamed about boiled rabbit. As he had partaken of this disgusting provender at lunch that day, both Mrs. Andrews and he regarded this dream as retrospective in character, and as not possessed of prophetic significance.
It was about this time that they both became members of the Psychical Research Society, and their attention could not but be struck by the wonderful phenomena resulting from the practice of automatic writing. If you had a psychical gift in this direction—and it was now the settled conviction of both Henry Andrews and his wife that they had—all apparently that had to be done was to hold a pencil over a writing-pad conveniently placed, abstract your mind from the hand that held the pencil, and sit there to see what happened. The theory was that some controlling spirit might take possession of the pencil and dictate messages from the other world, which the pencil would record. Eager study of the psychical journals warned them that patient practice might be necessary before any results were arrived at, the reason being that the control must get used to the novel instrument of communication; and warning was given that they must not be discouraged if for a long time nothing was recorded on the paper except meaningless lines. But it appeared that most people, if they would only be patient enough, would be rewarded by symptoms of the presence of a control before very long, and when once a beginning was made, progress was apt to be very rapid. It was recommended also that practice should be regular, and, if possible, should take place at the same time every day.
The idea fired Mrs. Andrews at once.
“Upon my word, dear Henry,” she said, “I think it is very well worth trying, for the crystal is yielding no results at all. Psychical gifts are possessed by everybody in some degree, so this very interesting article says, and if ours do not lie in the direction of crystal-gazing, it makes it all the more probable that we shall achieve something in automatic writing. And as for a regular time for practising it, what could be more pleasant than to sit out in the garden after tea, when you have come in from your golf, and enjoy these warm evenings, with the feeling that we are occupying ourselves, instead of sitting idle, as we are apt to do?”
Henry distinctly approved of the suggestion. He was often a little fatigued after his golf, though he was going to live till ninety, and the prospect of sitting quietly in a chair in the garden, instead of feeling that he ought to be weeding, was quite a pleasant one.
“Then shall we each sit with paper and pencil, dear?” he asked.
Mrs. Andrews referred to the essay that gave elementary instruction.
“Certainly,” she said. “We will try that first. They say that two hands holding the pencil often produce extraordinary results, but we will begin, as they suggest, singly. I declare that my hand feels quite fidgety already, as if the control was just waiting for the means of communication to be prepared.”
Everything in Mrs. Andrews’s house was in apple-pie order, and it took her no time at all to find two writing-pads and a couple of sharpened pencils. With these she rejoined her husband on the paved walk, where they had had tea, outside the drawing-room, and, with pencil in hand, fixed her eye firmly on the top of the mulberry tree at the edge of the lawn, and waited. He, with left hand free for his cigarette, did the same, but his mind kept going back to the boiled rabbit he had dreamed of after crystal-gazing, which still seemed to him a very unusual occurrence, for, to the best of his recollection, he had never dreamed of boiled rabbit before.
Within a few days’ time very promising developments had taken place. Almost immediately Mrs. Andrews had begun to trace angled lines on the paper, which, if they did not suggest anything else particular, were remarkably like the temperature chart of a very feverish patient. Her hand, seemingly without volition on her part, made energetic dashes and dabs all over the paper, and she felt a very odd tingling sensation in her fingers, which could scarcely be put down to anything else than the presence of the control.
Her husband, scarcely less fortunate, also began to trace queer patterns of irregular curves on his sheet, which looked very much as if they were words. But though they were like words, they were not any known words, whichever way up you attempted to read them, though, as Mrs. Andrews said, they might easily be Russian or Chinese, which would account for their being wholly meaningless to the English eye. Sheets of possible Russian were thus poured out by Mr. Andrews, and whole hospital records of fever charts on the part of his wife, but neither at present came within measurable distance of intelligibility. The control seemed incapable of making itself understood. Then on a memorable day Mr. Andrews’s pencil evinced an irresistible desire to write figures, and after inscribing “one, two, one, two,” a great many times, wrote quite distinctly 4958, and gave a great dash as if it had said its last word.
“And what 4958 indicates, my dear,” said he, passing it over to Mrs. Andrews, “I think we must leave to the control to determine.”
She looked at it a moment in silence; then, a great thought splendidly striking her, she rose in some excitement.
“Henry, it is as plain as plain,” she said. “I am forty-nine; you are fifty-eight. Our ages are thus wonderfully conjoined. It certainly means that we must act together. Come and hold my pencil with, me.
“Well, that is very curious,” said Henry, and did as he was told.
At this point their experiments entered the second phase, and the pencil thus jointly held at once developed an intelligible activity. Instead of mere fever charts and numerals, it began to produce whole sentences which were true to the point of being positive truisms. Before they went to dinner that night, they were told, in a large, sprawling hand, that “Wisdom is more than wealth,” and that “Fearlessness is best,” and that “Hate blinds the eyes of Love.”
The very next day more unimpeachable sentiments were poured forth, and at the end was written, “From Pocky.”
Pocky, then, was clearly the control; he became to Mr. and Mrs. Andrews an established personality with a mind stored with moral generalities. Very often some practical application could be made of his dicta, as, for instance, when Mr. Andrews was hesitating as to whether to invest quite a considerable sum of money in a rather speculative venture. But, recollecting that Pocky had said that “Wisdom is be
tter than wealth,” he very prudently refrained, and had the satisfaction of seeing the speculative concern come a most tremendous smash very soon after. But it required a good deal of ingenuity to fit Pocky’s utterances into the affairs of daily life, and Mr. Andrews was getting a little tired of these generalities, when the curtain went up on the third phase.
This was coincident with the outbreak of the German war, when nothing else was present in the minds of husband and wife, and Pocky suddenly became patriotic and truculent. For a whole evening he wrote, “Kill them. Treacherous Germans. Avenge the scrap of paper,” and very soon after, just when England generally was beginning to be excited over the rumour that hosts of Russians were passing through the country to the French battle-front, he made a further revelation of himself.
“The hosts of Russia are with you,” he wrote. “Cossacks from the Steppes, troops of the Great White Tsar. Hundreds and thousands, Russia to England, England to France. The Allies triumph. From Pocksky.” The pencil gave a great dash and flew from the fingers that held it.
It was all most clearly written, and in a voice that trembled with excitement, Mrs. Andrews read it out.
“There, my dear,” she said, “I don’t think we need have any further doubt about the Russians. And look how it is signed—not Pocky any longer, but Pocksky. That is a Russian name, if ever there was one!”
“Pocksky—so it is,” said Mr. Andrews, putting on his spectacles. “Well, that is most wonderful. And to think that in those early days, when my pencil used to write things we couldn’t read, you suggested it might be Russian!”
“I feel no doubt that it was,” said Mrs. Andrews firmly. “I wish now that we had kept them, and my writing, too, which you used to call the fever charts. I dare say some poor fellow in hospital had temperatures like that.”
Mr. Andrews did not feel so sure of this.
“That sounds a little far-fetched, dear,” he said, “though I quite agree with you about the possibility of its being Pocksky who wrote through me. I wonder who he was? Some great general, probably.”
* * * *
You can easily imagine the excitement that pervaded Oakley in the weeks that followed, when every day brought some fresh butler or railway porter into the public press, who had told somebody who had told the author of the letter in question that he had seen bearded soldiers stepping out of trains with blinds drawn down and shaking the snow off their boots. It mattered nothing that the whole romance was officially denied; indeed, it only made Mrs. Andrews very indignant at the suppression of war news.
“The War Office may say what it likes,” she exclaimed, “and, indeed, it seems to make it its business to deny what we all know to be true. I think I must learn a few words of Russian, in case I meet any soldier with a beard—‘God Save the Tsar!’ or something of the kind. I shall send for a Russian grammar. Now, let us see what Pocksky has to tell us tonight.”
That no further confirmation of Pocksky’s announcements on this subject ever came to light was scarcely noticed by the automatic writers, for Pocksky was bursting with other news. He rather terrified his interpreters, when there was nervousness about possible Zeppelin raids, by saying: “Fires from the wicked ones in the clouds. Fourteen, twelve, fourteen, cellar best,” since this could hardly mean anything but that a raid was to be expected on the fourteenth of December; and Mr. and Mrs. Andrews—and, indeed, a large number of their friends—spent the evening in their cellars, coming out again when it was definitely after midnight. But the relief at finding that no harm had been done speedily obliterated the feeling that Pocksky had misled them, and when, on Christmas Eve, he said, “Spirit of Peace descends,” though certain people thought he meant that the War would soon be over, the truce on the Western Front for Christmas Day was more generally believed to bear out this remarkable prophecy.
All through the spring Pocksky continued voluble. He would not definitely commit himself over the course that Italy was to take, but, as Mrs. Andrews triumphantly pointed out, Italy would not definitely commit herself either, which just showed how right Pocksky was. He rather went back to the Pocky style over this, and said: “Prudence is better than precipitation; Italy prepares before making decision. Wisdom guides her counsels, and wisdom is ever best. From Pocksky.” Intermittently the forcing of the Dardanelles occupied him.
Now, here a rather odd point arose. Mr. Andrews at this time had to spend a week in town, and only Mrs. Andrews held the pencil which the intelligence of Pocksky used to express himself with. In all these messages Pocksky spelled the name of the straits “Dardanels,” which, for all I know, may be the Russian form. But two days ago Mrs. Andrews kindly sent me one of his messages, which I was glad to see was most optimistic in tone. She enclosed a note from herself, saying:
“You will like to see what Pocksky says about the Dardanels. Isn’t he wonderful?”
So Mrs. Andrews, writing independently of Pocksky, spells Dardanelles the same way as Pocksky does when he controls the pencil. I cannot help wondering if the control is—shall we say?—quite complete. I wonder also how the straits will get themselves spelt when Mr. Andrews returns. It is all rather puzzling.
THE DEATH WARRANT
It seems that I am not going to remain in this vast cold world for very long; that is good news to me. And because you have followed me so far already, because you have looked with me at sadness, because you have faced death with me, and because I have made you all sharers in my sorrows and in my happinesses, it is fitting that I should say good-bye to you, as you will have very few words more from me, and that I should tell you why I have to say good-bye, and with what feelings I do so.
For some weeks past, I have suspected this. I knew that my father, my grandfather and one of my aunts died of the same disease—it has an ugly cruel name, cancer, and we will not dwell on it—and I have thought lately that I was going to follow the same road. Yesterday, I went to see a doctor. I knew very soon by his face that I was right, and I urged him to tell me exactly what my case was. Yes, it was cancer. Was there any hope of saving my life by any operation? No, none; it was in a vital spot. How long had I to live? Perhaps six months, because I am very strong. We will not talk any more about cancer.
And now twenty-four hours have passed, and I have grown used to the thought. I am no longer lonely, for a kindly presence has come to me, whom they call Death. Let me tell you quite shortly what I have thought about in the last twenty-four hours, and that will be all.
May I treat you all quite intimately? May I say things to you that I would sayonly to those I trusted and loved? Surely, for if you have read these little things which I have told you, these six common things as I have called them, you know me well. In this last half hour perhaps I have gained a friend, or if not that, I have treated you as if you were my friends, and I cannot go back now. But if you have laughed at them, if you have sneered, if you have thought that these stories are foolish, stupid, mock-heroic, you may still read on; but I am not talking to you. I have given you my heart, I could give you no more. If it is worthless, toss it away. Soon I shall not care. But let us walk together a few steps towards the mouth of the valley of the shadow.
So then at last I am face to face with the great mystery, the inconceivable end of life. Believe me it is not so dreadful. I have always looked on death with horror, with a feeling of passionate revolt, but now that is gone. Perhaps when one is going to die, one is in a way fitted for it, and it becomes as natural as life. Once before I was face to face with death, on a frozen peak of the great Zermatt mountains. I had slipped when climbing about alone, and for a few seconds, until I dropped on to an unsuspected ledge above the great ice fall below, I was alone with God and death, and I was not frightened. And now I am not frightened; only a miracle could save my life; humanly speaking I must die; in a year I shall know this earth no longer, I shall be a name, and soon not even that. What do I then look forward to? I hardly know. It is impossible for a living being to contemplate annihilation; it is inconceiva
ble. This one can only realise for oneself; when those we love pass from us, all we know is that they are gone; that to us, as living beings on this earth, they have passed for ever; they are dead.
And if not annihilation, what then? Life surely in some form, and if this is inevitably true for us, it is true for them, for Jack, for—ah God, is that true?
So I do not fear, but I look forward to this change that will soon happen to me, with the intensest longing and wonder. What will it be? I wish I could come back and tell you.
But here am I in the presence of that which I always thought of with loathing, with abhorrence, and let this be some comfort to you, who fear and dread death, who think of it as a horrible cruel annihilation. Believe me when it comes to you, you will feel how impossible that is, and try to realise it now. It is worth while—there is suffering enough for all already.
And in the meantime, what am I going to do? They have told me that two months out of these six at least will be passed in pain which is terrible and wearing—they can relieve that a good deal with morphia and other drugs, but while I am conscious I shall not be myself, I shall not be able to think, I shall be tired and racked with this pain.
So then I have four months before the struggle begins; till then they say, I shall not suffer much. How shall I spend it?
