The Truth About Verity Sparks (14 page)

“Alexander is restless,” said Mr Tissot. “Have patience. He doesn’t yet know who he is.”

“You are kind, James,” said Mr Savinov

What with laughing and having lemonade and tea and cakes, we passed another half an hour, and then Judith kissed Kathleen and said we must go. We were back in the orchard when she turned to me.

“I’ve still got the book.”

“We can go back,” I said. “It will only take a few minutes.”

“Oh, will you take it back for me?” she said. “I don’t want anyone to think … to think that …”

To think that you can’t stay away from Mr Opie?
I didn’t say that, of course.

“I’ll run back,” I offered, and held out my hand for the book.

They were all still sitting out by the pond, so I gave the book to Mr Tissot and quickly walked away. In the lane I slowed down again. Little birds were hopping and calling and eating the last of the berries in the hedges. The autumn sun was still warm, the sky was blue, and it felt as if the whole world was a sunlit, peaceful place. Being city-bred, I’d never known much peace and quiet. I stood daydreaming for a moment, and then, out of the blue, there was that feeling again. It was the same as when I’d been waiting for Beth on the canal walk. I was being watched.

I spun around. There were trees on either side of the lane, and I could see their leaves trembling. Imagination, I told myself sternly. Like Kathleen said, it can be a dangerous thing. Why, a person could scare herself half to death when it’s just little birds. Then I heard another sound. It sounded like a cough. Birds don’t cough.

“Judith?” I whispered.

With a whirring of tiny wings, a flock of birds shot out from the bushes, chirping and chirruping. What had disturbed them? Was it a cat? And what was that? It sounded like someone’s foot crunching on a twig.

Panicking now, I called, “Judith!”

“I’m just here, Verity.” She moved into view, and I walked towards her. Another twig snapped somewhere behind me, and I broke into a trot.

“Oh, Judith!”

“There was no need to run,” she said. “Was … was Mr Opie still there?”

“Yes.”

She gave a shy smile, followed quickly by a frown, and then walked ahead of me back to the house.

I followed slowly. Every now and then I glanced back. It
must
have been my imagination. I was just twitchy, I told myself, after that business with the letter. No one was there.

Perhaps it was the fog that put a dampener on things. After days of autumn sun the weather had changed, and when we left for the seance on Thursday night, a chill mist was settling. At first it was as wispy as the veiling on a ladies bonnet, but as we drove closer to the city it turned into fog. Like a blanket, I thought. Or a shroud.

It wasn’t really like me to think about shrouds, but I’d been as jumpy as a cat all day and now I was feeling downright miserable. I wasn’t the only one. Judith was moping about like a wet hen, the Professor had come down with a head cold that kept him tucked up with lemon drinks and hot water bottles, and even SP wasn’t his usual self. But he tried to cheer me up. He told me all about Cleopatra’s interesting condition – she had eggs, six of them – and how he’d seen the Prince of Wales in our street last week, and that there was a new case to work on. A problem with a will. I’m afraid I wasn’t really listening, and we both fell silent. SP sighed. It was a long, heavy sigh.

“It’s time I told you something, Verity.” But he didn’t.

“Have you found out who wrote those letters?” I asked him after a bit.

“No, no. Nothing like that. It’s about us.”

“Who?”

“Us. The Plush family,” he said impatiently, as if I was being deliberately stupid. “Oh, I’m sorry, Verity. I just wish that we were not going to this seance tonight.”

“Me too. Why don’t we get John to turn back and have a quiet night at home?”

He smiled, and then shook his head. “We promised we’d call for Maria. And I told Father I’d take you, since he’s laid low with this cold.” Another great big sigh, and he began.

“Three years ago we were living in Cambridge. Cambridge is a town, but it’s also the name of a university. Father had just been elected Professor of Astronomy there. I had nearly finished my law degree; Judith was just out of Miss Mitten’s Academy for Young Ladies. And then this strange thing happened.”

“What thing?”

“Early one morning, Father saw my mother walking by the river. She was dressed in one of her prettiest dresses, and she smiled and waved to him.”

What was so strange about that? I wondered.

As if to answer my question, SP continued, “Father was running to fetch the doctor, Verity. For at that very moment, Mother was at home, in bed, dying.”

A shiver ran right through me. Goose walking on your grave, Cook used to call it.

SP sighed. “Father believed that Mother, at the point of death, was thinking of him, and thus appeared by the river. After that, he became obsessed with the idea of life after death. He went to seances and readings; he consulted psychics and mystics and mediums. I believe some were genuine, but others were out-and-out frauds, only Father couldn’t see it. He resigned from the university and devoted himself to the study of the supernatural. His university friends thought he’d gone off his head, and urged him to keep his project secret, but he wouldn’t listen. It took its toll on his health, and finally … finally Father was quite ill. We moved here and gradually he became more like himself again. He was able to recognise the frauds at least, and exposed several of them. Did you ever hear of the Frascati sisters? Or Ariel Smoot? That’s how the Confidential Inquiry Agency began. He has continued to conduct experiments in perception and intuition, and write scientific papers on them. But this new ability of yours, this psychometry … we’re back with the dead, and …”

I was glad that SP had told me about his father. Now I understood him a little better. And SP too. “And you’re worried about him, aren’t you?” I said.

“Not just him.” SP sounded grave. “I am also worried about you.”

We picked up Miss Lillingsworth and then drove to the house where the meeting was to be held. I don’t know what I’d imagined – some shabby side street, perhaps – but it turned out that it was in Mayfair. Mayfair is a very posh address. I knew that ’cos some of Madame’s best clients – big orders, late payments – lived there. We were being ushered in by a snooty manservant when I felt a tug at my elbow.

“Spare a penny, miss?”

It was a child. Too young to be out alone on a night like this, she was barefoot and dressed only in a light summer dress. Her arms were as thin as chicken bones and her eyes seemed huge in her little white face.

“Be off with you,” said the footman, shooing her like you’d try to scare off a pigeon, but the girl looked up at me with her big eyes.

“Please, miss.” SP turned towards her and she flinched, as if expecting to be hit. “Please, sir, I only …”

“What’s your name, dear?” asked Miss Lillingsworth.

“Polly.”

“Here you are, Polly,” said Miss Lillingsworth.

The little girl stared. Then she darted forward, snatched the coin out of Miss Lillingsworth’s hand, and ran.

“There’s gratitude for you,” muttered the footman. “Filthy little beggar.”

“Through no fault of her own,” snapped Miss Lillingsworth. I thought she was going to give him a lecture on charity, but she changed her mind. “Are we early?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” he said. “You are expected. Will you come this way?” He led us to the Red Drawing Room, and left us to wait for Lady Skewe and the medium.

The medium was called Mrs Miller, Miss Lillingsworth told us, and she was new to the Mayfair Spiritualist Circle.

“Mediums generally operate in a similar way,” Miss Lillingsworth said. “Guests at the seance sit in a circle around a table and hold hands. The room will be darkened, and then it’s simply a matter of waiting for the medium to go into a trance. The spirits of the departed–”

“Dead people,” interrupted SP.

“That was in bad taste, SP,” said Miss Lillingsworth, sounding every bit the governess. “As I was saying, they usually speak to the medium through a spirit guide or control. Madame Fustanella’s was a druid called Orloc, but I believe Mrs Miller has a Scotchman.” SP snorted, and she grinned. “Poor SP. Shall you sit out?”

“No, no. I might need to translate.”

It was Miss Lillingsworth’s turn to snort. “We will ignore him. Mrs Miller’s spirit guide is called Doctor Proctor, and Lady Skewe tells me he
is
rather hard to understand sometimes, especially when he gets excited – he becomes quite vernacular.”

I was still pondering the word “vernacular” when two ladies walked into the room. I picked Mrs Miller at once. She looked just like I expected – pale, with a widow’s peak, trailing veils and shawls and ropes of jet beads.

“Lady Skewe, how kind of you to let us come,” said Miss Lillingsworth, rising to greet her.

So I was wrong. I stared at the elegant young woman who followed in Lady Skewe’s wake. She was more like a fashion plate than my idea of a medium. She was wearing a ruffled peach-coloured dress with a little draped bustle, a tip-tilted evening hat that Madame would have been proud of, and neat boots with fancy buttons. She was holding the arm of a tall, whiskery man in smart evening clothes. He had the most magnificent moustache I’d ever seen, even bushier than SP’s false one, and a funny round glass thing squinted into one eye.

“And this is Colonel Jebb, Mrs Miller’s cousin,” said Lady Skewe.

“Pleased to meet you,” boomed the Colonel.

“Pleased to meet you,” murmured Mrs Miller.

Though she was a real English rose, with blond hair and a pink-and-white complexion, she didn’t sound English at all. SP came forward and bowed over her hand.

“Do you mind me asking whereabouts in America you hail from, Mrs Miller?”

“From Baltimore, sir,” Colonel Jebb answered for her, and she repeated it, very softly. She had a soft, flat, girlish sort of voice, and though she didn’t seem shy, she clearly didn’t have very much to say for herself. I hoped Doctor Proctor was a bit more talkative or the seance was going to be as flat as one of Cook’s sponge cakes. I’d been a bit anxious before, but now … well, Mrs Miller was so ordinary that it seemed just a tiny bit silly.

We sat down in awkward silence, and then the manservant showed in two more guests. They were Mr Egg, a short tubby man who was trembling before we’d even started, and a French lady called Madame Dumas. She looked very stylish in a maroon silk evening gown that set off her dark hair and eyes. I noticed those eyes. They darted restlessly all over the room.

“Shall we begin?” said Lady Skewe brightly, for all the world as if we were going to play cards. The gas was turned down to a dim blue glow, and we sat, holding hands, waiting. All except Colonel Jebb – he was the recorder for the session.

It was quicker than I’d thought it’d be. Mrs Miller tilted her pretty face slightly upwards, closed her eyes and slumped forward. In a deep, growly voice she demanded, “Who’s he?”

“Who is who, Doctor?” asked Lady Skewe.

“There’s a one among ye who’d rather not be,” said Mrs Miller. Or Doctor Proctor, I suppose I should say. “And to tell ye the truth, I’d rather he not be too. Tell him to sit by fire. Sit by the fire, and watch and listen. Then he can write it all up for his casebooks.” There was a cackle of not very nice laughter. “What volume are ye up to, laddie? Three? Four?”

SP changed places with Colonel Jebb, and I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or not. I clasped Madame Dumas’s cold hand in mine. After a few seconds silence, the Doctor spoke again.

“Well, there are a few of ye here tonight, and there’ll be taking turns or I’ll have a word to say about it, indeed I will. Tubsy? Is Tubsy there?”

Mr Egg quivered. “Mother?”

“She wants to know why ye’ve not married. Tubsy, she says, there’s Clara Claringbold very fond of ye and a most suitable wife in spite of the height difference. She wants to see grandchildren at Coddle Court. She wants lots of grandchildren.”

“Yes, Mother.” Poor Mr Egg was quivering like a jelly.

“She only wants ye to be happy, she says. She only wants what’s best for ye. That other young person would never have been right for ye. It would have been a shameful connection.”

At this point, Mr Egg began to cry.

“Chin up, Tubsy, she says. Be a man. And she says, look into Great Southern Consolidated. Buy shares now: by Thursday there’ll be a run on them, and ye’ll have missed out.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Mrs Miller sighed, and her head fell sideways. In the dim lamplight, she looked very pale.

“Palmyra? Palmyra!” Mrs Miller rapped the table, and Lady Skewe sat up to attention. Doctor Proctor was off again, talking quickly in that dry and scratchy voice and rolling his R’s. It seemed that Lady Skewe’s mother was most concerned that her daughter’s servants had let moths get into the linen cupboards. And silverfish in the library, and black beetles in the kitchen. Then suddenly, Doctor Proctor asked, “Does Verity remember the ragbag?”

The ragbag. It was just the tiniest wisp of a memory, but I seemed to be on the floor, with scraps of colour and softness scattered all around me. Velvet, I realised, and silk and satin. Just like the little quilt Ma had given me.