Excerpt

It is beyond a doubt far easier to conduct a séance when the dead are not trying to make their presence felt. Qui s'excuse, se confond, and all that, as they say in France—but in my defence, it was the first time I had been interrupted by a real, honest-to-goodness ghost.

I was already a little flustered that day. My half-holiday was supposed to begin at noon, but the life of a governess is very much at the whims of her employers; and after postponing Ada's French lesson so that she could be measured for new shoes, the Countess had insisted on my completing the lesson before I was permitted to depart. I had missed my tram, and had been obliged to walk all the way to the tiny flat in the Rembrandtstrasse; so that I had arrived warm and puffing despite the chill November air.

My newspaper advertisement, however, promised that in about twenty minutes The World-Famed Clairvoyant and Spiritual Medium, Fraulein Gwendoline Chant, would perform Marvellous Experiments in the latest refined Spiritualistic Phenomena along with Evidence that The Dead Do Return. I had gone to a deal of trouble creating Fraulein Gwendoline Chant; it was not easy to fabricate a World-Famed Clairvoyant on a governess' income in Vienna in those days, but today I almost despaired of transforming a robust, glowing English governess into an appropriately wan and spiritual-looking medium. I accomplished it with a stark-white dress decorated with a quantity of hastily stitched white lace that almost washed out my complexion, a puff of rouge to each cheek, and a couple of drops of belladonna in my eyes to make them dilated and dark. By the time I had rendered my appearance suitably consumptive, the first of my guests had already collected on the landing, and after I had nearly tripped over an occasional table to get to the door, I found I had left the belladonna out in the open, by mistake, next to the mirror where any of my guests could see it.

So, it was a bad beginning.

In they streamed, mostly the solid, stout, middle-aged wives of bankers and doctors and lawyers. In a little while the room—which was small and shabbily furnished, though the old, faded wallpaper was a glorious pattern of dark and curling acanthus leaves—was full of their furs and feathered tocques. I smiled spiritually as I pocketed their kronen, but three of the faces gave me pause.

One was an extraordinarily striking young woman. Had her dark complexion and black hair smoother than a raven's wing fallen to my lot, I should have swathed myself in iridescent silks; but she had clothed herself severely in a grey wool suit. She did not speak, but she looked directly at the bottle of belladonna, and her full lips curved in a supercilious smile. I considered asking her to leave on some pretext, but then decided against it. Most mediums, being frauds, need to exclude sceptics from their séances for fear of discovery; but—well, reader, you shall see.

The next guest, immediately behind the dark beauty, nearly caused my heart to jump up my throat: it was Frau Hofbauer—diminutive, golden-haired, famously lacking in tact, and an aunt of the two young girls I had come to Vienna to governess. The blood fled from my cheeks as I saw her, for I could not risk my employers discovering how their respectable governess was employing her half-holiday.

"You seem unwell, fraulein," Frau Hofbauer said with her customary directness, before glancing about the room. Her voice lowered. "What is it? Do you sense—a Presence?"

As a matter of fact, I did not—yet—but I did not like to disappoint her. Contriving to look paler and more interesting than ever, I murmured: "It may be nothing; time will tell." She nodded devoutly and pressed her twenty-kronen bill into my hand.

Last of all was a young man with ardent eyes and dark curls and the clean, neatly trimmed nails of a gentleman, though he was very shabbily dressed. He looked at his twenty-kronen piece almost hungrily as he laid it in my hand. I hesitated, wondering if I should accept it. I was doing honest work, of course—even if there isn't a word yet for exactly what I was doing, I did provide these well-to-do society ladies with genuine help—but I had an intuition that this young man had given me all the money he had. I searched the shadows behind him. It was to be hoped that some of my guests had come with unseen attendants—a séance tended to go better if I could piece together a suitably impressive reading—but I could see no memories haunting this man.

"My friend, what brings you here?" I asked gently.

For the first time, he tore his eyes away from the silver coin. When he saw me, he paled and startled, as though it was he, and not myself, who was seeing ghosts.

I had expected Frau Hofbauer to recognise me. This poetic pauper, however, I was quite sure I had never met in my life, and I did not like to fall into a dispute over my identity. Although I am a natural mimic, and after six months in Vienna my native accent had practically disappeared, I summoned as brisk an English accent as I could manage for my next words:

"Is there someone particular with whom you wish to speak?"

My voice must have done the trick, for he blinked and flushed slightly. "My wife," he said. "I wish to speak to my wife."

There was a world of tragedy in his voice.

"She has been dead—how long?"

"I don't know—some years." He was still watching me in visible confusion. "There's something I must ask her."

Despite my advertisement, I couldn't truly channel the dead. No one can. What I really did was provide a listening ear so that my clients could talk about their grief and lay uneasy memories to rest. Naturally I could not say so plainly: I would lose my clientele, and they would lose all the help I could give them.

"I am afraid the spirits don't usually answer direct questions in that manner," I said evasively. "Not through me, in any case."

He shook his head. "Please, fraulein, I have to try."

"But I can't—"

"Please, fraulein," he repeated, over my protest. After that, what could I say? I allowed him to move past me to where the small round table stood waiting, surrounded by chairs.