The Seance

by John Harwood

  The figure bearing the lantern moved into the circle of candlelight and paused directly in front of the armour. Not a ghost, but a man: a tall man in a long coat.

  "Miss Langton?" said a deep, authoritative voice. "I am Dr. Davenant; I have come to rescue you."

  If I had not heard him emerge from the tomb, I think I might have believed him.

  "Miss Langton?" he repeated. "Come out; you have nothing to fear."

  A gloved hand reached out and grasped the hilt of the sword. Searing white light burst from the armour, and for an instant the two blazing figures stood face to face, hands clasped. Then the armour leaned forward, engulfing the man, and toppled headlong through the floor.

  Darkness returned with an earsplitting crash. The floor lurched and rebounded; for a moment there was silence, and then a long, low rumble, gathering power as it approached until it broke over me with a thunderous roar. Choking dust filled my lungs, and I was flung from my feet and rolled over and over like a rag doll in a storm.

  There was a vile, rasping taste in my mouth and throat, and a heavy weight pressing down on the side of my head; I tried to push it away, and realised it was the floor. The boards on which I was lying were covered in sharp, gritty fragments.

  A faint, misty glow appeared in the darkness away to my right. I began to crawl toward it, not knowing what else to do, brushing aside slivers of what felt like glass, until I saw that it was the light from the candle I had left burning in the library. The fear had left me; perhaps I had simply exhausted my capacity to feel anything at all. I rose shakily to my feet, made my way along the landing to the library, fetched the candle and returned to the gallery—what remained of it.

  At the far end, where the tomb and the chimney and the armour had been, was a great gaping hole in the wall. Half the floor had gone; the boards ended in a jagged mess of splinters not ten feet from where I had been lying. Dust was floating up from a black pit beyond.

  Edwin is down there. The thought struck me like icy water, dashing away the numbness. Suddenly I was trembling so that I could scarcely stand. Gripping the banister, and praying that the guttering flame would not blow out, I went slowly down the main staircase. The dust in the air grew thicker as I descended; faint slithering and trickling noises echoed in the darkness, but the entrance hall below seemed quite unchanged; the chimney, I realised, must have collapsed into the drawing room beyond.

  "Edwin?" I called as I came to the foot of the stairs. There was no reply. I called again, louder and louder until the stairwell rang with his name. At last, from a doorway leading toward the back of the house, came a very faint sound: tap-tap, tap, tap-tap, tap. The tapping grew steadily louder as I followed it along a dank stone corridor with shadows writhing around me, until I came to a rough wooden door, set low in the wall.

  "Edwin, is that you?"

  There was a muffled cry from within, and the door shook slightly. I lifted the latch, and recoiled with a gasp from the hunched, blackened creature that emerged, a lantern raised in its bloodied hand, until I saw that it was Edwin.

  "Constance—thank God! What happened? It sounded like the day of judgement."

  "No, the chimney fell down—did you see him?"

  "See whom?"

  "Magnus—he must have locked you in here."

  "Constance, you've been dreaming. Nobody locked me in here; I thought I'd propped the door securely, but it swung shut, and then I couldn't break it down."

  "No," I said, "he was in the gallery; he came up through the tomb; he meant to kill me. I hid the charge in the armour, and it crushed him to death."

  "Constance," he said, staring at me in utter bewilderment, "you've had a terrible shock. Anyway, we can't stay here; the rest of the house may come down at any minute."

  He led the way back to the entrance hall, where he opened the drawing room doors and stood gazing openmouthed at the chaos within.

  "I don't know what's best to do," he said at last. "We can't spend the night out of doors; you would freeze to death. I think we must risk another collapse. Your room is on the other side of the house—it should be safe enough. I shall break up some chairs to make a fire."

  We made our way back upstairs to my room, and washed off the worst of the grime in icy water. I tried once more to tell him what had happened, but he would not hear me until he had got a makeshift fire going, and I had sipped a little wine and nibbled at a biscuit, while the smell of burning varnish filled the room.

  "Now," he said, "were you asleep when the wall came down?"

  "No, I was wide awake. I went into the gallery to fetch the lantern, and I saw the lid of the tomb start to open—"

  "Impossible, I assure you; those locks were rusted solid."

  "The locks didn't move." It came to me in a sudden flash of memory. "It was only the very top of the lid, where the band around the edge was. I heard his footsteps; he had a lantern. I took the cylinder out of the tin box in the gallery and lit it and hid it in the armour—you can see here, where I tore a piece from my dress, to make him think I was inside. And then—he said he was Dr. Davenant, come to rescue me—"

  I stopped short at the change in Edwin's expression; he was staring at the torn fabric as if he had never seen a dress before. His eyes met mine in sudden and horrified comprehension.

  "Davenant?" he stammered. "You—you blew up James Davenant?"

  "Yes, but he was Magnus; he meant to murder me—why do you look at me like that?"

  "Don't you understand? If the police find out, you could be charged with murder, or at the very least manslaughter—"

  "But he came up through the tomb! Who else—"

  "You thought he did. But you were frightened out of your wits; the light was bad; it's infinitely more likely that you only imagined the lid moving—and that Davenant came in by the front door. Which we left unlocked for the coachman."

  "I did not imagine it! This morning, in Nell's room—I followed him there—he tried to mesmerise me. There's nothing wrong with his eyes—they were Magnus's eyes. He was trying to find out what evidence I had against him. And how he could he possibly have found his way back here, through that fog? He was here all along; he waited until the others had driven away, and returned before the fog came down. Don't you remember?—we heard him, in the library."

  "I see what you mean," he said slowly. "The trouble is, even if you are right, no one will believe you. If you tell this to the police, you will end up in prison—or a madhouse. Whereas if you simply say that you were in the library, and then there was an explosion ... if they ever find Davenant, they will think he set it off."

  "But if Nell is still alive—" I began.

  "Nell, Nell, Nell!" he cried in weary exasperation. "Don't you see the havoc your obsession has wrought? Supposing Davenant was perfectly innocent? You are putting a noose around your own neck! And besides, there isn't a single shred of evidence to suggest that Nell is still alive. Why are you so certain of it?"

  "Because I am Clara Wraxford!"

  There was a long, shocked silence from Edwin.

  "You have proof of this?" he said at last.

  "No, but John Montague was convinced of it—by my likeness to Nell."

  "And—your parents? Did they tell you...?"

  "No, they did not. But my heart tells me, just as Mr. Montague's did."

  "Now, Constance, this is simply absurd. The resemblance proves nothing; you and Nell were related, and a likeness can often reappear after several generations. And John Montague, if you recall, thought at first that Nell looked exactly like his dead wife. For all you know, it was your resemblance to Phoebe that struck him."

  "You think I am mad," I said bleakly.

  "Not mad, no, but this has been a very great strain—"

  "Which is a polite way of saying the same thing."

  "No! It's because I care for you so much that I—"

  "If you cared for me at all, you would believe me," I said, aware that I was being unreasonable, but unable to stop myself.
/>
  "I care for you enough to risk being hanged as an accessory to murder!"

  The words echoed strangely, as if I had heard them before.

  "Can't you see," I cried, "that this is exactly what happened to Nell? I am caught in the same trap; they will think we killed him twice—" I broke off, clenching my fists until the nails dug into my palms.

  "You must stop this," he insisted, "and try to rest. All you need remember is: you were in the library when you heard the explosion, and that is all you know. So long as you keep silent, you are perfectly safe."

  He rose and made up the fire. My head was swimming with fatigue, my body ached all over; and in spite of the fear crawling like ice along my veins, I sank into a black and dreamless void.

  The fire was still crackling when I woke, and for a moment I thought I had merely dozed, until I saw daylight at the window. The fog had cleared; Edwin was not in the room. I rose and bolted the door and washed as best I could, trying to subdue the voice that whispered, You have murdered an innocent man.

  I found Edwin downstairs in the wreck of the drawing room, combing through the rubble. He had his back to the doorway, and did not hear me come in, and so I watched from the shadows whilst he worked. Debris was heaped several feet high against the far wall, spilling out across the floor amidst the smashed remnants of chairs and cabinets. Edwin was standing about halfway up the slope, tossing the smaller pieces behind him, lifting out the larger fragments and setting them carefully aside. His breath issued in clouds, mingling with the dust that swirled around him. He took hold of a shattered beam and leant his weight upon it; there was a slippage and a rumble, and a black barrel-shape appeared, then a metal arm and shoulder. He knelt down beside it, and I saw that his face was deathly pale. A second later, he caught sight of me.

  "Keep back!—and yes, it is Davenant, I'm afraid; he's ... burnt, but perfectly recognisable. I was hoping against hope that you really might have dreamt it. Come away from here; there is nothing we can do for him, and the coach will be here within the hour."

  "We must be clear about this," he said, as we climbed the stairs for the last time. "The best thing, I think, will be to tell them—the police, I mean—that you were in the library, waiting for me to come back with the coal—which is perfectly true—when you thought you heard footsteps in the gallery next door. A second later, there was a terrible explosion; then you came downstairs and found me; and so this morning I thought I'd see if anyone had been caught in the collapse, and that's when I found him. You don't know how he got there, or what he was doing, or how he caused the explosion—"

  "But that would make you an accessory, as you said last night."

  "No; I was wrong about that. I was trapped in the cellar, after all, so I don't count as a witness; I only know what you told me—which is that you heard footsteps, and then the explosion, and that is all you know."

  "But if we don't—if I don't tell them he was Magnus, he'll be buried as Davenant, and Nell will never be free of—"

  "Constance, for God's sake! Do you want to be locked away in a madhouse? If you say one word about Magnus to the police, I will tell them that you are delirious from shock—and which of us do you think they will believe?"

  "Do you not care at all, then, about the wrong we may be doing?"

  "All I care about," he said, "is saving you from yourself—and quite possibly the gallows."

  ***

  A thin rain was falling as I looked back at the Hall for the last time, at the jagged rent in the side wall, and the severed cable coiled like a serpent over mounds of shattered masonry, before the darkness of Monks' Wood closed over us. The drive to Woodbridge passed in almost complete silence, while the cold ate deeper into my bones. I climbed the steps of the police station, feeling numbly indifferent to my fate; but instead of being led away in chains, I was ushered into a private sitting room, given a chair by the fire and plied with refreshments whilst Edwin talked to the sergeant, who accepted his version of events without question. An hour later, we were on the train to London, but it proved a sombre journey. We dared not speak of what was uppermost in our minds, and our efforts at small-talk faded into the clack and clatter of the rails endlessly repeating, You have murdered an innocent man, you have murdered an innocent man ... until it seemed to me that parting came as a relief to us both.

  My uncle's reaction, once he had got over his shock at seeing me, grimy and bedraggled, in the hallway at Elsworthy Walk, was even worse than I had feared.

  "By remaining alone with Mr. Rhys," he said coldly, "you endangered your life, ruined your reputation—what do you imagine the rest of the party have been saying about you?—and embroiled yourself in the death of this man Davenant. No doubt we shall have journalists pounding on the door. As for Mr. Rhys, you may tell him he is persona non grata in this house. I thought you had some moral sense, but I see that I was grievously mistaken."

  With which I could only agree. I retreated to my room like a child in disgrace, and lay awake for hours, staring into the dark, until I gave up and lit my candle and paced about the floor in a torment of spirit worse than anything I had endured in the wake of my mother's death. If only, I thought, I could be absolutely certain that it was Magnus I had killed, I might at least be able to sleep; otherwise I might as well give myself up to the police—but I could not do that without implicating Edwin. Again and again I relived those terrifying minutes at the Hall, but doubts kept seeping in: perhaps he really had feared for my safety; he might have found his way back in spite of the fog; he could have discovered the tunnel by accident; he might not have known I was there until he saw the piece of fabric in the armour ... No, my only hope was to find someone who could identify Davenant as Magnus, and since he had deceived the whole world for twenty years, it would have to be someone who had known Magnus very well indeed. If John Montague had not drowned himself, I thought bitterly, he might have saved me.

  There was one other person, apart from Nell herself: Ada Woodward, who had never replied to me, though that was hardly surprising; the news that Nell was suspected of murdering her child as well as her husband must have come as an appalling shock. And, of course, they had been estranged even before that. What was it Nell had said in her diary? "Even if Ada and I were still as close, she and George could not take us in: Clara and I are Magnus's lawful possessions, and he would reclaim us soon enough."

  But the diary was written for Magnus to find. My mind was so clouded with fatigue and misery that the thought did not at first make sense, and I stood staring blankly at the page for several uncomprehending seconds before the implications rushed upon me, and I understood at last why Ada Woodward had not answered my letter.

  The noise of the harbour floated up to me as I stood at the top of Church Lane: men shouting, canvas flapping, wheels rumbling, and above it all, the incessant crying of the gulls, piercing, desolate. Beyond the piers, the sea was a flat, steely grey; the salt air was laden with smoky smells of tar and fish and coal, and the decaying odours of mud and seaweed. Stone steps continued on up the hillside, toward St. Mary's Church and the ruin of Whitby Abbey.

  No one knew where I was; I had left my uncle a note saying that I had gone out for the day and would not be back until late, and slipped out of the house before he came down for breakfast. I had dozed fitfully in the train, drifting in and out of nightmares of Wraxford Hall, and schooling myself in the intervals of waking to expect absolutely nothing of this visit.

  St. Michael's Close was a cul-de-sac, curving down from Church Lane and ending at number seven, a high, narrow, whitewashed cottage, set farther below the street, with steps leading down to the front door. My self-admonition had been in vain; my mouth was very dry, and my heart was thumping painfully. I descended the stairs, grasped the heavy brass ring, and rapped twice.

  The door was opened by a gaunt, middle-aged woman who must, I thought, have been very striking in her youth. Her brown hair was streaked with white, her skin was etched and crisscrossed with fine lines, an
d there were shadows like bruises beneath her eyes, but the eyes themselves were large and luminous; all the more striking, set in that haunted face.

  "I should like to speak with Mrs. Woodward," I said tremulously.

  "May I ask who you are?" Her voice was harsh, yet not unpleasant, with something of the local accent.

  "My name is Miss Langton," I said.

  "Wait here," she said, and closed the door in my face. I waited, shivering, for what seemed an age before the door opened again. "Mrs. Woodward is not at home."

  "Please," I said, "I have come all the way from London to see her—to give her this." I drew Nell's journal from my bag, but the housekeeper's eyes did not move from my face.

  " Then I shall give it to her when she returns," she said, stretching out her hand.

  "I am sorry," I said, "but I am charged to deliver it in person. Please; I shall wait in the street, if she will only come out and speak to me."

  "She is not at home," the housekeeper repeated. As she spoke, a young woman emerged from a doorway farther down the passage behind her. I had a glimpse of auburn hair, dark eyes, and an alert, curious gaze before the door closed again.

  There was a low stone wall at the top of the steps, and I sat down upon it, determined not to be driven away. A few moments later, I saw, from the corner of my eye, the curtains twitch at an upper window.

  A quarter of an hour or so later, the door opened again, and another woman emerged; tall, like the housekeeper, but with darker hair, shot through with strands of grey that held the light. She had high cheekbones and a strong, shield-shaped jaw, and though her face was not as ravaged, she too had deep lines etched around her eyes, which were fixed upon me with extreme disapproval.