WILLIAM DAVEY
Eliza Weatherhead Esdaile was an easy subject to mesmerize, and her account was clear and detailed—though it obviously exhausted her to give it. A few days after James Esdaile’s interment—performed by a local parson—I called upon her. She received me cautiously but politely. As a clergyman, I had a perfect excuse to remain on hand as a friend of the family during her time of loss; she and James apparently had few close friends in Sydenham, and in any case, the household and the neighbors seemed terrified of Eliza.
Small wonder. Those with keen perceptions could sense what she was; those with less innate awareness had only a sense of unease. For nearly five years, James and his wife had lived in a little cottage near the Crystal Palace; a bright young girl twenty years his junior—who had been inhabited by a chthonic spirit.
Her revelations thus far had given me a particularly important insight. Eliza’s employer had taken up residence in the house where the architect James Fergusson had lived until 1843. I have not yet explained about Fergusson—the stitches in this tale are complex ones—but suffice it to say that he had found the statue somehow and had given it to Esdaile before leaving India. He had also been a key part of Paxton’s staff that had reconstructed the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.
There was a connection between them, but I did not understand it at the time. If I had done …
But I had not. Eliza had more to tell me; I had to wait for her to give her own story, at her own pace.
ELIZA ESDAILE
Mr. Heath’s death was a tragedy. To be honest, it was something of a scandal. He left a rambling, disturbing note explaining the reason he took his own life: he blamed himself for the deaths of his wife and daughter. Apparently, he was also engaged in dubious financial dealings—though it was not my place to ask, nor my business to know, what was involved. Indeed, it is possible that these details were invented to help explain the tragedy. A man may take his own life in the face of financial disaster—that is considered honorable but unfortunate. But a man is not permitted despair—he must continue to soldier onward.
And so Robert Heath was placed alongside his wife and youngest daughter. For a week, all was calm. I saw to my own meager possessions, knowing that I might soon have to quit the house in search of a new position. I had some money put by, though not enough for passage home.
I was not afraid. I told myself so then, and I believe it now. The English community was large enough for me to obtain another position; I was clean, orderly, well-spoken, and I knew that I had acquitted myself properly in the Heath household. I lacked a reference since my employer was deceased, but I had been with the family for more than five years. Again, I am reminded of Dickens: he might have portrayed me weeping with my head in my hands, wondering what would become of me. I do not flatter myself too much, I think, to state that I did not ever venture upon that path. Without the means to return to England, I assumed that I should have to make my own way until I earned enough to do so.
At last, I was called to the office of Mr. Heath’s solicitor just off Tank Square—the heart of English Calcutta. I had never had occasion to present myself there: Mr. Rowland, the solicitor, had come to the house a few times but had never before taken notice of me.
I remember the place clearly. A law office is very much a province of men: dark wood furnishings, odors of tobacco and leather, books and papers and ink. Mr. Rowland’s place of business was well lighted but seemed almost devoid of air—as if the place had been sealed in a tight jar, to keep the heat and sounds away, to keep India away from English courts of law.
I was ushered into a waiting room scarcely worthy of the name: a hard bench, walls full of musty old books, and the disreputable containers into which men discharge their tobacco—spittoons, I believe they are called. The bright sun could scarcely find its way through the yellowed glass and thick curtains, so that by comparison to the outer offices, the entire room was cloaked in a sort of hazy shadow.
After some time, a clerk returned for me and directed me to Mr. Rowland’s office.
“Miss Weatherhead,” he said, without turning to face me directly nor offering me a seat. “As Mr. Robert Heath’s executor I am directed to attend, ahem, to certain matters regarding his household.”
“I understand, sir,” I answered.
“With the unfortunate death of young Miss Rose, your position in the household is such, ahem, that your services are no longer needed. I trust that you understand the situation.”
“I had considered it, Mr. Rowland.”
“You must also understand, madam,” he continued, still not daring to meet my eye, “that Mr. Heath neglected to make any provision for you. I do not know if it was his intention to do so, but in the absence, may I say, of a direct instruction, I am unable to give you anything further than your wage through the end of this calendar month.”
“That is most generous of you, sir,” I replied, not knowing what else I could say. “I had already determined that I might have to seek employment with another family—”
“Yes, yes,” he interrupted me, waving his hand which held an unlit cigar. “I am sure that a person of your talents should have no trouble.”
He thus appeared ready to dismiss me, but I said, “I would hope that I might obtain a letter of reference—”
“What?” At last he looked directly at me, as if noticing my presence in the office for the first time. “I’m sorry, what is it you wanted?”
“In order to obtain a suitable place, Mr. Rowland, it would be most helpful if I might have a letter of reference that could be shown to a future employer, attesting to my character and responsibility.”
At the time, I thought it a reasonable request: I had served the Heaths for five years, in a foreign land, during some rather arduous times.
Mr. Rowland seemed unsettled by the request. “Well,” he said. “Ahem. It is regrettable that there is no one that could provide you with such a letter.”
“Even yourself?”
“I—I beg your pardon, Miss Weatherhead. Please understand that I would normally be willing to do so—if so directed—but as I have no personal knowledge of your character or habits, it would be no less than prevarication on my part. As an officer of the court, I cannot engage in any activity that might have any chance to cast aspersions upon myself or my firm. I am sure you understand.”
“Mr. Rowland,” I began, “Surely you must realize that this reference is of great importance to me—”
“I am really quite sorry, madam,” he said, as if it were of no matter. “I cannot help you. I am afraid the matter is closed. If you speak to my clerk as you leave, he will provide you with the remainder of your wages.”
I did not answer for several seconds: I was shocked and angry at his cavalier treatment. In retrospect, I should not have been surprised; it is the normal way servants are treated—convenient, disposable, replaceable.
All that Mr. Robert Heath possessed now belonged to Mr. Bertram Heath. But Mr. Bertram Heath was a third of the way around the globe at Eton, and equally unlikely to give more than a passing thought to his former governess.
As I turned to leave, Mr. Rowland added, “I would also ask that you vacate your present room within the week, as the house must be closed up as well.”
“Of course,” I said, and walked out of his office, my head held high but with fear in my heart.
Gobinda was waiting for me when I returned; he had already begun the process of closing up the house, having already paid off and sent away a few of the servants—the chuprasee, the meter and metranee, and some of the bearers. The old dirwan watched me silently as I passed through the gate of the compound as I had so often done; both he and the khansamah might keep their place if Mr. Rowland was able to find someone to let the house, so that the whole cycle of hiring servants might begin again.
The khansamah seemed to know already what had transpired with the solicitor. He brought me tea on the verandah and we sat together for a few minutes. The afternoon heat was no less unbearable than usual, but there was at least a welcome breeze.
“I have been considering your situation, Miss Weatherhead,” he began, without prefacing his remarks. “I may have a solution for you.”
“A solution?”
“Yes. I have a cousin in Benares whose brother-in-law has a close friend employed as a khitsugar in the household of a proper English family. It is my understanding that they are in need of a governess. I am certain that you would be most suitable.”
“Benares,” I said. I knew where it was, roughly: three or four hundred miles inland, far enough from Calcutta that it might as well be located on the moon. “I had expected that I would remain here in Calcutta.”
“No, no,” Gobinda said right away. “You must not remain here.”
“I would think that my best prospects—”
“This is an excellent opportunity, Miss Weatherhead,” he interrupted. “I am sure that it would be most suitable,” he repeated. “Preparations have already been made.”
“You might have wished to consult with me first, Gobinda,” I said. He seemed genuinely shocked when I stood. After the interview with the solicitor, it was one more example of a situation that was beyond my control.
“I was only seeking to assist you, Miss Weatherhead,” he said, his voice unchanged.
“I shall be in my room,” I answered. “I must pack my things, as I shall be leaving.”
I have reached the same conclusion, Reverend. Gobinda wanted to get me as far from Calcutta as possible. I believe that he knew of the voices I had heard in the conservatory, the night that Mr. Heath took his own life. He sought to save me from them. I also later learned that Benares is the holy city for the Hindu god Shiva, and that his connections with Benares were significant.
The entire matter had been set in train by Rose’s death—and Gobinda surely saw it as the hand of Kali. Thus, I do not know if going to Benares would have been enough to keep me safe. Those who come from beyond the Glass Door do not pay heed to distance or time. I was marked by the stoicheia and knew nothing of it.
As I lay in my bed that night listening to the steady rain, I wondered if Gobinda’s offer might be for the best—for without a letter of reference, a suitable position might be beyond my reach.
WILLIAM DAVEY
I did not know what to make of Gobinda at the time. That he was a mesmerist, there is no doubt. That he knew what confronted Eliza, even at this stage, seemed likely. I agreed with Eliza’s assessment, however; whether they were agents of Kali in his eyes, or merely elemental spirits as we consider them, it was unclear whether they could have been prevented from taking action even if she had made the trip to Benares, hundreds of miles from Calcutta.
She was already in terrible danger and knew nothing of it. The khansamah wanted her to be far away from Calcutta—in Benares, far in the interior; but she was unwilling, or afraid, or perhaps just stubborn.
Her personal strength made a deep impression upon me as I remained in Sydenham to assist her in the many details that accompany a sudden death. She knew well the impression that her former character—or, shall I say, the character of the thing that had inhabited her—had given to her neighbors and other townspeople. My own perceptions, somewhat more acute than those who do not even have the half-light to guide them, readily revealed the hesitancy and the fear in their eyes and in their attitudes when they dealt with Eliza, and their shock and surprise when she now seemed somehow different.
They may have assumed that her change was due to her sudden widowhood. But their relief was palpable.
A week after Esdaile’s death, Eliza received me in the parlor of her small home. I had obtained the beginnings of her own account by placing her—with her permission—in a mesmeric trance. The recollection of her experiences would be made clearer with my help: but she was not Esdaile, not guilty of a betrayal, and not under threat from the Committee. If anything, I felt myself to be her protector, as she no longer had the powers of nightfall at her disposal to ward off or consume those in the Committee who might have done her harm—as she had done with those who had threatened her late husband.
The sudden absence of her former protector might have been a relief; but even so it must have been a shock after such a lengthy cohabitation. I hoped that my efforts with the Art might calm and center her; I believed, with some justification, that if I befriended Eliza, she might provide me with information about the statue’s whereabouts in India. My plans were not well-formed at the time—but I reasoned that for such a prize, I would journey all the way to India if necessary. Pride is a besetting sin; I possess it in abundance.
That afternoon, I told her that I hoped she might continue her account and would employ a deeper mesmeric trance if she permitted. The inimical chthonic spirit had fled, and there was nothing to make her my enemy; nor did I wish to be; nor should she consider me hers.
“This is exceeding kindness, Reverend,” she said to me. It was spoken in a level tone—but I detected a hint of irony in her voice. “Do you always seek such tender reconciliations?”
“I think you mock me, madam.”
“I am acquainted with the society of mesmerists only to the extent that they have sought to kill my husband,” she answered. “And it is I who must bear the memory of how I—how my indwelling occupant—dealt with them. As you are a man of the cloth, sir, you must hear my confession that I am not completely sorry that they received the treatment that was given to them.”
“No man deserves that,” I answered right away.
“And no man,” she answered in tightly controlled fury, “deserves to be hounded and threatened the way your terrible Committee dealt with James from 1851 onward. He made a choice, and I think he made the right one. I say this with no rancor, sir, though my … husband”—her voice caught as she said it, but she continued—“though my husband subjected me to the experience which I propose to relate to you. The spirit is gone and no longer directs my actions, but the knowledge and understanding it gave me remain.
“You all want that terrible thing that James refused to give you, the object that caused my gaoler to come forth. None of you deserve to possess it.”
“Perhaps you are right.”
I am enough of a judge of human nature to know that she had not expected agreement.
“Do you know what happened to it?” I said at last.
“I don’t know. Perhaps James threw it in the Hooghly River.”
“I doubt that.”
“So do I. I only know that it remained after I—”
At this point, the façade of strength seemed to crumble, like the shell of a building being consumed by fire. Her mind had turned to the defining event, the point at which Esdaile made his terrible bargain that introduced the chthonic spirit that had inhabited this young woman. I rose from my seat, hesitating between going to her and quitting the house entirely; but she looked up at me, eyes wide as if seeing the past laid out before her, and gestured for me to resume my place.
“It would be easier,” she said after a moment, “if you undertook to bring about the deep trance you offer. I submit that my recollections have greater clarity when evoked under the mesmeric influence—and it will help me to keep my emotions more distant.”
“As you wish, dear lady,” I said.
“I do not know what I wish!” she replied. “I only know that I wish to tell this story through to the end. Enough choices have been made that cannot be undone, sir. Now I choose to shine a truthful light upon it, and I am obliged to you for your assistance.”