The Unseen(18)

Hester makes a polite tour of the room before returning to stand beside her particular friend, Claire Higgins, the wife of one of Cold Ash Holt’s prominent farmers. There are thirteen ladies altogether: an auspicious and carefully engineered number. They sip sherry from crystal glasses, and soon their faces are flushed beneath the pale powder, and they laugh more easily, and the lights seem to shimmer and blur the room, setting satin ribbons and skin and eyes shining. The rising anticipation is like a low humming sound; impossible to pinpoint the source of it, and impossible to ignore it. At last, when Mrs Avery deems that they have all been acceptably sociable, and have shown that her society and good graces were what matters above all, their indomitable hostess clears her throat.

‘Mrs Dunthorpe. How do you feel? Are you quite up to an attempt at communion   with the spirits?’ she asks. The other women all fall silent at once, and watch matronly Mrs Dunthorpe closely as she seems to consider with great care.

‘I believe we may have a good deal of success this evening,’ she says at last, to an excited murmur and a squeak of joy from Esme Bullington.

With intent expressions, they hurry to a grand, circular table at the far end of the room, around which thirteen plush red chairs have been arranged. Mrs Dunthorpe bids them sit close to the table, their forearms resting upon it and their hands clasped firmly. Hester has Esme Bullington’s tiny paw in one hand and the dry, creased fingers of old Mrs Ship in the other. Whilst they have been talking and drinking the wind has risen outside, and blows fitfully with a sound like distant whispering voices. It makes the budding branches of the wisteria patter and scrape at the window glass; sounding for all the world like the questing fingertips of someone trying to get in. As the day was so warm, the curtains have been left open and the bottom inch of the window raised to allow air into the room. But the temperature has dropped, and the breeze that is creeping in has a chilly touch. It is not yet fully dark outside, but all that’s visible beyond the reflections in the window glass is the dark grey sky, bloated with cloud, and the gnarled branches of the old medlar tree in the garden. Hester shivers involuntarily, and feels Esme’s hand tighten around hers.

A servant turns off all the lamps and lights a single candle, which she sets in the middle of the table before withdrawing, eyes cast down. The candle kindles fire in the gemstones on Mrs Avery’s knuckles, at her neck and ears. Albert would not approve of such a show for a simple assembly of ladies. Hester suppresses a spasm of guilt. There is little Albert would approve of about her evening, but these gatherings are utterly compelling to her. Silence falls around the table as the women stop shuffling their skirts and their positions, and grow still. Hester takes a deep breath to steady her capering nerves.

‘I bid you all to turn your thoughts to the world of spirit, and away from that which you see and hear around you,’ Mrs Dunthorpe begins. She is wearing a shawl of bright emerald green, iridescent like a starling’s wing. ‘Close your eyes, to keep from distraction, and bend your mind to it with all the force of your will. Send out an invitation, and a welcome, to those travellers on the roads of the spirit world who might hear, and grant us their presence.’ Her voice grows deeper and more sonorous. Hester, so alive with expectation that she can hardly sit still, opens one eye and glances around the table. She is flanked by the shuttered faces of her companions, each one arranged into some expression of entreaty or thrall. Mrs Dunthorpe has thrown back her head, and her lips move soundlessly. ‘There is one amongst us who disrupts the energy,’ the medium snaps. Hester jumps guiltily and glances at her, but Mrs Dunthorpe’s eyes remain closed. ‘The circle of thought must be complete, or none may come forth,’ she continues, testily. Hurriedly, Hester closes her eyes tightly, and tries to concentrate.

There is a long and steady silence. Just the sound of shallow breathing, and the low moan of the wind as it scrolls around the corners of the house. Hester can feel Esme trembling slightly beside her, as if poised for flight like a startled deer. ‘Will you not come forth? I can almost hear you,’ Mrs Dunthorpe whispers, the words barely audible. Hester strains her senses. She pictures the spirit world as a vast and heavy black door, beyond which lies a stormy sea of souls too lost or confused to have found either heaven or hell. As Mrs Dunthorpe speaks, she imagines ghostly fingers curling around that door and pushing, inching it wider and wider, following the compelling voice and allowing the living a glimpse of the cold and unearthly realm beyond. Her heart beats so hard she fears it will be heard; pressure builds between her temples, as though invisible hands grip her skull. Esme has stopped trembling; her hand has gone as limp as a dead fish, and just as cold. Hester’s skin crawls away from it, but she dare not open her eyes, or turn her head to look. For what if they have strayed too close to that black door; what if they themselves have trespassed into the spirit world? What if little Esme has gone, and in her place Hester holds the hand of a ghost – the cold, dead hand of a corpse? She can’t move a muscle, she can scarcely breathe.