Catherine Tells the Truth

My impressions of what followed the séance are jumbled—I may have had a slight concussion. I remember Mrs. Farrow half-carried away from me in hysterics, screaming, “You have no right! You have no right to deny me my daughters! And you have the presumption to call yourself Gus’s friend, far above you though he is, but now you won’t lift a finger for his sisters!” Margo looked crushed. Gus made no attempt to conceal his absolute delight, his pride in what I’d done, beaming at me with bright possessiveness. Reverend Skelley’s brows were drawn together, creating a deep vertical crease. He had at least the grace to direct his wondering inward instead of gawking at me, which Dr. Lewis was doing.

“The poor girl must have had such a fright!” Mrs. Lewis observed. “It’s cruel to demand that she put herself through that again!” But Mrs. Lewis was the one who was still shaking, not I, though I did feel unwell.

Mrs. Hobson announced that she was going to bed, and quit the room with a very annoyed air. Oh, but I had seen—or not seen at all but sensed, sensed with a sense I ought not to have—a clear line of power connecting her to the speaking trumpet, in those moments while it still hovered in the lamplight.

At the time I assumed the very worst of her. Now I believe that Mrs. Hobson was probably no conscious fraud, but a raw and untrained sorceress, tricked by her own convictions into thinking her powers flowed from an external source.

“How did you come here tonight?” I failed to realize that the soft voice intended its question for me, and Reverend Skelley turned to Margo. “How did Miss Bildstein come here tonight?”

“I walked,” I said. “It’s not so far.” It occurred to me that I could now leave this miserable evening behind, and I tried to stand. A variety of hands caught me and eased me back into my seat. Gus kept squeezing my fingers, and I made a vague effort to smile at him.

“You mustn’t try to walk home. I’ll take you in the phaeton, and Thomas can walk back to our house.”

I objected, but it did no good. With an excess of solicitous bustling I was seen down and lifted into the phaeton’s only passenger seat—in truth, I was still so dizzy that I had to grip the seat’s edge to keep myself steady. Reverend Skelley’s pretty palomino set off at a gentle walk, and he himself kept his eyes on the road.

Now that my shock was receding, rage came to the fore. “Did you know that there were such wild expectations attached to my attendance tonight?” I asked, waspish. “I myself was not informed.”

He nodded, still not looking at me. His face was grossly swollen where the books had pummeled him; one lump on his forehead was enough to push his hat askew. “The elder Mrs. Farrow did tell me that she had great hopes of you. Yes. I suppose she refrained from telling you so that you would not be unduly influenced.”

Encouraged to fake, he meant.

“So when Mrs. Hobson asked if everyone would consent to aid her spirits, only I was meant. You say Margo didn’t want to influence me, but to me it seems that she invited me under false pretenses so I could be made to serve her purposes. It’s disgraceful!”

His eyebrows fluttered slightly higher. “You call her Margo.” I had, and it was too late to recall the name. “Your anger at her misrepresentation is justified, Miss Bildstein. You have my deepest apology for my part in it.”

I found myself disarmed by this unexpected courtesy. “Thank you.”

“No one said as much, but I think it was universally assumed that you would be eager—perhaps too eager—to ingratiate yourself with the Farrows. That you would be all too pleased to serve their purposes, as you say. After all, your father works for them.” A hard knot formed in my throat at the thought that Mrs. Farrow might take her revenge on my father. Then I saw that Reverend Skelley was smiling to himself under the downy tufts of his moustache, and found myself somehow reassured. “They appear to understand you very poorly. Is it because Margo Farrow was less than candid that you refused any future participation?”

Something in his tone told me that he knew as well as I did how much that refusal might have cost me. There was the question of my father’s job, but not only that.

I could have bilked Gus’s mother shamelessly, and even told myself that I was justified in doing so by the comfort I brought her. I briefly ached for the career, the freedom, I’d let slip through my fingers, then crushed the thought. Did I really want to spend my life tied to chairs while the likes of Dr. Lewis lorded over me?

“That wasn’t my only reason,” I said. He waited. The rush of midnight leaves, the horse’s lazy clopping, rose tidal in my ears while I wondered if I should risk the truth. “I—don’t believe that voice belonged to Viviana Farrow.”

“To whom, then?”

“To Mrs. Hobson.”

A rock jarred the wheel, and he winced. “You believe it was some clever ventriloquism? I held my ear very close to Mrs. Hobson’s mouth at that moment, and I can promise you she was perfectly silent. She seemed to fall into a deep sleep just as the voice began. And it was the same with the second voice, the one that called itself Henry Kirk.”

I wasn’t about to accuse Mrs. Hobson of sorcery, whatever I thought in private. Instead of replying I turned to watch the moon, already rolling down the sky.

“And of course ventriloquism would hardly account for the objects that moved, with no evident agency.” He palpated his bruised cheek with careful fingers. Mine was puffed and tender, too, of course, and our marks conferred a kind of kinship.

“No,” I agreed. “It wouldn’t. But supposing you hadn’t thrown yourself over Mrs. Hobson and absorbed all those blows in her defense, I believe not a single book would have touched her.”

I was surprised to see him give a tense half grin in response to my remark. “It would be fascinating to test your hypothesis, but we can’t, of course. Then are you among those who believe that what we’re observing isn’t the action of spirits at all, but rather telekinesis, perhaps unwitting, on the part of the mediums?” Despite the pain that tightened his face, he was growing excited. “Miss Bildstein, I will be truthful: I strongly opposed your inclusion tonight. Not because—I did not imagine anything so—”

I spared him from finishing this sentence; there was no graceful way for him to deny that he’d thought me likely to be a vulgar little cheat, if only I were given the opportunity.

“That, Margo did tell me. She said you thought the loss of my mother would make me overly susceptible to believing that we can contact the dead.”

He looked away. “I spoke from my own experience. Grief undoes our capacity for objective analysis. Any straw of hope—” He broke off. “I didn’t understand that I would meet tonight with a young lady who prefers truth over fame, over society, even over consolation! God can ask no more of any of us.”

I already liked Reverend Skelley very much. In fact, I liked him enough to be honest with him.

“I also prefer truth to God,” I said, and then realized that we were approaching my cottage, firelight a dim flux on its windows. He pulled back on the reins and his horse ambled to a stop. I hurried to climb out before he could move to help me—his broken rib would make it far too painful.

“And I pray that I will never be forced to choose between them. Good night, Miss Bildstein.”