Mrs Levret promised to come, and appeared next morning, having first ascertained that the sceptical husband of my hostess would not be upon the premises. "He does laugh at me so, ma"am," she said apologetically.
So she was brought straight up to my bedroom next day, and we had an interesting talk over her own strange adventures.
Suddenly she looked up, and said: "_a propos des bottes._"
"How about that young man, ma"am? What are you going to do about him?"
"What young man?" I said, honestly puzzled. "And what can I do about any young man?"
The Halifax incident had so completely faded from my mind that I could not for the moment imagine what she meant.
"The young man you told me about yesterday afternoon, ma"am," Mrs Levret answered stoutly.
"But I can"t do anything about him. What _should_ I do?"
Then she took up her parable in these words:
"Well, ma"am, I have been thinking a deal about that young man since yesterday. It seemed to take a sort of hold upon me. It seems given to me, ma"am, _that it is a young woman who is haunting him--a young woman who is not in his own rank in life--someone whom he wronged_."
I was amazed by these words, and still more by the keen interest Mrs Levret showed in the subject.
"But what can _I_ do in the matter, even if it be as you say?" was my next question.
"Well, ma"am, they give me to understand that the young man must be made to confess. He will never have any peace until he does. It seems to me _you_ might get him to confess."
Now there could be no question of confession on the outer plane, as the young man was a perfect stranger to me, and there was small chance of our ever meeting again.
But I was aware that Mrs Levret was not speaking of the outer plane, so I agreed to take pencil and paper, and see if I could bring the spirit of Henry Halifax to me, and having done so, whether I could induce him to tell me the truth.
He came, but for a long time would say neither YES nor NO. "_What business is it of yours?_" was the constant reply to my questions. And I am bound to say it appeared a very pertinent one, from the ordinary point of view.
Clearly it _was_ no business of mine; but Mrs Levret was so much in earnest, and had impressed me so strongly with what "_had been given to her_," that I felt I must persevere, in the young fellow"s own interests.
So I explained that I had no wish to pry into his private affairs from any mere unworthy curiosity, but that having myself felt the malignant presence that was said to be haunting him, and being told that only confession would remove it, I hoped he would consider the matter seriously before obstinately closing the door of opportunity now open to him. "Who could foretell when he might have another chance?"
A long pause succeeded these words. I felt that the angry, irritable mood was pa.s.sing over, and when my hand was next influenced to write, the words that came were not the usual curt "_None of your business_,"
but an apology for his rude reception of my efforts to help him, and a full confession, which entirely bore out Mrs Levret"s impressions.
He told me that it was only too true that he had betrayed a young woman in a different rank of life from his own. She had died in child-birth _the preceding midsummer_, and had died cursing him for his perfidy.
Ever since (it was now late in June) he had been haunted by her presence, seeing nothing, but always conscious of a malignant spirit tempting him to his own destruction. The mental agony was so great that he told me he did not think he could endure it much longer, and had almost decided to put an end to his life (little realising, poor fellow, that bad as this life might be, the next phase would be far worse for him).
After trying to soothe and comfort him, without in any way minimising the weight of his sin or attempting to lessen his remorse for it, it struck me that it would be well to try and have a little talk with his poor young victim. So saying good-bye, and promising to remember him in future, I asked mentally for _her_ spirit to come, and then tried to influence her in the direction of forgiveness. It was a hard struggle, and no wonder.
The poor young woman had trusted him, had been deceived, and finally launched into another sphere without any preparation for it. What wonder that she haunted the man who had wronged her so terribly, through pure selfishness, and that any love she had ever borne him had long since turned to deadly hate!
It needed both time and patience to rouse even mere pa.s.sive feelings towards him. I spoke of his deep remorse and misery. At first she only answered that she was very glad to hear it, because it showed she had succeeded in making her presence felt.
By degrees, however, a more womanly view of the subject seemed to come to her. After all, he was the father of her child; the poor little baby that had mercifully followed its mother into the Great Unseen.
She had loved him once, by her own showing. I made the most of this point, and very slowly, very grudgingly, she gave me the promise I asked for--_i.e._ that she would at least cease this revengeful haunting, even if she could not yet feel more kindly towards the one who had injured her so deeply.
Having extracted this promise I felt that no more could be done for the time being, and Mrs Levret, who had been sitting in unwonted silence during both interviews, then took her leave.
I have given this case and its treatment very much _in extenso_, not only because it may be helpful to others dealing with erring and revengeful spirits, but because on my return to London _every important point in this true narrative was amply corroborated_.
It took some time and a good deal of tact before the case was complete.
First, I learned that Henry Halifax was by no means a _persona grata_ in the house where I first met him, and that my young friends there had only been allowed to ask him under some protest, and because the rest of his family were to be present.
Asked _why_ this should be the case, their answers were naturally vague: they only knew he was not very welcome.
Of course, I did not pursue the matter with these young people. They told me, however, that he was very much changed of late, and seemed so often moody, unhappy, and discontented.
"I am sure _we_ should be happy enough if we had such a luxurious home and all that money," said one of them navely.
Now I happened to know rather intimately at that time another friend of the Halifax family; a woman considerably older than the young girls mentioned, and as she had some little knowledge of psychic possibilities I determined to lay the whole story before her, trusting to her honour to keep it to herself, and not to allow any prejudice against Henry Halifax to arise in her mind should she know nothing of the circ.u.mstances.
She had known the family from her childhood, and I knew, therefore, would not be influenced by the word of an outsider under these circ.u.mstances. But I discovered that the confession of Henry Halifax, the spirit, was no illusion on my part, but _the absolute truth_.
Young, handsome, rich, with all the world before him (he was only twenty-four at the time), this lady had been greatly puzzled by his intense depression of the last few months, and told me that he was constantly speaking of suicide. It was supposed to be a purely physical condition by his parents and others. She, however, knew an intimate man friend of his. By one of those not uncommon mistakes, whereby each one supposes the other to be in the confidence of a mutual acquaintance, she had discovered that the real trouble was mental rather than physical, and that the death of the young woman of lower social position, in child-birth, "_last midsummer_" was an actual fact!
Needless to say how great was her astonishment to find that the whole story had been made known to me through such a curious train of circ.u.mstances--first, my experience of the malignant spirit; secondly, my happening to go to Wimbledon next day and mention the circ.u.mstances to the wife of the florist there; thirdly, _her_ strong and, as it proved, quite accurate impressions upon the subject; and fourthly, my two interviews:--first, with the betrayer, and then with the betrayed on the psychic plane.
Some few months later I was asked by the lady just mentioned if I should object to meeting Henry Halifax at dinner next evening.
"Not at all," was my answer. In fact, I felt it might be part of some psychic plan that I should do so. Evidently this was not the case, for at the last moment a telegram came to his hostess to say he was unexpectedly prevented from returning to town.
So we have never met at all! But I trust the confession may have been as efficacious as Mrs Levret was told that it would be. Anyway, I can testify that the gentleman in question is now happily married, and, therefore, presumably no longer haunted by the revengeful spirit, who has long since, let us trust, found happiness and peace in a higher world than this.
Speaking of haunting by the so-called dead reminds me of haunting by the so-called living.
In this same year (1896) I was staying in Cambridge for the first time in my life.
Oxford I have known since girlhood, but this was my first visit to the Sister University; needless to say, however, that I have met many men who have graduated there. Not knowing the town of Cambridge myself, I had never made it a subject of discussion, and ten years ago I was not even aware that such a street as Trumpington Street existed, difficult as it may be for Cambridge people to credit this statement.
In any case, most emphatically, I did _not_ know that a very old friend of mine, who became later in life a judge, had ever lived in this street.
Having been a sailor in youth, he had gone up to Cambridge comparatively late; this was shortly before my acquaintance with him began.
Not knowing Cambridge at all, the question of where he lived there had never entered into our conversations together. Probably I took it for granted that he was living in his college (Peterhouse). The strong feeling of friendship between us had become a warmer sentiment on his side, and this led later, and inevitably, to a thorough break in our pleasant relations with each other.
Long years pa.s.sed, during which I neither saw nor heard of my friend.
I knew that he had married, and had had a somewhat successful career as a barrister in London, and that was all I knew about him.
After staying for a week or two with friends in the neighbourhood of Cambridge in 1896, I had taken rooms for a month _in_ Cambridge, inviting one of these friends to stay with me as my guest.
We came upon these special rooms in a curious way. Having worked through a list of those suggested to us by a friend, none of which quite suited, I heard, by the merest chance, that possibly I might find what I wanted in Trumpington Street, at the house of a very respectable Cambridge tradesman. We went there, but only to find that the rooms vacant could not be ready for me at the time specified, as some old customers were coming to them for three or four days.