Mrs Lees shook all over and a strange raucous voice cried out, "Do not force me." We asked if it was Cherry and were told, "No, no, she will not come." We asked who it was again and were told "Nobodaddy" with a horrible laugh. Miss Neve said the undeveloped spirits must be playing tricks on us. Then there was a violent cracking and rapping, and several of us felt our skirts lifted and our knees patted by spirit hands. Mrs Furry asked if Adeline, her baby daughter, was present. The horrible voice cried out, "There is no child." It then added, "Curiosity killed the cat" and other silly phrases. A large book, from the table beside Mrs Lees, was flung across the room amidst laughter.
Miss Neve said that perhaps there was a hostile presence in the room. One of the other ladies present, who had never before displayed any skill as a medium, began to weep and laugh, crying out in German "Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint." A voice spoke through Mrs Lees saying "Remember the stones." Someone present cried out "Where are you?" and for answer we all heard the sound of flowing water and waves, with marvellous distinctness. I asked if there was a particular spirit present who wished to speak to one of our company. The answer came back through Mrs Lees, that yes, there was present a spirit who had had great difficulty in making itself known but might speak if anyone who felt themselves addressed were to follow the medium into the inner room. As she spoke, a marvellously sweet voice said, "I bring gifts of reconciliation," and a white hand was seen hovering above the table, carrying a marvellous white wreath, with the dew still fresh upon it, and surrounded by a crown of silvery lights. The medium slowly rose to go into the inner room, and two of the ladies, both much moved, and indeed sobbing, rose to follow her, when Mr Ash cried out, "Oh, you shall not escape me," and snatched at the air, crying out "Lights! Lights!" The medium collapsed in a dead faint, and another lady fell back in her chair and was soon seen, when the lights were put on, to be without consciousness. Mr Ash was clutching the medium's wrist, which he claimed had been transporting the wreath, though how that could be, considering where it fell, and where the "gentleman" and the medium were found, defies understanding.
Now here was chaos, and considerable danger, all caused by Mr Ash's impulsive and destructive acts. Two delicate organisations disturbed-my own and that of the other lady, who was experiencing her first trance in these desperate circumstances. And the poet seemed quite unaware of the harm he might do to a disembodied mind attempting, heroically and with critical effort, to materialise itself in a new and experimental form. Miss Judge records that I myself lay with a chill and livid face, uttering deep groans. The poet meanwhile compounded his act of folly by releasing my wrist and rushing to the side of the other lady, seizing her by the shoulders, despite urgent assurances from the other Vestal Lights, that it was dangerous to disturb or startle a person so entranced. He was, they tell me, calling out in an uncontrolled and frantic manner, "Where is the child? Tell me what they have done with the child." I understood at the time that Mr Ash was enquiring after the spirit of a departed child of his own, but I am told that this could not be the case, as Mr Ash is childless. At this point a voice spoke through my lips, saying
"Whose were the stones?"
The other lady became very ill, very pale, her breathing irregular, her pulse weak and fluttering. Miss Judge asked Mr Ash to leave, which he refused to do, saying that he wanted an answer, and that he had been "practised upon." I came to my senses at this point and saw him; he looked most horrid and uncontrolled, with veins standing on his brow, and a most thunderous expression. All round him was a fiery mass of dull red actinic light, seething with hostile energies.
He seemed to me in that moment a demon and I asked, weakly, that he should be requested to leave. At the same time two of the Vestal Lights bore away the unconscious body of our friend. This lady did not recover consciousness for two whole days, to the great distress of the company, and when she did, seemed unable to speak and unwilling to eat or drink, so great was the shock to her delicate form of the terrible acts which had taken place.
Mr Ash nevertheless took it upon himself to communicate, as a matter of fact, to various persons, that he had detected "cheating" at the seance, at which he represented his own position as that of a detached observer. He was far from that, very far, as I hope the account of Miss Judge, as well as my own, will bear witness. When he later wrote his cleverly insinuating poem, Mummy Possest, he was taken by the general public as a champion of reason against knavery. Happy are they who have been persecuted for truth's sake-I suppose we must say-but there is no harder blow to bear than indirect malice, bred I am sure of impotent disappointment, for Mr Ash's whole manner was that of a seeker betrayed by his own positivism into the frustration of any communication he might have received.
And for my pain, and that of the other afflicted lady, not a thought, not a flicker of regard!!
Blackadder had written to every public body he could think of who might be concerned with the Ash-LaMotte correspondence. He had lobbied the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art, and had requested an interview with the Minister for the Arts, which had resulted in a dialogue with an aggressive and not wholly gentlemanly civil servant, who had said that the Minister was fully apprised of the importance of the discovery, but did not believe that it warranted interfering with Market Forces. It might be possible to allocate some small sum from the National Heritage Trust. It was felt that Professor Blackadder might attempt to match this sum from private sponsorship or public appeal. If the retention of these old letters in this country is truly in the national interest, this young man appeared to be saying, with his vulpine smile and slight snarl, then Market Forces will ensure that the papers are kept in this country without any artificial aid from the state. He added, as he saw Blackadder to the lift, through corridors smelling faintly of brussels sprouts and blackboard dusters, like forgotten schools, that he had had to do Randolph Henry Ash for his A-Level, and hadn't been able to make head or tail of him. "They did go on so, don't you think, those Victorian poets, they took themselves so horribly seriously," he said, pushing the lift button, summoning it from the depths. As it creaked up, Blackadder said, "That's not the worst thing a human being can do, take himself seriously.”
“So pompous, don't you think?" returned the young man, smoothly impervious, closing the professor into his box.
Blackadder, who had been immersed in Mummy Possest and the reminiscences of Hella Lees, felt grimly that Market Forces were invisible winds and odylic currents quite as wild and unpredictable as any interrupted by Ash's Gaza Exploit. He also felt that Mortimer Cropper had a direct line to infinitely more powerful Market Forces than he himself, in the lower depths of the Museum. He had heard about Cropper's sermon-lecture, invoking these. He was gloomily considering his next move, when he was telephoned by a television journalist, Shushila Patel, who had an occasional five minutes on the Arts on Events in Depth, a late-night news analysis programme. Ms Patel had taken against Cropper because he represented capitalist and cultural imperialism. She had asked around and had been told that James Blackadder was the expert to have on her programme.