The answer was loud and sudden, and punctuated by four rapid knocks, seemingly from midair. I gave another involuntary jump.
“Why, are you going to play that fiddle again?” said Mr. Clemens. He was braver than I, to ask such a frivolous question in the presence of a voice so fierce sounding.
“That will be quite enough—the spirits are not amused with this kind of impertinence,” said a woman’s voice on the other side of the table. I could not identify the speaker, but her crisp English accent carried a heavy load of disapproval.
“Well, I don’t want to be a bore. What kind of impertinence do you think would amuse them—Oof!” said Mr. Clemens as his wife nudged him again, while Susy Clemens added her whispered admonition: “Papa!” (Still, I thought I detected amusement in her voice.) He muttered something it was probably just as well we couldn’t quite hear, then fell silent.
The ghostly voice paid no attention to Mr. Clemens’s gibes. “Beware, beware!” it said, and there was a distinct rattling and scraping, as if of heavy chains. “I come to warn you of great danger.” Again, the words came from Martha’s mouth, but it was not at all her natural voice we heard. This speaker seemed also to be a male, but the tone and timbre of the voice were distinctly different from the one that had called itself “Richard.” I wondered how, if Martha was purposely producing the voices we heard, she managed to make them sound so different.
Taking the lead again, Sir Denis asked, “Is your warning for some particular person here, or for all of us?”
“All who live in that sad world are in daily peril, but my warning is for one soon to be bereaved,” said the voice, ominously. The chains rattled again. “Hold not too tightly to the things of the world, for they will not profit you when you must cross to this side.”
“Soon to be bereaved?” said a woman’s voice—the same, I thought, that had admonished Mr. Clemens. “Can you not tell us more?”
Indeed, I thought, the warning was general enough to apply to almost anyone. With twelve of us at the table, one or another was almost certain to experience the death of a close friend or relative within some period of time that qualified as “soon.” If the spirits had no better information than this to offer, there was not much to be gained by asking their advice.
“There is a wife among you soon to be a widow,” said the voice. There were gasps from several points around the table, and I remembered that three of the women present were here with their husbands—not counting Martha McPhee, who showed no outward reaction to what her voice had just said.
“Pray tell us whom you mean,” said another woman, an older-sounding voice. Lady Alice, I thought. “Is there no way to prevent this bereavement?”
There was a very loud rap, and the voice said, “What is destined cannot be changed. Cling not to the things of the world.”
“Can you tell us who you are—or were?” asked Sir Denis. “We would know better how to understand your words if we knew from whom they came.”
“What I was is less than nothing,” said the voice, now fainter, as if more distant. “I have left behind the shreds and tatters of my life upon that plane. What I am now you would not recognize.”
Mr. Clemens spoke again, in a more serious tone than before. “Why do you come to warn us, if you can’t say who the warning is for, or what it means? Why have you come at all?”
“Poor deluded mortal!” said the voice, suddenly loud again. The chains rattled rhythmically as it continued, “You comprehend nothing. I tell you once again, beware—hold not too closely to material things. Beware!” The chains crashed loudly, as if dropped onto a wooden floor from a height, followed by sudden deep silence. I had an almost palpable sense of the spirit’s absence. I also had a keen awareness that we had learned almost nothing from it. I wondered what else was to come.
A short period of silence was broken by music again—the sound of an accordion. The melody was more cheerful this time, perhaps a dance tune, though not one I was familiar with. Still, I found myself feeling somewhat lighter in spirit, after the lugubrious message of the previous spirit. I also thought to note a faint odor of incense—or was it merely one of the ladies’ perfume I smelled? Again the music ended, although this time the unseen player ended on a proper cadence. As before, there was a moment of silence, and then Sir Denis asked if there was anyone present. He was answered with a veritable chorus of knocks, too rapid and numerous to count, from above, below, and from all sides.
“Is someone there?” said Sir Denis again. “Pray tell us who you are, and to whom you wish to speak.”
The new voice replied by laughing, long and loud. Not a joyous laugh, but a wicked one—the laugh of someone rejoicing at the destruction of a foe, or at some ill-gotten gain. It made the hair stand up on the nape of my neck. What sort of spirit had come among us now?
“Speak to us,” said Sir Denis again. “Have you a message for anyone here?”
The laughter was repeated, and then a voice spoke. “I have no message for you,” it said. Unlike the previous voices, this new one was unmistakably that of a woman—although it was as different from Martha McPhee’s natural voice as the others had been. For a moment, I thought I recognized it—but the person of whom I was thinking was thousands of miles away, and to the best of my knowledge still among the living.
“Why have you come among us, then?” asked Sir Denis.
“I come because I am compelled,” said the voice, significantly. There were more rappings, interspersed with the high-pitched tinkle of what sounded like small silver bells.
“How compelled?” asked Sir Denis. “Is it we who have compelled you, or some power on the other side?” To this the voice responded only with a deep sigh. A silence followed, although I had a strong sense that the entity behind the voice was still present in our midst.
“If you have no message for us, will you answer a question?” It was Susy Clemens who broke the silence. I felt her grip on my hand tighten, as if to gather reassurance.
“I will answer what I may,” said the voice, its tone somehow gentler. “There are many things I am not permitted to speak of. And you may not understand some of the things I am permitted to answer. There are realms beyond the ken of mortals.”
“I can accept that,” said Susy, in a quiet but confident voice. “Tell me, please, can you foretell the future?”
“Past and future mean nothing to us,” said the voice. “We see many things, some that have already happened, some that may happen, and some that may never come to be. Which are which we cannot always say.” The small bells tinkled again, sounding closer now.
When the tinkling had subsided, Susy continued. “Would you please answer a question for me and my sisters? Which of us will be the first to marry?”
I heard her father’s soft chuckle as she finished the question. The female spirit responded with a gentle laugh, as well—it would have been a warm, friendly sound, had I heard it in any other setting than this. “The first to marry will be married the longest,” it said.
“But which of us will it be?” said Susy, pressing the question. “Surely, it cannot be forbidden to tell me that.”
“What is forbidden and what permitted is not yours to judge,” said the voice,
