The Seance Read Free Page A

in the dark, when she’s not wearin’ her fingers to the bone, because her mistress grudges her an inch of candle or a few coals, never mind gas like we have in here. Besides, you’re going to be a lady, with a house and servants of your own, and a husband and children to look after; you won’t want to be peeling spuds then, believe you me.’
    ‘I shall never have children,’ I said passionately, ‘for one of them might die, and then I should be like Mama, and never be happy again.’
    Mrs Greaves regarded me sadly; I had never spoken so directly of my mother’s affliction before.
    ‘The country people in Ireland, miss, would say your mother was “away”.’
    I looked at her expectantly.
    ‘Well – ’tis only their fancy, mind – they say that when someone is – like that – it’s because the fairies have carried her off, and left one of their own in her place.’
    ‘And do the fairies ever bring them back?’
    ‘Yes, my child ... I lost two sons, as you know, and thought my heart would break; I miss them still, but I know they’re safe above. And I had others to think of . . .’ She paused uncomfortably.
    ‘
How
do you know,’ I asked, ‘that they are safe in heaven? I mean, that there is a heaven? Because the Bible tells us so?’
    ‘Well yes, miss, that of course, and ... because
they
tell me so.’
    ‘But
how
can they tell you? Do their ghosts speak to you?’
    ‘Not ghosts, miss; their spirits. Through Mrs Chivers – she’s what they call a spirit medium. Do you know what that is?’
    I told her I did not, and she explained, somewhat hesitantly at first, about spiritualism, and how she belonged to a society, which met twice a week in a room in Southampton Row, and all about séances, and how the spirits of the departed could visit us from heaven, which some people called ‘Summerland’, to speak through a medium to those they loved.
    ‘Then I must tell Mama about Mrs Chivers,’ I said, ‘so she can talk to Alma’s spirit, and be happy again.’
    ‘No miss, you mustn’t; leastways, you mustn’t let on I told you, or I might lose my place. Your Pa don’t hold with spiritualists, so I’ve heard. And ladies don’t go to Mrs Chivers, only cooks and skivvies like me and Violet.’
    ‘Are ladies not allowed to be spiritualists, then?’
    ‘It’s not that, miss, but they have their own meetings, them that believe. I’ve heard there’s a society for ladies and gentlemen in Lamb’s Conduit Street, but remember, it wasn’t me that told you.’

    I meant to tell Mama that very evening, but the impulse died as usual in the face of her leaden indifference, and I was afraid, besides, of getting Mrs Greaves into trouble. And so at breakfast the next morning I asked Papa what spiritualism was, saying I had heard someone mention it at school. I was now considered old enough to breakfast in the dining-room, provided I did not speak while Papa was reading
The Times
; Mama had not been joining us since Dr Warburton prescribed her a stronger sleeping-draught.
    ‘Primitive superstition in modern dress,’ he replied, and opened his newspaper with a disapproving rattle; it was the nearest I had come to seeing him angry. I had already begun to suspect that Papa did not believe in God. He had made no objection when I ceased to attend church after Annie left us, and soon after this I discovered that the book he had been writing for so long was called
Rational Foundations of Morality
. Its purpose, so far as I could gather from the snippets he let fall, was to prove that you ought to be good even if you did not believe that you would burn in torment for ever if you were bad; I often wondered why something so obvious needed a book to prove it, but never dared say so. And when next I tried to question Mrs Greaves about spiritualism, she changed the subject, much as Annie had done with the foundlings. But the idea that the spirits of the dead were all around us, separated only by the thinnest of veils,