Ghost in the Gallery.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2561, 8 December 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

Ghost in the Gallery.

A MYSTERY TO THIS HOUR. By W. W. Fenx. Yes, a mystery it remains, and is likely to remain, as must be the case with all .-uch matters, at least until the human race in the. course of ages evolves faculties of which at present it knows little or nothing. Until man shall gain a clearer knowledge of the unseen influences by which ho is surrounded and of which he, even now at times, gets imperfect glimpses, there will probably bo no satisfactory solution for those unaccountable experiences now and again recorded, and to which the following- curious examplo may be added. Doctors already are better acquainted with the influence which psychological phenomena have in relation to man's actions, and understand far better than formerly how intimate is the connection between the physical and mental worlds, There should be uo reason therefore to despair of an ultimate comprehension of the precise nature of the links which bind body and soul together. When the highest scientific intellects have attained to such a pass it will be equivalent to the possession of another sen of senses and capacities.

If you can remember the town and its amusements as far back as 1860 or thereiilmnts, you will not forget Leotard at the xlh.-imhra. for assuredly his acrobatic f-:[t.R on the trape-e were unionist the

i.o-l. beautiful ind sraneful ever Wit ueosed, He nightly orowds to

Leicester-square—crowds, bo it understood, in which hundreds might be numbered not in tho habit of frequenting such places of entertainment, but who wore attracted thither alike by the novelty and the singularly quiet and gentlemanly appearance and demeanour or tho performer. His manner was so devoid of nil the usual vulgar attitudinising, hand-kissing, and bowing characteristic of his class, that he seomed to enlist one's sympathies at once. A slim young man of about five feet nine inches in height, well set up, admirably proportioned, with regular features, small hands and feet, dark, and somewhat Italian in tone, he looked in mufti quite a presontable distinguished personage when, with a modest grave face and slow step, ho chanced to mingle for awhilo with the audience as he passed in or out of the theatre. As to the performance itself, it was quite charming to see him flying from bar to bar across the great theatre, and alighting literally like a bird on his perch or resting-place in tho centre of the front of the lofty gallery. In my medical student days—and I think I studied in spite of occasional theatre-going—the entertainment had an irresistible attraction for me. I was never tired of watching Leotard at his work, and I could linger over a description of it if I gave inclination the rein. Such acrobatic feats are so common now that most people know what they are like, but at that time Leotard was a novelty, and as with all successful novelties, begot a host of imitators. Nona that I have ever witnessed, however, approached him, save one, and it is this "one" that lam going to write.

Student days over, hall and college passed, I settled down to a lucrative practice in the large manufacturing town of— Ravelsborough it shall be called. We

boasted of a handsome theatre, and a "royal amphitheatre," as well, and having always had a leaning towards the histronic and its cognate arts, I did not rebel at an accident which gradually drew me into becoming the sort of accredited doctor to both these establishments. Various curious experiences were the result, but I am here concerned with one only. Ten years and more had passed since the Alhambra days, but when at the royal amphitheatre there was announced the performance of a certain Volagio, " the one real successor to the great Leotard," as he was described, the old time cime back to me vividly, and I had a strong inclination to see this gentleman. The establishment was always open to rae ; indeed, I was cordially welcomed both before and behind the scones, for tho theatrical profession will compare favourably with any in gratitude for the poor services occasisnally rendered to its members by a medical man.

Thus I was passed into an excellent, pitbox on the second night of Volagio's performance, just he was stepping on to the stage and making his bow, prior to swinging himself aloft. The moment I saw him I was struck by his remarkable resemblance of Leotard. Got up in close iutimatiou of him, and with the same absence of tawdry spangles, his face, iiguro and demeanour were all siniruUnly like tho great original, and I wondered if his performance was to come equally close. Ho ran up the rope like a monkey on to the first of the threo or four swing bars, suspended as usual from tho ceiling, tho last one hanging also as usual within range of the front of the gallery, where in the centre was arranged his little perch. A word here, by the way, of this perch, for it was not quite of the old " Alhambra pattern," inasmuch as it was broader and deeper and had a little seat at its back ; a seat, toOj it must be remembered, which could be easily occupied by anyone in the gallery active enough to step over the asms, or back —a veritable Jupiter's throne, in fact, high up iu a front place among the gods. Away he went presently in a perfectly promising fashion. It took me back to former times, and I became, as of yore, greatly fascinated. Yet, no ; it was not quite like the old thing ; it lacked one essential clement—the man appeared a little nervous. His face did nor wear the same calm, imperturbable expression of Leotard, and his smile, though quiet, looked forced. Instead, too, of his seeming to gain confidence, this look of anxiety increased, as it seemed to me, with each succeeding flight; and when for the last time he landed on his perch, he did so with a sort of check in his action which gave me quite a qualm. He appeared almost as if he might have fallen. Now, there was never a suspicion of this sort of thing about Leotard. One of the great charms of his feats was the perfect certainty you felt of their accomplishment. This fellow's nervousness was communicating itself to me. Yet there seemed no reason for it, for all that he did, all his twistings and turnings were executed with perfect precision and grace. But for the expression on his face, and his slight hesitation at his perch, there seemed to be no cause for mistrusting him. He came through it all at last amidst thunders of applause from a crowded house, enough to have reassured any man, one would have thought. But not so with him. I could see that he trembled. The anxious expression on his face was considerably increased as he stood bowing, and he never took his eyes off the centre of the gallery. He kept looking at it, as if expecting something to happen there. I went behind when he had retired, and our manager introduced me to him. A very few words assured me that he was quite a gentleman in manner and speech, as indeed his appearance indicated —a very good second edition of Leotard, I thought to myself. He begged me to sit and talk to him while he changed his dress; and when this was done, and he turned out in a dark frock coat and a tall hat, he might have passed for Leotard's brother. He had evidently formed himself upon his predecessor. The ' show folk's' arc not ceremonious. We were soon on friendly terms, and we left his dressing room together. His wife, a young, pretty—in fact highly attractive woman, was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. He introduced me, and after a few civilities they went away together, evidently a very loving pair. Still, his anxiety did not leave him, certainly not when he took his wife's hand and placed it under his arm, just as if he feared someone was going to take her away from him.

My profession has trained me perhaps to cultivate to the utmost my natural propensity to observe closely, so I observed these little matters very closely indeed, and thought a great deal about them. The next night 1 stole another hour for a visit to the amphitheatre, but I was too late for Volagio's performance. As I crossed the back of the stage the people wer« talking about it, and lauding it highly. It was a great success everybody agreed, but one man said to another—

"Yes, all right, very likely! but it seemed to me he pretty nigh missed his tip more than once," and one of the ladies declared she couldn't hear to look at it. She felt there would bo an accident some nij/l't. Precisely what I felt the first time I saw him. His wife was waiting for him as previously, audi began talking to her. Isaid, amongst other things — " Has your luixbiind beou long—has he been brought up, I mean, to this profession ?"

" Brought up to it, but never originally intended for it," she answered. "He really only besriln his training when he was thirteen, but he his m.-isiered it fully, iintu-ithi'taiKiirig' th-'t he lieir«n no lute."

Owinsr t» the ureatarfrncii'>n, Vobiirio's engagement was prolonged. I took iuany

opportunities of watching him, and with precisely the same result. Ho always evinced anxiety, especially when Hearing and restiug on tho gallery. If anything he seemed to check more and more, and at last I almost concluded it was intentional, a piece of professional trickery to increase the interest by communicating a qualm of fear to the audience. Yet ho was not that sort of man. On tho last night but one, however, of the entertainment, he overdid it. If I was not much mistaken ho was within an ace of missing his footing as he turned round on alighting on his peroh, and I did not hesitate afterwards to tell him what I feared. He evaded my remark with a strange, absent air, as he muttered, " He'll bo the death of me some night, as he swore ho would." "What do you mean?" I said. " Who'll be the death of you f" He stared at me vacantly, and his unrouged cheeks were blanched " " You are not well," I continued " Are you suffering from some mental anxiety ?" "Ah, yes," ho replied, though not seeming quite to understand the question. And then suddenly, pulling himself together, and smiling faintly, he went on, " No, no, it's nothing, nothing but what I'm used to." And then he hurried away to his dressing room. Feeling now perfectly sure that the man had something on his mind which was unnerving and depressing him, or worse, I sought his wife with a view to having a word with her about him. But she was nowhere to be found, and only appeared behind tho scenes just in time to walk away with him as he came down the stairs.

The next night, tho last of his engagement, I determined to be present, and was in good time. As I looked round the house from my snug pit-box, 1 suddenly espied his wife seated in the front row of the gallery next to what I have called the throne of Jupiter, the seat that is iu the middle just behind the perch, and on which Volagio occasionally reclined in an easy, graceful manner for a minute or two in the intervals of his flights. This discovery set me speculating. Had she gone there to inspire him with confidence—a proceeding I thought rather calculated to do the very reverse— or did she, poor soul, fancy (hat in the event of his really tottering or slipping she could save him ?

"Another very doubtful bib of judgment," I said to myself. I could not make it out. She probably had been up there the night before, though I had Dot noticed her. The gallery, like all parts of the house, was very crowded. The masses swarmed thick around her, and she must have taken her seat before the doors were opened. My interest was keenly on tiptoe, and I heartily wished the whole business over. I confess a horrible sense of dread that something would happen overcame me, and when the time arrived for the performance to begin, I could hardly sit still. As the blatant band struck up the accustomed tune, Volutin bounded on to tho stage and rapidly swarmed up the rope to the first trapeze without any of that calm, slow demeanour usually characterising him. There was an air of desperation about him which was quite noticeable, even at starting, and which certainly increased at every flight. He appeared to be getting quite reckless. But this in no wise diminished the precision with which his gyrations wero accomplished, and as an audience catches up iu sympathy the spirit of a performer, his daring in this instance was immediately communicated to it. The applause was louder than ever, and as the exhibition neared its conclusion I was beginning to feel i[tiite relieved, when, all of a sudden alighting on the perch at the lust flight he threw up his arms as ho was turning round, and must have fallen headlong backwards, had he not been seized by a woman in tho next seat, who stood up on tho instant, and dragged or pushed him backwards into "Jupiter's throne." The whole thing was so instantaneous and unexpected, and the distance from me so great, that I could not tell precisely how it was done, or what had actually occurred. But there Volagio lay, huddled in a heap, with people bending over him, and a general hubbub and confusion going on all round.

I have drawn attention to this seat as being accesible from the gallery, but I did no; know till afterwards that a notice was posted on it forbidding anyone to occupy it, which accounted for it always being vacant. Lucky, indeed, that it was so on this occasion, and that there was consequently its open space ready to receive the helpless form of the acrobat for helpless I now saw he was as he was lifted slowly and carefully over the back and carried up and out of the gallery. Running round to the foot of the stairs I met the descending crowd, but when room was made for the hapless man, borne by sturdy arms, I had hiin conveyed to the green room. His wifo it was, of course, who had soized him, and who now, eagerly clinging to me, hurried along by my side ; but this was not the moment to question her. I had no anxiety as to broken hones, becauso nothing had happened to occasion bodily injury, but when he was eventually laid on a sofa, I found him quite comatose. A littlo brandy soon restored consciousness, but only slowly did he at all recover his senses. When at length he was able to speak in any way coherently, his utterances were marked by a tone of terror, and accompanied by sucb scared looks to right and loft that I saw at once he was the victim of somo terrible fear.

" What is it, my friend?" I said; "you are perfectly safe now. What are you dreading ?" "Are you quite sure he is not in the room ?" he panted out presently, gazing wildly over his shoulder, "because he was iu tin; seat, that I'll swear—stepped over it just as I was landing; ho has been on the point of doing so every night since I have been in this cursed place—and—and he did it to-night as I knew he would. He had a pistol in his hand, and pre sented it at me point blank. He always carries a revolver and threatens to shoot me."

This speech confirmed my gravest suspicions—and, turning to his wife, I said in an undertone —

"He is very ill; he must have complete rest for some time : let us get him home at once."

When at length I had seen him to bed in their lodgings, and prescribed a composing draught, he eventually fell asleep. Then taking his poor wife into the little sitting roon, I asked her if she could account for the serious mental condition under which he was evidently^labouriup. " Alas ! yes," she answered, with difficulty, restraining her emotion. " I fear I am the cause of it all." " You ? how so ? " " Well, if I am to tell you everything-, and perhaps I ought, you must know th it I was on the stage—nor have I entirely left it now. In the laat company I was engaged in there was a man—our leading gentleman—who wanted to marry me. But I could never have listened to him, even if I had been free to do so, for he was a hateful intemperate person. But I could not listen to him, I say, simply because I was engaged to my husband—we were to be married at the end of my engagement, and we were. When I told this man how matters stood, he grew furious, and swore that if he did not marry me no one should. He continued to par.-ue me and to persecute me in spite of everything. Ho behaved abominably, and when at the settled time George, my biuband, came to claim me, hu threatened

him. Even on the day of our marriage, ho intruded upon ua so brutally that ho had to be given into custody, and was bound over to keep the peace. Wo loft the town whero all this happened, and never set eyes on him again until wo came here to Ravelsborough. When we got out of tlio train .almost the first person we saw in tho crowd on the platform was our venomous enemy. He glared at us so savagely as to quite unnerve poor George, who said he knew that fellow would be the death of him some day. I endeavoured to re-assuro and pacify him as best I could, and I had the great and unexpected satisfaction before we loft the station, of seeing this man go off by another train bound south. But I had great difficulty in making George believe this. He thought I must be mistaken, for he declared he saw him after the train left, and he has never got rid of the idea that he is still here. Ever since we have been here he seems to have been haunted by that wicked, diabolical face. He has insisted that he has seen it in the gallery every night of his engagement, just behind the chair, glaring at him with the same villainous expression. Over and over again he has declared, as you heard him to-night, that our enemy has seemed about to step over into the seat just as George landed. This evening he swore the man was actually sitting there at the moment ho was about to turn round ; you heard him say so, sir. Fortunately, I was on the look out for anything that might happen, and so, by God's mercy, I was able to do what I did." The poor woman here gave way to such a burst of tears that she became almost hysterical. " Well, well," I said, endeavouring to compose her, "don't talk any more about it to-night, try and get some sleep yourself. I will come and see you the first thing in the morning." But she held my hand for a minute to detain me, and said nervously, "I must tell you what is so curious. I can't explain how it was but somehow, just as I seized my husband, I seemed to see or to fancy I saw, someone step out of the seat, and who turned as he did so, showing me that horrible face. It was only for a moment—instantaneous like a flash of lightning, but I nm sure I saw it." What can a doctor say in a case like this ? How can he bring a patient round to that calm, rational state of mind which will enablo him or her to understand that such an idea as this poor lady had got into her head is due to physical causes ? Due to the overstraining of the nervous system to its exhaustion, in fact, from the friction to which it had been subjected by her husband's own nervous condition, and by his perpetually harping on his one hallucination ; also on his part the result of similar nervous depression ? Even if I wrro competent, this, .however, is not the place for a treatise on the mysteries which still exist, us I have said, ou the prcciso relations betwixt mind and body, that rower which apparently the mind has through its retina of projecting from within, as it were, on the physical retina, tho impression of an image it has conceived. " You must both of you." I said, " try and give up work for awhile Getaway, if you can, to the seaside, anywhere, for rest and fresh air." I knew I was prescribing what was practically impossible for them to adopt, and I soon relapsed into some commonplaces of a consolatory nature, and for the next few days did what I could under the circumstances. As much success attended the efforts as could be expected. Neither husband nor wife were constitutionally fitted for the life they were following, but it was not my province to go into this question, much as I might have wished to serve them. I am here only concerned with the case as a curious fragment of professional experience. Its sequel, however, lends it additional complications, and emphasised its mysterious character. Here it is. Volagio—as I will call him—and his wife, left Ravelsborough in tlto course of the next week to fulfil other engagements. She promisjd to write and let me know how her husband fared, and much as I dreaded to hear what I was fain to expect would be his fate, I took heart when I read the contents of her letter, received forae days after their departure. When she had poured out her gratitude for my poor services, she went on to say sho had every reason to hope that her husband would now recover his old courage and health, inasmuch as it had transpired through the theatrical organs of tho press that the dreaded rival and enemy of Volagio, a fairly well known professional in the provinces, had in a fit of drunkenness on that very last night of Volagio's appearance at Ravelsborough, and at about the actual time he had so nearly fallen from his perch with terror—committed suicide, " Aud as if," she went onto say. "this coincidence were not startling enough, I have heard through a private source that immediately before my unhappy persecutor committed the dreadful act, he swore that if ho had my poor husband there at that moment ho would shoot him like a dog. It was exactly as if George and I might have actually heard his words, and havo really beheld his wicked face, notwithstanding the fact that at least 300 miles lay between us. He had been acting— had only just come off the stage. He held a revolver in his hand. It was a necessary property for his part, and seems to have been loaded, for it was immediately afterwards that ho turned it upon himself. Is not this most remarkable?" *

Here we are, then, face to face with one of those mysterious coincidences which a certain school of thinkers refuse to accept by that name. Again, Ido not obtrude any opinion of my own, I havo merely here set down the facts as they came to my knowledge, for what they are worth. Others must judge if they bear iu any way upon that occult lore which seems nowadays to be engaging the attentiou of intellects in many instances commanding our respeot.—Sporting and Dramatic.