‘Nearing midnight,’ Cutter said. ‘What of it?’
‘I have tended to her alone since morning, and had not slept as it was. I have taken nothing but black tea. I have tried to keep a professional countenance through it all. But this—’ He glanced wearily at the curtain. ‘One encounters certain rumours in my profession. In yours too, perhaps. But one is never quite prepared.’
‘Prepared for what?’ Cutter said. ‘What are you saying, man?’
Usher looked away. When he turned to them again, Gideon saw the pewtery shadows in the hollows of his eyes. As the doctor searched Cutter’s face, his own took on a despairing cast. ‘It was only my exhaustion, perhaps, but when you asked for her – but no, you don’t know, do you? You haven’t seen it?’
‘Seen what, damn it?’
But Gideon had already pushed past him, unable to master his impatience, and Cutter followed a moment later. Usher joined them, but kept a little apart.
‘It may not be readily apparent,’ he said quietly. ‘It was some hours before I observed it myself. It waxes and wanes a little, but progresses slowly all the while. It is most pronounced when she is distressed.’
‘What have you done to her?’ Gideon demanded. ‘Look at her, she is as pale as a ghost. Why is she locked in this frigid attic? She must have warmer blankets. She must be given nourishing soup.’
‘I do not know what she needs, Sergeant,’ Usher replied. ‘But I know it is not soup.’
Gideon ignored him. He approached the bedside hesitantly. ‘Miss Tatton?’ he said, moving to her side. ‘Angie? It is Gideon. Forgive me, I came as quickly as I could.’
She looked at him, or seemed to, but only for an instant. Her gaze was languid and remote, seeming to pass through what was before her, and her demeanour was strangely tranquil. If she suffered still, there was no sign of it.
She began singing again. Her voice was gentle and ragged, hardly more than a whisper. It was no longer laboured, as it had been in the church, but something in it troubled him. It made him think of dust. He knew the song, though he could not think from where.
‘Western wind, when wilt thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again.’
He turned to Usher, who stood now at the other side of the bed, observing the scene with something approaching distaste. ‘You have drugged her,’ Gideon said. ‘She is not in her right mind.’
‘I assure you not,’ Usher said. ‘She has refused all we have offered her, even food and water. I am sorry for it, Sergeant, but I fear she is beyond our aid.’
‘Beyond your aid?’ Gideon’s voice was now openly raised. ‘What manner of doctor are you? Surely you can see how frail she appears? And why does she not answer, if you have not drugged her? Is she delirious?’
Usher shook his head slowly. ‘You have not seen it. Perhaps you will understand when you have seen it.’
‘I will say it once more, Doctor.’ Cutter had taken up a position at the foot of the bed. His manner was grave and intent. ‘When we have seen what?’
Usher approached the bedside and gave a small cough. ‘Miss Tatton, if you will permit me.’
Her singing continued. She gave no sign of having heard. Usher took hold of her right arm, which lay folded over her left on the bedspread. Supporting it at the elbow and the wrist, he extended it fully. His touch was practised but fastidious, as if the limb he held were gangrenous. He manoeuvred it towards the candle on the nightstand, bringing it so close that Gideon started in alarm.
‘What is this?’ he demanded. ‘I will not see her harmed.’
Usher replied softly. ‘The candle is only to help you see. Stand by the inspector, if you would. It may be necessary to crouch. Position yourself so that Miss Tatton’s hand is in alignment with the candle flame.’
Gideon turned to Cutter. ‘This man is no better than a charlatan, sir. He exhibits her as if she were some curiosity at a fairground. Surely there is a statute prohibiting such malpractice.’
Cutter ignored him. He looked at Usher in wariness, as if he expected to be shown a familiar trick. Then he lowered himself, spreading his thick fingers on his thighs, and peered for a long moment at Angie’s outstretched hand.
‘Christ,’ he said.
Gideon looked in wonder from him to Miss Tatton. He went to the foot of the bed, and the inspector moved aside to let him take his place. Gideon positioned himself just as Cutter had done, adjusting his stance so that Angie’s palm was immediately before the light.
Then he saw.
The palm of Angie’s hand, or a portion of it, had faded to translucence. The missing part was perceptible still and continuous with the rest, but so faint in appearance that it might have been sculpted from smoke. Behind it, as if seen through a dusty window, the flame of the candle dipped and quickened in the dark.
XVII
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said the voice. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the darkness is complete.’
Octavia settled uneasily in her chair as the oil lamps were doused and the light faded from their wicks. A deep gloom had settled, if not quite the perfect darkness the speaker had announced. She could make out the shadowy bulk of the curtained cabinet and, when her eyes had adjusted, the faces of those seated nearest to her. From the far side of the circle, animated whispers could be heard.
‘Silence,’ the voice said again. ‘Silence, ladies and gentlemen, I pray you. Silence is the twin of darkness. One is handmaiden to the other.’
Octavia was distracted for a moment by the faults in this figure of speech, but her attention settled once more on the centre of the circle, where the speaker could now be faintly seen. It was the voice of the medium herself, she supposed, whose ethereal quality was due to some contrivance of showmanship. The effect was remarkable even so, and more than a little disquieting, as if a small chorus of voices were speaking at a slight remove.
Whatever trickery she might employ, it was Octavia’s view that Miss Callista Bewell was little more than a charlatan, of the kind that often practised on well-to-do but credulous society ladies. Indeed, she had it on good authority that even Callista Bewell’s name was an affectation, and that she had been born Caroline Bellew, the daughter of a Wolverhampton cutler.
Mrs Florence Digby, who had convened the gathering, was particularly susceptible to flimflam of this sort. She was devoted to spiritualism of all kinds, which was hardly unusual in itself, but her considerable wealth – amassed by her late husband in the manufacture of medicinal tar soaps – allowed her to indulge her passion on a far grander scale than most. Her lavish and highly theatrical ‘spiritual evenings’ were talked about widely, and often attracted guests of considerable distinction.
Octavia found such occasions tiresome, regardless of who was in attendance, but Mr Healy had been insistent. She had encountered him that afternoon at the offices of the Gazette, where she had hoped to confer with Mr Sewell, who corresponded on matters before the courts, and whose informants among the ranks of the police might prove useful in her investigations. Mr Sewell had been attending an inquest, however, and on hearing of her inquiries in Whitechapel, Mr Healy had ushered her into his excessively upholstered office – a rare occurrence in itself – and had kept her there for almost an hour.
He had been delighted to hear the particulars of the disappearance, and quite untouched by the thought that a real girl was missing and might have come to harm. He was persuaded that it gave substance to all his outlandish talk of Spiriters, and that it needed only a little more in the way of evidence before a great splash could be made of it. In any case, as he had reminded her with particular satisfaction, it was just the sort of thing she had agreed to look into when they had made their bargain.
Octavia had conceded the point, though not without reminding him of his own undertakings. She would go to Mrs Digby’s seance, where an ‘especially gifted’ medium was to appear and a number of distinguished gue
sts were expected. She would give a flattering impression of the gathering for the society page, but if she did discover anything of substance about the Spiriters – and she would almost certainly discover it elsewhere – her account of it would be given a more prominent position in the paper.
It was a relief of sorts, even if she held out no great hopes. She had Miss Tatton’s disappearance to occupy her now, as well as Lord Strythe’s. This arrangement would allow her to continue looking into both, at least for a time, but only if she kept alive Healy’s hopes of a sensation while making no mention for now of the earl.
It could be managed, though she would find herself thinly spread, but it was not the effort involved that troubled her most. She had been thoughtless in acting as she had, in rushing to Whitechapel and gaining someone’s confidence on false pretences, and she feared that her foolish promise to help find the girl had only made matters worse. She meant to keep her word if she could, but surely it would be ghoulish even in that case to make use of Miss Tatton’s story for her own ends. These doubts had begun to oppress her, and when the medium resumed – she had been standing for some time with her eyes closed and her fingertips pressed to her temples – Octavia almost welcomed the distraction.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Miss Bewell now intoned. ‘We live, we are told, in an age of discovery, in a time of marvels. Every day we read of some new miracle that men of science have accomplished. Men who are separated by a mile or more may converse by means of wires as if they were seated in the same room. The voices of those now dead have been etched into foil so that we may hear them as if they were still living. Men have made light, not with fire or gas, but with nothing more than electricity. Let there be light, men have said.’
The drawing room was in near darkness still, but Miss Bewell could be seen to fling out her arms as she uttered these last words.
‘But there are other marvels, ladies and gentlemen, that reveal themselves not in the harsh light of the laboratory but in the ancient sanctity of shadow. There are wonders, though it is not commonly known, that do not surrender themselves to men. You will recognise the truth of what I say, I trust, and you will not find it presumptuous or unbecoming. I do not deny the genius of men, or seek to trespass in the domain for which God has fitted them alone. I am not one of those boisterous agitators who deny the natural order of things.’
Here Miss Bewell’s voice took on a mellifluous character, though it was altered still by the same mysterious mechanism. Octavia shifted impatiently in her chair.
‘But even the gentlemen present,’ she continued, ‘will surely grant this much. They will allow that our sex, being disposed by nature to gentleness and quiescence, is granted a stillness of mind and a fineness of perception. These feminine gifts, however modest, are not allotted equally, any more than the dominant sex exhibits its defining virtues without distinction. For myself, ladies and gentlemen, I make no claim to genius, but such gifts as I have I now place at your service. I will guide you, if you are willing, to the very extremities of nature, but no further. Others may boast of their skills in the dark arts, but I do not meddle with witchcraft or necromancy. Such power as I possess was bestowed on me by nature, for nature encompasses all. Only by admitting her supremacy may we be admitted to her deep and final mysteries. Ladies and gentlemen, the darkness is complete.’
And now the feeble light that remained was indeed extinguished by some unseen hand. Miss Bewell’s face vanished entirely, and a murmur of disquiet arose among the guests. A lady seated to Octavia’s left gave a nervous exclamation, and there was a good deal more in the way of coughing and fidgeting before someone – Octavia took it to be Mrs Digby herself – issued a stern shushing.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Miss Bewell went on, ‘I will now withdraw to the manifestation cabinet. I will be occupied there for some time, how long exactly I cannot say, for I depend on the whims of ungovernable forces. The other element, the immortal substance of our souls, is constituted with an unimaginable delicacy. Think of a drifting filament of spider silk, disturbed by the merest breath, or the frail tissue of a butterfly’s wing. The stuff of the spirit is more fragile still, and it must cross an unimaginable distance if it is to be urged before our sight.
‘As for the identities of those who will come before us, those are more uncertain still. I have certain familiars, as do all of us who practise this art, and doubtless you will see one of those first. My familiar will perhaps say more, for it is they and not I who are in proximity with the other realm. After that, I cannot tell who may speak or be seen. No doubt some of you have come tonight in the hope of conversing with those you have lost, and I am glad to say that I have brought about such happy communions in the past. But you must not fix your hopes on that prospect, I beg you. Our cries are heard, more often than not, merely by those wanderers who happen to be near. I will say no more, ladies and gentlemen. The next words you hear, whatever their nature, will not be mine.’
Octavia, relieved that this rather tedious preamble had come to an end, heard a momentary disturbance as the drapes enclosing the cabinet were parted, and what sounded like the scuffing of bare feet on boards. After that, a silence fell, or the nearest approximation of it that could be managed by a dozen or more grown men and women who had been perched on dining chairs in varying states of discomfort or boredom for almost half an hour.
Some minutes had passed – and Octavia had allowed her mind to wander – when a slight noise recalled her to herself. A guest who had entered the room unheard now settled into the vacant seat to her right, which gave out a jarring squeak. Having murmured an apology to the company, this person leaned towards Octavia and gave a discreet cough.
‘I say, is that you, Wavy? I shall be quite mortified if I’ve taken the wrong seat after going to all this trouble.’
This drew an indignant rebuke from Mrs Digby, and Octavia allowed a moment to pass before whispering her reply. ‘Elf?’ she said. ‘How on earth did you manage to slip in? It’s like being sealed in a tomb.’
‘Oh, you know me, my darling. No drawing room in London is impervious to my wiles. Macken said you’d been to see me while I was out, which I felt wretched about, but I mean to make it up to you. I’ve come by some intelligence, you see, that concerns—’
He was cut off by a strenuous shushing from the assembled company, and the silence was restored. Ten minutes passed, or twenty. Octavia could not tell. The effect of the silence and the darkness was strangely dislocating. She felt as if she were a passenger in a windowless train, sensing only the continuous unspooling of unmarked distances. A slight brushing sound came from the curtained booth, then nothing again. Not even the ticking of a clock.
He seemed quite near to her, Elf, in the darkness. She was aware of a faint emanation of heat and scent. It was odd, she thought, that he should have gone so much out of his way. Mrs Digby’s gatherings weren’t at all his sort of thing. And how had he known to find her here?
A light appeared at the centre of the circle. It stuttered at first, then persisted, a peculiar column of radiance whose source could not be seen. It was not especially bright, but its purity of colour was remarkable. Lesser shafts mingled and shimmered at its core, but the limits of the whole were perfectly fixed. It was quite unlike any light she had ever seen. She could not take her eyes from it.
‘I am Psyche.’
A new voice spoke, or the first had been disguised by some altered mechanism. It was multiplied, as before, but projected now so that it seemed to come from all around her. It was chilly and precise, faintly exultant.
‘I am Psyche, and you must listen.’
In the midst of the light, a face could now be seen. It was bodiless, as if suspended in a void, and its features seemed formed from some diffuse and insubstantial surface. The apparition waxed and waned, shifting and indistinct.
‘I was beauty itself once, coveted and pure. I was adored as none before me. But I lived among men, and no man can rest while there is fault to be found
in a woman’s virtue. Condemned by my own father, I was given in sacrifice to the underworld. I was cast out onto the peaks, abandoned to the winds and whatever demons they carried. Do not ask me what trials I passed through, for I will no longer speak of them. I am sanctified once more, and belong now to love itself. It is my light that you must carry into the palaces of the night, if you would know it and have it know you. But behold, someone approaches. There is someone who wishes to speak.’
In another part of the drawing room, a second column of radiance flickered into being, serene and quartz-like, and rippled with lazing dust. No doubt it was some concealed apparatus that produced these illusions, but it was done with a singular skill.
‘Who comes to us?’ said the voice of Psyche. ‘Do not be afraid to speak. You find yourself among friends.’
In answer, there arose a violent surge of noise, as if a great many disparate sounds had massed together: a roaring sea, a bow wrenched over slack strings, the grinding of some immense engine. A woman clutched her husband’s arm in frank terror, and a number of other guests looked about them for some reassurance that all was still in hand. Then, after ten or fifteen seconds – and just as abruptly as it had begun – the noise died away.
What followed resembled silence, at first, but soon a pattern unfolded. A pulse of whispers formed, a susurration. It shifted, gathered itself. It was a voice. Someone was speaking. ‘Ain’t you ain’t you ain’t you oh ain’t you yes you.’
‘There,’ said Psyche, a gentleness now in that strange, ramified voice. ‘There, you must not be frightened. Tell us what you came to say.’
‘Ain’t you oh ain’t you the pretty one will you be pretty one.’
‘Yes. Yes, tell us.’
The House on Vesper Sands Page 19