Affinity (27 page)

I said I was afraid the fog would creep into my room, in the darkness, and stifle me.

25 January 1873

This morning I went to Mrs Brink & said there was something I must tell her. She asked me ‘Is it about spirits?’ & when I said it was, she took me to her own room & I sat with my hands in hers. I said ‘Mrs Brink, I have been visited.’ She heard that & her look changed, I saw who she thought it was but I said ‘No, it was not
her
, it was rather a spirit entirely new.’ I said ‘It was my
guide
, Mrs Brink. It was my own
control
, that every medium waits for. He has come, & shown himself to me at last!’ She said at once ‘
He
has come to you’ & I shook my head, saying ‘
He
,
she
, you ought to know that in the spheres there are no differences like that. But this spirit was a gentleman on earth & is now obliged to visit me in that form. He has come, meaning to demonstrate the truths of spiritualism. He wants to do it, Mrs Brink, in your house!’

I thought she would be glad, but she was not. She took her hands from me & turned away, saying ‘O, Miss Dawes, I know what this means! It means an end to our own sittings! I knew I should not keep you, that I should lose you at the last. I never thought a gentleman would come, like this!’

Then I knew why she had kept me so close, with only her own lady-friends to look at me. I laughed & took her hands again. I said ‘Now, how could it mean that? Do you think I don’t have power for all the world & you besides?’ I said ‘Does Margery think her mamma would go from her again, & not come back? Why, I think Margery’s mamma might come through better, if my own guide is there to take her arm & help her! But if we do not let the guide come, then my powers might be harmed. And I can’t say what that might not mean, then.’

She looked at me, & her face grew white. She said in a whisper ‘What ought I to do?’ & I told her what I had promised - that she ought to send out to 6 or 7 of her friends, to ask them to come for a dark circle tomorrow night. That she ought to move the cabinet to the second alcove, because it had been impressed upon me that the magnetism was better in that spot than in the other. That she ought to prepare a jar of phosphorised oil, which would make a light to see a spirit by, & that she should give me nothing but a little white meat & some red wine. I said ‘This will be a very great & astonishing event, I know it.’

I didn’t know it however, but was awfully afraid. But she rang for Ruth & repeated my words over to her, & Ruth went herself to the houses of Mrs Brink’s friends. And when she came back she said that there were 7 people who said they will certainly come, & also that Mrs Morris had asked might she bring her nieces the 2 Miss Adairs, since they were holidaying with her & liked a dark circle as much as anyone? So altogether there will be a crowd of 9, which is more than I used to care for even in the days before forms. Mrs Brink saw my face & said ‘What, are you nervous? After all you told me?’ & Ruth said ‘Why are you frightened? This will be marvellous.’

26 January 1873

It being a Sunday, I went as usual to church with Mrs Brink this morning. After that however I kept to my room, only going down to take a little cold chicken & a piece of fish, that Ruth had been to the kitchen & made especially for me. When they gave me a glass of warm wine I grew calmer, but I sat then listening to the voices of the people as they went into the parlour, & when Mrs Brink finally took me in to them, & I saw the chairs all set before the alcove & the ladies looking, I began to shake. I said ‘I cannot say what will happen tonight, more especially since there are strangers here. But my guide has spoken to me & told me to sit for you, & I must obey.’ Someone said then ‘Why have you moved the cabinet to the alcove with the door in it?’ Mrs Brink told them about the magnetism being better there, & said that they must not mind about the door, that it was never opened since the housemaid lost the key to it, & besides that she had put a screen before it.

Then they all fell silent & looked at me. I said we should sit in the dark & await a message &, after we had sat for 10 minutes, there came a few raps, & then I said it had been communicated to me that I should take my place inside the cabinet & they should uncover the jar of oil. They did that, I saw the bluish light of it upon the ceiling, at the top of the alcove where the curtain does not reach. Then I said they ought to sing. They sang 2 hymns with all the verses, & I began to wonder whether after all it would work or not, & I hardly knew whether I was sorry, or glad. But just at that moment when I began to wonder it, there came a great stir beside me & I called out ‘O, the spirit has come!’

Then it was not at all as I had thought it would be, there was
a man
there, I must write
his great arms, his black whiskers, his red lips
. I looked at him & I trembled, & I said in a whisper ‘O God, are you real?’ He heard my shaking voice & then his brow went smooth as water, & he smiled & nodded. Mrs Brink called ‘What is it Miss Dawes, who is there?’ I said ‘I don’t know what I should say’ & he bent & put his mouth very close to my ear, saying ‘Say it is your master.’ So I said it, & he went from me into the room & I heard them all cry ‘O!’ & ‘Mercy!’ & ‘It is a spirit!’ Mrs Morris called ‘Who are you, spirit?’ & he answered in a great voice ‘My spirit-name is
Irresistible
, but my earth-name was
Peter Quick
. You mortals must call me by my earth-name, since it is as a man that I shall come to you!’ I heard someone then say ‘Peter Quick’, & as she said the words I said them with her, for I had not known until that moment what the name would be myself.

Then I heard Mrs Brink say ‘Will you pass among us, Peter?’ But he would not do that, he only stood & took their questions - they all the time making sounds of astonishment, to hear him giving so many true answers. Then he smoked a cigarette that we had put out for him, then he took a glass of lemonade, he tasted it & laughed & said ‘Well, you might at least have put a drop of
spirits
in it.’ When someone asked him where would the lemonade be when he had gone? he thought a moment then said ‘It will be in Miss Dawes’s stomach.’ Then Mrs Reynolds, seeing him hold the glass, said ‘Will you let me take your hand Peter, so I might know how solid it is?’ Then I felt him grow doubtful, but finally he told her to come close. He said ‘There, how does it feel to you?’ & she answered ‘It is warm & hard!’ He laughed. Then he said ‘O, I do wish you would hold it a little longer. I am from the Borderland, where there are no ladies handsome as you.’ He said it however with his mouth turned to the curtain, not to tease me, rather as if to say ‘Do you hear me? What does she know about who I think is handsome?’ But he said it, & Mrs Reynolds gave a wriggling sort of laugh, & when he came back behind the curtain he put his hand upon my face & I seemed to smell her wriggling on his palm. Then I shouted that they must all sing hard again. Someone said ‘Can she be well?’ & Mrs Brink answered that I was taking the spirit-matter back into myself, & that they must not disturb me until the exchange was quite complete.

Then I was alone again. I called for the gas to be lit & then went out to them, but I shook so hard I could hardly walk. They saw that, & laid me flat upon the sofa. Mrs Brink rang the servant’s bell & first Jenny came, then Ruth, Ruth saying ‘O, what has happened? Was it marvellous? Why does Miss Dawes look so pale?’ When I heard her voice I shook worse than ever &, Mrs Brink noticing that, she took my hands & rubbed them, saying ‘You are not too weakened?’ & Ruth drew the slippers from me & put her hands about my feet, then bent & breathed on them. Finally however, the elder Miss Adair said to her ‘That will do, let me see to her now.’ Then she sat beside me & another lady held my hand. Miss Adair said quietly ‘O Miss Dawes, I never saw anything to match that spirit! What was it like, when he came to you in the darkness?’

When they went, 2 or 3 of them left money for me with Ruth, I heard them putting the coins into her hand. I was so tired however, I could not have cared if they had been pennies or pounds, I should only have been glad to be able to creep into some dark place & lay my head there. I kept upon the sofa, hearing Ruth putting the bolt across, & Mrs Brink stepping about the floor of her room, then getting into her bed & waiting. Then I knew who she was waiting for. I went to the stairs & put my hand to my face, & Ruth looked at me once & nodded. ‘Good girl,’ she said.

Part Three

5 November 1874

It was two years, yesterday, since my own dear father died; and to-day my sister Priscilla was married at last, at Chelsea church, to Arthur Barclay. She has gone from London until at least the start of next year’s season. They are to have ten weeks upon the honeymoon then travel straight from Italy to Warwickshire, and there is talk of us holidaying with them there, from January until the spring—though I don’t care to think of that, just yet. I sat in the church with Mother and Helen, and Pris came with Stephen, one of the Barclay children carrying her flowers in a basket. She wore a white lace veil, and when she walked from the vestry and Arthur had turned it back—well, the straight face she has been maintaining for the past six weeks clearly had its effect, for I don’t believe I ever saw her so handsome. Mother put her handkerchief to her eyes, and I heard Ellis weeping at the door of the church. Pris has a girl of her own now, of course, sent to her by the housekeeper at Marishes.

I had thought it might be hard, to see my sister pass me in the church. It was not; I was only a little moodish when it came time to kiss them both farewell, and I saw their boxes tied and labelled, Priscilla brilliant in a mustard-coloured cloak—the family’s first piece of colour, of course, in twenty-four months—and promising us parcels from Milan. I thought that there were one or two curious or pitying glances cast my way—but not so many, I am sure, as there were at Stephen’s wedding. Then, I suppose, I was my mother’s burden. Now I am become her
consolation
. I heard people say it, at the breakfast: ‘You must be thankful you have Margaret, Mrs Prior. So like her father! She will be a comfort to you now.’

I am not a comfort to her. She doesn’t want to see her husband’s face and habits, on her
daughter
! When all the wedding guests had gone I found her wandering about the house, shaking her head and sighing—‘How quiet it seems!’—as if my sister had been a child, and she missed the sound of her shrieks upon the staircase. I followed her to the door of Priscilla’s bedroom, and gazed with her at the empty shelves. It has all been boxed and sent to Marishes, even the little girlish things—which I suppose Pris will want for her own daughters. I said, ‘We are becoming a house of empty rooms,’ and Mother sighed again.

Then she stepped to the bed and pulled one of the curtains from it, and then the counterpane, saying they must not be left to grow damp and moulder. She rang for Vigers and had her strip the mattress, then take the rugs and beat them, and scour the grate. We heard the unfamiliar bustle as we sat together in the drawing-room—Mother exclaiming peevishly that Vigers was ‘clumsy as a calf’; or glancing at the mantel clock to sigh again and say, ‘Priscilla will be at Southampton now’ or ‘Now they will be upon the Channel . . .’

‘How loud the clock sounds!’ she said, another time; and then, turning to gaze at the spot where the parrot had used to sit: ‘How quiet it is, now Gulliver has gone.’

She said that that was the disadvantage of bringing creatures into the house: one grew used to them, and then, one had the upset of their loss.

The clock beat on. We spoke of the wedding and the guests, and of the rooms at Marishes, and of Arthur’s handsome sisters and their gowns; and in time Mother took out a piece of sewing and began to work at it. Then at nine or so I rose, as usual, to bid her good-night—and when I did that she gave me a sharp, odd look. She said, ‘You won’t leave me alone, I hope, to grow stupid. Go on and fetch your book, and bring it here. You can read it to me, I have had no-one read to me since your father died.’ I said, in a rising kind of miserable panic, that she knew she would not care for any book of mine. She answered, that I must fetch her something she
would
care for, a novel or a book of letters; and, while I still stood staring at her, she rose and went to the case beside the fireplace, and took a book from that, quite randomly. It turned out to be the first volume of
Little Dorrit
.

And so I read to her, and she sat and pricked at her sewing, and threw more glances at the clock, and rang for cake and tea, and tutted when Vigers tipped the cup; and from Cremorne there came the fitful cracking of fireworks, and from the street occasional shouts and bursts of laughter. I read—she didn’t seem to listen very hard, she didn’t smile or frown or tilt her head—yet when I paused she would nod and say, ‘Go on, Margaret. Go on, to the next chapter.’ I read, and watched her from beneath my lashes—and I had a clear and terrible vision.

I saw her ageing. I saw her growing old and stooped and querulous—perhaps, a little deaf. I saw her growing bitter, because her son and her favourite daughter had homes elsewhere—had gayer homes, with children and footsteps and young men and new gowns in them; homes which, were it not for the presence of her spinster daughter—her
consolation
, who preferred prisons and poetry to fashion-plates and dinners, and was therefore no consolation at all—she would certainly be invited to share. Why hadn’t I guessed it would be like this when Pris left? I had thought only of my own envy. Now I sat and watched my mother, and felt fearful, and ashamed of my own fear.

And when once she rose and went to her room I walked to the window and stood at the glass. They were still sending up rockets, behind the trees at Cremorne, even when it rained.

That was to-night. To-morrow night Helen is to come with her friend Miss Palmer. Miss Palmer is soon to be married.

I am twenty-nine. In three months’ time I shall be thirty. While Mother grows stooped and querulous, how shall I grow?