The Seance (36 page)

‘What sort of an investigation, Mr Rhys?’

‘Vernon Raphael insists that, given access to the Hall, he could resolve – by way of demonstration, before expert witnesses – not only the question of supernatural influence, but the Mystery itself: that is to say, how Mrs Bryant and Magnus Wraxford died, and what became of Eleanor Wraxford and the child – and hence, perhaps, help redeem my father’s memory.’

‘Does he have any theory as to what might have happened?’

‘I put that very question to him, and he only smiled enigmatically. Raphael keeps his cards very close to his chest, Miss Langton; I am honoured to call him my friend, but his only real confidant is St John Vine, who works with him on all his cases; between them they have exposed several very subtle frauds, including one that Mr Podmore himself was unable to detect. All I can say is that Raphael must be very sure of himself to have spoken thus.’

‘And you, Mr Rhys, do you have a theory of your own?’

‘I have wondered, I suppose, if the Wraxfords were working in concert – I mean, that the appearance of estrangement between them was contrived – to entrap Mrs Bryant with a view to extracting yet more money from her. If so, there must have been a falling-out; perhaps Eleanor Wraxford grew jealous of Mrs Bryant—’

‘I assure you that is false,’ I said warmly.

‘Miss Langton,’ he said, after a pause, ‘it seems to me that you know
more than ... are you certain you can tell me nothing that might help my father’s cause?’

‘Quite certain, Mr Rhys. Let us simply say that I have my own reasons for wanting to see the Mystery solved.’ I had conceived, in the last few minutes, a great desire to follow in Nell Wraxford’s footsteps and see the Hall for myself.

‘This investigation,’ I said, ‘how long do you think it might take?’

‘From what Raphael has said, the party would need to stay only one night; two at the most.’

‘But the Hall is derelict; it has been empty for twenty years; how could such a party be catered for? How many would there be?’

‘Half a dozen at most; they are old campaigners, Miss Langton, and would bring everything themselves: camp beds, provisions, spirit-stoves and the like ... Do you think your uncle might like to join us?’

‘No, Mr Rhys. I should like – though “like” is scarcely the word – to be present myself; but I do not see how I can join a party of gentlemen unchaperoned, and I have no woman friend who would be willing to accompany me.’

‘Miss Langton, if that is the only difficulty, I assure you on my life that I will guard you as I would my own sister.’

‘It is my uncle you will have to convince, sir ... Tell me about your sister.’

‘Gwyneth has just turned twenty-one; she is about your height, Miss Langton, only fair instead of dark, a great reader of novels; she plays and sings like an angel.’

‘Not like me, then; I can scarcely play a note, and my singing would be considered a punishment. Do you think she might be allowed to join the party?’

A shadow crossed his face. ‘I am afraid not, Miss Langton. My mother, you see, doesn’t approve of my raking over old scandals, as she thinks of it; she has never forgiven my father for bringing ruin upon us – her words again – and blighting my sister’s prospects.’

‘That will scarcely reassure my uncle; but I shall ask, and see what he says. In the meantime, Mr Rhys, I trust that you will treat everything we have said today in the strictest confidence; I will write to you shortly.’

As I rose to say goodbye, I became aware that I was trembling with fatigue – or perhaps from fear of what I had set in train.

I could, of course, have defied my uncle, but I did not want to cause a permanent breach between us, and I dared not even hint at the possibility that I might be Clara Wraxford; I could not have said, from one hour to the next, how far I believed it myself. Nor could I speak of John Montague’s death, which was often in my mind: at times I grieved for him as if he had been an old and trusted friend; at others I felt angry and betrayed; but then I would recall how ill he had looked that day, and wonder if he had kept himself alive by sheer force of will until he had appeased the demands of his conscience. And I knew, above all, that I could only be at peace with his memory – and with myself – by taking up the torch he had passed to me.

My uncle was sufficiently bohemian not to regard the absence of a chaperone as insuperable, but he lamented loudly and often that Mr Montague had ever sent me those papers, and it cost me a hard struggle not to give in to him. Only after he had met and liked Edwin Rhys, who dined with us a week after his first visit, did he consent, and then only reluctantly.

Edwin – we were soon on familiar terms – called upon me three times during the next fortnight, ostensibly to discuss the arrangements for the investigation, which was planned for the first week of March, but I sensed that his interest was more personal. The force of my reaction to Nell Wraxford’s story had made me aware that I had not, since coming to live with my uncle, really desired anything, or anyone. My only desire had been
not
to feel; never again to endure such pain as the extremity of guilt
and horror that had consumed me after Mama’s death. Life with my uncle had suited me because he desired only to be comfortable, and to get on with his work in peace. I had been very fond of Mrs Tremenheere and the children, had bathed in the warmth of their household, and yet something within me had remained untouched by their affection. I had not even felt my lack of feeling; as if I had lost all appetite for food and somehow managed to survive without it.

Now I was awake again, and conscious of Edwin’s covert glances, of the way his colour changed when our eyes met, of his attempts at summoning the courage to speak. He was handsome, he was kind; he possessed an almost feminine delicacy of feeling. I felt sure I would not like his mother and sister, any more than they would like me; but of all the young men I had met, he was by far the most attractive.

In between his visits I spent a great deal of time brooding over the Mystery, going over and over the papers in search of clues, until it occurred to me that I should at least write to Ada Woodward, if I could discover where she lived. Nell had said that she and Ada were no longer close; she had said, too, that she could not ask George and Ada to take her in – and that was before Magnus had died. But they had been the closest of friends since childhood, and perhaps if Ada were to read the journals she might see something that I had missed. Though I had said nothing to Edwin, it seemed to me that the only thing which absolutely must be concealed was the final part of John Montague’s narrative – and that mainly, from my point of view, because it would confirm the general impression of Nell as a crazed murderess. In the end I decided to transcribe, for Edwin and Vernon Raphael, from John Montague’s account of his first meeting with Magnus through to the disappearance of Cornelius, and deny the existence of any other papers. If it had been Edwin alone, I might have shown him the rest, but I did not altogether trust his discretion.

In my uncle’s library I found a battered copy of
Crockford’s Clerical Directory
for 1877, and in it I found the Revd George Arthur Woodward
at 7 St Michael’s Close, Whitby, in Yorkshire. There was no other George Woodward listed, but I could not be certain he was the right one, and so I composed a letter to Mrs G. A. Woodward at that address, asking whether she was the Ada Woodward who had known Eleanor Unwin, whom I was anxious to trace (writing as if I knew nothing of the Wraxford Mystery), and if so, whether she would be willing to correspond with me. But a week, and then a fortnight, passed without an answer, and I did not feel I could write again. The only other possibility was the maid Lucy, whom Nell had liked and trusted, but I did not even know her surname; only that her family had lived in Hereford, and that was twenty years ago. Which left me nothing else to do but brood, and count the days until the sixth of March arrived.

From the safety of my uncle’s fireside, I had imagined myself as the heroine of the expedition, led by the calling of my blood to the vital clue that all of the men who had trampled through the Hall had missed, the link in the chain that would lead me to Nell. But once aboard the train, my apprehension had grown into a hard clenched knot in the pit of my stomach. Edwin and I had shared a compartment with Vernon Raphael and St John Vine on the early train from London. Vernon Raphael had behaved very well, betraying nothing of the circumstances in which we had met. But seeing him again had brought back disturbing memories of my time at the Holborn Spiritualist Society, and of those strange moments when I would hear myself speaking and not know, any more than my listeners, what was coming next. Mr Raphael, I felt fairly sure, did not believe in spirits; though he refused to reveal his plans, the assurance of his manner suggested that he knew very well what was to follow. But the memories of Holborn had stirred a nagging fear that if something
was
lying dormant at the Hall, my own presence might awaken it.

Sleet was whipping across the platform as we disembarked at Woodbridge station. Edwin hurried me along to a waiting carriage, where I sat while boxes thudded on to the roof, wishing myself back in Elsworthy Walk. The trees were all leafless; not so much as a daffodil showed as we rattled away through the town and out on to a flat expanse of marshland from which all colour had been leached. Gusts of wind shook the carriage. I peered through the rain-streaked glass, trying to catch a glimpse of the sea, but the sky was so low that marsh and cloud blurred into greyness. The men had fallen silent; St John Vine, indeed, had scarcely uttered a word since we left London, and even Vernon Raphael seemed daunted by the bleakness of the prospect.

Monks Wood came upon us with no warning, looming like a black wave out of the mist as we passed from grey daylight into near-darkness beneath the firs. The rushing of the wind ceased, and there was only the muffled rumble of the wheels, the scrape of branches along the carriage, and the occasional gush of water from the foliage above. Shadowy outlines of tree trunks slid by, so close I could have touched them. The knot in my stomach tightened still further as the minutes dragged by, until the light returned as abruptly as it had gone.

John Montague’s description had not prepared me for the sheer size of the Hall, or for the profusion of attics and gables, none of them level or square. There was not a straight line to be seen; everything seemed to have bowed or sagged or cracked. The walls were no longer a dingy green, but black with lichen and mildew, and all along the ground beneath, fragments of masonry lay heaped among the weeds.

‘Do you think it’s safe, Rhys?’ said Vernon Raphael as we stood beside the coach. Icy air swirled about us; high above, I could see the tips of the lightning rods shivering in the wind.

‘I’m not at all sure,’ Edwin replied uneasily. ‘If water has got in – as it’s bound to have done – the floors may have rotted through. In fact ... Miss Langton, I really think you should let the coach take you back to
Woodbridge; there is an excellent private hotel ... or you could return directly to London ...’

I was sorely tempted, but I knew that if I did so, I would reproach myself ever afterward.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I have come too far to retreat.’

They insisted I wait downstairs until Edwin had examined the floors, while Raphael and Vine searched out the coal cellar and lit fires in the gallery, the library, and the sitting-room that had once, for a few brief hours, been Mrs Bryant’s and where I would sleep – or attempt to sleep – tonight. The chimneys smoked badly from the wind, mingling the acrid smell of smoke with the pervasive odours of mould and damp and decay. As soon as the fires were lit, and all the boxes brought up, Raphael and Vine sequestered themselves in the gallery, to satisfy themselves that there were no concealed passages or other devices: I could hear them tapping and knocking on the other side of the wall while I huddled by the fire in the library, trying to shake off the chill of the journey and breathing the damp, acidic smell of mouldering paper.