The Shape of Darkness

by Laura Purcell

  ‘Myrtle’s going to heal my father,’ Pearl stammers. ‘She’s – she’s going to help people with her Mesmerism.’ All eyes turn towards her. Her palms sweat and she wipes them on her lap. ‘He thought he needed a – a doctor, but—’

  ‘Pshaw, my dear!’ Mrs Lynch cries. ‘You cannot trust a physician. These medical men seek to impose their control on our bodies and souls with their drugs. They think to steer the course of our destiny.’

  But why is that a problem? Pearl has never been in control of her own destiny.

  She focuses on the centrepiece of the table, wishing she hadn’t spoken.

  Tonight, the crystal ball’s been replaced with a large glass bowl, half full of water. On the surface, purple flower heads float.

  She’d like to drink that water. The tea hasn’t quenched her thirst at all. Ever since market day, she keeps thinking of water. Does it mean something? It feels like there might be water building inside of her: this heaviness across the chest and at the back of her neck. It’s like the pressure of a river behind a dam, desperate to break through.

  ‘Must we delay any longer?’ Mr Collins gulps the remains of his tea and surges to his feet. ‘I am eager to begin.’

  Mr Stadler cocks an eyebrow. ‘We had not guessed.’

  Everyone except Pearl puts their napkins aside.

  She doesn’t know what to do with herself. The others seem to have tasks: Myrtle turns down the gas lamps; Mrs Lynch and her daughter unpack notebooks from their bags; the men begin to assemble some monstrous contraption with a single glass eye.

  Pearl looks at the machine, unnerved. Can it … see her? Maybe the glass part is just like the crystal ball: something for her to stare into and glimpse the Other Side through. But whereas Pearl’s crystal ball is a bubble of soft light, this shape is blind. She squints, trying to see into the big wooden box behind it. Only darkness lies within.

  ‘Careful with that, careful!’ Mr Collins scolds his companion.

  She’s so intent upon the men that she loses sight of the ladies. Pearl almost forgets that they’re in the room – until one screams beside her ear.

  She whips round to see what accident has happened, but Miss Lynch is standing still, unharmed, gaping at Pearl.

  ‘Look,’ she gasps. ‘I can see it. I can see the spirit matter flowing from her.’

  A reverent silence falls.

  Pearl looks down at her pale hands. Gentle wisps rise from them like breath on a cold day. They are coming, then. Ready to claim her.

  Her shoulders turn solid with fear.

  ‘The plate,’ Mr Collins urges. ‘Quickly, man.’

  Before Pearl can draw another breath, a flash of white-hot pain scorches across her vision. Stunned, she claps her hands over her eyes, but that burst of light keeps repeating and repeating.

  ‘Myrtle!’ she cries.

  Myrtle runs to her, buries Pearl’s face safely inside the folds of her new gown. It radiates her familiar scent of berries and violets.

  ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ she demands.

  ‘The – the magnesium powder.’ Mr Collins holds up a tray that smokes. ‘Friends of mine have used it to great effect. Through spirit agency, the—’

  ‘If you’ve read so much, why don’t you know better? Mediumship takes a toll upon the Sensitive. She’s fragile.’

  Pearl feels it. But it soothes her to hear the rumble of Myrtle’s voice through her bodice and sense her hand moving over her hair. Much as they squabble, Myrtle is the only mother she’s ever known.

  ‘Poor dear,’ frets Mrs Lynch. ‘Pass her this tea.’ Pearl drinks it greedily, her eyes squeezed shut. ‘I remember, Miss West, how Florence King weakened you. Those bad nights you spent with your nerves in tatters.’ She sighs. ‘Such is the price of great power.’

  ‘But if we can capture this,’ Mr Collins enthuses, undeterred, ‘if we could prove with an image what we witness here with the naked eye, it would alter everything! You must understand that? Our enemies will be forced to eat their words!’

  ‘No more flash powder tonight,’ Myrtle rules. When Mr Collins puffs with frustration, she adds, ‘Patience and care, sir. You don’t catch spirits with stomping feet.’

  Gradually, Pearl can sit upright again. When she opens her eyes they feel raw, as if she’s peeled a layer of skin from the lids.

  Mr Stadler crosses the room to take her hand. ‘Tell us what you feel equal to, Miss Meers. We all wait upon your convenience. But surely you will not send us home so early in the evening?’

  She wants to snatch her hand away from him, but she doesn’t dare.

  ‘Last time,’ Myrtle tells them, ‘some friends and I sat in a circle and a spirit spoke through Pearl. Actually possessed her and used her mouth! I never heard her talk in such a deep voice before.’

  ‘What power,’ he marvels. ‘Most spirits, even the materialised ones, have no utterance.’

  ‘Can she materialise a ghost?’ Mrs Lynch pushes forward, brimming with excitement. ‘We might get Florence King back, or someone else entirely. What is your guide’s name, dear?’

  Myrtle snaps upright. ‘The White Sylph has no need of a spirit guide.’

  ‘Do you remember, dear Miss West, how we used to blindfold you and tie you in the cabinet while you made Florence appear?’ Myrtle’s face says she remembers only too well. ‘We proved, beyond a doubt, that your gift was real.’

  ‘Are you proposing that we tie Miss Meers up also?’ Mr Stadler’s fingers tighten around Pearl’s hand. They are damp, as if the idea excites him. ‘In the name of experiment?’

  ‘What do you think might happen?’

  The Society remind Pearl of dogs about to fall upon a bone. It’s too much; the volley of voices, the wide, eager eyes. She flings Myrtle a terrified glance.

  ‘I won’t have my sister bound like a criminal. She isn’t in the penitentiary.’ Myrtle pats her hair back into shape. ‘But let her try the cabinet by all means. We might get a surprise.’

  It’s a reprieve, of sorts. Pearl should probably be grateful.

  Standing up, she edges reluctantly towards the cabinet. It gapes at her like a giant mouth. She thought this would be like the last séance. Why aren’t they sticking to what she knows?

  At least it’s dark inside. She pulls the black damask curtain across the rail, free for a blissful minute from the Society’s scrutiny. A sigh escapes her as she sits down.

  Now what?

  Her spine presses hard against the loose panel in the back of the cabinet. That’s where she used to wait, dressed up as Florence King, quiet as a mouse, while the others tied Myrtle with silk scarves and sealed the knots with wax.

  One time, she remembers she felt a sneeze coming, and nearly bit through her lip trying to stifle it. But even that was easier than what’s being asked of her tonight.

  She hears the fizz of a match lighting a candle. The gas lamps go out. Chair legs shuffle, Mr Collins clears his throat.

  There is an ominous, charged silence.

  Then they begin to sing:

  When the hours of day are numbered,

  And the voices of the night

  Wake the better soul, that slumbered,

  To a holy, calm delight.

  The table is just on the other side of the curtain, but the distance between Pearl and the others feels huge.

  Ere the evening lamps are lighted,

  And, like phantoms grim and tall,

  Shadows from the fitful fire-light

  Dance upon the parlour wall;

  It’s horrible to be trapped here, cut off from flesh and blood. The Society all get to sit with another person’s warm hand in their own, but Pearl … She trembles, realising anew how small and thin she is.

  Then the forms of the departed

  Enter at the open door;

  The beloved, the true-hearted,

  Come to visit me once more;

  Tears form. It never used to feel like this in the cabinet. Myrtle was always there. There
’s something different in the air behind the curtain tonight. It’s … agitated.

  He, the young and strong, who cherished

  Noble longings for the strife,

  By the roadside fell and perished,

  Weary with the march of life!

  She looks from the left to the right. There’s nothing there, just black, but it feels, it feels …

  They, the holy ones and weakly,

  Who the cross of suffering bore,

  Folded their pale hands so meekly

  Spake with us on earth no more!

  A current of cool air lifts the hair from her neck.

  What is it? A trapped bird, fluttering around her, stirring up the atmosphere? She can’t move, she can’t speak, but she knows there’s something alive inside the cabinet.

  And with them the Being Beauteous,

  Who unto my youth was given,

  More than all things else to love me,

  And is now a saint in heaven.

  Cobwebs. Itchy, sticky cobwebs are passing over her face. Frantically, she tries to bat them away.

  It’s only when she lowers her hands that she sees the cloud of downy white, floating before her.

  With a slow and noiseless footstep

  Comes that messenger divine,

  Takes the vacant chair beside me,

  Lays her gentle hand in mine.

  The cloud expands.

  The others keep on singing as something rises up from the middle like a head beneath a bridal veil.

  And she sits and gazes at me

  With those deep and tender eyes,

  Like the stars, so still and saint-like,

  Looking downward from the skies.

  Shoulders emerge but it has no arms, no body, no legs.

  Uttered not, yet comprehended,

  Is the spirit’s voiceless prayer

  Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,

  Breathing from her lips of air.

  From behind, a freezing hand falls heavy on her shoulder.

  Pearl screams.

  The singing stops. Chairs scrape but Pearl is faster than them, flinging the curtain back on its rail so hard that it makes the rings clatter.

  She runs.

  ‘Pearl!’

  Commotion erupts around the table. She can’t stop to explain herself to the Society; she can barely breathe for sobs. Hands – mortal, this time – try to restrain her.

  ‘No!’ she cries, flinging them off. ‘No, I won’t do it!’

  She darts for Father’s room.

  There’s a shout behind her. A sudden bang and splash.

  Pearl doesn’t stop until she reaches the door, where she risks a quick glance back.

  The fishbowl of flowers has exploded outwards, drenching the spiritualists in water and glass.

  Mrs Lynch stands spluttering, her arms held out at her sides. The ends of Myrtle’s curls drip.

  Water, again.

  Pearl races inside Father’s room and locks the door.

  CHAPTER 7

  Every year it’s the same. Agnes does not wait for the almanac to tell her that winter is approaching; she feels it in her knuckles and her wrists. They become burning, swollen lumps: the price she must pay for her decades spent cutting shades.

  With difficulty, she coaxes her gloves from their stretchers and pulls them on to keep her hands warm. The cold season seems to be starting earlier and earlier – either that, or she is getting old. Perpetually chilly, like Mamma with her thin blood and eroded defences. Agnes shoves the thought away. Not yet.

  As she goes to leave her bedroom, her skirt sweeps against something on the dressing table and sends it floating to the floor. Constance’s silhouette. She forgot she had left it there.

  She resents having to bend and pick it up, having to pack her sister tidily away yet again. Without looking at the shade, she marches to her studio and opens the book of duplicates. A musty perfume rises from the pages. It always falls open at the same place, but she will not put Constance’s shadow on this page beside him. If that is petty of her – well, she does not care.

  Agnes flips to the very back of the book, pushes Constance in and slams it shut.

  It all started with her birthday: that was the first thing Constance took. She arrived exactly five years from the day Agnes entered the world, and she did not even soften the blow by being the little boy Mamma had promised.

  Constance was not a winsome infant; she was born with the colic. In those first weeks she was not so much a baby as a pink, shrieking ball of rage.

  Agnes remembers sitting on the stairs with her hands pressed over her ears, hoping Papa would take Constance away when he boarded his next ship.

  The grandfather clock pings the quarter hour. Agnes swallows down her memories. She will be late for morning prayers at the abbey.

  Downstairs, Mamma is reading an old Herald before a fire that scratches and ticks. More coal is gone, but Agnes cannot really blame her mother for using it today. The temperature has shifted palpably; it is as if the air has whetted its teeth overnight.

  Cedric crouches by the side table, idly spinning the top Agnes bought him from the toyshop in Morford Street.

  She smiles at him. ‘Would you care to accompany me, dear?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Church.’

  He pulls a face.

  Cedric means no harm, but it hurts her to be spurned like this. Everything is much more cheerful when he is with her.

  ‘Do come,’ she wheedles. ‘Say a prayer, for your Mamma in Heaven?’

  The top falls over. Cedric’s green eyes meet hers.

  ‘Is that where she is?’

  Agnes bites her tongue. She is reminded of the phrase the pawnbroker used, when she tried to get a better price for Captain Darken’s medals. Not bloody likely.

  ‘Yes, of course it is. We have discussed this, Cedric. Listen, dear, if you come along to church with me, perhaps I will take you for a bun at Sally Lunn’s afterwards. What do you say to that?’

  ‘I’d rather stay here and read.’

  ‘But we can read together after—’

  ‘Let the boy alone.’ Mamma wets her finger and turns the page of her newspaper. ‘He’s well enough here with me.’

  Sighing, Agnes puts on her bonnet and makes for the door. Before she steps onto the mat, she is forced to pull up short. A torn piece of paper lies at her feet. It looks like it has been pushed underneath the door, rather than through the letterbox. She is forced to bend yet again, to the protestation of her knees.

  The paper is of a good quality. Suitable for sketching, and indeed someone has used a pencil to write four faint words upon it.

  Agnes peers, pulls it closer.

  Did you miss me.

  She frowns and turns the paper over. Just that. Not even a question mark.

  Who on earth would write such a thing? She cannot imagine anyone sending her notes except Simon, and he called only the other day, after young Ned had left with his white silhouette. Besides, Simon’s correspondence is always a template of formal elegance.

  She takes a few steps back to the parlour. ‘Cedric, have you been playing with my sketchbooks again?’

  ‘No.’ He has pulled The String of Pearls onto his lap and is already engrossed.

  Perhaps the writing is too developed for his young hand. But it does look familiar …

  ‘Did you happen to see who delivered this note?’

  The boy shrugs, still reading his book.

  Well. How perplexing. She reads the words again, and they touch a chord deep inside her. For the answer is yes: she misses so many people.

  One in particular.

  He would write her notes. Play games. But it cannot be, not after all these years …

  She tucks the note inside her newly dried reticule and leaves the house.

  The sharp air cools her flaming cheeks. Frosty cobbles skid beneath her feet, and she forces herself to walk carefully, head down, concentrating on not slipping.


  But her mind is running wild.

  The man in the naval coat. She had been sure, at the time, that he was not Montague, but she was at a distance, struggling against her encroaching cataracts. It is possible …

  She begs herself to stay calm. This is not the first time hope has surfaced. She should not trust it, but it is intoxicating; she can almost taste it in her mouth, like a rich wine.

  Maybe Montague read of the Accident abroad. News from home might have been delayed, and perhaps this is the first chance he has had to return since. She must find a way to check the Navy Lists. She must know where he is.

  The anticipation is almost more than she can take.

  The abbey is always beautiful, but today it is especially so. Inside, the colours he promised her spill in a cascade from the stained-glass windows, right across the floor. Walking over them feels akin to passing through a cleansing stream. She takes a pew in sight of the golden cross. Usually she views it not only as an emblem of Christ, but the crucifixion of her own dreams.

  It does not appear so this morning.

  A few of her acquaintances nod to her from their seats – other impecunious spinsters, with which the city is swelling to capacity. Agnes does not count many friends amongst the pale, tired faces peering out from beneath dark bonnets. Even her own kind brand her as rather odd. They use the word as a sort of armour; in truth they are shying away from the scandal, the poverty and, most of all, the legacy of the Accident. It saddens her, but she does partly understand. She would not know what to say to a woman like herself, either.

  The bells toll eleven o’clock.

  The Honourable Reverend Brodrick acquits himself admirably during the service. It is not his fault that Agnes cannot lose herself in the sweet unity of prayer. She blames the engagement ring, which today feels enormous and insistent when she clasps her hands together. She wants to settle, to give thanks, but her thoughts are ungovernable. They fly around the abbey like a flock of doves let loose.