WILLIAM DAVEY
The role of the khansamah seemed more and more suspicious and compelling as Eliza told her story. Three times he had intervened: once by halting her on the stairs, once by trying to arrange her departure from Calcutta, and a third time by showing her the presence of the “beings” who he said were pursuing her. From her description, they did not sound chthonic, but more resembled stoicheia from some other realm—pneumic or photic, perhaps, or even nereic, following the Indian monsoon.
I was eager for Eliza to describe the terrible pact Esdaile had made with the chthonic spirit: but while I could anticipate it, my subject was taking her time in preparing the ground. There was no way to hurry it along.
ELIZA ESDAILE
Mrs. Shackleford found me at the Society’s offices, packing a crate. She saw that I was disturbed and took me aside to sit; she placed her hands on my own shaking ones and waited for me to return her glance.
“What is troubling you, my dear?”
I told her of my encounter with Gobinda in the Cooley Bazaar—his warnings of danger and the vision he had given me. I tried to keep my voice level, but it was obvious to me—and to her as well—that I was terribly angry. I believe that I was waiting for her to tell me that my imagination had run away with me.
Her response surprised me. She took her time answering, as if she was considering the way in which she wanted to phrase it.
“I am a few years older than you, Eliza,” she said at last. “There are so many things that did not exist—that had not even been conceived!—when I was a little girl; there were no railways, no telegraph machines and the mind was scarcely understood. The world has changed so much that I can scarcely encompass it.
“Setting aside Master Gobinda’s motivation—we will speak of that another time—what he showed you is quite possibly real. The science of organic magnetism is more than flummery: it is revelatory, an exposition of something quite true.”
“But the voices—”
“My girl, the works of Creation are far greater than we can imagine. What are the words from Shakespeare? ʻThere are more things in heaven and earth …’”
“‘… Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” I supplied.
She smiled reassuringly back at me. “Precisely. But that does not mean,” she added, raising a finger in admonition, “that our friend Gobinda is telling you the truth. He may even be evoking those voices for his own purposes. Nonetheless, the science of mesmerism is real and powerful.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Ah. Now, there is a story. My Martin and I have been here in Calcutta for almost ten years. While we were still in London, I had occasion to witness a remarkable exposition of the mesmeric art at the salon of a French practitioner, a soi-disant ‘Baron’ named Dupotet.” She wrinkled her nose at this—I suspect that she had little regard for Gallic titles and airs.
I waited for her to continue, unsure what to say.
“This Dupotet was quite singular; he was what I might term to be effete, particular about his clothing and deportment. He was elegantly groomed, with the airs of a gentleman. He had established himself in a set of rooms in Hanover Square, where he gave demonstrations of the mesmeric arts. Martin and I attended such a performance and we were astounded.”
I listened raptly as she described the scene. A young woman, a servant girl of some sort, had served as the subject: she was made to doze in the presence of an audience of numerous ladies and gentlemen through the use of mesmeric skill. Mrs. Shackleford’s description conveyed distaste; the Frenchman’s delicate long-fingered hands passing along the girl’s body so close that they seemed to brush her sleeve or a loose lock of her hair—effrontery, but apparently insufficient for impropriety. The girl had not seemed to notice.
“I noticed the glint of something at the back of her neck: it looked very much like a seton, a needle attached to a thread passed through her skin to permit the discharge of bodily fluids. Clearly, she was under treatment somewhere for whatever ailment afflicted her.
“At last, he halted the passes and invited the viewers to closer examination—but he would not permit any to touch her, placing his hand in the way. When asked if the girl was sleeping, he replied that it was sleep—but not the usual sort: it was a ‘magnetic sleep.’”
I believe that she said that this took place in the fall, Reverend—1837, I should say, or 1838. She said that she had come to India in 1842; this would have been a few years prior to that.
1837, then. Very well: I am sure you know more about it than I. And—
Really. That is quite singular—do you remember meeting Mrs. Shackleford?
I see. Of course, I imagine that it would be difficult for you to determine with certainty whether you were at the same performance. But that would be a coincidence.
No, Reverend Davey. I suppose that I do not believe in coincidence either.
Mrs. Shackleford’s account was detailed and became increasingly strange. This young girl was placed into a deep sleep so profound that some believed her to have died; the Baron actually withdrew a small hand-mirror to show that her breath still fogged it. After a few more mesmeric passes, he invited the observers to try to awaken her by shouting and shaking, thumping and pinching. One of the gentlemen even brought out a snuffbox from his waistcoat and applied some of the stuff beneath the girl’s nose—enough, the man had said, to bring about a sneeze in a fair-sized elephant—but to no avail. Mrs. Shackleford told me that she was most taken aback by the rough treatment given the child.
When they had satisfied themselves that they could not awaken her, they retreated; Dupotet stepped forward once again and returned to his hand motions, from head to waist and back. As they watched, one of the girl’s hands reached slowly out and touched one of the Baron’s, causing him to stop his motions.
“As if emerging from beneath the ocean’s depths,” Mrs. Shackleford continued, “she looked upward at him, and then at the crowd of observers. With an unflinching, liquid gaze, she seemed to take in the entire scene; then she said—and I shall never forget this: ‘Why should blushes dye my cheek?’”
“Whatever does that mean?” I asked her.
“I am certain I do not know,” she answered me. “Then,” she told me, “Monsieur le Baron answered, ‘Ah, ma chère, si c’est ici le meilleur des mondes possibles, que sont donc les autres?’”
I repeated the words in French, then offered a translation. “ʻIs this not the best of all possible worlds?’”
“Just so. You have an admirable accent, my dear Eliza.”
“Modesty requires a blush to dye my cheek, Mrs. Shackleford.”
“Georgiana,” she said firmly, smiling.
“Georgiana. What happened next?”
“Ah. Well. The young girl turned her gaze to the Frenchman and stared at him for several seconds and then said, ‘Qu’importe, qu’il y ait du mal ou du bien?’ Then her head slumped to her chest.”
“ʻWhat does it matter, whether there is evil or good?’” I translated. “But surely she had been prepared for this performance.”
“She was a servant girl, Eliza. She spoke not a word of French. Indeed, when she was revived after a few minutes, she demonstrated that her command of English was quite inferior. It might have been some sort of trick—but the characters of the girl entranced and the one in wakened state were so markedly different that we were all astounded. She had no memory of speaking at all, much less Parisian French—when told of it, a blush did, indeed, dye her cheek. She seemed somewhat flustered by all of the attention, and after only a few questions asked to be excused and she was escorted away.
“During our stay in London I saw several other demonstrations and each time I came away more and more convinced that the Art was functional and effective—and a science, something that must needs be drawn out of the morass of mumbo-jumbo and superstition and subjected to critical inquiry.
“We live in an age of wonders, my dear Eliza. Even here in India—poor, backward India—there is no reason to fear such as Gobinda and his flummery. It has the appearance of being learned, but it is founded in no more than superstition.
“It is like turning over a rock in a garden and exposing what is underneath to the bright light of day. We are in an age of wonders, and every day we turn over another rock in our garden. You have nothing to fear from Gobinda and his tricks.”
WILLIAM DAVEY
I know that Dupotet gave this performance in Hanover Square a number of times during the fall of 1837. Indeed, I had witnessed it personally; it was after such a performance that Dupotet himself had taken me aside and made reference to the half-light. What was stunning was the detail in Georgiana Shackleford’s description, for it closely matched my own recollection, including the spoken words in French and the matter of the snuffbox. A more cynical observer would dismiss Dupotet’s performance as trickery, but for those sensitive to the Art, it was clear that his abilities were genuine. Georgiana Shackleford must have felt it too.
Hard experience had taught me to mistrust coincidence, as Georgiana had said. It was unthinkable to imagine that Georgiana Bates Shackleford, whom Eliza had met by chance, would have been at the exact place on the exact date by mere coincidence.
I began to suggest that Mrs. Shackleford was somehow complicit in the introduction of the chthonic being, but Eliza strenuously exerted herself in denying that any such thing might be true. It took some minutes before she was ready to proceed. I had to be patient and restrain myself in spurring her onward.
At last, she returned to recounting the trip upriver from Calcutta to Hooghly—quitting the teeming city for the more distant hospital. I could hear the trepidation in her voice and felt my own tension: I knew that Esdaile would soon walk onstage.
The details of his initial relationship with Eliza had never been revealed in our correspondence; I did not know of her nature until later—after they returned to Scotland—though, of course, when I speak of her nature, I do not refer to the character of the lady with whom I spoke on those chilly mornings and afternoons in Sydenham, but rather the thing that had inhabited her.
Clearly, she felt great affection for James Esdaile, so I inferred that some malign influence had brought the chthonic spirit into Eliza’s life—perhaps even against Esdaile’s will or desire. The devil’s bargain I had assumed and of which I had accused him could not, I supposed, have been of his own making.
Regrettably, I could not have been more wrong.
ELIZA ESDAILE
The very first time I laid eyes on James Esdaile was during one of the Society’s earliest visits to the prison hospital. He was touring a ward of recovering surgical patients with a native doctor, a man named Noboo. Doctor Noboo reminded me ever so slightly of Gobinda—he showed great deference to James, but had his own rapport with the patients—a gesture here, a spoken word or two there, all the while staying behind his superior, who sometimes took little notice of him.
Haughty? No, not James. He was often simply tired. In that, he resembled Mrs. Heath. India was no fit place for him; it weakened and drained him. He would have been better off on the rainy moors of Scotland, if you can believe it. All of the patients were eager to see the man they called Doctor Sahib, but it was clear to me that the patients’ personal relationships were with his assistant, Doctor Noboo.
James Esdaile took little notice of us. We were mostly concerned with those patients who had womenfolk visiting or taking care of them. We were servants—background figures, like furniture; for me it was very familiar. He nodded to us in passing and moved on. My first impression of James Esdaile, I do not mind saying, was rather negative.
The first night I was in Hooghly, the voices returned. Mrs. Shackleford had arranged a sort of temporary dormitory for our group; I shared a small room with a younger woman named Amelia, who had no family in the world other than an older brother, who was a soldier in India. She worshipped Mrs. Shackleford and seemed never to be more than a few feet from her Bible.
The night was unbearably hot, and I left my bed and went to sit at the window … and I heard my name being called.
Eliza. It is so good that you have come, the voice said, a whisper on the wind so soft and reassuring that it did not trouble me at first—then I started; I stood and looked out across the fields toward the river, rimmed with the faint moonlight.
“Who is there?” I said quietly, not wanting to wake Amelia. The girl simply muttered in her sleep.
We only want to give you what you most earnestly wish. We want to help you leave India.
“And go home?”
Home, the voice said. Yes. Home. We want to help you go home.
I must confess to you, Reverend Davey, that the idea of returning to England after more than five years was more appealing than I can describe.
I think it may have blinded me too, but I am not sure. I am not even sure how to end that sentence.
“How? How will you help me get home? Who are you?”
Friends.
I remember that so clearly, and even after these many years I can still remember my joy at hearing it. Truly, other than Mrs. Shackleford—who was of recent acquaintance—I do not know if there was anyone in India whom I accounted a friend. But here was something—someone—who was offering me the thing I most desired.
There will come a question, the voice continued. When it comes, you must say yes. Then you shall go home. The last word it said came out almost as if the concept were a novel one.
“What question?” I asked. But the whisper had faded away, leaving nothing but the soft sounds of insects in the still, stifling night.