‘Are you a widow too?’ Mabel asked.
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Nora said with a little chuckle. She put a kettle on a small gas stove in the corner and then placed an enamel basin, a clean cloth and towel on the table. Next, she gently removed Mabel’s hat – which, remarkably, had stayed in place throughout her beating – and her coat. ‘Looks like your old man had a few bob. Nice hat and coat,’ she said, stroking the dark coat reverently.
While Nora worked on cleaning up her face, Mabel managed to explain the gist of what had happened at Harley Place and that she’d intended to go to Dorchester to get a new job. She also put the woman straight about how she came by the quality coat and hat. Nora didn’t comment on anything. Once she’d cleaned Mabel’s face and hands, she measured out some brown liquid into a glass, added warm water and made her drink it.
‘That will help with the pain,’ she said. ‘Now let’s look at yer body and see what damage has been done.’
A couple of hours later, and despite how much Mabel was hurting, she felt she’d found a real friend in Nora. She was kind and funny, but completely down to earth about people.
‘I find most folk are either stupid, selfish, greedy or vain. Some are all four. But then I must be stupid too, as I keep hoping I’ll meet someone who ain’t like that,’ she said as she examined Mabel’s injuries. ‘I think you’ve got a couple of broken ribs, you poor love, which will take ages to heal, but the rest is just severe bruising. In a day or two it’ll feel better. You’d better stay here with me, cos if you try to walk with those broken ribs, they’ll give you gip and never heal.’
‘But I can’t impose on you,’ Mabel said. ‘I haven’t even got any money to pay you.’
‘I don’t need paying for being a friend,’ Nora said firmly. ‘I get a bit lonely at this time of year, and I’ll be glad of your company.’
That night, as Mabel lay next to her new friend in her bed, hurting like she’d never hurt before, and unable to sleep, she offered up a silent prayer of thanks. If not for Nora where would she be now? Frozen to death in that alley, she guessed. When she had staggered to the outside lavatory earlier, she saw there was a hard frost. No one else would’ve taken her in with no money.
Every winter people died in such conditions. She’d been lucky.
Nora still hadn’t explained what she meant by talking to the dead. Perhaps she would in the morning. But whatever she did for a living, Mabel intended to find some way of paying her back for her kindness.
By Christmas Eve Mabel could talk more normally, even though she looked terrible, with two black eyes, and was wincing at every step from her bruises and broken ribs. So far, she’d only eaten bread and milk, as her mouth was so sore. But already she felt as if she’d known Nora all her life. And she wanted to keep her in it.
It was Nora’s warmth that was so remarkable. Lying in the bed next to her was like lying next to a big hot-water bottle, but it was the warmth of her personality that was outstanding. She was prepared to share everything she had – her bed, clothes, food and the fireside. She didn’t judge; even her questions were gentle. She was funny too, though Mabel wished she wouldn’t make her laugh so often, as it hurt. But when Nora told her about her past, Mabel wondered how she’d managed to be so forgiving.
Nora was twenty-nine now and she’d come to Bristol from a farming village in Somerset when she was just fourteen, for a position as a maid. She said she’d been happy with the Withall family in Royal York Crescent, in Clifton, for six years, until their son Albert came back from South Africa where he’d been working.
‘He pestered me night and day,’ she said with a grimace. ‘You know, trying to have his way with me. I tried to tell his mother, but she ignored what I said. Then finally he came into my room one night and raped me! I told his father then, but neither he nor his bloody mother believed it was rape. They said I’d led him on and threw me out for being such a slut. Well, I couldn’t go home – I doubted my parents would believe me, either – and to top it all, a few weeks later I found I was having his baby.’
‘Oh, Nora, how awful.’
‘It was! I felt like flinging meself off the suspension bridge, but I wasn’t even brave enough to climb on to the railings, let alone jump. I had no choice but to go to the workhouse. There was nowhere else. My baby, a little boy, was stillborn. I think he died because the old crone at the workhouse who acted as a midwife didn’t know what she was doing. I was badly torn too, and I wished I could die.’
Mabel put her arms around her new friend, to comfort her. She didn’t have the words to express how awful it must have been for her.
‘Maybe it was just as well.’ Nora sighed, and gave a glum half-smile. ‘Bringing a child up on your own is well-nigh impossible. But it made me go a bit mad for a time. That’s when I first discovered I could talk to the dead.’
Mabel had almost forgotten that Nora had told her that before. ‘Can you? Seriously?’
‘Well, not to just anyone. But I do get messages, if I concentrate. I got a message for you while I was cleaning up your face.’
Mabel was flabbergasted, and she wanted to take it further. ‘Who was the message from?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, someone who drowned at sea. He asked me to tell you to stay strong, and that he understood. I thought he said he was called Bert, but I might have got that wrong. Does it mean anything to you?’
Mabel was struck dumb with shock. She wanted to admit it was her father, but she was afraid that if she opened up to say that much, she wouldn’t be able to stop, and she didn’t know yet if she could trust Nora.
‘I had an uncle who was drowned at sea,’ she said carefully. ‘Maybe it was him.’
‘Sometimes wires do get crossed.’ Nora shrugged. ‘But I have found that messages come through when people are in difficulties – it’s like confirmation the spirits are looking out for you. I got a keen sense of you and the sea too. Were you with your uncle when it happened?’
‘No,’ Mabel said quickly. ‘But we lived by the sea in Plymouth. It’s a comforting thought the dead do look out for us. But tell me, do you make a living from speaking to the dead?’
‘Don’t mock,’ Nora said sharply. ‘Yes, I do.’
Mabel was mortified at hurting her friend’s feelings. ‘I wasn’t mocking, I’m just bowled over by it. It’s not something I know anything about.’
Nora’s face softened. ‘I’ll forgive you. People do like to mock. A great many people think people like me are tricksters. It’s only when I get messages from someone who means a lot to them, and I couldn’t have known about that person, or what they would say, that they begin to believe in me.’
‘So how do you do it? Where do you do it?’ Here, or in their homes?’
‘Sometimes people ask me to their homes. That is usually the best, as the spirits are either there already or close by. Occasionally I might do it here, if someone special asks me, but mostly I do it in a small hall. Then more people come, and if the atmosphere is right the messages come through.’
‘But how?’ Mabel frowned. ‘Is it a bit like dreaming?’
‘In a way. If I close my eyes and empty my head of all the usual stuff, just focus on thinking about my audience; it’s a bit like falling asleep. They call it a trance. Sometimes I don’t even remember what I’ve heard and said afterwards. I’m doing one on the thirtieth, near here. You can come and see what you think.’
‘I look too horrible to go anywhere just yet,’ Mabel said. ‘I’d frighten people.’
‘I’ve got a black hat with a veil, you could wear that,’ Nora said. ‘Go on, come, I think you’ll find it really interesting. I can’t predict what will pop up, though lately it’s been mostly messages from husbands and sons killed in France. Maybe your husband will be one of them, but I hope not, as you’ll think I’m faking it.’
‘What did you mean when you said, “in a manner of speaking” when I asked if you were a widow?’
Nora smiled. ‘It’s pa
rtly because after losing the baby, I felt I never wanted another man to come near me,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I dressed like a widow and I found it put men off approaching me. I tell folk, if they ask, that my hubby was run over by a tram.’
She giggled and put her hand over her mouth, as if embarrassed. ‘I started the story before war broke out, you see, and I’d read about a man being killed that way in Manchester. It stops people in their tracks, they don’t ask anything else.’
Mabel could feel her own confession forming on her lips. She wanted to tell Nora the truth about herself so badly, but she didn’t dare. Nora was too kind-hearted to approve of her running out on a shell-shocked man.
Later that evening, it suddenly occurred to Mabel that the experience she’d had while handling Mrs Gladsworthy’s dress might be similar to what Nora had described. Did the girl and that man come to her because they were spirits? If Mrs Hardy hadn’t interrupted, might she have got a message?
She wasn’t sure she wanted to have another experience like that, but she would dearly love to know if it really was a message from the dead.
They awoke on Christmas morning to hear church bells ringing. Mabel went out into the alley to listen. Her eyes filled with tears, as it was such a sharp memory of Christmas at Hallsands. As a little girl she could remember going up to Stokenham church for the Christmas morning service, walking between her parents with them holding both her hands. The two adult hands, each holding a small hand, gave her a safe, precious feeling. She hoped if they were looking down on her now, they weren’t too upset by what she’d done.
The two girls celebrated Christmas with beef stew and opened a box of chocolates one of Nora’s clients had given her. They played cards, drank some sherry and talked their heads off. Despite the pain Mabel was in, it was a far happier Christmas than the previous year, when Agnes had been nastier than usual, and Mabel had walked out and gone back alone to her own house.
By the evening of the thirtieth, Mabel was feeling able to walk about; her ribs were still agony if she moved suddenly, but the swelling on her face had gone down and the bruises only hurt when pressed. She was so curious about Nora talking to the dead that she felt compelled to go with her to the small meeting house. It was less than half a mile away, and she needed to try walking again. With Nora’s black-veiled hat on, she seemed almost invisible, and that felt good.
A group of about eight women were waiting for Nora outside a somewhat ramshackle hut by the River Avon. They greeted Nora as if she was someone famous. They were respectful, yet excited to see her. At precisely seven o’clock a man came and unlocked the door, lit the gas lighting, and held out his hand for money. Nora paid him, then he reminded her he would be back at half eight to lock up.
Another five women and one man came in as the first arrivals took their seats. As Nora moved to bolt the door, she inclined her head to Mabel to tell her to sit on the end of the back row. Then Nora moved amongst the audience to take their money. It looked to Mabel as if they were each giving her sixpence. Some gave her small items to hold too – a brooch, a handkerchief, and one even gave her a pipe. Nora put these in the pocket of her coat.
She had mentioned that lots of diverse groups of people used this place; everything from reading lessons for illiterate adults, to dance classes and first-aid training. It smelled musty, but the wooden floor was clean and smooth. And it was cold, as there was no heating.
Finally, when everyone was settled, Nora stood on the small platform in front of everyone. She was dressed in her customary black – a loose coat, a narrow-brimmed felt hat, and thick wool stockings and stout shoes. Black made her fair skin appear sallow and aged her. Back in her little flat, she liked to put on a long, loose woolly dressing gown that was a deep sapphire blue, and with her fair hair loose she looked pretty and no older than twenty-five. But Mabel assumed that when Nora was working, she found it better to look matronly.
Nora looked at her audience in silence for a little while, going from face to face. There wasn’t a sound from anyone, and the air seemed charged with something extraordinary.
Then she closed her eyes, her hands clasped in front of her. She looked like she was praying. Now the entire audience seemed to be holding their breath, Mabel found herself doing it too.
‘William is here,’ she said at last. Her eyes were still closed, and her voice sounded different, very flat, nothing like the bouncy way she normally spoke.
Mabel looked around at everyone and on the end of the row she was in, a young woman was straining forward, her face alight with hope.
‘He is telling me he is sorry he couldn’t wait until you got to the hospital. He tried to hang on. He says to call the baby Josie, after your mother, and he is watching over you.’
Even in the dim gaslight, Mabel could see the young woman was hanging on every word Nora was saying, and tears glistened on her cheeks. There was no doubt in Mabel’s mind that this message meant everything to the young widow, but she wanted to know why he was apologizing for not getting to the hospital in time. Did he mean if they’d got him there, he might have lived? Or had something happened to her?
After that, the air seemed even more charged and Nora then related a message for someone called Agatha. An older woman in the front row gasped. Nora told her that her mother was with them and she was saying to give her tea set to her daughter as a wedding present.
To Mabel that was a disappointingly dull message, but she could see Agatha looking thrilled and happy.
So it went on; some messages seemed almost pointless, some cruel in their brevity, but the recipients all seemed delighted. But now Mabel was watching her friend rather than listening to these messages. It was as if she was asleep, and the voice coming out of her mouth didn’t seem to belong to her. Sometimes she felt in her pocket and pulled out one of the mementos, but they didn’t always achieve anything.
Finally, she opened her eyes again and said she hoped that some of them had found comfort in the messages and apologized to those who hadn’t got one. ‘I can’t make the spirits come,’ she explained. ‘This is just the way it is.’
Nobody seemed disgruntled, and Mabel heard the woman called Agatha telling another woman that she’d been agonizing over whether to pass her mother’s tea set on. ‘It seemed disloyal not to keep it myself, but my daughter loves it so much. I can give it to her happily now.’
‘Well, what did you think?’ Nora asked on the way back to her flat.
‘It was like magic,’ Mabel said. ‘I’ve never seen or heard anything like it.’
‘I had a couple of horrible messages tonight that I didn’t own up about. They were from soldiers who had died just recently, and the messages were all about their pain and terror. I didn’t want to put that picture in a wife’s head. They probably haven’t even been told yet that their husbands are dead.’
‘Well, they probably weren’t in the audience anyway then,’ Mabel said.
‘Oh, I think they were. These messages tend to come when the person is there, close by. I think one of them was Agatha’s daughter, the one who the tea set was for. The spirit asked for Alice, and I heard her called that.’
‘I don’t think I’d like to take the responsibility for knowing such things,’ Mabel said thoughtfully.
‘I don’t, either. But for some reason I don’t understand, I’ve been given this “gift”, and all I can do is try to use it for the good. But speaking of this gift, a couple of times things have come to me that I know are to do with you, even when the voice calls you Betty. Both times I get the vision of a rough sea. Is this your father?’
They had just reached the gate into Nora’s flat, which gave Mabel a few seconds to think of her reply as they went indoors.
‘Well?’ Nora said. ‘I know you are hiding something, Mabel. Tell me what it is?’
Mabel realized she had to give her new friend something. ‘Okay, it was my father not my uncle who was lost at sea. I didn’t want to tell you before, as it’s upsetting for me sti
ll. His pet name for me was Betty.’
Nora sank down on a chair, still wearing her coat and hat. She looked worried. ‘There’s more, though, I feel he is concerned about you.’
‘Well, I did come to Bristol to get away from my mother-in-law. She was a real bloodsucker and I knew as long as I stayed near her, I could never have a life of my own.’
‘But you left without telling anyone where you’d gone?’
Nora’s statement shocked Mabel.
‘Yes, I did, it seemed the best way.’
Nora nodded. ‘Fair enough. It’s none of my business, in any case. Maybe your father is concerned because of what happened at your job and the beating in the alley?’
‘Surely spirits don’t get detailed messages of what is happening?’
‘Are you laughing at me?’ Nora asked.
‘No, I just find it hard to imagine someone dead watching me. Until I met you, I didn’t know such a thing could happen.’
‘I don’t think the spirits watch, or know exactly what is going on. I think they just home in on how you are feeling. But I couldn’t say for sure, I can’t question them.’
Mabel took off her coat and hat, then held out a hand to Nora to take hers too. ‘You’ve been wonderful,’ she said softly, finding it hard to find the right words to convey how much she owed this new friend. ‘I can’t imagine what would’ve become of me if you hadn’t found me when you did.’
That night, Mabel lay awake long after Nora had gone to sleep. The idea that she got the beating as a punishment for running away, and leaving Martin, kept going round and round in her head. In a few days it would be a year since she’d left Hallsands, and she could see how much she’d changed in that year. She had learned so much; how rich people live, how they thought and spoke. She’d read books she would never have seen back in Hallsands, and they had opened windows on to places, people and other things she hadn’t known about before. From Mrs Hardy and Mrs Tweed, she’d learned a great deal more than just running a house or cooking meals; she’d absorbed their stories from past times in service, their views on the upper classes.
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