Wild Talent (14 page)

As Alexandra describes it, the Duchesse's mansion is vast, and “
très magnifiqu
e”, with an enormous staircase of rose-coloured marble leading to the bedchamber where she receives her guests. A huge bed on a platform fills most of the room, and the ceiling is covered by hundreds and hundreds of painted angels circling round a golden star.

(“How can she sleep with all those eyes looking down on her?” Alexandra wants to know.) There is also a chapel dedicated to Mary, Queen of Scots. The Duchess, who believes that she is the reincarnation of Mary Stuart, employs a medium to invoke the spirit of that ill-fated queen.

Alexandra writes, “You have attended one of these séances, Jeanne, so I need not go into detail. Suffice to say, there are the usual stage effects — fingertips touching round the table, flickering lamps, mysterious creaking and rapping noises. The medium directs some questions to the table — now possessed, one assumes, by the spirit of Mary Stuart — and the table obligingly raps out its answers, ‘yes' or ‘no'. If instead we ask questions of the medium, she replies with nonsensical babbling. All the while I am thinking to myself, how ridiculous this is! Mary Stuart was by all accounts a clever woman. Do we really become so stupid when we cross over to the spirit world?”

(Perhaps we do, if like poor Mary Stuart we have had our heads chopped off!)

“But yesterday,” says Alexandra, “such a drama! From the table, usually so well-mannered, there suddenly erupted loud, disturbing noises. Everyone looked startled, and the medium, still in a trance state, began to thresh around in her chair. Then we heard a strange, hoarse voice, a man's voice, saying, to no one in particular, ‘The arm of Karma reaches over you, impure couple! Your punishment is nigh. No longer defile this room with your presence!'

“Quelle consternation
! All of us glanced furtively round, to see who might be looking the most guilty. Of course we wanted the spirit to name names, but that was all he had to say.

“Whose voice was this, and what was the purpose of the accusation? I have thought about it since, and I may have an explanation. Do you remember how Madame Blavatsky spoke of reanimated shadows, disembodied souls, who seek by whatever means to attach themselves to the living? They are sly and artful, these elemental spirits, and oftentimes malevolent. They like to play tricks on us, for no better reason than to cause hurt. When the medium went into her trance, invoking the spirit of the Queen of Scotland, she may have called up these mischievous elementals instead. And who knows? Perhaps these reanimated shadows can read our guilty thoughts — for which of us does not feel guilty about some real or imagined sin, and dread being found out?”

Alexandra's letter goes on for some pages to describe, with sly amusement, her further exploits among the Paris
excentriques
. But I have had to set it aside for a moment, for I found my hands trembling. What leaped to mind was the inescapable shadow of my cousin George — sly and evilly disposed in life, and, I could well imagine, equally malevolent in death.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

March 16

I
t was a whim of Fate, I think, that brought me to Lansdowne Place; and Fate that will close this chapter of my life. I know that very soon I must seek new employment. HPB is very ill. She has sworn off further entertainments until her health improves, and so has no need of my assistance in demonstrating her psychokinetic powers.

I think the Countess would like HPB to keep me out of charity, but there is little enough money coming in to support the rest of the household. With work on the final volume of
The Secret Doctrine
now all but set aside, and Mr. Mead and the Keightleys assisting with HPB's other obligations, there is little for me to do.

And that is not the only reason that I must leave Lansdowne Road. Over and over in my mind I have relived that moment when I stood revealed as HPB's accomplice. What must Tom think of me now? I cannot bear the thought of ever facing him again.

If only I were like Alexandra, who dearly loves a new adventure. But I have neither Alexandra's courage, nor her experience of the world, and I tremble at the thought of leaving this safe refuge.

March 30

This morning, while I was at the stationer's buying pens and a new journal book, I was approached by an odd-looking woman, very tall and gaunt, with jet black hair and a pale complexion. She was dressed in a long, loose-sleeved jacket encrusted with jet beads over a flowing black silk skirt, and a black lace shawl draped over that.

“Eet eez the young Scottish lady, eeze it not?” she cried, as she strode towards me like some long-legged, black-feathered bird of prey. “Tell me, how fares my dear Madame Blavatsky?”

And then of course I remembered that I had seen her at one of HPB's Saturday afternoons. It seems she is a psychic and medium, and she calls herself Madame Rulenska, though I believe the “Madame” is an affectation — when she forgets that she is meant to be Eastern European, her accent is broad East End London.

“Madame Blavatsky is not as well as we would wish,” I admitted, “but she remains in good spirits.”

“And is she still performing her parlour tricks?”

How dared she!
Of course I leaped at once to HPB's defense. “They are not tricks! Everyone knows that she has special powers.”

“Do we indeed. And a young lady assistant whose powers are perhaps — shall we say — even more special than Madame B's?”

I stared at her, cheeks burning, too flustered to reply.

“Dearie, your little performance may have fooled those West End ladies. But I too have special powers, and I saw exactly what was going on.”

Hateful woman! I thought. (Though afterwards it occurred to me there was no disapproval in her voice.) In any event, I mumbled something about a luncheon appointment, hastily paid for my purchases, and fled the shop.

April 6
My dear Miss Jean Guthry,
Due to circumstanses arising from my practise of the psychic arts, I am taking the liberty of approaching you. That is to say, Miss Guthry, I find that pressure of business leads me to consider the timely employment of a qualified assistant. Should you in the near future find it nesessary or prudent to leave the employ of Madame Blavatsky, in view of the aforementioned sichuation I would be pleased to interview you.

I read this misspelled and convoluted message twice through before I understood that I was being offered a position; and I knew the time had come to make a decision.

“Oh my dear Jeannie,” said the Countess Constance, when I told her of Madame Rulenska's letter. “And are you truly considering this offer?”

“I think I must.” With what sadness and regret I spoke those words!

“If only I could tell you, stay here, Jeannie. We are all so fond of you, But with Madame B. so ill, I know you must think first of yourself, and how you will manage . . .afterwards.”

We both understood the meaning of that half-whispered “afterwards.” Someday soon — very soon, it seemed — we must all of us go our own ways, and Seventeen Lansdowne Road would be no more.

“I know very little about this Madame Rulenska,” the Countess said. “Do you think she is a woman of good reputation?”

What could I say? The Countess knew as well as I that to the world in general, and to Madame Blavatsky in particular, all mediums were by nature disreputable.

“I suppose,” I replied, “she is no worse than any other.”

“Oh my dear,” cried the Countess. “As bad as that? Promise me that if she is unkind, or the work is unsuitable, you will leave at once.”

“I will,” I said. But I knew that it was an empty promise. Life has offered the Countess the luxury of choice; while I must make the best of whatever Fate or accident sets before me.

April 12

I have replied to Madame Rulenska's letter. Tomorrow I will go to be interviewed at her house in Clerkenwell.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

April 13

A
s the railway plunged out of the daylight on its way to Farringdon Station, I imagined this descent into the underworld as a grim omen of what lay ahead.

Madame Rulenska's house is just off Clerkenwell Green, which sounded agreeable enough when she gave me the address, for of course I imagined the Green as a pleasant city square with trees and lawn, and perhaps some flower beds. What a disappointment! There is nothing green at all in Clerkenwell, as far as I can see. It is in fact a gloomy place of narrow streets and alleys, flanked by warehouses and commercial buildings, with two broad thoroughfares running through.

Shadowed by tall buildings, Madame Rulenska's house stands at the end of a treeless street. It looks a little down-at-heels — a front door in need of painting, lace curtains hanging limply behind windows with peeling frames.

Madame Rulenska greeted me at the door, and we went down a long narrow hallway into the parlour. It was stuffy and close, smelling strongly of potpourri, with a faint chemical undertone. I sat on an overstuffed sofa covered in wine-coloured velour, amid a profusion of embroidered satin and velvet cushions. On various small wicker tables stood a great number of china ornaments, souvenirs of holiday trips. The red velvet overmantel was decorated with gold braid and silken tassels, and on the walls were lithographs of courting couples and Grecian ladies in ornate gilded frames. There was, besides, a large potted palm, and on the floor a scattering of well-worn and faded Turkey rugs.

Over tea and stale digestive biscuits, Madame Rulenska described my duties.

She does not deal in the materialization of spirit forms, and hearing that, I was much relieved, not wanting to risk a second appearance of George's ghost. But she rattled off a list of other phenomena with which I am to assist: the usual knocks and raps (at which by now I am quite adept), the lifting and movement of furniture and other objects, and their sudden appearance out of thin air; and also the mysterious sounding of musical instruments. As well, Madame Rulenska practises clairvoyance, by which she means mind-reading, the viewing of messages in sealed envelopes, fortune-telling and the like. In all of these performances, I will be expected to assist. I have never shown any talent for fortune-telling or mind-reading (indeed, had I been able to foresee events, things surely would have gone better for me!) but I expect that Madame Rulenska has many tricks up her capacious sleeves.

She told me, “I have not had an easy time of it, you may be sure. My dear husband died of the cholera in sixty-four, when we were but two years married, and there was I, a widow, left to make my own way in the world, as best I can.”

But is she a fraud, as most mediums are thought to be? When she had shown me to the sparsely furnished attic room where I was to sleep, and we were about to go downstairs, she turned, put her hand on my arm, and said, “My dear, I see there has been a great change in your circumstances. You have travelled far from home, have you not?”

Caught by surprise, I nodded.

“A journey that was connected in some way with a young man?”

I drew a sharp breath.
Surely she must mean George.
It was her next remark that made the hair prickle on my neck: “A young man who has served you ill and caused you much distress?”

How could she know this, when I have told not a soul in London why I left the Borders? And how much more has she learned about me? Not even Alexandra knows all of the truth, and I would trust her with a secret as I would with my life.

When we were finished the interview, Madame Rulenska showed me the room where the séances are conducted. It was much like the one at Crouch End — dark red curtains drawn across the windows, a heavy table surrounded by chairs; and a sideboard with a clutter of musical instruments; though I saw no cabinet like the one that Mrs. Brown had employed.

For better or worse, I have agreed to leave Madame Blavatsky, who for all her faults I have grown to like well enough; and become assistant to Madame Rulenska, who I suspect I will not like at all.

April 25

Today I gathered up my few possessions and said goodbye to Lansdowne Road. The Countess embraced me, suspiciously damp-eyed, and made me promise to visit whenever I could. The Messrs. Keightley shook my hand, solemnly, each in turn, and wished me good luck in “this brave new adventure.” (I did not remind them that it was not I but Alexandra who seeks adventures.) As parting gifts Mr. Archibald has given me a box of fine vellum writing paper, and Mr. Bertram an ivory pen in its own case, “so that you can keep in touch.” The Countess presented me with the first volume of
The Secret Doctrine
, saying with a smile, “When you have finished reading this, you must ask me for the second volume.” (Alas, I fear that will not happen, for this massive book looks almost as daunting in print as did in manuscript.) And young Mr. Yeats, when he heard I was leaving Lansdowne Road, sent a copy of his first volume of poetry. It is called
The Wanderings of Oisin (
and a note is enclosed to tell me how it is to be pronounced — “Uh-sheen”.) It's beautifully bound in rich dark blue, with letters in gilt — just as I once imagined my own books might be.