“Still, I do not like it,” he said, his mouth mulish.
“The lady’s presence means there will be seven at the table. It is a most auspicious number for Madame.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but Agathe turned with a snap of her skirts and beckoned for us to follow. The veiled lady inclined her head towards the military fellow to show she bore him no ill will. He gave a harrumph and strode off behind Agathe. As he passed me, I caught a whiff of old dust and unwashed flesh and wrinkled my nose. The sleek and hawkish gentleman who had stood by the whisky offered the veiled lady his arm and she took it. The rest of us fell in line like a crocodile of children just out of the nursery.
Agathe led us down a long, narrow corridor, off which opened several rooms set aside for various purposes. Small signs directed vistors. Automatic Writing Room. Lecture Hall. Summoning Room. Room of Special Examinations. It all sounded faintly alarming, and instinctively I crept nearer to the fellow in front of me. The ginger-haired young man gave me a sharp look, and I fell back again, muttering an apology in French.
The walls of the corridor were very dark and the lighting almost nonexistent, lending an otherworldly effect. Over it all, I detected the thick floral scent of incense, the smoky fumes of funeral flowers burnt to ash. It did not seem to disturb the others, but I found it increasingly difficult to breathe, and my head grew light and oddly disconnected from my body.
At last, we came to the final door in the corridor, marked Séance, and Agathe stood by to let us enter. As we passed her in turn, she gave each of us a meaningful look. The general was first, and he rummaged in his pockets, producing a bit of money, which he pressed into her palm. She murmured her thanks and the rest of us followed suit. I had no idea what the expected donation might be, so I handed over a guinea as I entered the room, and it must have been acceptable, for Agathe nodded and said softly, “Monsieur le Comte is very generous.”
The chamber was of modest size, the walls hung with black, and illuminated by a single lamp near the door. A heavy round table, also draped in black, stood in the centre of the room, and about it were ranged a series of chairs. The black hangings were velvet, dull and weighty, and the room felt oppressive. More of the thick aroma hung in the air, and a small brazier smoked upon the cold hearth. There were no paintings or decorations of any sort, only the web of unrelieved black, robbing the room of all light and movement, and a single clock upon the mantel. The timepiece was a strange affair of black enamel with a figure of Death looming over the clock’s face and gesturing to it with his scythe. I supposed it was meant to warn us of the fleeting nature of time, but the hands never moved, and I shivered at the ghoulishness of it and turned my attention to the rest of the room.
At the opposite end from the door stood a cupboard of sorts, and I realised with a start that it was a spirit cabinet, a place for manifesting souls that did not rest. It was some seven feet high but quite narrow and only some two or three feet deep. A heavy velvet curtain closed it off from the rest of the room, and I wondered what mysteries it concealed. Would Madame claim it was a portal to the other side, a ghostly no-man’s land of disembodied voices and spirits that could not sleep? I felt a quickening of my pulse, a sudden longing to be quit of the place. But before I could act upon it, we were instructed to take any chairs save the one in the centre, and we seated ourselves quickly. As near as I could tell, the chair in the centre was the same as the rest, but my suspicions had been raised. I took the chair next to it, the ginger-haired man on my other side, whilst the chair opposite mine was taken by the handsome latecomer, Sir Morgan. On either side of him sat the other gentlemen, and the veiled lady took the chair across from that reserved for the medium.
We had been seated only a moment when Agathe appeared again in the doorway, now wearing a black shawl over her plain gown, and proclaimed, “Honoured guests, I present your guide to the spirit world, Madame Séraphine!”
There was a moment’s pause—to heighten the anticipation, I had no doubt—and then a figure materialised behind her. As she moved forward, I saw that she was slender and delicately boned, but she gave the impression of great force, as if a much larger and more imposing person had come into the room. It was a trick of personality, I supposed, and I believe it would have been impossible to ignore her even in a crowded ballroom. In this small space, she commanded our attention. She was dressed in black robes, and as she walked, I saw that the robes were embroidered with various arcane signs and symbols. Her hair, thick and black and perhaps assisted by the hairdresser’s arts, flowed freely down her back, and her eyes were heavily ringed with kohl. They gleamed in the dim light of the room, locking briefly upon each of us with a sort of knowing that touched my spine with a shiver.
As she reached the table, she raised her arms as if in benediction, and her small white hands floated upwards in the air like doves. “My friends,” she intoned in a sweet, light voice. “I thank you for coming, and I ask the Spirit that covers us all to bless you.”
Her voice rang with sincerity, and I wondered precisely how much of a fraud she was, for I had begun to suspect Brisbane had been engaged to unmask her, although precisely where he was at that moment, I could not imagine. I knew he had done such work a few times in the past, always at the behest of families who worried that the ancestral fortunes were being squandered upon charlatans by a gullible relation. I was convinced he had set out upon such work again, and I was vastly irritated that I had followed him upon an errand that clearly had nothing to do with Bellmont. I should have to continue to trail him if I meant to uncover his connection there, and that would mean a rather late night. I stifled a yawn.
Agathe turned down the lamp by the door, leaving us in almost complete darkness with only a pale glow of ghostly blue where the jet still flickered. The door opened once, and in the dim glow from the corridor, I saw Agathe leave, closing the door behind her to plunge us once more into gloom. Arranged about the table in our black evening clothes, we were little more than a collection of disembodied heads nodding in the shadows.
“Join hands,” the medium commanded sharply, and I started in my chair. She offered me one of her hands, and I took it, joining with the ginger-haired man on the other side. He gripped my hand tightly, and I wondered for an instant if he noticed that mine was smaller than it ought to have been. But he showed no sign of interest in me whatsoever. His eyes were fixed firmly upon Madame Séraphine as she began the séance.
“My friends, you have come tonight to hear messages from the spirit world. I promise you shall. But I must warn you. I cannot summon spirits who do not wish to come, and I cannot promise that each of you will receive a message. The discarnates will not manifest before those who do not believe. If you doubt, you must leave now and never return.” She paused, piercing each of us with that dark, magnetic gaze, made all the more dramatic by her heavy use of kohl. Then she bowed her head. “Very well. We will begin.” She settled herself more comfortably in her chair and closed her eyes. “Spirits of the world beyond, I now part the veil for your return and summon you to come forth and bring us news from the other realm.”
She was silent a long moment, then suddenly, just as I began to grow bored, I felt her hand tighten upon mine. A deep humming seemed to emanate from her chest. It grew louder and louder, and finally she spoke, but in a voice entirely unlike the one she had used before. It was deep and husky, the voice of a man, but it came from her throat, of that I was certain.
“I wish to speak.”
Madame Séraphine gave a deep shudder and spoke in her own voice by way of reply. “I see you. What is your message? To whom do you wish to speak?”
“I will speak to the general.”
A muffled cry came from the military man.
“Speak on, spirit.”
“I forgive.” The general gave another cry, then mastered himself.
“You forgive, spirit?”
“Yes. I forgive. I have passed on. The general must release himself of his burdens. It was our destiny to die.”
I suppressed a sigh. No doubt Agathe had determined