Monday, August 20, 1888
I inhaled deeply, my eyes shut tight. “There’s someone here with us.”
“Who? Who is it?”
I angled my head slightly. “I see … the most beautiful green eyes. Such a gentle, kind face.”
“That sounds like my mother!”
“Yes, I believe you are right,” I whispered, my palms flat on the table in front of me. “She says she misses you very much and that she is so proud of the woman you have become.”
“Oh, my word. Is my father there too?”
Moving my eyes beneath lowered lids, I paused. “I see many faces with her. You have lost several family members but they are all there together on the other side.” I gave a quick nod. “Wait. I see a tall man. He is smiling.”
“My father was rather stout.”
“Mm,” I continued. “This man is younger. Maybe a brother or a cousin?”
“I… I don’t know—”
“A friend from your childhood?”
Everett released an audible sigh.
My eyes flashed open so I could glare at him. “What?”
“If it’s a friend from childhood, the customer won’t remember them as a tall man, will they?” He frowned, his hand roughly rubbing the back of his neck. “They won’t care about someone they don’t know or remember. You need to pay attention to what the customer says and what breadcrumbs you’re offering in return.”
Smiling sweetly, Mrs. Harris patted my hand. “You’re doing a fine job, dear.”
“You should probably keep your eyes open,” Everett added. “You need to watch their body language, not just listen to their responses.”
I looked up at Everett again. “Can we stop for the night? We have been doing this for two hours.”
Mrs. Harris, kindly acting as our customer, looked relieved. “Mr. Harris will be looking for me so I best head out. I can come tomorrow to practice again if you like.”
Everett nodded and crossed his arms over his chest as Mrs. Harris made her escape.
I was about to get up when Everett sat across from me. “Again.”
“Everett, please. No more for tonight.”
“You need more practice. You have to get this right.”
I closed my eyes. “Mmm. How interesting. No spirits are coming to me. I guess the gate is closed for the night.” Smirking, I opened my eyes again.
“Cora. Don’t be difficult.”
“You are the one who is being difficult. I will do fine tomorrow.” I gave a light shrug. “I have always been a natural performer with excellent improvisational instincts.”
“Indeed,” Everett sniped. “When was the last time you acted a part, your wedding day?”
I scowled at him. “Perhaps you of all people should not jest about pretending to be someone else.” I raised from my chair. “I am going to bed.”
“Cora, please sit down.” He stretched his arms over the tabletop, palms up.
I slowly lowered myself again and slid my hands onto his, taking note of every rough deviation and crease on his fingers. My neck warmed at the subtle caress of his thumb.
I closed my eyes and started my act again, fighting off the shakiness in my voice. “Oh, great spirit realm, we ask to enter. We seek the guidance of souls beyond our world.” I opened my eyes again. “I forgot to ask who you want to talk to.”
Everett smiled warily. “You have to remember to ask before you start your whole speech. It diminishes the moment.”
“I know.” I winced. “Sorry.”
“My mother,” he said, his smile fading.
He had never spoken of his parents before. Well, he had previously told me his family were successful merchants and traders based in the West Indies, but by the solemn look on his face just then, I knew that was part of his lie.
“How did she die?”
He frowned at me. “Vague questions and comments, remember?”
I felt uncomfortable bringing his family into our act, just as I would feel uncomfortable bringing my late parents into it. It seemed far too personal. Too painful.
“What was her name?”
He let out a long breath before speaking. “Vaishnavi.”
“That is a lovely name.”
I closed my eyes again and clasped his hands a little tighter. “We seek to speak with Vaishnavi. We seek…” I opened my eyes again. “I cannot do this with you. It does not feel right.”
“It is going to feel personal with everyone who comes to you.”
“Yes, but I do not know them.” I slowly pulled my hands from his and folded them in my lap. “How long ago did she die?”
“Cora, I don’t want to talk about—”
“You brought her up.”
“You don’t really care about my real life, remember?”
“Yet here I am, asking you.”
Everett sank down a little into his chair, his gaze focused on the flickering flame of the candle on the table. “I was born in Bombay. My father was a soldier based in India. He married my mother. Shortly after I was born, the three of us boarded a ship back to England.” He let out a long exhale. “During the long voyage, illness made the rounds from passenger to passenger and both my parents died.” He finally lifted his eyes to meet mine. “But I lived.” He gave a little shrug. “Somehow.”
“It’s a miracle,” I said.
“Or a curse.”
Silence hung in the air, occasionally broken up by sounds from nearby flats or the street outside.
“My mother died when I was two,” I said. “Childbirth is an arduous business.”
Sometimes I wished the baby boy had lived so I could resent him for taking my mother from me. He did not. Aunt Charlotte moved in with us soon after. She told me Papa was catatonic for months after my mother’s death.
“Ah,” Everett said after a long pause. “We are both orphans then.”
“How do you know about your parents?”
He hesitated before speaking and lowered his gaze to his hands, still resting on the tabletop. “I was raised by my father’s brother. He would kindly remind me how generous he was to take me in, how philanthropic he was to take pity on a boy who happened to have darker skin than his own sons.” His jaw tightened.
“He sounds like a bloody bastard,” I said with a scoff.
Everett studied me, a surprised and amused grin spreading across his mouth. “Profanity, Mrs. Pringle. I am shocked.”
I had not seen that glimmer in his eyes since before I moved out of my home and into his.
As I lay in bed that night, staring into the darkness, I went over all the tactics Everett and I had been practicing as we prepared for my first ever performance as a spiritualist. I thought about the little plays I performed in as a young girl and how much I had enjoyed them. This was quite different though. I thought about Aunt Charlotte and her tarot and palm readings and how Papa turned his nose up at us, calling our little games “nonsense” and then smiling to himself as he went back to his evening tea.
What would he say if he could see me now?
I heard the scratching of Everett’s pencil on paper, and I wondered if he was still writing plays. He and I had been snapping at one another regularly since that night I drank too much and acted like a fool, giving birth to an uncomfortable tension between us. The warmth I saw in his eyes earlier in the evening was only the first hint of that uneasiness subsiding.
I should have just married Mr. Lindsey.
By not marrying Mr. Lindsey, I had given up my last chance at a comfortable existence and sabotaged Everett’s life in the process. As a young woman, all I wanted was a life of friends and parties in London but when the opportunity had shown itself, I had rejected it. And why? All because Mr. Lindsey was not my ideal partner. Dr. Marshall Pringle had been far from my ideal partner but that certainly hadn’t stopped me from marrying him.
The squeaks and whines of the aged easy chair from the other room told me Everett was settling in for the night. His hushed snores usually started up minutes after those familiar sounds, but not that night. He shifted in his chair a few times, but still sleep did not come. I wondered if he was thinking about our eventual financial demise or perhaps regretting ever meeting me in the first place. Either way, I would not blame him.
The next afternoon, Mrs. Harris came by the flat, her hands folded neatly in front of her.
“Mrs. Harris, you are so kind. I do not require your assistance today as I feel quite prepared—”
“Never mind that,” Everett said. “Take a bit more practice while you still can—”
“That’s not why I’m here,” Mrs. Harris cut in, biting the corner of her lip. “I’m afraid there’s a hitch in the plan.”
Everett and I exchanged glances.
“Mr. Harris don’t want you doing your, uh, performance in the pub tonight.” She winced. “He saw your ad in the paper and he don’t like it.”
Everett took a seat at the table and closed his eyes, running a hand through his hair. He sighed, glaring at the cobwebs on the ceiling of his home.
“Certainly Mr. Harris will be reasonable,” I said. “He knows we cannot change venues now that the ad is published. What if we give him twenty-five percent of our taking for the night?”
“I’m afraid that won’t do,” she said. “He said what you’re doing isn’t Christian.”
“And what exactly does the Bible say about drunkenness? He doesn’t seem to mind that so much,” Everett said matter-of-factly.
Mrs. Harris frowned at that comment. “I done you a great number of favors these past few weeks so I’ll be taking none of that, Mr. Rigby.”
Everett crossed his arms over his chest, sliding down slightly in his chair.
I looked around the flat. “We will have to do it here then.”
“Here?” Everett repeated. “What do you mean ‘here’?”
“Here, in this room.”
He laughed. “Absolutely not. I’m not going to have a bunch of strangers in my home.”
“We paid good money for that ad so people will come here.” I looked at Mrs. Harris. “Is your boy available this evening to man the door downstairs? We can offer him ten percent—”
Everett sat up straighter. “What if some brute comes in that door and tries to kill us?”
“I would like to think young Mr. Harris would not direct a murderer to come upstairs,” I said coolly.
“I’ll do it!” Frank appeared in the doorway, obviously overhearing our conversation. “I’ll keep the ruffians out.”
I looked at Everett for confirmation of my plan, one eyebrow cocked in a I-told-you-so manner.
“I suppose we have no choice,” he said, his eyes settling on the wall behind me. His face softened slightly as he looked about the room a bit. “I’ll light some candles. It’ll add to the atmosphere.” He paused thoughtfully. “This could be better, actually.”
The focus in his eyes somehow heightened their color as he went to work shifting his belongings around to create something of a set for my performance. He must have sensed me watching him as he glanced at me over his shoulder, a shy smile playing on his lips. I quickly lowered my eyes.
“Do me a favor, boy,” Mrs. Harris said to her son from their flat, the door still open. “Don’t tell your father about this.”
I hadn’t expected a reason to make use of my enormous ostrich feathers. As I tucked them into my bonnet and pinned them in place, I was grateful I had chosen not to sell them off so hastily. They certainly added a level of drama to my spiritualist ensemble. My crimson gown included a bit of sparkle which would give an ethereal effect while I sat among candlelight, its lace sleeves hanging loose off the shoulder. Half of my curls were tucked into a neat bun under my bonnet while thick, round, orange coils lay upon my neck and shoulders. I loved an excuse to let my bountiful hair down as it was one of my most favored features.
Thanks to some help from Mrs. Harris, my corset and bodice were tied more snug than usual and my neckline glittered with the faux diamonds Everett had taken from the theater’s prop room. A red stain made my full lips more prominent and I added just a touch of charcoal around the eyes to make them more intense, even in the dim light of the flat. As for my décolletage, more of that was left unconcealed than I was used to. It seemed to be the way of entertainers of the fairer sex.
I slowly opened the bedroom door and revealed my completed look to Everett. He was busy gathering his things to move into the bedroom while a couple of chairs had been brought over from Mrs. Harris’ flat. His eyes grew wide as he took in every detail from hat to hem.
“What do you think, Mr. Rigby?” I said in a breathy, sultry voice.
He did not reply right away. “I think … I think you look…” he finally tore his eyes away from me, “the part.”
While he and Frank moved some things into the bedroom to make more room for guests, I placed other props around the area: a bouquet of dead roses we got for cheap from a nearby flower shop, a window curtain made of dark damask we borrowed from Mrs. Harris, and the skull stolen from the theater that was used for a production of Hamlet. Everett told me he did not think the skull was real, but I was not fully convinced. I positioned several candles around the room and Everett trailed after me, lighting each with a match.
Looking at me, he blew out the match. “Are you ready?”
A wave of anxiety struck my abdomen. Ignoring it, I lifted my head high. “Of course.”
The advertisement we purchased invited patrons to the pub beginning at half-seven in the evening. Frank would just have to guess which customers coming and going into the pub were actually looking for me. Five minutes before our performance was to begin, Frank left us to start his job as doorman downstairs as I clasped my black lace gloved hands together tightly, squeezing my thumb to try to make my hands stop shaking.
“Should… should I stand or should I be sitting when they come in?”
Everett hesitated. “Uh … I think either is fine.”
“Right.” I nodded. “Perhaps I will just stand.”
I stood. And I stood. And I stood a bit longer. After twenty minutes, I took a seat and drummed my fingers on the wooden tabletop.
Everett leaned against the wall, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “What a waste of money that advertisement was.”
I frowned. “Maybe The Gazette Weekly just has the wrong audience.”
“We couldn’t afford an advertisement in any of the larger publications,” he grumbled. “I better go downstairs and make sure Frank is—Oh. Good evening. Come in.”
My eyes flashed to the doorway as a young woman smiled at me. She looked nervously into the room. “Good evening. Are you the spiritualist I read about in the paper?”
Her voice was more refined than I had expected for this part of town. Perhaps the ad would draw people from all over the city!
“I am Madame Pringle,” I said, sliding into the elegant, slow and deliberate voice I had chosen for the act, slightly lower than my natural register. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, my dear.”
Everett smiled graciously at her. “Sessions with Madame Pringle are ten shillings.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” She fished the fee from her reticule, handed it to Everett, and he directed her to sit in the chair opposite me.
“What is your name?” I said, suddenly aware that Everett and I had not discussed where he would be during all of this.
Is he going to sit with us? Is he just going to stand there lurking?
“Mary,” the young woman said, worry still present in her brown eyes. “I would like to try to contact my best friend from childhood, Helen.”
I nodded. “Of course. We will certainly try, my dear.”
I glanced up at Everett and gave him a quick nod to sit down. His mouth tightened and he lowered himself into the chair immediately—taking the seat to the left of me—and quite stiffly, as if he had forgotten how to bend like a human. Mary sat on my right.
“Now,” I began, “let us place our palms down on the table with our fingertips overlapped at the edges so that we create a portal so the spirits can come and find us.” Hesitantly, three sets of hands moved into position on the table. Everett and I exchanged a quick glance as my pinky finger touched his.
I took a deep breath and fixed my gaze on one of the candles across the room, careful to look at no one. “Oh, divine spirits. We call to you and ask you to join us here this night. Awake from your everlasting slumber now. We seek your guidance.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Come to us, restless spirits. We beg you to join us here tonight. We seek our friend, Helen.”
I was silent for a moment, feeling nothing but the measured rise and fall of my chest. I slowly raised my eyelids and let my gaze crawl about the room as if I was seeing it for the very first time.
“Here again,” I said in a slightly deeper voice. “You dare disrupt my sleep again to serve your purposes.” I turned to Mary in a smooth, fluid motion. “You seek your little friend, yes?”
Mary gave a subtle nod, the glimmer of the flickering candles dancing on her round cheeks.
“Very well.” I closed my eyes for a moment and then reopened them, forcing my voice to go higher, imitating the tone of a girl. “Mary, I am here.”
“Helen, is that you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I have missed you so.”
“I miss you too, my friend.”
“I never thought I would see you again,” I squeaked.
I could feel Everett watching me carefully and suddenly I felt very self-conscious acting in front of him. Now that I had a paying customer sitting in front of me, I put in much more effort than during the hours he and I had practiced. The voices and the twitching eyes—none of it seemed very refined, I had to imagine.
“I am sorry I did not get to say goodbye,” Mary said.
I tried to remember to keep all my responses unspecific, to draw more information from my client, and to not come forward with my replies too quickly, stretching out the length of the session.
“It is not your fault,” I said. “It happened so fast.” Smiling, I gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I felt no pain.”
Mary raised an eyebrow. “Truly? But you were in a house fire.”
Blast. I assumed it was an illness.
“The smoke overtook me before the flames,” I said.
“Is your family with you? Peter and your parents?”
I nodded. “Of course. They are all here.” Keep it ambiguous. “I hope you are well.”
“Oh, Helen, I am. I am recently wed,” Mary added. “I wish you could have been there.”
“I wish I could have been there too. I am sure you were a beautiful bride.” I let my eyelids gradually close and my head fell limp onto my shoulder.
The window whipped open just then, sending a rush of wind into the room, making the candles hiss their indignation. The timing could not have been more perfect.
I breathed in suddenly, my eyes flashing open. Startled and blinking frantically, my gaze bounced around the room.
“Helen has left us,” I said, using my original voice. “The Other has left us as well.”
Everett glanced at Mary, his face looking as alarmed as hers. Mary gave a little nod, sliding her hands off the table and into her lap.
“She was really here in this room with us, wasn’t she?”
I nodded, my face as still as stone. Placing a hand to my chest, I released a long breath, feigning fatigue.
Mary rose and made a shy goodbye to us. Everett walked with her down the stairs until Frank could hail a hansom for her. Everett jogged back up the stairs, his smile wide and his arms outstretched.
“What in the world was that?” he exclaimed. “That was magnificent!”
I smiled, pursing my lips a bit. “I told you I could act.”
He grabbed my hands and pulled me up from my seat, wrapping his arms around me and twirling me around the darkened room. I giggled as my toes lifted off the floor.
“And the bit with the window was brilliant!” I grabbed onto his firm forearms. “How did you end up making it work?”
“I attached a thread to my wrist and to the window frame and just kept it unlatched. It worked even better than I expected.”
“It was perfect,” I added.
The glee in his eyes filled my heart. As he held me close in the candlelit room, my blood quickened. Everett’s gaze lowered to my bottom lip for a moment.
“Sorry to disrupt,” Frank said from the doorway. “Should I send the next one up?”
Everett’s arms dropped from my waist and we both took a step backwards, away from one another. Everett closed the window while I took my seat again.
“Yes,” I said. “We are ready for the next one.”