From Out the Vast Deep: Occult & Supernatural Thriller. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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shook her head. “No,” she said in a dull voice, “I don’t follow you at all.”
She felt acutely, unreasonably disappointed. There was no one in the world who had first loved and then hated her, or who could hate her. She cast her mind back to some of her schoolfellows; but no, as far as she knew they were all still alive, and there was not one of them to whom these exaggerated terms of love and hatred could be applied.
Bubbles dragged her chair on till she was just opposite Sir Lyon Dilsford.
He put up his hand: “Will you kindly pass me by, Laughing Water?” he said, in his full, pleasant voice. “I’m an adept, and I don’t care for open Circles. If you don’t mind, will you pass on?”
And Bubbles dragged on her chair again over the Aubusson carpet.
She was now opposite Miss Burnaby, and the old lady was looking at her with an air of fear and curiosity which strangely altered her round, usually placid face.
“I see a tall young man standing behind you,” began Bubbles in a monotonous voice. “He has such a funny-looking long coat on; a queer-shaped cap, too. Why, he’s dripping with water!”
And then, almost as if in spite of herself, Miss Burnaby muttered: “Our brother John, who was drowned.”
“He wants me to tell you that he’s very happy, and that he sends you your father’s and mother’s love.”
Bubbles waited for what seemed quite a long time, then she went on again: “I see another man. He is a very good-looking man. He has a high forehead, blue eyes, and a golden mustache. He is in uniform. Is it an English uniform?”
Miss Burnaby shook her head.
“I think it’s an Austrian uniform,” said Bubbles hesitatingly; then she continued, in that voice which was hers and yet not hers, for it seemed instinct with another mind: “He says, ‘My love! My love, why did you lack courage?’”
The old lady covered her face with her hands. “Stop! Please stop,” she said pitifully.
Bubbles dragged her chair across the front of the fire till she was exactly opposite Mr. Burnaby.
For a few moments nothing happened. The fire had died down. There was only a flicker of light in the room. Then all at once the girl gave a convulsive shudder. “I can’t help it,” she muttered in a frightened tone. “Someone’s coming through!”
All the colour went out of the healthy old man’s face. “Eh, what?” he exclaimed uneasily.
Like Mr. Tapster, he had thought all this tomfoolery, but while Bubbles had been speaking to, or at, his sister, he had felt amazed, as well as acutely uncomfortable.
And then there burst from Bubbles’ lips words uttered in a broken, lamenting voice—a young, uncultivated woman’s voice: “I did forgive you—for sure. But oh, how I’ve longed to come through to you all these years! You was cruel, cruel to me, Ted—and I was kind to you.”
Then followed a very odd, untoward thing. Mr. Burnaby jumped up from his chair, and he bolted—literally bolted—from the room, slamming the door behind him.
Bubbles gave a long, long sigh, and then she said feebly: “I’m tired. I can’t go on any longer now.” She spoke in her natural voice, but all the lilt and confidence were as if drained out of it.
Someone—perhaps it was Donnington, who had got up—began relighting the candles.
No one spoke for what seemed a long time. And then, to the infinite relief of Varick and Miss Farrow, the door opened, and the butler appeared, followed by the footmen. They were bringing in various kinds of drinks.
The host poured out and mixed a rather stiff brandy and soda, and took it over to Miss Burnaby. “Do drink this,” he said solicitously. “And forgive me, Miss Burnaby—I’m afraid I was wrong to allow this—this—” he did not know quite what to say, so he ended lamely, “this séance to take place.”
Then he poured out another stiff brandy and plain water and drank it himself.
Donnington turned to Miss Farrow. “I have never known Bubbles so—so wonderful!” he exclaimed in a low voice. “There must be something in the atmosphere of this place which made it easier than usual.”
Blanche Farrow looked at him searchingly. “Surely you don’t believe in it?” she whispered incredulously. “Of course it was a mixture of thought-reading and Bubbles’ usual quickness!”
“I don’t agree with you—I wish I could.” The young man looked very pale in the now bright light. “I thoroughly disapprove of it all, Miss Farrow. I wish to God I could stop Bubbles going in for it!”
“I agree with you that it’s very bad for her.”
The girl had gone away, right out of the circle. She was sitting on a chair in the far corner of the room; her head, bent over a table, rested on her arms.
“She’ll be worn out—good for nothing tomorrow,” went on Donnington crossly. “She’ll have an awful night too. I might have thought she’d be up to something of the sort! One of the servants told her to-night that this house is haunted. She’ll be trying all sorts of experiments if we can’t manage to stop her. It’s the only thing Bubbles really lives for now, Miss Farrow.”
“I’m afraid it is”—Blanche felt really concerned. What had just taken place was utterly unlike anything she had ever imagined. And yet—and yet it didn’t amount to very much, after all! The most extraordinary thing which had happened, to her mind, was what had been told to old Miss Burnaby.
And then all at once she remembered—and smiled an inward, derisive little smile. Why, of course! She had overheard Miss Burnaby tell her neighbour at dinner that as a girl she had stayed a winter in Austria. How quick, how clever Bubbles had been—how daring, too! Still, deep in her heart, she was glad that her niece had not had time to come round to where she, herself, had been sitting. Bubbles knew a good deal about her Aunt Blanche, and it certainly would not have been very pleasant had the child made use of her knowledge—even to a slight degree. . . . Miss Farrow went up to the table on which now stood a large lacquer tray, and poured herself out a glass of cold water. She was an abstemious woman.
“I think some of us ought to go up to bed now” she said, turning round. “It isn’t late yet, but I’m sure we’re all tired. And we’ve had rather an exciting evening.”
There was a good deal of hand-shaking, and a little talk of plans for the morrow. Bubbles had come over, and joined the others, but she was still curiously abstracted.
“Where’s Mr. Burnaby?” she asked suddenly. “Wasn’t he at the séance?”
“He’s gone to bed,” said his sister shortly.
Her host was handing the old lady a bedroom candle, and she was looking up at him with a kind of appeal in her now troubled and bewildered face.
“I feel I owe you an apology,” he said in a low voice. “Bubbles Dunster has always possessed extraordinary powers of thought-reading. I remember hearing that years ago, when she was a child. But of course I had no idea she had developed the gift to the extent she now has—or I should have forbidden her to exercise it to-night.”
After the three other women had all gone upstairs, Blanche Farrow lingered a moment at the bottom of the staircase; and Varick, having shepherded Sir Lyon, young Donnington, and James Tapster into the hall, joined her for a few moments.
“Bubbles is an extraordinary young creature,” he said thoughtfully. “I shouldn’t have thought it within the power of any human being to impress me as she impressed me to-night. What a singular gift the girl has!”
Somehow Blanche felt irritated. “She has a remarkable memory,” she said dryly. “And also the devil’s own impudence, Lionel.” And then she told him of the few words she had overheard at dinner of the winter Miss