Fragile Blossoms (46 page)

A cigar isn’t a peace pipe but it’s better than nothing.

Julia mistook the invitation thinking the meeting for eight when in fact with more snow forecast and the need to leave early, it had been rescheduled for seven, consequently she arrived late and the séance ongoing.

‘Oh you’re finally here!’ Callie swivelled. ‘I thought you were never coming.’

‘I’m sorry I misread the...!’

‘Never mind!’ Callie swivelled back. ‘Take a glass of wine and save your apologies til later! We’re onto something here, aren’t we, Madame, and mustn’t break concentration.’

A cup of mulled wine in her hand Julia sat with Daniel on the sidelines.

‘Absurd isn’t it?’ muttered Daniel.

From an onlooker’s point of view a dozen men and women chasing a glass tumbler about a table and asking questions of the air did look rather odd.

‘It takes some thought.’

‘No, no thought, Julianna,’ said Daniel his lips a thin line. ‘It’s bunkum.’

‘You think so?’

‘I do. We’re gullible fools taken in by an avaricious quack.’

‘Does money change hands then with this?’

‘Naturally it does. Madame doesn’t travel down from Highgate for the good of her health. She travels first class and demands a hefty fee. She calls it a donation. I call it fraud. This is no spiritual event. It’s a cheating thing along the lines of human waste bottled as holy water and snake venom labelled The Virgin’s Tears.’

It certainly was different to the sitting in Long Melford. There was no sense of mystery and hushed expectation. It was more in the nature of a sideshow people sitting about chatting and drinking wine. Madame Leonora walked about the room rather than sat. Heavily rouged and with multiple scarves billowing she seemed overwrought and waved her hands about a great deal. It seemed rather contrived. Julia was reminded of a painting once seen of a group of men playing cards. Evie had pointed it out. ‘Look, Ju-ju,
The Card Sharp!
See what they’re doing? They’re looking at one another’s cards and passing on information.’

Here is this brilliantly lit drawing room there is no obvious double-dealing and yet it felt wrong. Those about the table were talking one across the other. The letter E was called out and a man sitting here on the sidelines leapt to his feet. ‘That letter E?’ he called out, his face eager. ‘Is that my wife, Emily? She died last year. I’m her husband, Major Patrick Saunders. I do so miss her.’

There was much excited conversation and then Patrick Saunders told to sit down again, it wasn’t Emily the spirit was seeking, it was a man called Earnest.

‘What a shambles!’ Daniel shuffled his feet. ‘I’ve seen more order in a mutiny! If it goes on much longer like this I’m going to call halt.’

‘It doesn’t appear to be working.’

‘Depends what you mean by working. I am not a total sceptic. I’m not closed to the occult. I know there’s more in heaven and earth than we understand. I’ve seen some very odd things during my travels. In India I saw a peach stone set into the ground and within the count of ten a peach tree growing. I’ve seen a man walk over live coals his feet unscathed. I’ve seen the same man lie on a bed of knives and not dent his skin. I once saw a chicken die of starvation confined by a circle drawn in dust. Illusion, trick of the eye, hypnotism, I don’t know how it worked but I saw it.’

‘And you think this along those lines?’

‘Whatever it is I don’t like it. Callie doing this I read up on spiritualism and the like. Most support a theory of the harnessing of kinetic energy. I’ve been watching this last hour and think it’s about supply and demand. Someone asks a question, information is supplied perhaps like that guy, Saunders, a wife’s name and that she died last year. Then the people at the table, the group mind, so to speak, set about finding an answer.’

‘From whom?’

‘Better to say from what.’

‘Then from what?’

‘From need. I think such occurrences tap into human emotion, the greater the need the more concentrate the energy. This kind of yearning, the need to speak to the dead, if it were collected and contained could move a mountain never mind a tooth mug.’

‘And yet you think it fake.’

‘I’m hoping it is. It is odd, I grant you, but I doubt the spirits of the dead push that glass. I would hope no such phenomenon possible. I’ve seen men die and believe death deserves more than to be tattled before strangers.’

‘People seek comfort. Surely that is what this is?’

‘There have to be better ways.’

‘Like what, dreams?’

‘Yes dreams and our memories. I tend to think those that have gone before talk to us in example. We just don’t listen. My father is the last person I’d seek to follow and yet not so long ago I walked in his footsteps.’ He shook his head. ‘Anyway, that’s enough of my opinions. What about you, Julianna, you’ve had prior experience. What do you make of it?’

‘I don’t know.’ Julia closed her eyes and she heard a dog’s tail swishing and a child singing. ‘It is all so very odd.’

‘When you sat were you spared a tooth mug being shoved round a table?’

‘There was that.’

‘I see you are reluctant to tell.’

‘I am.’

‘Was it so bad?’

‘It wasn’t a happy experience. In fact it was quite shocking. Looking back on it now I realise some of us were given hints of the future.’

‘You’ve piqued my interest! Maybe I will sit in on the next round of absurdity. Who knows I might yet be saved from a dull and boring life.’

Julia touched his hand. ‘I wouldn’t be too casual if I were you, Daniel. I heard things that night I don’t ever want to hear again.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I am sorry I dragged you here.’

‘Don’t be. Matty’s angel, the lady he believes watching over him, told him all things continue toward a purpose toward good. Maybe there’s a reason we’re all here and it is good.’

‘Wolf, wolf, wolf!’

Matty and Kaiser are crouched down on the bed peeping through the window. The Shadow Man is here! He’s inside the greenhouse his shadow through glass long and wet like a worm. Matty was hoping he wouldn’t come. He couldn’t leave a cigar! Dorothy and Maggie and Reg are in the kitchen eating chicken. They left the door open and can see through into the parlour and the silver box and so he can’t get it, now there’s no present, only fag ends.

Downstairs Maggie is messing about with the piano banging the notes really hard. She shouldn’t do that especially as she’s eating chicken. Mr Doodle says take care of the instrument and the instrument will take care of you. He says Matty has a good ear. Matty looks in the glass but can’t see a difference.

‘Wolf, wolf, wolf!’

Matty said his prayers earlier with Mumma. They say prayers together. ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child, pity my simplicity, suffer me to come to thee.’ He likes the prayer. He loves Gentle Jesus, has his picture on the wall where He’s wearing a white frock and carrying a Lamb. Matty doesn’t like the suffering bit. When Susan died Callie, the old lady over the Wall, talked of suffering: ‘Oh the suffering of it.’ He told Oldie Hubbard he doesn’t want to suffer. She said it doesn’t mean hurt, it means to allow. Now when he says the prayer Matty says ‘allow me to come to thee.’ It’s much better.

Oh if only Joe was here! He’d put a stop to this! He’d get that broom and he’d push the Shadow Man out the gate. But Joe can’t be here. He’s dead.

‘Wolf, Wolf, Wolf!’

Naughty girl! Maggie has gone out!

Matty heard the back door click and saw her by the vegetable patch. In her big red cape with the hood pulled over she looks like Lady Christmas. Maggie’s naughty and always doing naughty things! She’s going to meet her sweetheart, the pot-boy, at the Big House. She’ll get into trouble one day, says Oldie, and there will be hell to pay.

‘Wolf, Wolf, Wolf!’

Mister Wolf is out tonight with Albert. It’s called a Stag Do, Nanny Roberts said. ‘Be careful at that Stag Do, Albert. It’s a free bar but don’t be lettin’ every Tom, Dick, and Harry drink us dry. America or not we have to get on with our lives.’ Mumma and the Wolf are to go to Bostonia, Maggie read it in a letter. Matty is invited. It’s a long way from black crows so he thinks he might go.

Kaiser won’t be going. He’s staying here with the Seed Lady. Tuesday after their piano lesson, when Matty was napping, the Lady came and stroked him. ‘Such a good dog,’ she said. ‘I shall be happy to receive you.’

Kaiser licked the Lady’s hand and Matty’s cheek and said ‘don’t cry.’

Matty didn’t cry, but later when he was held against Mumma’s soft breast he did cry. It’s what mother’s are for.

They’re at the table now, twelve new sitters Julia and Daniel among them. They have been sitting in virtual silence for a good half an hour. Glass tumbler and paper letters are tidied away. They sit with hands linked. Julia is next to Squire Humphreys who is overweight and nervous, his hands moist with sweat. He is also very loud. He keeps asking ‘is the spirit among us.’

Callie snaps at him. ‘Please be quiet. We are trying to concentrate.’

Madame Leonora sits with them. She is not happy and sighs a great deal.

Callie too is unhappy. Things are not going according to plan. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing, Madame?’ she says sharply. ‘Ought we to go back to the glass and letters? At least we had some communication with that.’

Madame stirs. ‘There is a friend trying to get through but I find myself incredibly blocked. Someone among us doesn’t believe. While that person sits at the table it’s doubtful any real contact can be made.’

Callie poked Daniel in the ribs. ‘That’s you,’ she hissed. ‘You ought to leave. You’re blocking the vibrations.’

Daniel pushed the chair back. ‘God forbid I should block vibrations! Excuse me while I relieve you of the problem. I am more than happy to sit out.’

‘No!’ said Madame. ‘It’s not you, Mr Masson. It is a female who doubts.’

There was quick glance about the table every lady suspected.

Feeling as she did so outside of it all Julia wondered if it was her and hoped she’d be pointed out as Doubting Thomas and asked to leave. It’s getting late. It’s as well Dorothy’s fiancé is at the cottage. What with things the way they are, the late night trying of door-handles, and broken panes in the green house, one must be wary.

‘Yes, Mrs Dryden.’ Madame looked up. ‘One must.’

‘What?’

‘Excuse me?’ said Callie. ‘Is someone coming through?’

Madame stared into nothing. ‘So much noise tonight.’

‘Noise?’

‘The earth is shrieking.’

Callie yawned. ‘Why would it be doing that?’

‘It is the sound of anger and of voices calling out.’

‘What are these voices saying?’ asked Squire Humphreys.

‘They demand the right to be free, to love and be loved and not be confined.’

‘So much noise!’ Madame dropped her head into her hands talking to herself more than those at the table. ‘I cannot be free as I used to. I find it so difficult these days. Everyone doubting even of God! I fight through a fog. People are so unforgiving. They think I am a tap to be turned on and if I don’t immediately bring what they want they shout fake. They have no idea how I suffer, or for that matter how others suffer wanting to be heard.’

There was silence about the table.

Daniel coughed. ‘Ladies and gentleman, I think perhaps it’s time to draw the meeting to an end. Madame is tired and needs to go home.’

‘Daniel, do not interfere!’ Callie banged on the table. ‘I didn’t go to the trouble of bringing people together and watching my good Madeira disappear down unappreciative throats to be disappointed. I am here for a reason. I want to know what I did wrong all those years ago and until I get an answer I am staying and so is everyone else; as for Madame being tired, she is to bide here tonight in the Blue Bedroom and so other than the stairs hasn’t far to travel.’

Daniel opened his mouth to speak but Madame laid her hand on his arm.

‘Hush, Danny Greville Masson,’ she said so very softly, ‘this poor fellow at my elbow doesn’t need to die twice to be heard.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Your newspaper friend? He says thanks for the rabbit’s foot.’

‘Rabbit’s foot?’

‘You sent it to his boy. He says thanks too for the money. It made a difference. You’re not to think of Jack anymore. You’re to get on with your life. He is in a place of comfort. He’s says you know it, a warm church, a blessing from the Lord, a ham sandwich and a jug of cider.’

‘Good God!’

‘What?’ Callie rounded on Daniel. ‘What is it? What did she say?’

Daniel shook his head.

‘Tell me!’ Callie tugged his arm. ‘What did she say?’

Black Holes for eyes Madame smiled. ‘You were ever a noisy girl, Callie-Anne Greville,’ she said. ‘You could never be still, especially that tongue of yours. I was always saying think before you speak. It makes for less damage.’

‘Oh!’ Callie’s hands flew to her mouth.

‘Such noise!’ Madame’s head dropped. ‘Why did you bring this? All the flowers and gilt, I don’t want it. I’d sooner eat of a wooden board than this costly perfection. I told you not to do it. I said I was not for you. But you had to buy it, didn’t you, you had to weigh me down and count me among your possessions.’

‘What is this?’ said Squire Humphreys. ‘Who is she talking to? Is this making sense to anybody because it surely isn’t making sense to me?’

‘Be quiet!’ Callie held up her hand. ‘I know what this is. And I know who is speaking. She’s talking about the dinner service Henry bought back from Germany. It was supposed to be mine, a wedding present, but he gave it to her. She came home one night to find it on the shelves all perfect and shining. So what did she do? She took a hammer to it and smashed every piece.’

‘Oh Callie!’ Julia couldn’t help but speak. ‘I thought that was you.’

‘I know you did. I saw it in your face. It wasn’t me. She did it. She said she didn’t want anything of his. I was there. I saw it happen. I watched through the spy glass and I didn’t lift a finger to stop her. Why would I when it should have been mine. But I beg you all to remain silent! My life depends on it.’

‘No it doesn’t!’ Madame laughed her voice soft with an Irish lilt. ‘You were always a theatrical girl and by the sound of it still are! Everything always up and down and sideways! You were never at peace with yourself. Why we couldn’t sit five minutes and read without you pledging your soul to one idyll or another.’