The Seance (22 page)

Something flashed and glittered and began to revolve above the flame between us. It seemed to be a gold coin, about the size of a shilling, but embossed on both sides with a strange geometrical pattern I could not identify. Did he carry it with him wherever he went? I heard his voice instructing me to follow the movement of the coin. Round and round, round and round . . . you are becoming sleepy, chanted the voice . . . round and round ... your eyelids feel heavy ... but a part of my mind remained alert, and would not surrender. I tried closing my eyes, but they opened again of their own accord; the tension would not leave me; it was as if I could hear a warning bell sounding in time to the oscillations of the coin.

‘I am sorry,’ I said eventually. ‘I cannot do it.’

‘So I perceive,’ said the disembodied face opposite. ‘Trust cannot be commanded, Miss Unwin, but without it, I cannot help you.’

‘I am sorry,’ I repeated helplessly, ‘I do not know what to do.’

He rose, opened the curtains, and set the room to rights.

‘We may have proceeded too hastily. If you are willing to try again, I shall return at the same time tomorrow—’

‘I thank you, sir,’ I said, ‘but I must impose no further upon your generosity. No, sir, I beg you – I should be utterly mortified if you were to waste another journey on my behalf. And now, will you take tea with us? Ada especially invites you.’

‘Thank you in turn, Miss Unwin, but I must be off; it occurred to me on the way here that I might return by way of the Hall, and so I shall look forward to seeing you when next we meet, and Mr Ravenscroft, of course, when he returns from Cumbria.’

And with that he departed, leaving me devoutly wishing I had never said a word about my visitations.

Edward returned a week later, and my fear that the apparition would come between us was swept away in the joy of our first embrace, and the news that one of his pictures had sold for thirty guineas, the highest price he had yet commanded. One more success like this, he assured me, and we could be married as soon as Sophie was safely wed.

I had hoped Dr Wraxford would have returned to London, but the very next day we received a letter from John Montague, inviting us all to luncheon at his house in a week’s time; Magnus Wraxford was eager to meet Edward and would come up from London especially. George and Ada, to make matters worse, were already engaged for that day. Edward of course was eager to go, and so I was forced to tell him that Dr Wraxford had tried to cure my headaches, and answer all his questions about mesmerism, and insist that it had not worked simply because I was such a bad subject. On the day of the luncheon I feigned illness at the last moment, and passed a long and miserable day at the rectory before Edward returned at dusk, in a state of high excitement.

‘The luncheon was a success, then?’ I asked. We were sitting in the garden, beneath a beech tree which was just beginning to shed its leaves, on what ought to have been a perfect evening.

‘Not the luncheon exactly; that was rather mixed. Wraxford and I are fast friends already – he’s a remarkable man, as you said – but John Montague seems to have taken a dislike to me. I don’t understand it – I was very complimentary about his picture of the Hall, but he simply wouldn’t thaw. They were very sorry to miss you, Dr Wraxford especially; you’ve made quite a conquest there, you know. He and I went for a long walk along the strand after luncheon, but Montague declined to join us, and I’m sure it was because of me.

‘No, the great thing is that in looking at Montague’s picture, I had an idea for a series of studies of the Hall – it’s a wonderfully sinister subject – moving from day to night. The set piece will be the Hall at the height of a storm, lit by a great flash of lightning. He told me all about his uncle’s disappearance, you see, and it made a great impression ... I gather the Hall is still in some sort of legal limbo, but it’s bound to go to Wraxford in the end. Anyway I talked it over with him, and he says he doesn’t mind in the least, and that he’ll square it with Montague; I asked him if he knew why Montague had taken against me, but he wouldn’t say; just told me not to take it to heart ... You look worried, my darling, is something the matter?’

‘No, only that ... the Hall is an unlucky place; and such a long way to go.’

‘Oh I shan’t go traipsing back and forth, I’ll do all my studies at one stretch – doss down in the old stables or something of the sort. Wraxford’s given me the lie of the land. I just hope we get at least one good storm before the nights get too cold. You musn’t fret, dearest girl; I’m used to sleeping rough, and I
know
, I can feel it, this is going to make my name, and speed us to the altar into the bargain.’

Edward spent an entire week – the longest of my life, as I thought then – sketching at the Hall. Ada was troubled by my agitation, and suggested several times that we should walk down to Monks Wood. But I knew that Edward hated being overlooked while he was working; it seemed like giving in to superstition; I worried that he might think me a silly hysterical girl; and – though I did not like to admit it, even to myself – I was afraid we might run into Magnus Wraxford. I hated his knowing more about me than Edward; it preyed upon me as if we had had a guilty liaison, and yet I could not make up my mind to tell Edward (or even Ada) about the apparition.

Would it have made any difference if I had? He would have called me his darling girl, and told me it was all the fault of my over-vivid
imagination, and distracted me with kisses, and gone cheerfully off to the Hall – from which he returned in the best of spirits, with a great roll of sketches under his arm, and set to work in his studio. The weather continued fine, growing if anything warmer as September advanced and the fallen leaves heaped up beneath the trees, and my foreboding slowly diminished, until Edward announced on a still, humid evening that he had finished the first of his canvases.

I had heard enough about the Hall to anticipate bats circling a crooked tower at dusk, but the sky above the treetops was a pale, almost cloudless blue, permeated with fine streaks and swirls of creamy vapour. Everything about the sky suggested an idyllic afternoon scene, but that was not at all the impression left by the house itself. The sunlight seemed only to accentuate the darkness of the encroaching forest, and to deepen the shadows within the window-frames. And somehow – even though I had not seen the original – the proportions of the building seemed to have gone subtly wrong, as if I were looking at it through water.

‘I’m very pleased with it myself,’ said Edward after we had all congratulated him, ‘and I rather hope Magnus Wraxford will be too; he’s back in Aldeburgh – did I not tell you? I had a note from him yesterday; he’ll be here at least another week.’

‘Excellent,’ said George, ‘we must ask him to dine again – and John Montague, of course.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Edward, as Ada and I exchanged helpless glances. ‘I’m sure, my darling, you will be able to charm Montague into affability.’ He had told the others of John Montague’s coldness towards him; George put it down to envy of Edward’s talent and freedom to paint, but I feared that my strange resemblance to Mr Montague’s dead wife might also be to blame.

‘I should much rather he didn’t come,’ I said. ‘Why should we invite him, when he has been so unpleasant to you?’

‘It wasn’t as bad as all that,’ said Edward. ‘I’d rather mend fences than break them, and besides, I shouldn’t want to miss seeing Magnus.’

An invitation to dine in five days’ time was accordingly dispatched to Aldeburgh, leaving me to repent all the more bitterly of ever having mentioned the visitations. But the very next afternoon, while I was seated in the shade of an elm, attempting to concentrate on my book, I heard the crunch of hoofs on gravel, and saw Magnus Wraxford, dressed as if for the hunt, dismounting at the gate. Ada and George were out, and I knew I ought to rise and greet him, but I did not move, and a moment later he had passed out of sight on his way to the front door. As the minutes passed without Hetty coming to fetch me, I realised Magnus must have asked for Edward, and so I waited uncomfortably, expecting to be summoned at any moment, until he at last reappeared, strode across the drive without a glance in my direction, swung up on to his horse and spurred it away up the hill.

The sound of his hoofs had scarcely faded before Edward emerged on to the lawn and came running towards me.

‘Our fortune is made!’ he cried. ‘Did you not see him?’

‘See whom? I think I must have been asleep.’

‘Magnus,’ he said, sweeping me into his arms. ‘He is going to buy the picture – for fifty guineas – and he wants the other three at fifty apiece, sight unseen! Is it not wonderful? I wanted to come and find you at once, but he said he couldn’t stay. We can be married as soon as your sister is safely wed – and who knows? – your mother may even relent and welcome me into the family, now that I’m a man of means.’

I felt briefly ashamed of having hidden from Magnus, but the thought was swept aside in a rush of emotion. Until that moment, I realised, I had never quite believed the day would come; now I even allowed myself to hope that Edward might be right about my mother. The celebration that night extended to several bottles of champagne, over which we all sat talking until very late, and when I did go to bed I lay awake for a long time, perfectly happy, but too excited to sleep until, as dawn was breaking, exhaustion finally overtook me.

It might have been the fault of the champagne, or the oppressive and quite unseasonable heat; at any rate I woke very late, with the beginnings of a headache which, for all my efforts to subdue it, grew steadily worse. The humidity was quite extraordinary. George returned from the village saying that no one could remember anything like it; Edward was sure we would be cooler inside a Turkish bath. There was not the faintest breath of wind outside; thick grey clouds hung low and motionless overhead, darkening slowly as the hours passed. By three o’clock, my head felt as if steel pincers were being driven through my temples, and I knew I must retire to my room.

After an indefinite interval, the pain began to ease. I was in the midst of a dream that vanished beyond recall as I was jolted wide awake by a searing flash, lighting up the room even through drawn curtains, followed a few seconds later by a deafening crack of thunder which rolled and rumbled and reverberated and shook the house to its foundations. Within seconds I heard a great rush of wind, a spatter of raindrops against the windowpane, and then the roar of a deluge upon the gravel below.

My headache was quite gone; I felt my way to the door, where I found the lamps in the passage lit and saw that it was almost half-past eight. I ran downstairs to join the others, and found George and Ada standing by the drawing-room window. I knew from Ada’s expression, even before she spoke, where Edward had gone.