The Undiscovered Country. William Dean Howells
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waveringly entered the room. Her face was white, and her eyes had the still, sightless look of those who walk in their sleep. She advanced, and sank into the chair between her father and Mrs. Merrifield, and at the same moment that groaning and straining sound was heard, as if in the fibers of the wood; and then the sounds grew sharper and more distinct, and a continuous rapping seemed to cover the whole surface of the table, with a noise like that of heavy clots of snow driving against a window pane.
As Egeria took the chair left vacant for her, it could be seen that another had also found a place in the circle. This was a very large, dark woman of some fifty years, who silently saluted some of the company, half withdrawing from their sight as she sat down next to Mrs. Merrifield, behind the box.
Egeria remained staring blankly before her for a moment. Then she said in a weary voice, "They are here."
"Who are, my daughter?" demanded her father.
In a long sigh, "Legion," she responded.
"We may thank Mr. Hatch for the company we are in," Mr. Eccles broke out resentfully. "I have protested—"
"Patience,—a little patience, Mr. Eccles!" implored Dr. Boynton. Then, without changing his polite tone, " Look again, Egeria," he said. "Are they all evil?"
"Their name is legion," wearily answered the girl, as before.
" Yes, yes, Egeria. They always come at first. But is there no hope of help against them? Look again,—look carefully."
"The innumerable host "—
"I knew it,—I knew it!" exulted the doctor.
"Disperses them," said the girl, and lapsed into a silence which she did not break again.
At a sign from the large woman, who proved to be Mrs. Le Roy, Dr. Boynton said, " Will you sing again, Miss Merrill?"
Miss Merrill repeated the closing stanza of the hymn she had already sung.
While she sang, flitting gleams of white began to relieve themselves against the black interior of the-box. They seemed to gather shape and substance; as the singing ceased, the little hand of a child moved slowly back and forth in the gloom.
A moan broke from one of the women. "Oh, I hope it's for me!" she quavered.
They began, one after another, to ask, "Is it for me?" the hand continuing to wave softly to and fro. When it came the turn of this woman, the hand was violently agitated; she burst into tears. "It's my Lily, my darling little Lily."
The apparition beckoned to the speaker.
"You can touch it," said the doctor.
The woman bent over the table, and thrust her hand into the box; the apparition melted away; a single fragrant tuberose was flung upon the table. "Oh, oh!" sobbed the woman. "My Lily's favorite flower! She always liked snowdrops above everything, because they came the first thing in the spring. Oh, to think she can come to me,— to know that she is living yet, and can never die! I'm sure I felt her little hand an instant,—so smooth and soft, so cold!"
"They always seem to be cold," philosophized Boynton. " A more exquisite vitality coming in contact with our own would naturally give the sensation of cold. But you must sit down now, Mrs. Blodgett," added the doctor, kindly. "Look! There is another hand."
A large wrinkled hand, like that of an elderly woman, crept tremulously through the opening of the box, sank, and then creeping upward again laid its fingers out over the edge of the opening. No one recognized it, and it would have won no general acclaim if Mrs. Merrifield had not called attention to the lace which encircled the wrist; she caught a bit of this between her thumb and finger, and detained it a moment while the other ladies bent over and examined it. There was but one voice; it was real lace.
One hand after another now appeared in the box, some of them finding a difficulty in making their way up through the aperture, which had been formed by cutting across in the figure of an X the black cloth which had lined the bottom of the box, and which now hung down in triangular flaps. The slow and feeble effort of the apparitions to free themselves from these dangling pieces of cloth heightened their effectiveness. From time to time a hand violently responded to the demand from one of the circle, "Is it for me?" and several persons were allowed to place their hands in the box and touch the materializations. These persons testified that they felt a distinct pressure from the spectral hands.
"Would you like to try, Mr. Phillips?" politely asked the doctor.
"Thanks, yes," said Phillips, after a hesitation. He put his hand into the box: the apparitional hand, apparently that of a young girl, dealt him a flying touch, and vanished. Phillips nervously withdrew his hand.
"Did you feel it?" inquired Dr. Boynton.
"Yes," answered Phillips.
"Oh, what was it like? Wasn't it smooth and soft and cold?" demanded the mother of the first apparition.
"Yes," said Phillips; "it was a sensation like the touch of a kid glove."
" Oh, of course, of course!" Mr. Eccles burst out, in a sort of scornful groan. "A stuffed glove! If we are to approach the investigation in this spirit"—
"I beg your pardon?" said Phillips, inquiringly.
"I'm sure," interposed Dr. Boynton, "that Mr. Phillips, whom I have had the honor of introducing to this circle, has intended nothing but a bona fide description of the sensation he experienced."
"I don't understand," said Phillips.
" You were not aware, then," pursued the doctor, "that there have been attempts to impugn the character of these and similar materializations,—in fact, to prove that these hands are merely stuffed gloves, mechanically operated?"
"Not at all!" cried Phillips.
" I was certain of your good feeling, your delicacy," said the doctor. "We will go on, friends."
But the apparitions had apparently ceased, while the raps, which had been keeping up a sort of desultory, telegraphic tattoo throughout, when not actively in use as a means of conversation with the disembodied presences, suddenly seemed to cover the whole surface of the table with their detonation.
"The materializations are over," said Mrs. Le Roy, speaking for the first time. Her voice, small and thin, oddly contrasted with her physical bulk.
"Oh, pshaw, Mrs. Le Roy!" protested Hatch, "don't give it up that way. Come! I want Jim. Ladies, join me in loud cries for Jim."
Several of the ladies beset Mrs. Le Roy, who at last yielded so far as to ask if Jim were present. A sharp affirmative rap responded, and after an interval, during which the spectators peered anxiously into the dark box, a sort of dull fumbling was heard, and another materialization was evidently in progress.
"You can't see the hand of a gentleman of Jim's complexion against that black cloth," said Hatch, rising. "Lend me your handkerchiefs, ladies. James has a salt and sullen rheum offends him."
Several ladies made haste to offer their handkerchiefs, and, leaning over, Hatch draped them about the bottom of the box. The flaps were again agitated, and a large black hand showed itself distinctly against the white ground formed by the handkerchiefs. It was hailed with a burst of ecstasy from all those who seemed to be frequenters of these seances, and it wagged an awkward salutation to the company.
"Good for you, good for you, James!" said Hatch, approvingly. "Rings? Wish to adorn your person, James?" he continued.
The hand gesticulated an imaginable assent to this proposal, and Hatch gravely said, "Your rings, ladies." A half dozen were passed to him, and he contrived, with some trouble, to slip them on the fingers of the hand, which continually moved itself, in spite of many caressing demands from the ladies (with whom Jim was apparently a favorite specter) that he would hold still, and Hatch's repeated admonition that he should moderate his transports. When the rings were all in place, the hand was still dissatisfied, as it seemed, and beckoned toward Egeria. "Want Miss Boynton's ring?" asked Hatch.
The girl gave