was not the man to be deflected from his purpose by tea or sponge cake. As soon as he could he put his cup aside and leaned forward.
‘I need your help,’ he said.
She inclined her head. ‘Really? In what way?’
‘I think you don’t believe in psychism, Mrs Wix?’
She frowned. ‘I have seen plenty of stage cheats and music-hall fakery. Clutching icy hands, floating mists, bells clanging when there is no one to ring them, that sort of thing. There is no real harm in it, as entertainment for those who are so inclined. But there has never been a so-called manifestation that couldn’t be explained away by hidden wires, a yard or two of fine muslin, a human arm in a black sleeve. All in a darkened room, naturally. Possibly I am too coarse to be susceptible to the real thing, Mr Feather.’
He did not flinch. He just looked at her, his eyes glowing like coals in their hollow sockets.
‘I don’t believe you are in the least coarse, Mrs Wix. Let me put it to you in a different way. Are you quite certain that there are no senses on the fringe of human consciousness, nothing whatsoever beyond the range of what is accepted as normal or physical?’
Eliza hesitated.
‘I think none of us can be quite certain of that. I was talking about those cheap stage performances I have seen with my own eyes and know to be fraudulent. You are speaking of different matters, perhaps.’
‘I am.’
The man probably conveyed all sorts of damaging nonsense to the lost and bereaved who made up his audiences. She was suspicious of him and his motives.
He lifted his hand. ‘You know, of course, that I lost my sister Helena, and my dear brother-in-law, when the steamer sank. We spoke of it when we met at Lord’s.’
‘Yes. You have my sympathy.’
‘Thank you. You and your family suffered your own loss. However, Mrs Wix, I am not married. Helena was all I had. I loved her dearly. Perhaps even too dearly.’
There was a shiver of a pause. Feather’s tongue moistened his lips before he smoothly continued, ‘Our parents passed years ago and we have no other siblings. She was my lieutenant in my work, and she knew everything about my efforts to open a conduit from this world to the regions beyond.’
He anticipated the obvious question.
‘You are wondering, since this is my claimed expertise, if I am able to speak to her now, or if she has in any way reached out to me?’
‘Yes.’
His voice sank to a whisper. He seemed on the brink of tears.
‘I have tried. I have tried with all my heart, and every fibre of my capacity. There is a tumult of voices out there, crying and calling, clamouring for me to open their channels, but there is no Helena.’
Eliza could not help feeling sympathy, even for a charlatan.
‘Only once, on the night she passed, did I hear anything. I stood on the beach in front of the hotel and I wanted to die from grief. I hoped I would die, God forgive me. Then Helena spoke suddenly to me out of the silence. She said, “I am here.”’
‘Was that a comfort to you?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. Oh yes, it was the greatest comfort. But that was all she said, even though I stood for hours in the same place, waiting and hoping. Since that night there has been nothing. No word and no sign – except for one significant thing.’
The calculating glance he gave her was at odds with his grieving demeanour and her sympathy faded.
‘What is that?’
‘I was invited at the last moment to attend the Schools Match by my godson, the child of an old friend, a young man thoughtful in his efforts to lift me out of my sorrow. I almost didn’t go, but I didn’t want to reject a kindness.’
‘You introduced us.’ Eliza recalled the plump boy’s merriment.
‘I did. And there at Lord’s I saw your daughter again. Mrs Wix, I could only interpret such a coincidence as no coincidence at all, but a sign from Helena.’
‘My daughter?’
‘Yes. You know that Nancy has unusual psychic powers?’
This must stop immediately, Eliza thought. She stood up, stretching to her full height.
‘To encounter people by chance at a public-school cricket match is not a sign of any kind. My daughter is thirteen years old. She has no powers. I don’t want you to speak of her in relation to your beliefs. I would like you to leave my house now, and never to come here again.’
A spasm of pain darted from the small of her back and travelled down her thighs and into her calves, making her gasp. She held on to the back of her chair for support. Lawrence Feather gazed into her face as if he knew and understood what she felt.
He murmured, ‘Thirteen is a crucial age for a young girl. The senses are newly awakened, and the powers are as sharp and subtle as they ever will be. Nancy is a clairvoyant and precognisant, I knew it the instant I saw her in the saloon of the hotel.’
Eliza straightened as the pain released her.
‘What tripe.’
‘No, Mrs Wix. Truth. I am certain that Helena intends Nancy to be our channel. I have come here to ask you – to beg you – to let me be your daughter’s control. She could be a great medium some day.’
‘This is impertinent nonsense. Please go now or I shall have to call for help.’
‘You won’t allow me to consult Nancy herself?’
‘Most definitely I will not.’
Downstairs the front door slammed.
Cornelius was at his new place of work, Devil was at the theatre and Arthur was spending the day with a friend. The arrival could only be Nancy herself. Eliza had sent her to the draper’s shop at the far end of the Essex Road to buy a length of tweed for a new winter coat. Eliza had given her some other commissions to attend to on the way back, and she had only let Lawrence Feather into the house in the expectation that he would be long gone by the time Nancy returned.
‘Stay here,’ she ordered, hoping to intercept her daughter and send her straight to her room. But she was too late. Pink-cheeked from the brisk walk, Nancy appeared in the doorway carrying a brown paper parcel tied with string.
‘I have the tweed but Ransom’s is closed today for family reasons, the notice in the window says. Oh.’
‘Good afternoon, Nancy,’ Lawrence Feather said.
Nancy’s stricken expression convinced Eliza that something significant had already taken place between her daughter and the medium. Unwelcome speculations raced through her mind. Nancy’s childhood had been sheltered and – by her parents’ standards – privileged, and she was as innocent as a much younger girl. That was what Eliza and Devil
