The Seance (20 page)

Nevertheless I lay awake into the small hours, alternately reproaching myself for deceiving Edward – what would I say, if Mr Montague or Dr Wraxford were to speak of my ‘friend’ in his presence? – and worrying over my letter to my mother. These anxieties became more and more nightmarish until I sank into a troubled sleep, from which I emerged, as it seemed, into a vivid dream. I was wandering through a vast, deserted mansion, which I knew to be Wraxford Hall, searching for a precious jewel Edward had given me. The jewel had been lost; I did not know how, but I knew that my own carelessness was to blame. To make matters worse, I could not remember what kind of stone it was, for as I went from room to room, a voice in my head kept chanting ‘emerald, sapphire, ruby, diamond’, over and over, and none of them seemed right, because the lost stone was a different, a more beautiful colour than any of those, and I knew I ought to be able to picture it, and thus recall its name, but I could not.

In the dream the Hall was absolutely silent; the light throughout, even in corridors where there were no windows, was a pale, uniform grey like that of an overcast sky. The rooms were mostly bare of furniture; each one seemed to have its own miniature flight of stairs, up or down two or three steps, and the corridors kept changing levels in similar fashion.
Though the house itself was not especially sinister, my anxiety over the fate of the jewel grew steadily more acute until it had risen to an unbearable pitch.

Then it occurred to me that I had still not searched the dining-room. The thought precipitated a vertiginous change of scene; the light sank to a dim, murky brown, and I was standing in the doorway of the room where we had dined that night. The curtains were drawn, the candles snuffed; the room seemed to be empty, but as I crept towards the table I saw, above the back of the chair in which George had sat, the dark outline of a head. I knew somehow that the head was Dr Wraxford’s. There was still time for me to slip quietly away; but perhaps the jewel had fallen into the lining of my chair, and if I were to tiptoe forward very quietly I might be able to see it. I was within two feet of the motionless figure when a voice spoke from the doorway behind me, a word that rang like a gong, louder and louder until it became my own cry of ‘No!’ and I woke in grey dawn light to find myself standing at the head of the stairs.

Our guests had stayed the night, but I could not face them again, and kept to my room until they had driven away. I had meant to tell Ada about my dream, if not the sleepwalking, but all thought of it was driven from my head by the delivery of a wire from my mother, consisting of just two words: ‘Return immediately.’ I knew at once that I would have to defy her, and pleaded with Ada to allow me to leave all my things at the rectory, and return that evening, if the trains allowed it.

‘But then we will be in open conflict with her,’ said Ada, ‘and she may write to the bishop. Her accusations need not be true for George to lose the living.’

‘Then I must find a way of stopping her,’ I said. ‘The thing she fears most is losing Arthur Carstairs. And no matter what happens, I will never
live with her again; if I cannot stay with you, I will seek a situation. I would rather be a parlourmaid than live with Mama.’

‘You do not know what you are saying,’ said Ada. ‘But of course you may come back to us; and perhaps it will not be as bad as you fear.’

On the way to London, I tried to imagine every possible threat Mama might employ, and think of some counter to it. But as the cab rumbled up Highgate Hill I still felt utterly unprepared for the ordeal ahead. I realised too that, pretty as Highgate was, it had ceased to be home to me. I thought of my father, lying in his grave a few hundred yards away – though of course he was not there, only his mortal remains; and if he had not simply ceased to be, where was his spirit? – which reminded me of my visitations, and of how I had walked in my sleep last night for the first time in many months; and of my mother’s threat to have me confined; until I was set down at the familiar black-painted door, trembling so that I was scarcely able to stand.

A maid I had never seen led me past the drawing-room to the parlour at the far end of the passage, where my mother sat waiting. She did not speak, but motioned me to an upright chair facing her own, as if I were an errant child about to be punished. She wore a crape dress, so that I wondered for a moment if some relation had died, and her pale hair was drawn back even more tightly than usual, making the bones of her face stand out against the tautened skin. As the door closed behind the maid I saw that my mother was holding my letter between the finger and thumb of her left hand.

‘Am I to take it,’ she said, dangling the letter as if the mere touch of it disgusted her, ‘that you are utterly determined to be the ruin of us all?’

‘No, Mama—’

‘Then you repent of this foolishness?’

‘No, Mama—’

‘Then you
are
resolved to ruin us. This – this Ravenscroft; where did you meet him?’

‘At Orford, Mama. He was painting—’

‘I am not interested in painting; only in how Mr Woodward could have allowed this disgraceful liaison to develop. He has failed shamefully in his duty, and I shall write to his bishop to say so—’

‘Mama, that is most—’

‘
Do not interrupt me
. I wish to know where, and on what occasions, you met this libertine and allowed him to seduce you.’

‘Edward is not a libertine, Mama, and he has not seduced me; he is a respectable gentleman.’

‘I thought you said that he was an artist.’

‘Yes, Mama, a very fine—’

‘Very fine indeed! Of course he is a libertine, to take advantage of a wilful, selfish girl run wild. It is moral insanity, just as Dr Stevenson said; I should have had you quietly confined before you disgraced us. Now listen to me. There will, of course, be no engagement. I forbid you to hold any further communication with this Ravenscroft, or to return to Mr Woodward’s house. Dr Stevenson will examine you tomorrow, and then we will see ... what is to be done with you. Do I make myself clear?’

I had sat, thus far, unable to move, transfixed by her furious stare. My tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of my mouth; the words I was struggling to utter emerged as inarticulate sounds.

‘Sophie is not at home,’ said my mother, in answer to whatever she thought I had said. ‘She does not wish to see you until you have repented of this wickedness. She said to me, when she read your letter, “I did not think any sister could be so cruel”.’

‘That is not fair!’ I cried. ‘I care very much for Sophie’s happiness. Are you afraid, Mama, that the Carstairs will break the engagement if they hear that I am engaged to Edward?’

‘Afraid? Afraid! Are you quite mad, Eleanor? At the merest hint that my eldest daughter proposes to throw herself away upon a penniless libertine, of course they will cry off.’

‘And when is Sophie to be married, Mama?’

‘The wedding is planned for November.’

‘Very well,’ I said, summoning my courage, ‘then Edward and I will not announce – we will not publish our engagement until after Sophie is married.’ I remembered as I spoke that I had already told Mr Montague and Dr Wraxford.

‘How dare you bargain with me? Did you not hear me? You will not marry this Ravenscroft at all.’

‘You forget, Mama, that I am of age, and may marry whom I choose.’

My mother seemed to swell in the dim light.

‘If you do not obey me,’ she hissed, ‘I shall cut off your allowance. And I doubt that Mr Woodward will receive you again, if he wishes to keep his living.’

‘If you do that, Mama,’ I said breathlessly, ‘Edward and I might as well marry at once; and then what will become of Sophie’s engagement?’

She rose to her feet, eyes bulging. I thought she meant to fling herself upon me like a wild beast, and sprang up in turn, almost knocking over my chair. If she had had a dagger in her hand, I am sure she would have laid me dead on the carpet; yet as we stood face to face, I realised, as if for the first time, that I was taller than my mother.

‘Let us understand one another,’ I said, in a voice I scarcely recognised as my own. ‘Edward and I will not announce our engagement until Sophie is married, and in return you will leave me my allowance until
I
am married, and promise not to write to the bishop. Shall we agree?’

She stared at me, speechless, for several seconds, while I braced myself for another onslaught. But instead she spoke with freezing disdain, pausing every few words for emphasis; and at every pause she tore my letter into smaller and smaller pieces, and let the fragments scatter at my feet.

‘I see, Eleanor, that you are utterly beyond redemption. Very well: we will tell the Carstairs that you are ill, and have been sent for a long convalescence in the country. You will, of course, be too ill to attend Sophie’s wedding; your allowance will cease from that day. I will have the rest of
your things sent on to Mr Woodward. Henceforth I have only one daughter. No – not one word more. You may leave this house now; you will not return.’

She let fall the last scraps of paper and turned towards the door, ringing for the maid as she opened it.

‘Our visitor is leaving us,’ I heard her say. ‘You may show her to the door.’ Her footsteps receded along the passage and up the stairs.

‘Will you kindly summon me a cab?’ I said as the girl appeared, ‘I am feeling faint, and must have a moment ...’

She took the coin I offered her, glancing fearfully at the ceiling, and left.
I must get away from here
, I told myself, and moved unsteadily to the door and along the hall as far as the entrance to the drawing-room. There I was forced to stop, grasping the frame for support. The door stood open, as it had been on the fateful afternoon of the Carstairs’ visit. There was the sofa where Mama and Sophie had been sitting; there was the place opposite where my mother had asked me to sit. I saw, as if it were yesterday, the slender young man in his dark suit of mourning, and realised with horror exactly where I had first seen Edward Ravenscroft.

I cannot recall how I got out of the house. I suppose the maid must have helped me into the cab, but there is only a blank interval between that moment and finding myself jolting through the reeking streets of Shoreditch. The train journey passed in a haze of numbness, during which I seemed mercifully incapable of thought, and it was only when I saw Ada standing at the rectory door that the emotions of the day came flooding back. The interview with my mother was more than enough to justify my distress, and recounting it to Ada served, at least, to reduce the memory of what I had seen to a small, cold weight in the pit of my stomach. But alone in my room that night, with the bed seemingly swaying like the carriage, and the clack and rattle of the train still ringing in my
ears, I was forced to confront the image of the young man upon the sofa.

Superficially, the two were quite different: Edward’s hair was long and unruly, whereas the young man’s had been short and scrupulously brushed; his complexion had been smooth and pale, whereas Edward’s was roughened by wind and sunshine; the young man had sat very straight and still, with his hands clasped upon his knees, whereas Edward tended to sprawl. But their faces were the same: they were the same height, and had the same figure: you had only to imagine that one had gone into the law and the other into art to see that the young man might have been Edward’s identical twin brother. How the likeness had eluded me I could not now imagine, unless some protective instinct had shrouded my memory.

If a young man of that exact description were to die
... Of course Edward is not going to die, I told myself desperately; it is all coincidence; I was overwrought after the scene with Mama; I have exaggerated the likeness. But dread would not release its grip. Would I ever be able to look at Edward again without seeing the apparition’s face in his? – or fearing that Edward himself might be – not what he seemed? We knew nothing of him, after all; he had sprung, seemingly, from the earth; I did not know for certain that the address he had given me in Cumbria was indeed his father’s ... or even that he
had
a father. Absurd, absurd, said the voice of reason: it is not clairvoyance, I said to myself, only – what did Dr Wraxford say? – a lesion of the brain, and will heal itself in time. But the phrase went spinning from one fearful thought to the next – a legion of the brain, a legion of the brain – until it became the sound of train wheels clattering through a dream in which I was compelled to return again and again to London.