Read Online Nothing Can Rescue Me by Elizabeth Daly - Free Book Online Page B

moving, sliding across the paper. Suddenly it shot off the paper entirely, and then shot back again. This process repeated itself several times, until at last Gamadge snapped on his lighter and investigated. He fully expected to see nothing but a scrawl, and that was what he did see; but a vicious-looking scrawl, which though it spelled no word seemed to mean something disagreeable, even dangerous.
    He pushed planchette aside, turned the paper over, and got out a pencil. Then, placing his wrist lightly on the table, he closed his eyes; wondering if this game would be as unproductive of results as the other. It seemed totally unproductive of any result whatever. The table, it is true, pressed slyly and persistently against his hand, but nudged it in vain; for the hand apparently refused to take the hint and write anything.
    Suddenly he became acutely uncomfortable in another way; something assailed his consciousness with a strong, definite warning, and he opened his eyes. He was looking with astonishment at a pale form, which seemed to float in a void. A face took shape, and dark caverns of eyes. He sat rigid for ten seconds, and then, relaxing, said cheerfully:
    â€œHello; that you, Sally?”
    Mrs. Deedes came forward into the room. Her greying hair ceased to merge with the pallor of her face, and her face with her grey woollen dress. She said: “Dear Henry, how wonderful to see you again.”
    â€œThese doors don’t make a sound, do they?” He got up and went to the window. “Let me get a look at you, Sally.”
    â€œI’m not much to see, any more. Were you having a little séance all by yourself? How lovely.”
    â€œI’m no good at it.” Having parted the curtains and raised the blind, he turned to survey her. He had once thought her beautiful, and her features were as fine, the poise of her head on its long neck was as graceful, as in the past. But the greying of her black hair aged her, and made her pale skin unearthly; it had the same tone as her antique pearl earrings and necklace, and the same purplish shadows.
    The day was overcast. She stood in the pallid light, bending over the bridge table, a spectre of herself. But she spoke gaily:
    â€œYou say you’re no good at it? Why, this is very nice, Henry. Did you do it with planchette?”
    â€œPlanchette? No, I didn’t do anything with anything.” He came to gaze with incredulity at a mincing line of words, run together without a break, which when separated formed the following mawkish invitation:
    Goodwin come Goodwin come dance round the tree.
    Gamadge, shocked, inquired: “Did I do that?”
    â€œOf course you did. Was it automatic writing?”
    â€œMy hand never moved, and it’s not my writing.” Gamadge looked about him as if for the half-wit upon whom he might foist responsibility.
    â€œIt’s never in one’s own handwriting, and one’s hand seldom seems to move. One doesn’t do it one’s self, Henry.”
    â€œI’m glad of that.”
    â€œSomething takes hold.”
    â€œIf a mosquito could write, that’s the handwriting of a mosquito; but not even the spirit of a mosquito would bother to come back to earth and invite Goodwin to dance round a tree.”
    â€œIt may not be a spirit, Henry. I’m not sure that the mischievous influence that has been troubling Underhill was ever on earth at all.” She looked at him gravely.
    â€œNo elemental ever heard of Goodwin. Goodwin was a boy I used to know, and an earthy one. Goodwin belongs to my unconscious—I don’t consciously think of him, I can tell you.”
    â€œThe strangest things come through.”
    â€œYou really think a malicious being of some sort wrote that fearsome stuff in Florence’s novel?”
    â€œEven the malicious ones can’t hurt us.”
    â€œThis one will probably end by hurting somebody severely in his or her finances. If I believed in