Real Ghost Stories, William Thomas Stead [digital book reader .txt] 📗

the house of my friend in M—— Mansions. Mrs. M. had gone to her country house at Hindhead for a fortnight and was not expected back for a week. I was sitting in the kitchen reading Edna Lyall's 'Donovan.' About half-past nine o'clock I distinctly heard Mrs. M. walk up and down the passage which ran from the front door past the open door of the room in which I was sitting. I was not thinking of Mrs. M. and did not at the time realize that she was not in the flat, when suddenly I heard her voice and saw her standing at the open door. I saw her quite distinctly, and saw that she was dressed in the dress in which I had usually seen her in an evening, without bonnet or hat, her hair being plaited low down close to the back of her head. The dress, I said, was the same, but there were two differences which I noticed at once. In her usual dress, the silk front was grey; this time the grey colour had given place to a curious amber, and over her shoulders she wore a shawl of white Indian silk. I noticed it particularly, because the roses embroidered on it at its ends did not correspond with each other. All this I saw as I looked up and heard her say, 'T——, give me that book.' I answered, half mechanically, 'Yes, Mrs. M.,' but felt somewhat startled. I had hardly spoken when Mrs. M. turned, opened the door leading into the main building, and went out. I instantly got up and followed her to the door. It was closed. I opened it and looked out, but could see nobody. It was not until then that I fully realised that there was something uncanny in what I had seen. I was very frightened, and after having satisfied myself that Mrs. M. was not in the flat, I fastened the door, put out the lights, and went to bed, burying my head under the bedclothes.

"The post next day brought a letter from Mrs. M. saying that she was coming by eleven o'clock. I was too frightened to stay in the house, and I went to my father and told him what I had seen. He told me to go back and hear what Mrs. M. had to say about the matter. When Mrs. M. arrived I told her what I had seen on the preceding evening. She laughed, and said, 'Oh! I was here then, was I? I did not expect to come here.' With that exception I have seen no apparition whatever, or had any hallucination of any kind, neither have I seen the apparition of Mrs. M. again."

After hearing this statement I asked Mrs. M. what she meant by the remark she had made on hearing Miss C.'s explanation of what she had witnessed. My hostess replied, "That night when I passed into the trance state, and lay down on the couch in the sitting-room at Hindhead, I did so with the desire of visiting my husband, who was in his retreat at Wimbledon. That, I should say, was between nine and half-past. After I came out of the trance I was conscious that I had been somewhere, but I did not know where. I started from Hindhead for Wimbledon, but landed at M—— Mansions, where, no doubt, I was more at home." "Then you had no memory of where you had been?" "Not the least." "And what about the shawl?" "The shawl was one that Miss C. had never seen. I had not worn it for two years, and the fact that she saw it and described it, is conclusive evidence against the subjective character of the vision. The originals of all the phantom clothes were at M—— Mansions at the time Miss C. saw me wearing them. I was not wearing the shawl. At the time when she saw it on my Thought Body it was folded up and put away in a wardrobe in an adjoining room. She had never seen it." I asked Miss C. what was the appearance of Mrs. M. She replied, "She just looked as she does always, only much more beautiful." "How do you account," said I to my hostess, "for the change in colour of the silk front from grey to amber?" She replied, "It was a freak."

I then asked Mr. C., the father of the last witness, what had occurred in his wife's experience. Here is the statement which his wife made to him, and which he says is absolutely reliable. "I was staying at Hindhead, in the lodge connected with the house in which you are staying. I was in some trouble, and Mrs. M. had been somewhat anxious about me. I had gone to sleep, but was suddenly aroused by the consciousness that some one was bending over me. When I opened my eyes I saw in shimmering outline a figure which I recognised at once as that of Mrs. M. She was bending over me, and her great lustrous eyes seemed to pierce my very soul. For a time I lay still, as if paralysed, being unable either to speak or to move, but at last gaining courage with time I ventured to strike a match. As soon as I did so the figure of Mrs. M. disappeared. Feeling reassured and persuaded that I had been deluded by my senses, I at last put out the light and composed myself to sleep. To my horror, no sooner was the room dark than I saw the spectral, shimmering form of Mrs. M. moving about the room, and always turning towards me those wonderful, piercing eyes. I again struck a match, and again the apparition vanished from the room.

"By this time I was in a mortal terror, and it was some time before I ventured to put out the light again, when a third time I saw the familiar presence which had evidently never left the room, but simply been invisible in the light. In the dark it shone by its own radiance. I was taken seriously ill with a violent palpitation of the heart, and kept my light burning. I felt so utterly upset that I could not remain any longer in the place and insisted next morning on going home. I did not touch the phantom, I simply saw it—saw it three times, and its haunting persistency rendered it quite impossible for me to mistake it for any mere nightmare."

Neither Mrs. nor Miss C. have had any other hallucinations, and Mrs. C. is strongly sceptical. She does not deny the accuracy of the above statement, but scouts the theory of a Thought Body, or of any supernatural or occult explanation. On hearing Mrs. C.'s evidence I asked my hostess whether she was conscious of haunting her guest in this way. "I knew nothing about it," she replied; "all that I know was that I had been much troubled about her and was anxious to help her. I went into a very heavy, deep sleep; but until next morning, when I heard of it from Mrs. C. I had no idea that my double had left my room." I said, "This power is rather gruesome, for you might take to haunting me." "I do not think so, unless there was something to be gained which could not be otherwise secured, some benefit to be conferred upon you." "That is to say, if I were in trouble or dangerously ill, and you were anxious about me, your double might come and attend my sick-bed." "That is quite possible," she said imperturbably. "Well," said I, "when are you coming to be photographed?" "Not for many months yet," she replied, with a laugh. "For the Thought Body to leave its corporeal tenement it needs a considerable concentration of thought, and an absence of all disturbing conditions or absorbing preoccupations at the time. I see no reason why I should not be photographed when the circumstances are propitious. I shall be very glad to furnish you with that evidence of the reality of the Thought Body, but such things cannot be fixed up to order."

This, indeed, was a ghost to some purpose—a ghost free from all the weird associations of death and the grave—a healthy, utilisable ghost, and a ghost, above all, which wanted to be photographed. It seemed too good to be true. Yet how strange it was! Here we have just been discussing whether or not we have each of us two souls, and, behold! my good hostess tells me quite calmly that it is beyond all doubt that we have two bodies.

Three Other Aerial Wanderers.

A short time after hearing from my hostess this incredible account of her aerial journeyings, I received first hand from three other ladies statements that they had also enjoyed this faculty of bodily duplication. All four ladies are between twenty and forty years of age. Three of them are married. The first says she has almost complete control over her movements, but for the most part her phantasmal envelope is invisible to those whom she visits.

This, it may be said, is mere conscious clairvoyance, in which the faculty of sight was accompanied by the consciousness of bodily presence, although it is invisible to other eyes. It is, besides, purely subjective and therefore beside the mark. Still, it is interesting as embodying the impressions of a mind, presumably sane, as to the experiences through which it has consciously passed. On the same ground I may refer to the experience of Miss X., the second lady referred to, who, when lying, as it was believed, at the point of death, declares that she was quite conscious of coming out of her body and looking at it as it lay in the bed. In all the cases I have yet mentioned the departure of the phantasmal body is accompanied by a state of trance on the part of the material body. There is not dual consciousness, but only a dual body, the consciousness being confined to the immaterial body.

It is otherwise with the experience of the fourth wanderer in my text. Mrs. Wedgwood, the daughter-in-law of Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, the well-known philologist, who was Charles Darwin's cousin, declares that she had once a very extraordinary experience. She was lying on a couch in an upper room one wintry morning at Shorncliffe, when she felt her Thought Body leave her and, passing through the window, alight on the snowy ground. She was distinctly conscious both in her material body and in its immaterial counterpart. She lay on the couch watching the movements of the second self, which at the same moment felt the snow cold under its feet. The second self met a labourer and spoke to him. He replied as if somewhat scared. The second self walked down the road and entered an officer's hut, which was standing empty. She noted the number of guns. There were a score or more of all kinds in all manner of places; remarked upon the quaint looking-glass; took a mental inventory of the furniture; and then, coming out as she went in, she regained her material body, which all the while lay perfectly conscious on the couch. Then, when the two selves were reunited, she went down to breakfast, and described where she had been. "Bless me," said an officer, who was one of the party, "if you have not been in Major ——'s hut. You have described it exactly, especially the guns, which he has a perfect mania for collecting."

Here the immaterial body was not only visible but audible, and that not merely to the casual passer-by, but also to the material body which had for the moment parted with one of its vital constituents without losing consciousness.

It must, of course, be admitted that, with the exception of the statement by my two friends as to the apparition of Mrs.