Strange Journey: British Library Women Writers 1930s by Cairnes Maud

Author:Cairnes, Maud [Cairnes, Maud]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: British Library Publishing
Published: 2022-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

XIV

The visitors shook hands, and said that, as the hounds had killed somewhere or other nearby, they had telephoned for their car to come and pick them up and had called to enquire after me.

I reassured them as to my well-being, and Gerald, after a moment’s hesitation, asked them to have some tea. I divined that I should have done this.

They accepted, and Lady Rockley asked if she could come upstairs and repair the ravages caused by the chase. I escorted her to my bedroom.

She seemed very agreeable and told me how much she and her husband liked the neighbourhood. She mentioned places and people, and my answers were rather vague. I noticed that she looked at me in rather a puzzled way once or twice, but I was getting used to this on my excursions into Elizabeth’s world.

We rejoined the gentlemen, who were having tea in the hall. There were poached eggs. Gerald talked to Lady Rockley about things the hounds had been doing, while her husband came and sat next to me. He was nice and easy to talk to, but after a time I got the impression that he was studying me. It made me a little uncomfortable; I knew I was floundering. Remembering what Elizabeth’s father had said in his letter, I brought the conversation round to telepathy and hypnotism; he asked me if I was interested in mental phenomena.

Lady Rockley’s voice broke in: “Do I hear Arthur talking psychics? It’s his pet subject, don’t let him bore you.”

“Psychics? Spooks and that sort of thing,” said Gerald.

“I know nothing about spooks,” I said, hastily. This is not quite true; I have heard and read many ghost stories, but they frighten me, and I did not want to think about them in a strange house.

“I don’t think anybody knows much about spooks,” said Lord Rockley. “It is not so much spiritualism that interests me as the curious functioning of the human brain. Cases of aphasia, delusions, hypnotic control and so on. Dr Caument, in Paris, has a very interesting case under observation now. It is one of dual personality.”

Gerald, who was lighting a cigarette, looked up quickly. His eyes met mine. “Tell us about it,” I asked.

He did.

It appeared that “the case” was a young girl who seemed at intervals to be two totally different people, one called ‘Jeanne,’ who was gentle and charming, kind, and rather stupid, the other ‘Louise,’ who was the reverse. ‘Jeanne’ was very slow at all kinds of learning and quite incapable of doing arithmetic. ‘Louise’ on the contrary, was very quick, especially at figures.

Curiously enough ‘Jeanne’ entirely forgot what she had done as ‘Louise’ and vice versa .

“What causes such a condition?” queried Gerald.

“There’s no absolute certainty about that yet,” replied Rockley. “Hypnotic treatment is generally the cure.”

“In mediaeval times such happenings would have been accounted for by diabolical possession. Your friend ‘Jeanne-Louise’ would have had a thin time in the middle ages,” said Lady Rockley laughing.

Soon after that they left,

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