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Simone withdrew her hand from his grasp. She sat perfectly still for a moment or two gazing down at the carpet. Then she spoke in a low, hurried voice.
‘I am afraid, Raoul.’
He waited for a minute or two expecting her to go on, but as she did not he said encouragingly:
‘Yes, afraid of what?’
‘Just afraid – that is all.’
‘But –’
He looked at her in perplexity, and she answered the look quickly. ‘Yes, it is absurd, isn’t it, and yet I feel just that. Afraid, nothing more. I don’t know what of, or why, but all the time I am possessed with the idea that something terrible – terrible, is going to happen to me . . .’
She stared out in front of her. Raoul put an arm gently round her. ‘My dearest,’ he said, ‘come, you must not give way. I know what it is, the strain, Simone, the strain of a medium’s life. All you need is rest – rest and quiet.’
She looked at him gratefully. ‘Yes, Raoul, you are right. That is what I need, rest and quiet.’
She closed her eyes and leant back a little against his arm. ‘And happiness,’ murmured Raoul in her ear.
His arm drew her closer. Simone, her eyes still closed, drew a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘yes. When your arms are round me I feel safe. I forget my life – the terrible life – of a medium. You know much, Raoul, but even you do not know all it means.’
He felt her body grow rigid in his embrace. Her eyes opened again, staring in front of her.
‘One sits in the cabinet in the darkness, waiting, and the darkness is terrible, Raoul, for it is the darkness of emptiness, of nothingness. Deliberately one gives oneself up to be lost in it. After that one knows nothing, one feels nothing, but at last there comes the slow, painful return, the awakening out of sleep, but so tired – so terribly tired.’
‘I know,’ murmured Raoul, ‘I know.’
‘So tired,’ murmured Simone again.
Her whole body seemed to droop as she repeated the words. ‘But you are wonderful, Simone.’
He took her hands in his, trying to rouse her to share his enthusiasm. ‘You are unique – the greatest medium the world has ever known.’ She shook her head, smiling a little at that. ‘Yes, yes,’ Raoul insisted.
He drew two letters from his pocket. ‘See here, from Professor Roche of the Salpêtrière, and this one from Dr Genir at Nancy, both imploring that you will continue to sit for them occasionally.’
‘Ah, no!’
Simone sprang to her feet. ‘I will not, I will not. It is to be all finished – all done with. You promised me, Raoul.’
Raoul stared at her in astonishment as she stood wavering, facing him almost like a creature at bay. He got up and took her hand.
‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Certainly it is finished, that is understood. But I am so proud of you, Simone, that is why I mentioned those letters.’
She threw him a swift sideways glance of suspicion. ‘It is not that you will ever want me to sit again?’
‘No, no,’ said Raoul, ‘unless perhaps you yourself would care to, just occasionally for these old friends –’
But she interrupted him, speaking excitedly.
‘No, no, never again. There is a danger. I tell you, I can feel it, great danger.’
She clasped her hands on her forehead a minute, then walked across to the window.
‘Promise me never again,’ she said in a quieter voice over her shoulder. Raoul followed her and put his arms round her shoulders. ‘My dear one,’ he said tenderly, ‘I promise you after today you shall never sit again.’
He felt the sudden start she gave.
‘Today,’ she murmured. ‘Ah, yes – I had forgotten Madame Exe.’ Raoul looked at his watch. ‘She is due any minute now; but perhaps, Simone, if you do not feel well –’
Simone hardly seemed to be listening to him; she was following out her own train of thought.
‘She is – a strange woman, Raoul, a very strange woman. Do you know I – I have almost a horror of her.’
‘Simone!’
There was reproach in his voice, and she was quick to feel it.
‘Yes, yes, I know, you are like all Frenchmen, Raoul. To you a mother is sacred and it is unkind of me to feel like that about her when she grieves so for her lost child. But – I cannot explain it, she is so big and black, and her hands – have you ever noticed her hands, Raoul? Great big strong hands, as strong as a man’s. Ah!’
She gave a little shiver and closed her eyes. Raoul withdrew his arm and spoke almost coldly.
‘I really cannot understand you, Simone. Surely you, a woman, should have nothing but sympathy for another woman, a mother bereft of her only child.’
Simone made a gesture of impatience.
‘Ah, it is you who do not understand, my friend! One cannot help these things. The first moment I saw her I felt –’
She flung her hands out.
‘Fear! You remember, it was a long time before I would consent to sit for her? I felt sure in some way she would bring me misfortune.’
Raoul shrugged his shoulders.
‘Whereas, in actual fact, she brought you the exact opposite,’ he said drily. ‘All the sittings have been attended with marked success. The spirit of the little Amelie was able to control you at once, and the materializations have really been striking. Professor Roche ought really to have been present at the last one.’
‘Materializations,’ said Simone in a low voice.
‘Tell me, Raoul (you know that I know nothing of what takes place while I am in the trance), are the materializations really so wonderful?’
He nodded enthusiastically.
‘At the first few sittings the figure of the child was visible in a kind of nebulous haze,’ he explained, ‘but at the last seance –’
‘Yes?’
He spoke very softly.
‘Simone, the child that stood there was an actual living child of flesh and blood. I even touched her – but seeing that the touch was acutely painful to you, I would not permit Madame Exe to do the same. I was afraid that her
self-control might break down, and that some harm to you might result.’
Simone turned away again towards the window.
‘I was terribly exhausted when I woke,’ she murmured. ‘Raoul, are you sure – are you really sure that all this is right? You know what dear old Elise thinks, that I am trafficking with the devil?’
She laughed rather uncertainly.
‘You know what I believe,’ said Raoul gravely. ‘In the handling of the unknown there must always be danger, but the cause is a noble one, for it is the cause of Science. All over the world there have been martyrs to Science, pioneers who have paid the price so that others may follow safely in their footsteps. For ten years now you have worked for Science at the cost of a terrific nervous strain. Now your part is done, from today onward you are free to be happy.’
She smiled at him affectionately, her calm restored. Then she glanced quickly up at the clock.
‘Madame Exe is late,’ she murmured. ‘She may not come.’
‘I think she will,’ said Raoul.
‘Your clock is a little fast, Simone.’ Simone moved about the room, rearranging an ornament here and there.
‘I wonder who she is, this Madame Exe?’ she observed. ‘Where she comes from, who her people are? It is strange that we know nothing about her.’
Raoul shrugged his shoulders.
‘Most people remain incognito if possible when they come to a medium,’ he observed. ‘It is an elementary precaution.’
‘I suppose so,’ agreed Simone listlessly.
A little china vase she was holding slipped from her fingers and broke to pieces on the tiles of the fireplace. She turned sharply on Raoul.
‘You see,’ she murmured, ‘I am not myself. Raoul, would you think me very – very cowardly if I told Madame Exe I could not sit today?’
His look of pained astonishment made her redden.
‘You promised, Simone –’ he began gently.
She backed against the wall. ‘I won’t do it, Raoul. I won’t do it.’
And again that glance of his, tenderly reproachful, made her wince.
