# The Strange Experiences of Tina Malone/Chapter 9

CHAPTER IX.
THE CHAIN OF VOICES.
This name I gave to the voices I heard as I tried to go about my work. I was so languid, physically, that I moved slowly and my actions were criticised and commented on in such a scoffing and cruel manner by some unseen entities that I became so wavering that I would move first one way, then the opposite, in putting down a plate or cup, etc., as if unable to decide as to where it should go.
It seemed to me as if I heard the voices second-hand—as if someone were telling me second-hand what they were saying. It was something like this:—"I see you standing there with a cup in your hand and a smile on your face"—then unmerciful criticism of my person, and the most dreadfully low language I have ever heard in my life, and a feeling that someone was laughing at echoes—echoes—echoes—of the one thing, but each echo twisted into a different form. What it all meant I can't say, but it made me feel I was being watched in every movement.
This I called the "Chain of Voices" and myself the pendant as being separate from them and attached against my will. I supposed the chain in this fashion—Why I don't know.
First Voice attached to Second Voice which was attached to Third Voice and so on round in a circle till they reached the "Bear" at the end of the Chain—Pluto, I called him, for they were but demons scoffing and laughing at me, their victim.
I also supposed that somewhere that "Bear" at the end of the Chain—Pluto—was directing his force through the links who delivered it each in her own fashion. But why? And why aimed at me?
Tony was away all this time. I was always thinking of him and somehow I seemed to be conscious of his whereabouts.
He wrote to me that he was leaving by boat for Grafton.
I read the letter and put it aside and went to do my marketing.
"Patrick" was with me. He was always there within call. I was conscious of him because I found a smile coming into my eyes and mouth—a happy smile and a merry one. I knew it was not my own.
The day Tony wrote to me that he left Grafton I found myself swaying as if to the rocking of a boat. This surprised me. I seemed to be in touch with him—a kind of telepathy ​I suppose—asking and being answered questions all the time. The next day I found myself looking from side to side with a feeling of pleasure and enjoyment as one does on arriving at a new place, and an interested smile on my face. The next day I was conscious again of the movement of the boat when he continued his journey.
The Presence was always with me. We went shopping together and I found him even answering my questions when I asked him what I should buy.
It left no room for loneliness, but it made it impossible for me to do anything but keep my rooms in order, prepare and eat the simplest meals and nothing more.
It seemed to change its individuality and be somehow different people.
Whether I was what was called "Calling Spirits" or not I don't know, but I know they were different entities and of different dispositions.
One evening I was sitting at the open window, dreaming.
Suddenly there was a feeling of a straightening of my spine and then I felt myself taking a long deep breath.
Then, I suppose, I was what the occultists call "passive." I felt I was another person.
I let myself go—curious to see what would take place.
I found myself getting up and walking over to an armchair, putting my hands on its arms and speaking as if to another person sitting in the chair.
"Had I, I wonder, better go?" I found my lips saying in a kind of rhythm: "Had I, I wonder, bet-ter? Had I, I wonder, better go—Had I, I wonder, bet-ter?"
This went on as if someone were just turning over in his mind what to do. Then, evidently he decided that he had better go for I walked into the other room clasping my hands lightly in front of my waist and seemed to take a walk back into my front room. I then seated myself by the window and clasped my hands round one knee and sat there as if waiting serenely, and perhaps enjoying the moonlight.
Presently I turned and bowed to some unseen presence at my left.
Then I seemed to be answering "Yes, no, no," to some heated conversation and then began some heated conversation myself throwing my arms about in gesticulation. Then I broke out into a kind of patois.
Then I began to expostulate with this unseen person and to protest that I "never said such a thing," calling her a "little silly—Why should I say such a thing?" etc., and finally, turning my head as if watching a very annoyed little person disappearing while I muttered again, "Little silly! Little fool!" and shook my head as if at the unreasonableness of the little fool.
​After sitting quietly for some moments I got up again and, seeming to stand at the doorway and looking into the farther room, I found myself nodding my head and frowning and saying:
"You'll pay me more than that—You'll pay me more—You'll pay me more than that—You'll pay me more."
Who was going to pay and what they were going to pay for was a mystery to me.
I left him at that for I had to go out to get some fruit and I lost him.
But the next morning I woke singing a quaint little song in some foreign language. I listened to it, charmed at the quaintness of the rhythm and accent, and the capricious spirit of it.
Who was it? What was it?
I jumped out of bed and dressed, with the song running through my head even when I did not allow my lips to form the syllables and the tune to express itself.
It was nothing I had ever heard and in a language I could not quite understand—a sort of patois.
I had some things to put together before I went to work, and busied myself and forgot the thing for the moment.
But in a pause I found myself moving my hands about in gestulation and once more the little song came forth.
I stood up and found myself singing the most charming little things, all the piquancy of movement, modulation, rhythm and spirit of a charming actress of opera bouffe.
Then I threw up my hands and clasped them.
"Oh, la pitie de moi! la pitie de moi!" came the words and a rush of the little patois.
I had to hurry out but I supposed I was what was called "possessed."
I called this Presence "The Spanish Actress," and rather enjoyed taking her with me on my rounds—Little snatches of the song came tripping out now and then and I mentally conversed with my unseen companion.
I noticed that my eyes, all that day, were attracted to the colour red—Anything red on the road drew my eyes to it and I seemed to have a feeling of gay pleasure. I found myself walking along with a grace of movement and little quick gestures and charming little dignified movements of the head that were quite foreign to me. I handed my ticket to the guard with charming dignity.
I had dashed off a letter to Tony in the morning, to say that I was acting a Spanish actress and, if he cared to come that evening, I would sing him some of the songs.
I did not like my companion so much as the day wore on. I had to choose some books and she felt awfully bored. I could feel her impatience.
She told me all about herself—that she had died in Paris ​at the time of the influenza scare, that she had been "all alone," that she hated men, that she loved women more; men had not been good to her.
Somehow the individuality seemed to become indefinite as I became busy and used to sink itself into the background.
Tony came in the evening running up from the gate, my letter in his hand and an anxious look on his face.
"Tony! Did you get my letter? Isn't it marvellous? Would you like to see me do it and hear the songs? I'll put the gas out if you like and do it."
But Tony laughed and looked shy.
"No, no, no, no," he said, "you musn't. If you let yourself give way to these things you'll become very ill—You must not do it, Tina!"
I felt horribly crushed. I had longed all my life to be an actress especially of this kind, and could so well catch the spirit of it—all the little arch and coquettish turns of the head and hands, tricks of voice and manner, and quaint little dancing movements of the body.
But Tony was firm. He was sorry for me I could see. He went away early and asked me to write to him again soon and tell him how I was.
So the "Spanish Actress" faded away into obscurity and then another came.
Tony thought I was encouraging them but I wasn't. It was always a surprise to me when I found they had arrived.
One day I found myself taking on the personality of a man and just let myself go to see what was going to happen.
I found myself walking over to my writing-desk and turning the key.
There was a photograph of a cousin of mine in his judge's gown and wig, hanging on the wall above, and just to the left of it a picture of a church window with two kneeling figures at the altar rail and a flood of golden light falling upon them through the stained-glass above.
The Presence half opened the lid of the desk, then his eyes, seeming to be drawn to the picture of the Judge above, scowled at it. He looked from that to the open desk up and down as if he saw Justice in the eyes of the Law above, and then his gaze was drawn to the church window.
Then he opened my desk and with his eye still travelling furtively and anxiously defiant to the Judge, he hurriedly went through my papers, looked at my Savings Bank books, made a grimace of scornful disgust at them, and tossed them aside. He scowled again up at the Judge, evidently afraid of him, then again glanced at the church, then at my bookcase, then attentively along the shelves of my bookcase till his eyes rested on my bible. He got up then, took the bible, carried it to the table, opened it and read a verse. ​I wish I could remember the words of the verse but it had something about "law" in it and that is all I can remember.
This may have been the same Presence who made me carry Tony's photograph and place it on the bed. He went back to the desk, hunted there for another old photograph I had of Tony, found it and with a chuckle of delight, carried it into my bedroom and placed it on my dressing-table. Evidently he was quite decided that Tony was to be in evidence.
He stood too, before the photos of my relations and friends on the mantelpiece and piano, thoughtfully looking at them. I asked him what he predicted of their future. He forecasted something for each and told their characters fairly well.
How long he stayed or what he was there for unless it was to show me he was determined that I was to fall desperately in love with Tony and to marry him, I don't know. He went with me to a picture-show one day, and I know he was kind-hearted for I found that whenever the war pictures came on and there was suffering he shook his old head and let it droop as if unable to bear the sight. But when a funny old Turk came on with a queer American beard and huge, impossible, unaccountable head-dress, I found his eyes attracted at once to him, and a humorous twinkle in them.
This day it was that I seemed to be conscious of him carrying my suitcase for me as if in delighted amusement, a kind of chuckle—at the importance of the matter—And when I arrived home he simply set it in my armchair, opened it, and then shook and bobbed his old head at it, with chuckles of amusement. Very rude and impertinent, I told him.
This may or may not have been the same Presence as the other—there were so many. Sometimes I knew by their ways, but not always and they never stayed long.
Why it was I don't know but I got it into my head that one was connected with Tony. I remembered that when first I met him Tony had told me he had been once to a crystal gazer and she had said that she saw him in a graveyard and someone bending over him. He said he knew it must be his grandfather and that he was taking care of him.
The strange part was that Tony really believed these things. He spoke then as if he knew it was true. He had always believed in the Occult and I, who had never believed in it and counted myself as a materialist had been sent these experiences.
So as it was not Tony the idea came to me that perhaps it was his grandfather's spirit.
​I used to write Tony letters telling him about his grandfather and what he advised him to do, but Tony would not take any of the suggestions.
The one I thought was Tony's grandfather I called Christopher.
He was a funny little old man, cynical and irritable.
He was anxious to see Tony and asked me when he would be coming to see me.
And when Tony did come, and after staying long enough to ask about my queer doings and to laugh at them, had gone home again, I found myself—as Christopher—shaking my head from side to side and quietly crying.
"What's the matter, Christopher?" I asked.
But the old head still wagged and the tears came.
With difficulty I got it from him.
"He doesn't know me," he said. "He doesn't know me."