Damsel in Distress #2
He showed them into a smallish parlour. The furniture consisted solely of a number of straight chairs set against the walls, which were hung with midnight-blue plush curtains.
A thick carpet of the same shade covered the floor, and the ceiling was painted to match.
A central electric light fixture was turned off.
The only light came from the twilight sky outside French windows leading to a narrow, straggly lawn surrounded by more high laurel hedges.
Despite herself, Daisy shivered. The sinister gloom was impressive—and no doubt intended to impress.
The curtains could conceal any amount of skullduggery, she realized.
Against the dark blue, black threads used to suspend objects in midair and telescoping rods for moving them about would be invisible.
The carpet would deaden the sound of footsteps, allowing spirits to glide silently about the room in their white gauze draperies dyed with luminous paint.
The will to believe would do the rest. That was really the only frightening thing.
A woman was already present in the room, sitting on one of the chairs. A pudding-faced, mousy, middle-aged creature in dark grey, with wispy hair escaping from beneath a black cloche hat, she gave an uncertain smile as the others entered.
Vasiliev gestured towards her. “Mrs. Baines also has a loved one on the other side. She will join us, if your ladyship has no objection.”
“None, as long as Madame concentrates on trying to contact my son first,” said Lady Ormerod with a sort of desperate belligerence.
“Naturally, milady. Will you be seated? My wife is in her cabinet preparing herself for the trance. Excuse me while I go to see if she is ready.”
He slipped out between the curtains opposite the French window. Daisy guessed that they partitioned the room from another at the front of the house. Most convenient for ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night. She was glad spiritualists didn’t go in for long-leggedy beasties.
“Isn’t it simply too ghastly?” Lucy whispered to her.
“A bit different from an evening of table-turning at a weekend house party.”
“I need a breath of fresh air.” She went to the French windows, opened one leaf, and stood gazing out. The set of her shoulders indicated to Daisy a sort of uneasy boredom.
The bespectacled man hovered indecisively by the door, wearing a convincingly vacant air, though Daisy was sure he was studying every detail. Lady Ormerod wilted onto a chair, as far away as possible from Mrs. Baines, and turned back her veil.
Daisy politely joined her. “This is jolly interesting,” she said.
“Have you never attended a séance before? You lost a brother, didn’t you? But I expect Lady Dalrymple has spoken to him since he passed over.”
“I don’t think Mother has even tried to talk to Gervaise, actually.”
“Oh, but she must!” said Lady Ormerod with fervour, her pale, hollow-cheeked face unexpectedly animated.
“Tell her I can’t recommend it too strongly.
It’s such a comfort to hear the voice of the dear departed himself, to know he is happy and still remembers and loves his family, though translated to a higher sphere. ”
“I’m sure it must be.”
“Jerome has spoken to me several times. The darling boy has been trying to pass on a warning to me, but a mischievous spirit, a medieval Hungarian called Istvan, constantly interrupts.”
“What a nuisance,” Daisy murmured. And what a way to keep the anxious believer returning time after time! And how convenient that the meddler was Hungarian, a language as unlikely as the commonly claimed Ancient Egyptian to be recognized, let alone understood, by anyone present.
“I’m sure Jerome was about to get through with a clear message. Akhenaten, Mrs. Blackburn’s spirit guide, had almost managed to subdue Istvan when those horrible, interfering Research people had her arrested on trumped up charges,” Lady Ormerod said angrily.
“Oh dear.”
“Goodness knows how long it will take to get to the same point with Madame Vasilieva. Her reputation is marvellous, but of course she has a different control, so it means starting all over again.”
Certain that the medium or her husband was listening behind the curtains, Daisy decided it was time to feign ignorance. “Control?” she asked.
“Another word for the spirit guide. Every medium has a friendly spirit who acts as a go-between on the other side, much as the medium does on this plane. Madame’s control, Devaki, is a rather childish Indian girl.”
“Devaki can’t stop Istvan interrupting?”
“Oh, my dear, Istvan hasn’t turned up yet.
I have only had one consultation with Madame Vasilieva.
At first Devaki could not grasp who was wanted.
She brought several young officers killed in Flanders, each of them expecting and eager to speak to his mother, and terribly upset to be disappointed. It was quite shattering!”
“It sounds simply frightful,” Daisy said sincerely.
Lady Ormerod turned an earnest gaze upon her. “So you see why I say Lady Dalrymple really must make an effort to communicate.”
“Perhaps Gervaise will speak to me today, and give me a message for Mother,” Daisy said, rather less sincerely. “Did Devaki find your son in the end?”
“Yes, but by then she was tired and wanted to go and play. I had no more than a word or two from Jerome, just to reassure me he was anxious to speak to me. It should be easier this time, since she knows him. And with luck, Istvan won’t have followed him to the new guide.”
Daisy suspected the best way to dispose of Istvan would have been not to discuss him within hearing of the Vasilievs. They were hardly likely to pass up such a chance of keeping Lady Ormerod on the hook.
They would not be pleased to lose so rich a prize when the man from Psychical Research exposed their tricks.
He had gone over to Lucy now. As he spoke to her, his spectacles glinted enigmatically in the sombre light from the darkening sky.
He’d be no match for Vasiliev if the brawny Russian was angry enough at his wife’s exposure to resort to fisticuffs.
Daisy studied the chairs, wondering whether a biff with one of them would be enough to knock the big man out if it seemed advisable.
They were flimsy objects of faux bamboo with cane seats, quite useless for bonking anyone over the head. The investigator would just have to take his chances.
What was he saying to Lucy?
“No.” Lucy’s usually penetrating soprano was deadened by the draperies. “I haven’t come to consult the medium. Not this time,” she added hastily, no doubt recalling that she and Daisy were supposed to be interested onlookers.
The man spoke again, too low for Daisy to make out his words.
“Really, I can’t see that it’s any of your business.” Lucy had small patience with presumption in the lower orders. She turned a cold shoulder.
“What on earth is Madame doing?” said Lady Ormerod fretfully. “She could have started preparing herself earlier. I want to speak to Jerome.”
“I don’t suppose the spirits have much idea of time,” Daisy soothed her, as Lucy came to join them. “I’m sure she doesn’t mean to keep you waiting.”
Vasiliev’s prompt reappearance confirmed her opinion that he had been eavesdropping.
He popped through the dividing curtains and drew them back to reveal a sort of Punch-and-Judy booth without a stage.
Instead of gaily striped canvas, it was entirely enclosed with dark blue plush to match the draperies of both rooms.
“The spirit cabinet,” explained Lady Ormerod.
In front of this, in the centre of the double-room, Vasiliev placed a small round table. As flimsy as the chairs, it would be easy to tilt with a toe or fingertip, Daisy noted.
Lady Ormerod surged eagerly to her feet. “Madame is ready?”
“She has prepared herself to enter the trance, milady.” He started to set chairs around the table, and after a moment the other man went to help.
The front curtains of the booth were parted from inside.
A slight, pale woman stood there, a faraway expression on her face.
She was dressed in black—Daisy’s pale blue and Lucy’s amber flowered summer frocks began to seem positively garish.
The bird’s nest of black hair piled on the psychic’s head gave her an Edwardian look.
Daisy immediately suspected a wig. She probably had bobbed fair hair underneath, to help make her unrecognizable when she exposed it to appear as a spirit.
“Lady Ormerod,” she said in a soft, contralto voice, “be so good as to sit on my right. I must have my husband on my left to lend me his strength.”
Like her husband, she had a vaguely Russian accent, with rolling r’s and guttural h’s, but Daisy caught the flat tones of Birmingham beneath.
Neither used the speech patterns of Russian, she realized.
Since meeting a couple of Russians recently, she was familiar with the distinctive rhythm, the tendency to skip pronouns and articles.
For the first time, Daisy was rather sorry for the medium. To escape Birmingham, practically any expedient was reasonable. Exposed as a fraud, she would lose her livelihood and maybe even go to prison.
After all, from her point of view she was going to a lot of trouble to provide a valued service for which many people were happy to pay well.
Perhaps she even saw herself as easing the pain of the bereaved.
They might be gullible fools, but she gave them what they sought: comfort in their affliction.
The only harm was to their pocketbooks, and they shelled out willingly.
On the other hand, as with gambling, the obvious victims were not the only victims. Even in these days of female emancipation, Lord Ormerod had a right to put a stop to his wife’s bleeding of the family coffers.
Also, Lady Ormerod might have emerged by now from her pitiable state if not for her belief in the possibility of communicating with the dead.