Mabel had that strange sensation she’d felt twice before, but this time it felt like she was being gently pulled, the way a magnet would pull a piece of metal. She was reminded of that evening with Nora, and it all seemed to fit in some way.
‘I … I … d-d-don’t know,’ she stammered.
Clara looked at her curiously. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘It was like a goose running over my grave,’ Mabel said. She looked back at the sign, and again felt the strange pulling sensation. ‘Okay, then. Let’s do it.’
The meeting was due to start in just five minutes and people were pushing past them to go in; not just older women, but a mixture of young and old, male and female. Some of them looked poor, others affluent.
They paid sixpence each to go in, the same as Nora had charged. The money was taken by an elderly woman wearing a fox fur over her tweed coat.
The hall was a much smarter place than the one Nora had used. This venue felt warm, clean and well maintained. It wasn’t that big; there were about fifty chairs facing a raised platform, which was carpeted.
Mabel and Clara took seats at the back, closest to the central aisle, so they could leave early if they wanted to. The audience all seemed eager, and Mabel overheard snippets of conversation about previous meetings of Coral Atwell’s.
‘My friend got a message from her grandmother. She told her that Bill died saying her name and he said he’d always loved her.’
‘All predictable stuff,’ Mabel whispered to Clara. ‘I expect we’ll get a lot of Spanish flu messages too, and ones from men who died in France.’
‘Don’t be a cynic,’ Clara whispered back. ‘I’m hoping my father will come with a message for me.’
Mabel was surprised to hear that. Firstly, Clara had always seemed so well grounded that she hadn’t expected her to believe in spiritualists or psychics; she had pooh-poohed the whole thing about Nora, when Mabel told her about the meeting she attended with her. Secondly, Clara had only ever mentioned her father once in all the time Mabel had worked for her. But then she knew very well how people could keep serious things incredibly quiet.
The doors were closed and the lady with the fox fur went up on to the little stage.
‘I am delighted to see so many people here to experience an evening with Coral Atwell. For those of you who haven’t been to any of her previous meetings in Bath, I need to explain that Madam Atwell cannot control which spirits want to speak through her. Sometimes the messages are jumbled or unclear, sometimes an angry spirit can manifest. Lately, because of the many deaths – both in Flanders and here in England, due to the Spanish flu – some of the messages have proved upsetting. I hope you can understand why this is. Coral doesn’t, of course, know the direction messages will take, so if at any time you feel uncomfortable, it is fine for you to leave.’
The woman looked around the audience, as if doing a quick head count.
‘Now, without further ado, I give you Coral Atwell.’
Everyone clapped, and to Mabel’s surprise a big woman came on to the stage. She didn’t know what she had expected, perhaps someone a bit like Nora, but this woman couldn’t have been more different.
She wasn’t fat, just tall – perhaps nearly six foot – and big boned. She must have been in her fifties, with her grey hair pinned up in a severe bun, and she wore a plain grey dress and round gold-rimmed spectacles. She looked like a headmistress or a missionary – certainly the pretty name Coral didn’t seem to belong to her.
‘Good evening,’ she said. ‘I am pleased to see so many people here tonight and I hope that for some of you there will be messages from the other side.’
However stern and even masculine she looked, her voice was gentle, well modulated, with a hint of an accent that Mabel couldn’t place.
She sat down on the chair that had been placed on the stage for her and closed her eyes. The woman with the fox fur turned off some of the lights and then seated herself next to the stage.
There was absolute silence as everyone waited, and it seemed an awfully long time before Coral spoke.
‘I have Jimmy,’ she said eventually. ‘He wants to tell his wife it was too quick for him to be scared. He’s saying a name, but it doesn’t make sense to me. Bubba?’
Coral opened her eyes and looked around the audience.
A woman in the middle of the audience stood up. To Mabel she looked genuinely shocked and delighted.
‘Was the message a good one?’ Coral asked.
The woman nodded, she looked too flabbergasted to speak.
‘Jimmy said to kiss the children and keep them close.’
The woman Bubba sat down, and now she was crying.
The fox-fur lady held up her hands for silence and once again Coral closed her eyes. She didn’t keep still this time but kept moving her head and her hands, as if she was having a private conversation with someone.
‘There is someone here at the meeting tonight who also receives messages from the other side,’ she said at last, her eyes open again. She started scanning the people in front of her. ‘This person does not know she has the power yet, but she was drawn in here tonight because of it. The spirit does not want to come through me.’
Mabel and Clara looked at one another. Mabel wondered if that strange pulling sensation was what this woman was talking about.
‘Your given name is Betty. But more recently you have changed it. I think it is Mabel.’
Mabel felt herself go hot and then cold. She felt Clara’s hand on her arm, urging her to stand up.
Coral got up and walked down the aisle in the centre of two blocks of chairs, straight towards Mabel. She stopped, looking right at her.
‘Come,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘There is nothing to fear.’
Mabel got up, as if she had no control over her own movements, and reached for the woman’s hand. As it closed over hers, she heard a message inside her head. She closed her eyes and a peculiar power took over. A voice was asking to pass a message to Violet.
The next thing Mabel heard was the sound of clapping. She opened her eyes and she was still in the same place, but without any idea of what had happened after the name Violet came to her.
‘Can I speak to you later?’ Coral asked and let go of her hand so she could go back to her seat.
Throughout the rest of the meeting Mabel felt as if she was floating away somewhere. It wasn’t unpleasant or frightening, but it prevented her from concentrating or even hearing what was going on around her.
It was applause again that brought her out of this strange state, and she saw that everyone was standing to clap.
‘My God, that was incredible,’ Clara said. ‘But you were the most amazing part of it.’
People began to leave, and one young woman came up to her and put her hands gently on Mabel’s cheeks. ‘Thank you for that, Mabel. You have made me feel I can deal with it all now. I hope you will be here again.’
‘That was Violet, you know, the girl you had the message for,’ Clara whispered in her ear. ‘And do close your mouth, you look like you are catching flies.’
Coral came down the aisle. ‘Mabel, I sensed you had no idea you had the power for spirits to speak through you. That must be so unnerving. Please take my card. And if it is at all possible, please call on me before you leave Bath. I need to talk to you.’
Mabel agreed she would and then, still stunned, she left with Clara. They went into the first restaurant they came to and ate their meal in virtual silence.
Back at Meads Hotel, an hour later, with a glass of brandy in her hand, Mabel felt she was back to normal and was eager to discuss what had happened.
‘I don’t understand. Why did this happen to me, Clara? Tell me what I said, as I don’t remember anything.’
‘You clearly do have a calling. You seem able to speak to the dead.’ Clara looked at her housekeeper as if she’d never seen her before. ‘I couldn’t believe my ears.’
She went on to tell Mabel that she�
��d asked Violet to stand up and told her that her husband had walked away from the trenches and been shot for desertion. ‘He said he wasn’t deserting, he just couldn’t stand the noise any longer. He wanted her to know he wasn’t a coward. He’d intended to go back. But they arrested him before he could.’
Mabel gasped in horror. ‘I told his poor wife that? I wouldn’t be that cruel!’
‘Violet knew you weren’t being cruel. She was notified that he was executed by a firing squad for desertion some time ago. You mustn’t feel bad, Mabel, because Violet found real comfort in the message that her husband intended to go back.’
Mabel was once again catching flies, with her mouth wide open. She couldn’t believe all this had been said without her knowledge or having any memory of it.
‘This is too strange for me to cope with,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a couple of weird little incidents before, and I got a peculiar feeling when I looked at the board outside the meeting hall, but I had no idea it would lead to this.’
‘Mabel, whether you like it or not, you’ve got a gift,’ Clara said. ‘I think you should use it. But before we go any further, what is this about you being Betty? Would you like to explain that?’
Mabel couldn’t stop herself from bursting into tears. The evening had been so strange and unsettling, especially when the woman Coral brought up her real name.
‘I don’t dare tell you,’ she sobbed. ‘You might hate or despise me. You might even want to expose me for living a lie.’
‘You will have to tell me now, or I’ll think you killed someone and hid the body. Whatever you tell me will not go beyond this hotel room.’
It was so like Clara to make a glib remark that Mabel gave a ghost of a smile.
‘I only killed myself – at least, I let people think I’d died.’
She explained then about Agnes and her shell-shocked husband, and how the houses had been washed away. ‘I think Agnes wanted me to be killed that night, and I gave her what she wanted. But I’ve always felt bad about poor Martin. He didn’t know me any more, but that’s no real excuse for walking away and playing dead. I called myself Mabel Brook. And you know the rest of the fibs I told you.’
‘Oh, Mabel, sweetheart,’ Clara said with a huge sigh. ‘What a shocking experience for you. Strangely enough, I remember reading about Hallsands being washed away. There were several places on the Devon and Dorset coast that took a hammering too back then, but not as bad of course. I don’t blame you for leaving, that woman sounds like a witch. As for poor Martin, he’s got his mother and grandfather taking care of him. You did deserve a better life than that.’
Mabel hung her head. She had intended to take her story to her grave, but now it was out; she was afraid and ashamed.
Clara reached out, put her hand under Mabel’s chin and lifted it gently. ‘Listen to me! You will not feel ashamed, remorseful or scared. Since you started working for me you have more than redeemed yourself. You nursed Carsten and me through the flu – not to mention all those other prisoners. You are a strong, brave and kind woman who deserves far more than you’ve been given. And I also believe that whatever it was that happened tonight, it is a God-given gift, and you must use it.’
Mabel looked doubtful. ‘How?’ She shrugged. ‘I can’t set myself up as a psychic, clairvoyant, spiritualist – whatever you want to call it – based on tonight’s message.’
‘It wasn’t one message, it was three,’ Clara said. ‘The second one was from a woman’s grandmother who died a year ago when she was staying with her granddaughter in Bath. She wanted to tell the woman to start the guest house she had planned. Then the third was about a child’s death from drowning in Pulteney Weir. His name was John and he was sorry for disobeying his mother and playing down there.’
‘Really!’ Mabel was so amazed that all this could have happened without her having any knowledge of it. She was inclined to believe Clara was making it up. ‘I can’t believe it. It’s like one of those mad dreams that makes no sense.’
‘Those messages made perfect sense to the people who they were for,’ Clara said. ‘But perhaps if you go and see Coral tomorrow, she can explain it all to you.’
Coral lived close to Meads Hotel, in Henrietta Street, just off Great Pulteney Street. It was a street of much smaller, two-storey houses, some of which might have been coach houses in Bath’s Georgian times.
Mabel went alone, much to Clara’s dismay, as she’d wanted to be part of it. But Mabel felt she needed to make her own judgement about this woman, not have her feelings clouded by Clara’s enthusiasm.
It was a neat little honey-coloured stone house, with snowy lace curtains preventing a glimpse inside. Coral answered the door at the first tentative tap.
‘I am so glad you came, Mabel,’ she said, drawing her into a small hallway. ‘I was afraid you’d back off. You seemed very shocked and bewildered by what happened.’
‘I was.’ Mabel let the older woman take her coat and hat, then followed her into a small cluttered parlour with a blazing fire. Coral was a big woman and all the furniture was big too; there were large chintz-covered armchairs and a huge glass-fronted cabinet against one wall which held dozens of pottery figurines. ‘I’ve had no inkling that I possessed this ability.’
‘Most of us don’t – it seems to find us,’ she said with a smile, before telling her to sit down. ‘I saw things from the age of about six. My parents got angry when I told them what I saw. They thought I was making it up for attention. But many other psychics tell me it came to them as they were recovering from an illness, or some other major upset. Have you lost someone recently?’
‘Yes,’ Mabel admitted. ‘I also nursed Spanish flu victims, too. I’m going back to that when I return to Dorchester. I work as a housekeeper for the lady I was with at the meeting. She nearly died of the flu. That’s why we came here, to celebrate her recovery and the end of the war.’
‘I really think you should use your gift,’ Coral said, looking right into her eyes. Hers were very dark, almost black, and seen close up her skin was very lined, almost lizard-like. She was much older than Mabel had at first thought. ‘It is a gift, even though right now you might think otherwise. If you lived nearby, I would suggest you worked with me. It’s a big draw for people when there are two of us. But clearly that isn’t practical, although I have a psychic friend in Southampton. I’d like to put you in touch with her, she’s one of the best, and has a huge following.’
‘Tell me why I should do it?’ Mabel said. ‘It seems wrong to me to encourage grieving people to believe that they can communicate with the dead. You see, I would never have gone to your meeting if I’d known I could tap into that world. For me, the dead should stay dead.’
‘This person you lost recently, you wouldn’t want a message from him?’
It was uncanny, Mabel felt Coral was looking right into her soul and knew she had already heard from him.
‘Yes, I suppose I would. I mean, I was so happy when I got a message from him, because he died a cruel, untimely death. But I didn’t know that’s what it was, I thought it was just my imagination, or wishful thinking. I’ve lost both my parents too, but I don’t think I’d want messages from them.’
‘Messages tend to come when the recipient is still grieving, or if he or she has unanswered questions. I expect your parents don’t fall into that category.’
Coral seemed to have an answer for everything. Mabel wanted to get out before this odd woman started delving into her mind and soul.
‘Another thing – though it seems crass to mention it – talking to the dead can be very lucrative. I was left this house by a grateful follower. I have the kind of life now that I dreamed of when I was a kitchen maid and sleeping in a garret. Surely, you’d like to have money of your own, to be able to travel, to choose the way you want to live and where?’
‘That doesn’t seem right to me,’ Mabel said.
‘If you nursed someone and they died and left you a house and money, would you fe
el bad about that?’
Mabel thought of Mrs Hardy inheriting her mews cottage. ‘No, but I’d have worked for that.’
‘To bring messages from the dead is to work too. You must tap into something that can drain you, and sometimes you face ridicule if the messages don’t come. Believe me, you earn your money. But listen to me, Mabel. We have lost the cream of our young men in this war, and still more are dying as we speak from this flu. Pretty young women like you could once take the pick of young men as husbands. But now they are in short supply. The war will change everything, you mark my words. Women will get the vote, they won’t kowtow to men any longer. They will be able to own property soon, they will be in charge of their own destiny, not subservient to their husbands or fathers. Strong, resourceful woman like you, Mabel, will be able to climb as high as you like.’
‘I need to get back to Miss May now, she’ll be needing me,’ Mabel said, feeling intimidated.
Coral got up, opened a drawer in a side table and drew out a card. ‘This is my friend in Southampton. Don’t rule it out until you’ve met her. Promise me?’
Clara lay on her bed in her hotel room, listening to Mabel’s report of the meeting with Coral without interrupting even once. When she’d finished, Clara exhaled rather noisily.
‘Whew!’ she exclaimed. ‘So will you see this woman in Southampton?’
‘I really don’t know,’ Mabel said. ‘Last night might have been a fluke. It might never happen again. Besides, is it right?’
‘I can’t see what’s wrong with giving people a bit of comfort,’ Clara said. ‘If you do find no messages come, you just apologize, and pack it in.’
‘What I don’t understand was why it came on so suddenly. I mean why, if I am psychic, can’t I just close my eyes and summon up your father, my father, or Carsten? What was it about that hall that made it happen?’
‘Maybe because you were in the presence of people thinking hard about their loved ones? Let me think hard about my father, and you close your eyes, and let’s see if that works.’
Mabel moved to a chair by the window, folded her hands in her lap and closed her eyes. She waited and waited. It was so quiet in the room she could hear Clara breathing; she could hear someone on the landing outside the room, and a carriage going by on the street below. But she couldn’t make herself go into that sleep-like state – or ‘trance’, as Nora had called it.
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