Early in January 1901, the day after Lord Robert"s triumphant procession through London, I went to spend some weeks at an "open-air cure" in Devonshire, high up in the hills, and in a bleak part of the county.
Several severe illnesses had left me so supersensitive to colds and draughts that it seemed a vital necessity to take some such drastic step, even at this inclement time of the year, unless I were prepared to sink into a state of chronic invalidism, and become a burden to myself and my neighbours for the rest of my natural life.
An old friend was "second in command" in this special establishment, which she had asked me to recommend, and a bright thought struck me that I might do my friend a good turn, and myself also, by spending a few weeks in the house.
I did not bargain, however, for the deep snow which fell on the very day after my arrival, nor for the howling west winds, which continued to blow during the whole of my stay.
In these parts, the west wind corresponds with our eastern variety, and is quite as cold and disagreeable.
Nor were the surroundings inside of a very cheerful nature. All the other patients (six or seven) were quite young girls, and all more or less consumptive. Several of them were very attractive, which made it seem all the more sad. Without exception, all were, or had been, engaged to be married, as the coping-stone to this tragedy of their lives! In several cases the engagements had been broken off, sometimes by mutual consent, on the score of health. In a few exceptions, where love had proved stronger than prudence and common-sense, it was equally melancholy to realise that the future could hold nothing but disappointment on the one side, and a hopeless regret on the other.
Under these circ.u.mstances it was perhaps only to be expected that my first impressions of the establishment should not be entirely _couleur de rose_. Yet the house itself was pleasant enough, and the view from the drawing-room windows was simply magnificent, including sea as well as moor.
Curtainless windows, with sashes thrown wide open, and chilly linoleum to replace warm carpets, were rather a trial to the uninitiated, early in January, with deep snow on the ground and fires none too plentiful.
In addition to these drawbacks I had another personal one. Coming in the middle of the winter, it was naturally Hobson"s choice as regarded the bedrooms. All the best and warmest aspects had been appropriated in the autumn, and an ugly little room, with cold, west outlook and depressing, mustard-coloured distempered walls, fell to my lot.
Yet even these facts did not sufficiently account for the extremely depressing effect of that room upon me.
"Has anyone died here lately?" was my first and natural query in a house of this kind.
I had heard the girls casually mention two gentlemen patients who had been in the house the previous year--one of these had gone into rooms in a neighbouring town with his nurse. I did not hear what had become of the other one, and had not sufficient curiosity to ask the question.
My friend rea.s.sured me by saying she was sure no one had died recently in _my_ room. She had only lately come to the house herself, as I knew; having been matron for some years of a small hospital in the country.
"The second poor gentleman, who was a patient here, did die in the house, I believe, but that was months ago," she said, "and I understand that he had Laura Pearce"s room," mentioning one of the girls, who had a specially cheerful apartment. It seemed quite natural that a sick man, confined to his bed, should occupy a large and sunny room, so I thought no more of the matter. Still, I was always conscious of an unpleasant and sad atmosphere in my own room, and took occasion one day to ask the lady at the head of the establishment whether she knew anything of the predecessors in the house.
It struck me that the psychic atmosphere in my room might be connected with some of _them_.
Miss Hunter replied laughingly: "I can"t tell you anything about them, for the very good reason that they don"t exist. _I_ am the first tenant of this house. It was only built two years ago, and remained vacant for the first twelve months."
Then I told her very cautiously of my feeling about my room, and that I had supposed it might have to do with someone who had slept there before she took the house.
Two or three of the young girls were in the room at the time, and it struck me that one of them--the one who was there for her second winter--looked a little surprised and interested; but the matron pa.s.sed off the subject with a few bantering words, and again I had no suspicion of the truth.
Six weeks pa.s.sed, and my last night in the house had arrived. My nurse friend was in the habit of giving me ma.s.sage twice a day, before getting up in the morning and the last thing at night. She left me on this occasion about ten-thirty P.M., expressing a hope that I should soon sleep, and have a good night before my long journey next day.
"Not much doubt of that," I murmured. "Why, I"m half asleep already!"
And I turned round, tired and yet soothed by the ma.s.sage, and soon fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Several hours must have pa.s.sed, when I woke up, trembling and terror-struck, after pa.s.sing through an experience which seems as vivid to me to-day as on that February night or early morning. My heart was beating, my limbs trembling, beads of perspiration covered my face, as I discovered later.
No wonder! I had been through an experience from which few, I imagine, return to tell the tale. For I had pa.s.sed through every detail of dying, and dying a very hard and difficult death.
Body and soul were being literally _torn apart_, in spite of the desperate effort to cling together, and my spirit seemed to be launched into unknown depths of darkness and possible horror. It was the feeling that _I did not know where I was going nor what awaited me_ that seemed so terrible--this and the horrible fight for mastery between my poor body and soul and some unknown force that was inexorably set upon dividing them.
This, so far as I can express it, exactly describes the experience I had just gone through, and from which I had awakened in such abject terror.
As the beating of my heart subsided, and I could think more calmly, I remembered with startling distinctness that in the very worst of the struggle I had been vainly endeavouring to say that text in the twenty-third Psalm which begins:
"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me: _Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me._" I could say the first part of it quite easily, but some fiendish enemy seemed bent upon preventing my saying the last sentence, and in my terrible dream, rescue and safety depended upon my getting to the end of the text. I tried again and again, always to be driven back in despair before the crucial words were uttered. At last, with a desperate effort, I seemed to shake off the incubus which was weighing me down, and I finished the words triumphantly, and so loud that I had positively wakened myself up _by shouting them out_. With returning memory I knew this had happened, and hearing a door open and shut on the half landing below my room, I thought for the moment that someone must have heard me, and must be coming to see what was the matter. I looked at my watch--just two-thirty A.M. No one appeared; and to my relief I remembered that this was just the hour when either Miss Hunter or my friend went round to the invalids, giving them milk or bovril, in the night.
I had no inclination to seek out either of these ladies. The horror was past, and no one could undo what I had endured; so I lay quiet, and in course of time managed to go to sleep again, not waking until the servant came into my room to light the fire at seven-thirty A.M.
It happened to be a certain _Minnie_ on this occasion, a very respectable young woman, who had accompanied Miss Hunter when she gave up the matronship of a well-known hospital, and who had therefore been with her since this establishment had been started.
My night"s experience convinced me so absolutely that, in spite of all that had been said, the gentleman patient _had_ died in this room, and that I had just gone through his death agonies, that instead of asking any question about it, I said very quietly to Minnie, as she was on her knees lighting my fire: "The poor gentleman who died here last summer _died in this room, I find_."
"Yes, ma"am," she said quietly, not knowing, as it turned out, that any mystery had been made about the fact.
My personal friend was guiltless of any deceit, for she had been told the story about Laura Pearce"s room, but the young girls confessed when I went down to breakfast that they had been specially warned not to let me know the true facts.
Miss Hunter did not appear at breakfast, as she was suffering from a chill, so I went to her bedroom to say good-bye before going up to London.
Feeling naturally annoyed and rather shaken by my night"s experience, I said to her rather drily:
"You need not have taken the trouble to deceive me about my room, Miss Hunter, nor to warn the girls to do the same. I know that gentleman died there, for I have just gone through his experiences." And then I told her about my terrible night.
Although forced to admit the facts, Miss Hunter fought every inch of the ground, so far as the _painful_ experiences were concerned.
"Such an excellent man! so interested in everything--a _clergyman_, my dear Miss Bates, and so _good!_ How could there be anything painful connected with his death?" etc. etc.
I suggested that, as Christians, we had the most overwhelming proof that holiness of life does not always preclude even mental suffering at death; but she would not hear of this argument, and doubtless considered it blasphemous.
By dint of questioning, however, I made two discoveries--first, that the death was quite unexpected. The man had only been a fortnight in the house, and when I expressed surprise that he should have been moved there so late in a fatal illness, she said unguardedly:
"_Oh, but he was very slightly ill when he came--it was more a preventive measure. None of us had any idea that he was a dying man, the symptoms developed so suddenly._"
I also elicited another fact--_i.e._ that this delightfully interesting personality "so intellectual--so full of interest in everything" (to quote Miss Hunter"s words), had died at the age of forty, in the very prime of life. No wonder, under the circ.u.mstances of so short an illness, in the very zenith of life and enjoyment, that body and soul should have been loath to separate, and thus free the imprisoned spirit!
But Miss Hunter was adamant, and would admit nothing.
Just before leaving her, it struck me that I had not yet told her about the text, so I repeated that episode, and then, for the first time, a startled look came into her eyes. She was taken by surprise, and said hastily: "That _is_ extraordinary! I was with him when he died in the night, and he kept on asking for that text. That is not so remarkable, many might have asked for that text, but I stopped once or twice after the first sentence, and he kept on urging me: "_Say it to the end, Miss Hunter! Say it to the end!_"
Later the good lady even consented to write out the evidential points in this story, which I sent at once to my friend Dr Richard Hodgson.
Immediately upon my return to London on this occasion, I was attacked quite suddenly by a very acute form of rheumatism, which laid me on my back--perfectly helpless--for several days.
When the doctor arrived, his first question was: "Have you had any special shock lately? This particular form of rheumatism does not generally come on with so little warning _unless there has been a previous shock_."
I was about to deny this, thinking he referred to unexpected news, but with the memory of my Devonshire experience so keen and clear, I felt bound to tell him that I had certainly had a shock to my nerves twenty-four hours previously.
Soon after this sudden and sharp attack of illness I found myself in Portugal for the first time in my life.
I had gone there with an English friend--Mrs Frampton--in order to be near connections who had lived in the country for many years.
A cousin and I spent a delightful afternoon in that Cintra paradise of _Monserrat_, with General and Mrs Sartorius, who were living there at the time of my visit to Portugal. I have heard that even this charming house could tell strange tales if only walls could speak. It is easy to imagine that any spirits--carnate or discarnate--might deem it a privilege to haunt so exquisite a spot. Personally, I can only testify to the hospitality of our kind host and hostess and the excellence of the spirit of "Robur," which refreshed our weary bodies, and made the walk back to the Cintra Hotel, through the lovely woodland paths, a "thing of beauty and a joy for ever."
To return to Lisbon. My friend Mrs Frampton had never been present at any sort of psychic phenomena, so we planned a little sitting for her during one of these Lisbon evenings.