February 14
Though I know that Mr. Grenville Smith — (no,) Tom — is once again busy with his work at the university, still I have found myself listening for the doorknocker every weekend on the chance that he might have returned to London. I even thought of finding some pretext to visit the bookshop on Oxford Street, in the faint and foolish hope of finding him there.
Now, in this dreariest part of midwinter, with a sickroom atmosphere descended upon the house and little work to do, I have found my spirits very low. But then today a note was hand-delivered to our door.
My dear Miss Jean Guthrie, you have languished far too long in Madame Blavatsky’s haunted drawing-room. I fear I may discover you all wan and pale and listless as a Gothic heroine. Be that as it may, I am in London till Sunday evening, and planning a visit to the Zoological Gardens. I would be most pleased to have your company. May I call round to fetch you, Sunday at ten?
Tom
How quickly a few words can lift one from the depths of melancholy to the heights of joy!
February 17
Tom came this morning by cab to fetch me, and we set out through streets that as usual were muffled in fog. Then, as we came to Regent Park and the entrance to the Zoological Gardens, a pale winter sun broke through, and the shapes of trees and buildings gradually revealed themselves. “A fine morning after all,” said Tom, as he signed the members’ book at the gate. “What splendid luck!”
And so with the day before us, we strolled along the Broad Walk, stopping first to admire the lions. On Sundays the gardens are only open to members of the Zoological Society, and so, said Tom, there was not the usual throng of spectators crowding around the lion house, jostling for a better view. After that came the sea lions’ pond, and then the conservatory where the monkeys live. Tom told me all the names of the various sorts of monkeys, and the countries from which they came. As I watched them at their lively play, like so many naughty children, I could see why Professor Darwin says they are the ancestors of us all.
(That seems more likely than HPB’s idea that we are evolved from super-beings who once inhabited the lost continents of Lemuria and Atlantis.)
Then we went through a tunnel into another part of the Gardens, to see the elephants and rhinoceroses, the hippopotami and giraffes. Exciting though it was, to observe them close at hand, it made me sad to think how these great beasts, who once had roamed the wide plains of Africa, must be confined in a London park. When I said this to Tom, he nodded, and I guessed that he felt much the same.
“If all goes well,” he told me, “I hope soon enough to observe them in their natural surroundings.”
“In Africa?”
“Indeed, in Africa, and what an adventure that will be! But you, Jeannie, have you thought that one day you would like to travel?”
No one else, not even the much-travelled HPB, had ever asked me such a question. But Tom seemed to be inquiring out of genuine interest. My first instinct was to say, “I’ve found my way from Scotland to London, and that was quite adventure enough!” But then I remembered my pleasure and excitement when I first discovered the travel journals in my father’s library. What romantic visions were conjured up, as I read of Arabia Felix, and the Mountains of the Moon, and Petra, the Rose-Red City half as old as time. That was when I was very young, not yet suspecting what the future held, so that all things seemed possible. “Sometimes,” I told Tom. “But only in daydreams. I can’t imagine such a thing could ever come about.”
“One never knows for certain what may lie ahead.” Tom offered me his arm as we went down some steps, and I had the foolish thought — quickly put out of mind — that to passers by we might seem like a courting couple. Tom said, “If your mind is made up, if you want something badly enough . . . I was meant to go into the army, or the clergy, or heaven help me, law. And instead I chose zoology.” He added, with a grin, “My father was not well pleased.”
I had once imagined all scholars to be pale and thin and stooped from biding too much indoors. But Tom is not yet a professor, and he seems more at home in the woods and fields where his research takes him, than in a stuffy lecture hall. And when I stole a sidelong glance and saw the sun glinting all gold in his yellow hair, though I tried hard to think about the birds and beasts in their cages, it was lines from the Song of Solomon that rose to mind. They were words I had loved when I was but a young lass still at home, and full of dreams. His mouth is most sweet; yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.
And if that makes me shameless, well, we cannot help our private thoughts.
Presently, when Tom looked at his pocket watch, we saw that it was well past luncheon, and so we decided instead on an early tea in the refreshment room.
“What a pleasant day this had been,” I said, when we had settled ourselves at a table and given our order. “It was most kind of you to invite me.”
“The pleasure is all mine. And I felt it my duty to rescue a fair maiden from the dragon’s lair.”
I laughed. “Madame Blavatsky is not really a dragon,” I said, “though at first I thought her so. She has been kind enough to me in her own way. Truth to tell, she is just a very sick old woman. And who would not be bad-tempered, plagued by ill health, and exhausted by overwork?”
“And tormented by her critics. It cannot be pleasant to be called a fraud, a forger and an imposter.”
“But the members of your Psychical Research Society — do they agree she is a fraud?”
“She may well be. Certainly Richard Hodgson was convinced of it. All these miracles she performs — the astral bells, the letters appearing out of nowhere, the magically vanishing and re-appearing objects — all those can be managed by secret compartments, by clever accomplices, by simple sleight of hand.”
“And yet . . . ”
He set down his teacup, waiting for me to continue. But what was it that I wished to say? That when you lived day in and day out at Lansdowne Road, you saw and heard things that could not easily be explained? Or that I had discovered powers in myself as inexplicable as any of HPB’s?
I found I could not finish the thought. I asked, instead, “And you, Tom? What do you believe?”
He was silent for a moment, as though considering his reply. Then he said, “A scientist is meant to keep an open mind. There is so much in this world that we have yet to discover. I would like very much to believe that Madame Blavatsky’s talents are real. I understand that Dr. Lodge is planning to do his own investigation. If he is convinced of her authenticity, think what possibilities, what new areas of research that would open up! But if indeed she is a fraud, then she is no better than any of the so-called psychics and mediums who have set up shop all over London to delude the innocent, by taking advantage of their naiveté and their grief. And those I consider ordinary criminals, who deserve to answer before a magistrate for their misdeeds.”
At those words my mouth went suddenly dry, so that I could scarcely swallow my mouthful of watercress sandwich. I am not a fraud —I know I am not — but nonetheless if I have murdered George then in the eyes of all the world I am a criminal. How terrible, in the midst of such happiness, to be reminded that one day I may have to answer for my crime. These past weeks, with some time to reflect, I have told myself that perhaps George was not dead after all, but only injured, and it was my guilt that made me see his vengeful ghost in the medium’s parlour. But, nonetheless, his wound was real enough —I saw the blood and heard his shouts of pain, — so I am still a criminal, though perhaps I might not hang.
Tom is kind and sweet-natured, and does not seem to mind a jot that I am not a beauty, and unfashionably dressed, and humbly born. But he would mind a great deal if he knew that the girl who sat before him eating scones and drinking China tea was an ordinary criminal, who one day must answer for her misdeeds.