Read The Seance for Free Online Page A

been seeing her for the last twelve years,’ I said, ‘without doing her the slightest good.’
    ‘I see ... The difficulty, Miss Langton, is that if I were to direct you to a known, or even a suspected fraud, I would be breaching my duty to the Society. And besides ... Miss Carver is generally considered the best in London; you have seen for yourself how zealously her admirers defend her.’
    ‘But surely,’ I said, ‘after today, her reputation is lost for ever.’
    ‘Not at all,’ he said cheerfully. ‘There will be a furore in the spiritualist press, and some of her followers will fall away, but others will replace them. It is all part of the game.’
    ‘Is that how it seems to you?’
    His reply was lost in the cry of a street vendor; we were approaching Oxford Street and the traffic was increasing.
    ‘Miss Langton,’ he said, ‘I was on my way back to the Society’s roomsin Westminster, but may I escort you home – if that is where you are going?’
    ‘Thank you, no, I am quite used to walking alone.’
    ‘Then – may I hope to see you again?’
    ‘I am sorry,’ I said, ‘but that would be quite impossible. Goodbye, Mr Raphael.’

    I came home resolved to have no more to do with manifestations, but one glance at my mother, huddled upon the drawing-room sofa with the curtains drawn, was enough to change my mind. Vernon Raphael, at least, would not be allowed back into Miss Carver’s circle, and with Mama’s desolation filling the house like a miasma, I felt I had nothing to lose. And so I returned next day to Marylebone High Street. Miss Lester, as I thought, had not noticed me leaving, and graciously accepted my professions of sympathy for Miss Carver, as well as a donation of three guineas – my entire savings – to the spiritualist cause. I told her of my mother’s plight, and asked whether it was true that spirits could materialise at different ages. If only, I said wistfully, Mama could hold Alma as she had been in infancy, she might find peace at last. Miss Lester asked me, among other things, if I could recall what scent Mama had used when Alma was still with us; perfumes, she said gravely, could be very helpful in summoning spirits. But of course, she added, Miss Carver would want to meet my mother before the séance. Mr Raphael’s shameful deception had gravely imperilled her health, and so, sadly, they would have to be on their guard against disruptive influences.
    At eight in the evening of the following Saturday, I was seated beside my mother in Miss Carver’s séance room, covertly studying the other faces around the table. I had tried to persuade Mama of the need for secrecy, so as not to hurt Mrs Veasey’s feelings, but I was not at all sure she had understood, and I watched the last of the sitters being shownto their places with the sensation of having added one storey too many to a house of cards.
    Miss Carver was bound to her chair as before. Miss Lester drew the curtains and invited us to join hands and sing ‘Lead, Kindly Light’. As the lights were extinguished I felt my mother’s hand trembling in mine. We had just reached the end of ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’ when a faint haze of light heralded Arabella’s appearance. The singing died away; I heard a creak of chairs and a quickening of breath; but this time the light remained formless, floating like a will-o’-the-wisp in the void. After a few seconds it began to drift away from me, following, I thought, the circumference of the table, though in that utter blackness I would not have known if the walls had dissolved around us.
    Then, from somewhere above my head, a voice began to sing in a thin, piping chant, to the tune of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. I had told Miss Lester about Alma’s singing, but I shivered nonetheless, and my mother’s hand jerked convulsively.
    ‘Alma?’ she cried.
    The chanting ceased, and the scent of violet water floated down to us; a scent my mother had not worn since