Read Online The Wrong Way Down by Elizabeth Daly - Free Book Online

too clever for my own good, and so swollen by vanity that I thought a demonstration would bring Uncle and Aunt shouting into the fold. I’d brought my favorite tackle along with me, my reel of shoe-thread, weighted at one end with a padded dress weight; in case you never saw one, they’re little perforated discs made of lead. I found mine in my mother’s old workbox.
    â€œThe drawing room was crowded with furniture and bric-a-brac. Aunt and Uncle and my father and mother sat in a circle in front of the gas fire. After tea I was allowed to wander about behind them, looking at things. I never broke anything.
    â€œGreat-uncle was in one of those high-backed upholstered chairs, and I can see the yellow satin now and feel it. I stood behind it with my left hand on the round back.”
    â€œI think,” said Gamadge, “that I saw it this afternoon.”
    â€œDid you see a little table, a sort of étagére on wheels? It used to stand between the windows, laden with knickknacks.”
    â€œNo, I didn’t see it.”
    â€œWell, I saw it; and I saw that it was standing on a six-foot space of bare hardwood floor. I couldn’t resist—it was too much for me. Something”—she smiled—“got into me. Anyway, I took my little lariat out of my pocket, got it ready—all with one hand, I never took the other off the back of the chair—and swung it. The weighted end coiled round a leg of the little table on wheels, and I pulled. The table came rolling along as if it had the devil in it.”
    Mrs. Spiker burst into her loud laugh. “Wish I’d been there.”
    â€œOh, it was awful. Uncle saw it first, got half up, and choked out something. Aunt Marietta looked round and gave a scream. I rushed forward, put both hands on the table—of course it began to rock like mad—and called out: ‘It came right to me!’ Things fell off it, and I got down and began to pick them up—and to uncoil my weight, and reel up my black thread.
    â€œAunt Marietta fainted. She was in bed for a week. We never entered the house again.
    â€œAnd my poor parents were prouder of me than ever, though they had great expectations from the Ashburys, and we were quite poor.”
    There was a silence. Then Miss Vance asked in a matter-of-fact tone: “Well, Mr. Gamadge, do you think the Lawson Ashburys or Miss Paxton would have liked this version better than the other one?”
    â€œI’m afraid not. That was your first warning, Miss Vance, to leave the spirits alone?”
    â€œOh, no! I practised for five years more, until I was fifteen. When my first warning came I was as much frightened as poor Great-aunt Marietta had been.”
    Miss Higgs slowly turned her head and looked at Iris Vance. She said: “I never heard of that.”
    â€œNo, I don’t talk about it, but this seems to be an occasion for frankness. I was so frightened that I never pretended to be a medium again, I never even went to a séance. I think my parents explained it by some quirk of adolescence—my losing my gift. They were grieved when I lost it—and my interest—but they didn’t reproach me or argue. They never did.”
    Mrs. Spiker asked: “For Heaven’s sake what happened?”
    â€œYou may not think much of it. It was at a dark séance that some friends of ours had requested, and there were a good many people there. I was in a trance, and my control was talking. I had a control, of course, by that time, a very nice sympathetic one named Ozima. She had a slight foreign accent, which of course was understandable, since she was an ancient Aztec. She talked as I should talk if I had a slight cold in my head and a gumdrop in both cheeks.”
    Simpson moved his feet and coughed.
    â€œNot very nice, is it?” She smiled at him. “Not very nice for the real spirits—if there should happen to be any. At any rate, I felt a tap on my