I found myself becoming more and more introverted, hiding my true self from everyone. I put on an act to fool people and pretended that I was quite happy and “normal,” but the strain of this soon began to show. I stopped going out of the house, even to the village shops. When I had to buy food I would go to the nearest town where nobody knew me, and that way I didn't have to put on any false smiles or pretend that everything was all right. It wasn't. I became a virtual recluse. Only two things were important to me. One was that my daughter remain happy and secure. I felt that she needed to see me as strong and stable, and it took all of my efforts to give her that security. Second, I was determined no one would separate us, take my daughter from me.
I had been on my own for a few months when one day a friend who had been watching me going steadily downhill decided to take action. She phoned and said, “You are coming out with me tonight. There is someone local advertising a talk on tarot cards. Not just a talk, but a demonstration as well.”
I told her that I wasn't going, but she insisted that I was, and because she is a very forceful and somewhat bossy lady, I knew it was pointless to argue with her. I simply said, “I'm not going,” and put down the phone.
At seven o'clock that evening a knock came at the door, and there she was. Pushing her way into the house, she declared, “You've stayed in long enough, and I'm not leaving without you.”
Luckily, although I didn't think so at the time, Samantha was staying overnight with one of her friends, so I had no reason or excuse not to go out. I felt a tremendous resentment at Jean's intrusion into my life, but at the same time an odd sense of relief that I wasn't going to spend the evening alone.
Still, I was reluctant to face the world or to meet people I didn't know and to whom I might have to speak. They might sense that I was strange. As I have already said, someone who believes that they are going mad tries to appear quite normal and is frightened in case anyone suspects otherwise.
So here I was, going to a stranger's house and having to mix with people whom I had never met before. Any thoughts as to what sort of evening it was to be never crossed my mind. Only one thing was important, and this was that they—these strangers—mustn't learn the truth about me.
All the way in the car I sat silent and brooding, feeling that this private little world I had built up for myself so carefully over the last few months was being invaded. Eventually we pulled up in front of a small white cottage, standing alone in what at first seemed like acres of a no-man's-land. Having driven down some long rutted country lanes, which were really no more than dirt tracks, to find ourselves in this wilderness was a bit of a surprise, not at all what I had expected.
I was told later that this place, called the Turbary, was a sort of nature reserve, which accounted for the air of desolation and lack of buildings.
Jean and I were met at the door by Irene and Paul Denham, a retired couple who owned the place. She was in her mid-fifties, short and dark, quite attractive; he was in his sixties, taller and quite distinguished looking. The Denhams invited us in and introduced us to what seemed to me quite a crowd of people. There were actually only about a dozen other guests, but the room in which we had all been seated was quite small and therefore seemed overcrowded.
I was placed on the only empty chair left in the room, next to a small table, behind which was seated a slim, dark young man perhaps in his late twenties. I guessed he was the speaker. Because I was seated next to him, I felt quite conspicuous and can remember pushing myself back as far as I could go onto the chair in an effort to make myself seem smaller.
There was a lot of small talk going on, everyone chatting to each other; a very friendly atmosphere was being created, and some there were obviously excited and intrigued by what was about to be discussed.
Now at that time I knew nothing about tarot cards other than that they had little pictures on them and that some people believed in using them to tell the future. I don't know much more than that even now, except that it is a subject I prefer to leave alone and something I now would advise others to be very careful and critical of. It is not the cards that I am wary of, but the ability of the reader.
Eventually the speaker, whose name was John, was introduced to us all, and the demonstration began. First he gave a talk, explaining how long tarot cards had been in use and the meanings of the pictures. Each card, he said, was different, and although a card placed on its own had one meaning, putting it with a few others in the pack could completely change the interpretation. Basically what happens is that a few cards are placed face up on the table, in a certain pattern. Someone adept at understanding the cards can then, by interpreting them “correctly,” gain a certain knowledge concerning the person being read.
Now if you will remember, I had not been at all happy about going out and was not really in the right frame of mind to listen to all this. I was too busy trying to stay inconspicuous. So most of what this young man was saying went over my head.
Then he told us he was going to give a demonstration, and he began, one by one and quite slowly, to lay down the cards, face up, on the table in front of him. Because I was seated so close to him, it was impossible not to watch. I could see every card as it was placed, and my eyes became riveted to the table.
The strange but now familiar feeling began to creep over me that I was not myself, and I could do nothing but accept it. I knew for certain, sensed, that those cards were being dealt out for me. More than that, I knew exactly what they meant. They told of my life as it was now. Of the confusion and pain.
Suddenly, almost as if he were reading my mind, John turned to me and, looking straight into my eyes, said: “These cards have been laid out for you.”
I sat there, amazed, not daring to say a word, and I believed that he knew that I was crazy. But these were my thoughts, not his. He then turned back to the rest of the group and continued his explanation of the demonstration. I could feel panic rising inside me and thought, He's going to tell them—he's going to tell them about me. But he didn't, he didn't say a word, and soon after he ended his talk and sat down.
We were then told that after a cup of tea a group discussion was to follow. All I could think of was that I must get home, get out of there, before John let the cat out of the bag. Jean, of course, would have none of it.
“We're staying,” she said. “Don't be such a wet blanket.”
As soon as the teacups were cleared away, Paul Denham, the host, brought the group to order. He suggested that perhaps there were people present who had themselves been for a tarot reading.
“Or maybe,” he said, “there is someone here who has firsthand experience of the paranormal?”
Of course, there is always someone in a group like this who has perhaps seen a ghost, or knows someone who has. In no time at all people began recounting stories, either their own or one a friend had told them. Everyone seemed to have something to say on the subject. Tarot cards were forgotten, as one by one tales of ghosts, ghouls, and things that go bump in the night took over.
You may now be thinking that I must have felt more at home, but you would be mistaken. Sitting there, listening intently to all that was being said, only made me draw more into my shell. I think I felt more isolated because it was becoming obvious that these people, although ready to accept that strange things did indeed occur, had met with very limited experiences; mine had begun to take over my life.
I said nothing at all, willing the proceedings to end. Then, without preamble, during a lull in the conversation, Paul Denham said: “We haven't heard anything yet from the young lady sitting next to John. Rosemary, isn't it? Tell us about your experiences.”
I felt my face go red, burning red. And I knew in that moment what a cornered animal feels like. The feeling of panic hit me for the second time that night, and I replied as steadily as I could.
“I have never had any experience of the paranormal. I don't see things, I don't feel things, and I don't ever sense anything.”
Irene Denham spoke up. “I don't believe you,” she said. “I think you have had many strange things happen to you which you don't understand. My husband, Paul, is a healer, and has been in the spiritualist movement for over thirty years. If you could just open up to us, maybe we could help you.”
My mind raced briefly over the things she had said. Healers? Spiritualists? Was I hearing right? Christ was a healer. Did she mean that her husband was like Christ? But before I could assess any of this, Paul spoke again.
“The only way we can help you, Rosemary, is if you let us. And you could start by talking to us.”
“If I talk to you, if I tell you about the weird things which have been going on around me,” I heard myself saying aloud, “you will surely think I'm nuts.”
“We won't think you're mad at all” he said very gently and sincerely. “I think it's time you told someone. Tell me.”
If you have ever shaken a champagne bottle before popping the cork, you will know just how I felt. Everything just spurted out uncontrollably but explicitly as I began to describe all the peculiar events that had been taking place. You could have heard a pin drop. Faces of strangers looking at me—not laughing, as I thought they might, but appearing interested, curious.
I found myself talking of my experiences as a child when in the night the faces would come and the whisperings would begin. I told of how many times in my life I had been transported, as if by magic, to a different time or place in the universe, to be with people I didn't know yet felt comfortable with … until I had to explain it to myself later. I told of my visions and of how I would sometimes sit in a room … and see not the room, but another place entirely.
The more I talked, the more I found I had to say, and then I saw it, quite naturally and quite clearly. It was just like being in a cinema when the lights grow dim and the people all around you fade into the background. Then the screen lights up, showing the picture bright and clear and larger than life, so all-consuming that it pulls you through the void which separates the real from the unreal, allowing you to become part of the scene being unfolded before you.
Without realizing what was happening I had gone into a “trance state,” and I was now to experience something that would change my life forever.
I saw before me an ocean, a large, cold, and uninviting sea, and approaching from the right-hand side came an enormous gray battleship. Very slowly it sailed toward me, and as it came into view I became aware of a lady standing on the deck. The dress she wore was long and gray, taken in at the waist. It seemed very plain except for a badge, about an inch round, which was sewn onto the bodice. On her head was a bonnet, which apart from the color, also gray, appeared similar to those worn by the ladies of the Salvation Army today.
I was just about to speak to her when I realized, with a shock, that this lady had no face. I know this sounds incredible, but where her features should have been, there were none. No eyes, no nose, no mouth … just a blank mask.
As I watched, her arms reached out to me beseechingly, and I heard her voice, as if from nowhere, crying out for help.
Even as this was happening, the ship began to tilt and the bow plunged down into the sea. The ship was sinking, and the lady in gray was drowning. Again she reached out to me and I heard her voice begging me, pleading to me for help.
I stood and watched and did nothing. I could do nothing!
Just as I thought it was all over, the whole thing started again, as though someone were rerunning a film. Three times the scene was enacted before me, and each time the cries for help, sounding so desperate, reached my ears. I knew with absolute certainty that she would be lost unless I did something.
But what could I do?
So helpless did I feel, her pleas so heartrending, that I burst into tears.
As quickly as it had started, it stopped. Back through the void I came, back to the “real world,” only to discover, to my horror, the same group of strangers staring at me—now not with interest or curiosity, but, it seemed to me, as if I were an alien from outer space.
How long it had lasted I didn't know, and apparently, although I had been completely unaware of it, I had been recounting everything I had seen and heard. With tears still streaming down my face and my blouse soaked, I looked at their faces. Some were registering fright, others pure astonishment, Jean's among them. One or two showed sheer disbelief. I didn't blame them, any of them. I knew I was crazy, and now so did they. But it had all been so real!
Suddenly one of the group, a man in his early fifties, jumped up and started shouting at me, accusing me of “being in with the Denhams” and stating that the whole thing had been fixed. He shouted that the entire episode had been prearranged.
What whole thing? What was he talking about? I couldn't understand him at the time because I didn't realize the impact of what had happened or the effect it had had on everyone else. Grabbing his wife, who had been sitting dumbfounded, as by now were the rest of the assembly, he stalked out of the house.
It had obviously been a startling experience for all of us, and all I could do was apologize. I have never been the sort of person to show my feelings in public, let alone cry, no matter how I felt. But here I had sat, having cried brokenheartedly and without restraint, not even realizing I was doing it. It was a humiliation for me, and I felt very embarrassed. Someone brought me a cup of tea, and I was told that I mustn't worry, that no one thought I was crazy.
Everyone was so kind to me, treating me like a small lost child, but all I could think about was the “lady in gray.” It had been one of the most moving experiences of my life.
Jean, the friend who had brought me to this house, normally a forthright and outspoken person, was very subdued, not knowing what to make of things. So when I asked her again, “Please take me home,” it was for her a tremendous relief.
Paul Denham insisted on walking us out to the car, and as we approached it he took hold of my arm, and looking directly into my eyes, he said: “You are not crazy, and one day soon you will realize that you are one of the sanest people on this earth.”
Later, many days later, he was to say these words to me: “You are the greatest undeveloped medium my wife and I have ever met.”
I was also to discover later, when working with Paul and Irene, that the events that had taken place on that summer night had been, in fact, my first experience with other people present, of working as a medium in trance.
And the “lady in gray?” I was to realize much later, as my gift became more developed, as I learned more, that she was a symbol for all those in the spirit world who desperately cry out for help. For those who look for someone who can help them to gain access to their loved ones, those who are still on “this side” of life, in order to reassure them of their existence in the afterlife.
With Paul's words ringing in my ears, I climbed quickly into the car. Jean had already started the motor, as much in a hurry now to be off as I, and we made a hasty retreat.
By this time I was beginning to believe that not only was I crackers, but that everyone else in that house must be, too. My friend could hardly wait to get rid of me, and when we reached my house I had barely gotten out of the car before she zoomed off into the night.
Going straight to bed, I lay for a long time thinking things through, the memory of the lady in gray coming back to me again and again. Try as I might, I could not understand what had happened or why, and eventually, some hours later in the early morning, I drifted off to sleep.
The Healer Man
Somewhere a phone was ringing, and in my sleepy haze I wondered why no one was answering it. Then, slowly, consciousness dawned. I realized that of course no one else was there, and my hand reached out and groped for that infernal machine I knew was somewhere on the floor by the bed. Who on earth could be ringing at this time in the morning? I peered at the clock through half-closed eyes and saw that it was nine-thirty A.M.—then suddenly I was wide awake, remembering the events of the night before. The lady in gray!
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I picked up the receiver, and a voice said: “This is Irene Denham here, and I'm phoning to see if it would be possible for my husband, Paul, and me to come and talk to you.”
Immediately I was on my guard and, very warily, asked: “Why?”
She explained that she and her husband were very interested in me, and after what had taken place the night before, perhaps they could help me.
This was beginning to sound more and more spooky, and my answer was guarded.
“I really don't feel very interested in what has happened,” I said. “As far as I am concerned, spiritualism is something which should be left strictly alone.”
Now you have to remember that I knew very little about spiritualism. My ideas were primitive, confined to things like people holding hands round a table, dark rooms, and hushed voices whispering, “Is there anybody there?”
From the age of three I had attended Sunday school, not because my mother believed that religious instruction was important, but because it was a way of getting us out from under her feet for an hour or so. The church I went to was a small building that stood on what seemed (to me as a child) to be a hill at the top of the road where we lived. Saffron Lane was a busy road situated on the outskirts of the city of Leicester, but on Sundays there would be little traffic, and my mother would usher us out the garden gate and see us off up the road. Many was the time in my early childhood that I would go with sore legs or a sore bottom and tears raining down my cheeks because I would kick up about not wanting to go.
Since I was always “the difficult one,” my mother must have been pleased to “see the back of me,” as she used to put it, on many occasions.
My church, as I still like to think of it, is called the Church of Christ, and although I rarely visit Leicester these days, when I do and I drive past that small Baptist church and see the wall that I used to sit on with my pals, I feel a pull at my heartstrings. As a teenager, whenever I felt sad or alone, I would sit on that little wall and talk to God.
The Eagle and the Rose Page 3
