The Strange Experiences of Tina Malone. Ethel C. M. Paige

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СКАЧАТЬ I thought, and wondered. How strange to have fears when you lay in bed with a cold.

      She knew I laughed at her belief in omens, in palmists, clairvoyants, etc.

      ​One day, as I came down the path towards her front door, she came forward with a newspaper cutting.

      "Oh, I thought you were Diana," she said, and drew back with a hard look in her eyes. "I was going to tell her of this I had found in my newspaper—a beautiful thing about the healing of trees and plants."

      "Show me," I said, and held out my hand; but she drew it back.

      "No," she said, looking almost angry, "you would try to spoil my faith in it; I won't let you see it."

      I used to get so tired of their silly talk about vibrations. The White Priestess would draw her skirts aside, and move further away, if she happened to meet me, and thought I stood too near. No one was ever allowed to go into her bedroom, and she told someone once, that to sleep in any bed than her own, was like using anyone else's toothbrush. She even made Naomi nearly as bad as herself, for, when I was going to pop down on the old stretcher that was out on the verandah, Naomi cried, impulsively, with her hand out:

      "Oh, don't sit there, dear! I've been sitting there; you stay at that end and I'll sit at this."

      The next minute she was ready to laugh at herself, for she said:

      "Oh no, come along. There you are, that's comfortable," and plumped the cushions about behind me.

      The Priestess was a germ hunter. By that I mean she chased them, not that she wished to investigate them.

      "Oh, I can't sit very far away from the door, because you see I need a-i-r."

      This was said with head bent, neck stiffened, and a look of grave importance on her face.

      "You see, when you breathe, you take in all the bad germs that are given out."

      I wondered if she ever thought of the people next her taking in the bad germs she was giving out herself, but this did not seem to occur to her.

      I once went to a public lecture and she happened to be there. Not knowing any of the people round me and seeing that she was alone, I innocently went over and sat on the empty chair next to her.

      "I thought I'd come and sit with you," I said.

      She appeared not to hear me, but after some minutes, made some remark and to my astonishment, got up and walked away. She went over to talk to someone opposite, took the chair next to her and when this person left to go home, I, thinking perhaps she had been absent-minded, went over to her again.

      "You won't think me very rude, will you, but I have to go," she said, and got up and went.

      ​It was easy to see why she went, she did not care to "mix" vibrations. That was before I went to Chester House—I did not know then what they meant by "vibrations;" it was not a thing we talked about at home. She was a faddist about food too, not liking to eat fruit or vegetables that did not come straight from the garden. Such chastity, O Diana! Such a Puritan that she became a statue. If I spoke to her she paused and sometimes seemed to forget to answer. It could not always have been that she did not hear.

      One day, when we three were together, and Naomi told a funny story, Diana laughed and told another. Turning to her for sympathy, I capped it with another. The Priestess shut up like an oyster. Naomi was walking in front at the time and I was at the Priestess' side. She made no sign that she had even heard. I spoke to Naomi of it afterwards and she said:

      "Yes, I noticed that, but I think, dear, perhaps she was absent-minded."

      I did not think so.

      There were times when I liked her.

      The first day I arrived and she showed me into my room and that beautiful view of sky and trees and harbour stretched out before us, she gave a cry of enthusiasm, "What colour! Look at the colour."

      She spoke like an artist and as if seeing it for the first time—revelling in it, and drinking it in with joy.

      She turned to me then and her face was aglow.

      I was quiet and lonely at that minute. I could not speak.

      She seemed to see just then.

      "It is beautiful to think," she said quietly, "that when those we have loved have passed over, they really know us as we are. All the little misunderstandings vanish, all the little meannesses of everyday life go, and they can see and know what we are feeling."

      I knew she meant that mother was not far away, and just then I thanked her in my heart, for understanding.

      Perhaps it was because she was jealous of my friendship with Naomi, but we soon found that we were not congenial.

      She was like a baby in her pleasure at the thought of Naomi's coming. She said she must get some new clothes, and seemed to be bustling about in her room.

      But soon after Naomi's arrival she had fallen back into her old routine again. Her life was evenly parcelled out into meditations, little domestic duties, and attending her classes.

      Naomi was in a difficult position. She loved Diana for ​her "aloofness," the very thing I was impatient at, but she and I were chums and she liked to be with me.

      "I can't stand her; she doesn't care for a soul but herself; how can you, Naomi!"

      "It doesn't matter to me a bit whether people care for me or not," said Naomi, "I just like her as she is. Besides," she said, "I have lived with her before. She comforted me when I was in great trouble. I was staying with friends of mine and we quarrelled. Now I come to think of it, it was because they laughed at Diana and I wouldn't stand it. I left, and went to stay, in the same house as she was. I was very miserable there and she soothed me so with her calm."

      "Give me more flesh and blood," I said, "I don't like statues—Rather a storm than a calm."

      "You little Pagan," she said.

      But the Priestess had her queer little ways.

      "Come down, Diana," called Naomi one day, "come and have some afternoon tea. I know you don't drink it but be wicked for once and do."

      "Well, will you promise not to talk scandal," said the Priestess, "I can't come if you talk scandal."

      "Promise?" asked Naomi, looking at me with a twinkle in her eye.

      She came down and we were as good as gold, but found ourselves out of pure devilment or nervousness, we scarcely knew which, finding something scandalous popping into everything we said.

      She was not often with us, for she had her own way of living and we were of the world.

      Then came the time when Naomi's bills used to come in, and she had the idea of letting some of her rooms in the flat downstairs.

      It was I who gave her the idea, unfortunately.

      Hers was a furnished flat, and when it came hard on her to find her rent and to meet her bills, she hardened her heart against Diana, who had persuaded СКАЧАТЬ